Bogota BOE Work/Action Meeting 6/15/21 7PM EST

001ready good evening am i okay frank good evening and welcome to the pagoda board of education regular meeting june 15 2021 at 7 pm please stand for the flag salute thank you everyone the new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the pagoda board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted in the pagoda borough hall communicated by letter to the record filed with the clerk of the barrow of pagoda and posted on the pagoda board of education website griffin would you call the

002role please mr sullivan president mrs colt here mrs lewis here mr miranda here ms montgomery here mr ortega president [Music] thank you also present mr kennedy superintendent william sukis our attorney elsie luca not too sure if she's with us tonight our student congress representative and mr epsil our school business administrator and board secretary and elizabeth ruiz our assistant board secretary may i have a motion please to open to the public on hearing of citizens items on agenda items only please motion miranda thank you second discussion i'd just like to remind remind everybody this is on agenda items only and if you type something in the chat please be sure you you include your name and address just as if you were in public that's required of us um all in favor aye aye and the

003opposed thank you anyone has any questions do we have a podium yes please come forward put the microphone right here connie carpenter 42 hill street um i didn't get to answer questions the last time because um just a couple of questions on the resolutions can you hear me kind of hard connie can you hear me now that's better okay um a couple of questions on these resolutions the first one is 6 15 2102 it states here on it includes and most of them say includes extended school are you doing it this summer extended school or next summer extended school i believe that's for next year is the 21 school year okay i'm 6 15 21 09 after the amount of the 69 653.13 most of the resolutions say per student is it for student or

004for all three students i'm going to think it's per student 6 15 21 09. i believe usually okay so maybe oh nine yes first year per student per student okay so maybe you know we can amend that for the record um there's a lot of new resolutions oh just to clarify um st jones is going to be fifth sixth and seventh grade correct no it would be sixth and seventh grade old sixth and seventh oh it only fits two grade levels i thought so but i wasn't sure okay thank you um 650 20 140 for mrs cheryl martin no questions just want to wish her all the best and thank her so much for all she's done for this barrel and for the children of brazil on 6 15 21 41 is there any stipends

005or is this part of salary there's a lot of no stipends this is us all uh jobs uh that we have to have a person tied to the state and homeroom so we like to get on board right because that was never that was not very in the past we never did something like this now we have every year those are on there now you're doing them excuse me i mean i know i've been off for like four years so now you're doing that every year yes since i've been here we've done it all right yeah all right but that's at no cost extra question all part of our uh salary okay um uh 6 15 21 44. the stipends for the teachers to attend um school or professional development no problems with that either

006but i just want to know is that part of their contract the stipends no this is part of the american rescue plan we got money and some of the money has to be used towards professional development 100 gotcha um i'm done oh on 6 15 20 6 15 21 85 can you state for the record how many students pagoda carly has on the roster meaning pre-k to 12th grade how many total students yes i mean i could look it up but it's over okay i know what i was here was 1200 so we've gone up quite a bit yes and part of that is the preschool because they count on our account now but yes there has been growth and we also had the um merger of st joseph's correct yeah okay that's one more

007questions thank you thank you anyone else anyone in the chat no all right with no one else coming forward and no one in the chat may i have a motion to close citizen's comments please chavez thank you second montgomery thank you discussion all in favor aye aye any opposed thank you very much we'll now move on to the superintendent's report thank you first uh there is an addendum tonight and we are uh hiring a new maintenance worker uh we haven't replaced that position since uh mr ramirez retired in december so uh we were able to find someone that we feel is going to be very beneficial to the district and help us save some money when we're not always calling plumbers an electrician to do some of these jobs that we call them and have

008to pay that fee immediately last week we had our senior academic and athletic awards night it was a great turnout uh it was really great to see the families and the kids back again uh now that we the restriction has been lifted with uh capacity limits and social distancing and mask wearing uh it was it's it's really starting to feel a little bit normal we're trying to push together a full year into the last week of school we did that today at bixby with kindergarten celebration which was great to see little kids celebrated they've missed so much it's been a tough year on families and our students tomorrow we celebrate steam kindergarten in person we also will start our three graduations starting tomorrow night at bixby school outside thursday inside at steam and then we

009will finish with friday night pagoda high school at feigl field and the weather forecast looks gorgeous so it looks like we're going to have some really great nights to finish up the school year at this time i would like to recognize a group of individuals i've been who have spent a total of 174 years of service working for the pagoda school community their dedication and love for working with students will be missed tonight we get to say a final goodbye and present them with a small token of gratitude we have plaques and i would ask them to come up when their name is red the plaque reads presented and grateful appreciation for your dedication and service to the children and the community of the pagoda school district when i call your name please come forward

010and receive your plaque from board president kathy van buren unfortunately the pagoda blog could not be here tonight because there's a pool party for the band parents and he is a band parent so he is there and our backup cameraman uh a photographer is also working the pool party so i'm asking this the principals to come forward so we at least have something to remember this besides the video so again when i call your name please come forward first up maintenance supervisor from 2014 to 2021 louis ramirez next up business teacher 2008 to 2021 in a couple of years we're not our fault in there arlene krugnola next up elementary school teacher from 2006 to 2020 obviously this is last year's uh and we didn't get a chance to celebrate her but genie hall [Applause]

011done next up someone i got the chance to work very close with as a guidance counselor as the vp and the principal from 2003 to 2021 she will be missed carol meese okay next up someone i became very close with during covet because she was someone that had uh a lot of input in helping us get our schools opened and safely school nurse mary lou schweitzer collins [Applause] now i do not know if this uh man is here it would make perfect sense if he thinks it's next tuesday but our art teacher from 2001 to 2020 mr robert collegia [Applause] here i didn't see him i got to be honest quick story about mr collegia first day of school 2011 we started our faculty meeting he comes running at 9 30 in swim trunks and

012sandals and sand and he was on the beach he didn't know it was the first day of school this next person actually i had the opportunity to teach me in fourth grade and uh in union city and saint augustine school and i've been very close with her since she's been here uh elementary school teacher from 1999 to 2021 cynthia piano another constant professional day in and day out she set the tone every day uh elementary school teacher from 1997 to 2021 cheryl martin and last but not least someone that has been sitting with the district since to 2020 a constant professional and always with a smile no matter what was going on debbie hunter again just a round of applause for all our staff retiring okay we're gonna move on to the next portion of

013our meeting uh we have interviews tonight just to give everyone a brief understanding what's gonna happen next we have interviews for bond council and auditor what we're going to do after that is we're going to go into closed session for about 15 minutes and then come back out and conduct our normal business so this time sure let's do that actually actually we're gonna we need someone to make a motion for a quick five-minute break just to say goodbye to our teachers and thank them and take a couple more pictures have a motion to dispense with the regular order of business thank you a second job thank you any discussion all right all in favor aye all right thank you and miss hunter was my uh third daughter's teacher and she was the best thing that

014ever happened to her so thank you all of you welcome i congratulate you all i wish you lots of happiness thanks for being with us in pagoda you all helped make a big difference so five minutes don't be social yeah right actually 20 pounds down i hate leg day do you're falling apart over there whole skirt's falling down lisa um any discussion all in favor and the opposed all right open at this time we will start with the bond council interview so the first company is mike mennemin scotland bowman we have under account and christopher lenghard good evening i'm andrea khan from commander in scotland endowment my partner was with us as well excuse me could you just speak a little bit closer i'm sorry the microphone center can you hear me now okay that's

015better thank you and you know that we have a 10 minute time for each person and i'll have a few questions today thank you okay very good thank you um thank you very much for this opportunity to meet you and to present our credentials um mcmanaman scotland endowment is a leading firm in the area of public finance in particular in general and public school public finance in particular i've been with the firm for um over 40 years doing public school finance i was the founder of our school department school finance department chris has been with the firm for 17 years and he has served as a board member for the westfield board of education uh we have experience in every kind of financing for schools that is imaginable um both of course conventional bond financing

016energy savings improvement program financing lease purchase financing shared services financing through improvement authorities and i think the hallmark of our firm has been its creativity and the leadership that we have shown in the area of school public finance we've worked on the legislation that implemented initially even lease purchase financing going back many many years we've worked with the energy savings improvement program helping to both draft that legislation and work for its enactment and to help um interpret it and to suggest amendments and the local finance notices that interpreted it we've worked with shared services agreements with municipalities so what we try to bring to our um clients is number one our expertise not only do we want to make sure that a district knows all of its options for financing and can come up with

017a plan that's most cost effective for it but then we want to ensure that you can follow all the processes and procedures we want to be helpful we want to make sure that all of the eyes are dotted and the t's are crossed and everything gets done well and most important i think what we like to bring to our programs are our creativity and our ability to find solutions to problems we don't like to say no we like to say how can we make something happen if the way that's been proposed has impediments we try to find solutions to problems so and we've been doing that for um over 40 years uh i kind of i've been with this same firm in one of its many incarnations because we've changed a few times over the

018years for over 40 years i guess that's just in my blood i have the same husband for a long time too same house same state uh i'm a jersey girl so um when uh i actually uh was first appointed uh to the bond council for the pagoda board of education in 1996 and i worked with the district when they uh issued their first a set of bonds in 1998 these bonds were later refunded and then were funded again and these are the bonds that are maturing and it's a good time to go forward with a referendum because you'll be able to uh equalize your tax impact by being able to issue the bonds to overlay the maturing bonds there's a history though to that bond issue when we first issued the bonds in in 1998

019uh it was for ten million five hundred and fifty thousand dollars it was issued into tranches uh to take advantage of um the law that would permit them to be sold as what we call bank qualified which gave a tax advantage if it was under a 10 million dollar issue so we broke it out into two tranches and issued them in two different fiscal years uh not long after the bonds were issued the project ran into problems and the board changed directions and how it wanted to go we were able to convince the department in the meantime the educational facilities construction and financing act was enacted and we were able to convince the department of education to allow us to reappropriate the bond proceeds which we were permitted to do back then with voter approval

020we can no longer reappropriate on proceeds under the new law but back then we could because if they were issued under prior law and we were able to convince the department of education to allow us to count the reappropriated bond proceeds as the local share to leverage the grant under the educational facilities construction and financing act so we've had a long history with this district until you know fairly recently we weren't your most recent bond council but we were here for the refunding in 2015 and we also um had had conversations prior to the um pandemic uh concerning the most cost-effective way to to consider some various types of improvements i'm not sure which way the board will decide to go i understand that um well one of the things that we had talked about

021was for you to use your own funds to purchase land which later when you would be able to buy that land uh you could then the real property included facilities i apologize to i'm interrupting we are on a 10-minute limit and i have a couple of questions yes perhaps when i ask them you might be able to incorporate some of your other thoughts into that as well thank you you've kind of covered the first question which was to give us a brief overview of your company and to go from there thank you um the second question would be could you please share with us how your company promotes diversity and inclusion within your workplace we have an extremely diverse um company um uh so i think more than 50 of us are women uh uh

022members of color uh our um leading partner glenn scotland is a man of color um and um of course we have a number of women partners um black partners um asian american partners and we have a chief diversity officer thank you bakari all right and the last question um have you personally or through your company or firm made any campaign contributions to any of the current sitting board members during an election for board trustee or any both any pagoda town elections within the past five years no no thank you so we still have our time we still have three and a half minutes so you can wrap up what you were talking about okay sorry thank you sometimes thank you uh how much time i mean you were talking about some process oh you can

023finish that okay uh fine so um the uh advantage of having purchased the land is that now when you renovate it it will be eligible for school facilities aid uh as a renovation and under the current law providing facilities aid there's the formula allows you to get more aid for renovations than it does for school construction so you know over the years we've been creative uh we've been responsive we want to keep you the board and your board professionals and administrators informed so that you can answer questions that come up from from the public and are knowledgeable about um the different laws that govern the matters that we're trying to implement and that you can make informed educated choices in order to help create the most cost effective financing and project for your school district

024wonderful any more questions that i can answer okay no i think that's it we're limited to the three questions we had pre-set so you jump right into the first one perfectly thank you very much thanks so much for your time and now we have violence got goldman and spitzer thomas solomon here uh good evening everybody tony salmini lance goldman and spitzer uh it's a pleasure to be here thank you for the opportunity um also thank you for the opportunity we've had the honor of being the school district's current bond council and working with you to hopefully achieve some of your facilities goals uh recently we've had the opportunity to work on your energy savings improvement plan which is a first step in really addressing some needed facilities upgrades um and as our fan and i

025spoke it's a great time to address facilities needs because state funding availability and because of low borrowing costs my partner lisa gorab traditionally works with you on a daily basis but lisa had a family issue tonight so couldn't be here but that's one of the advantages of our firm lisa's been doing this for over 30 years of school finance and i've been doing this for almost 20 years of school finance so we have a real breadth of experience that really no other firm can really offer at this time in the area of school public finance um additionally some of the uh areas that we can help you with are i know the school district is considering a referendum uh currently we're working with a number of bergen county school districts on planning a referendum and

026it's our job to take you through the legal process of doing a referendum and creating the most creative cost-effective measure for you to implement those projects and to structure that referendum in an appropriate manner and part of that is maximizing the amount of school facilities construction financing aid that you can get on those projects so our job is to help with the timetable to establish for the referendum to work with your financial advisor to help you structure the referendum um currently you have bonds outstanding that mature in 2023 so it's a great opportunity for you to look to do other projects because once that debt falls off you have an opportunity to issue new bonds and to not incur additional expenses for the taxpayers you're all taxpayers so obviously we have to put that paramount

027you have to take care of the school facilities but you also have to be fiscally responsible so we work with your financial advisor to help you plan out of what is a reasonable amount of tax impact to go forward with the public and also we work with your administration to determine the best way to maximize that school facilities aid and it's very important to take a holistic approach when you're looking at facilities and that's why that esip was a great first step to address needs and i know you have some esser money as well that'll be your second step to address facilities needs also i was looking through your cafe today it seems like you guys have done a good job as a school district addressing technology security upgrades window replacements etc and you've also

028done a good job of you have some sufficient money in your capital reserve again so it's our job to work with your administration and your professionals to maximize that so you guys get the most bang for your buck um additionally one service that we offer when we help you with the referendum we not only prepare the timetables but there's certain legal thresholds that you have to meet when you're doing a referendum we actually take the initiative and we work directly with the county and the municipality to make sure you've met all those legal requirements to make sure nothing is missed um currently we're working with or have worked with recently rutherford waldwick ramsey montvale carl stadius rutherford northvale midland park hackensack white cohoff tenafly new milford uh river edge franklin lakes on either an esa

029a referendum a refunding so we're obviously available to provide any resources available throughout the county and we'd be happy to have you talk to any of those school districts about our reputation um the referendum process is really not about the professionals we're here to guide you so i'm happy to answer any questions you guys have about any school facility financing issues or anything about our firm we just have a couple of questions the board agreed to in advance if i may number one which you've pretty much covered was to give us a brief overview of your company and some reasons why you stand out and why we should choose your firm moving on to the second question was which is please share with us how your company promotes diversity and inclusion within your workplace that's

030a great question thank you um so in our public finance department it's made up of four partners uh alisa goran john kelly myself and everett johnson of those four partners obviously lisa's a female mr johnson is an african-american gentleman also at our firm in general uh it's pretty amazing our firm's 101 years old and our managing partner is lisa gorab the individual that works with your school district so it's pretty great and it's a huge accomplishment probably one of the largest firms in new jersey we have a woman a leading our firm which is really great um additionally we've really taken diversity up a notch and this summer we're running a diversity program and we have a bunch of diversity students from several law schools throughout new jersey that we're working with and giving them

031hands-on legal experience so as a firm we really kind of embody diversity and really taken that out to kind of advance those efforts thank you and lastly have you personally or through your company firm made any campaign contributions to any of the current sitting board members during any election for board trustee or anybody go to town elections within the past five years not that i'm aware of okay but if anybody wants to make any contributions towards me totally totally good i have two kids going to college all right um how much time do you have um we we still have four and a half minutes but in the in the uh closing words what would you like to share with the board members and then to great i think uh thank you our fan i

032think just basically what i would like to express is the appreciation for having the opportunity to be here tonight to present our credentials and uh the one thing that i can say that we offer is we will work harder than anyone else be available i live right in bergen county so i can be here in the drop of a hat uh so we're just accessible 24 7 and i think you know we've had the pleasure of working with irfan at several districts and i know he can speak to our availability and professionalism um we're happy to provide any other additional references etc but thank you guys for your time thank you for joining us the next is the auditor firms so first uh wilcoxon company steve wilcox please good evening you've heard we have 10

033minute time frame yes and i'll have a couple questions but if you'd like to start with um giving us a brief overview of your company and some reasons why you stand out and why we should choose your firm thank you and thank you very much welcome for inviting me tonight to this interview i've been in the practice of public accounting for over 40 years my focus has been since day one [Music] local government county government and school districts the firm the firm that i'm in now i joined in 1995. it was ferrioli cerullo and cuva i joined them and they changed the name of the firm to farioli wilcox cerullo vancouver the firm stayed in that mode until january 1st of 2020 when we became wilcox and company my son and i bought out partners

034of the existing firm now everybody still the firm is still the same all the employees are the same the partners are the same but we decided that since one of our partners had retired in 2017 and none of us are getting any younger that it was time to plan for the future in the next generation and i'm very fortunate that that next generation are two of my children that are both in practice with me my middle son who's 33 is is my business partner my youngest son who's 26 is a senior accountant working for the firm so we've already put into place our transition plan not that i'm going anywhere but our transition plan for the future of the firm to live way past the existing existing partners like i said we exclusively do government

035work school district work we ordered three of the counties in the state of new jersey bergen forsake and recently we're hired by union county we have over 60 local governments 28 school districts and again we have a staff that is exclusively trained and focused on government we don't do small business we do very little other work than counties municipalities and school districts right now we we have 32 employees of that i believe about 40 of them are women we have two husbands and wife that work for the firm i have a young lady that just gave birth to her second child she works four days a week on a flex basis she picks which four days she works whatever is better for her husband and her children [Music] we've always been very flexible when it

036comes to family life obviously you spend a lot of time working during your career but it can't be all work and no play you have to have the time and the ability to spend time with your family and to enjoy your life as far as the firm our concentration is here in burton county in passaic county uh we also do work in essex hudson monmouth hunted in warren and sussex but you can see but from our resume that um that the our real basis here in bergen county i'm a bergen county boy born and bred in fairlawn a proud 1974 graduate of fairlawn high school been around berton county my whole life in terms of of of why i think you should hire us is we're the very best at what we do you can

037you can reach out to the references in our proposal dr cyrillo in palestine park [Music] you can reach out to the county executive in burton county dozens of elected officials throughout the county that i've personally worked for some of them for my whole career i have clients that i started with as a at a college entry level accountant in 1979 that in 2021 they're still my clients so we've got some longevity in terms of of our relationships with clients over the years in terms of i heard the second question was diversity i can i can read it for you please share with us how your company promotes diversity and inclusion within your workplace um as i mentioned uh of our 32 employees about 40 are our women we we pride ourselves in hiring the most

038qualified person when we're when we're hiring people i will tell you of the last six entry level accountants that we hired four of them were women again over the years we've had we've had accountants from all walks of life uh and and and again we we pride ourselves in in hiring the best qualified it doesn't matter who you are it doesn't matter what you look like it's if you've got the education if you've got the qualifications then you're going to get the job thank you and the third question if i may sure have you personally hold on glasses have you personally or through your company firm or firm made any campaign contributions to any of the current sitting board members during any election for board trustee or any pagoda town elections within the past five

039years yes you have thank you we still have four minutes and if you would like to add anything to wrap up yeah really i think i think i pretty much said it all uh you know this is what we do this is what our our our partners our managers our senior accountants this is what they this is all they do 24 7. school districts local government there's no diversion there's there's no other you know side practice that uh over the years we've tried to branch out into um it's only government so art art professionals in my view are the best trained the best qualified uh to to be able to meet head on any issue that comes about many of our clients uh i've gotta again i've got a strong history of doing it my

040partners have been around almost as long as i have so we have a breadth and wealth of professional experience and professional situation situations in in school districts and governments that i would i would put up with anybody else that's in the profession thanks mr yes thank you take care next we have nissa rocha and the partners valerie dolan and manly good evening just if you haven't heard uh 10 minutes please and we'll start out with if you could please give us a brief overview of your company and some reasons why you stand out and why we should choose your firm sure thing thank you i'll introduce myself my name is valerie dolan i'm a partner can you hear me okay yes thank you guess i got to get close my name is valerie dolan i

041am a partner with nisavacia this is my partner monlee she is also we are both in our government practice misavatia was started 50 years ago by raymond espacia it started as a small mom-and-pop shop in dover new jersey and has grown to where we are a firm of over 100 employees we have 15 partners and of those 100 employees and 15 partners seven of our partners and 35 of our staff are dedicated to our government practice our government practice consists of approximately 80 municipal clients and 80 school district clients three counties and three community and uh two community colleges we spend a lot of time working through a lot of our clients with the staff as big as we are we end up with we have our breadth of knowledge and what happens is most

042of our partners have been with the firm since the start of our firm we've grown up through the ranks we've all worked with our each other as our staff we've grown and moved forward and progressed our careers um and we're always grooming our next level there's always staff there's always in charge sorry this mic keeps cutting out i'm sorry um so we constantly feel that that's one of our strengths one of the things that we pride nasavacia on is twofold we are your auditors for 365 days out of the year and built into our audit fee is all of our consulting time we spend our time we're available for questions as need be one of the things we also do is feel we are a proactive training so we hold quarterly roundtables for all of

043our clients where we discuss within a roundtable of business administrators or our municipals for our cfos and what we do is we feel that collaborative discussion really does lean towards very knowledgeable people so they can bring back information when things are changing constantly as we've known the last year and with new funding we find these avenues of training also very helpful we are available all of the time via phone cells emails irfan and i work together in wachong so i think he will believe that when i say that we are available um we do spend a lot of time here on site we feel it's very important to be in the field and working with your district in the field when we are here from an up for our audit we send a team of

044qualified staff to conduct your audit that is always managed and run by day-to-day and by an in-charge partner so while the partner might not be on site every single day you will see the partner out in the field you will see the partner checking in on our staff we feel it is most important for us to train our staff and go through and help them address any issues they might be having additionally they are if our staff is here they are never here unsupervised one of the things that we always have an in-charge person who has five to seven years experience also training our staff while they're here in district we are one of the things that we've pride ourselves on in the last year is with all of the pandemic and the delays we've

045met every deadline every one of our school districts was issued by the deadline we set internally deadlines for our staff so that while even though there are extensions we try to keep to the original deadlines um we are very proud of the fact that by when even with the federal government fine when we finally got everything that we needed our schools all were filed on time did you want to stop and ask your questions or i can keep going it's up to you how are we doing on time i know you're very good i'll ask the question and you can kind of include okay how's that um could you please the second question was could you please share with us how your company promotes promotes diversity and inclusion within your workplace sure um one of

046the things that our firm actually prides ourselves on is of our 15 partners six of us are women um so and we've all grown up through the ranks that way one of the other areas that we are very diverse is we have we recruit heavily through our schools and we are always looking for new opportunities and working with work arrangements one of the things we feel is important is getting students educated and bringing them into our fold while they're still students additionally we have been in the past actually one of our partners started as an entry-level position and we actually sponsored her from her native country to help her get her citizenship and come through and now she's actually one of our partners so we feel that we're very diverse and we have a lot

047of flexibility with working moms and working dads and all kinds of things wonderful thank you yeah um and the third question have you personally or through your company firm made any campaign contributions to any of the current sitting board members during any election for board trustee or any uh or any pagoda town elections within the past five years no we have not thank you how are we doing um yeah we still have three minutes um if you would like to wrap up any other information i'm short so i got to move this down good evening everybody as valerie mentioned before we are a firm of inclusion as you can see i am nation american i started a firm 16 years ago and i've moved up the ranks and i can say that the all the

048partners in the firm has given me every opportunity to succeed at the firm and also i want the other thing i want to mention that is we all pride ourselves as a full service firm we have not only do we have a department of 30 plus people who's dedicated to the government entities including local governments and schools we also have a commercial practice group that deals with not commercial businesses and not-for-profit entities and also a tax practice and our tax practice has been very well received from our municipal clients and also school clients because our tax partners have been very helpful in helping our local governments and school districts in dealing with tax issues that has arrived in many school districts and we've got it gotten a lot of penalties abated depending on the situation

049thank you thank you okay thanks so much thank you for joining us and the last form we have is lurch wednesday higgins we have gary vincent here good evening good evening i believe you've heard 10 minutes please and to start with introducing your firm and why we should choose your firm and then we have two other questions okay thank you again uh for the opportunity to be here tonight uh and also thank um i'd like to thank the board and actually the prior board for allowing us to serve the pagoda board of ed as independent auditors for the last 20 years we take great pride in serving the borough and for myself and one of my other partners it's really very special because we both grew up in pagoda so we understand the uh the

050community we understand how the community has changed over the last 40 50 years we've had extended family here that currently still lives in pagoda a little bit about the firm of lurch vinci and higgins [Music] i'm gary vincy one of the senior partners that started the firm in 1990 we currently have a staff of 41 people 16 of the staff are cpas and our focus is strictly on government auditing and that was the intention of how the firm was created we do not have a tax practice and we do not have a small business practice so our focus has been the government sector uh currently we represent over 80 boards board of educations in the state of new jersey as well as 50 municipalities and i think that extensive book of business is very helpful

051for the board of education we are auditors for various size school districts whether it's a district without students so districts that are within the special needs definition the old abbott districts in the state of new jersey so we currently have a very diverse representation of clients within the state and i think what's important too is our relationship with the state has grown immensely we have been brought in by the state through their state monitors to actually assist other districts that have had fiscal failures and three of those districts we've been in happened in the last five years where they've had multi-million dollar deficits uh and again it's because i believe the state feels that uh the quality of work that we perform is the best in the state i think when you go back and

052i as i mentioned we have 41 employees half of our employees are women we see the diversity that has taken place in the accounting world and just in the business world and i think when we started the firm and actually when we all our senior partners graduated college accounting was predominantly a male focused workforce um right now as i mentioned we have 50 women uh 25 of our staff and managers are minorities and we continue to interview to try to expand that percentage it's very important i think today to provide that opportunities and i think what's important also when you look at a firm that has served a board of ed for 20 years there's always a question of that they're very comfortable with the administration i think when you realize that over the years

053and i know there's quite a few new board members here tonight we have rotated partners we have rotated managers on the engagement uh so there's always a fresh set of eyes that are auditing your records we have provided you you know with the detail as to how we approach the audit we welcome the opportunity to meet with the board prior to the audit uh to explain so we can explain then how we approach the audit we obviously offer other services that i think have been very beneficial to the district the last two years the board has received actually school business administrator has received a certificate of achievement we have worked very diligently with the school business administrator uh in providing the financial report that actually goes to a nationwide group and they evaluate the report

054not just for fiscal reporting but for various uh qualifications and detail and compliance with all the professional standards so it's the highest rating report that a entity can receive and i know congratulations go to the school ba for having that opportunity to achieve that for two years and i think the third year he's currently waiting for we work very hard with budget projections we've provided the district with budget projections which helps you plan for your capital needs for your capital financing whether it's acquisition of property whether it's other long-term facility needs and i think we've had that opportunity to provide those services over the years to the board labor negotiations posting out various packages for uh your bargaining units you know we have assisted quite a few um government entities whether it's board of educations

055or uh municipalities in that aspect so i i think it's not just necessarily the audit process i think any of the firms that you've interviewed can provide that i think it's some of the other services that we can offer that set large vinci and higgins apart from some of the other competitors i know there was a limitation i just i'm so sorry sorry that's okay writing notes um could you please share with us how your company promotes uh diversity and inclusion within your workplace i know you've touched on it but if there's anything else that you'd like to note no i think we actively are interviewing at local colleges so i think over the years we have made significant changes within our organization and have you personally or through your company firm made any campaign

056contributions to any of the current sitting board members during any election for board trustee or any pagoda town elections within the past five years i am not aware that we have made a reportable contribution okay thank you you're welcome we still have triana healthmaze if you would like to share more with the board members i think what's important and we have gone through this as part of the order process as i mentioned we welcome the opportunity to meet with the board we have actively met with the finance committee over the years and i think the professional relationship that we have uh with our clients whether it's pagoda or any of our other uh 80 school districts you know it's strictly professional we have a staff that can be on call since our office is in

057fairlawn we are available every day of the week in fact the administration has my cell phone so i think that's the way typically we communicate today and uh we respond immediately so i think having that type of professional relationship and resources is very important uh for any school district and for the board that way you know you're receiving the information uh as quickly as possible thank you anything else no i'm good again thank you for the opportunity thanks for joining us thank you all right we're now going to adjourn briefly to go into executive session for some discussion 15 minutes please um to address the interviews here this evening so executive session whereas c231 pl 1975 also known as the sunshine law authorizes a public body to meet an executive or private session under certain

058limited circumstances and whereas said wolf requires the board to adopt a resolution at a public meeting before it can meet in such an executive or private session now therefore be resolved by the pagoda board of education that it does hereby determine that it is necessary to meet an executive session on june 15 2021 at 8 10 pm to discuss matters involving negotiations and employment that the matter discussed will be made public when confidentiality is no longer required and action pursuant to said discussion will take place only at a public meeting um an action will be taken when we return from this executive session may i have a motion please motion montgomery thank you second thank you any discussion on date a roll call please thank you all in favor please any opposed all right 15

059minutes one patience everyone all right if i may have a motion to reconvene please um any discussion all in favor all right thank you so um if we could move on we're uh have the minutes for the may 18th regular meeting um open may have a motion on the minutes please thank you second travis thank you any discussion no all in favor no excuse me roll paul solvers yes mr scholes yes mrs lewis yes mr miranda yes ms montgomery yes mr ortega yes mr record yes mr chavez yes mr swanber yes motion carry thank you we're going to move on to the consent agenda first in education items 1 through 30. may i have a motion please uh second thank you you see discussion role paul please mr silvers you said 1-30 right yes please

060yes mrs cole yes mrs lewis yes mr miranda yes miss montgomery yes mr ortega yes miss record yes mr chavez yes mrs van buren yes motion carries thank you moving on to the same in the same category uh the remaining resolutions which are new to the agenda 6 15 21 through 31 may i have through 36 may i have a motion please miranda thank you second thank you discussion role paul orphan please mrs alvarez yes mr scholes yes mrs lewis yes mr miranda yes ms montgomery yes mr ortega yes miss record yes mr chavez yes mrs van buren yes martian carrick moving on now to personnel resolutions 6 15 21 37 through 6 15 21 60 which is on page 19. you have a motion please motion lisa thank you lisa a second second thank

061you discussion role pull please orphan mrs alvarez yes mr scholes yes mrs lewis yes mr miranda yes ms montgomery yes mr ortega yes miss record yes mr chavez yes mrs van buren yes motion carry thank you and again in the same category moving on to the newer resolutions 615 2161 through 615 2174. may have motion please miranda second javas thank you discussion roll paul please orphan mrs alvarez uh yes about on uh 6 15 21 66 uh yes for everyone i recuse myself from the head coach position from voting and the seven and eighth uh middle school basketball okay mrs claus yes middle school right no basketball and soccer head coach yes um i guess mrs cole said yes mrs lewis yes mr miranda yes miss montgomery yes mr ortega yes miss record yes mr

062chavez yes mrs van buren yes thank you oh sure sure many papers tonight thank you to continue in personnel and addendum for this evening we have item number 615 21 113. may i have a motion please miranda you second lisa thank you discussion roll call please mr celebrates yes mrs coles yes mrs lewis yes mr miranda yes ms montgomery yes mr ortega yes mr rocket yes mr chavez yes mrs van buren yes abortion kerry thank you moving on to finance we have resolution 15 21 75 years 6 15 21 112 which is on page 32. you have a motion please random second yes mrs coles yes mrs lewis yes mr miranda yes ms montgomery yes mr ortega yes miss rocket yes mr chavez yes mrs wenber yes martian kerry thank you arpin do you want

063me to do that other new one now or are we adding we need some direction how are we proceeding with these other positions is it in there right um all right this is resolution 6 15 21 114 be it resolved that the board appoints auditor all right by straw vote um the name that will go in on this but obviously the vote's not official the board will vote after we proceed with this resolution um with wilcox and company from july 1st 2021 through june 30th 22 at the rate of 37 500. additional work shall be performed according to the following schedule pursuant to rfp 2201 total of all not to exceed 50 000 do you want me to read each of these yes okay they have a motion please motion this is a motion for

064wilcox as the auditor second please thank you all right i do just have a question of the attorney before we go any further um mr wilcox said that he has made a donation to people sitting at the table i just want to make sure we're not jeopardizing anything as far as state aid which can happen if if we appoint without full knowledge so yeah i think that the issue we have with uh contributions according to the code okay is that um mr circus we don't hear you if you can come closer okay how's that better better the issue with contributions that you have is you need to is whether or not the um applicant has made a contribution to a member of the district board of education during the preceding one-year period that is reportable

065under pay-to-pay laws it is not any contribution it is simply reportable and the reportable limit under the pay-to-play laws is 300 per candidate so that's the key i don't um and of course if the state finds that you've awarded a contract to somebody who has made a a reportable contribution within that period there is a potential jeopardy to state aid yes but otherwise the the key criteria is whether it's reportable and the issue is really contributions to the board not to any other political body or entity alrighty since we know that there was a contribution how do we address that um how do we know if it was above or below i think the board the board before it votes can certainly ask for clarification for mr wilcox to to um if you don't didn't

066understand this question i believe your question um encompassed both the board and the council within the pagoda so i i think it would be fair game uh to ask mr wilcox for further clarification on that mr wolcotts did you get the gist of that if you've made any donations to any board board member sitting here this evening within last year i know you said yes but it was a more general question yes the issue is reportable contributions and i have not made any reportable contributions to anybody sitting on school thank you all righty any other discussion if not orphan would you call the role please mrs alvarez yes mrs claus no mrs lewis no mr miranda yes miss montgomery no mr ortega yes miss racket yes mr chavez yes mrs van buren now we have

067five majority votes for mr world cups glenn company uh and motion carry thank you all right moving on to committee ports all right we're good all right moving on to committee reports i don't think there's any committees that meant to report okay um anything under old business all right um i i do have no we'll let it go for now um anything under new business nope okay so that brings us to hearing of the public and for those of you waited i'm sorry we took a little longer upstairs and anticipated um they have a motion for to open up for hearing of the public please miranda thank you sir second easy either bc all in favor any discussion all right um please when you come forward state your name and address and if you're in

068the chat room please also put your name and address so that we can address your questions good evening good evening george nunez 203 central avenue [Music] i think you still have your bond council professionals that were waiting i can't quite hear you oh george i'm sorry i think you still have your bond council professionals that were waiting uh to hear from you it wasn't it's just voted it's another idea all right so i'm sorry the courtesy of who we voted i don't think they heard it oh so i prepared a statement to be efficient with my words i'd like to bring up the issue related to some comments that were made at the end of the last board meeting i'm the person responsible for the social media post that described the comments that were made

069by several board members as overt racist comments at no time did i say or suggest that any individual any individuals were racist that is not up to me to determine i have spoken to many people who have differing characterization of those comments the one thing that everybody seems to agree on or at least everyone that i've spoken to [Music] is the comments were just not a good look for anyone i believe that it is unsustainable and unacceptable to have sitting board members that feel insulted or tired of the idea of diversity or the discussion of diversity in a school district that is as diverse as this school district what i do know without doubt and based on my own personal life experiences is that we all have prejudicial thoughts based on a variety of factors

070more importantly i know that we can all overcome limiting beliefs through education and open mind empathy respect towards our differences and compassion for each other's life's experiences based on conversations over the past week with mr kennedy i believe that our district is well on its way to properly addressing issues around diversity equity and inclusion our community is incredibly diverse in many ways not just culturally we need to come together to celebrate our differences and find ways to channel the strength of our diversity to make our community better for young people recently arrived residents our senior citizens and for families that have been in pagoda for generations and have welcomed all of us with open arms it is going to take principled leadership to move us forward with integrity from this point on it is my

071hope that you are all up to the task our community is looking to you to get this right at this time thank you thank you anyone else carly nunez 203 central avenue the words that were said at the last board of education meeting were unacceptable as a person of color and a recent graduate of the pagoda school system i'm embarrassed and saddened that these words came from sitting members of our board it is appalling that they are still functioning members that have narrow-minded views when it comes to such an important topic in our town i leave you with this how will you as a board do better and if you think asking interviewees how they promote diversity and inclusion is enough you're mistaken it's actually insulting that you would ask that question because is that

072what you think will solve this problem how will you moving forward embrace the diversity of the student body which whether you feel is important or not it is important so i am now calling for the resignation of the three members who felt insulted by this topic of diversity as our standards should simply be higher anyone else hello can everyone hear me okay yes thank you sherry solomon 350 larch i'd like to begin with a few quotes from the last board of ed meeting quote bringing up the diversity constantly puts division end quote quote i don't want an olive branch frank we don't need to like each other end quote quote let's shut up and let's go home end quote quote i'm so tired of hearing you speak end quote quote frank with your diversity that

073you bring up every meeting in this town it's insulting i grew up in this town i've lived here all my life and every time you speak about how this town doesn't cater to the diversity of spanish people da you really need to stop that end quote these are all words spoken at the last meeting by board members they were embarrassing and unprofessional to say the least it's clear that some members are responding with personal vendettas rather than what's best for our schools and our kids why would the voting in of a qualified professional that happens to be minority-owned bother you so much since when does diversity have a negative connotation to it since when does minority owned mean unqualified since when is any of this appropriate especially in the melting pot of a town we

074live in if anything it's behavior like this what happened at the last meeting that brings the vision to our town the public has voted in new board members they bring new perspectives and refreshing ideas i heard ms cole say quote you keep saying change why do we need change end quote why because the public doesn't agree with unlawful behavior the public is tired of the personal vendettas brought to public meetings that have nothing to do with the representation of them the public voted for a change i thank those who put their foot down and are standing are taking a stand against this type of behavior you can't preach inclusive inclusivity then act the way like some of you have at the last meeting it would be an understatement to say it's counterproductive miss cole's many

075residents are unhappy and asking for your resignation today because there's no room for racial insensitivity on this board and to storm off a meeting before it was adjourned shows immaturity and unprofessionalism progress is something you've made clear is not of any interest to you on a brighter note i'd like to extend my gratitude to the teachers of the english language arts department mr kennedy and mr chang for the wonderful diversity workshop that they've organized in starting up a diversity committee it's a great step towards your number one goal of diversity and inclusion my husband and i are practicing jews with three small children in the public school system and we're thrilled to teach them about our culture and we're even more excited to expose them to all the different religions and cultures our community embraces

076i'd love to join that community that uh that committee if you'll have me mr kennedy thank you to all the wonderful teachers for another great year and thank you all thank you anyone else good evening sandro spina to west grove street i have a very hard time trying to comprehend how things got to this point i listened last week along with everybody else i read everything that was on social media could things have been said different words used differently maybe but nothing that came out of any of these three women that are being attacked was racist i'm all for diversity and inclusion but when you constantly speak and you say and you're mentioning just the hispanics of this community you're excluding the 10 of the caucasian everybody else so aren't we aren't you being racist

077then by excluding those when that's just what you're practicing on and i think that that's what happened last week where the frustration came from because it's not just hispanics it's about the kids in general of this town and what is right for them not just the hispanic community which is the larger population here now i'm a graduate of pagoda high school i moved into this town in 1991. when i moved into this town the majority was of white people my brother i will use my brother as an example because my brother is your typical uh latin shade he's dark we moved in here and were there issues maybe but nothing crazy you know nothing that not every other town has now is there room for improvement of course where is there's always room for improvement

078and i'm not saying that we don't need to be represented but you also have to take into consideration something that the people that have been up on this board and who have been here for a long time it's because nobody else has stepped up to the plate either so if the majority of people that were up here were white was because as a community we didn't do any better either by coming up here and trying to get on board yes it's great to see that we have people of color up here now but let's face it that starts in your own home too to be inclusive and wanting to do something that goes to show with our rec program why is it that our rep program is so poor lack of parenting lack of parenting

079involvement that's not anybody else's fault but the parents you want to have all these great things you know what then the parents need to step up and make that effort the board can't be like oh you know that's not them it starts at home too there's responsibility in your own home for that stuff so i don't you know i don't think that anything was said with ill intent i think that it was out of frustration of feeling like you know what about the rest of the kids now i can say i know lisa coles personally i've known her for as long as i've lived in this town i babysat her kids and i'm a minority you know she was always good to me and my family and when i got pregnant with my daughter who's

08015 now the kohl's family helped me out they were the ones who took me back and forth to my appointments there was never anything that they did to make me feel any less than anybody else in their home so for for her to be attacked on social media like that and say that you know she's this racist and you know she needs to resign from a personal perspective i can say that that's not true she's not a racist and nothing that anybody else said last week was racist i think that unfortunately you don't want to bring politics into this but this all starts with politics there's a hatred between a few and at the end of the day you don't have to like each other you have to work with each other because that's part

081of life when you go to work you might hate your boss but you know what that's life you deal with that but these attacks are not new with this you know being on the board this goes back to being on the on the council in town and it's petty it is it's very petty and it's time for it to end and stop trying to exploit each other the way it's it's been for the last i don't know how many years it looks boring sandra if you could just wrap up you've kind of maxed your fight sorry that's okay so that's it i just don't think that things i think things were taken out of context last week and it's not just the 90 percent that we should be fighting for it's the 100 percent that

082we should be rooting for thank you anyone no one in else chat we have one in the chat name an address please name an address can i talk yes we need your name address uh my name is kaylee gorman and my address is 76 south street pagoda i too am a pagoda high school graduate i graduated in 2009 and i came from another town before pagoda that was much more diverse than the new school that i was in um i think that there are different mindsets and we need to all realize that not we need to expand our mindset we can't go back in the past and change anything that happened but we can go towards the future and make a change and the future is now and if we want to make the world

083a better place than it is currently we need to expand our mindset and it's not about what is correct and not correct you need to broaden your mind and think about well maybe this is how this person feels or maybe this how this person feels instead of always thinking about the other side that's all i have to say thank you very much thank you hope everybody has a good night you too take care anyone else oh yes i'm sorry trina olivo 228 maplewood avenue pagoda um i guess i'll start by saying that what mr nunez said earlier i i do agree with a lot of what he said um i know at the end of the day george is always looking for a way to try to bring people together instead of separate we are

084a big melting pot here in pagoda and i disagreed with a lot of what was said last week i disagreed with what a lot a lot of what was said this uh tonight um for one i want to just uh say to the public that's listening in and that chimed in when they weren't listening in that the job that you guys do at the table in front of me is not that easy and not that simple so i thank you all for volunteering your time volunteering your time and not getting paid for this to sit there and discuss things that you all feel in your hearts are the best in the best interest of the children of pagoda and i know we all have when we're we're running or campaigning we all have hopes of

085what we would like to do when we get up there and a lot of times when you are up there you realize your hands are almost high um but you do the best that you can and i thank you all for that uh i think uh as far as there was a comment made last week saying that you know things are now being brought to light and the public is seeing more i disagree that it is just being brought to light now because these meetings have always been public and if the public wanted to get here before and they could i know they would have and if they didn't what they did probably was a lot like what i did all right i know this person they're on the board i voted for them let

086me see what they have to say about it but i didn't go to every single board member to find out every single board member's opinion on what was discussed and now i think the one good thing that came out of the pandemic was the zoo meetings so now it can be more public and the public can actually participate a bit more because you can click on while you're trying to get dinner done for your family or possibly coming home from work and you're riding home on your ride home you're listening into that meeting so that i think is why we have a lot more people getting involved not because before it was hidden because i know that this attendance that we have here today is only because of what happened last week normally you guys

087maybe if you're lucky you'll have two people in that in that crowd now on zoom i'm sure you got hundreds so that needs to be recognized the boards that have been before you sandra is correct there's a lot of history and there has been a lot of back and forth this is not new at all so uh to say that it's being brought to light i think if you really wanted to know you found the way just like every one of us did so we can't make excuses for those who did not know before not all the time some are valid but not all of them are as far as being a hispanic woman i did not take offense to the use of the word spanish it was incorrect that is absolutely true but we

088missed the teaching opportunity there to let the public know and to let mrs cole's forgive me know that it should not be used as that word should not have been said we speak spanish we are not spanish we are hispanic so that was a teaching opportunity i think that was missed and i hope anybody was in listening can now think about it that way as well i've known mrs coles for a long time because i've been pto president pta president football mom basketball mom you name it and she is in one of the steps that i followed to do all of that i never known her to exclude any child in any action whenever something was needed i understand some people got hot-headed about last week but i really do wish as mr nunez expressed

089that we do understand cooler heads need to prevail you were all voted up there we are all counting on you i know all of you to a degree and i believe in all of you i've said it publicly about the four and the others that were running with me when i was running for the campaign i say it out loud in public i said it and i'll say it again here you all do a remarkable job i don't know if we have not been diverse at our board before um mrs sedalia alvarez came on board i'm pretty sure um i know mrs carpenter who is hispanic what did serve on the board so i know diversity was there and not for nothing lgbt excuse me lgbtq community thank you amanda but before you it wasn't

090allowed to be known you know for a long time so who knows if a representative was here already at that point uh you know at some point in the in the past that's pretty much all i have to say i know you all can do better i do agree that we don't know what goes on in those closed meetings either and you know people really just and the public think it's that simple you all got a tough job ahead of you and i just hope you can continue to try to work together to do that regardless of not agreeing on every single thing we teach our kids to learn how to agree to disagree because everybody's opinion matters that's the same thing that should go for us adults in public out loud behind doors everywhere

091thank you very much for your time thank you so much anyone else i believe yeah hi carmel can i oh can i sell oh no sorry that let's go carmel bernie 162 east fort lee road pagoda thank you um i just had a question um for saint jose um saint joseph's the middle school i know in the past the sixth graders going up to the high school would have a meeting in person to meet the teachers and go over schedules and things like that is that going to happen um for the kids going into the middle school yes we we are uh we actually have a custodian in the building right now that's been painting and cleaning we have staff taking a look this weekend we still have some work to do in there but

092over the summer we plan on doing family orientation student orientation getting the kids in the building getting them accustomed to the new building for them because it is new to all of us so uh yes that will be happening in the summer before school starts okay thank you very much thank you connie i believe you're up connie carpenter again 42 hill street um i'm not going to talk about that other stuff right now um i'm i am going to talk about however uh code of ethics uh the school board members regulations yes everyone has it in their hands this evening i've handed out a packet okay well isn't it if i'm not mistaken don't they get handed out at the time uh of the swearing in yes they were okay and everyone agreed that everyone

093had to sign off that they received it correct okay okay good um indeed it was but i think everybody had to come in yes right nobody had to sign off thank you i'm sorry it was virtual but then um people did have to sign off on it right so well we're like six months into the year so i'm assuming everybody's scored ready okay good um i know when i was on the board uh years ago i had to go to a weekend training it was mandatory and it still is i'm sure it still is to some degree zoom wise or whatever it's still a mandatory thing and um i know there are some board members that have not attended i don't know that any of the four new have yet attended and adelia needs to

094go for her second year okay all right well my concern is only is the policy and the procedures that are happening here um if you go into 18a and since you all have it right there i'm looking at several sections that were violated and consistently are being violated um for instance i'll go into e um i recognize the authority risk with the board of education and will make no personal promises or take any private action that may compromise the board um the other one here that really gets to me i don't understand how this is happening i will confine my board action to policy making planning and appraisal and will help to frame policies and plans only after the board has consulted with those who will be affected by them the board of education is

095a policy-making board that's right it is run solely by the superintendent and board administrator i have a problem bait a very major problem when we are choosing or we are not we when it is chosen the highest uh the highest the highest vendor is chosen with the lowest score and not recommended by the superintendent or the ba i it is not inaccurate thank you sir i have i have this let me give you for instance then since you're saying it's inaccurate inaccurate the um the position for the health broker record services it was uh voted last time for alamo insurance 75 i'm sorry let's no the one that was voted last week yes the one that was voted last week the broker yes it was alamo but that particular position is a commission is a

096um cash but they were also on for this evening but were not appointed to this evening's position and yes they were the highest right yeah exactly okay and um we also had tonight mr wilcox which is 9 500 more than the lowest score i mean the lowest um rfq with the lowest score um you did that as well and not a recommendation by the superintendent or the ba those are the individuals the professionals that is supposed to run the schools so i just have a problem with that and i think that really those individuals who did not go to school uh if you're really serious and you really want to go work for the kids and for the board of ed you should go to the classes especially since now it's only zoomed i had

097to go away for the weekend this is not your job to run the school it is to make the policies and make sure they're adhered to and that is all your role here you should know what your role is thank you madam president if i may there's some legalities that that i think are worth addressing here obviously the code of ethics talks about the board's role being one of policy making but not just policy making policy making planning and appraisal the statutes of this of title 18a also permit the award of these contracts to be made by the board we're talking about contracts that were issued that were voted upon properly by the board okay under an rfp process we're talking about a standard run-of-the-mill rfp we're not talking about competitive bids and we're not

098talking about um competitive contracting and when there is an rfp the board votes on the contract and votes based on the who the board finds is most whose proposal is most advantageous okay who's going to provide the highest quality service at a competitive price so it is not um entirely accurate that the decision regarding contract awards uh belongs to the administration administration does make recommendations that the board is to take into consideration when weighing who to award these contracts to however the buck stops with the board under title 18a even with contract awards and as far as training um you are correct the school ethics act does require training certainly does for new board members their new board members are required to um to undergo training in their first year because the statute however does

099not specify by when that contra that training has to be done and it also and training also has to be done in the second and third year of their term as well and there's continuing training for board members who are re-elected and who come back so you you are correct that there are those obligations right thank you thank you very much mrs carpenter told me um you know because i think it's important that we that i personally address are you singling out one individual member not taking the training or the entire board so so how did you hear that just wondering which is okay i think it's i think no no i could just hold on this will need to go erratic about it i understand during my training the same one you're referring to

100um that it's under the jurisdiction of the ba uh they get the information they get the acknowledgement they get everything and and again i want to thank you as councilwoman carpenter for your official capacity and thank you for serving this borough you do it very well i am the first one of larger i just wonder how did you get any knowledge improper knowledge so you've heard from the internal capacity of our board some way because that's not so that you know it's due december 31st 2021 there's just absolutely no way that the state would provide you information that they're simply not looking for now although your statement is inaccurate because you said new board members you didn't individualize so i can't put myself inside of your words i just i'm a little father i'm trying

101to figure out how you got that information i can answer that frank yes please of course i'm sorry i thought i'm sorry you were done i'm sorry the state wouldn't provide something they're not looking for and it strictly says in module one somewhere that the ba has full jurisdiction over like the the the the knowledge of it occurring and the knowledge of it uh above you get a you get a sort of confirmation email um which i don't know who's done it who hasn't a board member gets confirmation it basically says your modules were graded so i'm just wondering how you know it wasn't your official capacity you got that information or you're just making an accusation that was off i'm grateful that you brought up my position as councilwoman i didn't speak here i

102don't know i didn't speak here as a councilwoman and of course i did not contact the state that's public knowledge um how is that public knowledge no it's not okay go ahead kathy it is public knowledge because i have literally stated and in the public meeting that the four of you need to get trained and connie is following up on that you have and i corrected you a couple maybe last me on the meeting before that and asked you yourself how were you made aware of that seeing as this is a virtual program this year that we had to log into so i mean the statement i don't know who she's speaking about so i'm not going to say the statement is inaccurate because i don't know all right just if we could sort of

103sum this up only because this really is citizen's comments but i'm not going to stop you from what you're doing as a citizen i'm going to finish my comment i don't understand how this even how we got here on this conversation about whether or not folks sitting here are trained or not trained i'm not really sure how we got there but i feel like it is once again leaning into the lane of inappropriate it is information that is as you know i'm telling you from my perspective inaccurate so unless you're speaking about someone and specifically and or want to speak to to mention their name specifically i'm not really sure the relevance of any of this here other than to ruffle feathers potentially but i i would hope that we've had enough of that i

104really do i would hope that we have i would hope that we don't continue to use this venue in this way because it's counterproductive i would hope that we walk away from here like i walked away from the diversity committee meeting last week with a feeling that this group of people is going to come in here and we're going to do a job and we're not going to do it for tv we're going to do a job for the faculty for the parents and for the students of this district because it's just becoming run on sentence and run on sentence now with with issues if you don't get along oh well don't get along but at some point the quorum has to be put back into this this board the quorum has to be put

105back into this discussion and to to come up and yes citizens as citizens of this borough were allowed to come up and comment as we see fit but to make statements that allege things is inappropriate flat out well unfortunately as far as people finding out things we are publicly public elected officials and [Music] what goes with the territory unfortunately is a lot of public knowledge that maybe is we're not comfortable with but it's public knowledge um i agree the diversity meeting was dynamic in fact i spoke to mr mandela i digress connie you still have the floor i'm sorry i'm when when you're done i will if once we're closed i i don't find what i ask inappropriate not at all it's not inappropriate at all um but i will um have my contacts in

106the state like you said so i will find out if anything that i did state is inappropriate because i know it's not being on the sport for 12 years all i simply said was that because i have come to the meetings and i'm probably one of the one or two people who do come all the time sitting and watching the meeting or on the zoom as you all know um i know that i see that things are said and done and it was never done that way before uh i've never seen interviews it was always done with the finance committee along with the superintendent gender ba and then they would come in with a recommendation and we voted for them and unless there was really a question on something uh we had resumes we had

107everything in front of us and we did a pretty good job in doing that and the children were all well taken care of as well as you can see that we have what 60 or so of our teachers nowadays we're students here in pagoda so we have a really great great great history of the students that graduated from pagoda and i'm very proud of all each and every one of them thank you for your time thank you mrs carpenter anyone else antoinette hurry up anthony no don't hurry hello frank's gonna help you frank's gonna help you need a little bench okay thank you so antoinette ramirez 98 queen and road um believe it or not i did not come with something prepared tonight i honestly told my family um i am not going to talk

108about what happened last week but there is something that's been bothering me um and i know i get very sensitive and emotional but here's the thing i know almost all of you outside of these walls and i know what good people are i haven't really got a chance to know mr ortega but i heard great things but i know you guys outside of here whether our kids went to school together whether you know my family whether our kids played soccer together from town whatever it is i know what good people you are but somehow when you sit here you don't respect one another and i'm not talking next last week i'm talking in general it's like i know i couldn't sit up there because my husband always says if my mouth didn't say it my

109my eyes would say it or my my face would say it you know there's just there's just such a disconnect with you guys and i know you're capable of so much because i know you're good people because i know it from a personal level but please maybe it's taking the time to review the recordings and see how you talk to each other and maybe look at the body language and the tone because it's it's really heartbreaking to me so again speaking personally i'm heartbroken at what i see every week on these meetings and i pride myself and i come to the meetings whether it's you know zoom here i'm active in the schools and this hurts me again because i know what each of you are like so please please you can do great things

110if you work together just please take the time to respect each other to talk to each other and and i just really think you're gonna make great things happen if if you can do that thank you thank you internet christine please name an address going once christine name an address please i'm going to lower your hand and if you have something else to say please uh come back um [Music] oh wait is she back christine can you hear me she's muted i gave her my own user give me one minute i'm asking me i'm gonna lower your hand if you want to get back on please do so give her a minute someone else william name and address please william in 145 beachwood avenue uh just out of curiosity i was wondering if it's public

111knowledge that actually what board member received a donation from the firm that was awarded tonight hello he said he said it wasn't reportable yeah the contribution is not reportable so uh it would not appear on elec records well i'm i understand that but i'm just curious is that with the board member that received that donation he wanted to say their name of actually who received it i mean they don't have to but just out of curiosity i think that that provides uh fairness um i could tell you that i did not receive it so uh that should rest you know allow you to maybe other members to say but i fear i think it's best to answer everyone's question to the best of our abilities you know i'm not meant to wrestle any feathers or

112anything like that but and i you know obviously it's not an ethics violation according to the state but i believe that in my mind whoever did receive it should abstain from the vote i believe it's a character issue um and that's how i feel about that but then again that's my opinion but thank you for your time good night good night thank you hi we're good all right with no other nothing else from the chat um we have a motion to close citizen's comments please i don't i just i just wanted to uh first i think tonight we uh my my contract got voted on tonight uh and the board did support a five-year contract i am committed to what we've been doing here i've been in the district for 11 years the one thing

113i know about this district is the sense of community i got here from the first day i got here and the pandemic has really taken that away from us this year we have not been together at games we have not been together at events and that is one thing that anywhere you went there was pagoda people and they were proud of what we're doing so i i think i wanted to really to stress that you know we're coming out of this and we are going to get back to where we were as a community and being together all the time because that's what we were doing you know we've had zoom you know more people are are coming into these meetings on zoom but we're not together it's it's it's you know having this back

114today our graduation seeing kindergarten parents they were so excited that they were able to see their kids graduate today uh and that's what's important and i don't want to lose sight on the community aspect of what we do as a school district and again that will be a priority moving forward is getting us all back in rooms together uh at games together in town together and doing a lot of stuff that has always made pagoda great but again i do want to thank the board we have a lot of work to do and in five years i hope to to get most of that work done so i do appreciate um the vote of confidence from the board tonight kathy if i comment you know can i may i just close to this sure comments

115thank you thank you second ortega thank you john any discussion all in favor any opposed all right frank jurors um i want to thank kennedy uh for showing his passion for our school district uh a five-year contract is super well deserved uh i thank him in many ways my last meeting uh was a bit hurtful because i did not expect certain reactions i can honestly say that i don't think there was any racial statement made any uh personal attack on racial statement was an uneducated word yes um but the one thing that i want this board and every member to strive for is racial insensitivity to learn what that is because the truth is that i'm 2m light skinned i too have walked around in a bubble coming from new york which is a melting

116pot like no other in the world i don't know what someone else experienced in their lifetime i don't know what they've felt so just a mere reaction can mean that we're not equipped to have certain conversations although we're not trained or educated to have these kind of conversations i sure hope that in the future um as as for what i've understood that the recent diversity meeting the conversation is we need to talk more about it we need to touch the topic a lot more because i have read plenty and i understand that the more we talk about it the goal is to dissolve it the goal is to get rid of it so it's not a sentiment it's not a feeling it's not offensive it's just simply something you say every day and it becomes

117a part of your life i want us that in the future if diversity is brought up that it isn't about color it isn't just about race but one time at one point in this country women could not vote they cannot sit on boards like these i respect that that's what diversity is today we took a step further into diversity mr kennedy made a phenomenal recommendation and today we have a vice president a resemblance principal i'm sorry vice principal i'm sorry i'm used to say vice principal some people call it assistant person mr kennedy kudos to you for a great job with that being said you know one of the things i see is we do need more training i don't think we should point out that one member if it's due december 31st then one

118member should not they shouldn't be called out because it's not our place so yeah it's public knowledge but it's just a punch it's a low blow i also have learned today and through the training that i've taken that there are certain instances where board members cannot vote in favor of a supervisor that their close family member is a part of under the jurisdiction and there's board members here who have taken the vote they've negotiated on their behalf so yeah we make mistakes and we learn from them but to singly accuse a group of new board members because we're naive because we may not understand every little thing we relate to our attorney and therefore i ask you madam president that when any single new board member at least refers to the attorney the legal advice

119we've hired just let them answer so that we have a better informed decision so let's continue to talk about diversity let's continue to talk about training and let's get better at the task at hand because that's why i was elected overwhelming so so i want to learn i want to do things right and am i perfect at this absolutely not you know at the end of the day i have to see you at baseball games i have to see your kids i have to go to pools and i have to like you believe it or not so that our kids get along so some of you say you may not like me that's sad because i'm going to smile and you're going to call me whatever you want but i'm going to like you in

120the process because somehow and there's an unfortunate in many unfortunate instances where you don't want your daughter to be boyfriend of soul and you don't want your son and guess what it may be one of our children and gir and i'm gonna have to deal with that and i'm gonna have to like you and this is a family town and i speak on that and i'll continue to speak on that as much as i can i thank you for that madam president you're welcome i'd like to say a few words if i may thank you um i did hand out a packet to each of you this evening and i'm not going to dwell on any issues because i think we do have to move on as far as training i know that came up

121as far as things like antoinette saying we can do better we do have a board retreat planned with school boards coming in to hope hopefully kind of whip us into shape a little bit and help us recognize what we are doing wrong which is definitely obvious to everybody who watches us um myself included no exceptions i've lost my temper i've been inappropriate um but i've never been racist and i will say i took personal offense um at that video and personal offense to being asked to step down uh because of being racist i've received some letters to such i actually said to one of my daughters yesterday my girls are all grown there were students here in pagoda and they're all grown very successful one cpa works for an international pharmaceutical company the other two

122were nurses highly recognized in pediatrics at robert wood johnson and i said to my one daughter i was explaining we were at my grandson's little league game and i said yes you know about the video and i said that you know it was insinuated you know that i'm a racist and she looked at me and she started to laugh and she said mom we all they dated every ethnic ethnicity in high school and they did and i loved every one of the guys there was armenian boys there was young black american boys there were latino boys they dated they they met people they dated i've never been a prejudiced person and to insinuate i was hurts me enormously but moving on i can grow up with that uh the packet i gave out tonight has

123for those of you at home um it contains uh the oath of office that we all swore into which is uh new jersey 18a education laws um and it says in there that we will be impartial it's one word that struck out to me i will faithfully impartially and just justly perform all the duties i look at the mission statement and it's very generic and it basically says that we're going to educate our students and be to be responsible and productive members of our society that the district is dedicated to promoting lifelong learning by working collaboratively with parents and the community to maintain our academic excellence i have to agree with a couple of statements that were made and with mr kennedy the big hole here is that we haven't had personal contact and when

124we do get together it's nothing enjoyable and nothing social it's work and then some of the the feathers fly and there's there's hard feelings things that aren't that aren't said or are said that are wrong the code of ethics um the morning after the the um last meeting i received an envelope on my front door and a little note inside and it literally just said 18 a 18 a 12 24.1 b and i went to the police department with it because i was a little unnerved my husband didn't like that somebody had dropped something on my front doorstep and i had to wait a little while and i looked up exactly what the code was and what was referred to at first i took it as a threat quite honestly because of of the video

125um unnerved me quite a bit but i the when it refers to the code it says i will make decisions in terms of the educational welfare of children and would seek to develop and maintain public schools that meet individual needs of all children regardless of their ability race creed sex or social standing this was given to me in in defense of the statements that were made it was a messy situation there's nothing that's going to say it wasn't the point was that frank may i signal signal you out for a second frank you're a big man okay what had happened that evening and if you think about it and in retrospect you did mention many times that about the hispanic community about the children about the children and the pictures up on the high school

126and the 90 population and that's that's i agree with you 100 okay that we do have those numbers but our oath of office and our code of ethics say we have to do things impartially and for for all the children we we shouldn't see i look at those pictures on the front of the high school and i see 87 some of my children i see sparkling eyes i see kids that are embarrassed to have the picture taken i see boys who are being very serious i see young women that can't wait i see students i see young people that are reaching high school graduation an incredible milestone for them some of them having gotten gotten their associate's degree big time big steps and at this table we're making a mess of all of it by

127focusing so much and differentiating on things that the celebration the diversity meeting the diversity meeting was all about the celebration and and what people are learning right down to miss corso mentioned about how she's working on the lgbt and gender sensitive conversations and non-gendering and misgendering and how to to work past that mr mandela talked about the english and spanish component and the books that they're reading and what the books really mean now how they relate historically miss monero i believe spoke on african americans and how the slavery issues were only focused we we know about slavery in regard to the civil war not what really happened to those people so the curriculum the faculty the staff mr kennedy um mr chang miss connolly everybody is looking to adjust the curriculum to really educate everybody

128across the board we have asian students we have lgbtq students we have my son-in-law is a a russian descendant of russian jew their family had to leave the ukraine because of the oppression from from russia so my family knows what it's like we speak those family those parents are part of us they escaped russia and ukraine when they were 18 years old everybody has history everybody has knowledge i think the concern that came out frank was you kind of kept a focus on the hispanic population yes you did please listen to the tape okay you even said i made my platform was a promise to the hispanic community you did frank you did please okay i'm not going to argue with you it is i i'm not but i do want to make just one

129thing please i said hispanics in this exact order diversity as which meant everything i said hispanics caucasians i write everything i say so hispanic caucasians asian middle eastern african-american and so many i'm missing that's exactly my words okay and then and then i did go on to say that i made a commitment when i ran for office for diversity improvement and change yes i might have not elaborated but i mean evolution i mean changes all areas change the way we think change the way we feel so those were my words i never said spanish because i would not you wouldn't say spanish i agree those words right i would not use those words because you know there were several statements made um insinuation like we're not educated and i'm sure you recall but i won't

130bring that up and that's very inaccurate but i wouldn't make that statement i'm going to repeat it i said hispanics caucasians asians middle eastern african-american and so many are missing i actually have a record as a previous councilman for fighting for the menorah fighting for lgtb flags people know that i'm not about one or another it's all fair game open because it's the way this country you know man you made a statement that i didn't know where it felt in context but it offended me and i apologize if i reacted anyway if it ain't broke don't fix it i keep saying that all right but you know how i took that man i took that that many there's a lot of suffering in this country it's very broke and if i can make it a

131little instantaneous to make it better that's all i wanted to do there was no pointers i'm not defending one race because believe it or not as many may call it hispanics because that's what you hear there's so many middle easterns in this town there's so many asians in this town so many so i could never never even imagine the thought to just cater to as somehow say 90 because that's not accurate and i stand there and i you know i let you call me out because the proper method of this board and this future is for you and i and all these board members to have a conversation to agree to disagree and just make it better so i actually thank you for pointing me out because i do appreciate that and if i can

132make myself better then i appreciate you for that okay you you did make a statement at the end of the meeting it's on the tape that right now if you look at the graduating class it's 90 of the kids come from one race and that unfortunately i have to serve that race okay you said that it's on the table and but you have to make it better for everybody and that's our oath of office okay so that's i think we need to get past and i think we need to to learn i think we need to learn from the preschool kids who will all just look at each other like fellow human beings um i included a definition of diversity in there so that it that's really clear and then there was also the um

133the statute in there the code in there on the donation situation okay um with that as i said the diversity meeting i actually went up to mr mandela who presented at that meeting because i bumped into him coming out of the board office yesterday and i went over to him and i said i apologize i hope that the behavior on the board didn't undermine you know we have people that are behind the scenes doing wonderful things and what it should reflect at this table is our appreciation and our respect of that without having to constantly pull everything apart and just move forward so to all of you who spoke i greatly appreciate it i was gonna tell you i was really nervous about tonight i thought it was going to explode and we were going

134to have 100 people here and i was going to get lynched but uh thanks i wasn't on that note we do need to go into executive session to do mr kennedy's evaluation uh there will be no action when we come out mrs coles is conflicted she cannot act on on on that because she has family who works within the district so she's conflicted out um there will be nothing else when we come out so i'm going to read this and then we will adjourn at least if there's no really no reason we will reconvene to to close the meeting but you could probably join in on the zoom if you really want to vote to adjourn mrs van buren on the topic of conflict i would love to ask mr william sukis does conflicted only

135pass on the vote or being part of a negotiation process in closed session part of being the negotiation process so we all are aware that mrs close was part of that so i just want to put that on the record well i don't know that it was her daughter-in-law at the time when are you going back to when mr kennedy was hired last week last week ma'am you were in on that you probably shouldn't have been i didn't step out of the room no then those are no then those are the kind of things that you bring up at that point yes it's everybody's learning and there's lots of things eye stress eye stress training board training this is just a sampling of some of my training i'm an advocate of board of ed training

136because i want to know everything there is and as much research as you might do until you get it from the mouth of the board of ed it's not border training that's my only my only big deal and i got to tell you that's an issue in the whole state and that there are people in the whole state rallying to change those rules to make mandating uh training much sooner on anyway i ramble moving on um may i i will read for closed session whereas c 231 pl 1975 also known as the sunshine law authorizes the public body to meet an executive or private session under certain limited circumstances and whereas said law requires the board to adopt a resolution at a public meeting before it can meet in such an executive or private session

137now therefore be resolved by the pagoda board of education that it does hereby determine that is necessary to meet in executive session number two on june 15 2021 at 10 25 pm to discuss matters involving personnel that the matter discussed will be made public when confidentiality is no longer required and action pursuant to said discussion shall take place only at a public meeting um action will not be taken upon return except to adjourn later uh may i have a motion please miranda thank you second someone thank you any discussion all righty um roll call i mean excuse me all in favor aye all right any opposed thank you i don't know how long we're going to be for anyone who really wants to you