001good evening and welcome to the monday october 11 2021 meeting of the hillsborough township board of education in accordance with the state sunshine law of new jersey adequate notice of this meeting of the hillsborough township board of education was provided on october 6 2021 to the hillsborough beacon and the courier news mr mahmoud may we have a roll call please surely mr gillette here mr kid here mr marini present this is maroon here mrs nurse here mr oliver here mr pulcifer here mrs stats here and mr hill here we have a quorum thank you um now may i have um okay so whereas open public meetings act chapter 231 of the laws of 1975 provides that a public body may exclude the public from that portion of the meeting of which the public body discusses
002certain matters for which confidentiality is required as permitted in section 7b of the act resolved by the board of education of the township of hillsboro and the county of somerset and state of new jersey as follows one the matters to be discussed is a personnel matter two the matters discussed in executive session shall be disclosed to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists may have a motion in a second [Music] thank you i got that thank you i'm all in favor aye we are now in executive session we um plan to be back here at 7 30. thank you good evening good evening and welcome back we are back now from executive session mr mahmoud may we have a roll call please absolutely mr joy here mr kid here mr marini here
003mrs maroon here mrs nurse here mr oliver here mr pulcifer here mrs stats here mr hill here we have a quorum thank you may we now please rise for the pledge of allegiance [Music] thank you i'd like to acknowledge the correspondence listed that we've received and then we also had several emails before the board meeting that just came in earlier today so we'll which will be listed at the next board agenda so i'd like to now turn it over for committee reports prior to opening it for public comments and mr gillette if we could have operations report thank you all right thank you operations met on october 5th we first heard from ms kathy major she's our food service representative from sodexo she answered some questions about food service program this year as you know
004we're providing meals free of charge to students and something like it i believe she said correctly i know i don't see these in the midst but i think i believe she said almost 90 percent of students were taking the meal does that sound right yeah yeah that's an incredibly incredible amount of food that has to be uh prepared and provided for students that would be not not even close to that during a normal school year um we also had mr deluca from our uh maintenance facilities department and he gave us an update on the referendum all the projects are going as you would expect um he highlighted that the boiler at amsterdam has been installed and ready to go he also talked about the associated projects at hillsborough elementary school uh the roof is uh
005nearly done they're working on it in stages um we he also talked about some we also talked about some damage from um ida storm particularly we had mr uh groman from edi tim grumman who's been at this board meeting before you might remember him uh edi is our environmental consultant uh he spoke about the damage that was sustained in the especially in the pole barn uh everything in the pole barn um was taken out and cleaned what couldn't be cleaned is going to be replaced that's the weight uh weight room uh so that's all going to be replaced it's going to be as good as new um in a related area i'm going to skip around a little bit um well maybe not let me see where it is i don't see i don't i
006can't find where it is but um the um a septic system at wood fern is uh having some issues uh that's going to be oh it's at the end of the thing here so this is where we're having some issues um it's going to need to be um we i don't want to see replays but rebuilt uh that could be done in stages it won't require any disruption to the school it just will require some money as all of these things do um lisa bennett our transportation director our supervisor was um was at the meeting to give us an update on transportation we know that transportation has been tremendously difficult this year um they're are a lot of challenges mostly stemming from um i was gonna say a statewide but really nationwide driver shortage uh
007this year um we're doing the best we can and i people hate to hear that and i hate to say that but uh that really is the situation this year i can say with confidence that they're doing the best they can in a very very challenging year with um with that um continuing our parade of professionals brian reilly from centric benefit advisors was in to talk to us about new and different healthcare options we're not anticipating any changes but with our we're just doing our due diligence to see uh to have him in at least once a year to talk about um what's what's going on in the world of health insurance um you'll see also that uh if you've read the minutes board members that um mr mummy reported that we're making some accommodations
008so the dance team can actually have a team and have some space to rehearse and do what they need to do to work with mr davis to make sure that they get that space and to be able to function as a team there were about 10 policies to review we only got through four these were the um the federally mandated policies about federal awards uh internal controls over federal funds uh those will all be on the agenda tonight we approved all those for first reading and uh finally mr mahmoud talk to us about the upcoming budget season thank you that's all thank you mr gillette ms maroon if you would um give the education committee minutes thank you sure um we met on october 6th um most of uh what we discussed is going to
009be shared here tonight um the first thing we did discuss was the revised curriculum and of course title change basically just updated to reflect the new 2020 new jersey student learning standards there was really no significant changes to the content that was in there we also discussed the virtual plan which will be seen tonight and reported out tonight on the agenda and again this was a mandated policy by the state basically um you know pretty much a template is what it was kind of that we had to check all the boxes to make sure that it was up to up to par with the state and same thing with the policy revisions and the abolishment again to replace the old the road back we're going for the road forward which kind of makes sense again
010mandated policy by the state so it will all be reflected in on tonight's agenda and then we also um got the presentation that you will see tonight on the learning maps that will be later on in the superintendent's report so you will all get to see the learning maps that's about all we got to great thank you very much ms maroon i will give the hr committee minutes there was a policy that was reviewed and that policy is 1648.13 and will be on tonight's agenda about school back school employee vaccination requirements there was an item about personnel and there was also an item about the swim team and the swim coach positions and [Music] there was a couple of other updates just regarding the testing process for unvaccinated employees and then something about frontline security
011reviewing just it was just a question that the hr committee had had and and security processes for frontline were they look good so that concludes the hr minutes and then i will turn it over to ms stats for the communications minutes and also i would just prior to um if when board members speak if we could just speak into the microphone caz had reminded me last time that that just makes it a lot easier for people in the audience and also those who are watching us for live streaming to hear us thank you thank you mr trio the communications committee met on october 6th dr antoine shared that she looks forward to organizing q and a's with staff students and senior citizens and then discussion continued on forming focus groups committee members shared that critical
012race theory and other related issues continue to be discussed and brought up at board meetings and on social media doctor and tuna shared that the curriculum is based on the state standards if a teacher is teaching something in the classroom that is not based on the approved curriculum the parent should follow the chain of communication and start the discussion by contacting the teacher dr intune has then shared that mr vincent delucia educator in residence for the new jersey school board association will be giving a presentation on implicit bias at a board meeting most likely in november board members asked if a presentation about how diversity and racism issues are addressed in the district's curriculum could be given at a board meeting doctor intune has recommended that such a presentation would ideally be given at a
013future board meeting after the meeting during which mr delusio will be given his presentation that was supported by the committee members terry anne zander a consultant attended the meeting virtually to discuss with the committee very specifics regarding a community-wide climate survey such as what types of questions to ask and how to reach the various factions of the community that's it for you thank you very much ms statz and i would like to now take a moment to welcome our new student representative ray foufana she is a high school hillsborough high school junior we are so excited to have you here on the dais with us and in the future um at a future meeting i invite you to share the goings on at the student council or other student activities we really would welcome hearing
014about that so thank you and welcome so next i have the approval of the september 27th 2021 regular minutes if i could have a motion in a second so moved thank you mr marini thank you mr kidd all in favor any opposed any abstentions motion path thank you mr moon mood and now um i would like to make a few comments before i open it up for comments from the public because okay so i wanted to remind the public that this is the board's business meeting where the public may observe the board conduct its official business the public comment period is an opportunity for the public to comment and it's not a it's not a public dialogue i know that there are some members of the public tonight who would like to comment on the
015agenda specifically the calendar so what i want to do is kind of give everybody those listening at home also just a timeline of how the revision to the district calendar came to be so first as ms maroon said the calendar was discussed in in education committee and there were there were various um basically people kind of weighed in on on what the education what the calendar should look like and i also this weekend you know chatted with with board members just to kind of get their sense of as where we would like to go so going back and i'd like if the board members i i shared the current calendar with you so you can kind of take a look at it the original calendar had a starting school on wednesday september 8th but as
016everybody knows because of hurricane ida we lost some in service days for staff for them to get into the building etc and because the administration had recommended that i guess with with um consultation with the various staff staff i would say right to give the best opportunity for starting the school year strong we the board agreed or actually met with the board the administration recommended and decided to push back the start of school by one day to september 9th and that was then september 8th was a now in-service day for staff and we felt with the board was in very strong support for that because we really just wanted to start the school year off as strong as possible at the same time board members were concerned about what to do about election day because
017at the time the email went out and said basically the professional development day that was scheduled for november 2nd would be now flipped to september 8th the email communication did not say anything about a student day so we still have to make up a student day and in education committee and among the board and speaking with with the board members the board felt very strongly about keeping election day closed and we do understand from the letters and actually the superintendent did share with education committee the um the feelings of the association so given that the board members all felt very strongly about having election day closed then there were the options of how to make up that day and so the options were to call november 2nd or september 8th however you want to call
018it an emergency emergency day which would then leave two emergency days left in the calendar or to potentially use april 18th which was the last day of spring break and that would give the administration the um preserving three emergency days so in the conversation with the board some wanted to keep to follow the calendar as was listed basically saying that we would use an emergency day now we would have two emergency days left and just keep the calendar as is and others did not want to use emergency day so soon in the year and basically because nobody expected when this calendar was built to have an emergency on the first day of school right and given the uncertainty of the last year it just does seem like a good idea to preserve more flexibility so
019the calendar that's on tonight's agenda is a balance of that discussion which is basically preserving three built-in emergency days if you look at the calendar to my board that the um the day that would be the third emergency day supposing that we used the mercy would then be february 21st if that was an in-school day that basically gives two whole months from january 17th through the first day of april sorry through the first day of spring break in april two whole months with no break and the board really really wanted to give the administration that flexibility to to have february 21st as a day off so that was the thought process for it so in summary the proposal on the calendar tonight is election day is closed april 18th is now a school day and
020this preserves three built-in emergency days if three emergency days are not used april 18th will be the first give back day and so i think that that covers the evolution of why we are with this calendar today and i will do i do you know i'm going to go for public comment first if that's okay and then i will go for board comment before we vote on the action agenda so now i will read the preface we very much welcome input from the public during board meetings there will be two 30-minute periods of time that the meeting will be open for public comment where members of the public are invited to comment which made which they may do so if they are attending in person during the first public comment period members of the public
021make comments about items that are listed on tonight's agenda before the board votes during the second public comment period members of the public may comment on any school or school district issue that a member of the public feels may be of concern to the residents of the school district as per biolaw167 before you state your comment you will be asked to provide your name and address there is a three minute limit on public comments please understand that our public forums are not structured as question answer sessions but rather are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board in instances where the board believes there is misunderstanding or inaccuracy the board president or superintendent may address the comments there may be times when a member of the public makes a comment or asks a
022question about personnel or hiring decisions kindly note that the open public meetings act and the privacy rights of public employees encompass therein do not permit the board to discuss personnel issues in public sessions and so now i will open the public comment for items on the action agenda only good evening henry goodhue hillsborough education association uh i would like to comment on the calendar discussion prior to the board taking a vote on that i appreciate the timeline that was laid out um and i appreciate you know look i'm a hillsborough parent myself so i appreciate safety concerns i i honestly do but i also appreciate making a plan that provides flexibility should there be further occurrences and further issues in taking that monday is now essentially taking our fourth emergency day away from us when
023we could create a calendar with a half day on the the second and ensure that we maintain not only our emergency days but we maintain flexibility should we have more than three emergencies throughout this throughout this year um the other reasons that i would like to speak to this are we met with our governing body tonight which is our rep council and there was largely universal agreement that this was not only the safest plan but also the most educationally appropriate for our students um i realized that there is concerns about safety so i looked at the four sites where we'd be doing this if we were to use a half day the high school media center would be would be closed there would be a controlled entrance and exit and no one would be able
024to get out into the regular school where the students were hms would have a controlled entrance most likely with a police presence there because we've seen that at all the other voting times we voted autumn road with voting would be taking place in the cafeteria with a controlled entrance and exit doors will be locked and no one will be getting into any other areas where students would be amsterdam admittedly presents a little bit more of a challenge but if we go to amsterdam there are changes that can be made in the back of the building we can move certain objects in the back create handicapped uh parking back there and use the back doors on the cafeteria to ensure that no one actually gets in or out of anywhere other than the secure location all
025locations would have police presence there because that is historically what we've done if we close on the 11th i mean on the on 11-2 as president trujillo said we are actually undermining our own ability to be flexible and to provide consistency because easter monday most students who are planning to travel will still travel but parents were largely under the impression that we were going to be present on the second so they plan to be here now we're closing and now those students technically lose two days also shortening our break in the midst of covid possibly creates a situation where we're cutting down on travel time for families so they're going to be forced to make a decision as to whether or not they go see people go see their families have a break or if
026they end up in an extended period of quarantine so by taking that monday we're actually increasing the amount of time that our students could be away from the classrooms versus adding a day where we know most students will be present i know my time is up i would just like to say that i strongly urge the board to reconsider this it is educationally best and can be done safely if we have a half day on the second thank you thank you [Applause] hi my name is thomas gatto um i don't think this was on the agenda but i'm not quite sure please you know put me in the right place if i need to hold off but i'm standing here to um ask about the courtesy busing it's not a question it's just a comment
027excuse me mr gatto if you would hold your comment for the second public comment session which we will be taking comments on the budget okay thank you hi gene bates special ed teacher at amsterdam school and secretary of hea i would like you to reconsider the changes that you have made to the calendar back at the beginning of the school year there was a lot of change already parents did have the understanding that we would be in school for election day many of them have asked questions to teachers teachers have responded that yes we would be present they have changed their travel plans and it just we don't know what the winter is going to bring i think to set ourselves up for multiple days that we need to change the calendar again to make
028those decisions in october i think is not responsible of this board please reconsider thank you thank you is there any other public comment on the action agenda okay seeing none then i will close public comments and turn it over to this well actually is there is there board comment on the action agenda i know we will talk about the calendar when we get to education but if there's anything in general now on the action agenda go ahead ms nurse can you clarify what you mean by we'll be talking about it when we get um so when we're waiting for when we make a motion for education we will split out the calendar because i know that there will be let's see it is um motion um section 9.10 so we'll take a motion for education
029and then split out 9.10 and we can have a discussion about that all right thank you so i'll now turn it over to the superintendent for the action agenda thank you the superintendent recommends that the board of education improve the education agenda 9.1 to 9.9 as follows motion to approve the revised curriculum and the course title change motion to approve the virtually remote instruction plan as mandated by the doe i'd just like to note that this plan will only be implemented during district closure lasting more than three consecutive days due to a declared state of emergency declared public health emergency or directive by the appropriate health agency or officer to institute a public health-related closure a motion to accept the funds from the security grant application is listed motion to submit the application for individuals
030with disabilities act american rescue plan motion to affirm the hip case attached motion to approve policies for first re reading and abolish the policies listed motion to approve the final staff member being paid by fy 22 esea title 1 funds that's it thank you dr anthony this may have a motion in a second so moved thank goodness thank you mr marini thank you mr kid any discussion mr pulsar i know where the mask is hard to tell it's me uh a question regarding the uh the virtual remote instruction as as you stated the i'm sorry as superintendent stated this is only to be used and extended does that mean that current one things we talked about last year was the fact that you know we could it would be nice to have flexibility using virtual
031on a snow day or something like that is that still legally not an option for us at this point correct not an option at this point today that could change but today it is not an option like tomorrow morning you'll get a phone call okay thank you thank you any other questions before we vote ms stats um just i don't want to put anybody on the spot but the criteria for using virtual data isn't it like there has to be uh at least three days and it has to be uh approved by the state it's all got to be mandated by the state right not approved they tell us right so it's not something that we can just willingly apply or or use for quarantine or anything like that okay correct thank you thank you
032is there any other board comment before we vote okay seeing them mr mahmoud if we could have a real call thank you yes mr kid yes mr marini yes this is maroon yes it's his nurse yes mr oliver yes mr poster yes this is stats yes mr hill yes okay motion to approve the revised calendar for the 2021-2022 school year i think you may have a motion in a second so moved second thank you mr pulsar thank you mr marini any board discussion ms nurse i wanted to say that up until about six o'clock this evening i i did read the emails coming in about the concern of having off on the second um and as a parent and as a teacher i definitely understand the ones of preserving the monday after spring break off
033i know how important that is to families especially if you're traveling for the holiday as an educator i definitely believe in the instructional continuity for our students i think that is important november unfortunately notoriously is a bit choppy with conferences and other things but originally it was supposed to be a non-instructional day so i i do have to say it was a little taken aback by calling it irresponsible of the board to make this decision because above all else and my personal ones as a parent or as an educator is the safety and security of our students and our staff we have been so encouraged to make sure that we are as safe and secure as possible in light of the past decade and what's happened unfortunately in our schools and to have children and
034staff in a building that is supposed to be securely locked on a day where we're inviting the general public in at wheel at will for me is very irresponsible so i know it's disappointing to have to manipulate the calendar as such but i feel that security and safety above all else is what is guiding my vote tonight thank you very much miss nurse ms statz um i'm i'm sort of a person who really is big on following the rules because that protects us from uh making irresponsible decisions uh when it comes to uh you know emotional situations but uh [Music] you know this was uh you know ida was was uh unexpected occurrence so i then welcomed the idea of not just following okay according to the current calendar um we have november 2nd off
035so that's going to stay um and we're going to use the emergency date we're going to use that uh our first emergency day well i think that would be irresponsible and i think we're it seems like that is one thing we're all in agreement on uh trying to keep the three emergency dates because man uh when it comes to mercy days nowadays there's so many factors the superintendent has to deal with i mean even as a teacher i certainly did not envy that and just adding one more uh problem by reducing the emergency days so early that would be a problem but in addition to the safety and security of our staff and students on election day i believe it's been shared that some of the spaces that uh the that are used for election
036day are now being used as overflow because of the problems caused by covid so that will have an effect on instruction if our schools are open and we're talking about four schools um it's out of our control now it's out of everyone's control but looking forward hopefully next year we can have some other spaces used as polling locations spaces that aren't used for anything else schools are used for education and it's a shame that they're being used to uh for other purposes uh when there are additional spaces that can be used but i do support our decision but at the very least i do want to have three uh emergency days remain but i do think the uh uh having april 18th open uh you know as a school day there will be that whole
037week beforehand that will can be used as a vacation and it's certainly uh plenty of advanced notice for staff and students families thank you ms dots is there any other board comments before we vote seeing none mr mahmoud if we could have a roll call please no mr kitt now mr marini yes mrs maroon yes it's his nurse yes mr oliver yes mr pulcifer yes mrs stats yes and mrs trujillo yes motion passes the superintendent recommends that the board of education approve the human resources agenda 10.1 to 10.17 motion to improve retirements and resignations and i'd like to point out patrick donnelly on his almost 30 years prior to him leaving us as our public phys ed teacher at aunt road in january and kathleen mutt's instructional assistant who's been with us for 17 years
038motion to approve revised leaves of absence motion to approve revised leave replacement teacher motion to approve revised appointment motion to approve revised transportation drivers hours motion to rescind an employment contract motion to approve a contact contract change as listed motion to approve leaves of absence motion to approve appointments as listed motion to approve mentor motion to approve the co-curricular intramural webmaster advisors motion to approve sixth and seventh period coverage motion to pre-approve extra coverage motion to approve extra coverage motion to approve group changes and extended media center hours and motion to approve the policy as listed for first reading thank you dr antunas may i have a motion in a second thank you thank you mr oliver thank you mr kidd any discussion um if not mr mahmoud if we get a roll call surely
039mr gillette yes mr kid yes mr mourinho yes mrs maroon yes mr durst yes mr oliver yes mr pulsifier yes mrs stats yes mr hill yes no compassion superintendent recommends that the board of education approve the operations agenda 11.1 motion to approve the policies listed for first reading think you may have a motion in a second thank you thank you mr gillette thank you mr pulcifer any discussion seeing none if we could have a roll call please surely mr gillette yes mr kid yes mr mourinho yes yes this is nurse yes it's the oliver yes it's the pulsar yes is it stats yes mr hill yes thank you i'd like to turn it back over to the superintendent for the superintendent's report okay as we are all aware due to the effects of hurricane ida
040in early september we started school was delayed by one day requiring us to revise the district calendar as mrs trujillo said after reviewing various options the board of education is recommending and has approved that school will remain closed on election day november 2nd and will now be open on monday april 18th should three built-in emergency days not be utilized we will close on april 18th we will send out the revised calendar and a school messenger and update it on the and it will be updated on the district website tomorrow congratulations to our nine high school students who are named commended students in the 2022 national merit scholarship program about 34 000 commended students throughout the nation are being recognized for their exceptional academic promise they have demonstrated outstanding potential for academic success and on behalf
041of the board of education i wish them all the best as they continue their pursuit of academic excellence i'd like to offer the congratulations and i will apologize on the front side if i mispronounce anybody's name luke carlson dia calavala alexis matthew dia patel maya patel ryan patel daya rahu [Music] this coming saturday october 16th the hillsborough high school band parents association will be hosting the 27th annual hillsborough raider marching band festival over 10 bands will be competing and the marching raiders will perform their 2021 show titled the haunted everyone is certainly welcome to attend tonight's board agenda does include public input on the 2223 budget and stakeholders may also submit their input on the district website you'll see that button there tomorrow if it's not already there and at this time i'd like to
042introduce dr kim feltrey our assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction will be presenting on the spring 2021 dynamic learning maps and assessing comprehension and communication in english state to state for english language learners which is the access test that our ell students take those results so let me bring that up okay this is dr peltry okay good evening tonight i am presenting the results from the spring 2021 administration of the dynamic learning maps or dlms and assessing comprehension and communication in the english state to state or the access assessments these were the only assessments that the state offered and required to be administered in the spring of 2021. next slide please the dlms were administered to students with the most severe cognitive cognitive differences as the dlms were in-person only assessments they were only administered to
043students who had chosen the hybrid option the dlms were administered for literacy and math in grades three to eight and grade and were administered for science in grades 5 8 and 11. as this past academic year pose significant challenges to both teaching and learning we are mindful of the fact that the results of these assessments may reflect the atypical circumstances for instruction and assessment more so than student performance and mastery of the standards results should be viewed with this in mind to protect student confidentiality the sample size for reporting results is a minimum of 10. since this is an assessment for our students with the most severe cognitive differences and this was an in-person assessment we had less than 10 students test in each subject area per grade level therefore results have been grade banded
044for literacy and math and science is reported for all three grade levels as is reflected in the table 27 of the 15 students assessed in literacy in grades 3 to 5 were at target or advanced and 26 of the 19 students assessed in literacy in grades 6 through 11 were at target or advanced of the 16 students assessed in math in grades 3 to 5 were at target or advanced and 30 of the 20 students assessed in math in grades 6 through 11 were at target or advanced of the 11 students assessed in science in grades 5 8 and 11 1 were at target or advanced the assessing comprehension and communication in english state to state or access assessment for english language learners assesses students in grades k through 12 for their english english language
045proficiency the results of the data inform language instruction for english language learners the proficiency level shown on the right side of the slide slide ranging from entering through reaching when students reach an access for ell's proficiency level of 4.5 or higher they are exited from the ell program if multiple criteria support the decision as this package past academic year pose significant challenges for both teaching and learning we are mindful of the fact that the results of the access may reflect the atypical circumstances for instruction and assessment more so than proficiency of the english language results should be reviewed with this in mind as a reminder to protect student confidentiality the sample size for reporting results is a minimum of 10. since the access was an in-person assessment and we had less than 10 students test
046per grade level in grades four through 11 the data was combined for reporting purposes in our ell program we tend to have more students come to our district in the early grades and they exit as they progress through their school years this is reflected by the data in the table where we have more students in the entering and emergency emerging proficiency levels in our youngest grades and greater numbers of students at the expanding and bridging levels in the older grades since the since an access for ell's proficiency level of 4.5 or higher is required for exiting a program if multiple criteria support that decision we have very few students who test at a reaching proficiency level before exiting the program and that concludes my report thank you dr peltry that concludes the superintendent's report thank
047you very much dr feltre thank you dr antunes and let's see now i would like to open it up for public input on the 2022 2023 budget and public comments on any other item so i will read the public comment statement again as a reminder we very much welcome input from the public during board meetings there will be two 30-minute periods of time that the meeting will be open for public comment where members of the public are invited to comment which they may do so if they are attending in person during the second public comment period members of the public may comment on any school or school district issue that a member of the public feels may be of concern to the residents of the school district as per bylaw 167 before you state your
048comments you will be asked to provide your name and address there is a three-minute limit on public comments please understand that our public forums are not structured as question and answer sessions but rather are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board in instances where the board believes there is misunderstanding or inaccuracy the board president or superintendent may address the comments there may be times when a member of the public makes a comment or asks a question about personnel or hiring decisions kindly note that the open public meetings act and the privacy rights of the public employees encompass therein do not permit the board to discuss personnel issues in public session with that mr fenster thank you bob benser hillsborough high school social studies teacher at the high school we have hundreds of
049students on academic teams like debate robotics mock trial the math team and the academic team for many students these activities provide the most meaning to their high school experience it's what they live for a few years ago the robo-raiders began a campaign to get varsity status for these academic teams the board of education voted unanimously to support this proposal in 2018 and admitted that the recognition was long overdue the message this board sent that night was that they were valued academic teams as that they valued academic teams as much as the athletic teams unfortunately i'm here tonight because the administration is not following through on that position we've been told that academic teams will not be allowed to compete in person with other schools hillsborough seems to be the only school in somerset county not
050allowing academic teams to compete in person the rationale we were given for this decision was twofold continuing concerns about covid and the shortage of bus drivers while i don't readily dismiss concerns about the health and well-being of our students our participants can wear masks and do not need to come into close physical contact with their opponents unlike in sports activities when you have athletes sweating on one another from different schools it's difficult to take this reason seriously the driver shortage is a significant problem that has led to an array of issues since last year the administration has allowed parents of athletes to sign waivers and provide transportation for their children that could easily be an option here now today i learned that the superintendent has permitted sports to proceed because in order to have an
051athletic program we must follow njsia rules will the same logic prevail if the somerset county bar association or first robotics only provide in-person competitions we've been told that the subject may be revisited in the future but it takes extensive planning to go into the preparation for these competitions and not knowing makes it impossible to plan i asked the administration to reconsider the decision and to do it soon thank you thank you for thank you for your comment hi board members uh thanks for your time here so i'm here to ask you to if you could just state your name again name's thomas gatto i'm at uh i mean a resident of hillsborough thank you so i'm asking you guys to look closely at the courtesy busing that has not been funded now for a couple
052of years and i'm asking you to look at it a little bit differently than you have in the past so um it it's not really working the proposal that you you put forward for subscription buses so the courtesy bussing is um essential for the children within the two-mile radiuses of the middle school and the hillsborough high school if you're outside of that radius you don't currently get busing with the courtesy bussing they would and if you look closely at the demographics around our schools and uh the lowest income and um maybe the you know not the best standing communities in hillsborough they're all impacted by not having courtesy buses um so i think if you if you keep that lens on this and you take a a look at the courtesy bussing situation you'll see
053that your proposal to have people pay for a subscription bus a thousand dollars a year is not necessarily going to get anywhere um because a lot of those families really are at a hardship so i ask you to keep that into consideration when you look at courtesy busing and funding for 2022-2023 um also just to mention that you know the walk is not a small walk a two mile walk with anywhere from a 15 to 20 pound or 18 pound backpack on a kid for my daughter and son that's probably around well it is over 20 percent of their body weight um and and they are at that two-mile mark for walking to the middle school and probably close to that for the high school as well that's 20 percent of their body mass um
054trucking that backpack through uh inclement weather um four out of the nine months of the school year reach 32 degrees or below on a fairly regular basis so there's a lot there the other aspect i just wanted to call out on this topic is the households that are impacted so regardless of socioeconomic conditions in the household there's also a consideration for families that have a single parent at home or families that have two working parents um and the impact on them so please consider that in the future thank you very much for your comments thanks [Applause] can hear me well good all right so i am here because of a subject i really didn't want to come here for but it's crt you know i missed the days when crt was just a type of
055tv but it's not anymore um some people might not even know that this has been around since the 1970s uh even frederick douglass uh contributed to the whole program of crt and trying to teach about racial justice [Applause] and i come here because i heard one of our board members mr gillette mentioned one of the sources that he put out about an article with an inflammatory headline about crt and you know i i we all looked into it to find out what it is now one of the things that i found out through researching it was a and i'm sure he likes history i like to see um a short educational film put out by the u.s war uh department in 1943 and re-released in 1947 which warns americans against repeats and mistakes of intolerance
056made in nazi germany it emphasizes that americans will lose their country if they let themselves be turned into suckers by the firstness of uh fanaticism and hatred um and this is the same issue that we're dealing with right now because if you look into the sources of the manhattan institute for policy research and numerous ones that are connected together they are funded by the koch brothers and funny enough a week ago another institute funded by the koch brothers put an article saying hey we should hear out crt and this is clearly what that educational video was talking about how we're being played by people who are billionaires and they want us to fight with each other right now now crt is not the reason we got opiates in hillsborough and class of 07 lost a
057lot of people uh crt invasion of healing even though it's not taught here in this level and i i understand it's more of a college uh class it's not the reason that our wages are low racial healing is not the reason that blue collar jobs are being sent overseas so i acknowledge the pain that a lot of community members are going through i acknowledge that things are bad we went through three meltdowns with the economy probably the fourth one and a fifth one but we are focusing our anger in the wrong thing we are being played and just like our own government said in 1943 uh don't be a sucker thank you so much thank you for your comments gene bates amsterdam school hea secretary um i appreciate your concern for the well-being of our
058students and the safety of them and i think we can all agree with mrs statz that it's a shame our schools need to be used for election i would like to remind you that our schools were open on june 8th for primaries um so if security is a concern it needs to be a concern every day thank you [Applause] thank you hi my name is ryan news i live at 11 bennett road i'm a freshman at hillsborough high school and i was team captain for the softball team at the middle school and i'm looking forward to playing at the high school i'm here to talk about the inequality in sports according to highschoolsports.nj.com the hillsborough varsity baseball team won 2 and 20 and the hellsboro varsity softball team went 21-3 that means that the baseball
059team won two out of 22 games playing them last in the division and the softball team won 21 games putting them third in the division i lied second in the division so now knowing that what team do you think has the better fields the team that placed last in the division or the team that played second in the division the normal distance from the home plate to center field according to the ncaa is 325 feet at a normal high school softball field the varsity team is playing on a field that is 200 feet the baseball fields are normal distance 365 feet dead center the softball dugouts are enfields are covered in weeds and dead plants you may argue that the fields are like this because it's fall and not softball season but baseball season is
060the same as softball in the spring take a look at the baseball fields now in the middle of the fall the grasses are beautiful green and cut nicely the dirt is well raked and weedless the baseball nuggets are cemented and painted versus the softball dugouts which are benches with poles behind it and weeds all around and inside it the baseball team has a whole sprinkler system an average sprinkler system costs about nine thousand dollars to install this isn't including the water bill which would cost about 432 dollars a year to run the sprinkler for a half an hour three times a week why don't you spend that much time effort and money into maintaining the softball fields since the softball records stand on it own is your reasoning for not doing the same for softball
061teams is because it's a girls team we're speaking now about how important important equality is in culture and academics what about gender in sports we watched the whole debate and equal play that the women's u.s national soccer team unfolded and how wrong it was why are we letting it happen in our neighborhood if this doesn't open your eyes how unfair girls sports are being treated in hillsborough i don't know what will you still have time to make it right we would like to see proper dugouts that have coverings and no weeds in them we would like to see raped beardless dirts and we would like to see the same amount of dedication that is put into baseball into softball thank you for your time i also shared with you guys a slideshow with pictures of
062the baseball fields and the soft football fields so thank you very much you're welcome [Applause] good evening henry goodhue hillsboro education association um i would just like to clarify a couple of comments uh similar to what president trujillo would do if there were misnomers made and frankly i feel that there were in the calendar discussion she took my time already i'm pretty sure i can complain thank you so thank you um there was a comment made that we need to make decisions not based off of emotion and i would like to clarify that at no point did myself or my associate or any of my representatives who weighed in on this and came to consensus on it none of these were based upon emotion these decisions were based upon what we know professionally to be
063best for our students and what we know to work in terms of providing continuity within the schools and as ms nurse noted actually gives some more consistency in a month that is incredibly inconsistent so emotion came nowhere into this conversation at all in fact it was based purely upon years of professional knowledge now there was also a comment made about voting taking up the overflow rooms i'm not aware of any overflow rooms currently being used in our buildings this is not an overflow room this is a lunchroom now the media center at the high school is not an overflow room that's a lunchroom any overflow in the high school is contained in the commons which would not be used overflow rooms at amsterdam used to be the cafeteria and the gym but they're no longer
064being used because we have the full student population and so it is nothing other than a cafeteria so were we to use a half day we would not be impacting any overflow rooms because honestly they don't exist anymore we're dealing with a full student population all the time in the midst of a fl in a sub shortage and we don't have the ability to do overflow rooms like we used to now the other thing that i would say is we have a responsibility right there was issue taken with the use of the word irresponsible irresponsible means a lack of responsibility the board has a responsibility to ensure continuity within these schools and that they run properly the board made a decision that has already hamstrung us moving forward and ultimately if there are more closures
065we will have lack of continuity and that lack of continuity will impact travel times it will put the administration in a position where they now have to say no to staff members who pre-planned during the summers before this because the calendar was released so this is not advance notice to anybody who already had plans staff or students or parents we also have a responsibility to make sure that we're hearing out all stakeholders and there are some amazing students who came out tonight to speak and i applaud them for that we have a brand new representative on the on the board who could speak for the students and at no point did the board ask for student input on this to see how they would feel about this we have a responsibility to listen to all
066stakeholders we have a responsibility to ensure that graduation isn't impacted but god forbid we have another awful flood a hurricane or a snow storm and we're out for a week we now have no choice but to add days on to the end of the year or start taking away from other holidays which quickly will go away so the board has a responsibility to make decisions based off of the current paradigm and the current situation not the previous one and i will remind you that we did have primaries in here as my associate said and at no point did the board raise concerns about safety or shut down schools at that time thank you [Applause] hi everyone i'm gary neyer i live at 46th browser what i have been a part of the hhs debate team
067since i was a freshman and had the unique opportunity to meet people and hear different perspectives through conferences and this year i have the privilege of being a mentor the first year i was an agent just debate was the first year it was made an academic team many of the people that i mentor this year are sophomores and freshmen and they haven't had the chance to experience a regular school year let alone these competitions that i believe are essential to the culture of this academic teams are differentiated from clubs because they compete and represent the school and district in local state national and sometimes even international competitions and conferences now giving students the opportunity to compete are not only a disadvantage to them in comparison to their peers in neighboring towns such as montgomery and
068bridgewater but also prevent them from having a full educational experience that they've already been robbed of these past 18 months many of the kids that i mentor have not been able to have the full experience of clubs that form them as people personally hhs debate has been essential in determining what i want to do as a career and with the rest of my life and i think that along with hhs debate as well as the many other clubs that were listed by mr fenster and i'm sure will be spoken by by my peers um have formed a lot of our opinions and perspectives about the world and not being given able not being given the opportunity to compete in the future especially this year i think is a great disadvantage to all of our students
069at the high school thank you thank you [Applause] good evening my name is jonathan yee i live at 37 brandishing court and i'm currently a senior and i'm an executive of the high school science olympiad which by the way is i've been a part of since uh seventh grade and is not an academic team and i want to start by saying i think it's ridiculous that i need to be standing here to speak about the travel ban on academic teams when i have my first college application due this friday test to study for the township public schools mission statement clearly says that the district is committed to providing a superior education to all students preventing hundreds of students from pursuing their education and their passions is clearly against this i think mr fenster has already
070made it pretty clear how illogical the decision is to this decision is considering that sports like football are allowed to continue so i'd like to speak a little bit about what being a part of an academic team has meant to me in my high school years and just all my years throughout school plainly put without science olympiad and being able to attend competitions i wouldn't have discovered my passion for marine science i've learned and grown an unbelievable amount from my experiences with science olympiad as much as i have from school i've seen my team make school history placed the third in the state for the first time in entire history and my sophomore year we played that states for the very first time and last year we actually beat out our long time rivals montgomery
071for third in the state and we have a legitimate chance and making nationals yet we aren't even treated as an academic team and we receive no funding for our builds for our competition outside competitions and invitationals that we've done to better our team and i think it's pretty evident that athletics have been prioritized over academics in general uh international olympiads like bio olympia chem olympia all of them receive no public attention and students are not even informed of it and it's not incorporated into the school systems and students aren't made aware of the opportunities that they have to pursue their passions to further their education and discover what really matters to them and that's ridiculous so i invite you guys to really reconsider your decision and remember what this township is about and what this
072education system is about it's about providing a superior education to all students not just athletes thank you thank you [Applause] thank you for your comment um sir if you could please put back your mask on while you're speaking thank you okay good evening all the board members my name is andy wang i live in 2 running street hillsborough long time my history resident i'm here to strongly support what the first speaker mr fenster and also the two students just mentioned about the academic team to compete i don't quite understand the policy in terms of travel the sports team they are encouraged they're supported by the by the school but district to another travel while the academic teams don't have this option that doesn't sounds reasonable or fair to me right the students they have the
073strong these i know my daughter is part of the uh sounding team as well she's so passionate to work with her peers to pursue academic accidents to compete for the township and they actually earn the reputation for hillsborough high school in terms of the ranking of the signing teams we should as the residents of hughes borough we should be part of this case trying so hard work together spend all their spend a lot of time they spent their present time over the weekend to learn to pursue the academic access it's very bad that kovit got rid of rid of the opportunity to compete in person already for a long time now since getting better we have vaccination the state policies are encouraging people to re open to normal there are policies everywhere including school to
074have the likes physical distance and all those necessary necessary procedures to encourage or guarantee to protect well-being of students students are open spread anyways they are sitting next to each other in a cafeteria in classroom i just don't quite understand what's the difference is for them to travel to go to to to sit in the bus and then compete in a club in a classroom where they as well can wear masks we can still keep physical distance with other team members um especially if the travel is allowed for the ethnic for sports team it's really i don't really get the rationale why the atlanta teams are not given the option thank you for your comments uh good evening everyone uh my name is nitasha i'm hillsborough resident i'm a parent of a sixth grader uh
075in aries and the request we are going to make has been mentioned already in this meeting today but we want to repeat this from our side our request into this meeting is courtesy bus for middle and high school must be provided uh we are not getting birth service even we are if even if we are ready to pay for subscription bus service it's very difficult to drop and pick kids up especially for working parents as it takes lot of time because of uh crowd as well of buses and other cars during school beginning time and school ending time also it's not very safe for kids to walk home we heard many appearances of cars following kids and taking pictures when they walk alone after school hours so please its request to reconsider this decision of
076providing courtesy bus to middle schoolers and high schoolers thank you for your time thank you [Applause] [Music] good evening my name is susan anderson case drive hillsborough as you know in the past couple of weeks there have been several of us that have spoken up at board meetings about our concerns with implicit bias critical race theory social emotional learning and so forth and so on fogging up here um so i'm happy to hear that the board has heard us and has talked about bringing a gentleman in sometime in november you said to talk about bias to the public however this should not be a skin in the surface overview of bias of sel of dei and of crt we have got to dig much deeper we need to see how the sausage is made whether
077we're talking about a state mandated curriculum or an elective we need transparent transparency on the resources how they are selected who reviews them how many levels of scrutiny are there who reviews for balance and fairness in these resources i've spoken before about an elective at the high school that was glaringly skewed far left there wasn't one moderate or conservative viewpoint within that entire course that's the responsibility of the board especially the education committee i have asked multiple times of administration how this course with those resources got through all levels of scrutiny i haven't gotten an answer yet i have no idea this has to be addressed we're asking questions we're taxpayers we need to know how these resources get to this district who is choosing them who is allowing them who is gauging them for
078fairness and balance and perspective if we're to truly give our children an education that's fair and balanced this is the starting point and i think from what i've seen so far we're failing miserably thank you thank you for your comments [Applause] hello my name is dasima and i'm here to support my other neighbors who were asking for the courtesy busing in the neighborhood we live within two mile radius and my son is a seventh grader now so i feel the pain when we are going every morning picking the kids up today we received an email the kids were going up to readers and all that stuff so everything can be limited if we have a proper protocol get us the courtesy blessing we have all including my neighbors have requested for the subscription we tried
079it we failed it we haven't gotten the budget yet so um we did our part by paying what we did but the busing wasn't available and if we can get it for the next year it will help us the kids are having big backpacks inclement weather everything it will be helpful and the kids would know that they have to come home parents would know they wouldn't wander around they are pre-teens teens kids wants to be an adult but they are not i do see kids in my neighborhood biking to the schools and coming back from high school and i don't think that is safe they are speeding up they're not stopping at property if anything happens we as parents teachers board of education if any kid falls off anything happens it's a loss for the
080whole public for the whole society so here to help them and get this courtesy blessing thank you thank you [Applause] tim jordan 201 broke our court i wrote a different hat today that maybe wouldn't recognize me uh i wasn't here last meeting but i've been here a couple other meetings i'm here to talk about critical race doing and my question i've been asking for last several times i've been here is how the heck does this happen how does this get into the school system now i walked in a little late but i i heard one of the board members say that if there's a problem with one of the curriculums that we should address the teacher is that right should we adjust the teacher that's what was said i just need to confirm that this
081is not a question and answer session so you'll make your comments and then when public session how are we going to know i mean is that that's what she said this woman here i can't read our name evans can't hear the name uh anyway that's what she said is is that what we're supposed to do is that where it starts we emailed the teacher just a yes or no mr jordan this is not a question can someone say can someone email me or call me or let me know that's where it starts for crying out loud i mean we need to know where it starts i've been asking this question for the last three times i've been here where does it start how many people do i have to come and bring here with me
082to stop this nonsense because that's what it is it's nonsense i mean i heard someone talking about blm flags in classrooms the federal government was one step short of clarendon the blm as a terrorist organization when they when they supported cuba which is the last time i checked as a communist country other isis flags hanging in the classroom too i just got to ask the question i hope not so that's all i want to know i mean this this critical race theory stuff is getting out of control it really is and this woke board okay i guess is supporting it i i guess i don't know i mean this is something that i'm really surprised i've been coming to these board meetings for you know many years i took some time off but now i'm
083back and i can't believe that this is where we're at so so that's that's what i'm gonna do i'm gonna i'm gonna email the teacher or who should i email should i email the superintendent or somebody who do i who do i get in touch with someone give me an answer please thank you very much bye-bye thank you for your comments [Applause] hi again everyone i'm gallery nyer i live at 46 rosterway i don't believe that when i came back came up here before i got to express my full frustrations with the inability for academic teams to compete i think the biggest issue is that as jonathan said um we are being treated equally to sports i think the issue comes when sports are given priority blessing and we're not i think that many of
084my peers and i have discussed why don't we just open up busing and let whatever team have pick priority um i think it's an issue when hhs debate has won rutgers model congress almost 20 years in a row and one best large delegation and this year we might not have the chance to do that it's a part of our school's culture it's a part of our um done already no okay so part of our school's culture is a part of our students culture and it's an essential experience to every high school student's culture to be able to participate in these academic teams and preventing us from giving giving our up-and-coming freshmen and our sophomores who just re-entered the building and have a normal year the opportunity to do so is preventing them from having a
085high school experience at its core i've been i've been i've joined my unm model congress and now i changed my entire career path and to prevent someone else from doing so is heartbreaking to me having the opportunity to join these clubs these academic teams and compete meet other people from different places is essential to growing someone's perspective thank you so if anybody else would like to speak would you please line up so we can have a sense as to how much longer i think we are past our 30-minute mark is that right mrs rodriguez we're right on it we're right on it okay so um sir if you go ahead i just wanted to like jonathan again but i want to add really quick in terms of like budgeting and stuff i know the school
086uh like the school district is you know struggling with that a little bit but i just want to talk about um in terms of like academic teams there are a lot of grants that we can apply to uh given if we are given you know like the sort of you know status that we deserve as academic teams um i know this year as one of the fundraising and outreach officers i was looking to apply to grants and you know get more funding because the school doesn't provide us any funding so um and it's it's honestly like at the very least if you're not gonna directly fund us you should be able to support um our our attempts towards getting ourselves funding and you know being able to support ourselves because you know i think it's
087kind of it's a little bit odd when you're not letting a team that has the potential to come compete at nationals and represent this state and represent this school and represent this district on national level and even state level it's a little bit odd to me and honestly i just want to say that like you know in terms of like academics a lot of people try to like you know they gloss over and sort of like there's always like stereotypes and stuff it's like oh like you know like these kids they just like focus on school and all that kind of stuff it's like it's not more than just like being a nerd and studying you know it's like you know you develop senses of community you build bonds you build passion it's it's just
088the same as an athletic team so just please i encourage you to reconsider your decision on the channel mandate and also sort of look into supporting uh academic teams and being able to get themselves funding at least at the very least try to support themselves yeah thank you good night thank you for your comments is there any other comment from the public okay seeing none i will close public comments and then i would like to thank the students for coming out tonight and speaking and expressing your thoughts we really do appreciate hearing from our students and you guys did a great job i'm very eloquent and very passionate about the things that you support and also i thank you for advocating for yourselves so with that i would like to turn it over to the
089board for any comments mr kidd and then mr gillette i wanted to comment not just as a board member but as a college student i really think that trying to get a busing or options of transportation for academic teams is incredibly important from my experience as a college student currently post covet or in the pandemic there are a lot of different extracurricular academic or not activities that have struggled because of lack of leadership i think that ensuring that both academic and athletic teams have as much participation as physically possible by our students and staff is of absolute importance for not just uh the students in their in this district but once they move uh uh to the next steps of their life with a secondary education or their career and being able to use those
090skills of networking and working with their peers thank you mr kid mr gillette yes sir let me start with um uh bussing if you've been coming to these meetings like mr jordan has for many years uh you probably have heard me say this before but um i feel i think the board feels i know the school principals feel that um school bus is the most efficient best way to bring kids to school they have like you know hundreds of parent drop-offs or pickups in the afternoon um or kids walking they it's the best so we're we're dealing with two issues here with it with um with with courtesy busting one is an issue from a couple of years ago where we needed to um save some money from that so that we wouldn't have to
091have uh layoffs greater than we did and we had some significant layoffs that year and the second is this year when we might want to bring it back there are just no drivers it is just incredibly difficult and you see it not only effect this will affect our discussion this year as we go into the budget season uh we'll have to forecast if the driver situation looks any it's going to look any better um unfortunately we forecast it to get worse before it gets better i think that's what we said at the last operations committee meeting the driver shortage make it worse before it gets better and and this not only impacts the um discussion about currency bussing going into the next budget uh but also as we've heard tonight um affects somewhat the um
092academic teams but also also athletics and i know there's there have been maybe one or two instances so far this year with with where a transportation crunch has occurred for athletics and um we've worked to uh with i guess the um athletic director has worked to find alternate transportation i think through the use of parent waivers i would encourage the central administration and the high school administration to uh work with mr fence or any other advisors along those routes invest all we're allowed to do is encourage it as a board member so i'm just strongly encouraging them to please work the same way we've worked the same way the athletic director has worked with when we've had a crunch on buses on a couple of occasions with sports teams uh so that they can um
093participate in uh in those events um i think that's all i have thank you thank you mr gillett ms nurse i um would like to echo what um our two other board members said that i i do think it's very important to see what we can do for our academic team so that they can compete i look forward to those conversations in our committee meetings um in terms of the courtesy busing that is also something that i find very important um and we hopefully will continue to have those conversations in our committees the restraints we have because of the bus drivers themselves is definitely an issue um but i would definitely like to see courtesy bussing back um and in terms of the election and and i know people brought up the primaries and i
094believe that safety it should be first no matter what the day is um i would like to say that i really feel if you feel strongly like i do that we should be at the town's township council meeting so they can help us figure out what to do to get the kids uh to get the elections out of the schools i think that should be a priority but until that happens we have to do what's best safety wise for our kids i i do tend to disagree about kids missing the week that we get back from spring break i think it's more likely that many people if they are vacationing during the school year do it that week of november um so i still do feel comfortable that we are off november 2nd but i
095encourage you to talk to the township council so we can get the elections out of the schools thank you thank you ms nurse ms stats when i was my first year on the board um i underwent a new board member training i remember the very last day uh the the meeting of all the participants mr vincent delucia uh addressed inequities with especially comparing athletics and other extracurricular activities and uh so that that is that really hit me at that time up until that time i sort of took it all for granted oh well you know that's how it is but you know i don't want to accept that uh i do i am concerned uh even before this current incident about uh addressing inequities at least as far as costs and expenses uh compare comparing
096athletics and extracurriculars and uh with respect to academic teams that's academics that's closest that's the closest thing as far as extracurriculars to why we're here why school buildings exist why our students are called students so [Music] i am concerned that we are restricting what our academic teams can do and uh in the sense of fairness and also providing a broad learning experience i hope we can rectify that problem thank you thank you stats um miss fufana um good evening i'd like to address some of the comments made about um critical race theory um from my experience as a student and as a student of color in my classes when race has been mentioned um it hasn't been critical race theory and i completely understand the concern um regarding pushing a political agenda but when race
097has been brought up in our history classes or in our english classes the only intention of my teachers has been to broaden our perspectives and enhance our education so i think discussing race itself should not be misconstrued as critical race theory while i completely understand that it is controversial and we don't want there to be animosities between the students i think it's also fundamental to our learning um and it's just something to consider moving forward thank you thank you very much [Applause] wow that was that was fantastic and i think what's important is uh we're talking about experiences of our students here not experiences or hypothetical situations um regarding other districts in other parts of the country we have students here that have spoken about racist speech treatment within our own district these are our
098own students that spoke at a meeting in the spring i believe uh and these are middle school students a small component of many students that have experienced racism one of them said that she had a head covering she accidentally bumped into somebody and the student immediately [Music] yelled at her called her used expletives and called her a terrorist i have witnessed examples of racism uh in the schools and also in the township and i'm white and i've witnessed it so i believe people of color what they've experienced i i myself have never i don't have cancer but i believe people who attest to that who have experienced it experienced it when i hear people of color describe instances of racism i believe them it is happening now and as was so eloquently stated uh it
099needs to be addressed in the classroom uh for for many years it hasn't been at the expense of some of all of our students and it is it is part of a reality and if they're it i'm glad that there is a balance as it is being discussed in the classroom thank you ms dots is there any other comment from the board oh john i'm sorry mr oliver keep passing me over um john question mike so so this this was actually a very this was a great meeting um i love when students come up and and they talk to us and and they tell us what's going on because it's somewhat difficult to make decisions we talked about june 8th as a primary date i remember going to vote at amsterdam school and walking in
100uh in the school in the back door to vote in the primary and it was an oppressively hot day we were in experience with like one of those you know june heat waves we're going through and i thought to myself this is ridiculous that the school is open so i looked at that as a mistake that we had the schools open on june 8th for the primary now whether or not we had a choice or not i don't know but i think we took the best alternative to close this election day i i think it's just safety and i appreciate all the comments tonight but unfortunately we had to make a tough decision uh as far as the the the academic clubs greg can help you with this i think mr mr chitarelli addressed this
101deus at one point in time about four or five years ago about the varsity letter for robotics and ultimately long overdue but it but it came so sometimes we need to be reminded that academics is just as important as athletics and i don't think there's anyone on this board that feels differently about that so thank you for bringing that to our attention i'm hoping miss maroon at the next education committee i think that's where it would go immediately looks at this and tries to rectify it you know we had this situation about three years ago with the dance team took a long time to get them varsity letters we got them varsity letters so we are cognizant of it we hear it we do not want to discourage academics at all so why they're not
102traveling you know the busing is is one issue but we have a solution for the bussing parent waivers so you know we have to think outside the box but we need to have these students experience those situations uh i don't think at least i hope that we're not differentiating girls softball from boys baseball i hope not but it was it was kind of funny because those comments were pretty succinct to me tonight i ran into a couple of gentlemen that i know that are involved in boys baseball and i know a lot of the boosters in baseball they were putting up signs rent a raider you know hire the baseball kids give me a couple of bucks for the team and the booster parents are very very involved in helping get the fields ready so
103they do a lot of the cutting they do a lot of the trimming i would say that if you're having some trouble getting the fields ready get the boosters involved uh maybe work with the boys baseball maybe the booster boys baseball until you can get the girls softball booster uh but but keep bringing it to our attention because it's as important as boys baseball i'm sorry uh girls softball has a great record they have a great team they have a great coach so we don't want to discourage any form of athletics so thank this is a great meeting we got a lot of information tonight and very very poignant comments so thank thank every i thank everybody for that thank you mr oliver mr gillette and john reminded me of uh that i wanted to
104say something about the girls softball field um so i think the borders at least i'm aware that the girls softball field this in all that it could be or should be at this point it hasn't but that because the state of it doesn't indicate um how much thought we've given to it almost every year we just uh recently well not recently within the past covert era all the time runs together during the past 18 months but we did have a proposal uh for significant improvements on the softball films removed nod if i'm stating correctly and we did examine that that isn't the first time that we've looked at that it just i would say that it just bubbled under the budget a couple of times now um we looked at various things that were sort
105of outside of the um referendum uh the high school track was um was more in need at that time but now that's done i think uh mr ramuel you can agree i think to this that the girls softball field is now bubbling up near the near the top of uh facilities that athletic feels that need another look uh we have looked at it and i apologize that we in the past few years that we haven't been able to do anything about it and i agree with john that uh that volunteers i think do i do believe work on those fields and i want to thank them also for all the time that they put in uh so that the kids could at least play even though it's not all it could or should be that's
106all i have on that thank you mister thank you mr gillette any other board comment mr pulsar i thought twice about bringing this up but i think it's something that we i'm concerned that we've had a number of uh things we've talked about tonight academic teams the softball team versus the baseball team and a couple of times i've heard the success of the team as justification is why we should do something i think it's really important that we should not be looking at any of this based on whether or not a team is successful or not we should be having these programs because they're important programs to have and and i don't think people necessarily intended it that way but all too often i hear discussions in the public uh you know outside of board
107meetings about how awesome this team is doing and how we need to do x y and z for that team are we suggesting that if that team had a losing season we wouldn't support them i mean i think we really need to be careful that we don't make uh decisions up here and certainly that we when we talk about these teams taking care of the academic teams which we actually need absolutely need to do but we shouldn't do it because they represent us so well potentially at the national level we should do it because it's a great educational opportunity regardless of how they fare and i think it's important that when we have these discussions that we especially we as a board remove any measure of success or failure of a particular team from our
108evaluation of whether or not a program is something we should do um how well we're doing in terms of equity and fairness we should never be looking at this as a question of success or failure because while we've had teams that have had great runs those same teams have had had years when they weren't very good let's just say that we didn't cancel those teams and we still support those students when they're doing it so i i just think it's important that what i understand people's perspective and i don't think was meant in a negative way we have to be very careful about evaluating whether or not we should have a program or how much to take care of a program because it is either currently successful or not successful we should be doing these
109things because they're important programs to have and great experiences for the students even if they never win a game never win a competition they're still important we should do them regardless of that thank you thank you mr paul any mr oliver i'm i'm sorry and i forgot one last point so you know we're getting a lot of dialogue with the crt and just to clarify if i was a parent and i had a problem with something that was being taught in the classroom with crt i would go to that teacher first if i had did not get a good answer i'd probably go to the principal the vice principal and i would bubble it up you know oftentimes someone comes to a board meeting and we're hearing something for the first time it's very important
110to kind of follow that chain of command because then if you follow that chain of command we have very specific instances we could look for i would have a problem if there was a blm or an isis flag flying in my child's classroom so i'd want to ask the teacher why it was there i then asked the vice principal and i would go up through the chain so that's what i would do as a parent thank you mr oliver not yet mr gillette did you hear that any other comments i thought the mics didn't work um okay so i have i hit the mic mr mr kid uh just on all the topics around just both the academic teams the softball and the courtesy busting i just want to thank everybody from the public and
111the board who spoke here this evening i personally as well as all the board members really appreciate it even if the desired decision of any individual constituent didn't happen tonight every comment not just informs our current decision it helps improve our future decisions so i just want to thank everyone thank you mr kidd um so i wanted to take a moment if there's no other comments from the board to okay so i wanted to address some comments from the public i think mr oliver you did already to mr jordan with respect to the district's communication chain that's on the district's website if you go to https.us and then you drop down from board of education it's the very last drop down it says district communication chain and that's where you can find the the recommended
112districts communication chain so we would recommend that you start there with respect to the con comments on tonight on academic athletics etc again i appreciate very much students coming forth and advocating for themselves and for their fellow students i do would like to remind or i guess acknowledge doctor internet if you can maybe elaborate i do believe that these are administrative decisions these are not board level decisions we do absolutely appreciate hearing from students and i think that does inform the board however this is not a board level decision okay so affirmative so i think it's absolutely something that we can discuss but at the end of the day it is an administrative decision and that's kind of where where board members as we get our school board's training the things that the board reviews
113is is responsible for right is setting and adapting the budget right number one it is negotiating with our associations adopting policy and then evaluating the superintendent so those are the four main areas we have our public board meeting so that you can see us do our business in public you can make comments at the deus if you're in public you are always welcome to email the board with your thoughts we try to respond but again there are many emails that we receive that really are not um best addressed by us i think best better address starting with the district communication chain okay so i have a few announcements and i will be brief hillsborough education foundation of which i'm a board member is having an ice cream fundraiser tomorrow so i had to remind you
114from 12 to 9 30 12 p.m to 9 30 at the ice house so that is a fundraiser that supports hillsborough education foundation and that fundraiser will then go back to supporting our hillsboro township public schools also as a reminder for school board candidates tomorrow from 7 to 8 30 there is a virtual school board's training on what it is to be a school board member and all the things that you will be doing when you are elected on thursday it's an invitation for my fellow school board members somerset county is having its meeting and it is the topic will be on cyber security so i hope that you'll be able to attend it will be at thursday october 14th from 6 to 9 p.m at the somerset county vo tech it'll be in person
115and there will be a virtual component and as i've done in the past i also want to close this meeting by thanking everybody for their um just taking the time here tonight to exercise your your right to come and speak and view the public um meeting and express your thoughts to the board and also for being civil and expressing yourself thoughtfully i think that all of this conversation on the board was very well articulated and it also i think models for our students that people can differ in their opinions but do it respectfully and so again the district's priority is keeping our students and staff safe for learning in person full-time we've done that and we look forward to 158 more days of school and with that i'll take a motion to join the meeting
116thank you thank you all in favor all right thank you good night