Hillsborough Board of Education Meeting 9 13 2021

001meeting 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 september 9 2021 to the hillsborough beacon and the courier news mr mahmoud may we have a roll call please mr gillette mr kidd here mr marini present thank you mrs maroon mrs nurse here mr oliver mr pulcifer here mrs stax here and mrs trujillo here we have a quorum thank you mr mahmoud whereas the 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 certain matters for which confidentiality is required is permitted in section 7b of the act resolved by the

002board 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 are settlement agreements and a vendor contract negotiations two the matters discussed in executive session shall be disclosed to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists may we have a motion in a second so moved thank you mr paul thank you thank you mr marini all in favor um we are now in executive session we will be back here at 6 15 for school boards board training thank you good evening we're back now from executive session mr mahmoud may we have a roll call please surely mr gillette mr kidd here mr marini present thank you mrs maroon mrs nurse here mr oliver mr pulcifer mrs statz here

003and mr hill here we have a quorum thank you mr mahmoud and now we will turn the podium or mike over to ms gwen thornton from new jersey school boards association who will be conducting our board training today thank you ms thornton can you hear me okay thank you well it's a pleasure to be back one of the things that we didn't have an opportunity to complete at our retreat was the communications protocols or norms of communication and so i'm here tonight to try to complete that process with you and i think you will find it very helpful i know that you were very concerned about both internal and external communications and so we have put together a series of agreements that i think would be helpful for you all and i thought it would

004be easiest just to go through them with you and then we will customize them to reflect what it is that the hillsborough board of education and administration agree to so these are suggestions in some instances but it is a way of trying to quantify so that everyone is on the same page about how we're going to function and operate in terms of communications okay questions okay so we really begin with on the board in superintendent communications and a regular communication from the superintendent whether it's an email delivered electronically we used to receive them as friday packets every friday um but that was long before 2021. so i'm assuming that on some frequency the board receives a communique from the superintendent detailing what goes on in the school so how often does the board have that

005expectation and what is reasonable in terms of the superintendent oh so actually dr antunes gives um the board weekly communications to the communicator and that's been an excellent um mode of communication i believe me i trying to hear gene but i did not understand what you said she didn't hear oh um so i was just saying that dr antunes gives the board um weekly communication via the communicator on email on thursday or friday of each week okay so on a weekly basis so we would put in there weekly right via email okay um how what is the board's expectation around notification in terms of a school emergency um staff emergency um oftentimes we hear from boards that they're out and about and they hear about something you know there's an ambulance here there was a

006police car they saw at a district so what is the board's expectation and then what is reasonable because obviously if it were an emergent circumstance within a school the superintendent's first responsibility is to address that emergent circumstance and do whatever is necessary to ensure the safety and security of the student staff and district prior to notifying the board but at the same time no one ever wants the board to be surprised so i think it helps to talk about you know what your expectations are in that regard and then come to agreement around it so that there can be no misunderstandings around well i was here and you know i was at starbucks i was a wawa wherever you are in town and people are talking about it we didn't know anything about it so

007i think it's always helpful to just have that discussion however briefly around what the board expects and then what is reasonable from the superintendent's perspective so in in this particular case i i would say that um thankfully we have not had emergencies so but in the past what i remember is that the superintendent would send an email to the entire board if it was like for example a bus situation a bus breakdown on other situations where it might be timely or emergent the superintendent would call the board president and or and i believe the chair of whichever committee that would would be most relevant to that so an example would be the cyber attack when i found out i immediately reached out to gene if she's unavailable and then i go to the vice president

008and then down down the list by seniority basically is what i would do as soon as not even if i don't know anything right away that's sort of what what and i find that with each at least the time that i've been superintendent with each board president it could be a little different it each of the each of the communications could be a little different some board presidents want to talk every day someone to talk every three days someone to talk once a week but that's a minimum often times it's more than that we'll text we'll we'll call we'll talk that sort of thing but in terms of an emergent situation depending upon what it is it's either pretty quickly even if i don't have all the information or as soon as we gather some

009information in order to get it out there okay so would it be simpler to just notify the board president and have the board president outside the rest of the board it absolutely is more efficient also for our time because we're that's what i'm saying you're dealing with the emergence situation so is that agreeable to the board so the superintendent notifies the board president who will then reach out to the board members so that everyone is in the loop it might be important though when the time allowed like after we hear from the board president just maybe a follow-up email from the superintendent just to make sure because sometimes when you're playing you know phone telephone you know you don't want anybody to miss any imperative piece of information so i understand um how it could

010uh be very hard to do that in the middle of an emergency but after a few days or in a reasonable amount of time a follow-up email from the superintendent i think would be very helpful that highlights what happened and how it was taken care of so if you're getting a weekly communication and it happens monday tuesday or wednesday you would have that on thursday anyway correct thursday or friday as a follow-up sure as long as you can't put that in there but i'm assuming it would be absent some extraordinary circumstance that i can't envision but yes okay all right so is the board good with that um the word packets and supporting documentation go out how many days prior to a meeting it's uh meetings on monday and they go out friday afternoons okay

011and we've tried to do it a little earlier but we are working right up until that time up until that time and sometimes even we'll adjust over the weekend if necessary and then let the board know that okay okay so add-ons to the agenda or walk-ons are sent to the board ahead of time if you have them yes and if right we always try to communicate if there's going to be a walk-on or if if we're aware of it we always try to communicate that okay when we can and from the board perspective that works yes i have a question what what about like um documents that are related to something that the board may have to vote on i i would think that they would be part of the attachment that would go out

012with the friday information in the packet that would be my expectation if a board has to approve it and it's a public document um i would think that it should be attached as part of the embroidery pattern just as a normal course of action and sometimes they're part of information to the board sometimes often they're part of committee meetings so the board will have it as part of a committee meeting as well whether it's education communications ops whatever documents we might need for a board agenda is are often discussed in the communication in the committee meetings prior to right but are they attached for the full board to be able to see it again in the meeting and stuff like that yes okay okay i do think and just because i understand it's hard to

013get the agenda and documents out before friday but at the same time then we have to also adjust the the questions that may come in pertaining to that because it's very hard to ask board members to look over that on a weekend and then you're at work on monday so a lot of times just if if the superintendent is okay with getting or or i'm in even getting those questions close to the board meeting on monday um i think there were separately okay that's a little further down but i mean obviously that is a concern and when you get it on friday i know it's the weekend and if you have activities planned and children and so forth but they also your administration also needs to have those questions ahead of the board meeting because

014the first rule of effective governance is no surprises so if you have a question part of your responsibility as a board member is to make sure that administration is aware of that question so if they need to pull together information or any kind of data and indeed if you have that question it's possible that other board members may have that very same question and by letting your administration know as soon as possible even if it's over the weekend um that might be helpful too i'm not saying you have to do it on the weekend but if you get to it and read it the longer lead time you can provide your administration obviously the more time they have to pray prayer for the board meetings so um again um you know one member's request may

015may trigger all board members to want to have that information so that's very helpful for your administration to have it and i would say that's part of the responsibility of board members if you have questions on the agenda or on a committee report that's contained in the packet your obligation as a board member is to notify either the committee chair and or the administration so that if the committee chair can't answer it address the question doesn't have the information then it gives the administration time to prepare before a public meeting which makes it much easier at the public meetings because we work really hard to try to anticipate the questions that may come up as we build the relationships with each individual board member we try to really try to anticipate okay what might miss

016so and so i asked mr and so ask so that and then i try to address that in my weekly communications if possible sometimes i fall short sometimes i'm right on it just depends but that that's what that's what we try to do anticipate because by the time we get here it should run very smoothly because we've done all the background work exactly so that's sort of what what our our goal is yes well but the board has responsibility in helping you achieve that goal right and that is if they have questions they need to get them to you so that you have sufficient time to put together either an answer as in i don't have time to put that together you know that's not a reasonable expectation for tonight you know or it'll be

017on a subsequent agenda or whatever the you know information is so that no one is surprised at a public board meeting by a request and and uh this board has been responsive to if i've if we've gotten requests that i'm i'm sorry that one is just this is what it's going to take to put that again and we just don't have time to do that but we'll make sure we have it for next time or whatever the case may be okay um you know and those reasonable requests you have to keep in mind should not involve lots of hours of administrative time just prior to a board meeting or that are not part of your district goals right that take people off task you know your district goals are the focus for the work of

018the board it should drive the work of your committees so questions that are off topic should not take hours and hours of administrative time that doesn't mean you shouldn't get a response but you know unless the full board agrees a majority of the board that this is something that needs researched looked into investigated it should no board question individual board questions should drive the work of the administration the superintendent only acts at the direction of the majority of the board of education so that's an important piece for board members to keep in mind okay requests for additions to the agenda need to be received how many days ahead of the meeting so we usually be the administration meets a week before the board meeting the week prior to the board meeting and so anything that

019should be on the agenda usually comes out of committee meetings we'll get it on the agenda and then if there's something that comes up if it's reasonable we'll try to get it on even if it's three days before if it's reasonable we'll always do our best to try to get it on sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't so ideally a week but if we can if i can get it on then certainly we'll try to do that okay and the purpose of this is just to try to have everybody be on the same page it's not that this is etched in stone but just to understand the processes and procedures you're going to operate by so that if it doesn't get on and you've had an extraordinary week or lots of events that have

020transpired that need your attention no one is going to be distressed that it did not get off in three days i remember in the communicator one time you recommended as far as committee agenda that the wednesday before the week of any of those meetings that we uh propose whatever we i do would like on the agenda and i think that's reasonable so i've tried to follow that myself and encourage that with people and like the communications committee so and i like it because it's specific the wednesday before the week of the meeting the wednesday before the week the week okay uh next week we're going to have our committee meetings so by okay it's this week it's this week you know my weekend if it were tomorrow you'd want it so by last wednesday if

021anybody wanted to suggest uh any additional items on the agenda or any irons on the agenda that's when they would uh added it for tonight for well i'm talking about the place tomorrow okay write a committee meeting okay all right and so typically then your board when you have a question as a board member you contact the chair of the committee if you have a question on a committee report or do you contact the administration typically what we're finding is that the board is contacting us the administrators uh sometimes sometimes they contact the committee the committee chair which probably is the best way to do it first sort of the chain of communication committee chair than than us because the committee chair will then speak with the appropriate administrator right he or she doesn't have

022the answer and so that is the process that most sports will follow is the committee members or non-committee members i should say if they have a question about the finance report they're not on the finance committee or the facilities committee or they're not on curriculum and instruction or your education committee would call the chair of the committee to get a response or email or email email yes keep everybody in the loop um so that no one is surprised um to get those responses and if the committee chair can't respond then contact the administration freeing up some administrative time to focus on other kinds of things because it may be a simple a simple response um and and that would be helpful i think just in terms of recognizing administration's work i gotta say this the

023first i've heard of this because when i was uh this is my third year and when i was first on the board i was instructed all communication should go to the superintendent and the board president okay i mean boards that operate with committees typically use their committee chairs effectively and so um by doing so you know the committee chair may say you know what i don't have an answer for that i wasn't at that meeting or um i'm not okay with that i just want consistency because i just want to make sure we all follow our attendance do it a little bit differently too is what i'm thinking so so that i don't want to put anybody on the spot so is that what you prefer like we contact if it's something directly from a

024committee report or whatever if we have questions we should contact the committee person at ccu and i support president is a good way to go because then we're aware which which you do but i usually don't contact the committee chairperson though i usually just contact you and and mr hill so i think that that that gives everybody the fair chance to answer those questions so is that acceptable for the board members so you'll contact the chair of the committee and if and copy the superintendent so that or and or business administration i don't know if it's a finance question you know eamon should be copied right because there's no likelihood he's going to answer it not you um but so that everyone is in the loop um and hopefully that will free up some administrative

025time and be consistent across the board so that you know who to go to if you have a particular question okay all right so um who do you have to request from to have an item added to your agenda let me ask the new board member do you know if you want an item on an agenda for either a committee meeting or a board meeting who would you go to uh i would assume you would go to the committee chair for something there and probably gene for this absolutely so requests for items to be added to the agenda at a board meeting they obviously should run through committees typically if there's an item under new business that pops up um that hasn't been discussed here too for typically the board president is going to refer

026to the appropriate committee before it gets board action okay the process when you operate by committees is the topics and or items of concern things you want to be addressed need to run through committee before they come before the full board right committees have no independent authority to bind the board they can recommend or not recommend but your minute should include those things that are recommended as well as topics that were discussed and perhaps things that were not recommended to move forward and then at that point when you discuss it a board member could ask that it be added to the board agenda for action and that would allow the full board then to discuss it okay is that okay again the board president typically meets with the superintendent to approve the draft agenda sometimes

027that's done by email sometimes it's done in person um typically if there's a question about the board agenda then i get a call because typically the administration puts together the agenda around district items but if the board has something that they want then gene would get in touch with the superintendent and that item could be added to the agenda so either reaching out to your committee chair and or gene will allow you to make that work okay if you're good with that um and then you use a consent agenda right yes you already do that so we don't have to talk about that um how about when an item when a board member wants an item pulled from the consent agenda we talk about it here and we vote and then it's voted on separately

028okay and everyone's comfortable with that okay in terms of meeting preparation agreements obviously it's responsibility the board to come prepared and you will need to keep your superintendent informed about comments from community members about districts or specific agenda items if there's something going on in your community and you're hearing about it in the community it is always important to let your superintendent know that ahead of time again you know you don't want to come to a board meeting and see 300 people that you didn't know we're coming to the board meeting when you live in the community and sometimes you hear those things so if you hear them um you want to let your superintendent know so that they can be prepared for that okay i'm assuming that you are meeting agendas are available to

029the public generally they're back there right yes um even though they're available online as well all right and it's also the friday before the friday before right okay um and procedures for public comment are clear and available at your meeting site yes so if someone picks up the agenda it's laid out on your agenda as well perfect yes it's listed out here okay great um so the board president follows the public the policy on public comment um again what's important is particularly now i think is consistency in your approach to that policy to ensure equitable time for every member of the public to be heard and to be respectful of the public and their perspectives typically the board president you have policy that says the board president is the spokesperson on behalf of the board

030and that's typical every district that i know of across the state and if there are questions of fact or educational information um either your superintendent or your business administrator may respond um to those comments but there it is clear that public comment is not meant to be um dialogue with the public um public comments are their opportunity to weigh in on what you're doing and to give you their perspective but they are not meant as an opportunity to have a back and forth with board of education members okay um yes i just wanna could you please emphasize that that public comment is definitely not meant to be a question and answer session and and that's common practice throughout that is common practice with all with all boards of education at least in new jersey in

031new jersey i can't speak to the whole country but in new jersey that is the practice the meeting board meetings are meetings of the board and public and it is the public's right to observe and comment on your deliberations and the business that you are conducting within your district but it is not meant to be a question and answer it is not meant to be a dialogue between individual board members or even the board president and the public it is meant to give the public an opportunity to weigh in on the board's business and what you are doing but it is not again it is not a dialogue it is a meeting of the board and public not a meeting with the public those are two entirely separate things it is a meeting for you

032all to conduct the business that you're legally required to conduct and carry out those responsibilities that you have to carry out and to hear public comment on those duties and responsibilities are are there times where there would be a kind of urgency to it to maybe answer any questions it really depends on the circumstance um again i think you know it consistency is critically important and so if you do it one time there's going to be an expectation that you continue to do that so unless it's an exceedingly unusual rare emergent circumstance that you know four roofs have blown off the building hurricane ida is my perfect example right you know lots of schools ran into difficult they had to call emergency meetings to figure out what how they were going to manage the students

033coming in because it was so close to the opening of the school year so you know in that circumstance i could see where perhaps the superintendent might wish to convey more additional information to the public that they might not have had access to because it sort of occurred midweek you know right before labor day holiday and so i can see a superintendent conveying that kind of information but again that is not a question and answer that's not a dialogue that's the superintendent giving a report which i think is critically important to share information i'm not suggesting that you're not sharing information i think you can always share information but but you need to understand that that's different and oftentimes people when they come want to have a dialogue and i think boards need to provide

034those opportunities for either town hall meetings around topics um you know coffee or donuts with the superintendent emails are fine but again i think that person just as children learn better in person i think people communicate more effectively in person than they do in emails and so i think having opportunities for the board and the community to have that dialogue is a critically important piece it needs to be well structured it needs to be around a particular topic or subject not free flowing it's because oftentimes it can turn into it can become more negative than positive and affirming and i think especially in hillsborough and other districts that are doing great work you want to celebrate that and you want people to be aware of that so i think you want to focus on the

035more positive that doesn't mean i don't think you can discuss you know the good the badly ugly i think you can um but i think it has to be structured so that everyone's voice is heard and no one dominates a particular conversation where it's not just one perspective on a particular topic so but now there are times where people don't necessarily ask a question but sometimes they say things that might be incorrect so i would think that's appropriate to correct that if you have a full and accurate response that you can give then certainly the superintendent can respond to something that's inaccurate or incorrect however if someone asks a very detailed question that the superintendent has not had time to research not because sometimes they do um it's far better to to let the public

036know that you're going to get back to them um with the response especially if it's a individual parent's personal question you know on a child or on a particular circumstance or a particular event but they need time to do their research and pull together that information and rather than convey inaccurate or incomplete information i think it is far better to say to member the public we will get back to you with a response but we do need time to pull together that information i don't have it at my finger of tips you know sometimes parents look it up and say well you know how did the fourth grade this year do compared to the fourth grade last year and no one has that kind of detailed academic uh assessments committed to memory right it's just

037impossible so you know that may be something that is presented at a later presentation but you know certainly that's something that can be responded to but you don't want to just give an off-the-top answer and have it be incomplete or incorrect don't mean questions like that i'm i mean people actually making statements that are incorrect and i sometimes there's a sense of urgency to address that before that incorrect information uh gets too far in the public well i i think there's been instances where i hope i'm not that i support that the superintendent or the board president has tried to correct that and i would think that and i think that's perfectly appropriate if it's a matter of fact as opposed to an opinion or someone's perspective i don't think it's a valuable use of

038the board's time or the public's time to engage in a back and forth around an opinion or a perspective because we're not always going to agree on every single issue you know the board is based on nine different voices nine different perspectives and out of that comes more collective wisdom than an individual right but um the the public is here again to comment on how you're conducting business and what's on your agenda um but certainly um and the and hearing those perspectives gives you perspective right and understanding around what your community is thinking and talking about but um it is not a place to have that kind of dialogue and i think that that's what's important to remember and just being consistent in your approach to that is helpful and i think once your public

039understands that that's how it works right it doesn't make them happy they would like to be able to engage you i remember those days clearly but but it's not helpful in the end because you don't have the time to be able to conduct the board's business and answer every single question or have a dialogue with every single member of the public who has a comment okay um questions about any of that okay after the board meeting uh agreements and i think this is an important one once the board has voted and made a decision the majority rule obviously carries the motion whatever it is on whatever topic that doesn't mean you have to be a cheerleader for every decision the board makes you might be on the other side of an issue and have a

040different perspective than the majority but good boardsmanship and effective governance says that you support the decision of the board so um that's an important piece to remember because you don't want to be undermining your own board of education because the next time you may be in the majority and not in the minority right it's going to shift depending upon what issues you're discussing and voting on and that's a very important piece okay um maintaining the confidentiality of execution is required by the code of ethics but also making sure that all the documents and reports that you have that are confidential are maintained in that confidential nature one of the things that that sometimes especially new folks want to do new board members is to go visit schools i've never met a principal ever or a

041superintendent who wasn't proud of their schools and individual schools if you want to go see a school that's perfectly okay as long as you make arrangements through your central administration and set that up so you're not disrupting the educational process and so it's not a surprise to the principal and or to anyone um responsible for the security of that building okay because you have no authority except when you were sitting at this duly advertised meeting of the board like you are tonight so if you want to see it and again you know if you've never been um to a middle school or a high school class and you want to see those things i would encourage you to set up a visit um principals are generally delighted to have you come in and observe a

042class or two um as long as it's not in the middle of you know testing or some other um something else going on in the building and it's a little different with the covet era but i think it's important for you to know that as new board members um that you are welcome in the schools um to visit but you just have to set it up appropriately because it takes about 10 seconds once you walk into a building for everyone to know you're there um and and i you may laugh and think i'm being absurd but i'm not um it goes like wildfire um so you want to make sure that you have set that up appropriately okay and teachers really are appreciative of your interest so you don't have to worry about that and

043principals are really happy to show you their buildings because they're justifiably proud of the buildings that they run and what goes on in their schools so i think that's important to know okay so any other questions around any of that and you're of course welcome obviously all the time at any public event at the school science fairs concerts bands football games um and i would encourage you when you have an opportunity to do that the public is appreciative of seeing you um and i think it helps give us perspective to actually see um what goes on in the schools and the outcomes to all their hard work whether it's a science fair an art show a concert a football game all of those things are great efforts of our of our your children okay um

044board and community communications um this is one of these things that's really critically important um typically if the board as a whole gets an email from a member of the public um how do you handle that gene you're saying with an email so the email is responded to by me is the board president if it comes to you a member a member of the public sends an email to the board of education you're responsible as board president what do you do with that email um so then i would respond to the email and copy the entire board okay and copy your superintendent oh yeah oh okay yes yes yes sorry superintendent and giving me heart commentations over here um so so i had forgotten because our board alias goes automatically to all nine board members

045superintendent and the business administrator so that's what i use okay all right perfect um and if it's a question that you can't answer or respond to i'm assuming that you forwarded to the superintendent for a response yes and you notified the board that the superintendent is going to be responding on behalf of the board yes so that all board members know that the public is being responded to in a timely way and if i respond and it's to the full board the whole board gets the response as well okay or mr mahmoud or any of us that's what we'll do everybody will get okay so that's important that's important because you want to know that they're being communicated well okay any questions around any of this i mean it sounds like you all are pretty

046much on the same page in how you're responding and how you're operating and i think that that's an important piece if there's an emergency and the superintendent is out of the district i'm never out of the district when well that's depressing they don't ever let you they don't unlock the door so they'll let you out um no i'm not well when the flooding happened you were probably stuck here anyway you felt like you were floating late that week i know my basement got just oh no i know you're not i know you're teasing and i'm teasing back um although you probably were floating last week and you could have been an island um which is unfortunate so typically you leave the assistant superintendent in charge and the board knows in charge so yeah right so

047that you always know who that there's someone to reach out to and contact okay perfect perfect perfect perfect so i think um you seem like you're on the same page in terms of process in terms of procedure and that was my goal in coming tonight was really just to make sure that everyone was on the same page and has the same level of expectations around how you're going to operate so there can be no confusion around how that works questions that i can answer for you uh actually not a question just uh something to add on uh because i didn't want to interrupt you because you were flowing so well before uh the there was a section about when we're in uh a school building meeting with our children's teachers or something scenario like that

048i just wanted to share something that was uh advice given to me uh when i first came on the board that when you go into a building you should assume that everybody thinks there's a flashing neon sign over your head that says board member and you have to try very hard to make sure that when you're there for business of your children or something like that that you go out every way to make sure that you act and you separate those because people are just you know teachers all know who was on the board and when you walk into a building they see a board member walk in not a parent initially and you may have to work at that so it's something just to keep in mind um to help separate when you have

049to be in a school for one of your children as opposed to sometime when we're there as a board member that you know when you walk through that door people see a board member not a parent that's their first reaction right and chris said it is a really good point for board members to remember it's think of hester print and the scarlet a only it's a big b board member and once you become a board member they really do know your board members so it is really important to say if you're there to visit i'm just here to observe a class because i'm interested or i'm here because i'm if someone asks you if a teacher asks you to be very clear while you're in the building and what you're doing in the building um

050and and you're here as john's father you're here as mary's mother you know and and you have you're going to be working doing whatever volunteering or you know for a concert or whatever but typically you need to make sure you are very careful about that delineation between your role as a parent and your role as a board member because you are always your child's first and best advocate and that's an important piece to remember no one's saying that that's not critical because it is but you just need to be very clear that you're there as so-and-so's parent or guardian on their behalf as opposed to being you know there on behalf of the board or as a board member okay so and that's that's important thank you chris for that reminder i i think when

051it's important to note that oftentimes when a member of the public comes up and asks the board something it's it's everybody wants to help and everybody wants to try to give the public what what they want or that's one person in the public what they want but i think that there are processes that have been played that have been in place for years that often get tweaked but to have some confidence in the processes and say it's okay to not be able to do that that will look into it and then if we have to tweak the process we'll tweak the process but to remain committed to the process that that it is because the intent is always positive but it's not it doesn't make anybody look good when that no and you never you

052know if every if you try to respond to every comment and every parent that wanted something done immediately no matter how admirable no matter how much you may support the notion that they're positing there's a process for that and it needs to go to committee to be researched you know if it's an educational issue or to policy if it's a policy issue or you know to the finance committee if it's looking for funding for a new team or a new you know curricular or a field trip there's a process for all of that and while we would like to be able to make every parent happy and every child give them everything we could all the time there are constraints that you have to operate within and so adhering to that process helps your public

053to understand how you operate and that's important because it builds credibility if i go to the board and i let them know i'm concerned about this i know they're going to take it under consideration um but i'm not going to get an answer tonight right i'm not you know there's a process and it takes a little time to work through but it's really important particularly um in in certain areas because you know money's not falling from the heavens so if it's agreeing to something new as extraordinary as it might be in terms of student opportunity like a stem or steam experience you might not ever be able to replicate that right you know you because it's not budgeted um or a policy you know policies are driven by law um and you can find yours

054your district in a in a horrible circumstance if you mistakenly change something dramatically without seeing how it's interconnected to every other policy that's related to it so i think those processes do help build credibility with the public when they understand that there's a process and it has to be followed there are always exceptions but they're extraordinarily unusual absolutely and rare and certainly you know the two examples i just gave in the area policy or finance that's not budgeted i would never recommend those ever ever ever they need to follow a process and a procedure and you have those in place and you know that if it's you know something you want to bring up on the agenda or if you've gotten a notification you know from a parent that they're concerned about something and they

055want it addressed make sure that you let your administration know ahead of time so while they may not have time to do all that research they're not going to be surprised right you never want to surprise your administration with something um that they don't know about so that's where that you know no surprise rule comes in so if you get something from the public and perhaps you know just hasn't made it to the administrative level all the way um just make sure that you've apprised them of it so they're not surprised okay yes um i just want to say uh at the last core meeting um a parent made a really heartfelt compelling appeal to us about an issue and uh and i was in a way i i i want to apologize because i

056almost want i sort of wanted to circumvent the whole process of of policy and policy revisions and first and second readings because i was so uh you know like all of us we want to make sure especially for the sake of our students but um but i knew better but you know so i apologize i think i'd put administration on on uh you know put him in a bad spot um but and it's it's the procedure that lends the credibility to what our policies are so it's important to follow procedure i mean for example i believe it took years to finally allow like robotics and other similar clubs to get letters and it's a perfectly wonderful uh attainment and valid but for you know and and i think we were always i was also concerned

057about the urgency you know the time sensitive nature of it but um i think in order to uh make sure we have credibility it's important to follow process anyway i apologize for putting administration on the spot you know here's the thing i've never met a board member who didn't care about kids and so when a parent comes and it's heartfelt and passionate about helping her kids and i hope all parents are passionate about getting what their kids need for them it's hard sometimes to sit here and say you know we have a process and yeah it does take a little bit of time and meanwhile we're taking that time your child may not be getting what you think he or she needs to have that's tough right i i was i'm a parent a grandparent

058i know what it feels like i was a board member and i remember what that feels like um but sometimes you know it really is important and there's a reason for it and most of it is around the legality of your policy and the interrelatedness of one policy to another and it impacts and it could create liability issues because if you do it for one then you have to do it for all and what does that look like or what is the cost i mean there's so many pieces to um when you start it might because you said it was a child who wanted something right so you know it it becomes then if you do it for one you have to do it for all what does that look like how many kids does

059that involve what are the costs can we sustain that you know they're all those moving pieces that you can't possibly know from listening to one parent's impassioned plea so it's hard and i get that and i commend you all for caring enough to want to do good things for kids um better to be arguing about that or discussing that and then some of the silly things that we spend a lot of time on um but but i think process is important um in that particular area so any other questions or comments okay well that is really what i came to say i also included the annual calendar for you all yes especially for the new board members it lays it out by month some of your responsibilities um and i think that's helpful for you

060to get a sense that there's a cycle to the board year and what happens in what month and what that looks like yeah so i i think one of the things we've struggled with on the communication side we brought this up a couple times is something not this but a calendar of when things are coming up when there's been discussions on assessing coaches or hires or things like that that we voted on that we get to the point where we just have to approve stuff because we're running up to it so i don't know if there's a standard practice across boards about setting these kind of calendars as a standard process so you know oh we're doing these reviews and that's one of the reasons that we give it to you because it helps you

061as boards to plan your year so when you look so for example may 15th is the drop dead date for renewals and non renewals right we know that's in the law you have to do it by then so you know that at least either your last meeting in april or your first meeting in may is going to have that on the agenda that helps you to know that that's coming up okay um the budget dates shift a little but we know typically the preliminary gets involved approved somewhere late march or early april and the final gets approved budget toward the middle of april um so those are kinds of dates that are included in there to help give you a sense of when things are happening month by month and so when you look at

062your board calendar in terms of the meetings you're able to sort of plot out those things to know what's coming up it's like the last page right and i find that i think that's very helpful especially for new board members to just get a sense of what's going on when because it takes almost a year to go through a whole year afford business before you get any sense that there's a cycle and a rhythm to this you know we do the superintendent eval it has to be done by you know july one we do a selfie gal following that we set you know district award goals um so that it's a continuous cycle of activities and you begin to understand that it moves in that direction so but if you have questions please always email

063me call me any of you that's what i spend my time doing and i'm happy to talk and answer questions and i will always get back to you on emails as well so is is there an up sorry you want to like is there an opportunity to shift um board goals to the calendar year for example so i know a lot of board members every year there's three people going three people coming in is there an opportunity or is that a mandated thing that that's done it's in statute so we can't do it and okay now originally boards were elected in april and reorganized in may when they decided that if you stayed within the two percent tax cap levy you could move your election but part of that compromise the public wouldn't have to

064vote on the budget but as part of that compromise it also moved the election to november with then reorganization in january but that's the only change so a third of your board is runs for reelection every year on a nine member board so it varies from board to board depending on the number of seats but that's the only i guess my point is a third of the board is not was not involved in setting those goals and a third of the board is not going to see those goals through to fruition in theory if there's a replacement which makes that an effective process i understand that but you know the board the budget also starts july 1. you know it's right it's everything is off cycle with the election in um november and we oregon

065january you actually get a whole six months whereas when it used to be in may and you were elected to the board you came in and you had missed like half a year's worth of stuff right so it's a little better a little more in sync but it's never going to be in sync and sync unless new jersey changes its laws which you know anything's possible but i'm not holding my graph so i don't think that's going to happen anytime soon but i understand that it is very difficult but you know the us senate is like a third every year so i mean it runs in those cycles so um regarding the calendar um this is like a general calendar i guess for all boards but we also have uh policies regarding certain things we

066should do by certain times such as i believe approving uh coaching coaches and by certain times so i think we need to um uh somehow come up with a way where we're uh following that that procedure i i i don't think this is the time to really address it i just wanted to point that out that uh if we could come up with a way to better able uh follow that policy i have some ideas about that we can thank you okay well thank you as always it's a pleasure to be here in hillsboro if you need anything let me know how i can help um we're here to assist have a good evening thank you very much gwen and a great school year awesome every joy we have we're crossing thank thank you very

067much gwen you're welcome um may i now have a motion for a brief 15-minute recess before we begin again at 7 30. so move second thank you all in favor okay we will be back at 7 30. thank you very much good evening and welcome again to the monday september 13 2021 meeting of the hillsborough township board of education we are back now from board training mr mahmoud may we please have a roll call please mr gillette here president thank you mr kid here mr marini present here mr maroon mrs nurse here mr oliver mr pulcifer here mrs stats here and miss trujillo here we have a quora thank you mr mahmoud i would like to now um may we please now all rise for the pledge of allegiance [Music] indivisible with liberty and justice

068for all i'd like to now acknowledge the correspondence received as listed and she also informed my fellow board members that i have responded to the emails that we have received as of friday friday this last week and now i will we're actually going to move the agenda around a little bit we will now open it up to comments from the public on items on the action agenda only so please remember that this is the board's meeting where we conduct the board's business in public and we very much welcome public input during board meetings there will be two 30-minute periods of time that the meeting will be open for public comments where members of the public are invited to comment during the first public comment period members of the public make comments about items that are

069listed on tonight's agenda before the board votes during the second public comment period members of the public make comments 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 biola 167. before you state your comment you will be asked to provide your name and address 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 that there is misunderstanding or inaccuracy the board president or superintendent will address the comment 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

070meetings act and the privacy rights of public employees encompassed therein do not permit the board to discuss personnel issues in public session also if you would please spell your name for the record um public comment period is now open for items on the action agenda only seeing none i will now close public comments and turn it over to the superintendent for the oh for the board sorry for the board on any items on the action agenda i am requesting that item 11 we're actually removing that item for this evening we're removing that item this evening any other comments from the board mr kidd i just want to quickly ask since i'm a student at tcnj should i uh should i um abstain i don't think you need to do that mr kid it's for the

071the member of the articulation agreement with tcnj any other comments from the board all right doctor and chinese i'll turn it over to you for the action agenda thank you the superintendent recommends that the board of education approve the entire agenda i'll go through it the education agenda 10.1 to 10.4 as follows motion to approve the articulation agreement with the college of new jersey professional development schools network motion to approve curriculum writing motion to approve policies and regulations for second reading and motion to affirm the superintendent's hib determination for the attached cases the superintendent recommends that the board of education approve the human resources agenda eleven one to eleven eighteen minus eleven 15 we are removing 11.15 from the agenda this evening uh so motion to approve the resolution is listed motion to approve the

072retirements and i'd like to note that nancy tuttori was with us for 29 years to our students and staff on her retirement motion to rescind the appointment as listed as well as to approve revised employment contracts and coaching contracts motion to approve revised lunch eight hours motion to approve a contact contract change is listed as well as a transfer and change in assignment motion to approve leaves of absence motion to approve appointments motion to affirm the appointments as listed motion to approve sixth period coverage and group changes motion to approve this motion to approve unaffiliated staff salaries 2122 we are removing 11.15 motion to approve extended school year program staff as well as the summer work as listed motion to approve policies and regulations for second reading superintendent also recommends that the board of education

073approve the operations agenda 12.1 to 12.5 motion to accept donations as listed and we thank everybody for those donations motion to approve policies and regulations for second reading as listed motion to approve a settlement agreement uh kept on filing the superintendent's office as well as another settlement agreement as listed motion to approve the 2021-2022 district and board goals thank you dr antunes may have a motion in a second thank you miss stats is there any discussion seeing none mr mahmoud may we have a roll call please mr gillette yes mr kid yes mr marini yes mrs nurse yes mr pulsar yes this is steps yes this is trujillo yes motion passes thank you mr mahmoud i will now turn it back over to the superintendent for the superintendent's report thank you i'd like to take

074a moment to acknowledge that saturday september 11th commemorated the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on our nation please join us for a moment of silence to honor and remember those who lost their lives for their families and loved ones and for all dedicated first responders who risked their own lives to save so many thank you i'd also like to just share tonight that right before a couple of maybe an hour before we started the meeting we were we received confirmation that tonight's board meeting is indeed being live streamed so we will continue to live stream the meetings for the foreseeable future and we'll make sure that we include that in our notice moving forward today was our third day of school and on behalf of the board of education administration and staff i'm delighted

075to share that despite hurricane ida and our typical start of the school year hiccups we safely and happily welcome back over 7200 students to school on september 9th as so many residents of hillsborough and the surrounding area continue the cleanup and recovery from the aftermath of the hurricane please keep them in your thoughts the outpouring of support has been amazing as it always is from our community we always come together in times of need this was seen hugely on saturday september 11th when the board of education collaborated with the hillsborough education association and hillsborough principals and supervisors association to stuff the bus at the hillsborough shoprite the community donated school supplies and food pantries to be distributed by the township social services department if you or someone you know is in need of supplies or

076food i encourage you to contact your school nurse or school counselor who can provide you with additional confidential contact information just a few quick reminders if you've not already done so please complete the pride survey consent and the marking period one health affirmation that can be accessed through the genesis parent portal you should have received the school messenger reminder earlier today if you have not completed these two items i would also like to remind parents to that you should have received the school messenger from dr feltrey today reminding parents that students will be participating in straw start strong assessments these are state assessments and will provide information to be used as standard based complement to the resources used by teachers in their classrooms to evaluate the needs of students these assessments do not replace the

077new jersey student learning assessments that will be administered in the spring for parents who have requested transportation changes please be patient as the transportation department reviews and adjusts as necessary there are hundreds of requests and for the safety of our students all route changes must go through multiple levels of approval before moving forward and then finally just a reminder that schools are closed this thursday september 16th in honor of the holiday uh that is it this is trujillo thank you very much dr antonez now we will move to committee reports miss stats if you would give the alliance report i just want to reemphasize that the municipal alliance addresses substance abuse awareness and education we met on friday september 10th and we talked about all the programs that will be implemented in the upcoming school

078year some of them will be virtual and some will be in person uh most of them are what we usually do and uh yet again i'm going to talk about the one one program not based in schools called bridge to success um i think we're really good at uh what how we assist our students while they're in school but a few years ago a member of the municipal alliance realized that it's our young adults once they graduate um experience struggles some to the point where they might overdose i've had former students where they experience that and we want to try to keep that from happening so we have a program called the bridge to success it's an eight-week uh program that are it's a one-hour week a young adult ages 18 to 24 their virtual

079meetings and they're free um and it's to help them deal with stress it's it's it's open to anybody in that age group no matter what their issues are they don't have to have some sort of uh substance abuse problem we want to tackle that before it gets to that point so how they can deal with stress you know certain uh strategies they can use um just a couple of examples you know how to problem solve using effective communication you know being assertive without being passive or aggressive and how to say no relaxation techniques and uh there's flyers on the table by the the door in the front here and uh you can also there's a qr code to register but you can also take a flyer that has registration information as well as more details

080about the program and it will be starting september 21st thank you mr you thank thank you miss stats also i wanted to just take a moment to address the audience thank you so much to those who are wearing your masks for the governor's executive order to the gentleman to my right if you would please please put your masks on for the governor's order if you thank you very much i appreciate that um i'd like to now turn to mr gillette for the operations committee report all right uh i'm going to lean over a bit here uh thank you uh operations met on august 10th so this is um a little bit out of date i apologize it was not at the previous meeting um mr deluca was present at the meeting to give us an

081update on all of the referendum projects for all the schools as well as the paving and roof project at hes and the new project which is the replacement of the boiler at hes we also had uh kathy major from sodexo come in to uh give us uh sort of a um a review of last year's food service at this in the district uh she shared that mexico served nearly one million meals almost 500 000 breakfasts and 500 000 lunches during the 2020 2021 school year and she's got everything ready to go for this school year i hope so it started crazy um also we discussed the policies which were were up for first reading last time second reading tonight which already we already voted on and passed that's it shortest report thank you very much

082mr gillette so now we oh we need to do the approval of minutes thank you mr mahmoud um so may i have a motion and a second to approve the executive session minutes from august 23rd so thank you mr marini second mr kid thank you very much all in favor any opposed any abstentions motion passed thank you and then may have a motion and a second to approve the public minutes from august 23rd 2021 thank you mr pulsar thank you miss marini all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions motion pass thank you now we will turn to the second public comment period and so before we do public comments i would like to turn it open to the board first for any comments seeing none then i will now turn it over to the

083public the the previous statement still stands and again reminder if you could please spell your name for the record for the minute takers um go ahead hi my name is susan anderson a-n-d-e-r-s-o-n case drive in hillsborough i'm here tonight uh i along with thousands of other parents and taxpayers across the nation have been very concerned about critical race theory and other similar ideologies being brought into our public schools in may i began asking questions of the administration about critical race theory and other similar ideologies being brought into our curriculum and i got a confirmation back in may that yes critical race theory and the 1619 project are or components of them are used uh in an elective in the high school called race in the united states and in u.s history one i started to

084do some homework and pulled up the curriculum and the resources and the bibliography to that elective course race in the united states in the beginning of the course the unit talks about let me just put my notes here it talks about um requires respectful behavior from all participants and it states that no one has all the answers and everyone can benefit from hearing other perspectives and i fully agree with that however when you dig deep into the course and you start looking at those resources and those bibliographies there is a glaring and obvious lack of balance in materials almost all of the materials i'd say 95 percent of them are coming from the progressive left there is no balance and when i began to write back and forth to the administration to ask questions about

085that and on june 9th i wrote a very detailed email to the administration asking for very specific questions on certain parts of this elective how it was written how it got through scrutiny how it passed all levels of approval without anybody saying wait a minute we talk about looking for balance and perspective there's none here there's none at all i still don't have answers i've been writing multiple times my last email to the administration went out on august third it's now well over a month and that has been completely ignored and disregarded it's the second time an email of mine has not been answered i i don't i think no matter what side of this issue we're on we can all agree that respect and open dialogue and professionalism should be required of all of

086us me and of the district i'm not seeing that on the other end um parents i just want you to know if you i i'm my children are grown i don't have kids in school i'm a taxpayer and a stakeholder but i'm concerned you should be too if you look deep into the curriculum especially social studies and math curriculums you're going to see terms used like overt oppression dominant culture whiteness privilege white fragility defunding the police now some of you may think there's no problem with discussing those topics but even if you think that's fine i think we can all agree that these children are entitled to a balance in the resources used in the bibliographies used we want our children being taught critical thinking we don't want these children to be taught what to

087think we want them to learn how to think and i have serious questions as to whether the district is meeting those standards and these particular courses we're talking about so parents i would urge you to at l grade levels i would urge you to start looking at curriculum talk to your kids see what's coming home from school look at the resources look at the bibliographies look at the course itself how it was written who approved it what are they learning and how are they learning it you might be quite surprised as i was um and dr intune is i will be following you with you later this week um we need to have a discussion on your administration your staff and the lack of respect i'm getting in not getting answers it is very unprofessional

088it is unacceptable and it needs to be corrected thank you thank you for your public comment excuse me before you begin um to the gentleman waiting in line again if you would please have your masks as dr tuna's had elaborated in her email to the to the community properly fitted over your nose mouth we'd appreciate that thank you very much go ahead thank you yeah tim jordan 201 that was pretty damn good sue that was good stuff right okay whatever letters you want to call this nonsense critical race theory or whatever letters you want to describe or hide behind okay it is racism we are teaching racism when you when you're teaching this critical race theory okay and it's fueling the flames okay as i said before last time i was here racism in this

089country should be on life support but it's because of organizations that are fueling it and supporting it and building it and increasing it and supporting it okay that's not the direction we want to go in i'd like to know how this got down the curriculum my first question how this got on the curriculum was there a committee mr jordan as i said earlier this is not a question okay i'll put the question i'll put the question out there next time we have a meeting i'd like to have that answer how did this get in the curriculum was there a committee some four people three people two people one people whatever it is okay that's the question i'd like to have answered okay who the other question is why when we need when we need scientists

090we need engineers we need uh stem programs okay last meeting you guys did away with a teaching position here and we're replacing it with this nonsense okay this is what we need in the school system as sue said we don't need you guys to teach them you know what to think we need to teach them how to think okay i'd like to know on this board right now who supports critical race there if you could stand up in the board who supports critical race theory at this board right now if you could stand up if you support critical race theory if you could please stand up so i can see how many people we're dealing with so nobody nobody supports this but now we're teaching it to our kids is that right am i wrong

091to assume that okay as soon said parents need to get up to come to these meetings we need to get this out of the curriculum okay we need to get rid of this racism that's being taught okay my question is if if there was a group if there was a committee i'm sure there was a committee i've been in enough of these meetings over the years although i haven't been to there are many recently i used to come to this meeting and that was just me and the photographer and you guys that was it so i need to find out how this got into the curriculum it's very important to me okay so parents need to get out and stop this nonsense okay is this time i'm missing mr jordan i've been informed that your

092three minutes is up no i'm not done yet how many people miss mr john how many people do you need to bring excuse me you've delayed me when i came up here you represented some person you were tired so i just wanted to request how many people do i need to bring here to stop this nonsense mr jordan i don't want my taxes wait i want tax dollars wasted on this nonsense okay thank you very much thank you for your comment mr jordan um one minute um go ahead all right frank japanka c-h-u-p-i-n-k-a life-long hillsboro resident just like to say before i start my daughter had uh two great years at amsterdam school two of her teachers are back there helped her through some um some learning issues i can't say enough about the job

093that they did unfortunately you know in the past two years the past 18 months um my my faith in school system or the hillsborough board education has been shaken you know i heard things in homeschooling being taught to my kindergarten son that i felt were inappropriate for his age i wouldn't believe it if i didn't hear it from my own ears the fact that uh i had a kindergartner stuck in front of a computer we went through thank god we have the resources to provide extra teachers to come over and help him with these studies people who are financially incapable of doing such things they must have been through heck last year this caused medical issues with my son the stress um that's real you know this is a real thing there's a lot of

094divisiveness going in right now i'm not going to hit all the topics that everybody wants to get enraged over [Music] i think it's pretty clear that there's a lot of division that's going on not only in our country but in our schools and it's completely unacceptable and we have an opportunity to stop this now the common denominator that we all have for these kids is our love for them you know what's it going to be like if we don't turn the tide now what are we going to look at in the future if we all can't just say look school is for school you know let's make our kids better let's do better for our kids let's do better as adults you know we could all step up and have a part in this and

095we could all step up and be accountable we owe it to these kids to do the best to put all this stuff down and focus on what's best for them and that's their education their health and their happiness so they could grow up to be productive adults as of right now i've lost the faith in the hillsborough education system the information we've received over the past 18 months has been contradictory in my opinion politically divisive my wife and i are very discouraged by how the district is currently being run that we made the financially painful decision to remove our children from this district and send them to private school once again we have the means to be able to do this i think a lot of what's going on is affecting people more harshly with

096less means than us if we're feeling this i can imagine how it trickles down the line to other families we're able to do and make the next right move i just want everybody to just realize we have an opportunity if it doesn't stop soon it's only going to get worse so let's just figure it out thank you very much for your time i'll put my mask back up after i'm done speaking excuse me i can't speak with my mascot we're all wearing masks for the governor's executive order thank you my name is kyle newell i've been a lifelong resident of hillsboro actually been here 30 years so i wasn't born here i have three young children and as the gentleman in front of me said we made the decision for my kindergartner not to come

097to school here for the reasons they said we're sending them to a private school money out of pocket what i would like to bring up tonight is what science are you guys following as far as making the mass mandatory in school and if you say you're following the governor that means you're following the health commissioner and the governor that had the worst per capita death rate in the country with their policies people that put seniors back into nursing homes so if that's the science you're following you that's not leadership is not just blindly following authority so i want to know what science you're following back because today i was able to find seven studies very quickly showing that masks are detrimental psychologically and physiologically create breathing and carbon dioxide holiday increase in bacterial pneumonia how

098are kids supposed to learn this is child abuse if you don't think this is child abuse having a kid wear this all day you're not living in reality i'm out in town a lot of people know me there's way more than 50 percent of the parents that don't want their kids in masks and if you're not listening to that you're not listening to the people you guys work for us i'm sure you all meanwhile but you all work for us you got to remember that and it's got to be a fair game our side is refused to be heard we would have maybe sent our son to school here if it was optional i have at least four families of close friends that have chosen as the gentleman before he said to send their kids

099out of district i never thought i would have to send my kids out of district i have three brothers all four of us went through the school systems here great school system next meeting i want to see the science that you're following with the max i want it in hand i want to see proof i'll bring proof i have proof you guys you have to hear both sides of the the argument here and i expect more from everybody on the board to be transparent and show us where you're coming up with the science you guys are leaders in the community you're not followers you're leaders and we need you to remember that thank you my name is jenny mason i reside on valley road uh last name is b-a-s-o-n i was not going to talk

100about this but since the question was asked the science behind the masks is really the one million nine hundred six thousand one hundred eight dollars that hillsborough township received for adhering to the governor's erroneous mask mandates that's why we have to wear them there's no science behind it that's not what i came up here to talk about what i came up here to talk about was that i have asked on more than one occasion if critical race theory was being taught in our schools and i can't seem to get a concise answer calling critical race theory by another name in this case race in america does not change the values and ideas that are being taught some may argue these ideas are valuable and bring acceptance and awareness others like myself and many in this

101community and many that are here tonight feel that this ideology actually enhances our differences and teaches our children that if they are not white they are not accepted they are not good enough and they are not valuable enough is this what we want to be teaching this theory was designed to be discussed by scholars in colleges and universities not taught to our 14 and 15 year old children and in some instances even younger i did spend some time reviewing the topics covered in the curriculum that was approved in august of 2020. just to bring to light unit 2 do american citizens owe patriotism to the country coming off the 20th anniversary of september 11th i cannot believe this is even considered to be addressed in our schools should we be patriotic is that even a

102topic that we're willing to discuss this unit also covers and here's the key the differences in each other we are literally teaching our children to look at others differently we are teaching racism children do not inherently see differences until we as adults teach them to go to a park at any time and you will see children of all colors playing together that's what we should be focusing on unit 4 covers these key terms whiteness police brutality black lives matter and these exact words critical race theory unit 5 talks about defunding the police and i even looked into some of the reference materials the 1619 project is a writing that falsifies the historical purpose of the revolutionary war uncomfortable conversations with a black man that claims that rioting is not only okay but one of the

103best avenues for change and that peaceful protesting is ineffective i have also heard that teachers in our own district are allowed to have blm flags in their classroom and that teachers are not required to and do not enforce standing for the pledge of allegiance i would like some clarification on what political or racial items are permitted finish up yeah absolutely unity and togetherness in our schools and community is what we should be striving for instead we are accepting and teaching philosophy philosophies that instruct our children to focus on differences and tell them if they are not right they will not succeed i am asking to please consider removing race in america from our curriculum [Applause] whenever you're ready uh jessica easton uh five fern way it's e-a-s-t-o-n i'm gonna i'm gonna take a crack at

104a smaller topic than the previous speakers although i appreciate what they're saying um also i have written correspondence on this and it wasn't noted and i never received any response to multiple emails so i'm here going to say it again so i understand back to school night is virtual i don't think we've been told about parent-teacher conferences yet i just want to point out that hillsboro has a 75 vaccination rate right now based on the latest numbers 99 of the people in this town are not sick i i would like to know why we can't have in-person events at the school especially parent-teacher conferences my child is going to a new school for the first time this year i feel like i should have the opportunity to meet their teachers there's no health reason why

105we should not be able to come under the protocols given and have these these meetings and i just feel like we need to start moving forward at some point i mean you can't you can't keep us locked out forever i just i just don't i'm not sure i understand that so that's it thank you my name is my two kids are going to elementary school i can't imagine my kids wearing masks for six hours i when i go for shopping after two hours i have to remove my mask i can't stay so with that said kids wearing masks for six hours is something unimaginable unless for the sake of a wearing mask if they are wearing and maybe like there is a loose uh regulations inside the school that i can't see so with that

106said i have two questions right if i pull my kids from the public school for now and put them into a private home school or private school whenever when they get vaccinated or if you offer a virtual learning option can i enroll them back into the public school without any issue without downgrading their classes as well as you know without going through a lot of you know groups can i just seamlessly enroll them back into public school that's my question one i know i will get i don't get answer no but at least i want to get something later if you can if you have an answer i want you to point me to uh documentation or rules where i can read about it so that i have a proof what you said is what

107i'm hearing my second question is as per my understanding regarding the virtual learning option what governor canceled this his own mandate his own minded what he put in the past he said everybody should offer a virtual learning he cancelled his own mandate with that that's my understanding with that said did he ban education more to from offering a virtual learning right it should be an option i'm not saying it should be the only option it should be an option for parents and kids who has passed medical history who do not take much risk their risk appetite is slow so they should have an option just because of pandemic obviously i don't want my kids to be at home i want to be in school meeting their friends teachers learning but i cannot take much risk

108with that said did governor ban you the education board from offering a learn virtual learning right i was always told oh governor canceled his mandate he mandated cancel his own mandate did he ban you legally from offering that's my question with that said thanks for your time um excuse me excuse me before you go would you please just spell your last name for the record yeah it's a ts and tom h a n s nancy g a v e l u thank you very much good evening henry goodhue hillsborough education association g-o-o-d-h-u-e um i would like to just start by saying there seems to be some question as to what our members do what our representatives do within the building and for those that don't know i represent close to 1100 of the public school

109employees proudly so and i think over the last couple of days we've really seen who our employees really are and i include the board and the administration and that even though the board is not employees because they're not paid but over the last couple of days we experienced one of the worst storms that we've ever seen in this area right on the eve of reopening schools and i am a hillsborough parent myself i share frustration that things are not the way that i feel they should be but i recognize that things are going in the best possible direction they can to get my children in school and have them come home to me happy so i do thank everyone who's put effort into that especially as we looked at the fact that three of our

110school buildings were damaged in the storm one incredibly so and as i went around to see what was going on in each of the buildings what i found is that our members custodial b and g they had slept in buildings they had stayed there for hours some 36 hours who couldn't get home to their own houses that were damaged to their own families they stayed there and they cleaned and they took care of these buildings so that our students could come in so if there's any question as to who our members are who anyone who works in these buildings are it was on full display over the last couple of days when i went to the middle school friday morning to assist with the cleanup there was not any hesitation on anyone's part and anyone

111who's sitting at the deus knows i will take issue whenever i need to take issue there is none to take here i stood shoulder to shoulder with administration custodial b g teachers instructional assistants everyone to clean up that building to drag out trash to remove things and make it clean for our students so that they could come back as fast as possible and have the best possible education they could we made sure those people were fed so that they could stay there and keep doing it because they couldn't get home countless members lost their houses we had numerous members who lived in hillsborough lived in manville lived in the surrounding areas homes were destroyed not damaged destroyed and where were they on thursday they were in those classrooms teaching those kids where were they on

112saturday they were outside of shoprite for seven hours gathering supplies to support this community we delivered two box trucks of supplies school supplies and cleaning supplies from the generosity of this community from the amazing people in this community who saw what we were doing and came out to say yes we need to make sure that these kids are okay we need to make sure these classrooms are safe i recognize my time is up i'll conclude by saying again as a parent i thank everyone who put the work into that i have never been more proud to represent the people who work in this district thank you thank you [Applause] thank you mr goody hello my name is alicia gaber bayless g-a-b-e-r-b-a-y-l-i-s i live in hillsborough um just wanted to say when when i heard of

113the last meeting that we were eliminating two positions in the lower grades i was disappointed i was disappointed that no one mentioned oh why don't we try to use these teachers for extra pull-out classes or push-in classes for the low students or even the high students um and yes i do mention high ability students because they deserve to be challenged too um also with regard to some of the other comments i just wonder also if we were to remove that from the curriculum what else would we take out from the from the curriculum with the holocaust go away i imagine that we teach about that um just just other things of that nature too so thank you so much thank you ms gaber bayless is there any other comments from the public seeing none i

114will now close public comments and miss and call on the board mr gillette uh thank you uh i'd like to say something about masks first of all i i also have my uh concerns about um especially younger children in masks for a full school day uh as some of you are aware um during the last school year i um i i was reluctant to uh put my support behind returning to a full school that full school day while the mass community was still in place because i just i i think it's really terrible for those younger children to be masked up for what could imagine eight hour day between the bus ride during back that that that's tough um so um i believe before the governor made his current mass mandate and essentially taking the

115choice out of our hands i believe we were heading towards a um a policy or a practice that would um not be so open-ended as the one as the mandate the governor's just made it he essentially said you have to be in masks until i say so until i say you can take them off that that's tough we were heading towards something i believe we were anyway that would um take into account the amount of coveted infection spread rate whatever you want to call it in our community or region and when numbers improve uh we would be able to take the masks off um i think something like that would be better but i think there is a way to to have uh masks on and also follow signs and then be able to take

116them off when things improve uh it's very frustrating to be up here and have to just comply uh with the governor's open-ended order like this when i see those little kids uh if you know i've been up here a long long time and it breaks my heart to have to put those little kids in look if they want to if their parents want them to wear mess fine but that's tough so um yeah i don't know that's all i have to say about this thank you thank you mr gillette is there any other comment from the board oh ms stats uh i i understand uh mr gillette's concern about children wearing a mask um but they do get mass breaks um but even in spite of that i do understand that there are it is

117it can be uh difficult for for some children um but i wanted to mostly talk about uh what mr goodhue said it was um some some of the what i heard not not just from mr goodhue but from others about how everyone has contributed you know hearing that our uh buildings and ground personnel were sleeping overnight that's that's amazing and and all kinds of and all kinds of stuff you know administration buildings and grounds teachers uh uh aids uh and and weren't necessarily just worrying about their own classrooms they were helping they knew other like in the attics you know teachers who don't teach in the annex were helping teachers uh you know prepare their classrooms those teachers that were in the annex it's it's uh very heartwarming and uh at shoprite on saturday people

118were towards the end of the day people were coming out saying the entire school supply section was wiped out uh that sounds bad but that's really a good sign that our community was so supportive and uh uh i don't think they were ready to accept monetary donations but we there are a lot of people very generous people that gave a wonderful donation so i applaud our community and um every member of our staff for uh coming together uh after hurricane ida thank you thank you miss stats any other comments from the board mr gillette all right let's go over to um critical race theory for a second uh so um i think it's first of all it's i think it's unfair to single out one high school elective class when we talk about this that

119it it's a class kids can take it as an elective um i think they can get something good out of it um you know if they if they put their mind to it they can't but we i think we use the term critical race theory as sort of a catch-all at least in this district for a lot of aspects of um the diversity equity inclusion that we have to teach [Music] based on the state mandate the social emotional learning all of this stuff is infused with that there's so much of that that crosses the line and it's just terrible um it's divisive it's it's it's it's rotten so it's not it's not one class if you we have a social emotional learning uh website in the district if you look at the resources that are

120linked to that website it's terrible don't single out that high school elective um look at everything and look at how those mandates how they go how just they go too far and if we're going to cure this i think the way to do it is probably to have some sort of a policy that just forbids us teaching any child that they are that they have um unconscious or subconscious bias or that they are any less of a person based on the color of their skin if we just have just make that policy or some policy like that if a positive that can sit alongside the state mandate for for um diversity equity inclusion uh studies whatever then then that would be the way to go because i don't think this is so infused now i

121don't know how we're gonna get rid of it unless we just put a foot down and make a policy that no kid can be taught that they're less of a person because of the color of their skin i mean i thought that should be obvious i'm not the oldest one here there's people all the me that lived through this we got through this decades ago all right that's all he'll say thank you [Applause] miss miss stats i'm concerned that people are really believing that children are being taught that they're less than [Music] what they truly are they're not being taught that excuse me excuse me they're not being excuse me miss stats has the floor the public comments is closed our teachers are they chose that profession because they love children and our teachers chose

122our profession because they love children excuse me so they would never want to have them feel that way having said that though there are uncomfortable topics and it's also part of the job of an educator to provide a full education for the children and not avoid the uncomfortable topics um especially those that have been experienced by people that are unlike ourselves i don't think we can dismiss the fact that racism still exists to a significant degree many of us don't experience it many of us don't witness it but it still exists and uh it's a serious issue for a lot of people that do experience it and i think it's important for the education of our children to to i think it's important for the experience of our children to uh be uh taught uh

123all components of everything not just racism not just you know like quadratic formula and all that stuff this is a part of the complete education thank you thank you ms steps is there any this is not a conversation between the board and the public any other comments from the board okay um seeing none i actually have a few things to address from public comment that i can mr thang of vanguavilla's comments about homeschooling so correct me if i'm wrong doctor in tunis but i believe that you may pull your child from public school at any time to home school when you re-enroll the child will be tested well welcome back absolutely and tested to determine proper placement yes okay with respect to virtual learning the governor's road back or the department of education road forward

124plan on page early on in the document specifies specifically that there will be full day full day in person [Music] like basically full time and there is no option for virtual learning so i hope that answers that question and with respect to the other comments about critical race theory i commented on that last time i'm not prepared right now to talk further about it i object to mr gillette's comment that students are being taught that they're less of a person based on the color of their skin i think that with respect to our board training that we had earlier today perhaps that is something that we can invite school boards in to talk about students achievement in the lens of hidden bias okay so that's that then are there any other comments from the board

125before i just have a concluding statement which is unrelated to okay so i appreciate that mr goodhue came to the podium to share all of the amazing things that our staff has done and i wanted to thank the hea and hpsa for organizing this weekend's stuff the bus collection drive and for inviting the board of education to participate and so on behalf of the board of education we're so grateful for the community's overwhelmingly generous support of our students and those families who were negatively impacted by hurricane ida i also wanted to take a moment to acknowledge and thank our district staff all district staff for the behind the scenes work planning this summer to ensure a successful september start to our schools and i want to acknowledge and express the board's appreciation for those staff

126that volunteer their vacation time to contribute to this planning effort is greatly appreciated i also want to thank the parents for supporting your children and for energizing a positive spirit in your tone and words our children look to us adults to know that we are working together to keep students and staff safe and healthy so i thank parents for expressing your confidence in our public schools i also want to thank the township for inviting the board of ed to march in the 250th anniversary parade which is this saturday september 18th which is the same route as the memorial day parade and we look forward to seeing you in the community on saturday thank you is there any other comment from the board seeing none that i'll take a motion to adjourn thank you mr pulsifier

127second oh thank you mr mourinho all in favor thank you we will see you in two weeks you