Hillsborough Board of Education Meeting 8 23 2021

001good evening and welcome to the monday august 23 2021 meeting of the hillsborough township board of education in accordance with the state sunshine law of new jersey adequate notice of this meeting of the hillsborough township board of education was provided on august 19th 2021 to the hillsborough beacon and the career news mr mamamoo maybe we have a little call please surely mr gillette mr king mr mourinho here this is maroon here this is nurse here mr oliver mr poster mrs stacks here and mr here here we have a quorum thank you mr ramu now we have a motion to move into executive session notice it says whereas the open public meetings act chapter 231 of the laws in 1975 provides that a public body may exclude the public from that portion of the meeting of

002which the public body discusses certain matters for which confidentiality is required as permitted in section 7 of the act resolved by the board of education of the township of hillsborough and the county of somerset and state of new jersey as follows one matters to be discussed on personnel matters two the matters discussing executive sessions shall be disclosed to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists may have a motion in a second thank you mr irini and thank you mr oliver i'm all in favor um any opposed okay so we're now in executive session we expect to return at 7 30. good evening and welcome to again to the monday august 23rd 2021 meeting of the hillsborough township board of education we are back now from executive session mr mahmoud may we have

003a roll call please shirley mr gillette mr kidd mr marini thank you this is maroon here thank you mrs nurse here thank you mr oliver here thank you mr pulcifer mr stats here and mr trujillo here we have a quorum thank you mr mahmoud may we please now rise for the pledge of [Music] of the allegiance states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you i would like to acknowledge the correspondence is listed and also to let my fellow board members know and the public that i have responded to the emails if i've missed any that you have seen please let me know that i may address them and then next i would like to go to we're going to move

004the agenda around just a little bit go to the approval of the public minutes from july 19th may i have a motion in a second second thank you mr oliver thank you mr mourinho um any discussion all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions motion passed thank you mr mahmoud then i would like to now move to committee reports and mr gillette is not here tonight so we will report on operations at the september meeting if i could have ms maroon with the education minutes sure um the education committee met on august 19th 2021 we had a number of action items that you'll see on the agenda tonight including the revised curriculum the cte standards the bridger pilot program and school district travel um again it's all listed in the um on the agenda tonight

005and then we also had some discussions on the pdp and the soa mentoring plan again you can see that on the on the agenda tonight the district board goals the hms hershey trip and the projected enrollment and that was pretty much it right thank you ms maroon mr oliver may we have the hr committee minutes so the hr committee met on august 19th all members were present we discussed some action items which will be on the agenda tonight for first reading they are policy changes which are regulation changes or date specific statute changes we did look at some staff changes and non-affiliated raises we discussed the vacancy at the woods road school which will be on the agenda tonight for a new principle we discussed some changes to the coaching matrix and how we're going

006to move forward in evaluating our coaches and specific dates for when they'll need to be evaluated and sick bank leave requests and some personnel matters robust meeting and a lot accomplished thank you mr oliver and miss stats did you have an esc report uh yes um of the esc met on august 4th uh but before i talked about that um i attended their uh their ceremony for their graduating seniors in in june and it was really it was really uh very moving because it obviously could be more intimate because there's uh fewer students but a lot of them uh had uh accomplished so much and uh we're going on to uh uh even greater things to accomplish so it was a really great ceremony um but um at the esc meeting on august 4th they

007talked about the different programs the pathways academy for young 18 to 21 year olds after they graduate and there's a new dawn program that dresses the needs of students with mental health issues and they had a summer community service program called grow a row where they uh um picked uh zucchini and at least in my experience i think a lot of other people's experiences uh zucchini can be like i guess like rabbits i mean it really can uh expand greatly but that was a very successful program and um uh some of us were given a tour of of the building and the not only what they've accomplished so far in the facility but what their plans are so it's pretty exciting and also i'd like to talk a little bit about what we've talked about

008before a program that's supported by the municipal alliance called bridge to success and it's an eight-week virtual program for young adults ages 18 to 24. our our district provides a lot of services and uh support from the staff while they're here and we noticed um some of our young adults struggle so we we're trying desperately to do something to address that so that that's hopefully this this program will help them so we're hoping that people can spread the word um it'll be like i said it's eight weeks of virtual meetings one hour a week from september 21st to november 9th and uh they'll learn problem solving skills and uh how to deal with certain uh stress related issues and uh there's information that's on the table over there when you first come in through those

009doors and um how to register thank you mr hill thank you miss stats so as i said earlier we're going to move the agenda around a little bit we're going to do the action a giant agenda next but before we do that we will open it up for comments from the public on items on the action agenda before the board votes so we very much welcome input from the public during board meetings there will be two thirty minute periods of time that the meeting will be open for public comment for members of the public are invited to comment which they made all right you don't need that during the first public comment period members of the public make comments about items that are listed on tonight's agenda if so we're gonna okay so we're just

010gonna do public comments on items on the agenda for this period then before you say your question or comment actually before you state your comments you will be asked to provide your name and address please understand that our public forums are not structured as question answer sessions but rather are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board in instances where the board believes there is a 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 meetings act and the privacy rights of public employees encompassed therein do not permit the board to discuss personnel issues in public session and so with that i'm opening

011the public common session section for items on the action agenda only thank you may i comment on something that should have been on the agenda i can make it real quick um what can you please put your mask back on and then also what is the question hi may i comment on something that should have been on the agenda um no no because we're only comments on what we're voting on got it thank you but there will be a second public comment period where you may address the board any other comments from the public on the action agenda before we vote seeing none i will now close public comments and turn it over to the superintendent for oh yes mistakes oh sure um so i will now open it up to the board ms stats

012um it just came up during the education committee meeting that um we are uh eliminating two i hope i'm correct and saying that we're eliminating two uh teaching positions in the elementary grades and i'm concerned because two years ago we lost over 30 positions um so now we're losing even two more on top of that um yes i understand that enrollment has reduced but it's in addition to the over 30 that we lost on top of that and the fact that we did have in the budget to hire additional teachers um i find that troubling um and i just wanted to uh make people aware of that thank you mr dr entinos i just want to clarify we did not eliminate two teachers the class sizes are most of them are below and those that

013are at are are fully fully staffed so it wasn't we didn't take two teachers and eliminate them there was there was no reason to to it was it was in moments at this point okay i just wanted to clarify that it wasn't an elimination like if we look like if we lost state eight and we had to cut teachers different that's all oh i understand okay i just wanted to make and i understand that you had a reason for it um but i see nothing wrong with welcoming lower class sizes um of course it might involve shuffling but we definitely saw an increase in class sizes a couple years ago we had over 30 staff members a significant number of them were elementary school teachers so uh that affects class size and the lower the

014class size the better it is for our students thank you miss stats any other comments from the board um sir public comments is now closed there'll be a second period for public comment it wasn't closed she she commented as a public notice this is the board is commenting so i closed public comments and then the board you will have a second opportunity at the end at the later any other comments from the board all right cnn dr antoine's if we could have the action agenda thank you we'll be moving this as a consensus agenda i will read through everything with note to the board that there were two items added as discussed in executive session motion to approve the profession uh the superintendent recommends that the board of education approve the education agenda 10.1 to

01510.11 the hr agenda 11.1 to 11.19 and the operations agenda 12.1 to 12.3 as follows motion to approve professional travel related expenses motion to approve staff member being paid by idea fy 22 funds motion to approve revised curriculum motion to approve staff being paid by fy 2022 esea title 1 funds motion to submit the 2122 statement of assurance for district professional development as well as the district mentoring plan motion to approve staff for the ell program and curriculum writing motion to approve staff to administer the measure of develop the model proficiency assessments during summer months motion to approve stipends for reorientation program for students motion to approve policies and ranks for first reading as listed motion to approve retirements and resignations and i'd like to congratulate kristin o'leary who's been with us for 17 years

016as a luncheon at woodform we thank her for her service motion to rescind the appointment as listed and approved contract changes as listed motion to approve transfer change in assignments and revised leaves of absences motion to approve leaves of absence and appointments as listed motion to affirm appointments and to approve practicum placements motion to approve extra coverage to approve sixth and seventh period coverage and it to approve science lab coverage motion to approve summer revised summer work errors approved group changes as listed and the renewal of the assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction as well as the renewal of the business administrative board secretary motion to approve policies and regulations for first reading is listed as well as to abolish the policy as listed a motion to approve the settlement agreement okay motion to approve

017the settlement agreement as indicated and discussed in executive session motion to approve monthly financial statements and the bills motion to approve the policies and ranks for first reading is listed that is it thank you dr antinas may have a motion in a second thank you mr beckham second thank you ms maroon any discussion ms stats um i just wanted to acknowledge that um i think it's a it's a loss for our district that anybody resigns but especially ms wargo because uh i believe it was three years ago she was teacher of the year district teacher of the year county teacher of the year she's very dynamic i was going through the leadership somerset program that year and she came and spoke to us she's just oh she's so inspirational so it will be it'll be

018a loss to our district because she was so powerful with uh with her students with special needs thank you miss stats any other comments before we vote okay any other comments um seeing them if we have a roll call mr mahmoud surely mr marini oh yes thank you mrs maroon yes thank you mrs nurse yes thank you mr oliver yes mr pulciper yes with thank you god thank you mr poster mrs staff yes and ms trujillo yes ocean passage thank you mr mahmoud and i would like to welcome and acknowledge the new principal of woods road school who's in the audience with us today [Music] [Applause] thank you i will now turn it over to dr antunas for the superintendent's report thank you uh we do have uh miss medley here to discuss the 20

0192019-2020 hibbs school self-assessment grade reporting that we that we complete in june and you have heard this before but it is a it is a requirement and so she's here to to discuss that quickly with everybody good evening so i just wanted to go through this is the annual hip reporting uh self-assessment grades for the 2019-2020 school year so not the school year but the school year before nothing too notable and i guess this will be an attachment for public i think it's an attachment on the public agenda yes so our grades have remained the same these are grades given by the in conjunction with the school safety and climate team teams at each of our nine schools um the grades have remained pretty consistent the only thing that i think is of note on

020this is you'll see that the score pos gives the possible scores the score at the high school for the 1920 school year was significantly lower than the other reported scores and that was really entirely based on the fact that when we left school on march 13th to be all virtual we were able to complete two investigations that had just started one started on that day one started so on the morning of march 13th we had a suspected incident and with our adjustment to online learning and being home we weren't able to complete those investigations until the summer so we didn't meet the the grade reporting for the possible all the possible points because of our timeline so those were completed the board heard those last summer in july and so and this same report was

021given the state had us report on two years ago i anticipate that probably either sometime during this school year or next summer i'll report on the 20 20 20 21 school year thank you mr you're welcome okay i wanted to share the board and district goals for the year the board met for goal setting public public meeting goal setting on june 23 2021 and out of that evening came these the goals that i'm going to share this evening district goal is to implement and refine current communication system structures and processes within hillsboro township school district to result in consistent internal and external communications to continue to promote multicultural awareness gender sensitivity and an appreciation of the diversity in the community to return students to school full-time and provide all necessary support academic and social emotional

022for students and staff to acclimate and be successful a board goal the board will work toward improving board governance practices and increasing committee and board effectiveness and the board will develop a plan to improve and enhance communications with all stakeholders additionally the board will focus on intra board communications that is what was discussed we will then have action plans run up once the board which will probably be on the next agenda in september approve these goals we'll draw up action plans and then we'll work toward accomplishing it i don't know if there are any questions or comments from them are there any comments or questions from the board members mr marini yeah i know we had discussed during the open session around goal around cyber security improvement and i know it was disgusting recommended to

023be left off i still feel it should be on the goals for the year because it was a highlight of this year and discussed numerous times thank you mr marini any other comments from the board okay seeing them okay i'm going to do a formal presentation as you see up on the screen successful september before that i'd like to just say a couple words about other things as well i'd like to take a moment to thank everyone in the community who took time out of their busy schedules to join me and and mr mahmoud and some board members and other administrators in the district for the two q and a's that were held last thursday the conversations uh helped me to understand the concerns in the community and hopefully answered many questions as we prepare

024for the full day opening of schools for students and staff in just a couple couple weeks it has always been our intention to keep families informed of any changes that occur related to covet 19 and will continue in this endeavor as the new school year starts i am sure everyone is already aware of governor murphy's executive order number 251 requiring masks and indoor premises of all schools which was effective monday august 9th at this time you'll hear me say that a lot at this time vaccinations are not required for eligible students we do however ask if your child is vaccinated to please notify the school nurse this will assist us in contact tracing to our school nurses just this afternoon at governor murphy's weekly covet press screening press briefing he announced that all individuals employed

025by the board of education must be vaccinated by october 18th or submit to covet testing at a minimum of once or twice per week he's expected to sign an executive order to this effect once we have the executive order we share additional information this again this changes constantly additionally i would like to remind parents and students that as athletics and extracurricular activities have started and as the school year begins we will most definitely have positive covet 19 cases that may require to people to be excluded from school practices and games while contact tracing is completed while it is always our intention to do this as quickly as possible if information is received late in the day or during a weekend information may not be available until the following work day however our principals are very

026good at looking at their emails throughout the evening and if there is something it's possible that the community will get reasonable um people within the community whoever it affects will get an uh school messenger phone call late at night 9 30 10 o'clock even if if necessary if we know at that point the reason for that is because oftentimes the results are not coming into our parents until later or maybe that's when our parents or our staff members have a moment to sit down and look at their email uh i'm going to talk about quarantine reminders and exclusions so i'm going to talk about in the presentation so you will see that tomorrow august 24th at 10 a.m genesis access for student schedules will be turned on for the 21-22 school year for students and

027staff in grades 5 through 12. schedules for students in grades preschool through grade 4 may be accessed on friday august 27 at 3 pm transportation information will be available for all students on friday august 27th at 4 pm please recheck your child's bus schedule just prior to the start of school to make sure you're the most up-to-date information and on behalf of the board of education i'd like to take a moment to welcome our new teachers to hillsboro today was the start of new teacher orientation where we welcomed many new teachers to district it was an exciting time they were here in this room and it was exciting just to be with each other these new teachers are teachers and staff members are joining an elite group of professionals working for a common purpose to

028provide our students without with an outstanding education we wish each and every new teacher not only a successful first year in hillsboro but also a rewarding fulfilling career with us now i'd like to move forward with a more formal presentation most of this is exactly what we've talked about but we've been talking about the last several weeks there are some changes based upon cdc updates or school physician updates but i just want to begin the conversation with a statement about good intentions we all have good intentions we all want the same thing or likely the same thing someone pointed out that maybe we don't all want the same thing at the last presentation and that is our premise is that we are coming to school getting kids in school healthfully and safely students and staff

029and keeping them there that is that is our priority but we all we all want to be here this is a very divisive situation that we are all find we all find ourselves in everybody has experienced covet very differently and very individually people are fearful and uncertain we are all experiencing things and going through this together our experiences may be different they may be similar but we are all going through this together so becoming combative or or disrespectful does not move the conversation forward and does not help anybody within the community this has split the world it has split communities it has split families so we want to keep this as respectful as possible please so i've started each of my presentations to the public this way we are planning for a full five days

030we are planning on lunches and we are trying to maintain three feet to the greatest extent possible in some cases that will not be possible we continue our core committee meetings we've had sometimes two a week we continue our great band committee meetings and we've had spring into summer events we're continuing these events we're continuing to put our put ourselves out there to speak to people i've called people personally i know mr mahmoud has mr trujillo has we've i have a focus group going on tomorrow so we continue these community events let's remember that schools do have a mixed population of vaccinated and unvaccinated people we have for whatever reason students staff members who maybe can't be vaccinated are are ineligible to be vaccinated but we do have a mix of people our premise is

031that those who attend school are well and are following the guidelines and criteria set forth you may disagree you may agree our role is to ensure that the guidelines set forth by the governor the new jersey department of education etc are followed everyone our premise is that everyone will cooperate and comply with contact tracing is necessary and appropriate if a nurse or department of health officer reaches out and you choose not to answer the phone that that's not helping anybody decision making regarding coving 19 prevention strategies are based upon protecting those who are not or cannot be fully vaccinated our priority is opening schools and keeping them open that is our priority that may mean that we have to shut down classes have to shut down programs have to shut down a school have to

032shut down a sport that's what we'll do we will follow hillsborough township public schools will follow any governor of new jersey executive orders new jersey state agency mandates centers for disease control and prevention guidance new jersey statute or administrative code requiring compliance by the school district on providing or requiring vaccinations to educators other staff or students we will continue to consult with our local health official and school physician on all matters pertaining to vaccination including sharing information on how to obtain vaccines and possibly hosting opportunities if if necessary with the construction it's been a little difficult for us to do that there are school as you know do have a mass mandate but there are also exceptions to that mandate as listed the masked mandate does apply to private public private and parochial preschools elementary

033and secondary schools with some limited exceptions as listed and it is likely that outdoor masks may be recommended or required at some point however we're not willing to to put that out there at this time we're waiting to see that could happen right before school starts it could happen once school starts we just don't know but the exemptions are outlined so this changed a little bit from the last presentation and as as we just said masks are required for everyone whether you're vaccinated or unvaccinated at all times while indoors we suspect that the guidelines will be subject to change if we find ourselves in a sustained period of low then we might relax the mass mandates for vaccinated individuals if we find that we're remaining in moderate or high for an extended period of time

034then we might have to implement more restrictions but we do have a layered mitigation approach that we've been utilizing since we went out masking is required at all times when we're in moderate or higher that's not to say that if we're in low for a week we're going to relax the the mandate we'll take a look we'll see if we can sustain this not we hillsborough just the state our region and as the case may be hillsboro is doing pretty well then we'll look at that as well if you're vaccinated and you are exposed there is no quarantine required you may continue to participate in extracurricular and athletic activities if you're unvaccinated and you're exposed quarantine is required and you may not participate or your children may not participate in correct extracurricular athletic activities we

035talked about eliminating or relaxing the requirement to complete the daily covet screening form as long as we are in moderate or higher we will continue moving forward with that that is a recommendation that we will keep in place and that goes for for students and staff members uh the cdc dr meldabound somerset county department of summerset county and local departments of health [Music] continue to speak with us we have almost weekly meetings with somerset county superintendents where in the last several meetings that somerset county and local departments of health have been a part of that call and dr milton baum is always available for for texting or conversations as questions come up we can treat extracurricular activities and athletics differently meaning that if there's there's actually a recommendation out there by our health officers to

036mandate vaccinations for students to be permitted to participate in athletics and extracurricular activities we're not making that recommendation at this time although i have to tell you that might be taken out of our hands just as the masking was taking out of our hands but we are not recommending that at this time we haven't seen any district do that quite yet so we're just keeping an eye on that breakthrough cases due to athletics and extracurricular activities will shut down programs we've already had to shut down a couple programs for a couple of days while we were doing contact tracing we will shut down those programs and any generalized breakthrough cases will obviously close classrooms schools for contact tracing for any period of time we just don't know so we just have to all be prepared

037to shift on a dime as if necessary there are many many challenges we are all facing our staff our building administrators our district administrators and our teachers are really doing a fabulous job and trying to work it through are we going to have everything worked through we'd like to believe we are but something might come up that we're going to have to deal with and work through and we will do that lunch is one of the biggest challenges if there was a mandate to maintain six feet at lunch we wouldn't be able to come back to school full-time it would be impossible for us to do that that is not the case however that is going to be a time where we're going to be extra vigilant because students will not be six feet apart

038without masks so that's a time that that the principals and the building administrators are working with our food services people and our maintenance and custodial crews to ensure that the cleaning takes place as soon as possible which is actually quite quickly and that in lunches there are signed seats that we have sign-in sheets might look a little bit different at each school because each school is configured differently and the number of students and lunches is configured differently but these things are important because of contact tracing reasons any transportation protocols all school buses are considered school property in terms of the need for prevention strategies so social distancing will be maintained to the greatest extent possible it depends we may have some roots that we can maintain three feet we may have many that do not

039we suspect that we'll have parents drop off their children at the beginning of the school year anyway so we'll see how that goes just like last year students will load from the back to the front so that students uh with first students sitting in the rear so i'm getting on the bus first i'm gonna go right to the back and then the people who are sitting in the front of the bus will get off that way masks must be worn by all students drivers and aides on buses regardless of vaccination status as per the cdc order again accommodations for those who are unable to wear face coverings will be addressed according to the students needs we'll be sure to place signage on district buses to communicate that face covering should be worn again these are

040not these are not new things to us these are all things we've been doing we've established a protocol which will be communicated to parents prior to the start of the school year outlining expectations of students wearing face coverings and there will be soft shields surrounding bus drivers we will disinfect our district buses and vans with electrostatic sprayers after morning runs and in the afternoon to the greatest extent possible additional cleaning will be done between fronts that's not always possible our vendors for our contracted buses will attest to and sign contracts that their cleaning procedures are in place and that drivers are wearing face coverings just a note hand sanitizers and other chemicals cannot be stationed on buses because they're flammable so we can't have those things on buses we've got some questions about that so

041i wanted to be sure to make that clear air filters will be removed and clean every day on buses for students with special needs right now there will be no field trips is that to say that there will be no field trips all year absolutely not right now in the beginning of the school year perhaps through the holiday break there will be no field trips any transportation for any extracurricular activities including athletics marching band academic academic teams will be guided by our organizations and we'll see how that goes we will follow any guidelines from the njsia on the athletic plan which may be impacted depending upon how many districts in the state are having issues related to covet there might not be enough players to play a game with and student athletes coaches and drivers

042will be required to fair wear face coverings i will tell you that at the scrimmage on saturday i was there and the the coaches were wearing the masks on the sidelines the students were wearing the players were wearing masks on the sidelines when they were actually playing they weren't wearing the mask but all the other times they were in terms of cleaning disinfection and airflow we do have established schedules for increased cleaning and disinfection as well as targeted areas and those targeted areas typically include frequently touched surfaces and objects restrooms may be closed throughout the day for 20 to 30 minutes for additional cleaning we did this last year as well but we had fewer kids in school so we'll we'll it'll be on a rotation basis that doesn't mean that all bathrooms will be

043closed at all times it will be a rotation of bathrooms that may be closed and as we've done in the past disinfecting materials will be made available for utilization in classrooms hand sanitizing stations will be provided throughout the district and there will be isolation in covet areas and nurses offices which will be cleaned and sanitized after each use as well as daily water fountains will be turned off like the bubblers but the water filling stations will be available and kitchens obviously will be cleaned according to the the usage and using the disinfecting plan as submitted by our food services company catholic charities has developed our after-school before and after school program has developed a cleaning schedule for before and after school program and they've agreed to follow our guidelines and protocols as well we have

044invested in hvac repairs and upgrades and exhaust fans throughout the district for improved ventilation some of that was attached to the referendum some of it was additional we will improve the circulation of outdoor air increase the delivery of clean air and dilute potential contaminants through several strategies like bringing in as much outdoor air as possible opening windows and doors as long as it's safe to do so in school buses in schools and on buses utilize exhaust fans and ceiling fans when possible so in terms of contact tracing the cdc still identifies a close contact as someone who is within six feet of an infected person for cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over 24 hours however they have an exception for k12 classrooms now they have to have this exception if they expect everybody

045to come back to school and this is exactly taken verbatim from the cdc website in the kate and i'm going to read it in the k12 indoor classroom setting close contact definition excludes students who were within three to six feet of an infected student if both the infected student and the exposed students correctly and consistently wear well-fitting masks the entire time so if a student if students are wearing masks properly then contact tracing will take place three feet or less anything beyond three feet contact tracing does not have to take place so this is just a little little summary so six feet or three feet with masks for 15 minutes or more we will utilize as much space as we're reasonably able to utilize and again the principals have been working on this with our

046buildings and grounds crew and our teachers for months now seating charts will be essential to assisting contact tracing seating charts on buses seating charts at lunches however the principal decides he's sure they want to move forward with ensuring that when contact tracing has to occur it will be done as efficiently as possible and i've said it before i'm going to continue to say this parents must have alternate plans available at a moment's notice especially for our students who can't stay home alone we must have alternate plans available so some quarantine reminders and guidelines and this is going to be available on the website tomorrow also expect the school messenger from us within the next several days following tonight so we are follow following the cdc guidelines and we are we happen to be in the

047central west region somerset county is in the central west region so we're looking at all of these things four unvaccinated individuals when we are in the low to moderate range we are currently in the moderate range if you're unvaccinated and you've been exposed you must quarantine for seven days with a negative test on day five or later or 10 days of quarantine if we're in the high range then it's 10 to 14 days of quarantine for the unvaccinated individual for the vaccinated individual you do not need to quarantine after contact with someone who has cobit 19 unless you are symptomatic fully vaccinated people are encouraged to get tested three to five days after exposure even if you don't have symptoms there might be a vaccination testing mandate lying ahead now this is this i did

048over the weekend and this morning it changed honestly i've been in meetings all day back to back so i didn't even have a chance to update this but i did this over the weekend and here we are so we know that there's the possibility of vaccination and testing mandate for school personnel now that just came out today so at the time this is something that the governor said he was working on and we don't have any guidance yet or no guidelines about it just that it's got it's going to happen i want to be very clear about this there is no virtual option if school is closed for whatever reason buy a declaration of emergency by the governor's office or the department of ed then we and schools are closed districts are closed we will

049shift to virtual option but there is not a virtual option at this time for students who are quarantined or who or for students who choose whose parents choose not to send them to school we are not mandating at this time that our teachers provide synchronous instruction if a teacher feels that he's sure they want a student to listen to them during the actual lesson they'll invite the student to join but at this time we're not mandating that that's not to say that teachers will not follow up with this with their students especially if they know their own quarantine they will absolutely do that that is not to say that as a parent or students themselves cannot reach out to teachers they absolutely can do that and the teachers will be responsive that is where we

050are at the moment um questions come in all the time i try to highlight those things that we that people keep asking and uh we will we will i think there was a question about an faq we are developing another faq with the questions that the board is getting and that we're getting and this will be on the website as i said probably tomorrow and uh be on the lookout for school messenger also understand that as we get information you will get information it changes all the time and we are all working around the clock to ensure that our students and staff come to school we're all excited to be here so come to school and have the safest environment that we can provide for everybody thank you mr trujillo thank you dr antonis for

051that update on successful september and also thank you very much for hosting the two q a sessions on thursday august 19th and i will now turn it to the board if there are any questions or comments this is just about the report or anything i'm just about to report excuse me about the successful september okay i'm seeing none then i will now open it up to the public for the second public comment period um so if you'd like to address the board you may do so on any topic hi hello hi uh my name is dieter jimenez i live in germany driven hillsboro nice to be back here uh so i don't want to sound like a nagging or anything that just it's a long day everybody has long mondays long tuesdays seven days a

052week long day my point is we gotta focus on the common good and there's a lot of people who would agree that having access to these meetings virtually even though we have the technology we're not being it's not being used right now um and i just want to constantly push the boat away to please have these meetings virtually it means a ton again i don't have any kids but here i am after a long day i just want to go take a nap but we need to focus on things that we all agree and mean it uh the county commissioners one of the highlights they've made recently is that they never stop virtual meetings they continue those meetings and they will do so until further notice and i hope they never do because one of

053the uh things that the superintendent was talking about is that how to make the border bed uh better how do we improve it how do we make sure that the message goes out to a lot of people so there's less misinformation out there having these meetings virtual will help parents hear what's happening uh i would watch this from home and i would comment from home i was as i would do my dishes um and a lot of parents i don't have any kids but i could imagine myself with two kids i wouldn't be able to be here i'll probably be home passed out with one of them in my arms while i rock the other one so please have priority i know that you all everybody here has a lot in their plate but please

054bring that bring back those meetings uh i know that from a perspective of somebody who can drive here and has a privilege it might not seem like a high priority but we shouldn't use our own life as a baseline to make decisions so please make that and i hope everybody has a great day thank you thank you for your public comments is there any other public comments tim jordan 201 broke our court i do not have any children in the school district anymore for some people may recognize me i've been at the many of these board meetings many years ago mr gillette a couple other people um i am not an advocate of this uh critical race theory and i don't want it taught in our school system i think it's a decisive piece of

055a program that that pits uh you know races against each other rather than bring them together um i think that uh racism in this country would be on life support if it wasn't for groups like supporting crt and black lives matters and colin kaepernick and all these other people i think they fuel the flames of racism in this country no one in this country is oppressed anymore think about that what i just said no one is impressed anybody can go anywhere they want any time of the day or night literally no one is oppressed everyone has the same opportunity in this country and for someone like myself who served in the military for 30 years okay i support that and i think it's important that we understand that and i think it's important that we

056know that this these these flames of of racism really don't exist except for groups and programs that we have like this critical race theory i don't support it i think it's ridiculous again the only people that are opposed in this country are oppressed in this country are people that are lazy the people who are ignorant and the people who just don't want to participate everybody has equal rights in this country right now today we're not we're not we don't want to program critical race theory is going to pit races against each other i don't want to see that i don't want my tax dollars being spent on a program in the curriculum let's concentrate on stem programs let's bring in more teachers my question that i was going to ask before i just was not

057sure what the student ratio was in the classroom i'm not sure i was asking that i was going to ask that question it could be lower but i don't want my tax dollars wasted on this critical race theory and again if anybody has a student in this school system and you believe that that is is you know like i believe that it's not something that we want to see in the school system you better come to these meetings and stop it because this is the kind of thing that will drive a community apart instead of bringing it together thank you very much [Applause] thank you for your comments is there any other comment thank you hello can you hear me my name is cheryl barker i reside at 900h merritt drive hillsboro new jersey i'm

058here tonight to begin the discussion on changing the athletic policy which doesn't allow home school students share time students the same opportunity as all other students in the district to play school sports we are all aware that the njsia have adjusted their guidelines which allow home school students to play sports with the approval of the school board every student in new jersey should have that opportunity to do so so i think it's time that we discuss this policy and change it i'm a homeschool parent of three my son brendan will be a freshman this year he'll be doing a shared program for the information technology project lead lead the way at somerset countyville tech high school he has played football for five years with the duke football administration or corporation he loves the sport and

059he plays it well and i'm sad and a little bit disappointed that he's not able to play as a freshman this year because of this policy it makes him ineligible and i don't think it's fair to call a child or a student ineligible when home school students do exactly what public school students do they learn through sports to be better people as a taxpayer in hillsboro new jersey we should have the choice to play or not to play even as a homeschool family instead of that choice being made for us for me and my family because of the policy that's currently in place if i'm paying taxes for a great school system then why can't a homeschool family participate in that great homeschool system if we care about all students as we say then why

060not homeschool families not be considered as part of that as all students we are aware that there are other or we're in the process of looking at other counties to see what they do and how they make it work and i would like to discuss that with someone um on how we can do that here in our district it's a great district we love hillsboro we've been here for 20 years and i'm just sad to see that i can't have my son play a sport that he loves to do thank you thank you for your public comments is there any other comments phil gans 94 marshall road i'm the parent of an of an elementary school student in the district i come before you this evening to speak about masks in our schools this year

061i understand the board is simply following guidance from the state and requiring masks for all students in the fall but before we blindly follow directives from the state perhaps we should examine the record of those issuing these directives for the better part of the last 18 months new jersey has been one of the most locked down states in the entire country yet somehow governor murphy's policies have resulted in this state having the worst death rate per capita in the entire country that is 50th out of 50. he literally could not have done worse if he tried our children were locked out of school to due to this governor's policies and missed significant amounts of learning due to a virus which has been proven over and over simply to not be deadly to otherwise healthy children

062in fact more children typically die of the flu than have died of colgan yet prior to 2020 no one suggested children should wear masks and close down schools due to the flu this board was not elected and dr entunes was not hired to do the easy and comfortable things you were elected and hired to do the hard things i call on you to do what other districts in this state have done for example wall township and push back on this governor and petition him to drop these top down mandates and allow parents to do what is best for their children including making the decision whether or not their child wears a mask at school i am tired of watching my child come home from school with a wet dirty mask on her face and complaining

063of headaches on a daily basis not only is masking of low risk healthy children unnecessary it is impeding their development including the ability to build healthy friendships through school since they're being taught to be afraid of one another in another time and place this would be considered child abuse in 2021 we call it school the people most qualified to make decisions about what is best for my children live in my house not the governor's mansion i call on you to stand up tonight and push back against the failed policies of a failed governor rather than go along because it's the easy thing to do it's time this board and doctor and tuna stand up for our children even if it's uncomfortable thank you [Applause] thank you for your public comments is there any other comments

064hi i'm jessica easton five fern way i agree with what he said first of all i just want to second that um but i do have a couple questions or just some things to consider about um the situation with school um so i understand there are certain situations where masks will be exempt and i i would like to request that at the elementary level especially the teachers can somehow tell these kids when it's okay because i'll tell you what my kids are terrified to take their mask off and that's they're outside they're not next to anybody they should be allowed to take their mask off um i just i just think there should be some guidance given to the younger kids when it's okay and it should not be left up to a five six

065seven eight year old to decide i'm going to go against the rules and take my mask off they don't know the difference so that's the first request i have and the second thing is when they're quarantining and there's no support or no it's all asynchronous what about the kids with ieps i mean my daughter sat on the floor crying when she had no support from her teacher so i i just think there should be some consideration for the kids with ieps especially when they're quarantined so that's that's it thank you thank you for your comments is there any other comments good afternoon mark sachina from hillsborough uh basically i just want to try to if this board this community this town they could somehow put a request to the governor to somehow it seems like

066there's a prohibition against if you're vaccinated or you're not vaccinated but you could be vaccinated or unvaccinated and had a prior infection of coronavirus if you want to look at recently published may 21st 2021 in nature they talk about soros cov2 infection induced long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans i could i could get this to you if you need this but uh basically if you had prior infection of corona especially if you had it recently with delta so if i had a past crop infection of corona kobe 2. i would have lifetime immunity in my bc my b cells their memory b cells during your bone marrow they are in there for your for your life recently published like i said in nature may have been on the cdc website but if we're saying

067hey you're vaccinated you're good to go if you're not vaccinated and you have had a prior infection well you're not good to go that's not true we knew that to be true this proved it it's almost like going through buds right basically underwater demolition seals you're always a seal you just have to prove it so we did prove that this is published there's actually two cases in there this one also and i researched this this came out in 2008 so i know some people have amnesia in 2021. this is a sid wrap what's called centers for inspect infectious disease research and policy that uh based out of university of minnesota the guy that runs this michael ulsterholm excellent he wrote a book called deadliest enemy if you have not read that recommend you do probably

068go to about chapter 13 it'll say china researchers found long live immunity to the 1918 pandemic virus so spanish flu 1918 lasted for x number of years the numbers are all over the board from 20 million to 100 million not sure how they tested for that in 1918 but they did research recently in two 2000 in the 2000s probably 2006 2007 this was published 2008 they tested people who were over 90 that at the time in 1918 they were between 2 and 12 years old when they tested them they found out that they had c memory b cells memory from the old spanish flu from 1918 this was published by tisband macra and extraordinary sort of misrepresentation your three minutes are up if you could just wrap it up three minutes i'll be here all

069day all right so if we can number one if we i'll send you this but if you had prior infection you are immune for the most part like any other vaccine especially if i had recently delta because the pfizer modern were tested with the alpha and beta they were never tested against the delta you actually have more immunity if you have just had corona the face mask thank you face covering thank you mister my wife lives in in also in hillsborough can i have her three minutes no my son my daughter all right so you're gonna have to throw me out thank you here we go face mask just the coverings of the face mask i understand excuse me mr zachina your three minutes are up there are other people who would like my wife

070and my kids in here if they're here they may speak for themselves thank you mr zucchini is there any other public comments one more second if my uh if i have children they're under 18 can they speak here absolutely if they're here so anybody that's under 18 and has a iq over 70 that's a practical reasoner so you're going to have anybody coming here to speak about anything okay thank you for your public comments is there any other public comments janine mason i reside at 211 valley road um i would like to start off by saying that i agree with every single comment that has been made by the community this evening if anybody thinks crt is not in our schools it is i have a copy of the curriculum that was approved in august

0712020 along with me you can certainly grab a copy of it in addition to that the masks as parents i feel it's our choice for what we want our children to do they are not at risk i agree with everything everybody said but i do have a question if the i'm curious if the teachers in our um school system will be utilizing the reach app that was suggested by the ng njea and the nea um a couple tuesdays ago in august does anybody know if the teachers will be using that app excuse me ms basin this is not a question and answer session you may make your public comment okay well in case you don't know what that is it's an app where um there is an app called reach it's for teachers to use

072to record their conversations with individuals the purpose of the zoom was to teach teachers how to speak to others who are not vaccinated and trying to convince them to be vaccinated whether it be students who are of age parents or even their friends when a teacher has a conversation with somebody using the prompts that this training gave them they go into this app called reach type in the person's name and pull them up if it's an adult their name should be in the database and if they're a child they can add that name and the database when i say child i mean those who are old enough to be vaccinated 12 years old the teacher marks down if they're vaccinated not vaccinated thinking of getting vaccinated etc from different options and then submits the information

073to this company they want the teachers to follow up with anybody who is unvaccinated a week or two later to see if they went and got the shot every time a teacher enters information into the app they get points and every so often the people who are on the leaderboards get 250 dollar gift cards and the purpose of this is to facilitate conversations between teachers and parents and students of age to be vaccinated the main point of this is that the training was that teachers are a trusted profession and that is why you do not need to be a medical expert to give vaccine advice and parents will trust what you have to say because you are you are their teacher and i have screenshots of the app and the um zoom meeting from this

074njea meeting about awarding teachers for violating hipaa laws and asking questions about vaccines and pushing the vaccine mandates i just wanted to know if any of the teachers were using that application i asked at the q and a session and apparently nobody was aware of it but it was an njea zoom meeting so i don't thank you thank you mrs jason for your public comments oh my three minutes up your three minutes are up thank you is there any other public comments seeing none then i will now close public comments and turn it over to the board for any comment or discussion ms stats and then mr marini i just wanted to talk about um an event that i attended uh on august 7th it was called beyond borders a multicultural festival and it took

075place at the municipal building and it was organized by the student diversity initiative which is a club at hillsboro high school they had all kinds of food and artwork the artwork was amazing and tables that addressed a variety of issues related to diversity and different cultures and they also had workshops that demonstrated various talents while i was there they had um uh demonstrations of hip-hop and ukrainian dance and they invited people at the the attendees to participate and i'll reassure my my friends and former colleagues i did not participate because i have no sense of rhythm and they can vouch for that um but it was it was it's amazing what our students can accomplish i mean they they pretty much organized all this and ran it themselves it was very enjoyable um and such

076a variety of uh artwork like i said and uh uh demonstrations of their their knowledge and skills and talents so and i and i ran into mr hill there and uh i think i see some people here that that were also at that event so it was such a positive experience thank you thank you miss that's mr mourini and then mr pulsar yes um just in regards to one of the speakers tonight who is referring to home school students and athletics i would like to make a motion for a vote to approve to have home school students residents of hillsborough to actually be able to participate in hillsborough sports i would like to second that walk on motion we're not going to meet for another month until the student would miss i don't see any

077reason why we shouldn't i think the board should be able to vote on that tonight so mr marini i see it first and the second however with all due respect with this typically the processes that our board functions through committee so i would refer to the education committee for discussion i did do some research after we received ms barker's email and there there was a robust discussion several years ago when this topic had been brought up with home school and there are many many reasons why the board at the time adopted the policy to exclude the homeschool students however respectfully if you would like to discuss that it would best go through education committee will be allowed to do a temporary kind of allowance for the student unfortunately no because of the legal legal opinion

078at the time that if we were to so it is policy but also if we were to make one exception that basically negates the entire policy i mean for the sake of time is there something we can discuss tonight does this have to be done not in public now what about if the majority of board members would like to discuss it it is not it is not best practice for us to discuss we're not asking best practice we're asking for for the sense of time is you know can this be talked about okay um i will now refer to mr lupira sorry so in terms of you know what you can and can't do certainly if you review the policy and propose a policy change and then have a first reading you can do that

079it's still not going to go into effect until you have a second reading because you have to do that to change your policies you currently have a policy that prohibits it you can change that policy there's no question about it but um i think as mr hugh was saying normally you have that reviewed and there's a discussion about it and then if there's a recommendation they bring that to the board now what you're talking about doing tonight i'm assuming is um not having the discussion piece or having the discussion as the entire board but then doing a first reading and of course you i don't have the policy in front of me right now but you do have a policy that prohibits so i do remember looking at it within the last couple of weeks

080and you'd have to change it to specifically allow home schooled students to participate in extracurricular athletics which you could do again it's still not going to go into effect until you have your second reading whenever your next board meeting is even if you do that tonight um but that that's what can be done but i the only thing that i would say and this is up to you as a board as to how you want to proceed is whether or not you want to proceed um just by making the motion tonight and having the first reading or reviewing all the information that you normally review as part of a committee um to determine okay is this something that we want to change um but that's a board level decision in terms of how you make

081that determination right normally you go through the committee you the committee makes a recommendation oh we should change this policy which is normal and fine um and that's typically the way that you do it are you prohibited legally from having a discussion tonight and having a first reading no but that's just not the way we typically i mean you know in years and years and years we haven't done it that way but that doesn't mean it's impossible to do i want to be clear to have that conversation that may be an issue we are not prepared to have this conversation this evening it seems like and i know that we try to prepare ourselves the best we can but sometimes we're under time constraints and sometimes it's great to just have these conversations in front

082of the public in a board meeting and versus in one specific committee um with allow i mean if the community is asking for this i think wherever we have it having at the next board meeting if we um need to so our choices are to ask for a motion to have a first reading and discussion or to wait to the a committee meeting is that correct so ms nurse if we were to have a first reading tonight we'd actually have to have wording for that we'd need to pull up the policy and have wording i think it's unfair to the administration who has not had time to prepare and give the board background information to have this discussion when this discussion came up previously there was a very robust discussion education there are many items

083that i'm not prepared to say in public right now um so i would respectfully request that we defer to the education committee of which paul mr mourinho you are a member um so that would be so it's not operations this is education it would be education and we can have that aboard me just we're not prepared to have sure sure miss stats i'm very much a person that likes to follow rules but at least we do have a first and a second reading and in the interest of time and we can argue about well then this should have been brought up sooner but we can't turn the clock back um i don't know what damage could it could be to at least have a first reading now missed out it's not it won't be binding

084miss stats it's i understand what you're saying however the administration has not had an opportunity to weigh in on the board with the board members on this topic and as i said to mr mourinho earlier when i did review the legal opinion that was attached to the previous discussion the board attorney at the time strongly recommended that the board adopt the policy as it was adopted so i think it would be [Music] not in the district's best interest to move forward to the first reading tonight so seeing as how there's emotion on the table about mr pulsifier police the other the other problem i have is i'm not even sure what we're i mean we can discuss this all we want but if we're talking about having a first reading we need a edited full

085policy and i'm not personally i'm not prepared to have that official we can discuss what we want but have that official step when i haven't even gone into detail on the existing policy i don't want to rush a change i mean we can't just sit here and say okay you know your motion was to allow this but what does allow this mean how exactly do we rewrite the policy to create the effect that you're asking for and that requires review by the administration and board members have look at the old policy and figure out what we want the new policy to say it's not as easy i know to the public is like yes just let kids do it but it's not that easy when we talk about actually having to write a legally binding

086policy so we need to have that effort from our either from our legal representation or from charles s may along with our administration to actually look at our old policy and figure out what that new policy should look like before we actually could even where i would even be comfortable saying a first reading because i can't perfecting of what i have no policy in front of me that i'm reading so to say we're having a first reading when i haven't even seen a rewritten policy regardless of what we can discuss tonight i know no problem with that but to call it a first reading when i don't even have a policy to read um i think really is is stretching the process thank you mr pulse for miss marin no i have um i i

087agree with cressa i mean i'm not saying i'm before or against her or either one i would like to explore i would like to discuss the options but again i don't think going full-blown into a policy and doing something tonight is going to be helpful again because of the logistics of not seeing the policy not knowing what we can change what should change what and and and just me doing the due diligence of making sure we get all of the information on every aspect and every side of the issue at hand so and that's just just me personally that i just want to do my due diligence and research and talk to community members and talk to you know other districts that may or may not have this policy and just you know see do

088our due diligence and get the get our facts straight and get everything ready so that if we are prepared to to do this as a reading which i may or may not be i'm not just saying we are ready to roll it out thank you thank you ms maroon mr marini so i just want to be sure then that we have an education committee prior to the next board meeting so that we can be prepared for that because i do not think we have our next one i think it's september 15th so so our next for this september so we've moved committee meetings to before the first board month except for september because of the reopening of schools so the education committee meeting will be between the two board meetings so now it's three board

089meetings out before this could be approved yes that's correct yes mr oliver i just you know i have a problem with that because it's like perfection is getting in the way of progress and who are we hurting we're hurting thing he's going to miss the entire athletic season we wouldn't be able to approve this until october at best so again i'm going to i'm going to press we have a motion and a second on the floor let the board vote if it's defeated it's defeated but but i think if we got a first reading on the agenda for tonight the administration could fine-tune it for the second reading and we could have it approved the next board meeting it might salvage that student's season you know i can i miss stats and then this nurse

090um it's been brought up that you know we haven't read it but uh just this agenda alone there are two items that we haven't read and we voted on motion to submit uh the 20 21 20 statement of assurance for district professional development plan and also the statement of assurance for district mentoring plan i think that was made available to the education committee today but i think for the most part most board members have not read all that so we do vote on things that we haven't read and this this would just be a first reading it would not be binding miss stats i'm just in response to that the policy like the board is a policymaking body right so we should read all of the policy and be informed by our administration with respect

091to the statement of assurance the education committee did receive the two copies that you mentioned the entire board did not i don't recall that the board requested that information that is just a statement of insurance that is the administration doing the daily business of the district so um mr lapierre and his nurse you know i agree jane i i was looking for those documents i i just assumed that it was part of the procedure we as a board are working on communication so we're not putting pointing fingers at administration or or anybody as a full board including board members and administrators we are continuing to work to um be cohesive in our communication and and what we need so i think we're doing a great job i think we're going in the right direction i

092too um liked the motion at first but i do understand the other side of being prepared cheryl i read your email and i thought it was a great idea it was something that i wanted to explore but in hearing everybody else and wanting to have the knowledge and the background of what decisions were made before i think you know unfortunately the timing and getting the email at this time it is hard to have everything set for september um so at least from what we saw as the board i'm not sure if that conversation started before this time but as a board i think to do the due diligence of slowing down taking you know it took me a second to like take a breath take a beat um and and make sure that we have

093all of the information that we need before we uh progress and move forward i do recommend or hope that the education committee will put that at the top part on their agenda to begin those discussions at the next meeting thank you ms nurse is there any other comment mr lapierre yeah if i may just one comment without getting into details of any specific situations um but i do know that there's a couple of things to consider as well um because we were asked for a legal opinion on the ability of the student to participate or any student to participate um based upon the current policy but there also are additional complications because i believe that the way the nj siaa rules contemplate it it's fully homeschooled students not partially um and so there may be

094complications in terms of can we even permit it if we have someone who attends a public high school that has a sports team and they attended part time i think my current interpretation of the njsia rules say that that's the place where that person has to play the sport but again it's it it looks very simple on the surface it's actually a little bit complex and i think that you probably should review that in terms of determining what decision that you ultimately make um but you know in terms of our policy by you know by no means i mean the board could certainly determine yes we want home school students to be able to participate in sports or no we don't whatever you determine is your policy choice but i just want to make sure

095that making an informed decision based upon um the policy overall and then the policy as it applies to specific students in specific situations which may still have issues if i've made myself clear i hope i didn't make it unclear but that was the goal thank you mr lapira mr marini you made the motion i respectfully request if that is at work if you would withdraw the motion or all right i can resend that we can i would ask to do our best to move up the next operation as an education committee to be for that i don't know if that's possible yeah mr mourinho when we when we planned these meetings we were trying to do what the board asked us to do but it's the first week of school i understand we we just

096it's almost impossible for us to be prepared for the we're it's i just don't want to put any administrator any central office staff under that it's it's just impossible for us to do and i'm typically we would move mountains i just i can't promise that i don't understand at this point thank you mr marini so we have rescinded that motion we are adding it to ms maroon if you are okay with that with the education committee agenda yeah absolutely i'd love to have it on there thank you very much ms so do i um the gentleman who discussed the virtual options to keep board meetings like almost a hybrid i i believe he was a gentleman who spoke before about this i think it is a great idea to explore i'm not sure what committee

097that needs to start in but i would like to see that on the agenda of the committee that that's most appropriate for thank you ms maroon i will discuss that with the superintendent at our meetings thank you mr pulcifer sorry to put you on the spot mr lapierre but you've had good answers so far through the course of the last year and a half and we have often heard and we heard again tonight we hear about recommendations and guidance and often what we hear from the public at least what i hear from the public is why are you following so-and-so right so why are you doing this and that but a number of the things that are coming our way are not guidance they're not recommendations i believe they have the force of law i

098was wondering if you could comment and help us all understand the public and the board but which aspects of this are potentially you know guidance from the state department of health or hillsborough department health versus uh orders that have weight of law and therefore we're obligated to follow and i i worry when i when the public says why are you following this guidance well it's not guidance i don't think i don't believe it's guidance it's law and we follow it because we're a governing body and we're obligated to follow the law but i wish you could potentially clear that up that's a valid and a good question um so with respect specifically to masking because that has come up in many school districts not just hillsborough so executive order 251 does require masking in all

099public private appropriate preschool and k-12 school programs it's that specifically that masking requirement is not guidance that is the law um it's an executive order which has the force of law um technically speaking violating an executive order um can be determined to be a disorderly person's offense that surprisingly maybe um is subject to imprisonment for a term not to exceed six months or find out to exceed a thousand dollars so it does have the effect of law there is a statute that says if you define an executive order of the governor that can be the penalty so so with respect to the masking requirement that came out on august 9th yes at the current time that is the law we are required to abide by it it goes through a different process to be sure

100than how laws normally come about in our state normally it's a bill that is approved by both the assembly and the senate and then it goes to the governor the governor signs it but the governor does have certain emergency powers which were even recognized recently probably i guess a couple of months ago when a lot of the executive orders were rescinded but it still recognized the ability of the governor to issue those executive orders and yes executive order 251 does have the force and effect of law and we are required to abide by it that that in of itself is not a guideline there may be other things that are out there that are guidelines but this one is not thank you i just think it's important i think we should be part of people

101have asked that we'd be you know be part of conversations and i think we should continue to be part of conversations with our local and state government about the best way to handle the different scenarios but the fact of the matter is that uh until and if that executive order or anything else with legal the weight of law changes for now we're still obligated to follow that rule regardless of what conversations may be going on and what we may be trying to accomplish through other channels we still are obligated to follow that law that's correct until it changes we're obligated to follow up thank you thank you mr pulsar thank you mr lapira any other comments from the board mr oliver so i i just wanted to make a comment i want to you know

102we had a very good robust public discussion here tonight i want to thank everyone in attendance for their comments this evening i especially want to thank everyone for wearing their masks i know a lot of us don't want to be wearing these masks in these meetings but as mr lapera said it is a requirement we can lose state funding governor has issued a mandate we're in a school we need to wear these masks we all have very different opinions and very heated opinions very passionate opinions about this there are children it breaks my heart when i hear parents talking to their preschool children and grade school children that are struggling with coming to school and wearing bats and crying and complaining of headaches and migraines and they have doctor's notes we get the state mandate

103requires them to have these masks on if i had grammar school children in school i'd be very passionate about it as well but i want to thank everyone for being very respectful and following the guidance tonight and sticking to their to their opinions very professionally um you know the crt is another if you're watching the news right it's a very hot button and again you know if i had the option i'd probably opt my children out of that um you know my grandparents came to this country at 18 years of age my grandfather came from sicily he was persecuted he was prejudiced he lived at a ripe old age in 98 my grandmother was 102. it is the land of opportunity um you know it's a lot different than it was a hundred years ago

104we've made great strides but but the point is is that we're your elected officials up here we're here to represent you um be passionate be professional be respectful about your opinions and we hear you um you need to write your legislatures you need to write your congressman you need to write your senators if you don't believe in what's going on we are in a lot of ways powerless um you know it's an executive order a year and a half we're still living this and it's not going away and it is getting worse um but but you know trust trust me that you know let's be respectful let's get through this together and uh again from the bottom of my heart i thank everyone for being professional and courteous this evening thank you mr oliver i

105just wanted to address one point mr oliver about critical race theory and i will share this with the board new jersey school boards association has sent out a frequently asked questions about this critical race theory is not required by the new jersey student learning standards and it is not being taught in schools so i will share this with with the board and we can have perhaps a discussion in committee so thank you is there any other comments from the board seeing none i will take a motion to adjourn a second thank you very much all in favor thank you we are adjourned and we will see you back on september 13th okay thank you very much