001the February 12th, 2026 meeting of the South Orange Maplewood Board of Education. Mr. Moody, can you please take the role? >> Of course. Will too. Board member Jeff Bennett >> here. >> Board member Dearra Brown >> here. >> Board member Elizabeth Callahan >> here. >> Board member Meredith Higgins >> here. >> Board member Bimmel Kapatia >> here. >> Board President Will Meyer >> here. >> Board member Malan Nyer >> here. Board member Shaina Saka Gable, board member Paul Stefen >> here. >> Okay. Uh, we do have a quorum. >> Very good. Please stand if you're able for the pledge of allegiance. Adequate notice of this meeting was sent from the office of the secretary of the board at 4:26 p.m. on February 2nd, 2026 to the Maplewood and South Orange Township clerks and the editors
002of the news record, the Star Ledger, Tap into Soma, and the Village Green. Tonight is our first quarterly retreat of 2026. We will be covering our mandatory annual ethics training led by our board attorney Patrick Carrick. Mr. Carrick will be joining us remotely for his presentation and questions. Following that, we have a training by our New Jersey School Board Association Field Services Representative Gene Clearary. Miss Clearary will be discussing the preparation of the district's annual budget and the board's role in overseeing that process, including our role in approving and shaping district programming. We will be stepping off the dis and moving to the conference tables to foster a more relaxed discussion. The meeting will continue to be open to the public, but we will close the live stream at that point. However, before any of
003that, we will open the floor for our hearings of individuals and delegations. Thank you for coming in person and joining us online this evening. We value public comment at our board meetings. While we cannot engage in a discussion with you, we take your comments very seriously and your input will inform our work. Our comment period is limited to one hour and each speaker will have three minutes. Please begin by stating your name and your town. Mr. Mooney, are there any inerson public speaks? I think there are not. Moving to online, we have uh one public speaks. Jonathan Castro members not online. >> All right. Uh that will conclude then tonight's hearing of individuals and delegations. Uh and we will turn without further ado to our board council Patrick Carrick for our annual ethics training. Patrick,
004are you there? >> Yep. Good evening. Right. Um I'm going to share my screen so that we can go through the presentation. So one second. right? Hopefully that worked. All right, good evening everybody. Um, I'm just going to move this over to the camera. Um, so thank you for the opportunity to present tonight. Uh, I am board attorney Patrick Carri. U, I'm with the Lennox Law Firm. Um the New Jersey School Ethics Act um applies to all school board members and school officials which also includes uh administrative uh professionals within the organization. Uh this is intended to focus primarily on board members and uh topics that are the most common things that board members are going to see in the course of um their their service as a board member. Uh it is often said
005that um a board of education member is the most heavily regulated elected official that exists. Um there is not a code of ethics as as this exists for many other elected positions within New Jersey or within other forms of government. Um and so you guys are the lucky ones to do not only free service but to do heavily regulated free service. Um it is important that you do this every single year because um it can become or is part of your QAC requirements uh which come up every three years. Um and so without further ado um so basically what the school ethics act is is a self-p policing statute. Board members are individually bound and charged with understanding and complying with the ethical standards set forth in the school ethics act. um you're not without
006um opportunities to get understanding and learn from others. You have access uh to your fellow board members that have experience on the board. You have access to your superintendent and then through the appropriate channels have access to the board attorney to assist you in understanding um the bounds of ethical conduct under the act. Um, I handle approximately a half dozen to a dozen school a ethics act violations a year annually. Um, they're they're not fun. They are costly. Um, and unfortunately when they are filed and and start they will often last um a year to even more than a year depending on how far they go through the process. Um, and so the better thing to do is to avoid it. Uh, the analogy I like to give is that, you know, if you walk
007right next to the pool, you could possibly fall into the pool. So, in your conduct as a board member, let's be a few feet away from the pool and not have to worry about falling in. Um, in terms of um reliance upon your board attorney, uh, I highlight this, but I but it has a caveat to it. The commission has never accepted the defense that incorrect advice or lack thereof would absolve a school official from complying with the school ethics act. However, what it does do is if you rely upon uh attorney advice and it is ultimately found to be incorrect and it is uh you have a violation of the school ethics act, they will consider it during the penalty phase and often um it can result in no penalty at all. Um, and
008that's very important because penalties can include reprimand, censure, uh, and in more extreme cases, uh, suspension or removal. Um, those are very rare. They often and only pretty much involve, uh, self-deing and financial ways. Um, so most commonly when we see any types of violations of the act, it's going to be a uh, a reprimand or censure. So, I call it the big three in terms of where it most commonly arises. Um, and I've been doing this presentation several times over the last few weeks. I am going to have to amend it in the future to call it the big four. Uh, this will touch upon social media and that's a definitely part of the big four. Now, um, so number one is collective negotiations. when you get onto the board, one of the biggest
009things um a board member does is participate in the negotiation of union contracts. Um and so over the years there's a body of advisory opinions as well as case law that has gone on to indicate when a member is allowed to participate or not allowed to participate or even participate in certain aspects but not others. And it's generally uh framed from the perspective of who cannot participate in collective negotiation. And generally speaking, that's based upon when whether or not you have a relative in the bargaining unit that you are going to be bargaining with. Um and if you don't have a relative, if you have what's called an other. And an other is generally when it comes up a cousin or various other types of uh family members like a brother-in-law, an aunt-in-law. Um it
010could even be somebody that's considered an extraordinarily close friend. And so, um, for quite a number of years, it was very difficult to parse through who's a relative versus an other and does that disqualify you from being a participant in negotiations. Thankfully, a couple years ago, the school ethics commission finally adopted this uh table in an advisory opinion that is now the the go-to place in terms of looking to see whether or not um a person would would cause you to have a disqualification from participating in negotiations. Um and uh we find this to be very helpful. Finally, um there are asterisks all over it and that's uh you know to make sure lawyers still have work. Um but primarily in case there are other reasons that uh aside from the familiar relationship, the relative
011relationship, there might be other reasons at times that you could be prohibited from participating in negotiations. Those often are um where the school ethics commission has determined that the relative is not going to cause you to in general be prohibited from participating. But then if they have a um a more serious involvement in their local union or if they participate in negotiations as a negotiations chair or on the negotiations committee team for their district, then the school ethics commission tells us to scrutinize that a little bit further because that might result in you being prohibited from participating. So that's what the absent another conflict usually means. There could be other things, but that's usually where it pops out. Um I highlight this slide because um this can kind of shows you that advice changes from
012the school ethics commission. So um with regard to negotiations, committee selection or frankly any committee selection, most boards of education, the president selects who's on the committees and has unilateral authority to do that. And so back in 2001, pre the school ethics act and the code of ethics um or I should say pre pre the code of ethics, the board president, even though that board president had a conflict of interest with regard to negotiations because their spouse was employed in the district, the commission at that time in an advisory opinion said, "No big deal. Even though your spouse is in the bargaining unit, we'll let you pick the negotiations committee." and it wasn't an issue. Fast forward to 2023 and now the school ethics commission's advice on that is that nope. If the board president
013has a conflict with the bargaining unit, then the board president cannot pick the chair person or the committee for that bargaining unit. And so over time there are a number of occasions where their advice has changed. Um and they recognize this. And one of the the good parts about it is if you rely on an advisory opinion, it later becomes determined um through a court proceeding and and final review by the school ethics commission on a full record that they decide that the advisory opinion was wrong and a misinterpretation of the code of ethics or the act and it should be found to be a violation, you will not receive a penalty uh at all because you relied upon their advice. um some recent decisions that that show this in action. Uh A1621, the way
014these come out, they are they are numbered as they come out. The second number references the year that they came out. Um in that one, board's members expouse was a member of the local union. So, normally a spouse is considered a relative and if they're in the union, you would be barred from participating in negotiations. But this was an expouse. So, they were trying to figure out what the expouse would be deemed. They considered that person an other and the board member was advised not to part participate in negotiations or be inva involved in the matters involving the superintendent because the expouse was an employee that prohibits them from voting on the superintendent. Um and it also prohibited their participation in negotiations. Uh a 2022 they considered an auntin-law and a distant cousin in the
015union others but said that did not prevent board members from participating in negotiations. So, in that respect, an aunt-in-law and a distant cousin, which I would assume is at least beyond a first layer cousin, um, is not going to pre prevent you from participating in negotiations. Um, AO322, the same statewide union bar remains in effect even for employees that have intentionally withdrawn from the union. So, you may recall a few years ago the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Janice that said that members of the union um didn't have to pay union dues anymore if they didn't want to because uh the Supreme Court felt that it was a violation of their first amendment rights. It was compulsory speech. And so, um, following that decision, a number of people throughout the state that
016were in the teachers union or in a bargaining union, um, stopped paying dues and and quote like essentially withdrew from the union. And so there were board members that were coming to us saying, um, well, my cousin or my whoever it is is not, uh, in the union anymore because they don't pay the dues. and AO322 came out and said no, the same statewide union bar remains in effect because even though they're not in the union, their uh terms and conditions of employment are still spelled out in the collective bargaining agreement. And so to the extent that you would participate and vote on that, you would still be impacting directly potentially a relative uh or an other's um terms and conditions of employment. Um, in A123, a mother-in-law is a relative and creates a conflict.
017So, they're basically saying mother-in-law is close enough to create the conflict, but an auntin-law is not. Um, and then A1023, the SEC advised that the board member has a conflict with respect to the immediate supervisor of their child and to all other employees and administrators up the chain of command, including the superintendent. That was a child employee by by the way, uh, not a child student. Um and so that decision is basically indicating that if you have a child, which is an immediate family member, or um a relative that's employed in the district, your conflicts extend to everyone in the line of authority above that person. When you're conflicted on a personnel matter, you can't participate in any discussions with regard to that personnel uh that person at all. Whether it's uh uh post hire,
018whether it's uh an action in executive session or discussion in executive session or an official vote that takes place. Um that decision, by the way, was in existence long before there was an advisory opinion in 2012. The board member's brother and husband were teachers. The board members sought an advisory opinion as to whether they could participate in close session discussions and performance evaluations of direct administrators, including the VP and the assistant soup that were in the line of supervision of her brother um or participate in the negotiations of their her brother's unit. Commission said no, the board member should not evaluate or view the positions of the supervisors of a sibling. So again, it w it was all the way up the chain. I highlight this one because the board member did the right thing
019there in 2012 when there was a question. Um, you have the opportunity to go to the school ethics commission and ask for an advisory opinion. Um, and so in that instance, what what you do is you basically send them a letter saying, I'm seeking an advisory opinion. Uh, and then you give them the circumstances of what it is that is the proposed action. And that's the key piece. It can't be action that's already been taken and then asking an opinion of whether what you did was a violation. It has to be um prospective in the sense that you're saying I'm I might confront this in the future or this is about to come up in the next couple of months. And I say months because when you file this, it's going to take probably three
020months to get a response. At least that's how it used to be. Um and I expect it probably is still that way, if not worse. So, um, if you have a question, of course, like I said earlier, you go to the superintendent, you go to the board attorney, and if we're still really questioning whether or not it could be a violation, this becomes another option. And you don't need me to do it, by the way. You can do it on your own, but I often assist in those. Um, and so overall, a personnel conflicted board member may not be involved in any discussion pre or post hire. So if they're a candidate for a position with the district can't be part of that discussion can't be any discuss part of discussions afterwards may not be
021part of any aspect of the vetting process or any evaluation or any uh contract discussion post hire and the conflict exists with the entire line of authority. So that includes curriculum supervisors if they oversee the department um that your uh relative teacher is in the assistant principal of that building the principal of that building up through the various uh directors through the superintendent. So turning to the next uh big three area is the board members role. Um there are several sections of the code of ethics but this is the one I highlight because this is the one that can at times be the one that gets questioned. U probably the most commonly um I will carry my responsibility not to administer the schools but together with my fellow board members see that they are wellrun.
022So with respect to a board member's role it's not to get involved in the day-to-day functions. It's to overall see from a higherup view whether the general operations of the school district are going well and that's primarily done through the interaction with the superintendent. Do we have a good feel that overall everything's going well but not to get directly involved in the um in the day-to-day operations and the minutia that is actually the role of the uh district administration um with the code of ethics there is a subsection part that speaks to sorry that speaks to um make it a full screen sorry everybody if I can do that. Um, so with regards to the code of ethics, there are subp parts that specify exactly the type of evidence that is required to prove violations.
023Uh, and this is really helpful because this is actually how we commonly get cases dismissed because if a case is filed against a board member and this evidence is lacking, then it won't advance past the probable cause stage uh with the school ethics commission. They'll get it. We'll file position statements saying this evidence is lacking and the school ethics commission will dismiss those cases. Uh so with regard to the administration of the schools that evidence requires uh proof that the respondant gave a direct or personnel or became directly involved in activ functions that are the responsibility of the school personnel or the day-to-day administration of the school district. So essentially just because you're a board member certainly you don't want to be in a position where you say well I'm a board member I'm telling
024you principal of this school do this or I'm telling you you know assistant or director do this. Uh that's not part of the functions of the board of education. Uh the other way it can happen is on occasion there's been situations where board members um will directly go into schools which is access that they normally wouldn't have if they were a regular public visitor to a school building and say they want to you know see a classroom or inspect the schools or I heard it's uh in disrepair and I want to go check it out myself. that would be getting involved in the day-to-day administration of a school because it's the role of administration to see how are the facilities um are they okay it's it's a board member's role to if they get information
025of that kind of say I heard Seth Bonen you know there's a problem with the water fountain it's leaking all the time that information should be re relayed to the superintendent filtered down to the appropriate people and then a response comes back up through the superintendent to the board members so they can feel assured that things are going Well, um, so like I said, a board member, a board's role is to see that schools are wellrun, but not to run the schools. Uh, this board oversight is accomplished by policy, adopting the budget, setting goals, and evaluating the chief school administrator, who is the board's one and only direct report. Uh, and it's done by developing a two-way communication with the stakeholders in the community. That's an important piece to, you know, focus on here. You
026guys, uh, will hear from the community. You'll hear their concerns directly because they know who board members are. They might email you. They might pull you aside when they see you in public and tell you things that they have concerns about with respect to the school district. So that communication then comes from them to you to the superintendent. Uh and that way you can let the superintendent know this is the community's feelings or perceptions or some of the concerns whether they be individual or something larger. and then the superintendent has an idea of what's going on so that they can make sure that the programming, the operations are addressing the needs of the community. Um, boards are expected to make informed decisions. Those decisions that I'm referring to are your actions that you take every
027month on the board agenda. Typically, you want those to be informed decisions and you'll need evidence to provided that will support the superintendent's recommendation. So, superintendent's making a recommendation to you. You want to be assured that that recommendation is the best possible course of action. Gotta go. I'm doing something right now, bud. >> And uh and this can be made available to board members uh in a variety of ways. You get progress reports on goals, board packets, superintendent reports, uh there can be discussion at board meetings, committee reports, uh committee meetings, and then the board can request additional data if all of that is not enough. Um the access to information though is not unfettered. Um I'm going to skip this one for a second. Um the board has to develop a culture of its
028own with the superintendent in terms of obtaining that information. And so how that will go about is basically working it out with the superintendent um uh in terms of how information is going to be shared uh in the best and most efficient way. And just going back um it's generally transmitted through you know through questions to the chief school administrator who then delegates that to the appropriate people. So, by way of example, when it comes to budget, um, finance or curriculum, you would go to the business administrator for budget. You would go to the curriculum assistant superintendent for questions about the curriculum and so on. Um, board members have a role in sharing information, but it's a little bit different. So, board members are permitted to share accurate, non-confidential information with the public. U, but
029that's important stuff right there. That one has to be accurate. You can't say things that are untrue and it has to be non-confidential information. As board members, you get a lot of confidential information whether it pertains to students or it pertains to employees. Um and so th that information can never be disclosed. Uh you have to avoid sharing any false or misleading information and must avoid disclosing confidential information even to your spouse. I highlight that because there was a board president in another district that got in trouble for sharing information with his family in a family chat and it got out through one of the kids that was in the family chat and it led to um a school ethics violation. Um board members should exercise discretion when discussing matters discussed in committee or initiatives.
030Uh some places call uh committees initiatives meetings. In those sections, um the board members are often have sharing information that is um uh in the preddecisional phase. Uh they're having discussions, asking questions, and trying to come up with the best solution. and you don't want to go and um necessarily disclose what other board members were asking or talking about in those because it's a good place to share information, play devil's advocate and hopefully the best idea comes out in the end. Um where requests for information, documents or records are not related to a current superintendent recommendation or issue before the board, the general practice is for the board as a whole to make a request for specific information, documents or records. I have been on boards before where someone gets elected and they want they
031come in and they say all right I'm on the board now I want to see the forensic audit that was done seven years ago and you know it's seven years ago it's done it's not a priority anymore and so at that point um it shouldn't be brought to it it shouldn't be something that they're seeking because it's not part of the current agenda items you got to go um other limits on the board's member access is that it prohibits a board member from accessing the personnel file of an employee except in those instances where the employee is being recommended for or subjected to an employment action. So as a board member, you can't just walk in and say, "I want to see the personnel file for this employee." The case law is very specific that
032the superintendent is to safeguard that from disclosure. Um, another time, this is the second case, a board member requested the home addresses of all non-tenured employees. Um, and the purpose of that was to send them a mailer to say to them, this is when they did April elections, uh, that, um, they would be up for election and since this board member voted on their tenure, they, you know, were just suggesting to them that maybe they should vote for them. Uh, and that was a violation. Uh, so this leads us into the social media discussion. So board members have first amendment rights. are permitted to go and still speak their mind on issues of public concern as private citizens. The school ethics commission has noted that um you should use the disclaimer, but sometimes a disclaimer
033alone may not be sufficient to prevent a violation of the school ethics act where the statements may give the appearance that the individual is making them in their capacity as a board member or on behalf of the board. So, how does this come up? you go and you give the disclaimer up front and then completely ignore the disclaimer and start referencing that you're a board member and speaking on board issues and getting into things that you shouldn't get into. Um, you got to stop. You're killing me. Uh, >> Patrick, you can have you can have him share the next slide if you want to. >> Sorry. >> You you can have him do the next slide if you want. Thank you. >> The lack of a disclaimer is not always a violation. So sometimes um
034you'll get in the course of posting on social media completely unrelated to the board, very obviously unrelated to the board and you don't use a disclaimer. And in those circumstances, the school ethics act basically the school ethics commission has said use common sense here when making these decision or that they'll use common sense. And if they can make it clear that the social media activity was not related to board action, then they'll say that the lack of disclaimer does not make it a violation. Uh and like I said earlier, you can have the ineffective disclaimer where the author is writing his endorsement of a person in his and his opinions are his own and yet then goes right into using their board membership to influence uh a situation. Um there's concepts that you'll hear about.
035Uh so there's board action which is you know your votes. Uh it's your speaking at the meetings. Public action, same thing. It's it's the actions that you take at the board meetings in public after being at a properly noticed meeting. And then there's the secondary concept of private action. Private action is basically um something that's not board action. So, it can be posting on social media as a private citizen. It can be um calling someone in your own private capacity where you say, "I am a board member, but I'm doing something without board authorization." So, for example, you're not a chair to the committee. The board hasn't authorized you to do certain things. Um where a board member sent a letter to a private donor in their capacity as the chair of the board's technology
036committee, the board had not authorized that. They found that to be a violation. So even though it was altruistic, even though they were trying to um in that situation raise money for the district, it was actually considered private action that they weren't supposed to take. Uh this is a another recent decision. It's actually up on appeal. Um in this matter, a board authorized the board attorney to go after another sitting board member by filing a school ethics complaint. And what this tells us is essentially that or why they they found that to be a violation is because the board members who voted in favor of that utilized public resources, taxpayer money to pay the board attorney to go after another board member. And so in that situation, they were voting what they would consider in
037or the commission considered in its in their own interest. Um and utilizing the public's money to do it. Um this is on appeal because this is not the first time that had ever happened. That has happened several times before and it never was found to be a violation before. Although I also don't think that they had ever brought a claim that it was a violation before. Um, in that case, the board members argued that they were the interest of the public because the board member they were filing against had done things that were so bad and detrimental to the board that they felt it was appropriate to use resources of the district to go after that board member. This is up on appeal. We don't have a final decision yet, but for now, the law
038that exists is boards should not vote to authorize their own board attorney or spend public funds to go after another board member. Um, in terms of confidential information, um, it's just important that board members really maintain confidential information. uh in C8 8222, a board member um took information from her board email account, put it to the her personal email account, printed the documents, and then caused them to get into the hands of a former administrator to assist that former administrator with a lawsuit against the board. That was a big no no. Acting in the against the interest of the board, but also disclosing information uh that was confidential to um somebody that was not on the board that wasn't supposed to have it. That was a violation. um and actually a violation of multiple subsections
039of the act. So there are a million things we could go through on this, but uh I know there's a limited amount of time, so I will leave it at that and ask if there are any questions. >> Thank you so much. That was terrific. Questions? Board member Bennett. >> Um I actually would have several questions. Um but I'll try to kind of be keep it limited. I was wondering like if you're in a public event like maybe an event for a political candidate and a lot of candidates come to South Orange Maplewood and you'd like to ask the candidate a question would it be okay to identify yourself as a board of education member like just as you know that's how you know about something like you know I know districts need more of
040this or I wish the state wouldn't require districts to do this like are you allowed to identify yourself as a board of ed member? >> Yes. So definitely yes. Um, the the way the school ethics disclaimer works is when you're speaking on matters of public concern as a private citizen, and I'll get to your second part as a as the board member themselves in a second, but as a private citizen, the school ethics commission says you should disclose that you're a board member, but then say I'm speaking as a private citizen. In that respect, where where you're giving the example, so you're at a campaign event, you want to know the position of that person. The question that arises is are you doing it because you're a citizen and you're interested in that role or
041are you doing it as a person that's a board member to the board and you're interested in understanding the there in either one of those since you're just asking questions trying to get the information in terms of like where they stand I don't think it's going to be a violation any way around so introducing yourself as a board member that would be interested to know their policy position I think that that's going to be fine um where it has come up is where the board member has taken action uh that hasn't been authorized by the board. And so like a direct solicitation was the example I showed that that had not been authorized by the board. Um the key piece to that too is that the action that you take has to be able to
042compromise the board which is theoretical. It's not doesn't have to actually compromise the board but in theory if it could then the private action could be a violation. Again, asking a candidate a policy position is not going to be something that I would think could compromise the board. And so, it would be fine to go and ask a question like that, including introducing yourself as a board member. >> Thank you very much. >> Any other questions? >> Patrick, I have a question for you with regard to the board members role in sharing information. You discussed that board members can share accurate and non-confidential information. I was hoping for some guidance on how a board member should discern when information falls into that. So, talking about information the district itself has not yet shared, for example,
043that was learned about whether from an email within uh board service or during a committee, whether it's information shared by the district or or through discussion. When is it permissible for a board member either verbally at a meeting or by emailing things out to share things that they believe are non-confidential, >> right? So information that is shared internally by um district administration that might be involved with a board members committee that would generally be fall under a category of preddecisional information that would be exempt from public disclosure. um where it becomes decisional is when the board acts. So, uh informing a board member on an action that was actually taken at a public meeting. That's that's that's non-confidential information. You could go and say we did this or someone, you know, or say, did you
044ever pass this? Yes, we passed this at this time. Or if they say you guys never do anything and there's a history of you know having done something in some specific area uh you could say well we passed these resolutions we changed this policy whatever it may be that addresses the citizens question that's very clear um you know information that is non-public like I on the one slide I said earlier the things that you discuss in committee are largely confidential because they're preddecisional uh committees don't make decisions committ committes make recommendations to the full board. Whether the an individual board member, you know, has a a great desire to understand what the committee did, they can certainly follow up and do that with the committee. Uh some board members may say, I rely upon the
045committee, you know, they were designated to to vet and I rely upon their um working with the administration to ask all the questions and make a proper recommendation that comes to the for board action and they may have less interest in diving into it. But all of that stuff is really preddecisional and that's why it generally should not be disclosed. The example I often give and this doesn't apply to you guys is um you know you may be discussing whether we're going to put a pool in a high school, right? And there's people in the community that are like that's a great idea. We need a swim team that can swim right here rather than to driving to wherever. Then that pool's freezing. Uh and you know gets them excited. There's other people that don't
046like that and they're like, "Ah, why are we spending taxpayer money on an addition just to put a pool in that's going to serve a limited number of people?" And if that's just a discussion going on in say your uh finance and operations committee or that's what it usually is in most districts. Um the idea is just have that discussion internally and then if you get to the point where you're soliciting bids or going down that road now it's going to become public. Solicitation of bids is public. uh if you ever take a vote on approving a vendor to go and and or contractor to build it, that's all public. But all of the stuff beforehand is just ideas and that information in large part is confidential. So every single board I go to does
047committee reports. You guys are no exception. I am always a little worried about those committee reports uh because that is information that is really not a decision yet. And since it's not a decision yet, the question arises is whether as to whether or not it should it should be made public. Again, it's not necessarily, you know, your committee reports usually are vetted in advance. Everybody's in agreement, so it's not so much of an issue, but it can become an issue. There are times I've seen it become an issue. Um, and so the easiest answer is if it happened at a public meeting, it is public. It's non-confidential. You could speak to it at that point. a lot beyond that. You know, the things that you're learning because of your role as a board member that
048no one else would know absent being a board member. That's a good indication that that information is confidential and should not be shared. Thank you. Any other questions? All right, Mr. Carrick, thank you so much for your time tonight. >> Thanks, everybody. >> All right. Now um okay uh we have the one public speaks that was uh unavailable online. He has now come in person. I would entertain a motion to uh go back in the agenda to pull back open our hearings of individuals and delegations to allow him to speak. Motion board member Callahan second uh Kapatia. All in favor show hands. Unanimous. All right Mr. Castro the floor is yours for three minutes. Hello. Okay, great. Um, see if I got I wasn't really planning on doing this again, but that halftime show was,
049you know, so I got to All right, so um I don't really have a speech as I did last time, but I want to go over a a few uh issues that I've uh been looking into. Um I received an email from the New Jersey SBA today this claiming that they are a board vendor board hired vendor. So they are not coming here to certify the validity uh the reliance of the audit the the audit by PFK Oconors. Um that audit has some really concerning forensic discrepancies. Uh, I've heard a lot about the 8 million gap that the district has, but it that that uh audit list a 13.9 million surplus. About 4.7 million of that is for maintenance. Right now, there are 400 students at the Seth Bdon Elementary doing PE in classrooms and
050in a tiny little tarmac for the rest of the semester while the funds sit there. um that uh audit also uh said there was an a 0% error rate. Uh but on page five there's a uh uh it sort of goes into into detail about the administrative classifications. Um, after looking at my personal uh lawyers uh at my attorney's uh billing and seeing uh two different uh law firms engage or or attorney, it seems that there might be some mclassification of special education litigation as general legal expense. Um it uh it list uh Dana Sullivan for a 600 uh 600,000 I don't even know uh bond and Eric Burnside for 150,000 uh bond if they certified that the the financial information in the audit and that's misapplied or misrepresented for example for a 13 million
051surplus. Uh it puts them at personal risk. I've notified them. Um uh the the main reason why I uh signed up to speak today uh is because the board attorney Patrick Carri is now a material witness to a January 12th and January 16 suppression of val liability notice. Edna has looked into this and uh has taken uh appropriate action. on January 29th when I spoke here, I said I specifically warned you not to to vote without uh notifying your insurance. Uh apparently you didn't notify them. Um hence why they had to take corrective action. Um and again the last time I was uh speaking about a 30-1 waste ratio litigating against my uh my specific family uh that number has likely now uh raised to 200,000 you know a 40 to1 uh rat uh legal
052ratio as opposed to just providing the the necessary services and uh >> times about up but finish your thought. As soon as I signed up uh to come and make public statements, the district uh announced that uh uh several future budget sessions will no longer be recorded or streamed. This reactive blackout aligns with some of the findings in the audit that by blacking out future budget uh conversations, finding 2024-002 and finding 2024-003 can't be fully scrutinized by the community. >> Mr. Castra, thank you very much for your time. >> All right. Thank you. >> All right. So that will again conclude tonight's hearing of individuals and delegations. Uh and we will now retire to our conference tables for our NJSBA training. We will be adjourning immediately after the conclusion of that session. Our meeting remains
053open to the public uh in person. However, our live stream will now end. Uh the board of education will next meet in public session on Thursday, February 26, 2026 at 6:30 p.m. in the district meeting room 525 Academy Street in Maplewood, New Jersey. action will be taken. Please note as well uh the superintendent is hosting a budget town hall next week on February 17th at 11:00 a.m. Information is available on our website. We also have strategic planning sessions with NJSBA that'll be happening on March 16th, April 15th, and May 11th. Sign up for a spot at one of those sessions again on our website. And finally, as we continue to celebrate Black History Month, please join us for the 4th annual Psalms event, My Black is Beautiful, a celebration of black history through the arts
054on Saturday, February 21st at 4 p.m. at SOPAC. You can go to our website uh on the front page for more info and to get tickets. And with that, we'll step off. Thank you.