Board of Education Meeting - Public Session - 7/24/25

001try to start on time. It's 6:30 p.m. and I'd like to call the July 24th meeting of the South Orange Maplewood Board of Education to order. Mr. Moody, can you please take roll call? Absolutely, Madam President. Um, I'll start with board member Jeff Bennett. Board member Dearra Brown here. Board member Elizabeth Callahan here. Board President Nubia Devol Wilson here. Board member Regina Eckert here. Board member Bill Gford. Board Board member Bill Mal Kapadia. Board member Will Mer here. Board member Shaina Saki Gable here. Okay. Thank you. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Please take notice that adequate notice of this meeting has been provided in the following manner. The written notice was sent from the office of the secretary of the board at 2:30 p.m. on January 3rd, 2025. That said notice was sent

002via email to Maplewood and South Orange Township clerks and the editors of the news records our ledger tap into Soma and the Village Green. I'd like to make a motion now to enter into executive session at 6:31 p.m. to discuss attorney client matters personnel and and hip reporting among other items. The length of executive session is estimated to be 75 minutes after which the public meeting of the board shall reconvene shall reconvene. May I have a second? Thank you, board member Eardert. All in favor? Let's go. Hello everyone. Um, welcome. We are now back in regular session and we would like to know if there are students here tonight who would like to speak. We will allow them to come up first. Um after that uh I will be approving the board minutes with the

003board and then we will have our superintendent update, president update, BA update, um public speaks, and then I will motion to move up the vote for the bond because I'm assuming that's why all of you are here and you'll want to see the result of that vote and then we'll move on to the regular agenda. So with that said, um, student I see a Bella Bella Serrano student. Yes. Oh, sorry. Sorry. I thought you were a student. Never mind. I'm looking at the wrong column for students. Um, no, that's no. Oh, yes. Yes. Okay. Uh, Charlie Drestler. And then tonight, um, public speaks are two minutes because we have a lot of people want to be mindful of that. So, yes, thank you. I'll start with that. Uh, you can go on if you'd like

004to sit or stand. It's up to you. I can stand. That's okay. Hello. My name is Charlie Drexler and I just graduated from Columbia High School. This is my third time over the past two years that I have been in front of our town officials to support women's sports and fair policies for athletes in our community. I am hoping this is the last time we have to have this discussion to urge the board of education to improve Ritzerfield with one turf multi-use field and two turf softball fields. History has shown that grass fields cannot be maintained in this community. I was a two-year captain of the field hockey team and began to play right before I started at Colombia. Playing a sport taught me leadership skills, confidence, and teamwork, and it made me a better

005part of the Columbia community. During this year's senior recognition ceremony, I was awarded the Cougar Nation Award by administration because of my efforts to spread and promote school spirit. Even as someone leaving for college in less than a month, I still want to fight for a field the school can be proud of. A big part of our field hockey program is the middle school teams that Coach Rivera has created. I have volunteered to coach this league during the spring during the spring freshman through junior year. We had a lot of girls who want to play, so we had multiple full teams and they have about two games per week. This program does not have access to Underh Hill and other teams in the league won't play on grass fields. So, all of our games are

006away. I used to drive to Butler, New Jersey during rush hour traffic 1 hour away so that my team could play. More than once, we found out that our two teams would be playing each other that far away. When players get to high school, they play on the freshman team and they get relegated to practicing on the outfield of the baseball field. With its rockier terrain, standing waters, and unmaintained grass. This year, the freshman team had 10 games canceled for field conditions and only played six games. These players are not getting an equal opportunity. The sport should not be playing on grass. Grass fields can lead to a slower game with less predictable ball movement due to divots in the field. All the mechanics are different when playing on turf. And when these players advance

007to JV and varsity, they will be expected to perform on turf. To prepare for this, many players play for club teams so they can get practice time on turf. This is not accessible for all athletes because it is cost and time prohibitive. During softball season, I have watched my friends play on the same field my brother played little league on. That field is not worthy of our team, which is ranked so highly in the state. Our softball players deserve better and would make Columbia proud playing on a turf field at Ritzer. I recognize that as a Columbia graduate, I could just walk away, but I want to leave things better than I found them. Last year, a group of female athletes and captains spoke to a small group of board of education representatives to discuss

008our opinions. After we discussed, I was told I was lucky to play a sport in high school. As a girl, I don't agree. I think that Colombia is lucky to have strong female athletes and is time that the community supports them. I hope that the rest of board of education supports students with turf fields and puts this discussion to rest. Thank you very much. Next we see Evie Campbell as a student. Thank you. Hi, my name is Evie Campbell and I'm a 2025 Columbia grad and a two sport athlete in both soccer and lacrosse. I'll be continuing my lacrosse career as a student athlete at TCJ. I've lived in Maplewood my entire life and grew up playing town sports. We need more field space, but it's a misconception that turfing Ritzer is only for athletes.

009This is simply not true. Last year, the BOE published an extensive five-page PDF that laid out the facts. Most glaring is the Ritzer sports usage study. The numbers tell the story. Quote, "All 1928 students will have the opportunity to utilize the turf at Ritzerfield through their PE classes, which at this time is limited. In addition to physical education, um, in addition, physical education will have additional months to use the turf facility as it will not be covered by turf blankets from November to April. Currently, Ritzer is full of bumps, divots, goose poop, dog poop, and countless dirt patches. Ritzerfield is subpar at best and dangerous at worst. In fact, the girls soccer team practices at Melands where two years in a row players on the varsity girls soccer team suffered season ending injuries after tripping

010and falling on unmaintained grass fields. Additionally, the glaring title N issues resulting from the inequities in field field usage are impossible to ignore. A Columbia softball team that made it all the way to sectional finals is continually denied a dedicated playing field. And the answer is not to ask the baseball team to give up their own field time. In regards to the environmental and health concerns of artificial turf, specifically regarding PFAS, the Connecticut Department of Public Health published an article in which they concluded, quote, "To date, the only peer-reviewed um the only peer-reviewed scientific research published on this study, this topic is limited to a single study. Results of this study conducted by researchers from public health departments in universities in Sweden and Canada indicate that florinated substances measured in the artificial turf fields appear

011to be bound to the components of the artificial turf and do not leech into the environment. Further, they are not the type of florinated chemicals that transform in the environment into harmful PFAs. There have also been claims that turf causes thermal burns. This claim is entirely false. I have played sports my entire life in the summer heat and have never once gotten a thermal burn from turf. Turf burn, however, is a separate type of burn, similar to like a rug burn, but it is not the same as a thermal burn. As a now alum of CHS, it's extremely frustrating to see the potential that Columbia sports teams have and how the embarrassing field situation prevents teams from reaching their goals. Fall sports teams are forced to share a single turf field and practice daily on

012half a field. We will never be competitive if we are practicing on half a field. Do the right thing for all students. improve the field situation at Ritzer. Columbia High School students and all the students in our community deserve better. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Lily. Lily Jaboni. Oh, it said you had guests here. Sorry. All right. We're depending on the yes or nos in the student column. Thank you for being honest. Um, okay. So, Naomi Swanson. Naomi Swanson. Thank you. Um, I'm just going to ask if I can go in the same time as another student here. Uh, yeah, sure. You can come up. Just please announce your name so that we Okay. But we are going to ask for four minutes since there's two of us. Yes. So, so you just

013want to sit together and then you go and then she will Yeah, because we have similar time. Yeah, that's that's okay. Okay. Oh, sorry. Okay. Um, I'm Naomi Swanson and this is Sydney Davis. And the topic that I want to bring to you is how is that Charlie Drexler had previously mentioned that we could maintain having a grass field like Ritzer. However, we don't maintain having a grass field like Ritzer. And it obviously costs us around 40,000 to 50,000 a year to maintain Ritzer. But even if we are spending that much money, we don't maintain it good enough because there have been obvious season ending injuries for both girls and boys team. I won't touch on that right now. But also, it would only take around 80,000 or more to turf Ritzer once. And that's

014just for around a decade to keep it up in turf for 10 years as opposed to spending 40,000 to 50,000 a year which we could be spending to put towards other things that we want for more as more equipment or it could go towards different things. That's not my whole thing because I don't deal with the money here. So that's just a point that I wanted to bring up. I also want to bring up that it's important that we have school pride. Many times especially I I resonate very closely to this because I don't come from much but um many times we've been playing and a lot of teams bully us basically saying is your school poor is your school poor why won't they give you a good field as a freshman when we had

015to play on richer and we had to play on the grass fields that were really poor maintained so I just want to bring that up and say that if we were to turf our school field instead of having a field that's farther away or a field that's you on the other side of South Orange compared to Colombia, then we would have a lot more school pride. It would be a lot easier for us to be confident and stand tall when we play. Um, yeah. And I'm Sydney Davis. Oh. Um, and I have two topics I want to talk about. One is the environmental aspect and the other is like time efficiency and how oftentimes we're forced to play at I mean kind of absurd hours. Last year I we had a lot of practices that

016were at 6, seven, 8:00 because the boys completely dominated the field and took over all the time. Oftent times we playing at half a field. Just recently for our summer practices, we've had to I mean literally wait 30 plus minutes just to have a portion of the field available. And then my second and main talking point is about the environmental aspect because it's often thought that um turf is significantly worse for the environment which simply isn't true. one, the radiation or heat from it is significantly less than concrete. Um and um another big concern is the microplastic runoff which has significantly less environmental impact than the fertilizers and pesticides that are commonly used on grass fields as well as the non-native plants that are planted on the grass fields which kill and affect the actual

017native plants that have a significantly more impactful I mean impact on our um environment. Wait, I was saying something else. Um, and also turf, people think that turf creates, you know, it because it doesn't absorb water, that creates more water runoff. But due to the grass fields actually killing the native plants, it creates more water runoff. as the native plants do significantly more absorption of the water compared to if we simply planted a turf field and expended on native plants around the turf field as obviously the grass kills the native plants. That's a lot to say. So, well, and that's it. That's that's everything that we have. Yeah. Thank you so much. Next we'll have um Sahana Lynch if you are a student. Thank you. Dear members of the board of education and superintendent Bang,

018my name is Sahana Lynch and I am speaking tonight as I understand the current plans to turf richer field may be changed. I'm asking you to consider continuing the plans to turf richer so that girls teams like mine have an equal opportunity for access to CHS fields. I'm an upcoming junior at Colombia and I've been a soccer player in this town since I was 3 years old. For my first season at Columbia, the girls freshman and junior varsity soccer teams were required to practice and play games at Floods Hill and Medelands. We had to walk a mile and a half to practice every day from school. It was difficult to get there on time after school because of the long distance carrying two backpacks. Unlike the girls teams, the boys teams got to practice at

019Richer every single day, which was not fair at all. In addition to this, Floods Hill had a whole sinkhole in the middle of it, and we had to chase off geese in the middle of our games. Having a turf field would make all the students lives easier and provide a better access to CHS fields for girls. The community has so many parks and fields, but richer is a place for the students. Turf is so much more accessible despite the weather and can be used more frequently than grass. I'm asking you to please consider the addition of turf at our school in order to provide an equitable access to fields for Colombia's girls and boys teams. This addition will boost the school's pride and community as well as giving each player a chance to grow and

020practice as much as they can. Although I only have two more years of soccer at Colombia, I want to give my younger sisters and all the future generations of girls at Colombia and access to great fields to play a sport that they love. Thank you for your time. Thank you. I just want to make sure that there are no other students in the audience that we could have missed. If so, please stand. No. Okay. I I would like to just acknowledge um the student athletes who came out tonight. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. Um it's not easy to come up here and and share your thoughts and opinions. Some of you unscripted without you know a paper and and phone and and some with and so I just want to do another

021round of applause for the athletes. Okay. So, now on to some board business. Um, I'd like to make a motion to approve the board meeting minutes from the June 5th, 2025 executive session and special board meeting minutes and June 26, 2025 executive session and regular board meeting minutes. Do I have a second? Thank you, board member Eert. All in favor, please raise your hand. Great. Minutes have been approved. Um, next we will have the superintendent update. Thank you. Uh we're going to push back the Satan Hall University market research results uh till next month. Uh we uh for the audience's perspective, we uh collaborated with Satan Hall Market research center over the last six months um really to do a uh perception survey uh of our community in regards to uh perceptions of the school

022district and where we can improve. uh we had the results. We'll make sure we present that uh in August or September. I want to make a note of the freshman academy relaunch. Uh we're happy to reintroduce the freshman academy to create a more personalized and supportive learning environment for all ninth graders. Uh we're looking really to uh develop a small learning community um in the D section of the high school. This first step uh of our plan is really developing uh a small learning community can form stronger relationships with each other and also the adults in the building. Uh enhanced security measures moving forward. We're looking to bolster school safety. Uh we want to emphasize that students, secondary students are all required to wear their school ID badges at all times on school grounds. Uh

023all CHS students will receive those badges first week of school. We're also introducing a new digital visitor management system uh starting at Columbia High School uh to streamline check-ins and enhance security for all visitors. High school auditorium renovation update. Quick update on that. Uh the rigging is in the process of being installed. Uh while they were installing uh the rigging, they did discover some electrical issues that needed to be addressed. So, the company installing the rigging are addressing those electric issues, which should still keep us on track uh for its September opening. Um, again, they are redoing the new rigging and then we're going to move into doing an electrical upgrade as well to Columbia High School. Uh, so, uh, we could utilize the theater more often. As many of you know, the theater was

024limited uh this school year due to the the uh poor shape of the rigging. Uh lunch policy for freshman and sophomores. Uh to ensure students safety, we want to make sure that all 9th and 10th graders are aware that uh students will be required to remain on campus during lunch periods. Uh this is a bit of a change for some sophomore families. Uh juniors and seniors will still have an open lunch policy. However, freshman and sophomore will be required to remain on campus. uh Underh Hill Athletic Comp Complex, new hours and senior program. As you know, we've been having some challenges at Underh Hill, uh not only with uh turf overusage by by uh non-comm community members, um but also some vandalism and things of that nature. So, we're looking uh at better ways to

025accommodate school authentic programs and community use. So, we'll be putting in some hours for Underh Hill starting in September. So, Monday through Friday at Underh Hill, we are looking at a 6:00 a.m. to 8 a.m. open to public. 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. it will be closed to public. 3:00 p.m. to 900 p.m. open to public once again. Uh Saturday and Sunday, 6:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. open to the public. Uh we're also excited to launch a senior stride program that will provide all senior residents 65 and older with an access card to access uh Underh Hill during the weekday hours between 8 and 3 uh so they can continue their walking programs uh and continue their uh physical activity and social interaction. Uh we'll be sending more information uh about that uh in the

026near future. Also, very quickly, we want to do a farewell and gratitude to Mr. Stanley Valz. He is our director of safety and security. He is moving on to Raran Valley Community College. Um yesterday was his last day after three years of dedicated service. Uh Mr. Val is a proud alumni of South Orange and Maplewood School District and Columbia High School. Brought both personal commitment and professional expertise to his role. Throughout his tenure, he provided invaluable guidance to our staff, worked tirelessly to strengthen safety protocols across our schools, and supported the well-being of our students and community. We want to thank Mr. Valz for his service and wish him all the best in future endeavors. We also want to shout out some of our Achieve Foundation student tutors to celebrate their service and impact. Um,

027you know, the achieve student tutor volunteers are an integral part uh of our uh CHS community uh working to help peer students in regards to content area. At the achieve end of year celebration, special recognition was given to over 60 student tutors from this program. Uh the outstanding IM individuals are part of a larger community of over 400 tutors who contribute their time and effort to support student learning uh throughout our district. I want to shout out uh some Cole Angela award recipients. These are exceptional middle school age tutors uh Kingston Anderson, Hazel Fischer, and Adam Cyil. Also want to shout out those who won the Dub Brow award. They are considered exceptional tutors from Achieve Foundation. Patrick Ansenetti Jr. Tabby Barnes Dedra Brown Aiden Carveti Caitlyn Chan Alice Cohen Emma Eisenberg Aiden Handel Emmeris

028Catz Christopher Condact Ethan Lars Teddy O'Brien Mary Kay Poval an adult volunteer uh Lawson Wallers and Shaina Zoo also some stellar seniors who have recently graduated who tutored for over three plus years and contributed their time uh to help other students. Theater Habitat Nhira Bahage, Sophia Baron Holtz, Noah Barkin, Sophie Beamer, Yael Benadi, Gwennneth Brown, Cecilia Burns, Whitney Cablesttock, Annayia Center, Max Coey, Jasper Cunningham, Max Drestler, Lydia Freriedman, Grayson Freriedman, Leah Giger, Alexa Guzenberg, Audrey Haber, Isabelle Hire, Sophia Hal, Dylan Hedley. I feel like this is graduation. Ruby Hoffman Wear, Julia Finle, Naomi Letterman, Isabelle Livingstone, Henry Martin, Kayla Masuti, Matthew Mullica, Clara Pner, Tama Persuad, Eden Phillip, Paige Provenado, Alexia Robinson, Clover Rosenberg, Jacob Schaefer, Leela Saker, Kenja Shimuzzi, Henry Subius, Ana Terry, Riley Walsman, Bryant Yang and Rachel Yontef. Again, three plus years

029of tutoring their peers. Big round of applause for these students uh who again have dedicated their time to helping others. Now Koki want to touch also on uh the richer project that uh have been discussed over the last well six months since my time. I guess it's going on about seven years. Yeah, about seven years. Uh, seven years currently. This is water. So, first and foremost, we want to thank everyone for their advocacy on this topic. Um through my experience, it's been a respectful and and uh people have demonstrated the utmost civility and uphel our pledge from earlier in the year uh to be better models for our children in regards to civility and public speaking. So I want to give everybody a big uh round of applause for that. Uh it it makes a

030huge difference uh modeling behaviors for our students. Uh second obvious note for many months uh we have diligently explored various options considering not only the immediate benefits but also the long-term sustainability and impact on our community. Our primary goal was to provide a top tier athletic surface that is safe, accessible and consistently available for practices, games and community events regardless of the unpredictable nature of our local weather. Over the last few years, we maintained our focus on two major factors. uh playability in students though not seen in public uh those who are former B board members or who realize how the board process works 95% of the work a board does uh is done via the committee process uh as it should be as per New Jersey school boards association uh so for many months

031weeks days and hours have gone into the decision-m uh process to arrive uh at the resolution that is currently on the board agenda it has been a process of discussion and deliberation where in different viewpoints were considered until a shared understanding and then a decision was achieved. I do want to shout out the board uh for their work collaboratively. Um it was exemplar everybody listened to other people's opinions uh though not everybody got what they wanted. We were able to come to a consensus uh and put our kids first. Uh with that being said, I want to share that decision regarding the future of community's athletic facilities. the selection of a turf surface for a new multi-purpose field in the form of plan D 2.0. Uh D is in Dodger. We understand that this is

032a significant change for Ritzer and we want to openly communicate that uh some of the reasoning behind this choice which we believe will ultimately best serve the needs of all who utilize our fields, especially our students and not only our student athletes but as as was noted previously uh our students uh in fizzed. Uh, one of our most compelling reasons for choosing plan uh, D 2.0 and turf is its unparalleled durability and all weather playability. As many of you know, natural grass fields are often susceptible to becoming water logged and unplayable after heavy rain, leading to frequent cancellations, rescheduled events, and an overall disruption to our athletic programs. Furthermore, hightra areas on grass fields can quickly degrade, becoming muddy, uneven, and even hazardous. A turf field eliminates these issues, ensuring a consistently playable surface that

033can be utilized almost immediately after precipitation, significantly increasing the amount of time our athletes and community members can spend actively engaged. From an athletics perspective, we consistently lose top tier athletes to other districts due to our lack of quality athletic fields. Uh we are told this consistently by those students that are transferring out before they even come to Columbia High School. Furthermore, the consistent availability of turf provides and translate directly into more opportunities for our youth and also our adult sports leagues as many of you know or have utilized richer. You not only see our students playing but also many community members utilizing the fields and track. Plan D 2.0 a modern state-of-art facility that our entire community can be proud of. It positions us to host a wider range of events, potentially attracting regional

034tournaments and bringing additional vibrancy and economic activity to our area. Plan D 2.0 will also provide less time spent on cancellations, which means more time for skill development, team building, and healthy competition. It also provides greater flexibility for scheduling, allowing more groups to utilize the field without concerns about overuse or field recovery. Beyond playability, we carefully considered the maintenance benefits of turf. While there's an initial investment, the long timeterm operational costs are considerably lower. Turf fields eliminate the need for constant watering, mowing, fertilizing, and pest control, all of which are significant expenses. Additionally, the need for a fields ground team would be a long-term cost. Uh the reduction in water consumption alone is a substantial benefit aligning with our community's broader sustainability goals. These freed up resources can then be reallocated to other important community

035initiatives. Safety was of course a paramount concern as well. Modern turf technology has advanced significantly and the surfaces we considered meet rigorous safety standards. The consistent and even playing surface of turf can actually reduce the risk of certain injuries associated with uneven or muddy natural grass fields providing a more predictable playing environment for all. We are confident that this decision made with careful consideration and the long-term best interest of students at heart will provide an exceptional athletic resource for everybody to enjoy for many years to come. We have been intentional about integrating community needs into this plan, including an upgraded water detention system. The use of organic fill, the use of particular turf blade shapes to reduce heat, keeping our mature trees while planting more greenery, retaining over half an acre of grass that will

036be upgraded and sustained with an irrigation system. uh about a acre of grass for just to picture it in people's head. 1 acre is about 90 yards of a football field. So we're looking to keep over half an acre of grass out on richer. Uh which comes out to around if you're looking at a football field around 50 yards. Um again uh one of our goals hearing from community members was to keep our mature trees which we will be doing. Uh we'll also be as noted keeping project adventure. There'll be very little uh need to do anything with project adventure other than uh moving one of our poles about 30 ft. Other than that it will stay the same. Um we're also working as suggested by our community uh to create a community advisory committee

037throughout the process uh of this project uh to guide the work uh and also give an extra set of eyes to the community and also report out to the community. We also plan on working with town engineers throughout the project. Um, I think at this point we are finally putting a pin in this after, as noted, seven plus year discussions around Ritzer and believe our students will be the ultimate beneficiaries. Keith, could you possibly pull up that plan D 2.0 for us? The best we can do. We try. So, if you're Thank you, Keith. I if you're looking uh at the image uh at the top north is central office where we are currently and project adventure. Uh to the right you're looking at Columbia High School. At the bottom of this image you are

038looking at Valley Street. Uh on the left side of this image you are looking at Hixon Place. Uh the darker green on this image is the over half an acre of grass that we have discussed that will be replaced uh with new grass and dirt and also an irrigation system being put in which will not uh impede our students from having lunch outside and congregating. You will see in the upper right hand corner a synthetic turf softball field. Uh in the left side of this image, you will see a synthetic turf soccer, lacrosse, and inset softball field as well. Uh dugouts are part of this. Back stops are also part of this. Uh lighting is also part of this. We will be particular around our lighting, working with our neighbors, making sure uh this lighting

039does not intrude into their lifestyle. Uh our parking is more than enough for visitors. We have multiple lots around the area that on our end and working with the town, we'll be putting much better signage as well up so people know where to park again not to impede on our neighbors lifestyle. So, we are very excited about this proposal. Uh we do believe as noted it puts our students first as well as playability. Thank you so much Mr. Bing. Um before I give my president update, Mr. Moody, did you have anything you wanted to add for the BA update? Yes. I I'll I'll just I mean, you know, I was delighted to hear all of the updates from our superintendent. Uh thank you, Mr. Ming. um you know, in talking through all of the work

040that we're conceptualizing here and how we're engaging with a committee approach and really listening to all of the different constituencies um with the same um goals uh before us. What I'll do is really just go through very quickly some of the details associated with the close out of projects from our $187 million in bond funding uh that has been sought forth from the municipalities over the last uh decade or so and uh we're coming to completion on a lot of those items. So, Seth Bdon School, final payment is approved. Uh, the work is completed there on stairs and uh we're just awaiting the architect's final approval. Tuscan School, final payment is approved and the work is complete there from all of the uh the bond funding that uh that funded our work at Tuscan Marshall

041School. The sprinkler flow switch will be wired and programmed to the fire alarm panel next week and the work's been coordinated with the building and grounds team. Final inspections on that work is scheduled for next week. We do have one change order there for roof work. It's scheduled to been begin July 16th at Marshall School. Montro School is the work is completed. So for Colombia, our superintendent went through some of the work that's ongoing for rigging and the electrical system that's being supported there. But I'll just detail the projects that are coming to completion. The PA system is underway as well as emergency responder systems. IT connections are underway. Renovation of existing guidance area is completed. Uh a a couple of f furniture items are scheduled to be delivered. Fire alarms in the A-wing are

042underway. Uh door hardware replacement continues. Uh in the D-wing, new doors added, new scope of work ordered. Uh there's an installation of permanent cores. Uh and that's 98% completed. New locker room area pricing has submitted to contractor and we're trying to get started on that girls locker room to bring that to completion as well. Lastly, South Orange Middle School uh the building keying was reviewed with the school and the work orders released and ordered received cores for those uh those doors. Plumbing in the new bathrooms is underway. Framing inspections underway. Duct work is successfully installed. The new electrical panels delivered to the site. New panels are being installed. This is ongoing work. Uh there's also some VUVs uh that are supporting our HVAC systems and they're placed in each classroom. The piping is underway for

043those units. So, we still have a good amount of work at South Orange Middle School to bring the HVAC work to completion. Uh including, you know, ceiling duct work um at the and the gym demolition that was completed. New duct work is underway. Library ceiling demolition and an existing duck work removed. New duct work uh is underway as well. Uh cafeteria above the ceiling and duct work removed to allow for new uh new duct work above the cafeteria. New cassette units were also installed. The fitness center existing drop ceiling and duct work removals were completed. Uh the little theater existing duck work removals to start uh this week and continue into the next week. We're continuing with door replacements and the main office electrical disconnects and preparations for demolition are underway. Uh demolition work is

044is continuing there and the FA systems continue as well as the PA systems. So, you know, it's kind of um the uh minutia and the closeout items that are underway at these various different schools with South Orange Middle School uh really ramping up their HVAC work to be completed this summer. That's it. You'll also see on this resolution, we're approving uh some students to uh finish off the new library media center. Uh we're hiring them to help put all the books back into the library media center, so we'll be all set for the fall. So, we're excited about that. Absolutely. That's great. Thank you so much. Okay, I will read the board president update now. So, as always, I'm going to give an update on uh some of the work done in July. I'd like

045to give special thanks to our FFT and Ruters committee members for stepping up and doing double duty this summer. As I always say, the board does not stop working just because it's the summer. We work even harder. Um so, first for FFT, they met twice in July to review our Ritzerfield plans with our athletics department, CHS principal, and architects so that the board could be well informed on the data and financial details of our options. In addition, BOE members attended the district's virtual town hall on the auditorium improvements and richer field which provided important facts for the community that also live online and a recap video and our Q&A document. Tonight, the board continues to demonstrate its dedication to centering the needs of our students. We vote on the middle schools auditoriums that need upgrades

046and Ritzerfield improvements that will include turf and go to the board of school estimate in August per the laws we must abide by to schedule the board of school estimate approval meeting. I'm proud of the ongoing discussions and collaborations that have transpired among the nine board members and with the district leadership behind the scenes to review the plans for Ritzer. As a team, we came to a consensus by focusing on a number of key issues, most of which Mr. Bing already mentioned. I'm not going to reiterate um but I did want to uh mention especially the lack of suitable fields for our student athletes and the lack of access for our girls softball teams. Students were promised a new athletic field back in 2019 and that has yet to be realized. Seven years later the

047work on Ritzer will hopefully begin next summer upon approval of funds in August. Although it is an every other month committee currently, the Rutgers team met again in July to discuss the district's continued work on intentional integration initiative evaluation for potential modification for K through5 and middle schools that currently would not be expected to go into effect until the 2728 school year as much still needs to be analyzed and community feedback will be integral in this process. We're also bringing forward for first read tonight policy 5124 student internal transfers and 5120 assignment of students. I want to remind everyone that policies 5124 and 512 were updated in December 2023 to enable the district to accept hardship transfers and create a like forlike transfer system, a system that has been in use for over a year

048now. As such, the board would like more transparency in this process. While implicit before, these policies make it explicit that the district may consider real life problems that families may face in our community such as work schedule incompatibility, lack of transportation, and children financial bur excuse me, childcare financial burdens among other criteria. These will be taken into account when the district is making decisions on like forlike SCS transfers on a casebycase basis. Per the policy 5124, the triple eye variance percentage would be maintained for these like forlike transfers. Lastly, it ensures that the district's website is updated with information on the district's transfer policy and that the district will provide regular data to the board on the transfers for transparency. Finally, as noted in my president's update yesterday, the board held its retreat to review

049the board's self-ealuation, which is being used to inform our board goals. We also discussed ideas for our district goals and we'll continue to work on both throughout the summer to finalize them at the August 19th retreat. Now, I will read the board president statement and we'll go into our um public speaks. The school board meeting is a business meeting in public and not a meeting with the public. Oftentimes, it may appear to members of our audience that the board of education takes action with very little comment and in many cases a unanimous vote. Before a matter is placed on the agenda at a public meeting, it has been thoroughly reviewed by the administration, by the superintendent of schools and the board of education, after which it is placed on the agenda for board discussion and

050action at a public meeting. Hearing of individuals and delegations, thank you for coming in person and joining us online this evening. The South Orange Maplewood Board of Education values public involvement and respects that you've taken the time to address the board at tonight's meeting. As this is the board's business meeting, a friendly reminder to please be respectful as we take into consideration your valuable input, which will inform future deliberations and work by the board of education and its committees. The board does have time limits by policy and it will be enforcing those to enable as many people to speak as possible this evening. As I mentioned, that will be two minutes. The first public comment period is usually limited to an hour. So, we are going to try to stick to that tonight if possible.

051We're going to track our time. Um, and the second uh where am I? Second public comment period may be limited to 30 minutes. Please remember to say your full name and town where you reside and I'm keeping track. It's 8:35. Okay. So, we have uh Rebecca Shear. Hi there. My name is uh Rebecca Shear. I am a Maplewood resident and a parent to two students in the district. Um, I'd like to thank Superintendent Bing for sharing your resolution in support of option 2.0 um for Ritzerfield. I emailed the board and um Superintendent Bing um earlier today with um a petition signed by 1,027 residents of the South Orange Maplewood School District, including um 167 students. Um it I'm going to read it out loud. Um, thank you for all your efforts to finally address the

052need to modernize Richard Field, a plan that was already approved in 2019 as part of the LRFP. We urge you to vote to support and fund a multi-purpose turf field that includes two turf softball fields. This option will provide an equitable solution that will serve the most students, address the desperate lack of adequate field space in our district and will finally provide the female athletes with two of their own fields just as boys baseball has. Thank you for your consideration and for your service to our community and to our school district. So, thanks so much. Um, we printed out a bunch of paper copies of or hard copies if anyone um would like one or wants to distribute them. But thank you all. [Applause] Okay, next we have Julie Kotier. Hello, I am Julie Coulter.

053I have two children at Columbia High School. Um, one of whom will be a captain of the varsity softball team this coming school year. We have lived here a long time. U and I love this community, but most of our yards are measured in feet, not acres. And unfortunately, we just don't have the space to do all of the things we want to do. Ritzer needs to work for softball and so many other sports. And for that, we need turf. I know it's hard to make a choice that feels divisive for the community. Thank you very much for choosing our athletes here and for moving this plan forward towards equity for our female athletes and so many more of our teams. We appreciate it. Thank you very much. Okay, Lily, you're up. Thank you so

054much for allowing me to speak. I'm here in strong support of fully turfing Richard Field and sincerely appreciate Mr. Bing and the board for all their hard work on making this a reality. I'm the mother of two Colombia High School soccer players, one of whom is the captain of the girls soccer team and plays at the ECNL level and has competed all over the country. We've seen firsthand the toll that poorly maintained grass and fields can take. My daughter has suffered multiple injuries playing on all our local grass fields, injuries that could have been prevented on a properly maintained service. The reality is that grass fields require constant professional maintenance, something our district simply doesn't have the resources or staff to support. Without that, these fields quickly become unsafe and unplayable. With only one playable

055turf field, Underh Hill, our athletes are forced to leave class early to travel to games that we cannot host or practice late into the night on crowded turf shared with football and field hockey. They've played on uneven grass in the dark in muddy unsafe conditions due to the lack of field space. As a parent, I hold my breath every time they step onto breiter. It's not just about soccer. It's about equity, opportunity, and safety. Turfing Ritzer isn't a luxury. It's a necessity. It sends a message to our kids and their school that the community supports them. Please support the Britser turfing project and give the students a safe, reliable and competitive home they can be very proud of. Thank you very much. Thank you LOD. Elod Reeves. Hi, my name is Elodie Reeves. I graduated

056from Columbia High School in 2022 and I'm currently going into my senior year at Gettysburg College where I compete on the women's soccer team. During my time at Colombia, I was on the varsity girls soccer team for four years. Unfortunately, the time I spent playing for Colombia had little to no positive effects on my development as a soccer player and an athlete. This was largely in part due to the shortage of adequately maintained playing fields. The extremely poor conditions of the grass fields we had to play on coupled with the lack of field space between all the Colombia teams made it extremely hard to improve as an individual athlete and as a team. This is why I eventually chose to join an out of town club soccer team. Joining this team was a large financial

057and time commitment for myself and my family. However, having ample access to turf fields at this club allowed me to train regardless of weather or conflicts with other teams. I was able to become the player that college coaches wanted to recruit. Being recruited for athletics during my college search allowed me to get into and financially afford schools that would not have been options for me had I not been recruited as an athlete. Other students in MAPSO deserve this same opportunity to open doors they never could have imagined by becoming college athletes. I was lucky enough to have the support and resources to further my development as an athlete outside of MAPSO. But what about the students that don't have the ability to join expensive club teams or travel long distances to other fields? Every student

058athlete at Colombia deserves the proper resources to develop themselves as a player in order to reach elite levels of play. All but one of my NCAA college games last year were played on turf. It is now the standard. As a community, we need to raise our standards and give every student athlete the chance to grow and compete at the highest level. The current field availability and quality is inadequate. Please support a synthetic turf field complex at Ritzerfield. Thank you. Thank you. Sabine. Sabine hack. She here. Okay. Hi, I'm Sabina Hack. I've lived in South Orange for 26 years and often advocated here for educational excellence and student health. My four children graduated from CHS. I don't envy you tonight. No matter what you decide, some people will be upset. It's an uncomfortable position. But I

059remind you that your job is to ensure that our students receive a thorough and efficient education. To do that, our district needs safe, sufficient, usable facilities. I ask you to send a bond request to the board of school estimate that includes the improvements to the secondary school auditoriums and a modern synthetic turf complex at Ritzerfield. Anything less is a disservice to our students. I have heard too many facts, pros and cons, about the benefits of natural grass and synthetic turf. Frankly, it's not difficult to Google facts that support one's viewpoint and disregard the rest. Um, understand that it's all a lot of noise. If you focus on the educational needs of our students, the decision is clear. The important facts are simple. You serve to safeguard and improve student education and well-being. Students need spaces

060in which to perform academically, artistically, and athletically. Each of our students deserves the opportunity to nurture their talents in our schools and leverage those talents for their academic future. You can't choose boys over girls or thespians over athletes. They all matter and we can do right by them all. We have upgraded classrooms and common spaces. We have a plan to modernize our auditoriums. And we can meet our field needs if we install synthetic turf. I ask you to support the auditorium repairs and a modern synthetic turf complex with two turf fields at Ritzerfield. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Um Yeah. Yeah. Um Ron Charles. Good evening all. Uh thanks for all the hard work that the board of ed uh superintendent Bing uh the business administrator uh have put into this effort. Uh, I'd also

061like to thank all the town administrators or council members who may be watching this meeting as well too uh interested uh for their involvement in the process. Uh my name is Ron Charles. I'm also the president of the Maplewood Girls Club lacrosse team. I'm the father of three kids uh going into second, fifth, and seventh grade. Um our op our our club has discussed and our board has discussed that we do strongly support option D 2.0. Uh we see a lot of benefits with that in terms of having the dedicated high-quality softball field, also a multisport field that can host softball while also independently hosting another sporting event separate from while a softball game is going on. Um other aspects, uh having this second four season surface in the town is going to be a

062boon to our children. It's the best use of taxpayer funds. Um and really uh we'll go ahead and multiply uh teamwork and collaboration because of the multiplication of kids who will be able to use this during fizzed and with their teams. Uh as some of the students said, the pride in the CHS school and community would also uh have a big benefit. Um and if I may get into the details just slightly, I would go ahead and use this opportunity to propose that uh in option D 2.0 I know if it's possible to replace the red uh sports lines with a light blue, which uh sport lining companies do support as different enough from white to be able to see that on the field while also removing the risk uh from colorblind students uh primarily

063males like myself uh who have a little bit harder time picking up the red lines as quickly on the field as they may otherwise. So, uh nevertheless, uh do want to voice my strong support here. Thank you all for your efforts in this and uh the efforts to pass this at the Bose meeting in August. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next we have Bella Bella Serrano. Hi, my name is Belle Serrano and I stand here before you not as a coach but as a someone who has been fully committed to Columbia High School wrestling program for the last three years. For the past few seasons I've worked under the generous support of the Booster Club, dedicating my time and energy to help grow this program. This season, I was offered the opportunity to be

064officially hired by the school as head girls wrestling coach, a role I accepted with pride and purpose. I had high offers from other schools, but I chose Columbia. I chose to stay because I believed in this program and more importantly, I believed in these girls. I coached while balancing the demands of being a full-time student and a collegiate athlete. It wasn't always easy, but I showed up because these athletes deserved someone who would. I've been part of this sport most of my life. I wrestled on all boys teams growing up. I never had someone who truly understood what it meant to be a girl in the sport. That experience created my passion for coaching and becoming the coach I wanted as a little girl. I was told repeatedly that I would be paid for my

065work. I followed up throughout the season and submitted paperwork. Got fingerprinted paid out of pocket for certifications and even had to repeat that certification because originally directed to the wrong one. I did everything I was asked of me. Then after silence, I was told I would not be paid. This is a reminder even now a young woman leading a female sports team can be overlooked, dismissed, and disvalued. This was a failure in management. Who brings someone to lead a varsity program and doesn't ensure that their paperwork is done properly and on time. I reached out multiple times for clarity and was met with silence is unacceptable. I trusted the honesty of the administration that was telling me I would of course be paid for my work. The coach leading leading the girls team, the only

066female coach in the entire Columbia wrestling program is the only one who who ends up being unpaid. That is not a coincidence. That is a message. It tells me and it tells the athletes I coach that our presence is secondary. That our leadership is optional and that our work is valued only when it's convenient and discarded when it's come and when it's time to follow through. If this is how the school treats young female coach who did everything right, who went above and beyond? What message does that send to your students? That their hard work is disposable that women in leadership don't deserve don't deserve fair treatment. I shown up for the school with commitment, care, and consistency. I'm now asking to be met with the same Just want to let you know you're at

067time if you want to one more sentence or I have like one more sentence. Okay. I'm asking to be met with the same respect as a coach man or woman would expect and to be paid for the countless hours I've worked. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. I don't know that. Okay. Um, it's a little difficult to Ally Curtis. I'm sorry if I said your name correct. It was just hard to read the handwriting. Okay, please state your name in town. Ali Curtis. Um, my wife and I own two homes, one in South Orange and one right across the street in Maplewood where my in-laws live. Um, we've got two kids. Um, one kid just graduated or is a was a freshman at Columbia High School where he played soccer. So, we've

068had a lot of experience on Ritzerfield. Um, I feel like in my 46 years, um, I've been studying this issue of turf versus verse uh verse grass, but I've also kind of lived it. Um, currently I'm the senior vice president at Major League Soccer. Um, but before that, I grew up in Michigan. Um, playing soccer my entire life and and I I didn't grow up with a whole lot. Um, but I've always had soccer to kind of keep me going. And that constant um had a profound impact on everything that I've ever done in my life and who I am today. Um, after high school, I had a soccer scholarship at Duke University. Um, we had incredible team. Um, we were always ranked, you know, number one or top 10 in the country. Um, I

069had a really great career, great teammates. I was fortunate to be a two-time national player of the year. Um, after college, I played professionally um for a number of teams in Major League Soccer. Uh, and then I started the second chapter of my life where I spent um, for the most part, most of my professional career has been in professional soccer. Um, but I did spend some time in banking. Um, but over the last 15 to 20 years, uh, I've been working in professional soccer, whether that's at the league office. Uh, I spent some time running the New York Red Bulls. Um, I spent, uh, from 2019 to 2022, I was the general manager of Toronto FC. And then recently I've been involved in Major League Soccer. So, a lot of these issues that you

070all are dealing with, um, I've been dealing with, um, as a player, as a parent, um, as an administrator. Um, and so I'm so super supportive of anything that you can do to turf ritzer field in all ways. Um, whether that's heat absorption absorption, whether that's um drainage, all those issues that you've been um going through. Uh, I just wanted to voice my support for u turf in the field. Thanks. Thank you. Uh, next we have Sarah Connelly. Uh, good evening, Sarah Connelly from South Orange. Um, I grew up in a household that really focused on athletics. Uh, my sister and I started in local WCK programs. uh were introduced to new sports in middle school, continued in high school, and both of us played in college. Um it's difficult to put into words the

071impact that sports and particularly team sports had on my life. Uh my closest friends today are those who with whom I started playing soccer with at age five. Um I've learned about commitment, discipline, teamwork, leadership, and perhaps mo most importantly, how to deal with adversity. I was fortunate to have access to a variety of sports through my public school district, a district that invested in its athletic infrastructure and valued the skills that young people acquire through participation in sports. Fast forward to to today and the landscape is very different. Um, club sports are the norm uh but only for those who can commit. Uh, it's a big financial commitment and it's a big time commitment. As a result, there are a significant number of kids who are being left out because they do not have

072access to these club level sports. This makes access to school sports that much more important. I'm excited to hear that the district is considering introducing middle school sports to the district. This expands access. It expands opportunities. Every kid who has the talent to play a sport, every kid who has the drive to play a sport should have that opportunity. But we must have the infrastructure to support this and right now our towns in this district do not. Turfing Ritzer is a step towards building the necessary infrastructure needed to support our students. I am grateful that tonight's resolution includes a turf softball field and a turf multi-use field. I am concerned about the portion of the field that's going to remain grass as the district has acknowledged that it cannot and that it won't maintain it.

073We have an opportunity here to build a true athletic complex. I ask the board make the most efficient use of this limited athletic space. I also want to quickly thank the board for including in the resolution funding for repairs to the auditorium. Um whether it be athletics or the performing arts, our students deserve facilities that are functional and that they can be proud of. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, Lily. Lily. Last name source of a G. Was that Did she already Oh, yeah. Okay. You were on here twice. I thought the name sounded familiar. Everyone knows I'm bad with names. It's one of my quirks. Um, Aubrey. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Aubrey Curtis. Um, I am a South Orange resident and you met my husband just a minute ago. Uh, a homeowner

074in both South South Orange and Maplewood. Um, the home directly across the street from this building. Uh, my aging parents live in. Um, and they enjoy watching the the kids play on Ritzer Field. Um, and the band practice. Um, our son is a soccer player at Colombia and a competitive club player in a neighboring town. Just have two very quick points to make tonight. First, obviously, the student athletes who you're hearing from, and second, the water issue that has been brought up um in discussions uh about this uh this project. Our son and his friends go to Milbour's turf fields every week, multiple times a week to take advantage of the space. They leave the community, they go spend money in another town, and they uh enjoy the consistent surface and even play in the

075rain. Um he goes to uh other towns to play for his competitive club and he finds and seeks out turf fields anywhere he can find them to play on because of the consistent surface. Um he and his friends despise playing on Ritzerfield because it is unsafe, unplayable, and the uneven surface dictates outcomes of the game and and plays. Our kids are playing on turf all over the state and and in our area in the district. And to the point, second point, the neighborhood around Ritzer, a lot of neighbors have been saying that um the neighboring streets don't support turfing. Um well, we are a homeowner directly across the street and we do support it. Um and uh we've heard the argument that Ritzer turf would create a runoff, ignoring the fact that Ritzer is at

076the bottom of the hill. our home, we have to waterproof extensively and it is the water from Prospect, not the water from Ritzer, which will be a water issue if any. Uh we also have partial turf in our primary home and there is no problem with water sitting on top of the turf. It drains. Um so just want to voice again support for fully turfing Ritzer. Do have some concerns with the grass portion, but we will support anything to turf Ritzer. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have uh Matteo Matteo Green. How you guys doing? U My name is Matteo Green. I'm the ver girls varsity soccer coach at Columbia High School. I'm also Thank you. Um I'm also a Columbia High School graduate. So, I've seen a lot of these meetings and I've seen

077a lot of votes. I'm not here to give you a whole bunch of stats. I'm here to tell you how what I've lived that and as you have heard, people are embarrassed. People are embarrassed. People are laughing at us. I've talked to people in this community that have played professional soccer, high division one soccer, and they're like, "Yo, why do we still have one field?" It's a joke. I was one of the kids that had to train, go to Milbour High School, go to West Orange High School, go to anywhere else besides Ritzer. I mean, Ritzer or Underh Hill because I couldn't even get onto Underh Hill. I've lived here since I was three years old in 2003 and I've probably trained by myself at Ritzer Underh Hill three times, maybe five, right? And I

078and it's unacceptable. We have nowhere to play. We have nowhere to express ourselves. And as you heard from some of my players, we last year we had practice 7 to 9:00 for the sole purpose to get onto that field. And we can't get onto that field unless it's that time, right? Why would you practice on grass if you're going to play on turf, right? It it makes no sense. And I'm really hoping we actually do make a change because I see a lot of hope in people's eyes. But I've seen a lot in meetings and I hope you guys don't let me down. That's all I can say. And for the last part, the fact that we think there's people under Hill is being overused because people in other communities are not are using the

079field is not true. I know this because I've been yelled at since I was 12 years old saying I don't live here. saying, "My brothers don't live here." Saying professional people that ended up being professional soccer players that went to Columbia High School don't live here, but we do. And just because we don't look like everybody else does not mean that we don't live in this community. And I I'm tired of hearing the narrative that people from other communities don't work there. I because I know the guys I'm in the group chat that where we we are speaking about that play soccer every day on that field. kids I went to high school with are on those fields and we get yelled at because people don't, oh yeah, these are taxpayer dollars. You should go

080where your field is. People have said this to me. Columbia high school coaches have said this to me when I was 12 years old. Matteo, I just want to let you know you're right. I I respect that. Thank you. But please, let's do the right thing and let's get these feels for these kids. Thank you so much. Next we have Elodie. Elodie Reeves. Was that someone that already went too? Yeah. Okay. Trying to keep up. Yep. This one. Um Kathleen Grant. That's a new one. Getting through it. Hi everyone. Oh, this is an unpopular opinion, but my name is Kathleen Grant and I am uh I live in South Orange. I have two children. They both play competitive soccer. I've been a competitive athlete my entire life. I understand the transformative power of sports and

081our students deserve a place to play. However, I'm also an academic that studies the climate crisis. And what I can tell you is that it looks grim. The future that we are passing on to these beautiful young people is not one where their safety is secured. It's not one where they are going to have the same rights to dream and to live that we all had. Right? And part of the reason why is because of the dominant cultural values that that prioritize our comfort, our ease, our material well-being over the rights of the earth and the rights of people who are going to be impacted by our decisions, right? That's the whole nature of the climate crisis. Transforming part of our natural ecosystem into a plastic surface, right? um perpetuates these dominant cultural practices of

082harm and ignores those who will be harmed by our choices. Many residents of South Orange and Maplewood, we we pride ourselves on being progressive, right? But this is not a progressive choice. It's not forwardinking and we need to be teaching our children how to live in this changing environment. How do we make choices differently, right? How do we not just perpetuate the status quo of harm? I'm shaking. I want to model that for my children and for your children because I love your children, right? And we need to teach them how we can create new ways of being together, right? How do we handle these complicated problems without resorting to easy and convenient answers that have significant consequences? How do we model for what it means to care about our community, all of our community

083and our land and our water and our future generations? How do we not take more than our fair share? I hear today there's overwhelming support of turf and I get it. But I'm just imploring you to think you're just up. Thank you. Um Paul, is Paul here? Paul serville. Yes, thank you. Just uh have to adjust my my eyes have to adjust to the brightness and sitting in the back. Uh could I ask for 10 seconds extra? And the reason is I didn't know that you were going to make a decision before we spoke. And actually I find that very objectionable that you decid you made a decision in secret. It's a it's a it's actually a publication based on our policies. But please just go on. Everyone's gone off for a little bit. So

084it's okay ignorance. I plead ignorance. I'm Paul Surville 101 Plymouth Avenue in Maplewood. And as promised, here is a summary of the points I discussed in my email to you yesterday. Number one, your decision on Ritzerfield will define your legacy on the board as a steward of the environment. The more green space you vote to save, the better. Number two, voting on artificial turf without consulting scientists opposed to turf from Mount Si and the Rawway River Watershed Association is a form of science denial and is irresponsible. Three, the district misspoke when it claimed that EPA studies have established that artificial turf is not a risk to health. Number four, the argument that grass at Ritzer cannot be made significantly better makes no sense when the most basic remedies have never been tried. Number five, it's

085absurd to say that equity for girls softball requires turf when the boys play on grass. Number six, the student athletes who spoke tonight were fantastic. But that raises the question, has this educational institution informed those students and all of the students at Colombia about the widespread opposition to turf by scientists and environmentalists. I don't even know if this board has been informed. Number seven, part of the context of this discussion is the great success of our teams under current field conditions. Number eight, when comparing turf with grass, contamination of the water supply counts at least as much as playing time. Number nine, the real cost to households over 20 years is going to be at least $1,120 and probably much more. I'll wrap this up really fast. Number 10. If politics prevent you from choosing

086the best option for the environment, plan E, then please consider the politics of compromise and decide on plan C 2.0. That would enable us to move forward with some sense of unity in this community. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. Next, we have Jessica Miller. Hi, good evening. I'm Jessica Miller. I'm mom of two students in the district. They are also athletes. One happens to be a swimmer and a hockey player. So, we know how that goes. Um, I would like to mention that storm water infrastructure is legally required. It's not a courtesy to the neighbors. Ask the D. This summer, our country has seen extreme weather events one right after another. As we learn about children drowning, we also learn about what the community should have done differently. Right now, my phone is warning me

087of both extreme heat and thunderstorms. Washington now says that climate change isn't real. Two weeks ago, I waited through water one block from here as I headed home and wondered how will it be when Ritzer becomes impermeable. Will the retention system be built properly properly? Will anyone bother to maintain it? And I'm trying to reconcile that we're here discussing covering 85% of this field with PAS laden plastics while leaving a postage stamp of grass for Colombia's 2000 students. Many talk about canceled games. And I'm begging you to think about 10, 20, 30 years from now. What kind of planet are we leaving for our kids? Where's the environmental justice and overburdening the local community and trashing the planet our children will inherit? We didn't buy our houses across the street from acres of imperous plastic.

088We didn't factor those cooling costs into our budgets, nor the cost of additional flood insurance. We didn't factor in that our children would attend Plastic High and have no green space. We didn't realize that someone could just say this multi-purpose open space now exclusively belongs to athletes. We didn't realize that our progressive community would deny climate change and vote to depreciate the value of our homes and the quality of life in our neighborhood. I wish our progressive community, who generally champions equity, would really dig into the issue of environmental justice. We have the heart and minds here to be really great. If we did that, we would commit to using our funds to create sustainable natural grass fields and more of them. We would respect the expertise to carry out this task and be a

089leader in New Jersey for sustainable and top-notch playing fields. Jessica, I just want you to know you're at time. Let you wrap up. We would show them the way of the future. I'm not stupid. I know this isn't the future we will choose, but I mourn as I watch it all slip away. Thank you. Next, we have Eric. Is Eric here? Eric, I think it's shorter. Sit after. No, you're coming up right now. It's uh Eric. Is Eric here? He's not here. Okay. Next I have Jane. Jane Conrad. She was earlier. Yeah, we can just fine. She must her must have missing. Now it's on. You want $7 million for temporary plastic turf. These are bad designs. These designs damage and ignore what is good and distinctive about Ritzer Field. They ignore that students are

090going to lose 85% of their actual green space here in a climate crisis, in a fiscal crisis, using toxic materials that are now banned and phased out in places that actually care about the environment. Plan D is 85% plastic. This rushed hidden process at the height of summer has cut you off from feedback. You need to avoid this disaster. This is bad governance. And these plans do not increase access. It is not creating space. Soccer will lose a field with two softball fields here. Lacrosse won't be able to play here in the spring period. Softball here, you know, great sport. I played in college, but it weighs space at this point at this location. It's single use. It's single season. S already has 17 ball fields. Turf fields are nothing special, but Project Adventure, the

091most elaborate course of any public high school in the country, has a national profile. You should be designing around Project Adventure, which the drawing you just showed would require dismantling and moving. You're moving that path north into the tree line here. Anyway, that that that part is shameful. The one thing that will increase with this plan is maintenance. With all those little chopped up areas, hard to get to, hard to clean, hard to mow, lots of fences, trapping trash, and leaves. The last thing I'll say is taking care of grass is not hard. There's a lot of collective brainwashing repeating the selfserving turf industry mantra that grass can't work while refusing to pay for any minimal grass maintenance. Just want to know your time is up. One more sense. We have shown you how you

092can improve grass on any budget and we can provide it again. You're supposed to be a board of education for all students in their learning environment. Nature helps all kids learn. Thank you. Thank you, Cada White. Yes. No. Cadia. Cada White. Yes. Thank you. You were on here twice, actually. Sorry. You were on here twice and crossed out. Oh, okay. Great. Thank you. Um, so I am thinking about what Jessica said, um, about how recently there are all these drownings and they go back and they play the minutes of the meetings where people went in front of the commissioners and said, "This is dangerous what you're doing." Putting an entire field of plastic near a bunch of apartment buildings is a setup for the future. And when they play this back, when somebody inevitably gets

093hurt, they will remember who was sitting on this board that approved this plan that we all tried to tell you not to do. Um, I keep thinking about how smoking was really popular at one point and they found out it wasn't so great for everyone and people still were like, "Well, we should still keep smoking. Let's not tell everybody. Let's ignore all the research. Who cares how much lung cancer people get? It's really pleasurable. But people like it. It's popular. Let's go with it. So, we're going with the popular thing here. I'm not going to try to argue facts because the facts don't seem to matter. There's key card access going up at Under Hill. What's going to happen to the fields here that are next to the school? What's going to happen in terms

094of trying to protect them? Professional soccer is mostly played on grass. I I mean, there's clearly not a matter of facts that matter here. So, Oh, yeah. and you claim to care about athletes, but you destroyed the school pool, so the swim athletes have to actually truck all over this the state and the county to go swimming. Um, you say this is for CHS kids, but then there's a bunch of private club sports coming here saying how much they can't wait to be on this field that belongs to the school and belongs to the kids who attend public school here. So Shaina, Bill, who is not here, you guys went here. You are alums. you understand how important this space is. 15% of the grass, 90% of it almost being gone is not cool. It

095it it's my kids. I have three kids who are coming up in the system. I know you're watching the time. So, I just want to leave this. Octavia Butler really she starts all of her novels in a dystopic reality because she believes that humans are too self-destructive to actually make changes that will work for the public. that we will keep choosing over and over again against what's good for everyone and choose for selfish interests. You have a decision here. You could make a compromise. You could choose grass and turf. You could say, "Actually, both parts of my community matter to me and so I want to do something different here. It doesn't have to be either or. I hope you make a different choice." Thank you. I love Octto Bait. Um Jonathan, thank you. Hi.

096Um Jonathan Poor, um Maplewood, um um about the um some some some information about fizzed. There's a lot of talk about how all the students will be able to benefit from this abomination. Um for a short while turf would be a novelty for fizzed but it would not increase usage. Um it's not creating new space. Ritzer is already there to be used um for fizzed. There's already a rich variety of indoor fizzed courses offered during the winter as well as project adventure which is four seasons. Heat will make plastic fields less and less usable June through September. Remember students are here at the hottest time of day in the school. All right. Turf can't be used under snow and ice, as you should know, um, and is damaged by improper removal of snow. You cannot

097have gym class in the rain. Fizzed students can't sit in their next class in wet clothes. Flatsold shoes are slippery on on wet turf. Flat soles also cause premature wear of plastic grass blades. Will you require students to buy turf shoes? Mount Sinai recommends showering and changing clothes after playing on turf. Are you able to accommodate that? If you go with crumb rubber, you will find out who at CHS has a latex allergy, which is about 6% of the population. Dust from turf fields exacerbates asthma. So, there's lots of there's lots of things that are going to make artificial turf less useful for for fizzed. And more generally, you are you are not sports imprearios deluding yourself with turf industry propaganda that you can make money by renting out public spaces or seizing space that

098you think is yours because of electoral politics. You are a board of education, not sports. Let's focus on the education part and less on the I mean sports are great. I'm an athlete myself, but we need to look at the whole population. Thank you. Thank you, Jonathan. Josh. Josh, your last name is UHL. I don't want to mispronounce it. Not here. Okay. Um, last page. Um, Rich, thank you. Hi, thanks. I wish I could tell you my about my career as a professional soccer player, but nobody would believe it if I tried. So, um, just a couple quick points. One, um, I I I hope you all had a chance to take a look at the case study that was done of the Verona artificial turf field. Um, if you don't believe that it's determinative,

099at least it should have made you think. What it makes to makes makes clear is that artificial turf is neither the most sustainable or the most affordable option for these kinds of things. I wish that was a kind of study that we had done here in making this decision. Second, imagine if someone had proposed replacing the grass field in Ritzer with asphalt. It's ridiculous. Everybody would say it's ridiculous. But I want to point out that asphalt would not only be much cheaper, but it's environmentally no worse and in some ways significantly better than artificial turf. It doesn't look like grass. So nobody believes that, but when you actually look at it, go do go Google this stuff this evening. When you actually go look at it, asphalt is in many ways much better. It's easily

100recyclable. Artificial turf isn't. It doesn't have VOCC's. It doesn't have microlastics that it spills into the into the water supply. The kinds of things that we should be thinking about. Lastly, what I want to say is what what becomes clear. I've heard I've been listening very carefully to what people in favor of the turf are saying impassioned and it's and it's hard to ignore their pleas or what they're saying. But what struck me is that what many of them are saying is we need turf because you guys, this board, maybe not you individually, this board has been incapable of maintaining the facilities we have that we have facilities, not just Ritzerfield, the grass there, but other places that have fallen apart. The swimming pool was mentioned before, but a lot of others. What a terrible

101indictment. This board just letting you know should have maintained the facilities it had making this discussion unnecessary. Thank you. Um Dave Dave. Okay. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Dave America Connor. Um, I am the president of the South Orange Maplewood baseball and softball boosters, which supports the youth baseball and softball programs in South Orange and Maplewood. I'm on the baseball committee. I'm on the flag football committee. I coach baseball. I coach flag football. I coach basketball. And until my daughter went to Colombia and was coached by coaches better than I am, I coached softball as well. And I'm here to strongly recommend urge you to choose option B with two softball fields as that is the only option that is equitable for our female athletes who deserve a dedicated space to play softball

102that is equal to what the boys have for baseball. It is a disgrace that our community has never provided that for our female softball players. Doing so would be have benefits for athletes of other sports as well as well as the youth athletes who I coach. I just came from Melanand Field where three baseball games were going on. We won ours. Thank you very much. In the semi-finals. Um but in the spring when the softball teams are playing at Meand there are numerous conflicts that arise. It is disgraceful that a nine-year-old baseball team has the field at 6 PM and has to kick off a high school girls softball team. And I've been there and watched it happen. That should never happen. Our girls deserve much better than that. And you have an option before

103you that would give our girls the facilities they deserve. I go to towns all over this region and play on all types of fields. We play on turf all the time. It is unquestionably the right option for this location. Thank you so much. So that completes um in person. We have uh four signups for online and then that will conclude our public speaks. So we've got um Keith uh Michael Michael Dudy That committee member is not online. Um, Deiani Guha Committee member Guan, you'll have to unmute your microphone. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. Okay. Um, my name is Dyani Guha and I'm a resident of South Orange and a proud parent of two CHS. I'm here to express my deep disappointment that my progressive town has made one

104of the most regressive decisions possible to install 3 acres of plastic turf at Ritzerfield. You have ignored the science, the environmental and health impact of PFAS, chemicals and microplastics and raised fiscal concerns. You have not maintained the field and used it as an excuse to implement the most expensive option possible. At the time when the district faces multi-year fiscal cliffs, rising insurance costs, cuts to programs, and the impact of federal cuts. At a time when community residents deal with increased taxes, skyrocketing energy costs, and the financial impact of federal policies, you have chosen to spend f 7.5 million on installing plastic at Ritzer, even while 90 million in health and safety upgrades have been left on the floor. The 2.1 million appropriation in 2019 has more than tripled in cost, but it hasn't made you

105pause to consider a more sustainable and fiscally responsible response. The district's debt is 182 million. That is over 28,000 per student. Since we like to compare ourselves to neighboring districts, I looked at Livingston and Milbour. Livingston and Milbour both have 55 million in debt. That translates to 11,000 per student for Milbour and 8,500 per student for Livingston. Our debt load is three times that of Livingston and Milbour. Is this the right time for this $7.5 million plan? In 16 days, 539 people and six local organizations without the help of booster organizations, I may add, have signed a letter to ask you to get quantified estimates for rehabbing the grass field at Spitzer instead of turfing it. I urge aside your I urge you to put aside your politics and do the right thing for our

106community and the planet. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have uh Julia Flle. Hi. Thank you. Um I'm a South Orange resident and parent of a Clinton student. I'm going to um paraphrase a email that I recently sent. The board of ed wants to install artificial turf at Ritzerfield because it is easier to push through a budget increase that pays off a capital project than it is to push through a budget increase dedicated to maintenance, even if the capital budget increase is bigger than the maintenance operating budget increase. This is a structural problem with school district budgeting, but it's not an unsolvable one. After all, the board of school estimate did recently approve a budget and tax increase to cover higher operating costs for transportation. What kind of message does it send our children to

107say, "No, we aren't going to bother to maintain the infrastructure that we already have, nor are we going to protect the little bit of nature that we have left. Instead, we'll give up and buy a shiny, expensive new thing." And what kind of message does it send our children to say, "We think the future you deserve is one that's polluted and flooded, and when we had a choice, we added to the climate change problems instead of protecting your future. You don't have to give up, and you can make a different choice." Thank you. Thank you. Finally, we have David. David Humer. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. Thank you. David Humer, 26 Nelson Place, Maplewood. And thank you all for your service. And I want to say that the female

108athletes who spoke in the beginning are right. They've been right for 50 years in this community. We haven't added any field space since title 9. Covering ritual field with plastic is not the way to fix it. You need to work with the two times to add field space. I'm going to read to you from district policy 7461. The board wants to protect students, staff, school visitors, and community members from environmental harm and will strive to eliminate the use of protect potentially toxic and harmful substances. So I ask you therefore at least one member of the board to explain why you're not violating this policy with this vote to put plastic on it field or to acknowledge that you are. Secondly, this is an own goal. You can fix the title 9 problem at much less

109cost and without plastic. The supply demand for soft war fields in Maplewood is such that Maplewood has decommissioned two soft war fields at the heart park in the last 10 years for onethird of the cost of your least costly option. Okay. The board could upgrade two fields, municipal fields in exchange for full access and the maintenance cost would also be less than the bond cost. I think you are engaged in a sunk cost fallacy. Okay? It's been kicking around since at least 2019. A, by the way, a vote that none of you participated in, but really for much longer since we have really not we've neglected adding the amount proper amount of field space for our athletes. Okay, just because it's been kicking around a long time and there is an urge to do something

110doesn't mean you should do this. Okay, if you haven't read what Montlair State's Institute for Sustainability Studies told Verona about whether they wanted to replace their used up turf uh plastic turf field or use natural grass. I urge you to read that study and reconsider. It's good policy to reject a bad idea even if you've been working on it a long time. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you, David. And that completes uh public speaks. So now um Oh, it's okay. Um I'd like to make a motion to move up at the action portion of the meeting just for um acting on resolution 4832Z, the bond resolution. May I have a second? Thank you. Um, board member uh Bennett. Um, all in favor? Okay, great. Um, thank you. So, uh, this would be the time

111that if anyone has any comments before we before we vote. [Music] Go on, Regina. [Music] Um, I'm going to make this short. Um, I know this has been a very contentious topic within our communities. I guess the count was seven years. Um, feels like we were just here last year, which we were. Um, Mr. Mr. Bing, I want to thank you for the engagement that you've had with the community since you pretty much first stepped into your uh into your seat here as superintendent. Um, you know, I think what you touched on is that a lot of the work actually happens behind the scenes. And so for for me I just wanted to make it known that um you know for some it may not be an easy decision and we've heard from a lot

112of the student athletes former current um and even from some future ones maybe not this year but we did last year for sure and I think given the lack of accessible playable playable fields across our towns and what we've learned learned from to heart. I believe that turfing ritzer is the right path forward. Um both the multi-purpose and the two turf softball fields for playability, safety, and long-term cost. Our student athletes deserve these dependable and accessible fields and especially our female athletes. This is the time, a time in which, you know, if you've seen me around town, I'm wearing it almost every single day. My everyone watches women's sports. This is long overdue. And I think Mr. Moody touched on the girls locker room renovation that will be kicking off in the fall. Um, you

113know, that's just that just helps to support that work. Um, and then of course equally important is the work needed for our auditoriums and the continued upgrades. Um, but again, I think what we need to recognize is that we can't kick the can down the road anymore. We we can't do nothing. and I know that it's not a decision that's going to make everybody happy. Um, but it's important that we start to move this work forward. Thank you. Anyone else? Yeah, sure. Thank you. Um so I'm just sharing a couple thoughts on my del deliberation process here because uh finding the right path forward on this question of the redevelopment has been really complicated and as you've seen uh from public speaks and every other forum for this it's guaranteed to leave a substantial number

114of people disappointed one way or the other. Um as of this moment I've received 386 emails on this topic over the last two months. um some of which were petitions with hundreds of people in them and we know how many other people have come to uh participate in the town hall comments on Facebook etc. Um and the majority are people very strongly for full full turfing or people saying please not a shred of turf leave it grass and then more recently a few in the middle. Um, and this is tough from a governance perspective to say we've got people, you know, very polarized here and it's awfully tempting to just um take the route of following the people, you know, maybe the people who voted for you and just do that. And I think uh

115our mandate as board members is to go a step further and try to understand what is the best thing for our district and our students. Um, you know, I've been a skeptic of turf and I am a person who, you know, I sort my recycling for a very long time every day. There's a lot I mean, I care about the environmental impacts and it really is unfortunate that we have this beautiful lawn here that we would be covering. Um, we have very little turf space as as Mr. Humer just indicated. Um, you know, my father would describe Ritzerfield as trying to stuff 10 pounds into a 5B sack. you know, we're trying to do too many things with or a lot of things with the space. Um, and the plan to have these two turfed

116fields is going to allow us to have a significant amount of additional use while not having a plan that is so fully turfing everything that we don't still have a space for students to congregate. Uh, you know, I've been to events that happen along, student uh event, student gatherings that that happen. I mean, my kid learned to ride his bike on her field. So, I'm glad we are keeping space for the community there. And uh while I was very tempted by plan C and keeping half of the field uh as uh grass and and natural dirt, uh my overall review and especially talking to people in the district, people who are going to be using it, right? uh building leaders, coaches, and students, they strongly desire the additional capacity that comes from turf. And that's

117a really, you know, it's a compromised position for sure, but it's one that I have determined is the best thing right now for our student body and the function of the district. And I really appreciate the district has committed to a plan that provides number one, the two softball fields to address our our equity issues. um that will use organic infill materials um uses maintains our shade trees uh maintains the perimeter path maintains project adventure and that we're devoting resources to have a drainage system that is uh above the capacity that we require. Uh so I I'm hopeful that in this the public can understand and if not trust and at least acknowledge the tremendous amount of discussion and deliberation that's gone into this decision among all members uh on the board and one that

118um we think is at a net positive for uh the function of our districts and making sure that our athletic program which is an important part of the resiliency and durable skills that we want our students to have uh is acknowledged and supported along with all the other uses uh that our district has. So, thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Um um I want to thank everyone who came out here including opponents of the turf field um who I know actually are very much a pro sports group. I know that a lot of the parents who spoke out um for retaining grass are the parents of athletes, maybe people who are athletes themselves um in the past. Um I know that the people who want to retain grass like you guys are in favor

119of spending money at Richer to improve it. I know you don't like that the female athletes have to go to M3 in South Orange to play. I know you don't like that there's no locker room there. Um, I know that like a grass field well-maintained is better than a turf field. Like I talked to like, you know, very serious soccer players who said that. But I don't think we have the ability to properly maintain a grass field. I based that on what, you know, our experts in the administration have told us and what we have seen with the Hartfield in Maplewood. So I don't think we can properly maintain that field. Um we accept that when students play contact sports sometimes they might unfortunately be injured but you know you kind of expect they are

120injured on the field not by the field. So we can't like allow that situation to um exist anymore or the fields themselves are dangerous. Um if we attempted to use grass at Ritzer it would require money from the opex budget which is much less elastic than our capital budget. Um, it would also require things that themselves are not so great for the environment, like a lot more irrigation, chemicals, and pesticides. Um, it would also require poststorm and postgame recovery periods, which would recreate the situation we have now with limited field usage and create like a cascading series of scheduling problems. Um, like Mr. Meyer, I was very unsure about which model I would choose. I also considered plan C 2.0. Um, I wavered on the side of it. Um, but what persuaded me to support

121that space as a second turf field is that even though that field is marked for softball and it's going to be called a softball field, I'm sure it's going to be used by other sports like, you know, year round and it's going to be used by our PE classes, too. Um, you know, we have a limited access, we have limited gym time at the high school, so if we have like a turf field that can be used like, you know, on more days, more weathers, um, we actually like free up some scheduling problems we have at the high school. Um I'm very sorry that like not everyone's going to be celebrating this decision. Um everyone has the right to you know their own emotional reactions. Um and like you know these reactions are based by

122certain very very valid scientific concerns. Um I hope that we can do more things environmentally plant more trees maybe change the options at the cafeteria install solar panels etc. And I hope that like when we install like the turf ritzer that you know we really do take very seriously like the need to like even more like consider water absorption after storms and and everything so that you know people no one feels like there's such a that they've been victimized by this. Thank you Jeff. Madam President, thank you for uh making the motion to move forward 4832Z. Can you make an additional motion to to vote on it when you're ready? Yes. I'm making a motion to vote now. Do I need to get that seconded? Yes, please. Okay. May I have a second? Thank you,

123board member Eert. Um, so now we will vote. Okay, I'll do a roll call vote. Uh, board member Bennett, yes. Board member Brown, yes. Board member Callahan, yes. Board President Duval Wilson. Yes. Board member Eert. Yes. Board member Gford here. Board member Kapadia. Yes. Board member Meyer. Yes. Board member Saka Gable. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Great. Um so now, thank you all. Um so now we will move on to committee reports. Um because it is already 9:42, I'm not going to say what I normally say. Just you know what to do. Um we will start with um Sack Gable if you're ready. Thank you. All right. The CNI committee met on July 17th at 6:30 p.m. with all members present. After a presentation from Brad Shanker on an opportunity to improve data collection, research, and

124analysis with a free AI tool, we discuss progress and updates related to district goals, including the following highlights. For goal one, we just um we heard about how Eureka Math was selected for grades six through eight to maintain continuity with K5 and support both students and teachers. This book adoption is up for approval tonight. The district will maintain academic intervention teachers at title one schools and both middle schools. um interventions will focus on in-class support using a first teach approach supported by the magnetic reading program, Orton Gillingham training and NJTSS processes. Data tools such as I Ready, Il, and Linkit will guide instruction and collaboration between CNI and special education will strengthen classroom support within gold 2. We heard about the work that's continuing around freshman academy as Mr. Bing mentioned. Um, we also heard

125that final absenteeism data will be available by August, but progress is evident across all schools. We discussed ideas for possible district goals related to CNI for the upcoming school year, and we'll dive into those more in our committee meeting next month. We discussed several policies that are up for first and second read as mentioned. Oh, board member Meyer hasn't mentioned them yet. We usually go in the other order. as board member Meyer will mention. Um, and we reviewed policy 5111, which focuses on the allowance of district teachers who live outside of Soma to enroll their own children as students. We're gathering more information from HR and the business office and will revisit that policy. In addition, we received key updates related to the CHS scheduling process, which remains on track to have students receive their

126schedules very soon. We heard more about what's happening to support students during the transition from preK to kindergarten. Um, our next meeting will be on August 11th at 6:30 p.m. And a full recap is of course um available online. Any questions or comments? Okay, thank you. All right, special services committee met on June 10th with board members Meyer and Eard in attendance along with Superintendent Bang, Miss Jesse Maria, and Dr. Gilbert. We began with our CPAC check-in with incoming CPAC president Nicole Josie. Welcome. She cited the creation of standard operating procedures for special education including uh specifically home instruction as well as a smooth approach to extended schoolyear transportation as wins. And we also discussed ESY supplies and funding. I want to take a moment to applaud Miss Jesse Maria for ensuring there in fact

127was a budget line dedicated to ESY which was not historically happening. Um while also noting that we need to ensure that communication exists so that the school teams are aware of of that and know how to leverage it. And we also discussed 501's reg or 504 regulation and our self-contained classrooms. Next, the committee discussed our progress on district and committee goals. We reviewed potential goals for the upcoming school year, which included ideas to build on collaboration between special services and CNI to bolster our inclusion model and building capacity at the school level. In terms of goal 4.2, two, which is increasing communication. We discussed key themes from the special education survey that went out to families this spring, including and the key themes included things like promoting building level consistency, improved communication, uh implementation of

128accommodations and modifications and behavior management, and then what will we do with those next steps? Um, we talked about academic intervention and evidence-based reading. Um, academic intervention staff have been reassigned to fill existing vacancies within title one schools, retaining their funded positions, and students who are at our non-title one schools who previously received academic intervention will now participate in small groupoup instruction three times a week using the magnetic reading model. We talked about curriculum and instruction again and special services uh collaborating to provide professional development in Orton Gillingham and to support intensive reading interventions in the upcoming school year. Our evidence-based reading services will remain unchanged for students, though staffing was uh adjusted. Finally, we had a discussion about our twice exceptional programming and supports for executive functioning at the middle school level responsive to

129suggestions made from CPAC. Our next meeting is scheduled for August 14th, and a full recap of this meeting is available on the district website in our board committee section. And now, if anyone has any questions, thank you. Okay. Uh uh want to do FFT first and then policy or whatever. Sure. Very good. All right. I'm pining for board member Gford uh who couldn't be here. Uh he is the chair of the FFT committee which met on July 16th with all members present. The meeting focused on key updates and initiatives related to the preschool program, capital projects, and strategic planning. A major challenge within the UPK universal prek program is the equity gap. with African-American students significantly underrepresented. 14% of preK enrollment compared with 23% districtwide. To address this, the district is launching targeted outreach efforts

130in collaboration with the health department and local clergy. Chronic absenteeism remains a concern at 26%, prompting operational improvements such as shifting from manual to automated student placement systems to improve efficiency and allow senior staff to focus on strategic initiatives. Transportation improvements are underway with the district bringing all route planning inhouse using the transfinder system for 323 prek stu students. Several long-term cost-saving strategies are being considered including more efficient routes with consolidated stops, implementing tiered busing through staggered school times in and introducing a quote walking prek model for students in the 1.25 mile radius. Again, these are considerations for the future. The district is also vetting new provider partnerships, particularly in Maplewood, to improve geographic balance and sustainability of our prek uh locations. On the facility side, the FFT committee endorsed plan D 2.0 for the

131Richardfield improvement, uh citing the benefits such as year-round usability, uh meeting our Title 9 needs, revenue potential, and a balanced compromise between synthetic turf and green space. An alternate hybrid option, Plan C 2.0, 0 was rejected due to higher maintenance risks. Meanwhile, high school capital projects continue with the girls locker room renovation encountering unexpected asbestos and water damage causing a budget overage that requires state approval to exceed the 20% change order threshold by a hair. The district district is also commissioning a new demographic study to monitor enrollment trends as well as a new hazardous route study to address evolving infrastructure and safety needs. The next FFT committee meeting is August 20th. questions. Okay, hearing none, we'll move on to the policy committee. Uh policy and governance committee met on uh July 2nd. Uh we have

132up for review tonight a total of uh four second read policies, one second read uh regulation for adoption and three first read policies. Uh on for second read we have policy 2314 academic placement. This is notable for uh including a uh clarification that the district will not uh seek to limit the number of AP or honors classes a student may take which is being uh adopted uh in uh at the same time as the district is taking steps to adopt a regulation that would provide supports for students who are taking large numbers of those classes. Uh also 2365 acceptable use of generative artificial AI for students. uh policy 5533 on student smoking and policy 5701 on academic integrity. We also last month had a first read policy that passed for policy 8600 on transportation which

133clarified our 1.25 uh courtesy busing model for prek through 5. That policy has upon request from board members been brought back to committee for further review before it's brought forward. Uh and uh regulation 1570 on internal controls uh is also moving forward to second read. Most of these are uh pretty uh straight recommendations from our policy vendor stress estate to update language in accordance with statute. Uh for first read tonight policy 9120 public relations program we have uh the public relations program policy includes a prohibition on the uh district sending around pictures of uh sitting board of education members who are seeking elected office within the 90 days prior to the election. We are expanding that to a 100 days and saying it's not only pictures but also statements from those board members except ones

134that are closely tied to district business. Policy 5120 and 5124 are coming out together. uh 5120 the assignment of students and 5124 internal student transfers are being looked at together to uh as was addressed earlier in the board president statement to uh provide a liberalization of the abilities uh of students to transfer within our district. uh policy 5120 is uh the policy that also establishes the basics of our trip program and the language that forms the basis of that. Uh and uh after uh this was language provided to us from the Ruckers implementation committee. Uh there was a healthy discussion during the meeting regarding the scope of what language should be changed and after uh a lot of workshopping in committee. This final version uh clarifies that uh transfers for students who are placed under

135triple I are governed by policy 5124. Policy 5124 in turn uh addresses the uh degree to which transfers are permitted and based upon what hardships. Uh and the policy is worth reading. there are substantial uh changes and clarifications uh within that policy. You'll note there's several additional uh criteria that we explicitly indicate the district may consider while the district still retains uh full discretion to determine when a hardship transfer will take place. Uh it also maintains requirement that the district keep its current uh assignments within the variances obligated by the intentional integration initiative. Uh and also makes accommodations for very limited exceptions for only uh very urgent uh acute hardship needs. Uh so those policies are being put forward tonight. Uh there were a few other pieces that were addressed in policy. uh take a

136look at our minutes on the website to see those. Uh do we have any questions? Yes. Just wanted to add a couple of a few more thoughts to um what you mentioned, board member Meyer, about policy 5124 on transfers. Um, I was admittedly very hesitant uh to have any changes made to policy 5124 because of concerns about unintended consequences and potential the potential for an imbalance of um families more likely to submit transfer requests. That said, I was slightly encouraged that we were able to include some of the language proposed by board member Callahan and were able to workshop um some collaborative efforts around that to strike a balance, a reasonable balance. For me, the goal is to make the policy clear without micromanaging district operations. And I was also reassured by hearing the perspectives

137of Dr. Gilbert and Dr. Wayel that this language will not significantly change current practice. Um the district will continue to use a rubric to guide these decisions and ensure true hardship cases that are supported by documentation are addressed appropriately. And you know most importantly any update must uphold the principles of intentional integration and its variance parameters. Um, and with this logistical piece resolved, I hope we can redirect this energy towards what I see as a priority, which is creating the best possible experiences of students inside of our schools and see, you know, really pay attention to what's happening in classrooms. Any other questions, comments? Okay, thank you. Oh, one more. Sorry, it took me a minute to register. This is actually FFT related and it just kind of hit me. Um the hazardous routes do

138you mean for 2526 upcoming or for the next school year? I'm sorry for 2627. Right. Right. So yeah, we're going to hazardous route review that would be applicable for the following. Okay. That's what I thought. Just I was I was concerned about the timing if it was going to be for next year. Thank you. Five six months. I think I think that's what we said, right? Making sure that we are certainly any new hazardous routes. I imagine we're likely going to act on pretty quickly, but phasing out a hazardous route we're going to be much more cautious about. Okay. The personnel committee met on Monday, June 23rd at 6 I'm sorry, 21st at 6:30 p.m. I'm sorry, we are in July. Hold on one second. I just had my dates wrong. Whatever this past Jul

139was. Board members Kapadia Sacket Gable, give her to myself along with Mr. Bing and Mr. Adidoan were in attendance. Much of what was discussed is confidential. Uh but a couple of things that I can highlight. Um happy to report that we will have a new director of facilities starting August 4th. Um HR provided some updates to some ongoing district goals u and the workforce diversity plan around um new targeted recruitment materials. Um and then around uh launching affinity groups in the fall after the school year has been kicked off. The committee reviewed final staff evaluation numbers and is pleased with the results. Uh many thanks to HR and CNI for their partnership in ensuring completion. As we all know, not just in education, but in in all professional um fields, evaluations are a core part

140of professional growth for both those giving and receiving feedback and to help ensure that all staff are positioned to support thriving academic environments for our students. And we closed off the meeting with a brief brainstorm on potential 25 to 26 school year district goals led by our HR director which will be finalized in the next month or so. Next committee meeting is Monday, August 25th at 6:30 p.m. Any questions? All right. The recorder's implementation committee met on July 8th. Those attending from the board were president Dval Wilson, second V vice president Eert and board member Sacka Gable and myself. Those attending from the administration were Mr. G Mr. Bing, Dr. Gilbert and Dr. Wavel. Among the issues discussed in the committee were the following policy 5120, assignments of students which will has described today and

141is up for first read. There were no no nor further edits to the policy. rather it was discussed that the the district can proceed with developing new rubric because the current policy 5124 doesn't preclude them from doing so. In fact, 5124 was originally drafted with broad language so that the district would consider certain hardships. However, the draft policy up for first read today 5124 is now explicitly stating that they can include certain situations as hardships and it should also create clear documentation explaining the transfer process and rubric to the community. The continue review and evaluation of triple I the district continues to work with the Alves group modeling potential modifications to understand their effects on social school de demographic balance. For example, understanding how adjusting variance by 7.5% or 10% changes demographic balance in schools.

142Any modifications to the triple I would be for school year 27 28 for for that year's implementation after a two-year roll out because it will take time to design and implement. The district hopes to present its work with ALVs and related findings at the September public board of education meeting and will also host future town halls on the topic to gain community feedback. There was discussion around the new placement procedure used in the algorithm this year. So the algorithm is placing families by distance to school as opposed to a random number. And this resulted in 70% of kindergartens getting their first or second clo uh closest school assignment. There was also discussion around whether there needs whether there is a need to include middle schools in the triple I given given that 90% of middle

143school placements middle school students are placed at their closest school and there was also a discussion around the need for updated criteria and data used to place students in the three socio economic tiers. Regarding this last topic, ALV's group has been using 2019 American Community Survey data since the start of the triple eye algorithm and that that is why there's been little movement in the percentage of families placed in tiers. The district had thought ALS was using income education data that the district has been collecting, but AL's group has not. ALS said they will not use district's data until they have it for 95% of families. The district had currently has it for 80% of families. There was discussion that this uh decision of elves does not seem appropriate um because family reported data will

144be the most accurate and if there is any missing data elves could backfill it with the American community survey data. So I believe that the district will continue this this conversation with ALF's group. I encourage in interested public to review the public the public notes for details of what was discussed on each of these topics and readlated data that board members requested of the district. Another topic discussed was Rucker's recommendations. The district presented a new way of tracking progress on Rucker's recommendations. It was stated for this year. So school year 2425 will be the year for collecting and establishing baseline data for many of the recommendations KPIs. In future years, the district will measure KPI progress against baseline data. The district plans to present progress on Rucker's recommendations at the August public board of education

145meeting. Also discussed was the future I survey revisions. The district discussed that when they originally started the triple eye survey, they didn't have a lot of data. Now they do, and they also have different methods to gather data from families. So that needs to be considered as the districts explores how to move forward with the triple eye survey. The questions that first need to be answered regarding examining or altering the triple eye survey are what do we want to get from it and what is the best medium to get there. The district feels that the NJ size survey does a better job of answering the question does my child feel welcomeincluded than the triple eye survey. What that survey doesn't capture is am I satisfied with my child's placement. This topic will continue to be

146discussed at the October records committee meeting. There was also a brief update on the district's next meeting with Judge Wallace, who the district meets with regularly to update on uh to update him on the progress the district has made on the record's recommendation. The next meeting will be on July 30th. And a topic that will be discussed is the new middle school math placement process. And then lastly, there was initial discussion about district goals related to this committee and we will continue that discussion next month. The next committee meeting will be on August 18th. There are there is a lot more detail in on our committee discussion in the written notes. So, please go to the district website for a full recap of the meeting in the board committee section. Any questions? Yes, just one.

147And I think I probably know the answer to this, but has there been any analysis either by us or by Alves of to what degree that self-reported income and education data differs from what is assumed from the ACS 2019 data? That was that was some that was one of the things we requested that the district get for us. Yeah. Great. All right. So that completes our committee report outs. Thank you all for all the hard work you've done um and for sharing with the community. So we are now going to the action portion of the meeting. Um one thing to note because of a conflict of member um Saka Gable, we will sever 4830. Um that's the appointment of summer Columbia High School students. So we can either do that first or after. I'll leave

148that up to you, Mr. Moody. It's up to you. Um whichever one you want to do first. I'm ready. Yeah, let's just get that one out of the way. Oh, yeah. Okay. And what would you like to sever? Oh, well, yeah, we'll sever 4830. If there's another one you want to sever, just let him 48352. Did you get that? Yeah, 4830 is the one we want to sever from the personnel standpoint. And then we can uh proceed with a vote for the other consent resolutions. There's there's a second. There's another seven. Oh, there's a second 48352. Okay. All right. So, let's go with the vote for 48 30 without Zack Gable. Okay. So, I'll do a roll call vote there. 4830. Board member Meyer. Yes. Board member Kapadia. Yes. Board member Gford, not here. Board

149member Eert, yes. Board President Duval Wilson, yes. Board member Callahan, yes. Board member Brown, yes. Board member Bennett, yes. Okay, that concludes 48:30. So, okay, great. That passes the next one. 48352. Okay, so board members Gable ready to have discussion. Is there discussion? Is there a discussion? That's the one that's internal student transfers 5124. Yes. So, thank you. I know um we haven't done this many severs in a long time. So, um I wanted to sever this policy um instead of voting on as a full package tonight. Um I just have some comments that I wanted to make. So I our intentional integration initiative is as we all know and are discussing at a high level especially now via ruckers a cornerstone of equity in our district and one we should be deeply proud of.

150I think it represents a really bold commitment and a unique commitment to equity fairness and opportunity and like any meaningful initiative I do believe it must evolve alongside the needs of our community. So I want to be clear tonight what I'm not doing is opposing revisiting or modifying policy 5124. My intent is just to open up discussion and allow for additional time for the board to address unanswered questions, receive more input, and ensure that we uphold both community responsiveness and the integrity of triple I. And I don't think these goals are in conflict. We have a responsibility to hold them in balance. And so to that end, I spent considerable time and effort drafting a policy version of 5124 that was grounded in best practice from other districts aligned with recommendations that integration expert Michael

151Alves specifically regarding choice-based transfer process that he recommended here in May. Um, and that was responsive to many of the same concerns that are in the current draft that we've heard from families. My draft aimed to create clarity between documented hardships and what I call discretionary transfer requests while ensuring we maintain demographic balance and transfer transparency and implementation. And so I was heartened to note that documentation and accountability measures like quarterly reporting did in fact make it into this first read. The version that was submitted through the standard committee process both mine and board member Bennett's were submitted in good faith and with the expectation that all policy proposals are evaluated on equal footing. And additionally in early July I submitted a list of questions that were intended to better understand the current landscape of

152transfers discussion around it in committees and those things should help guide our decision-making and approach to policy. The questions included things like data on a recent transfer requests, how many were approved or denied and why, as well as what the impact might be on demographic balance. It also asked about anticipated administrative burden of proposed changes, whether this broader hardship language would threaten the integrity of triple I, comparing it to other integrated district, and a clearer summary of committee feedback. To date, I haven't received any responses to those questions. And these aren't abstract questions. They're essential to sound policy development. So the lack of clarity at this juncture makes it difficult to move forward in good faith. And what concerns me most about this draft is that although revisions appear modest, they represent a significant broadening

153of a hardship is defined and interpreted. It could be broadly applicable, opening the door to inconsistent implementation and increased demand in a cumbersome case-by case analysis where we have an opportunity to clearly delineate between hardships would be significant adverse circumstances that truly impede a student's ability to attend or succeed in their assigned school and these very categories that are more appropriately handled like our board president said earlier through our SCES transfer portal and labeled discretionary transferred. But I think importantly I agree and my version reflects that transportation or workhour conflicts can in some cases rise to the level of legitimate hardship. But in policy our language matters and clarity matters and we owe that level of thoughtful precision to our community. Both pathways hardship and discretion discretionary should be clearly defined and accessible and grounded

154in a consistent process that will uphold our equity goals while making the system easier to navigate. I think integration benefits all students but without clear intent and scope and safeguards we risk eroding those benefits. So my hope is that we can take more time through a balanced look at our definitions, particularly that distinction between hardship and discretionary transfers and ensure that we get this right in a way that's both meaningful and accessible to the community. As stewards of this district, we as a body have a responsibility to make our work intentional, equitable, and sustainable. So our policies are clear and strong. And we can focus, as board member Saki Gable said earlier, more on what matters, student wellness, academic achievement, and the daily experience of our classrooms. So, I remain committed to refining policies, including

155this transfer policy process, in a way that meets families needs while preserving the equity goals we've worked hard to advance. We can and must do both. Thank you. Uh so, because I was sitting in the in the policy meeting, uh subsequent to the comments that were received and and the workshopping that happened in the recurs committee, I'll just um respond briefly to that. You know, we did uh review the policy that was drafted initially by board member Bennett, other contributions from the Ruckers Committee. There was a a version that Callahan uh created as well. Uh and it was reviewed and actually I thought it was uh terrific. there's it's a a very very structured policy with a lot of uh very discreet planned out steps for transfers and I actually thought it made a lot

156of sense. Um this policy is not that. I think uh you know certainly in committee we have a lot of there's negotiation there's workshopping and such and finding building consensus. I think what this policy does that I am pleased by is it gives uh and maintains a lot of discretion to the administration in making sure that uh the administration has the tools and the flexibility they need in a circumstance uh to make the right call. Part of this is you know this was raised a couple months ago uh and if we had raised it 6 months prior we would have had more time. There was a desire to make sure that in time for the upcoming school year, a policy was in place. And I think there was an a strong appetite to have something

157move forward at tonight's meeting for first read, the August uh meeting for second read. And I think, you know, there there is a world in which additional time could have been taken to have a policy that did have a lot more workshopping and input from the administration and maybe create one that was more structured. And I think that could come down the road, especially as we get feedback on how this works. Uh but I am uh I feel okay with the outcome which is a compromised outcome of where we are with this policy and 5120 and making sure that we are acknowledging the needs the legitimate needs that folks in our community have with regard to making their life work with school. Though acknowledging the school district cannot fix all the issues in their uh

158the workflow of their life. uh but finding that balance and making sure especially for acute needs that we are in a position to help. Uh thanks for all your comments. I also want to make sure we reiterate that this was not supposed to be a rewrite. To um Myers's point, this was supposed to be a minor update to ensure that the desire and will of the board in 2023 was being carried out appropriately. Um, and quite frankly, I've said it many times in committee. I'll say it again publicly. What you wrote I thought was great, Board Member Callahan, and a lot of it should be in a regulation because it was very, very specific. And I think that we do need to be careful about how much we are um directing versus telling of the

159of the of the how. But um I think the I appreciate the fact that our district leadership was very supportive of this version realizing that we're not trying to do a overhaul. We're trying to make updates to make sure that the intention of our desire for a SCS transfer portal as well as like for like and uh hardships are being done correctly to maintain the integrity of our integration. And that's what this policy is doing at a high level. And as things move along, as we're looking at the triple eye over the next couple of months into the next year, we might look back at this policy and realize it might need more language. Um, we also need a regulation. And that was one of the things we discussed was a lot of the work

160that you have done that, um, that our board member over here, Bennett, have done um should be going in a regulation to be more specific about what the district would be doing. And that is actually written by the district. It's not written by the board. Um but the hard work um has definitely been recognized and we appreciate you for that. I'll just add along those lines because I think we are in kind of a period of just exploring what's happening with the triple eye seeing how we can make it better so that you know an effective policy is one that works for you know more the men the more the more people it works for the better. Um but to that end that is also why in as part of our policy discussion for 5120

161uh I think originally there were some not there were not a lot more modifications but there were a few more and we really just refined it to the one line of pointing 51 uh pointing it to 5124 and the reason for that is because we were discussing that 5120 really is our triple I policy and so it didn't make sense at this point to overhaul it until the district moves forward with their evaluation, we have a better sense of, you know, any potential modifications. The district's reached out to the community, gotten feedback, and from there, we can really start to um maybe make modifications to 5120, and at that point, we will have more information on how transfers are going, and we could potentially move forward with making any changes to 5124 as well. That's

162a good point. Can you just share I guess then from that perspective about like wanting to know how transfers are going? What data was reviewed in committee around that? Cuz the last data I saw was only current through October of 2024. So do we have more up-to-date data that was evaluated that was respon like that this policy is responsive to? No, that was the data because I think the district said that they I thought I could be wrong. I'm not going to say what I was going to say, but I uh No, that's the most updated data that we have. But I think they said that most transfer requests could happen within that time frame. Um I don't believe we reviewed the data in committee unless committee but we did see the data from October

1632024 which indicated there were about 100 applications for transfers uh through October of which about 30 were granted I believe. Um, we were told that there were no transfers granted after that. And I think the transfer process like officially like closed on December 31st, something like that. So, you know, that would be up-to-date data. Um, but since we we didn't review it in committee, it was just reviewed through like, you know, internal board email conversations. Can I say something about, you know, various different kinds of transfers? like the version of 5124 you wrote was very very well written and brilliantly formatted and I think actually you did a very good thing was like elucidating there really two kinds of transfers like discretionary transfer which is a very good turn of phrase and then like you

164know hardship transfers um uh the policy that was eventually that we're eventually going with like does rely more on hardship transfers which some people might not consider hardship I know that's a bit of subjectivity there but in a way I think that's having a policy that's a little more reliant on hard transfer is good because like when you talk to people you find out that people are in very different kinds of hardship like you know let's just look at transportation like someone could be in hardship because like the school they're assigned to is over three miles away. Another family could be in hardship because they're like 1.2 miles from their assigned school and they don't get a bus. Another family could be at like you know a more moderate distance and eligible for a bus

165but not be able to use it because of work schedule. um a family that actually is assigned to like their closest school, but it's bad for their work schedule and wants a hardship transfer. You know, we we had four requests, you know, we had four requests for people to not go to their closest school in the last year. Um you know, they may not be in like everyone's definition of hardship, but in a way it's a good thing to allow those transfers because they would allow like for-like transfers. Meaning if someone is assigned to their closest school and they want to go to a more distant school to get the bus to get a better work schedule for them, they would allow someone else to transfer the same demographic tier. So in a way it's

166like a two for one. So I guess it's like being more reliant on the on hardship transfers does have some downsides, but I think it lets the administration respond like more, you know, adeptly to very very different kinds of stress or hardship that families find themselves in. Thank you. Um, are we good to vote? Okay, great. Roll call, please. If we are ready, we'll proceed to the roll call vote for 4835-2. Uh, board member Saka Gable, yes. Board member Meyer, yes. Board member Kapadia, yes. Board member Gford, it's not here. Board member Eert, yes. Board President Dwell Wilson, yes. Board member Callahan, no. Board member Brown, yes. Board member Bennett, yes. Okay, great. Thank you. Can you now read the rest of the resolutions into record if we don't have any other? Sure. The rest

167of the resolutions for consent uh are 4829, 4831 A and B, 4833, 4834 A through E, 48351, 48353, and 4832 A through Y. Those are all covered in the consent resolutions. So I'll begin the roll call vote for that for that. Did you have something to add? Okay. Okay. Board member Bennett, yes. Board member Brown, yes. Board member Callahan, yes. Board President Duval Wilson, yes. Board member Eert, yes. Board member Kapadia, yes. Board member Meyer, yes. Board member Sack Gable, yes. Okay, great. Okay, so almost done. Um, we have a second hearing of delegations. I don't Do we know if anyone had signed up? No. You just check. Thank you. There's no one online un I mean Michael never still not. Okay. All right. Great. So then new business. Reminder, this is for things that

168would require immediate attention and a vote tonight. No. Okay. Great. So then I will announce future meetings. Uh the board of education will meet again in public session on August 19th, 2025 at 6:30 p.m. for our second retreat. Action will not be taken. And then again on Thursday, August 28th, 2025 at 6:30 p.m. in public session for our regular board meeting, action will be taken. And now we will adjourn. Mr. Moody, I would now like to make a motion to adjourn this meeting on July 24th at uh 10:21 p.m. May I have a second? Thank you, board member Brown. All in favor? Great. Meeting adjourned. Thank you, everyone. Have a good night.