Board of Education Meeting - Public Session - June 22 2023

001I'd like to call the June 22nd meeting of the South Orange Maplewood Board of Education to order Mr Burnside please take the Roll Call board member Nubia Duvall Wilson here board member Regina Eckert here board member Bill Gifford board member Alyssa malispina here for November written by the money here board member record Ewing thank you letter here board member Johanna Wright thank you thank you please take note that adequate notice of this meeting has been provided in the following manner a written notice was sent from the office of the secretary of the board at 2 30 pm on January 6 2023 that said notice was sent via email to Maplewood in South Orange Township clerks and the editors of the news record Star Ledger and the Village Green I want to start this evening by

002congratulating the Columbia High School class of 2023 who celebrated their graduation yesterday evening the board is so proud of you and all of your accomplishments we wish you the best of luck on all your future endeavors tonight's meeting we will have the opportunity to honor and thank our needs of the South Orange Maplewood School District student body over the last two years we will also send a district audit as well as an update from the superintendent and from myself there will also be an exciting student performance from our Seth Boyden 4th grade step team they have sent the board a video of their performance which we will play when we're back from executive session so with that I'd like to make a motion to enter into executive session at 6 31 pm to discuss attorney-client

003matters Hib reportation the length of the executive session is estimated to be 75 minutes and after which the public meeting of the board shall reconvene and proceed with business where formal action will be taken may I have a second second thank you board member malispina all in favor the vote appears to be unanimous so we are now adjourning to closed session see you very soon foreign hi everyone we are back thank you so much for your patience um let's start it here so now we are now back in regular session um thank you all for joining us tonight let's please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance of the United States okay so we are going to kick off this meeting with an exciting student performance from our Seth Boyden elementary school it's a step performance

004they sent us a video so if we could all turn our attention to the screen we'll have some um a great student performance to watch there we go I am shell of Allard and I am a fourth grade teacher at Seth Boyden I'm very proud to be here tonight presenting the Seth pueden 2022-23 artist residency in African-American stepping I was the teacher liaison for the program which is now in its third consecutive year at Seth Boyden our fourth grade and third graders worked with beloved artists Maxine Lyle founder and Creator director of The Troop Soul steps this is [Applause] Maxine taught a total of 16 Workshop days that covered not only stepping movements but also the history of stepping in Black American culture for the two-part culminating event each fourth grade class performed in a

005stepping assembly for the rest of the school with special guest performers the Columbia High School Infinite step team in the Seth board and third graders and then the fourth graders performed an encore show for families that afternoon the fourth graders additionally took a field trip this spring to see a fraternity and sorority step show at Seton Hall with busting funded by the chi Foundation a stepping a step boy in a stepping Club also took place this spring through beyond the bell taught by the CHS infinite step members the funding for the workshops came from the artists in education and dance to learn programs in partnership with young audiences of New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania the aie just announced that Seth Boyden will receive a four-year the fourth year of funding for 23-24 school year okay

006okay please let me share the first part of this year's film about the residency created once again by Seth Boyd and parent in documentary filmmaker Aaron Harper who is also here tonight [Applause] Khan will now show the first nine minutes of the film thank you [Music] man it's gonna go up right how are you guys feeling about the performance tomorrow very excited I'm very excited I'm nerve-sided yeah first do you think we need to get like a good night's sleep I think if I just keep going and act like no one's watching I think I'll be fine nervous I'm just trying to like think like oh I got this I I just want to do this for my family because I'm not sure if the team is just gonna give up this I'm nervous because

007I am in the middle and the front oh my God [Music] during today's culminating event I was actually Amazed by the vibe in the auditorium there we all were and the enthusiasm the build up was amazing it was um electrifying five five six seven eight [Applause] we liked practice you're going to be the one up on stage yeah and after listening to it about a few hundred times we start we started putting in the work this year our third graders have come back as fourth graders and so they're bringing that knowledge with them into step class this year and it really shows because the movement um is in their bodies they the the step vocabulary is deeply rooted in their souls foreign the other day I realized that one group's choreography looks very similar to

008another group's choreography from another class I think that's cool because I think that's actually evidence of the fact that they're in so in love with the movement that there's cross creating going on laughs those are the seats that you want when you're building a step culture what tradition is and how it connects the step that's where our year started to give them a lens for the African-American fraternities that the mascot is elephants the year that they were founded is January 13 1913. there were some schools that eventually came about that were just for African-American college students who couldn't get in to other schools and they were known as historically black colleges and universities back college is a universities are technically open to everyone right now anyone can go to a historically black college and university

009hi name my name is Bernie and we're going to introduce the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Corporation so we learned these long names which are hard for young people to remember let's do it again we were examining the the rise of African-American fraternities and sororities and why they existed step as a way to build community and for them it was about it was a cultural tradition it still is Zeta sorority focused on addressing social causes and the fact that this has a crew has a crew more than 200 000 women my mom's in this sorority so she's definitely gonna want me to do it I bet your mom can help this and but now we're doing this I think this is more powerful though right [Music] yeah so I walk around like the kitchen while I'm

010making my lunch and I'm doing my step it's my favorite thing about stuff is how it's so loud I just love all the stomping and the Clapping it's just so synchronized Sometimes It's the Rhythm to me like when I listen to the stuff that's my favorite I just feel like it kind of like a song so I can remember that step easier the Beats like for example five six seven eight thank you one thing that I really like about step is that we get to do our own steps yeah the steps we created like the snap stuff I do yeah Quattro step five six seven eight all choreography that they created I had no hands in it it's all them just start again ready I guess I'm going the students during their solo sections move

011into a semi-circle and whoever whichever group is performing moves into the center so that they can have their moment to shine that is something I borrowed from hip-hop culture it's basically um dancing communication sort of like um immune like sort of like sign language like calling response yeah show us what you got [Music] everybody's in a Solo group everybody has a call and everybody gets like feel included [Music] one two three yeah I just wanted the students to feel how you can draw energy when you're in the circle five six seven eight ready to rock what's the rule in Miss laforest class they're learning about rounding numbers hey maybe we could do a step routine to remember our rules so I said okay it would be five or more you score for lessee rest she

012has never had a class that has learned the rules of rounding as quickly as this class they would meet outside during recess and just kind of like practice oh no we gotta practice the groups are meeting for five minutes at recess and just practicing they wanted to make sure that they had their routines down that everybody knew what they were doing um everyone knew their parts our new sitting here she was very nervous she wanted if she could be part of the show people had to help her she didn't know this stuff and our step show is about two weeks away two and a half weeks away and she learned it fast they were such great teachers that she was able to learn so quickly and today she went up like for the second time

013this week and she Blends right in as if she started in September with us Kendra learned it in two days so I couldn't help her you know this just speaks to the camaraderie that is really baked into the step culture you know you all are family except family and they are taking on those traits of a step team [Music] that first that was the hardest stuff I could not get wait this one yeah that was like I couldn't like get it down I'd get something wrong but now like now I've mastered it now that's why I like it my group which started out all of them our class yeah in the beginning okay so I'm gonna step captain and nobody really wanted to practice in the beginning yeah and in the beginning we're like the

014beginning here and where we are right now is here but now we're like really good yeah [Music] spread out for generations to learn about enjoy the show [Music] all right how did you like that all right well needless to say I'm very proud of the Seth waiting students and staff members who participated in this residency and I can't wait for next year's program thank you for having us awesome thank you so much so our first order of business is the June board recognitions and I will hand it off to student rep reveley on for her last student representative update good evening everyone to start off the student report I'm proud to announce that Noah and I are officially Columbia High School alumni yesterday's graduation yesterday's graduation went extremely well so congratulations to the class of

0152023 we did it um for this month board recognitions we would like to congratulate Z hunt caddy Mark and June Worrell were chosen to have the artwork displayed at the sopax inspired Minds exhibition this year almost 1 000 items were submitted by students and the committee chose 73 to be included in an exhibition so pack seeks to showcase the many artistic voices of high school students through this process fears as maja's photos was accepted in the visual exhibition of we the place our home our environment our world this national competition held by The Bachelor of Art photography video program at the School of Visual Arts congratulations to the Columbia High School Visual Arts students who are selected to complete and compete in this year States teen Festival the Columbia High School teen Arts Festival is

016a Statewide Arts event held to dedicate to motivating Young Artists Educators professional artists in art Advocates from across the state the festival celebrates the accomplishment of New Jersey teen artists by displaying their art exhibits efforts in the Performing artistic Arts congratulations to arushi vadalamani who is one of 12 vocalists who was selected in New Jersey are Ensemble education honors Allstate Jazz Choir This is a highly exclusive Ensemble that requires a candidate to apply through the school and approval from a teacher Columbia High School softball team enjoyed their last and best season ever the program finished with a 21-10 record the most in the program's history for the first time since 1983. the team progressed to the semifinals of The Exodus County tournament and won sectionals titled for the for the first time since 1977. congratulations

017to our student athletes and head coach Cliff Smith congratulations to to Junior Madison Stevens for placing first overall on June 10th group 4 and silver medal in the meet of Champions for the shot put championships for more of the board recognitions please check out the Board website since there's no student report I would like to take the time to think every single board member in this room faculty staff students and teachers for their support for these um these past two years it means a lot to both know and I I'm grateful for the chance to advocate for changes such as STD STI testing more black faculty and teachers more Mental Health Resources ensuring the ensuring the voice of minorities and marginalized groups are heard more often more ways for black students to learn about historically

018bad colleges and universities and more I can't wait to pass the Baton to next student Representatives that's all for this month student report thank you so much [Applause] and on behalf of the board we would like to thank student rep prev Leon and student rep morose for their dedication and service to representing the needs of SMSD students over the past two years and I wanted to provide a recap of the incredible advocacy work that Vanessa Noah have accomplished on behalf of of these students so let's start with their commitment to the student representative role Vanessa Noah prioritized monthly meetings with the superintendent and District administrators to lift student concerns or to discuss student achievements the board always appreciated that the information reported out during board meetings were substantiated by one-on-one meetings that you had had

019with the district data that you had gathered one-on-one student conversations and the list goes on they put a significant amount of time and work into making sure that the board was informed on the needs of our students and as the conduit to student voices their report outs usually resulted in board follow-up and impacted our board voting decisions Vanessa Noah's advocacy efforts led to security improvements within CHS particularly we implemented the key car system at the high school in 2022-23 and 2022 student concerns expressed by student board reps about Gaggle software which monitors student Communications on District accounts was a contributing factor to the district's decision to reconsider the implementation of gaggle and 2022 Vanessa Noe worked with the CHS guidance director to expand counseling sessions for students and to strategize ways to better publicize the

020mental health resources available to CHS students including social media outreach in 2022 after concerns were raised about high stress levels surrounding midterm exams in the midst of them about to take midterm exams Noah and Vanessa conducted a survey of approximately 1500 students to collect data about sentiments they had been hearing around midterms they created a board presentation with an analysis of the survey results and they presented it to all of us which ultimately led to the district's decision to decrease the weighting of the 2022 midterms Noah and Vanessa were also vocal in encouraging Somaya Union and and some SD to come to a negotiations agreement as students were feeling the impact of reduced supports and services during that time and our student Representatives also visited our middle schools and met with middle school students to

021educate themselves on the issues middle school students were facing as a result no one Vanessa had advocated for better access to gender neutral bathrooms at MMS just as an example this is just a small snapshot because this is actually entirely different than what you even shared of the profound impact that you and Noah have made on this district and we can't thank you enough for your service and we will greatly miss you here especially coming to your special dance shows so please know that as you move on to your next chapter in life that we are all here to support you and that we're cheering you on from the sidelines we're very proud of you and we're going to miss you a lot so thank you so much um we got you some flowers [Applause]

022hmm um so now I'd like to make a motion to approve the prior board meeting minutes from the executive session in organizational staff renewal special meeting minutes on May 11th 2023 and from the executive session and regular meeting minutes on May 25th 2023 do I have a second thank you but remember malistina all in favor please raise your hand great the meeting minutes have been approved so at this point I'll turn it over to Dr Taylor for the superintendent update thank you very much and again congratulations to Vanessa are you going to do fantastic things and take your leadership skills um far and away and make us super proud so thank you hello to somsd community thank you for taking the time to share your evening with us as we approach the end of our

023school year this is always a special time for students families and educators last evening our cabinet board members and I had the pleasure of attending Columbia High School's graduation it was a phenomenal event overflowing with happiness and joy I want to once again congratulate and recognize the class of 2023 and all who contributed to their success I want to also reiterate for the public the latest information regarding our intentional integration initiative we have placed our rise in kindergartners and sixth graders meaning next year those grade levels that have been placed via our via our algorithm will be kindergarten first grade second grade sixth and seventh estimated to be well over 2500 students placed in a manner that closely resembles the diversity of our community as you are aware our Board of school estimate has approved

024our Board of school estimate has approved funding to shift our mileage requirement for District transportation to 1.25 miles Mr Burnside will be sharing more in his update around about where we are with that implementation lastly I am aware that there are families and staff members who may be upset by the teacher transfers that are on this evening's agenda please know that I am legally prevented from speaking about staff specifically they do have rights to confidentiality however I can share that during our budget cycle this year we did share publicly on one exciting shift for next year was the expansion of our Chinese World language program which has significant growth in our Middle School offerings meaning requests from students and Families those requests had grown so popular that our middle school principals both requested additional sections

025be reclassified from Spanish to Chinese to satisfy the student and family family who were seeking out this course we were of course pleased to receive this update for those who are not aware Chinese launched at the high school about five years ago and the Middle School two and a half years ago there were obvious personnel and budget challenges with any time that we have to consider adding positions our HR department worked with our cabinet to review ways that we could avoid cutting Spanish teachers to fulfill this request we also had discussions with Samaya to again try and avoid simply dismissing the Spanish teachers with the lowest tenure in our district we are very pleased to find out um that through our detailed search we had multiple Spanish teachers who had multiple certifications they could legally

026teach other courses other than Spanish in the state of New Jersey we identified two vacancies whose required certifications match those of two Educators this allowed us to expand our Chinese program while keeping our Spanish program intact and preventing us from having to reduce enforce any staff members this process is called right sizing and it's part of our work in trying to maintain the efficiency of our annual budgets we again try to avoid moving staff members unless it's absolutely necessary we want our staff and our students and our families happy of course please know that our cni department and our principals are working together to support our new teachers who are shifting during their transition I want to be very clear in explaining our circumstances this evening where if the board does not support or vote

027for this transition it would mean unfortunately that teachers would have to lose their position with us and none of us want that to happen so I thank you for the moment to share this detailed report I think it's important that we all leave with the same information thank you Dr Taylor are there any questions from board members on Dr Taylor's report out seeing none we will now move on to the business administrator update Mr Burnside thank you this evening I'm going to start off with our construction update for the Seth Boyden and Tuscan schools we are proud to say we're doing the final punch list work on the uh the two schools and um Delia Bolden the contractors is getting ready to complete a few punchless items and also apply for the final certificate of

028occupancy so that's exciting that Clinton phase two the HVAC contractor is continuing to piping pipe classrooms at new area B the masonry contractor completed work on exterior pure at the new switch gear and installed the date stone the contractor is continuing to work on unit ventilator piping at the classrooms and the contractor is continuing to work on the curtain wall at the Courtyard area they just receive delivery and continued installation of case work in the classrooms the roofing contractor completed a metal seam roof installation there's the continued installation of classroom window glass and also the roofing contractor completed work on the canopy roof and next up they're going to begin tile work in the bathrooms at the South Mountain Elementary the boiler down milk demolition is complete they completed the flooring and base in connecting

029the corridors the switch gear the schedule to ship on June 26th so that's still on schedule and once the school a general contractor will begin all demo work in the existing building at the annex the form and pour of the sidewalks is complete the paving in the rear lot and entrance within what will be within the next couple of weeks they're continuing to rebuild the Boiler Room mechanical and electrical and Grading topsoil will be hydroseeding shortly and once School uh when school is over the general contractor will begin demo in the existing building at the Underhill Sports Complex the contractor is getting ready to submit the final paperwork at Marshall and Montrose they're continuing continuing with the footing foundation wall placement it's about 75 complete they're going to begin the foundation wall insulation and begin

030underground plumbing within the next two weeks uh we got the permits for the South Orange Building Department we're going to continue with the submittal review process and uhera that's our asbestos abatement contractor they're preparing for the summer asbestos renovation work now uh Columbia High School we're planning for this the planning for the summer abatement is underway we're filing the permit paperwork with the state right now and now I go to Middle Schools [Applause] this evening there is a resolution to reject all bids for the two Middle School construction projects the district received six bids ranging from approximately 34.7 million to 38.7 million this is approximately 12 million dollars over budget at our last fft committee meeting we consulted with the architect of record speasel Architects and epic construction management to determine our next steps they

031gave the following recommendations these recommendations recommendations are based on the priority of Niche which include many criteria these recommendations will be implemented while a solution is researched using the funds available both schools will proceed with electrical upgrades because the lead time from PSEG can range from 12 to 14 months for the switch gear and also uh required equipment the boiler at the Maplewood Middle School needs to be replaced also renovations to the classroom to a classroom in Maplewood Middle School that will need asbestos abatement we'll be scheduling in the meantime our architect and construction advisors are working to provide estimates that will allow us to bid shortly for the recommended recommendations just named any questions I just want to make sure did you mention g19 for middle school that's the that's the classroom okay I

032just want to make sure you addition security purposes why don't want security okay well it will it's actually that's that classroom was actually mentioned on the long range facility plan website so any other questions for Mr Burnside I'm moving on Transportation then okay you're not done yet on June 14th Sussex County Co-op had a bid opening for the majority of the additional routes needed to implement the district's expansion a Pre-K in elementary transportation to 1.25 miles these bids are currently being reviewed by Sussex County Co-op and then will be analyzed by our interim transportation coordinator Jerry Ford Mr Ford is a retired transportation coordinator who comes to us with many years of experience we're lucky and excited to have him join our team we are also excited to announce the transportation request form will be

033available by the end of tomorrow Friday June 23rd on our website there will be instructions on the transportation portion of our website so families can access the form just one addition to Mr burnside's update that the form is now moving into PowerSchool which which we hope will make it more accessible to our families and easier to fill out instead of having to print out submit all those types of things so we're excited about that Madam president I'm sorry please I thought you meant for transportation okay um now let me give an update on the audit on January 19th of this year the district received notification that we were selected for collaborative Federal monitoring the remote monitoring began on June 12th the monitoring has consisted of interviews with Department staff covering Federal programs related program components

034desired results and financial management the programs under review consist of titles one two three and four idea basic and preschool sr2 American Rescue plan the Perkins Grant and special education at the conclusion of the audit an exit conference will be held the New Jersey Department of Education will inform the District of any findings or recommendations or provide technical assistance on fiscal program or on fiscal or program issues according to the director of our audit the njdoe performs an annual risk assessment of all leas that receive federal rewards for the purpose of identifying the tiers of technical assistance needed by the daliers any question yes um board member malastina hi um why were we not informed about the fact that they thought it was occurring until now when it was January that this um was brought

035to the board's attention so I think he just stated it was brought to the board's attention right and so I'm not sorry brought to your attention Okay um so both Mr Burnside and myself have mentioned the audit that was happening um in multiple spaces I believe including this space and our committee meetings I mean it's a part of our day-to-day operations as Mr Burnside shared and as I shared in your recent Friday packet um these are things that we deal with all the time as Administration I've had um a similar audit occur when I was soup in another district and again it's just day-to-day operations things that we handle as Administration when the world president brought to my attention that more information was wanted we placed it in your Friday packet and offered the update

036that we just gave thank you any further questions oh go ahead Dr Taylor good I have a surprise for the board and the public um Mr Mr bonds you can cue the surprise for everyone it's the result of work of our ptas and our and our um our teachers and our and our students and I think it's going to make everyone feel fantastic to end the school year our journey as a district has had many recent highlights worth celebrating [Music] during covet we rallied as a community to transition from in-person learning to remote learning I had to learn new ways to operate to better serve our students and staff we invested in technology for our students spending two million dollars on new Chromebooks and infrastructure updates for connectivity with 8 000 devices distributed since 2019.

037coming back from covet and returning to in-person learning we continue to move forward we Implement and expand the school buildings in our district for our students and staff we are proud to share that we have completed multiple projects with phase one of construction at the Columbia High School beginning in 2023 [Music] thank you foreign with a focus on excellence and Equity there has been a significant increase in the placement of historically underrepresented students in our most rigorous courses with ap enrollment up nearly 300 students and more than 550 curricula being updated since 2019. our student Athletics together we created a unified graphic identity with the district logo featuring an updated design of the Columbia High School bell tower the Pinnacle of the academic journey in our school district behind it a Bright Horizon represents the

038future impact each student will have on the world and its circular shape is inspired by Columbia High School seal we are a district of Two Towns unify in our diversity together with our building administrators School staff student voices and ptas each School developed its graphic identity with a logo that features beloved mascots and colors with individual models serving as expressions of each school's Collective voice sorrow and diverse Marshall Elementary School if it is to be it's up to me Seth Boyden Elementary School discover learn grow South Mountain Elementary School where the stars come to shine [Music] Tuscan Elementary School respect others act responsibly Maplewood Middle School imagine believe achieve [Music] South Orange Middle School storm strong and Columbia High School the home of the Cooper Together We Are One district and one Community growing and

039learning together towards academic excellence s-o-m-s-d and [Music] together we are moving forward [Music] thank you the work of many people over many months collaboratively so this will go out to all of our families tomorrow thank you so much about doing audiobooks I was like I could listen to you talk I was like this one I did not want to read that trust me I was like you're really um thank you so much that's really exciting that's a great surprise um so any questions for Mr Burnside we're good or Dr Taylor all right awesome so we'll go to the board present update and then we'll move on to public speaks so I wanted to commend the 2023 Board of Education this evening on two policies that are up for first and second read tonight policy 8600

040our newly revised Transportation policy and policy 8600.1 our brand new hazardous routes policy both of which have been a labor of love from the board policy 8600 transportation is upper second read tonight so as Dr Taylor shared with the approval of this policy the board will be formally adopting a transportation policy for all pre-k through fifth grade elementary students who reside 1.25 miles or more from their school placement the Board District and Community are in agreement that transportation is the backbone of the intentional integration initiative and that transportation is a CR is critical to its success the board would like to thank the board of school estimate for approving Financial Resources to fund this vital resource we appreciate and value your partnership and just our friendly friendly reminder to the community that each student who

041is eligible eligible for transportation must apply every year so just because you applied last year doesn't mean you'd get it this year you do have to go through the formal application process and that will be up on PowerSchool as they noted very soon in 2021 a decision was made by the board in the district to remove courtesy Transportation with the promise of conducting a hazardous audit after two years this important work had not been done I'm proud of the 2023 board because one of the first actions taken by this board was to prioritize a comprehensive hazardous route audit to ensure the safety of our students getting to and from school policy 8600.1 which is up for first read has been a five-month process that has involved an outsourced engineering firm both police departments our local

042municipalities the district and the board but the passing of this policy we can make good on the board's promise to make sure that students are getting to and from school safely and I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the hard work of our fft chair and second VP Miss Deval Wilson we joke that Nubia can add analyzing hazardous routes to her resume now and all joking aside newbie made sure that all key stakeholders the engineer Police Department's traffic bureaus District municipalities that everybody was communicating with one another and that deadlines were being met she cross-checked the Hazardous for out report multiple times and made sure that the policy that you're all reviewing today is comprehensive and complete and on any any given day if you call there she probably had Google Maps open when it's

043telling you this intersection of that intersection um but we just want to thank you Nubia for all of your hard work we appreciate you please note the most recent hazardous route and quarter audit reports will be prominently posted on the district's website very soon um and lastly but equally as important the board received a draft of the somsd equity audit last week as part of the ongoing work to comply with the BPW settlement the district and the Border are reviewing thoroughly and we do expect a Public Presentation sometime this summer after both parties have been able to review and offer feedback and that concludes the board president's update this evening so please bear with me as I read the board president's statement for the record the school board meeting is a business meeting in public

044and 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 the Administration has thoroughly reviewed the matter with the superintendent if the superintendent is satisfied that the matter is ready to be presented to the Board of Education it is then referred to the appropriate board committee the members of the board committee work with Administration and the superintendent to assure that the members fully understand the matter committee discusses the matter it is then shared with the other board members for consideration only then is it placed on the agenda for board discussion and action at a public meeting we will now begin

045our first hearing of individuals and delegates this evening thank you for coming in person and dialing in by phone the South Orange Maple Board of Education certainly respects that you've taken the time out of your busy day to address the board at tonight's meeting rest the board at tonight's meeting we value public involvement in our school district and we are eager to hear what you have to say the board has time limits by policy and it will be enforcing those to enable as many people to speak as possible this evening each individual will be given three minutes to speak so please do your best to stay within the time afforded to you the the first public comment period is usually limited to one hour and the second public comment period may be limited to 30

046minutes all inputs shared with the board of education has taken very seriously and will inform future deliberations and work by the Board of Education and its committees we request that you please say your name and town of residence for the record so um we will start with Stephen Carberry hi my name is Stephen Carberry I live in Pompton Plains New Jersey I'm a teacher in the district um I'm known to students parents and colleagues as senior Carberry I want to speak to you tonight about my being reassigned to a new position I've been in elementary Spanish teacher in this district for 23 years I was hired when the elementary school Spanish program in the district first began I have helped develop promote and protect this program for 23 years now with one year left before

047I retire I'm being taken away from the program I love to become a brand new second grade teacher a job that I have no experience in and a job that takes many years to learn everyone is asking me why are they doing this I try to explain my situation to those I work with at Tuscan Seth Boyden and Clinton but my explanations only leave question marks why are they sending a teacher from the Middle School to replace you why would they make you a second grade teacher did you ask for this reassignment what is going on at the middle school I don't fully understand the reasoning behind the decision to reassign me but it appears I am being moved due to a rearrangement of positions at the middle schools I have Elementary School certification as

048well as Spanish certification which opened up an opportunity to move me to to a second grade my intention back in the 1990s was to have both certifications so that I would be eligible to teach elementary school Spanish I never thought that having a certification could hurt me in this way after all I've done for the schools and communities I work for I never imagined that the district would put me in this situation it pains me to have to come here and speak out against my department and the district administrators who made this decision the South Orange Maplewood school district has always felt like family to me but what is being done with this reassignment is wrong it does not benefit our students and it is hurtful to me it is just a convenience to accommodate

049the needs of one school over another it may not be convenient to keep myself and my colleague at our positions as the Elementary School Spanish teachers but I beg you find a way thank you Stephen next up We Have Allison bechdel uh hello my name is Allison beckadon I'm a resident of Maplewood teacher at in the district um just following up with Stephen my colleague I am the other Elementary Spanish school teacher have not been in the district as long it's been about 14 years um but I pretty much know that Stephen and I are pretty well respected and loved by the communities we serve um like Stephen I have a certificate that fulfills the General Ed requirements for K to A8 as well as the specialization certificate for Spanish like Stephen I never thought

050that that would be something that would be harmful to me it was just kind of the way they did it in the 80s and the 90s and here we are in this kind of a situation um I can't imagine that towards the end of my career I'm being taken away from the program that I love and work hard to make exciting and engaging for my students to become a second grade teacher a position that I have never held and that has a huge learning curve I'm asked the same questions that Steven's been asked why why and we understand that the intentions were not necessarily nefarious we're not claiming that we understand and of course we applaud the intentions of keeping the staff on board but we feel like perhaps there was a better way to

051deal with the situation I.E being being a part of the discussion and part of the the situation Stephen nor I were informed that there was this kind of a situation never knew anything about it until the day we received the letter stating that our reassignments that just doesn't seem right we are all adults and we figure there's got to be a way to maintain our program the strength of our program and to go forward with the staff at hand um after having lived in Spain for nearly 20 years is why I got my spanner certification so that I could combine my certification with the love of the language that I have and I feel like we've done that I feel like now we're in a position where being used as pawns to resolve issues at

052other buildings or to resolve the the issues that exist with Staffing it doesn't seem right for Stephen and I and it certainly doesn't feel right for our parents for excuse me for our students the program will be leaving behind that we've spent so many years developing and for the new students that we'll be facing in the fall of which we have no experience it doesn't seem like this is an assignment that is in the best interest of our students it is not fair to them it is not fair to us it's undoubtedly going to harm the Spanish Elementary program and it's going to be a challenge for all of those I don't have a doubt that the staff at the schools where we were seeing reassigned to will be there to support us that's just

053what teachers do we help each other out we got each other's backs I get that I don't have I'm a big girl I can learn new things I can do new things I love all my students that I've ever dealt with having zero experience doesn't seem necessarily as unfair to me as it does to those little second grade faces that I imagine in my head sitting in front of me I too believe like Stephen does that there's a better way to resolve the issues thank you thank you Allison next up we have Ronnie Schwartz good evening my name is Ronnie Schwartz and I live in Maplewood I'm here to speak tonight about your upcoming decision of whether or not to enter negotiations with Dr Taylor for a new contract my two daughters are rising 7th

054and 11th graders and I've been a parent and PTA leader in this district for over 10 years I served on the parent committee for the intentional integration initiative attended countless meetings about the long-range facilities Plan before it was adopted and Dr Taylor is absolutely the most effective superintendent we've had in the past 11 years Dr Taylor has faced the challenge of implementing the integration plan and the unthinkable difficulties of the pandemic although the community was divided in our opinions about what a safe return to school entailed Dr Taylor saw us through that incredibly fraught time now the integration plan is going well the community is adjusting to the changes and we are finally on the road to properly integrating our schools Dr Taylor has built a strong and diverse leadership team and my current role

055as co-president of the president's Council we are finally seeing more consistency across our schools something we've been striving for as long as I've been around and there is so much more work to be done we need to improve our special services for children with 504s and IEPs we must break through the achievement Gap we must find a way to salvage the rest of the lrfp with improvements that are desperately needed at MMS soms and CHS repairing the high school and middle school buildings must be a focus and an equitable distribution of tax resources across all grades and ages is critical we need to responsibly deal with the changes to the transportation plan since our taxes will once again be raised to support this effort finally if you choose not to enter negotiations to renew Dr

056Terrell's contract you will put the district's future at risk you will risk the completion of the integration plan and the lrfp and you will destabilize this District you will cost us money we don't have so I urge you to do the right thing and begin working on negotiating a new contract with Dr Taylor at the right time thank you thank you Ronnie next up we have Andy Grossman hi good evening I timed it just right I heard wonderful things about the uh the rep I heard saw the step dancing and I just heard this woman talk about Dr Taylor how wonderful he is I was completely disgusted when he got re-upped last time because I had attempted to communicate with him and he absolutely shut me out for over a year so I think that

057he should be gone tomorrow um I came here tonight to uh ask the board I've never been to a meeting before but I came here to ask the board if they might meet with me sometime in the future perhaps if there's downtime in the summer there's probably no downtime but if there is I'd like to share with them my experiences trying to deal with Dr Taylor's immediate subordinates and when um they proved an effective or Worse really really nasty I attempted to speak to him and again shut me out for over a year and a half I did not hear one get one response from him not one I tried emailing calling leaving messages through colleagues none one of my issues I had about five but one of my issues he finally after a year

058and a half gave me some very very unresponsive responses and that was it so I talked to the prior chair Joshua with my wife about one of the issues um about two years ago or I think and then this past September after follow-up follow-up follow-up with Mr Joshua in emails and and at least one of the member of the board um we had one last uh Zoom meeting and that was in December right before he his term ended and we had cordial discussions he and I but in the end absolutely no uh assistance in dealing with what was a really ugly ugly situation uh I've never ever been in the same room with Dr Taylor I've never spoken a word with him on the phone or elsewhere but the way he treated me was really

059vile and I had no idea coming here tonight that his term was up but again I almost threw up in my mouth when during this whole Hiatus this whole is issue with me he got re-upped so if he's up for something again I would like to share with you my experiences dealing with him yes during the pandemic when my kids needed assistance and he was 100 unresponsive so I don't know how it works but that's my request to the board if you could meet with me in in full or in part I'd greatly appreciate it thank you Andy thank you do I need to just leave contact information or your email is right here so thank you so much thank you okay next up we have James Davis South Orange uh I'm back to talk

060about BPW settlement which you mentioned uh the Fergus report that you received that I talked about the last time I was here uh I hear tonight to set the record straight we have provided some of our supporters with a draft of the Fergus report we did that because the first report is not a confidential document nor is it private uh but I want to set the record straight because ever since we did that I've received several messages from people that were upset about receiving the document who were misinformed about the actual legalities around that particular document so here is my attempt to set the record straight two years ago Dr Fergus began his first foray into completing a report however he was not able to do so because he did not receive all the information

061from the elementary schools and the high schools that he was requesting and so he provided the district with a report that was incomplete that incomplete report was never accepted by black parents Workshop however we could have gone to court but we did not we encourage the school district to just bring Dr Fergus back that did not happen so then there were some conversations with the monitor about the completeness of Dr fergus's report this is April 2022. a decision had to be made by the school district do we go to court and argue that the document is actually complete when it wasn't or do we bring Dr Fergus back to complete the work as you know because you all paid for it Dr Fergus came back last August or September of 2022. what you have now

062is a culmination of two years of waiting for Dr fergus's report and as I said last time I was here we're tired of waiting who's the cause for that I don't know who's responsible I don't know who's in charge Dr Taylor's in charge maybe he knows but we're tired of waiting I've got 30 seconds left and I don't want to end on a bad note such a good night with the graduations and the step dancing so I will say this in the past year I have worked with two people who've shown some promise in trying to fulfill the obligations of the settlement Mr editorian has reached out to me to meet regarding the document and as I kept tabs on Dr fergus's attempt to complete his report the second time I heard good things about

063the help from Dr Gilbert in collecting the information so I want to give those two gentlemen credit for actually trying to get this document finished because that's all we're trying to do is get the document done and get it implemented so that the black students of this District can be helped I don't benefit financially I don't benefit personally but the black students of this District do so let's help them thank you thank you James next up we we have Rocio Lopez okay I don't even know where I live anymore I'm tired yesterday I graduation uh I wasn't going to talk today but so may I was brought up into this meeting by something that Dr Taylor said about the elementary teachers being reassigned so there are some things I cannot talk that are confidential but

064I can tell you that it was a in one way it's a catch 220. uh you call us to a meeting and you say two people loses their jobs or we transfer to people so we represent everyone what are we supposed to say so we didn't say yes or no don't get me wrong we didn't decide this what we did is we we looked into the legality of the decision what we did is telling people maybe they should talk to the teachers to see if one of because if I remember right there were four teachers that had um Elementary uh the certifications right to be elementary teachers we say why don't you know they talk to the teachers and see if any one of them you know is willing to do it or and I

065don't want to talk about the whole discussion because you know I want to be respectful to the person I talk but I don't want to use like so Maya is part of it so may I wasn't part of it and I'm gonna tell you why first of all it's not our prerogative to make that decision secondly I cannot decide between two people we move to another um job or to people losing their jobs theirs is my department so I'm not even gonna get close to involved when it's my colleagues that I know for 20 years so and I want to say that because there is something though that it says the contract and it's very clear in our contract is that the teachers will always be uh talked about these changes before they happen and

066these two people didn't know about their changes until they got the letter so telling them that there might be changes is not telling you I'm gonna move you to another building and I'm not trying to defend one thing or the other because again my hands are tied all the people are so many members I cannot ask for two people to lose jobs I cannot ask for two people to be transfer but now as a Spanish teacher I can tell you that I will not have decided to move both of the elementary teachers and not leave a mentor in elementary for a new person to come in the same way I could tell you and this is me as a as a person that if I were going to do this I would speak with all

067the teachers that had the certification and see is there any positions that you can you know um um that you can we can put you in right I'm sorry I forgot the word and see if there is another solution one of the teachers is willing to teach math in middle school because she has taught it in the past but she only needs to take the practice the other one might be willing to teach ell in elementary and he only needs to teach the practice because he also had taught English in the past in Paterson so these conversations with these two teachers if we wouldn't know what they were willing to do maybe we couldn't find Solutions but I will not have changed to people in elementary the both the only two teachers that teach elementary

068Spanish and destroy the program that I would not have done I would leave at least one as a mentor so so may I knew some things but so may I can now get involved in decisions that are legal and is the prerogative of the district so I just wanted to say that thank you thank you Rocio up next we have Alex rosenblatt hello my name is Alex rosenblatt I live in South Orange I'm the parent of a kindergartner in Clinton Elementary School she's had a wonderful year with an amazing teacher the only thing is that we live Three Doors Down from Marshall Elementary School every morning we have to go and take our daughter over driving we have two small kids my wife and I both work so we've had to hire extra help at

069our expense to make sure that someone is at home with the two younger kids and as we're coming back due to the time disparity the streets are clogged people park in our driveway and this is an impossible situation that repeats also in the afternoon in addition to that we're not really members of either community at the moment parents get together and walk their kids to school we see them outside of her window the same thing happens on the Clinton side we drive in and you know hopefully make it on time to drop our kid off this is not just our burden to bear because of the the algorithm that we did find out caused a lot of errors with for instance siblings being placed in different schools there are a mirror set of parents we

070have found on the Clinton side who from a social economic and demographic status seem to have the same traits that we do who are also almost next to Clinton and driving over to Marshall they're probably the people that are causing all the traffic and log jams uh on our street and around our neighborhood from what we can tell we are the only people in our neighborhood that were not assigned to Marshall so in terms of play dates and and and getting to know the community but Clinton students that my daughter is with uh they all basically live next to each other and we don't really know anybody so there's a lot of trouble with breaking into either Community the schools from week what we can tell are basically equivalent in fact our teacher taught at

071Marshall before and it seems that if there were an intelligent transfer process us put into place that took a look at the social economic demographic traits of students that were in these demographic situations aside from just a blind algorithm that seems to not have had any common sense at all that it would be possible for the school and the integration initiative to keep its statistics that everyone has said were the goals of the program while at the same time alleviating the logistical and social concerns that the willy-nilly placement of some students have caused thank you Alex our last in person speaks is from Jeffrey Bennett hi I'm also here to speak about the importance of a transfer process first thank you very much to the Board of Ed and the administration for approving transportation for

072kids who are as little as 1.25 miles from their schools I hope we can reach up one mile in the future because there are still a lot of kids who can't walk at 1.25 miles and I hope you can also work to have some kind of busing for middle schoolers too in the future um since frankly our transportation system is the least efficient in Essex County I believe we can accommodate even more students at no additional expense um but I think we're still a long way from the point where we have an integration plan that works for everyone and I think something that would enable that is a transfer process first like all the other districts I've looked at that have integration plans have transfer processes um sometimes they have parallel processes you know a

073waitlist transfer process for people who don't maintain hardship who don't claim hardship and then a hardship transfer process for people who are really acutely struggling um the way we assign kids to the elementary schools is random like you know what we have here is a lottery we call it an algorithm but it's really a lottery um we don't ask parents what their capacity is to send their kids to distant schools when we have busing we're really going to reduce the number of kids in hardship which is very which is great but we're not going to eliminate it because not every family can use a bus um either one way or both ways um I feel that there is this opposition to a transfer process because it would let the whole system unravel like it would

074like be a Thousand Cuts to the integration plan but I don't think that I think most people really do want an integration plan including me um I don't see support through the integration plan as fragile um there's this fear that like everyone's going to demand a transfer and maybe like high SES families will abuse it but it doesn't happen in other districts like they still do have like their racial and socioeconomic balance um and once we have buzzing the only people who are going to want transfers are people who are really struggling or for some reason like you know they're assigned school it's just really bad for them um if a family's already has already started a school and they're asking a transfer like after their child has like made friends after they've made acquaintances

075with other appearances parents they're only doing so because the situation is very difficult for them um so I think there's a self-selecting aspect to this what would happen if we had a transfer policy um I saw that the policy committee last month talked about transfers which is very good but for some reason it was conceptualized to something where gen ed kids would take seats that were originally assigned and reserved for special ed seats um I don't understand why it's conceived that way when we could have a weightless transfer process which I know like Montclair has you know in the last two years we've had 40 to 50 kindergarteners sign up but they never enroll so if you are not all of those kids who are assigned to distant schools but if those if we allow

076kids to transfer to replace a 40 to 50 kids who don't enroll um we would substantially enable a lot of transfers to happen and reduce difficulty um anyway I just don't think that we should have the attitude um that's about all um thank you very much thank you Jeffrey um the next so we're audio public Speaks now and the first person up is Judith David that Community member is not online the next public speaks is from Michelle Giordano that Community member is not online the next public speaks is from Reina Khanna can you hear me we can hear you hi my name is Rayna Kano I live in Maplewood I'm a fifth grader at Delia Bolden and I have been studying under Senora guy art for two years this morning we heard that our favorite

077teacher was being transferred to a different school not to teach Spanish but to teach second grade we were shocked and outraged when we heard this news why we asked ourselves why would you transfer a Spanish teacher with no second grade experience to a second grade classroom an era guyard has been teaching Spanish for many years now and has an incredibly positive impact on so many students it's just nonsensical to move her with only a couple years left in her career to a completely different role multiple problems could arise in this theoretical environment for instance Senora Guyer might not know what to teach half the time she doesn't know the career I am and doesn't know what these kids need to learn you can't force someone into this environment without their consent or proper training it

078is completely unfair to Senora guyar to remove her from the Spanish class that she's been doing an excellent job teaching in is a great Spanish teacher who has taught me many valuable things about the language and helped me to learn to speak it over the years I didn't once ever wish I could have a different Spanish teacher or imagine other students at Delia bold and having a different Spanish teacher in conclusion I think Senora guy art should not be moved to second grade teaching position because it's completely unfair to put her in a role that she's not going to have any experiences and equally it would be unfair to the second graders who might need a little more than a teacher who's just trying to learn the material of sales she is already doing a

079great job teaching Us in Spanish I hope you would take these words into consideration thank you so much Reina great job um Joshua Ogle that Community member is not online Ella ax soccer meeting member is not online okay and just um to go back so Judith David Michelle Giordano none of those event oh okay oh okay um so our last audio public speaks is Shannon cuddle hi everyone can you hear me hi Shannon hi so um thank you uh so quickly I want to thank everyone that came out for 11. Shannon I'm so sorry to interrupt you we can't hear you very well okay hold on uh I'm it's a bit muffled unfortunately Shannon okay um we can come back to Shannon because one person just signed up again we'll bring on Dean Davis foreign

080no I can good evening can you hear me yes we can hear you thank you so much uh good evening friends and neighbors congratulations to our class of 2023 we're extremely proud of their resilience and strength and excellence and we wish them continued success and resilience onward and upward our future is very bright as your Municipal partner I value our open lines of communication and ongoing partnership in serving our parents and students to the best of our Collective ability and as your partner I'm here this evening to caution the board against terminating Dr Taylor's contract encouraging his resignation behind closed doors or ending negotiations about his renewal the preceding comments this evening illustrate our progress as a school district despite many decades of inaction as well as our challenges that remain it's a critical and

081difficult time to be managing all of this no doubt starting a new search for superintendent right now we're halt our progress and distract us from the issues that were raised tonight it will destabilize the community at a time of existing Stress and Anxiety as we navigate all of the massive child changes we are undergoing so I encourage the board instead to be more sensible and to work with Dr Taylor there's some easy wins here perhaps Dr Taylor will be open to meet with the teachers uh who are affected by some of these decisions and be more transparent and communicative to constituents throughout Maplewood and South Orange about their concerns as well as our ongoing work to defeat the achievement Gap and racial equity in our community so I say let's work with Dr Taylor let's

082not start a new search and destabilize everything we've gotten so far and we're making a great strides turning the corner thank you thank you Dean and we'll try Shannon one more time Mr bonds if that's okay Shannon can you hear us yes I can hear you we can hear you much better now okay can you hear me now we can hear you sorry Shannon we can't hear you now can you hear me now yes sorry we can hear you okay I'm sorry I can't see the timer I don't know what's uh it's okay just go it's okay I'm sorry um my apologies I want to be respectful as always don't worry so first I want to thank um all our uh all our leaders that came to Lavender graduation that is very important to support

083our student you know their vendor graduates in attendance we had a superintendent Dr Taylor principal Sanchez inspection Club advisor Beth Johnson um as someone Steve vice president new Nubia Davao Wilson and Melissa malcina board members Courtney winkfield Arun valdemali Dr tells Ford former slsd president Emory Manny and Thayer Joshua former somsd of US presidents Aaron ciders Sarah Susan Bergen and we also had mayor Dean Davis Seth Orange Village president Sheena column uh and Deputy Maplewood mayor Deborah Ingle and uh Maplewood TC members Victor Luca and Jermaine crepe and Southern trustee Karen Hilton join us it was a very wonderful event um we celebrated our students in a way um that is really needed right now and I really want to highlight that for our students and our community and the presence of who came to

084our I [Music] event that was really well attended by community members and supported our students and you saw yesterday at the CHS graduation those that were lavender Pride rainbow uh lanyards as well I also want to take a moment to say that um it's important that we stand up and speak up I would hope that all of our board members that are here right now on DS will speak up for lgbtq plus students I know that there are many things happening right now in our community and your lives but we need you to speak out and speak up even if you're not there and I also want to speak out and say that during CH CHS graduation it's important that as board members that we speak up and speak out and uh show and I'm

085disenfranchised that now all Boe members were at CHS graduation last night thank you thank you very much Shannon so that concludes our public speaks so we will move on to um committee oh sorry Dr Taylor do you care to respond I'm sorry so you know I'm not supposed to respond this is what Patrick will always tell me but um and it's great advice but I I always try to respond because I think that we should all leave with the same information so for those who don't normally attend these meetings I do take copious notes and so does our team and I I try to respond on the spot if I'm able to um to our two teachers who came to to advocate for themselves I hope that my explanation in the beginning of this meeting

086helped you to understand um as as our so many president said about being between a rock and a hard place um this is four budgets straight for me that I don't believe we've had to reduce staff and we've added staff actually over those years and so um it's important to me that we do all we can do to not do that if it's at all reasonably possible and you have our commitment if you take these placements that are that are on this agenda as I stated publicly and also privately um our cni department and the leaders of the buildings that you would be going to am I getting too personally I don't get in trouble okay okay um are dedicated to supporting you as as you noted in your public speaks that you have no

087doubt that your fellow staff members would support you um to those who spoke on my behalf you know I don't talk about myself because that's not what leaders do but just know that I appreciate as anybody would positive comments about my performance thank you is Mr Grossman still here okay I I have um searched my emails for Mr Grossman's emails and I'm happy to share with the board and anybody who files an Oprah requests the exchanges that I've had with Mr Grossman and the responses that I've given to him as well as the emails that he sent to us that's public information and I'll share it with the board in your Friday packet Mr Davis still here I think he stepped out um we've been advised by Council to not speak about settlements um in

088public there's a mechanism for us to do that I'm happy to hear that Mr aradon and Dr Gilbert um have shown the talent and the work ethic that we know that they have and demonstrate every day um when we say that we're tired of waiting I would just assert that we're not waiting that we have intentional integration that we have both in the placement of underrepresented students in our most rigorous classes that we have in office of access and Equity we're not waiting for um for this to do what's right and do what's best for all of our kids um the president Lopez I wasn't trying to put you in between the rock and a hard place I was just sharing that we had conversations um as administrators we we take our decisions um seriously

089and personally meaning that we would never put our decision and the result of it on anyone else and if what I said something like that I apologize that was not my intent I was just sharing the process that we went to went through um regarding the discussions of our algorithm and um the the term willy-nilly was used I would just invite anyone to go to our micro site that holds everything about our intentional integration um efforts and I can tell you that it is it is not willy-nilly um and I've been presenting in different spaces for districts that are very interested in it and the work that we've done thus far um we of course acknowledge that this is not neighborhood placements that's what we inherited and even when we had neighborhood placements there were

090about 20 percent of kids who were not placed in their neighborhood schools um and so just to say that demographics that are utilized do not include race and that um there are discussions in the board and I've shared with those who sent me emails and there is a consideration around a social economic status transfer mechanism for this work and we'll keep everyone posted if that policy is adjusted and make sure that everyone knows and it's not just a matter of placing kids in spaces that are on hold for special needs students that's exactly what we would not do those spaces are held for a reason for ell or special needs students but for other spaces that may come available having a social economic status weightless could be a mechanism that is used for those who

091are looking for a different school and you know some of the details in that as you can imagine are significant whether it's the timing of it right when does that happen I know for my first year here and sorry to be long-winded um I I spoke to many angry parents who were on a waitlist to get into a school all year long number one right that happens we we don't we we sometimes don't have very transient um circumstances so I would want to be upfront with anyone who is engaging with that but I've let the board know that I'm open to that consideration and also involving our consultants and helping us to design that um Mr Bennett you still here hi good to see you um so one one point that I would just highlight

092in your comments and thank you as always for coming out is that the definition of hardship is one to to that is kind of difficult to establish in this work not impossible but but it's a little bit difficult when when we claim hardship what does that mean for everyone right and I think that the statements around we know that everyone wants integration for their kids some of the research that we share doing those presentations from Harvard and other other resources is that everyone supports um integration a grand a high percentage of parents engaged in that research do support integration but they also are willing to make it less effective because of their personal circumstances so that's that's the kind of thing that we have to consider in this work and that we share you know

093widely and publicly I know that that Rihanna's re is it Rihanna who Reena Reyna thank you who Reina hopefully getting ready for school tomorrow but what an impressive kid that was right and and what they should just fantastic and um Shannon uh I think everyone had a phenomenal time at lavender graduation um as we do every year thank you and that concludes my responses Madam president thank you Dr Taylor can I respond to one public comment yeah I don't think so no yeah it was about the attendance of the lavender and I was out of town and I wanted to be on record that I was you know I would love to attend that event uh I was in California for professional development and I really apologized that I was not able to attend that

094event and I'm sorry that she that they feel disenfranchised um but I you know I support our trans students and I hope that next year I'll be able to attend the lavender graduation [Music] thank you uh we are now going to transition to committee report out so we'll start with a board member Eckert with Personnel then we'll go to board member Deval Wilson we'll go to Dr telesford we'll go to board member Gifford and then we'll conclude with uh BP malaspina if we can remember the order good evening I I'm actually really excited this is 9 30 I'm doing my committee readout I might actually be able to get through it without fudging anything um the Personnel committee meeting met on Tuesday June 13th board president whitlider board member Wright and I were in attendance

095board member Wingfield could not make it and Dr Taylor left the meeting and after an hour to attend the monthly president's council meeting so we kicked off the meeting reviewing Personnel recommendations uh just a couple of highlights our assistant ba announced her retirement effective 9-1 which is part of the Personnel resolution we will be voting on this evening and the role was recently posted to our job listings page we had a brief discussion around summer school Staffing the summer programming was expanded during the pandemic we're now starting to see a bit of a dip in interest however we don't have final numbers the district will provide that once they are ready as we reviewed out of District placement coaches in resolution 4472 a board member asked for confirmation that coaches have been fully vetted fingerprinted

096and that we are checking references Mr edoin confirmed this and also briefly touched on the revised interview interview process that he has rolled out more panels rating sheets and of course reference forms we discussed how internal applications for job vacancies are handled and Mr adedoyan confirmed that every internal applicant gets an interview but it all comes down to experience and the best fit for the role there was a related discussion around the aspiring administrator Academy Dr Gilbert mentioned the academy may see some changes next year as they look for other ways to support those in the academy to get more experience to set them up for success in the long run the district also provided some updates on some of the administrative vacancies Clinton principal South Mountain assistant principal CHS principal and the assistant ba

097we then moved on to reviewing policies that will be up for first read at our July meeting just of no um you know I think coming out of the last meeting where we tabled all the policies you know we looked at dress and grooming specifically and the use of corporal punishment for teaching staff and support staff the committee discussed if there's really any reason to update the policy obviously taking into consideration just our personal beliefs but also Community feedback that was shared and of course we are um Mr adenoid is Consulting with the District administration to confirm their feedback so I believe that will be up for first read in the July meeting Mr adedoyan provided an update on summer Visions to the exit interview content has mostly remained the same but it's changed the

098format to ease your collect and analyze data committee members provided feedback to add the school grade and race ethnicity while that information is stored in other places and can be cross-referenced having this information included in the survey will help streamline the process I believe that this will be rolling out pretty soon so hopefully we can start to see more substantiated data to review we also discussed for the upcoming meeting attrition data looking at staff that has left the districts in let's say the past five years data points to collect and review include but not limited to race ethnicity School number of years in the district Department tenured versus non-tenured you know we discussed the idea of and you know I'm still here survey why are you here why are you staying creating focus groups better

099understand why employees are here and how we can use that in building up a retention strategy Mr adidoyan will present this to the committee in the July meeting for discussion um you know if you follow since my time of becoming chair I've been talking about the exit interview we've been talking about this a lot because you know I just want to reiterate that the committee is committed to really thinking about teacher retention and how we can build up that strategy I personally have been really excited to work uh directly with Mr adidoyan in his short time here um Mr edoin then presented a new marketing opportunity to help with recruitment efforts targeting teachers of color on radio it's something that we've never done before and will be coming out of our recruitment budget the committee

100is really excited to hear about the rollout and results and our next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday July 18th 2023 at 6 30 pm any questions [Music] great okay thank you okay um on June 14th board members Bill Arun and Caitlin met with the administration for our fft meeting epic construction management we're there to discuss the Middle School bids which were over budget as Mr Burnside already gave an update earlier um as a result of epic's presentation update we asked for a recap of costs from all schools actuals and budgeted as well as a breakdown of all construction needs for the middle schools um and what is cut and and what those costs were which we did receive in advance of this meeting um as an aside Mr Burns said I do think that since

101our recap does talk about all of the itemized lists in the Middle School bids and as part of our district goal I think that we should put this itemized presentation on the district website similar to our request for chs's itemized list to be on the district website as a way to continue to be transparent with the community um so hopefully we can do that um we also discussed when the Longridge facility plan is done we'll start part two looking into esip which is environmental saving grants to do additional building upgrades and connect with the community to discuss their opinions on concerns and needs in our schools for future projects we know our schools need a lot more work um from a beautification standpoint and so I look forward to working on part two when the

102time comes and that'll be after the long range facility plan is done um a Community member voiced concerns about low lighting outside of CHS and Mr gillio investigated in and has suggested some changes to the lenses to improve it without making it so bright that it affects the neighbors around the school students and community members have voiced concerns about the number of gender neutral and single stall bathrooms for staff and students in the schools and we really appreciate all the hard work that Mr Julio has done to work on a account of what is available and putting it in a chart for analysis if there are any gaps or if more needs to be done to support this community that that research has not been completed yet as our funds were discussed and based on

103the ba offices analysis we have approximately 880 left that will expire this September of this year the cni department needs to give us feedback on how it can be used we reviewed first reads of our policies had no further changes and the bulk of our policy discussion was on hazardous Roots um and we discussed the importance of communicating of the district communicating with um the parent and caregiver population on the process of the application going live on PowerSchool thank you Dr Taylor and board um president whitlair for already giving an update on that earlier um but again we discussed this in in fft as well to make sure that we're reminding parents as early as possible about the 1.25 mile Mark and how to apply and one other additional thing we we discussed was that

104even if you think you're on a hazardous route you still need to apply for transportation it's part of the process as well as waiting for the final bids to come in and confirming the school's shift time a potential seven minutes for all of the uh for all the schools and if that is confirmed that will come soon from the district we discuss access to warranties for lease Technologies um thank you Alyssa you had brought that up for us to discuss and warranties are being considered and it would be a monthly fee from outside insurance company um last year the district spent forty thousand dollars on parts and this year that number has doubled so it is quite an expense more will come on that hopefully in July for the board's consideration to be rolled out

105in the fall um we reviewed the fft goal to review our legal bills and analyze them and after our federal audit is done I know Mr Burnside can't wait for that hopefully this month they can be done they can begin the next task of looking and evaluating our bills um we discussed um new business let's see uh donations and just how donations work as a community member wants to donate potentially donate a scoreboard for CHS and our next meeting will be July Wednesday July 19th former board member about the money I mean it's an open question to multiple people is that is the bid information that that we got is that public information yes because uh when um we approve or accept or rejected toys on resolution so so maybe can you just summarize what

106the high level numbers are for the Middle School bids that came in I believe he did in his Ba's um entry you could remind folks of what you shared earlier if you haven't you know readily available yes um we had six bids they're ranging from approximately 34.7 million to 38.7 million which was approximately 12 million dollars over our budget so so I just wanted to you know I mean it's a question and I'm actually more of a comment at this point is that I just wanted to be clear to everyone that the amount of you know we are out of budget for 12 million dollars that's I think it's very important for everyone to understand that is that we've had budget 22 million dollars for middle schools and the lowest budget of the lowest bid

107that's come back is about 34 million dollars what that basically means is that we do not have enough money to do all the items in the Middle School list and if you want to do that we will have to appropriate it from somewhere which is to be determined that's correct thanks as I said in my readout out we asked them for an analysis it's not finalized yet and that analysis and thank you everyone for I think you were the one of the ones that actually thought of it first to to get a more complete picture um of not just the middle schools but just all schools so I mean I said it already in my my readout but I'm reiterating that you did agree that you would work on it and I know it's still

108in process because it takes time so we do appreciate that no I I wasn't implying that you hadn't said it me a report not really I just wanted to single single out and point out that soon will be one of the biggest issues that we need to resolve it is not a small amount it is not whatever it's 12 million dollars it's a big number right there any other questions for FF teacher okay so then thank you all right so the first readout I'll do is for special education I'll just apologize I did not send out my readouts or my medium in this before because I've been doing something every single day for the like past past two weeks um so for special education we met on June 14th I was there board member Eckard

109and board member right we're also in attendance um our main topic of discussion we talked about what happens if a parent or Guardian refuses services or disagrees with the district recommendations um so we had a discussion about um like what is revocation of consent which is when a parent says I don't want to um I guess participate in any for special education and then there's also if there's a recommendation and the parents degrees of that recommendation what are their rights and how can they approach that um the next discussion was about well they haven't gotten this information yet but I want to see if the district can have more Integrations with the Loft and the Hub um because those are they're an external group basically that has grant funding that provides services to students and

110um I attended I went to uh CPAC cup chat there and I think it would be a really beneficial for us to have more interactions with those organizations to see how we can help students um but we haven't had that meeting yet so that'll be something that we discussed next month um the next thing we discussed was students um struggles that have issues with executive function and qualifying for special education and related Services um one of the things that we talked about is that many parents fail as though they are not able to qualify for services unless their child is failing and that's particularly because many many parents feel as though their kidneys and IEP to gain some sort of services but the iron the IRS process and also the 504 plans also can provide

111students with um those I guess tools that they need to succeed but we did have a discussion about identifying students that have executive functioning issues and making sure they get the resources they need um we then had feedback on I guess a number from number of committees um one thing that we talked about spoke about in particular was about um student I guess having a transition or a I guess orientation for kids moving from high school or middle school into high school and the fear that comes with that the district does have an orientation program however one of the things that um that the district notices is that some parents are afraid still and they start moving out of the district earlier so one of the things that we had discussed in committee was perhaps

112moving up in orientation or more discussions with parents earlier so that they can see that the that we have more resources for their students so that they're not afraid of that transition because moving from middle school to the high school is a very big thing because Colombia is very big in that they feel so their child may get lost we also spoke about I guess culture and climate and wanting to really I guess emphasize the having having interacted with neurodiverse students so that you know special education is not this thing that's over there we need to have I guess a more robust program where they are part of the discussion all the time and so we discussed I guess ways that we can have more orientations more training more interactions with students and the special

113education population so that they're not treated as other because they're already having many struggles and I think that as if we can integrate them more into the into the population or into the general population and not treat them as separate then they'll feel more comfortable we'll see less people saying I want to move my students out of the school district um finally we just have our next meeting will be July 12th and that'll be at 6 30. thank you so much does anyone have any questions for Dr telesford um I guess one question or just comment or request for the upcoming meeting is that to broaden the orientation prospects for also because when I've been talking to special education families they talk about those transition years so going from pre-k to kindergarten obviously Middle School

114to high school elementary school to middle school I think this particular year as well several special ed students miss their orientation because of um I placement where the policemen actually wasn't completed I don't think in time for them to attend the orientation so they didn't know what school they were going to but those transition years I think it would be great if they had the opportunity to go into the school see the school meet the teacher and have some level of comfort or familiarity prior to starting the school year so I would love if you guys could talk about that in the next meeting okay sounds good thank you [Music] all right and the next committee meeting had was a day later um on June 15th um the data technology committee met um I was

115there um board member about a million board member Wingfield and we had a guest uh board member right um we had two main topics the first was about school status which was a basically you can think of as communications platform that can interface with PowerSchool and really I guess it makes it easier for any District leader or administrator teacher to pull information from the system um and they just presented that platform and it was a I think it looks like a pretty good system for you know pulling data on a student say okay how many times have you attended class how many how many absences do you have and being able to pull this data very quickly and you know generate data reports that we can find that are more actionable than having to make

116a request and then say who can make this request who can go into the system and then pull that so this will make it easier because it will allow more teachers more administrators to pull this data the next discussion we had was with Dr Fergus I've been trying to get him for several months because I want to you know he has lots of expertise and I wanted to have a discussion with the district admin and him so that we can have I guess understand how do we do a better job with data and so we spoke a lot about I guess he spoke a lot about you know we can have quantitative systems and we can get all this quantity quantitative data but that doesn't matter until you really have good questions or have good

117qualitative data like in incorporating focus groups incorporating more surveys and so the bulk of our conversation was just around how do we I guess one of the best times to collect data um what type of things should we be doing when we're creating a data infrastructure and I guess one of the main things I saw coming out of this this conversation was a data plan something that you start you basically plan from the start what is going to be your data plan for the year so that you can see what I do my I guess my dipstick into the district to see what is the how are things going I can really get a good snapshot of what's going on so it was a very fruitful discussion and I thought it was one of the

118best discussions we've had this year any questions thank you so much Dr Thomas we now have I think it was Bill and then um yes good evening everybody thank you for being here uh the policy committee met on June 7th at 6 30 and adjourned at 7 36 board members malispina Dr telesford and myself were present uh tonight we have three policies up for second reading and adoption uh 7440 Security on school premises 8420 emergency crisis situations in the 8600 transportation for seven four four zero it's worth underscoring we removed language regarding sros we also added language requiring secondary students wear IDs at all times throughout the school day and that staff or students found propping open doors are subject to disciplinary action for eight to forty uh many community members will be pleased to

119know that we altered language so that students will be notified before an emergency drill that it is in fact a drill we have one policy up for a second read that is 8600.1 hazardous routes this policy formalizes the definition of hazardous routes and specifies the streets that were deemed so at the start of the meeting the committee discussed policy goals which we will be finalizing at the next policy meeting Miss Boudin gave a short presentation on the red line and Company litera in a nutshell the Terrace Services can potentially incorporate straight Strauss SMA updates while maintaining legally compliant components of our District's policy in the effort to stay compliant but not lose the spirit of somsd in those updates Miss budine is conducting further research and will make an assessment for us at our next

120meeting in new business we discuss policy 0164 conduct of board meetings to explore possibly moving public speaks to the beginning of meetings at approximately 7 30 to allow people to speak on the agenda the superintendent is sending out a surveyed a fellow superintendents to see what they do in their districts regarding public speaks as we look to improve public speaks during our board meetings we intended to discuss policy 3280 liability for student welfare and policy 5120 assignments of students but due to time constraints had to push to our next meeting as for our next meeting we did not have a date yet we are actually trying to move policy meetings to the last committee meeting so that we can gather all relevant feedback to incorporate into our policy updates and that is my update if

121anyone has any questions okay my turn okay I'm going to start first with the mapso Freedom School liaison update bill and I attended the teach truth rally in Newark and it was really powerful they were very thankful that we passed the resolution affirming our commitment to teaching a diverse and inclusive curriculum and they spoke about it at the rally when I met with them earlier this week they expressed the desire to present to the board about what they are do what they do during a meeting in the fall and would like to participate in the August new teacher training which was something that they had done in the past um so I have already reached out to Dr Taylor in hopes that we will be able to facilitate this sorry I didn't get to send

122you an update I I've been really busy it's the last week of school for me so um here is the cni readout um we met on June 12th in attendance at this month's meeting where board members Eckert Duvall Wilson and myself board member Wingfield was again absent from the meeting Miss Bean presented the new Eureka Math 2 curriculum that is um that the members of the curriculum to the members of the curriculum committee and all of the board members had an opportunity to see the presentation that she gave and pursued the curriculum prior to voting on it tonight Eureka Math 2 was Trojan chosen through a rigorous process that looked at many curriculums it was chosen because it is a user-friendly resource for students it has support for teachers and has cultural and cross content

123connections it is also top rated by Ed report if you approved tonight it will be ready for implementation in the fall and optional trainings will begin the summer for teachers who want to do that but all teachers will get training in the fall uh we got an update on the suicide screening and we are that we will be implementing in September and we are making sure that the we train the staff who will be using it and we are happy because it is standardized for consistency across the schools so everybody will be using the same tools we spend talking about the C ni budget related item items that um are on our monthly agenda and this has been added to our agenda as a standing item so that we get a greater understanding of the

124cni items on a month-to-month basis that are uh dealing with budget we talked about Esther funds being used for summer school and we also have up for approval tonight a resolution to approve tutor.com and that which will provide free tutoring to our students and that money is going to be paid for out of Esser funds we spent a lot of time going over the policies that were up for first read in all board members were giving multiple chances to make comments prior to the cni meeting so that we could discuss the proposals that they had I want to thank Caitlin Regina Nubia and kawi Who provided feedback we will have more information to share once the proposed changes come through the policy committee next month but know that we did make some changes to the

125religion and school policies policy that and Incorporated some of the feedback we heard from board members and from the public some about the dance program Esther Sanchez about a plan moving forward since they were planning to meet and discuss next steps uh we learned that the guidance department has not done any form anything formally in regards to outreach packets related to votech even though in our policy it states in our policy that they should be doing so once a year we have asked them to develop a formal process so that that can occur we spoke about we spoke some about the fact that the district is going to be looking into the science-based reading and phonics curriculum and hopes to adopt a new Curriculum by 2025. um Dr Bean folks and Miss Carrera will lead

126a team of teachers who will participate in the vetting process which will be similar to the one that we use for the math curriculums um I left the meeting at 8 30 and Nubia took over from there where they discussed Amistad training and Credit Recovery Nubia you can fill us in on any of those items related to that Amazon training um it's done every year it's currently being planned by one of our supervisors for the following upcoming year and um I wanted to we talked about wanting to dispel misinformation something that Amistad is not in every single grade level and it is and our County Superintendent reviewed our Amistad curriculum and gave us gold stars and we do go above and beyond what other districts do and the state so just wanted to put that

127on the record um and then yeah we discussed credit recovery and the process and that the district works with legal to ensure our practices follow policy that's it any questions okay um seeing no further questions we will move on to the action portion of the meeting thank you madam president um there were no requests to sever anything just want to confirm that before we move okay um I'd actually like to sever 4472e four four seven two e confirmed any other requests seeing none hearing none board members we will present to you yes uh during the exact session well we talked about something in the HIV report not not being present um you're not voting on that tonight okay okay all right board members um we put before you resolutions for four seven two through four

128four eight oh understanding that 4472e has been severed do I have a second great we're now open for discussion on the aforementioned resolutions with the exception of 4472e anyone I'd like to make one comment 4472a um that's retirement of Mrs delgarcio I'd just like to recognize her and let her know that uh we're gonna miss her greatly she's made so many contributions to this District over the last eight or nine years and she'll be greatly missed yeah thank you so much Mr Burnside uh board member of adamani and also I'd like to point out that 4477c is the transportation policy 8600 which everyone's worked very hard to bring it to this point where we're actually going to vote on it and hopefully adopt it and this is obviously providing busing to everyone kindergarten Pre-K to

129five elementary school for all children who live beyond 1.25 miles see no further comments or questions I think we're ready for roll call Mr Burnside board member valamani yes board member telesford yes board member Gifford yes board member Eckert yes board member Mouse Pina yes board member Wingfield yes board member Duvall Wilson yes board president with a letter yes motions passed board members you'll now consider four four seven two e do I have a second second we're now in discussion for 4472e 4472e is the transfer reassignment I would just um ask Patrick again just to make sure we don't get in trouble discussing folks so that's all as we've seen through your very thoughtful and detailed emails as much as at least you can speak to you know I I recognize it's a very difficult

130decision I personally appreciate the thought and effort behind mitigating the reduction of Spanish teachers in the district um you know that said I I do have concerns about the impact that it will have on our students and the teachers that are involved um but again did want to I recognize the efforts that Mr adidoyan especially but also anybody else involved went through throughout this whole process I know it's not an easy process when it comes to personnel and headcount and budget so um that's really all I wanted to say uh I also appreciate the discussion related to this and having been one of the persons here in this District that was transferred at one point in my career um I understand how hard it is um and it was involuntary transfer um but I also

131appreciate the fact that we have looked at every way possible to or as many ways possible as I can imagine them to make sure that we are saving staff um and I know decisions like this are not easy having been a person who experienced it myself it wasn't something I personally wanted but I I do understand and want the public to realize that this decision was not made lately and is being I don't know I'm trying to be very careful here um but is being done to make sure that we are saving and keeping our head count like it is um my only suggestion moving forward is that we do everything in our power to make sure that the people affected are informed as much as possible and included in the process because um it

132is hard and having been a person who experienced it myself um I I understand how traumatizing that is and so um I really would appreciate if we can make sure that we include them as much as possible in the process thank you hello okay I don't know um I don't have that much more to add I Echo the sentiments of my colleagues here um I know that this was a difficult Financial year for this District many others and um it'll probably continue to be a difficult Financial year ahead of us um and I do commend the district for trying not to adjust the head count but I am concerned with this change especially as it relates to how our young children our second graders will be affected um and they were the most affected during

133covid with learning loss as well and there's something called covid babies where anyway there's just a lot so I could go down a rabbit hole I'm not going to go talk about that right now but what I will say is I do want to Echo what board member melispina said about including the teachers in this conversation as much as possible in advance I think it could have probably alleviated some of the situation that we're in now but thank you for all that you've tried to do board member of adlamani so I mean we we do talk in very cryptic ways about what we're trying to do and I just want to clarify one thing I think I should be able to say is that if for whatever reason this what does not pass that will

134have impact on people's livelihood I think I think sorry I think you did mention that but let's just be clear on that I mean you know I mean yes we could vote either way we can vote Yes No but that's what is going to happen if you say what no I think we're ready for a vote right guys board member Duvall Wilson no board member telesford yes for president whitlatter no but remember malspina yes board member Wingfield yes board member Gifford no board member Acker no board member valimani yes it's a tie motion does not pass that concludes the action portion of the meeting we will now begin our second hearing of individuals and delegates this evening so we'll have to see if we have anyone available or who's did anyone sign up missed no

135no more in person and no more can you give me one minute yes thank you page report so you in a situation with a tie when it comes to personnel you need five votes to take with a nine-member board to make any Personnel action occur so here where it was four four the Personnel action Was Defeated uh if a if a person that voted no who was in what It ultimately becomes the majority side on this because it was defeated chooses to move to reconsider they can move to reconsider it the yes votes on this are not able to move to reconsider okay then the two people lose their jobs yes I agree I'm not as you know I'm fully in favor of I understand the context foreign I don't love it don't get me

136wrong I I don't but I don't want two teachers to lose the girls do you want me to move on with the public speaks second so sorry we're I don't know what the motion is just posted whatever um there's still some discussion here for those that might want to change their vote since it was a tie so I don't know what motion that would be to allow that discussion so I'm sorry let me understand this so the people who voted no wanted to know without consequence stop you were expecting it to pass because you thought oh there'd be five yeses and four knows I can vote every which way I want and I can go back and claim victory no but unfortunately this blew up on your face there can allow that I don't understand

137this changing of mine I said the last comment I brought up I said exactly what's going to happen I clarified so that there would be no doubt in anyone's mind so yes you want to continue voting no that's fine but I really think that this blew up in your face get again no no what it's about is that and and again like I personally am making my own statement and saying no and it's okay to do that for my own personal reasons and foreign to put the comfort of adults over the comfort of children we do it we do it a lot so what you're saying is it's okay tomorrow you're welcome okay no no so so so no I I think I think it's very unfortunate that if what happens is that two people

138are going to lose their job I think that is very unfortunate what I also think is unfortunate is that teachers didn't have the opportunity to have a discussion with the district and that's something that is outside of our control but we are talking about children please do not blame the district the district that is best in a bad situation as I said no one because they made they made sure they transferred they made sure yes which made up it's a bad decision yes but it was an impossible decision so they made that terrible decision and now we have made that decision which is not even terrible it's actually people are getting fired it's not inconveniencing some people who have been there yeah I understand them and somebody's been working there for 20 years they get

139reassigned it's terrible but the choice is either that or you fire two people and you've chosen to file two people and as I said okay because there was a tie if someone wants to change their vote they can okay so that concludes the action portion of the meeting so we'll now move on to the second hearing of individuals and delegates if there's anyone who's going to be speaking in person is there anyone okay I I hearing and seeing how you all work and I you know learning um I don't I understand the voting I understand what the vote means and yay I guess I should be celebrating but I just kind of want to reiterate I'm not here to save my job I'm I'm a big person I love my job I want my job

140it's the job that I applied for it's the job I signed up for and I didn't expect it to just be taken away from me that's to one side and it's not that I'm not going to treat second graders with the need that they they have I'm completely inexperienced I will need a whole lot more than just friendly teachers trying to help me out because teachers are always very busy and that's hard I just feel like there's a way to have dealt with this situation that could accommodate everybody and hopefully me in the meantime seeing that my program Stephen and I's program that we have developed we wrote the curriculum we live for it we work hard for it every day survives we're seeing now not only does our job completely change I mean imagine

141one day you're uh you know a broker and they tell you the next day well now you're a lawyer I mean where are you with that that's basically what we're dealing with when we're talking about teaching a foreign language for over 20 years and in the last two years or three years of your year teaching a second grade classroom it's a huge difference so yes certainly I would like to hold my position and of course I wouldn't want anyone to lose theirs there are open positions if you walk into this building you'll see them positions that with a little bit of manipulation or with a little bit of assistance from all can fulfill all the requirements so that no one has to lose their job so I think there's somewhere between yes and no that

142could be accommodating to save the elementary Spanish program to to and to minute I'm I'm perfectly willing to Mentor anybody in a new Spanish Elementary position I would Relish in that because it's my baby and it has been for so many years as Stephen I know that Sunil Carberry is planning on retiring in a year so maybe I could do that for a year in a different kind of position and then move back in hopefully that there's other ways than just yes or no if you take the teachers who are on the ground every day doing the work you'll find that we're pretty flexible people and that we can help with those decisions that's all we're asking we certainly don't want anyone to lose their job and we certainly don't want to see the demise

143of the elementary Spanish program so figure it out we can figure it out I'm willing to help figure it out that's that's what I say thank you Okay so can we all think together and work on this in a way that we can make everybody happy we're doing quotes because there is no happiness but at least the people feel okay and let's try to save two people jobs because at the end of the day if we don't give them the jobs now now it's too late to also apply for other positions in other school districts so we're messing up you know people and I know then and some of them might be a single mom with two kids and another one so and I don't have to say these things I get well I do

144have to say these things but can we please and there is some conversations about different things that can be done one adding Spanish to third grade it will be one teacher only one teacher and you will have a whole grade more with the Spanish another solution Alison is willing to take the Praxis next week to teach math and she has experience in math in middle school there is a position open another solution there is a position of ell in elementary Steve has taught English he's an elementary people and it will be the same kind of thing he's teaching language for people it's like second language so there are three different ways that maybe this could be resolved and they will be they will be cost effective of course my number one will be adding in

145Spanish one more year because we're behind other districts about the language already one teacher all the third graders will have a Spanish so can we please Dr Taylor can we please do something where everybody keeps the job we put people whatever we're supposed to put then and then we put this to sleep because I can see that some people might be thinking about the kids my job is to think about the grown-ups right now and I'm telling you we can fix fix it so everybody at the end gets what they need and what they deserve so thank you that's all I have to say I mean what else that's it okay um just to offer some feedback um I think that what I try to not do during this conversation is go Tit for Tat

146for anyone I think that everyone has of course their right to share their feelings and share their experiences and the one thing that we should know in this conversation is that it's hr's role to reach out to employees when they're going to be impacted let them know what the impact will be and that's what occurred here um I understand the want for that to occur earlier I think that that is a that's a very um arbitrary notion how early is earlier as early as a month ago two months ago thinking that this could all be figured out in that time span as well because our district is very dynamic um people leave and come and go and go on leaves and have medical issues things happen all the time that change the landscape even with

147this vote this evening if you had voted as our mayor president said um there were plans for follow-up meetings to talk about what could happen and things can happen in the next week right so um what we wanted to avoid is what we spoke about but it's it's part of our budgeting process I know that there are creative ways to place people but there are not creative ways to make up for budget shortfalls our budget opens up in the next week and a half and for us to start with extra positions that we're not budgeted for it's really um it's it's it's it's it's a real challenge because we haven't even started our year and we'd be starting in negative two positions which is just not the way that we can run a school district

148so um that's probably all that I could say but I want to share that you know saying that a meeting didn't happen early enough um is is really arbitrary and thinking about when our budget process happened in the final approvals happened you're talking about May right and we're only in the week or so of June and there's a lot that happens behind the scenes to make this happen so um I I again we of course respect the board's decisions and as administrators we take this back and we um try to make it work and and look and um and do the admin side of this work uh thank you Dr Taylor so I'd like to make a motion to amend the resolution four four seven two action potion is finished so I mean I don't

149understand how you can amend anything the action post is done no [Music] no no it's not about it do I have a second where you decide that I want to vote no now you can make a motion to reconsider yes so oh sorry so may I make a motion to reconsider resolution 4472e do I have a second please yeah okay thank you Mr Burnside can you take roll oh do you wanna okay my my opinions still stand on the students um but I I do appreciate the feedback and thank you Dr Taylor for for um adding some additional Clarity on some potential future next steps that could take place I know you can only say so much um and I want people to know that it's it's not easy me saying yes or no on

150these things um and trying to hearing all of the outcry and hearing the feedback and hearing how amazing these teachers are is really impactful one of our jobs as board members is to listen to the community and it can make our job a lot harder but I'm never going to say that any of us are perfect and that any of us um and we all have the opportunity to change our mind and if people decide to change their mind after hearing more opinions we shouldn't be um we shouldn't be talked down to for that either all voices are important so thank you yeah I just want to Echo nubia's thoughts in that my my opinion doesn't change my priority for the students doesn't change that said obviously or students will not Thrive unless our teachers

151are thriving so you know what some people may not realize or maybe you do is that being in this position there you are thrown a lot of information oftentimes a couple hours before 24 hours before and you have to make the decision given the information that you have people will have various opinions what I want to dispel is that when I asked to sever this this was my own decision based on my conversations with multiple people including the district including all of the community feedback including hearing all public speaks so what I don't want to happen is these accusations that we don't care for teachers that we were mindless in the decision um there is so much information to take in at these meetings leading up into these meetings and I'm just gonna leave it

152I'm gonna leave it at that my my opinions don't change but I do appreciate the opportunity that we can reconsider um sorry board member Wingfield and then or reversar I'm concerned that for the second time and as many months that we are seeing a majority of the board go against our chief administrator's recommendation in particular around Personnel matters that have incredibly um Tangled consequences and the outcome of those votes set into effect um a chain of events that we can't walk back and are very very harmful to the district so this is the second time that that's happened in two months and I need for us as a board to begin to be much more considerate of what our chief administrator is recommending and why and if we have questions we have opportunities to ask

153those questions but when we come out in public and we vote in a way that for me is reckless I think that we are putting our district in real Jeopardy I just want to Echo that same sentiment and just remember that I don't think anyone thinks there are nefarious decisions but there are decisions that are made that have Ripple effects the ripple effect is if I say no to this transfer then these people get fired but when that decision is made you're not thinking about the ripple effect you're thinking about what I consider to be the feel-good effect of people who complained and I responded to the call and that may not be what you're saying exactly but many people will feel that way that you responded to the call but then those down those

154I guess those subsequent effects those Ripple effects are not considered and those are the ones that I think are the most important what are the Ripple effects who gets affected who gets hurt um we can say that the children are hurt but the livelihood of two people has has been hurt by this decision so I think when we make these decisions really think about what not just the first decision but the second third fourth fifth decision those are the important decisions that you really need to think about so I don't want to be the portray this as people who voted yes don't care for kids that is absolutely not true this is a tough decision it's a terrible decision but it has to be made somebody is losing out a little bit in this but

155it's the best decision that you can make in given a really really bad role now I you know you complain about not too much information and all that this is not that case this is not a case where there was too much information it was a very simple case that's why I picked the last comment to point out what would happen if you wanted no so there was no 10 000 pages to read and 5000 documents to parse it's a very simple case and unfortunately we can only do a yes no vote there is no maybe vote and one thing I definitely want to Echo what board member winkfield said is that second time and second one two months you've ignored what the CSA has recommended and now you've had to walk back it's the

156second time you're walking back that's exactly what I said about doing it again um while I am in agreement that we should not do this um and voted yes because it it is it's the lesser of two evils I'm not happy about it I don't love it I don't even like it I've been through it I know exactly what those teachers are feeling I hate it I hate that they have to go through that but I also realize I've been an administrator I've been in education for 25 years that you were guaranteed a position in the district you are not guaranteed it you are guaranteed a job in the district you are not guaranteed a position so at one point I had to go and teach elementary education Elementary library I never taught Elementary library

157but I had my Elementary library certification here in the district so I had to go do it did I like it no I didn't know how to do it I didn't know I never dealt with elementary kids they were like crying to me when their like tooth fell out and I'm like what do I do because I didn't know but I had my certification so that's what happened and I did it because that's what we are guaranteed a job not a position and not in a specific place that's how the rules are now what I will say is I do not find it appropriate for the other board members to be criticizing these members they are allowed to make their decisions they have to live with the consequences of their decisions and to go and

158say that you are not listening to the CIA the chief School administrator when there have been many times when those same board members have not listened to the same school administrator I find hypocritical and ironic at the same time um but I think here we have these two people who see or I don't know they have asked to re-vote Let's revote let's do it maybe things will change but I don't think criticizing them or going after them is a bad thing people change their minds they make different decisions they listen that's what we should be doing and to be outrightly critical is inappropriate in my opinion um one of the questions I have for you Dr Taylor the two teachers who would be losing their job what school are they at oh I wouldn't know

159that yeah it's um it would be the yeah the and it will be the the least senior in that category um it you know so I I wouldn't be able to point out who they are um and I probably shouldn't do that in public anyway but yeah it's it's the it will be the lead singer for any category that's how it would work okay oh bill yeah you know I just wanted to add that you know when I think about two Educators losing their job I hate that I hate to think about that I have many friends who are teachers I would never want someone to lose their job I've lost my job before it's a horrible feeling um I'm still not convinced that that necessarily has to happen I I would try to challenge

160you know uh the superintendent and the business administrator to try to figure something out but when I as a parent as a parent when I hear you know these two Educators um talking about how they feel they're not prepared you know if I were the parents of the students in that classroom I that would give me pause to say the least and I know um from experience enthusiasm [Music] um is so important with teachers and from what I've heard these two educators are so enthusiastic about Spanish and at this moment in history you know we so many Americans do not know a second language we're teaching my son a second language and it is so beautiful to see that in him and I think that these two educators are are giving that opportunity to so

161many students so while I do believe that you know two Educators could be in Peril but but I really do want to I mean Nubia has challenged you guys before to go back to the drawing board with the budget and you guys found the money I think that you can do it here but I really I'm thinking about the kids and not that not that the other board members aren't I think that we all place value on different things I don't think that this has to content this discussion has to continue I think everybody feels the way they do but I did just want to share that I I just really value you know our students learning a second language and enthusiasm is so important and I remember learning a second language and it's so

162hard many kids struggle with a second language so when you find an educator that is enthusiastic that can get through to you we have to hold on to those people and we have to figure out how to keep them in those roles so I stand by my decision and um I really hope that they maintain those roles and I hope that the the board members that said no you know keep that vote board member of rad lamani and then Dr telesford so the very fact we are reconsidering the vote means that some people want to change their vote if I and my colleagues had not complained and criticized would have wrapped up our hands and gone home right now the only reason the revote is happening is because we complained and we criticized so please

163don't tell me not to do that the only reason the reward is happening right now is because we raised a problem with that otherwise would have been like oh in fact the board president said the action portion is over that means we just go home on public speeches over we go home and the work to have stood so no no I we don't change votes based on public speaks we don't respond to people in public speaks all the people who would like to I would like to do that too but I don't so anyway so let's clarify this again one more time we're getting our work done if this vote fails people lose jobs teachers lose jobs so sorry oh sorry I just want to reiterate that my criticism is not for anyone personally I

164criticized the decision itself and how it affects people um if anyone takes that as something personal I hope not I'm really just talking about what are the Ripple effects of decisions that we make and I want to make sure that's the Prominent Point thank you I appreciate that um board member tell us forward and actually I don't like when people put words in my mouth or make assumptions um the reason why I had requested let's allow people to change the vote if they want since it was a tie and I noticed that there were people who seem to want to make comments in the audience which allowed us to have public comments which allow Dr Taylor to speak I don't think that's a bad thing and you can have your physical reaction and that's okay

165too we're a team here and we all are going to have reactions to things and reactions have have repercussions I will add I mean it is 10 40 and I do want to wrap up soon but I will add that I did attend you know this Esser Workshop that talked about the fact that Esther's that Esser funds can be used for staff and I know that this is not that this is like a long-term position and there might be some rules but I'm just curious because one of the things that this Workshop discussed was that so many districts use their Esser funds for staff and now they're trying to figure out you know the repercussions of that so with that said we have 880 000 up that expires in September we have millions that expire

166next year is this a decision that has to be made right now you look at your budget cycle and well quarterly you're looking at your budget cycle and so I'm just putting it to you is this could there be a chance that this doesn't have to change right now and you could put those funds towards the teachers and delay this action thank you together um I'm sorry there's a hand up should I go first so okay I don't know if we got a term whichever okay um so I wouldn't be able to answer that question sitting here um we have a plan for our Sr funds um we do use them for personnel that's how we pay for our summer programs and things such as that um I think that the important piece here is

167when we ended the budget cycle that well the budget process cycle this is the budget that you voted for the budget that the county supported that has a a Personnel seat chart that that we connect all of our salaries to all those things um and and their you know they're how we are held accountable and part of our fiduciary responsibility so um this action was put forward after all of those conversations right so the I would say that the line items that these folks are connected to are general fund line items not Esser the title line items it's two different funds right yeah you can't co-mingle so I mean that's I think that the the empathy that folks feel for people having to move or shift um I've seen this happen just it happens dozens

168of times and I have empathy for everyone who has to go through it but it's a general day-to-day operational process that is unfortunately part of what we have to do to keep ourselves um in a place where our budget is going to be in a good place we're we're 11 months away from the end of our budget right so we can't we can't make significant shifts and be successful you've seen the things that have happened the roofs that came that cave in um all these significant things that you don't plan for that occur uh we're always trying to be um responsible um I'll just say one more comment and then we'll move to roll call Mr Burnside but I think what I'm hearing from all board members is that there's Ripple effects on both in

169the entire ecosystem whether you're you know thinking of it from a student's lens from a parent lens from a teacher lens these decisions are not made lightly that's there's a reason why it took so long to even make my decision because I'm weighing so many different things this is not easy and when we think about the teachers in particular who are being reassigned these are the individuals who are the most qualified have the most experience um in one case 23 years in the district because of a certification status that is a reason to to move them um when where they've been and where they've had the most impact on students lives and on this district has been um educating our children in Spanish and for me I'm very passionate as well um my husband speaks

170three languages I lived in Colombia I think the Spanish language everywhere I go in in New Jersey every restaurant this language is so critically important and valuable for our kids to know and understand so to see this um it's this is just really difficult decision and it's hard just remember you're not reducing the number of your foreign language teachers right you're changing the assignment because you're shifting to provide even more opportunities for different languages right that that we're one of the few districts that has Chinese as a World Language and its popularity is growing those are all great things right those but we have to also be fiducially responsible but it's like luck of the draw right if you have the certification status to as as you're moving the pieces of the puzzle together it

171wasn't a reflection of who's best suited to do this work it's public education in New Jersey because of tenure laws right this is this is what governs us um we've been in many spaces where it's first and first out and you know you talk about the folks who are who are impacted every district has to deal with it and it happens everywhere and it's impacted by the laws that govern us the rules that govern us that you know aren't of course aren't always fair but they're the rules of the game that that guide us on this work so that we're not also so that we also aren't arbitrary and have favoritism and things like that right I've seen these decisions come down to what day you were hired literally you were hired Monday I was

172hired Friday you were lasted those things can be that specific and it's just it's the rule of law okay uh Mr Burnside just to clarify this is beautiful we'll take a roll call on resolution 4472e reconsideration right a vote Yes is to pass the motion so but yes passes the motion correct no definitely nothing has changed since the last time we've discussed this voting no means to people okay I just wanted to check okay word president went letter yes board member Wingfield yes board member telesford yes board member vadalamani yes board member Acker yes board member Duvall Wilson yes board member Mouse Pina yes board member Gifford no motion passes before we conclude the resolutions want to remind everyone our moving up ceremonies are tomorrow and Monday for Psalms and nmms and we of course

173want to encourage those who are available to please come out and celebrate our kids and that concludes the resolutions thank you Dr Taylor so now we're moving on to the new business portion of the meeting that's where board members can bring forth topics that are of such urgency that they have to be met during this meeting so I will look at my fellow board colleagues does anyone have any new business this evening okay Dr telesford I guess earlier this week we had a special meeting um and then the announcement it said that there was going to be wait I'm sorry Dr tellersford so this is meant this is supposed to be action so are you making a motion no I don't have to it's not an action but it's a comment and I think it's

174very important that it's made it's not I don't know how to have an action I just have to have something I want to say here and we had a meeting and a special meeting that had evaluation negotiations and we received a number of emails from the from the public on that and in some of the responses back we saw that some board members had responded to emails and I actually had to apologize to some community members for some of the responses that community community members received um when we as a board any of us respond to the public we should recognize the fact that you are speaking for the board and so some of those comments were I consider to be rude and just very unacceptable and so I want to apologize to the public

175for those comments because that is not the type of language that should be coming from the board and I think that when board members respond to the public they should not accuse them or point fingers at them and they should always be polite to the public thank you Dr talisford I think we're definitely in agreement there um okay so seeing no further new business we will move on to I'll Make the following motion the Board of Education will meet in a special public session on Tuesday June 27th at 6 30 pm at 5 25 Academy Street it will immediately adjourn to go into executive session in person as well as using an online video conference platform in the superintendent's office and this will be to discuss the chief School administrator evaluation no action will be

176taken yes okay so my apologies action will now be taken uh during Tuesday's meeting the Board of Education will meet in public session on Thursday July 27th at 6 30 PM in the district meeting room at 525 Academy Street immediately following the opening of public session the board will move to go into a closed session in the superintendent's office immediately following the closed session the Board of Education will meet in public session estimated to be around 7 30 PM in the district meeting room um may I have a second all in favor that appears to be unanimous Mr Burnside I would now like to make a motion to adjourn this meeting on Thursday June 22nd at 10 52 PM may I have a second thank you so much all in favor meaning is adjourned thank

177you everyone and have a wonderful evening good night thank you Dr Taylor