LHTSD Board of Education Meeting, 09/11/2023

001foreign good evening everyone I'd like to call the September 11th Long Hill Township Board of Education meeting to order please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance of America under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all adequate notice of this meeting of the Long Hill Township Board of Education was given as required by the open public meetings act as follows notice was sent to the echo Sentinel and daily record on September 15 2022 notices were posted on the bulletin board in the first floor entrance of the School District administration building Gillette New Jersey notices were filed with the Township Clerk and notices were mailed to all persons who have requested individual notice pursuant to the open public meetings act roll call please Mrs Butler here Mr Sheamus here Mrs Daley here Mr grosskoff here Mrs

002McLennan Mrs Nyquist here Ms Ruba here Mrs case here um today is uh September 11th I know that there were many discussions and activities that happened throughout the district but we did want to recognize uh this day and have a moment of silence um in support of the 22nd anniversary thank you I'm gonna turn it over to Mr Alexis for the introduction of new staff members good evening everyone yeah we thought it would be nice to invite some of our new staff members here this evening so what I would like to do um is I I will read your name and talk about your position uh and uh if you could stand so you could be recognized by the board and the audience that would be great we also have some folks that weren't able

003to make it and I'll read their names too so the the RSVP list I'll begin with that and just so everyone knows the board in particular we we had a terrific uh new teacher orientation on August 29th we have a great group we started off as um as a group with some learning activities uh to sort of underscore the importance of educational excellence in the district we then moved on to some more training technology and some other areas with special services uh and then the group broke up with their supervisors and principals and spent the afternoon uh learning more practical information building based practical information and asking questions so I'm excited about this group and if I could begin with Caroline cork a French teacher at Central there she is welcome Caroline Catherine tatijon is

004a special education teacher at Gillette we're very pleased to have her Catherine Miner special education teacher at Central welcome Catherine Jennifer Kutch seventh grade science teacher at Central Anna Richie our professional at Gillette thank you for being here Anna did Gabriella yes Gabriella's here Gabriella rebelo Martens power professional at Gillette she'll be starting in October um Ernie Monaco special education teacher at Central there's Ernie welcome Ernie and Frank Murgatroyd who wasn't at the new teacher orientation and hasn't begun yet but he will be our new facilities manager in October thanks for being here Frank cat did Kevin make it Kevin Crowley I don't know that he he did not I do not see him uh physical education teacher at Central and uh James bastardo was a maybe but I don't see him in the audience

005he's actually one of our new couriers and substitute bus drivers we also have Tiffany Atkinson guidance counselor at Gillette and Millington who was unable to be here but I wanted to recognize her domatia our assistant business administrator in the district office Eve Justice paraprofessional at Millington Karen rowenbeck paraprofessional at Central Stephanie Matthews part-time secretary at Millington and Jim Corcoran the other half of our Courier and subbus Driver Duo working for the district so thank you all for for being here and I'd like to get a picture I know you probably don't want to do this but could you come up front we'll take a take a quick picture well you tell us I don't know I mean I'm not well there should be a picture with just you too yeah all right do you know

006don't let your fingers don't be silly I do this Bravo thank you thank you everyone [Applause] oh God if you wouldn't laugh you're crying um well thank you and nice to meet everybody and welcome to Long Hill um you believe it or not I know it's hard to end the summer and get back to business but um I have fifth grader and a second grader and they have a much a bigger spring in their steps since school started believe it or not and they had a great summer all the things they do in the summer I didn't do like my 18 years of life and they really are happy to be back to school and it's it's nice to see um Communications yeah as far as uh Communications to the entire board we we had

007uh an email uh to about Transportation uh and we subsequently received the follow-up a day later Thanking us and and citing some positive improvements great thank you all right board committee and liaison reports I'm going to start with Karen who I also want to thank she is our new Finance chair so thank you for taking on that added responsibility for the Morris County Ed Services Commission meeting we had there was a meeting excuse me an August meeting which I attended as a virtual um I do believe that I might have presented on that already but just to go real quick they believe it or not handle 679 Transportation routes which is a deep 10 decrease from previous year because they've had a decrease in students their average increase across those 679 rounds is 16 that's

008across all those is a 16 increase there was additional emergency a provided to non-public schools they will again be administering it for the Board of Education and they receive a commission I'll say based upon what they're going to be spending out and concern still goes with central school and they are moving ahead to enact something through our Congress for them to be able to purchase the building and then they can be more free about what they can do because their enrollment is going to be they're going to lose nine students this coming graduation two of those students were extended for two years based upon the pandemic so uh it would be hard-pressed for them to get nine Replacements so they know it's going to be another downturn um there will be a meeting this Wednesday

009again a virtual meeting and on them will be attending that we had a finance committee meeting and I'll briefly go through some of the things um at the time and then this was excuse me uh in the beginning of September they began an audit the audit and Robin is going to be giving more detail about that okay um it appears that there was some mold concerns in some School uh some of the classrooms in in Millington and work was done emergency air sampling wiped down some dehumidifiers were purchased and it was basically under control um fall athletic Transportation has been determined we got a driver and the bus the free lunch program is underway there are 44 at this stage 44th uh I'll say families or students that are being served by that and uh

010another benefit of our shared services is going to keep coming um that Minster seeing people going through remodeling of their business offices and there were file cabinets that were made available and it was very timely because Robin was looking to get file cabinets because of the need obviously to do filing so they are donating it to us and that's a one of the resolutions on the agenda and um uh the bills list was reviewed and I'm sure everything is okay I was not at the bills list review and um perhaps you can just talked about the vendor over 34th over the 44 000 threshold when you okay I would appreciate it and uh that's it okay any questions for Karen no okay Daniel yes I have um communication from the PTO so the PTO welcomed

011back all the staff um with their Bagel breakfast last Thursday and a reminder to all uh Parents food day order should be in tonight by midnight late orders cannot be accepted and this is for food day September through November the first PTO general meeting will be held on Wednesday September 27th at 7 pm in Millington Media Center all are welcome to attend we um or they are collecting responses on the Genesis parent portal to allow the district to share parent contact information with the PTO until the end of the month um the data will then be uploaded to the membership tool toolkit database for the PTO online directory formerly known as the the buzz books um hopefully they hope to have the access to the PTO members by the beginning of the October um if

012anyone has any questions to the PTO please feel free to email them at lhtpto gmail.com um the next meetings dates will be September 27th October 25th November 29th December 20th if needed January 31st February 28th March 27th April 24th May 29th and again they're all 7 P.M at the Millington media center and that's it thank you any questions for Danielle nope okay and the governance committee met on August 28th we started the discussion of the process to revise the district mission and vision statement which at the moment is uh is wordy and also just wanting to check that it aligns with what the goals are within the community and the school Community for the students so the process will be something that will be occurring over the next few months and looking again to involve

013feedback from the various stakeholders in the community as we work on this process um we also discussed the process of replacing the vacant board position which is a focus of tonight's meeting you know the questions for the interview and so on in that organization um we discussed uh the revision of District goals and the languages and Mr Alexis has since the meeting shared out with the board some of those changes in language that we had there's an analytical tool that we had looked over um with the it's for committees and to see how the Committees are functioning and I think the question for the governance committee at the meeting was is this something we wanted to push out to the various committees to use to look analytically at the committees or not would it be

014a useful tool and we decided to place it on our next agenda for the governance committee to go through it looks at questions such as you know do our committees have the appropriate administrator aligned with uh you know the committee work and so on so that's something that we'll be adding to our next agenda um and then we had discussion of our committee goals but we did not solidify the goals as a member attendance for the next commitment okay any questions for Anne no okay Alex good evening everyone thank you um the building and grounds committee met on Friday uh September 8th uh it was a Del Valentin uh Mark prasena and I in attendance we uh originally met at uh Central School to go through much of the work that had been done there

015uh but I want to take this opportunity to thank Mr priscina for always making himself available on September 1st I was driving to work and I decided to drive by Millington school and I recognized his his uh pickup truck there so I pulled in broke into the school building with with the help of someone else um and and track them down in the middle of one of his projects so it was wonderful to see him and we had an impromptu meeting on September 1st to just go over all the work that he pridefully had worked on over the summer and I just wanted to go through that list but also give him a shout out because of him always making himself available and taking so much pride in the projects that he unders he has

016undertaking so at Gillette school there was additional or two which is um I I think on the Eastern end of of the school where the pickup is done there was a lot of work that was done there but there was additional waterproofing done for that exterior door uh room 10 the received interior Renovations that I can't wait to see myself uh but essentially it's taking a more modern approach to the build out of of the classroom space we're still waiting on replacement Furniture uh for that classroom and there's some uh replacement playground equipment that was scheduled I think for this past week so we need an update on on whether or not that has been completed Millington School saw a replacement of the upper side walk we had done the expansion of the driveway let's

017call it in the front of the school last year but the upper sidewalk which is the sidewalk that runs along the facade of the school that was replaced and renewed and there was an expansion of a pad that can accommodate a picnic table for teachers and and other waiting students um it's some quite a bit of interior painting and patching exterior soft and trim uh was was uh basically maintained or or re-primed and painted uh replacement of a parking lot light that we're still waiting on on order but that's by the basketball court on the south side of the school and we're looking at doing the infield renovation of that baseball softball field for Central Middle School which saw the most improvements over the course of the summer there was a replacement of the entire

018fire alarm system which I'm told principal vitarello is thrilled about renovation of three staff Laboratories that were uh in in a very dungeon-like condition there were interior Renovations done to several classrooms most notably the steam room uh on the I think it's the north side the Northwestern corner of the school it used to look like an old shop and now it probably is the Envy of the other teachers because the space looks awesome and again we're waiting on new furniture to come in for that so that we can reveal it to the rest of the community when it's all completed but the space looks amazing and it's very adaptable for different types of educational purposes so we have a repair of some exterior Hardware door hardware exterior stair tread replacement for a very frequently used

019set of stairs on the uh kind of Front Middle side of of the school and additional wiring that was done throughout the school building I do want to touch upon the mold concern that was reported at Millington we talked about that we explored that room it's a resource room I forget the exact number but 118 for some reason jumps out of my mind I don't know if that's off or not mark and just 17. oh room 17. sorry room 17. um we we took a look and we saw what you know we can't know for absolute certainty what was the conditions that caused it but it's probably reasonably speculated to have been a closed door for a period of time a full uh water I'm sorry a moisture or dehumidifier system that had been kind

020of left running and then basically stopped when the tank was full and all testing and mitigation we double tested with two different vendors we did the mitigation uh all for what we know all of those concerns have been addressed very quickly it's not a widespread concern there's no exterior water infiltration going on it's simply just a moisture issue in the room over a period of non-usage so we're glad that that was reported and quickly and swiftly addressed um we have other items that we could probably save for another report in the interest of time and we look forward to a more robust presentation from the facilities director at a future meeting but thank you to Adele and Mark for all their hard work over the summer the schools look great thank you for the tour

021sir [Applause] and they're all good just want to make sure that's on the record thank you sir thank you so any questions for Alex okay Tom thank you I can't take all the credit for this Jack Hartnett sitting out there please Jack correct me if and when I'm wrong the last meeting of the technology committee was in August unfortunately I wasn't able to present uh family issues anyhow uh to get back to the meeting he prized all of the those in attendance of the following that facilitation and management of installation of upgraded CCTV has been completed in all main offices Gillette was pending at the time but did you say you would have it done by school opening yeah okay thank you um they've been installed and 25 in central Gillette will also involved a

022large wall mounted displays have been installed in each main office and the principal's offices to enhance viewing experience and the effectiveness of the CCTV imagine having to look at a little screen like this and now you've got this you can see what's going on in your 25 screens that was great Millington computer upgrades all craft classrooms in Millington have they received them yet yeah okay because it was by August and yeah okay um they received a new computer a maximum of one per classroom these new computers are Dell PCS with monitors monitor stand keyboard mouse all that their Windows 11 compatible Windows 11 according to Jack will become mandatory by October of 25 everything that's not Windows 11 bye-bye uh that's been upgraded through 27 inch monitor it's improved interrupter interoperability with new smart displays

023the network has been overhauled internal networks have been redesigned to provide the following improvements the ability to scale up if and when the demands change improved wireless printing capabilities standardized all the networks enhanced security of capabilities in addition upgraded hardware for all switching closets has been ordered not installed sure the student Chromebook agreement which I spoke to you about in June has been created and is available through the Genesis Parent Portal if you don't know what that is it's kind of a contract between the student and it's his or her parents and the school district saying you go and break this computer because you think it's funny your parents are going to pay for it so I think that's great that brings them accountability to all involved items for the good of the order there's

024none at this time on a personal note I would like to call out that well this is 911. sorry Eric personal and this is also a pediatric Cancer Awareness Month a young girl in town Grace you might see the signs for with Grace and she has a charity she spoke before Congress she has been that uh the state of the union and she's an admirable woman and family and just please keep them in your mind hopes and prayers thank you very much thank you any questions for Thomas I was just curious about the statement about Windows 11 being mandatory what does that mean Windows 11 is going to be phased out in October of 25. it has the capabilities now right it's uh I know it's compatible so is it running both systems or has

025it moved up let Jack answer the question oh that's what you mean by mandatory okay great and then it's obviously like you know there's going to be a Windows 12 like four years after that right I mean this is a thing to happen okay okay uh Melissa I'm I'm this is a long meeting so I'll make it quick and the agenda's self-explanatory any policies that we revised you saw the red line drafts there were you know some minor revisions by the end of this year we will in addition to the four that are now added to this month's um agenda for the policy committee we will have reviewed about 108. policies and regulations so we're well on track to for the 95 a year to update every policy a minimum of um once every three

026years great any questions for Melissa green okay we're moving uh to superintendent's report okay great thank you good evening again everyone uh as I said we had a great new teacher orientation thank you for uh our new staff and then the energy they brought uh the next day we welcome the entire staff back and had a wonderful uh opening day uh followed by professional learning and collaboration uh over the course of two days uh thank you to the PTO as Danielle said for the faculty breakfast uh they had a faculty breakfast at each school on Thursday uh I also want to recognize uh lieutenant chiambriello and Lieutenant marchesky um for uh serving as partners with us I reached out to them uh in August and went over to the police department to have a meeting

027with them we talked through a number of things and they're going to be real very supportive throughout the year as we move through the school year they've already committed to attend meetings with us and to help out not only with security drills but with planning and strategizing and I had a great meeting at the library I was invited over by the Librarians and another great partner in education for us uh let's see here we we also have an addendum that I want to make sure everyone sees uh in addition to the um the the agenda that we have um so they we had a terrific opening to the school year it was overshadowed uh by some challenges that we had with bus transportation um as we said in the message last week uh it's been

028frustrating for everyone and I really do want to just thank um everyone for their support with this I apologize to the students and families I also apologize to our staff which has been put in certain positions where they had to adjust work responsibilities spend extra time uh juggle a number of things and again we really appreciate their support but we're trying to make this uh better as soon as possible we've seen Improvement we've been working with the bus company working with Watchung Hills uh Tim styes the business administrator from Watchung Hills is here this evening we appreciate that Tim and hope he'll talk in a little bit we also have Bob Scarpa and his colleague Haney from Durham bus company we had a terrific conference call this morning setting the you know clarifying some of

029the issues that we're experiencing we've been sharing all the feedback that we've been getting from parents over the phone and emails at bus stops and just trying to make this as consistent and reliable as possible so again things were running much better today and on Friday but we got to get to the point where it's it's consistent and reliable for for the kids and the families and for our staff okay so I think what we'll do and I just want to make one note about the transportation shared services agreement that we have at the high school that's why we invited Tim here because Tim uh is the one who leads the charge in getting Transportation every year for the high school and for some of the sending districts that participate in this shared services and

030he's always been very supportive of the regional sending districts and he's here again tonight to talk um I guess I would like to just kind of turn it over to Robin and see if you'd like to add anything and if so and I know you have a couple of other items Beyond Transportation but then we'll invite Tim Tim up to talk a little bit sure so for transportation first thing I'd like to say is that everybody in the board office in the district we are as upset about this as the parents are we certainly did not expect that this was the the mode that was going to start for opening day we had hoped for much better on the plus side it is getting better it's only been today is the fifth day and we

031do see Improvement parents have been absolutely lovely my staff and I and Dan Borgo and our superintendent have all ridden the bus several times more than several times to try to make it better for the students the families and the drivers because it's a little bit tough you know to find a new route in a new community and our community is not easy we have a lot of major roads we we do understand we did do practice runs with them the week before school started where my staff was on the buses we've ridden it every day including today we've been on buses my staff has been when parents called to say you've missed a stop we've sent business office staff to stand there with the family and the child to make sure that we can

032wave down a bus or do they do they really miss us do we have the right stop is there a problem at the stop so we're trying to work on it that way um a couple other things that we did we printed up the route numbers for the buses to make sure that it's clearly identified we have had a few issues with the buses actually putting our route numbers on the buses but we have printed them out several times and asked them please put them in the front window on the side window so the buses are easily identified um we've printed up route sheets for the drivers and we've gone over route changes with them to make sure that they have the route we're attempting to let families know when the buses are running late

033we're doing our best it's really an issue we're transporting 503 students over 250 stops that so when we get a route change it is kind of hard to to make sure that somebody gets that route but we're doing our best um that we're trying to answer emails on a priority basis and phone calls on a priority basis responding to safety issues I personally have made over 50 phone calls to families just to hear you know what's going on how can I help if there's anything that we can do to help like I said that we all in the business office feel so personally connected to our students and our families I mean this really is just not the way we wanted week one to go it should have been a hundred percent happy and we

034hate to see that this this part maybe has put a damper on on what should have been a perfect week we had a meeting with the drivers and Lead Supervisor in our office we emphasize to them the buses needed to be on time that we have to have no stops missed that the route has to be run exactly as we give it to them as printed and that we expect it to be on a clean bus we need the buses to really be swept out every single day and we want when our children on on something that we put our own kids on okay and that was definitely laid to the bus company um we've asked for GPS tracking software which I believe we're going to get in the office that should help to make

035communication better one of the problems that we were having is when a bus was late we didn't really know it until somebody called us and so if we can actually track to see where buses that really should help us we're also transfinders how we do the routing and we're looking to get transfinder for all the buses so that the drivers actually have a GPS system on the bus so that it will be updated on a daily basis so that if somebody goes changes around or has something different to the route it will be updated immediately so that the route is is good for the for the bus driver the other thing is we do have a staff member Dom who is brand new is home listening to this and any comments that we get he's

036going to take note of so that we also have those comments as part of our reference as to help us make changes um other than that that it's like the fifth day of school and we're just hopefully got a little better today let's hope every day we see Improvement and maybe by Friday we'll say that things are really pretty good I'll end on a positive note so I've been driving through the roads in Long Hill for 40 years but I've discovered new neighborhoods because on bus five so that's been great but to but what was spending even better has been meeting the kids on the bus and that's really been great meeting some families and and the families really appreciate it so that that part was uh yeah the the positive parts of of the

037experience 30 years I was here before Kings was King 's King Pathmark right now areas that I didn't know existed yes yes you remember Radio Shack too so um Okay so Tim we're going to fight you up uh I've known Tim a long time and yeah sure sure software and tracking that you said uh putting it on these buses is that they weren't on our buses the other buses we've ever had or is this a brand new idea or um I am not sure what the years before had um they didn't have them no yeah okay okay we were just looking for some way to help them beyond the manual uh company man if I may just going off of what Karen and saying I was just wondering what so if there's no GPS's or

038bus drivers just utilizing their own cell phones no they're actually using the paper that and that that's the part that I was I'm happy with they have the paper in their lab really that's how they that's how much some of them yourself navigating but but we give them the paper routes and yeah and then it becomes just the routine of of driving and understanding it but on bus five the one that I've been on uh you know we had three different bus drivers over the course of five days but we found the sub bus driver today has was terrific and we've asked for her to be permanent and and that looks like that's going to happen so I think that's going to change the whole dynamic yeah bus driver for Anna um she did put

039the route on her cell phone so she was using her cell phone to do it yeah seven was using the paper okay wait wait Melissa has a question uh yes uh more of a comment and something I think you um you didn't necessarily Echo was I we all saw how very hard the Ba's office and our Administration was working this week riding the bus with our kids uh each route and treating all of our kids like your own so I feel bad that you're all taking so much responsibility because I know you were working very hard in the last week but I think something that you didn't Echo was it was that it was very difficult for the Ba's office to communicate with the parents if a route was running late if the bus company

040was not communicating that with our Ba's office so that that is something I just think needs to be echoed that it's not like you were ignoring no we just didn't know you didn't know we didn't know so and a few years ago we did discuss the GPS on the buses and I'm sure you know is we we don't own our buses so we have to obviously send it out to bid and we have obligations as to which bids we could accept so it's not like there are all these choices out there the bidding process with the transportation is very cumbersome even when it comes to the legalities but we were actually looking years ago I think when I first got on the board of the into these programs that um would actually track each child

041with these cards the bus company needs to have that program and I think when we were looking into that it is such an expensive undertaking that we would all essentially be paying for in the increase to our budget and our our um our expenses but I think at the time there were no bus companies in New Jersey that had installed these GPS programs that we would all love to have so as a tip I know some parents are using the Apple Air tags um listen there's no good answer the first week of school I anticipated with my own children transportation is always horrendous the first week of school so I'm you know I don't think we can necessarily um say that this you know is for the rest of the year um but I really

042want to thank the Ba's office and um and for our superintendent who I said was Facebook famous over the weekend because he unbeknownst to him he was talking to the kids and getting on the bus with them so and people took pictures of that and and it means a lot when the leadership in our district really takes the initiative to to take these steps because it always starts from the top and uh you set a great example for um our entire District so thank you thank you thank you Melissa but I also want to emphasize how hard the staff has been working Denise Caldwell and Stephanie um and and in the front offices and our principals and everyone's pitching and and just making sure that the kids are supervised and waiting but we did go

043down from I think the first week and I'll use bus five as an example I think the kids got home after 5 30 a couple days uh and yes Friday we had them Dan and I had them home by 4 20 and 4 11 today so we're going in the right direction and if we want consistency and reliability this is our man Tim that's Tim Stein's middle name so I will turn it over to Tim and he can he can talk about the the bidding and some of the other challenges they've been going through at the high school so thank you for being here thank you George um and I'm just trying to figure out whether you actually just want to ride the bus so that's why you were doing that get out of work

044but anyway so I'm from the high school I'm the business administrator at the high school and thank you for having me what we do at the high school level is we put the bids together and I know Miss Nice Nyquist said it before about shared services well that's a big thing particularly in transportation and it's just set up that way like it's a tiered system starts High School Middle School elementary school so you kind of want to do those bids together for efficiency number one but also you get a better price if you can lump them together in bulk right so that's what we've been doing for years this year we actually combined Long Hill Watchung and us which makes sense and it doesn't split the routes it's kind of still the same there's really

045no change it's just that it'll attract more companies better pricing and so that was the idea uh so that's kind of how the bidding Works we're the lead agency we put out the bid and then the bid you know we get bidders lately the last couple years we've struggled to get enough bidders um we had trouble last year and we did a lot of last minute stuff working with Dan to get enough buses to take your kids to school Watchung was not so lucky they had about three that were short and we were short one too so it was that's been a challenge and that remains a challenge and the bus company will tell you that they're struggling to get drivers the pricing has been a pain in the neck driver prices have gone up

046their their salaries have gone up as you all know Diesel and gas so that's been a problem so combined with all these other things budget is a problem right so that's part of all the the mess that we're kind of dealing with which is unfortunate it used to be a lot simpler not so much anymore it just isn't and in this year we actually had a pretty good bid we had two competitive bids and you know we the low bidder or lowest responsive bidder was Durham Durham think we're down in Freehold and they lost some routes because I think they removed some of their some of their routes so I know they came this way and they had some contracts up here but they could probably tell you more about that than I could but

047um them being new to this area that was going to be a challenge I live in Hillsboro so when I started driving up here I get lost took me about five years to figure it all out even and there's still roads I don't I still don't know but you know so that that in and of itself is a challenge when you have a new company New Towns it's going you're going to have a bumpy start I can tell you there's no chance that you're not going to it's just it's going to happen the question is how bumpy and I think this one was a little bumpier than what we were hoping for I knew it was going to be bumpy this felt a lot bumpier um the elementary schools are in constant contact with me

048so we're constantly going back and forth I've talked to Robin I talked to Dan I talked to Patty over and Watchung so it's a constant discussion um and when we hear the issues we gather information and when it gets serious enough we have to have a conversation with the bus company because we hold the contract in this particular case we kind of stepped it up a bit and we got above uh onto some very very high level folks at Durham and let them know we need some help this isn't working guys um so I was on the phone with a gentleman from Florida one evening and he put me in touch with Mr Bob Scarpa who was very helpful we had a I thought I think George mentioned but we had a really good conference

049call I thought it went well I thought they heard what we were saying and they saw the issues that needed to be addressed and now they are dedicated to address those issues some of them being the time timeliness of the routes missing stops the cleanliness of the buses those sorts of things that we and Robin was great she gave us pictures which we had forwarded to them so those kind of things we were looking to get addressed um so I don't want to spend too much time of your time but I'm we'll tell you this and I I was with George's meeting last year up in Watchung and we were we were in a different kind of situation where we didn't have buses for three routes and my message to the board and to the

050community there is going to be the same as it is here I work at the high school we have the contract we don't do the routes however we have the contract and we will never stop helping you it's that is not something we do if there are issues we will follow them through we will be here to help you that's what we do shared services is shared services we have to do it together and we have to fix these things together and by the way some of our routes we're experiencing the same things as an FYI so it's been a bumpy ride for us too um so it's it's not just you it's us and cert and watch on uh I can honestly tell you it's probably a little bit worse off than you are

051their routes are a little tougher it's just the nature of what you know their Democrat where their their Logistics and everything are there it's a little it's tougher but um you know we're all in this together and we are working together to make this thing work I don't know if I'm going to introduce Bob yeah could could you Tim thank you so uh so I'll introduce Bob Scarpa over from uh Durham bus company who we had a he can tell you a little bit thanks Tim thank you for having me you have a beautiful town here um it's gorgeous the roads are beautiful the area is beautiful I'm from the shore so I don't get to come up this way often but it's gorgeous my name is Bob scarper I'm with Durham school Services I'm

052a region manager I cover New Jersey I also cover Pennsylvania and Long Island and you know first week of school in most school districts even school districts we've been running for a long period of time is usually a very stressful time um I'm happy to say we got through the first week because that is the toughest time for anyone drivers supervisors dispatchers we took on a new contract and it is a very difficult area for our drivers because it's New Territory they've never been up here I've never been up here and I've traveled most of New Jersey so it's it's definitely a different Dynamic for them and I think that based on what we're seeing we are seeing some improvement right I I commit to you that I'm going to be in the facility every

053day until it's right um I'm foregoing all of my other facilities to be here because I think it's that important you're a new contract for us so we need to fix it right not just for for the district but for the people in the community for the parents I'm a parent right I've been down that road I know what it's like to have a bus later not show up um you know we met this morning and we came up with a good game plan to to address some of the the main concerns we took care of a lot of low-hanging fruit stuff the signage that you made up is great but I did have my team go out and buy and and have created today and we're picking them up tomorrow I think those new

054thicker signs bigger signs yellow and black to put into window uniformly on all of your assets so it's much more visual for for the for the students and for the the staff um so we're working on that on cleanliness of the buses we've we've hired an outside agency to come in and clean all of the buses from inside and out top to bottom because I did look at them today as well and I'm not happy about them um and and shame on me I should have probably been down here over the summer time to look at some of them I was down here over the summer but we were in a transition of a move as well we moved new facility from where we used to be in Roselle we're now in Kenilworth so it

055was a very difficult perfect storm for lack of a better term so we are working on the assets we will have them clean this weekend we have an outside company coming in Elite wash to clean the interior and exterior of all of our buses as far as on-time performance it it the drivers are learning the routes and and we are getting better and and we will continue to get better and I anticipate by this Friday that most of those drivers are going to have a really good feel for their routes right continuity is important for them being on the same route every day we we started out where we had a few problems with some newer people and we moved them around and we took them off a route but we put a new driver

056on so we were starting from square one all over again three days into school that stopped the drivers who are on the routes will be on the routes right they need to continue to learn the area the route the turn by turn where they can make a left turn or shouldn't make a left turn and where they should be making mostly right-hand turns right so so that's important the one thing I did learn about coming up here today is that if you miss a turn you're pretty much in trouble for for a good length of time where you can have the opportunity to turn around so you know that that's where those little things those little innuendos are going to come into play for for our drivers um safety continues to be and always will

057be on the top of Durham school Services board right we have drive cam in all of our assets which is a really it's more of a training coaching tool for our drivers it basically films the driver for eight seconds prior to what we call an incident or An Occurrence they could harsh break and it'll show us what they're doing it'll also show the front of the vehicle why did a harsh break right it shows all all different if if they're on a cell phone which we have a zero cell phone tolerance policy drivers are immediately let go for for cell phone usage if we see them on on drive cam I can't be with them all the time but that that's something that we take very serious we do have a good pool of drivers

058in our pipeline right now so I'm encouraged to see that in our total pipeline we have probably 19 drivers going for their CDL licenses we're planning on hiring two this week by the end of this week we should have two more hired so we're teetering at a hundred percent my staff all have their CDL in the office other than my GM and one of our our dispatchers so when it comes time for them to jump on a bus if we're short they'll jump on a bus they have no problem doing that so we're committed to to supporting the district and being a partner with the district and and quite frankly you have my commitment that what it'll it'll get better and it's going to get better and it has gotten better um you know making

059every single stop on a route is super important right you can't miss a stop even if there's no students at that stop you have to go there every day because you never know if somebody's going to show up that day right in in some of my conversations I heard from drivers saying well they all students from two different stops go to this one stop so I don't go to the other two stops well no that's not good enough because what if one student didn't go to that stop right so it's not about how many students you're missing if you miss one it's a problem so we got it we hear you and we're committed to making it better so um that is I'm here for you so we're Partners thank you thank you okay Alex

060thank you very much um thank you very much for taking responsibility and coming to meet with us today we certainly appreciate it um we're uh grateful that progress has been made uh and I'm happy to hear that Safety and Security is a top concern for Durham um on that note and I I was looking on my phone to see what the actual law was with respect to GPS I thought it was something that was required of all school buses but apparently that's just legislation that's sitting since 2021. so we have GPS in every asset it's Zona I was going to ask and we have we're yeah and I I was able to get access for certain people that Tim and Dan designated that they wanted to have um sonar from from us so they have

061access now to go in there's two different reports they can pull one is called um a pass report which shows every single stock that the bus makes every day okay up to the point that they're at at that point and one is in uh locate bus which is will only tell you where that bus is at that time so they have two different ways of looking at it now and and the good thing about it is in speaking to Tim and Dan some of the routes need some adjustment but they didn't have the data to make those adjustments so now they will have that data to look at it and see how many stops are on that that route and can we really do 30 stops in 32 minutes so 32 stops in 30 minutes

062right and they'll be able to see that maybe after two or three weeks once things settle down they'll be able to make some adjustments to someone else you've given me much greater reassurance because that was going to be the very point that I was going you do have GPS on all the buses correct okay and there is data being gathered as to their performance and that will be used for reevaluation of any modifications that are needed in order to create these more efficient and more consistent okay that data also is used for us in our Domo system for on-time performance and stuff like that so it's it's multi-use but yes okay anybody else Karen I guess I mean of course the timeliness and the safety and all uh two things are there video cameras on

063your bus we have cameras um and a statement that you made I guess I we hadn't heard about the dirty buses and since you've been in business for a long time I guess I just want to express my concern that that should even be an issue but taking care of it but I it was the first time I heard about it and I said you were an established company that should not have even come up as an issue absolutely right we usually clean our buses still in the summertime we clean up ours during the year and then in the summertime we do a mass cleaning of all of us this year because we were in transition and we had to move a whole facility over the summer up we lost track of it no doubt

064that's on us we take full responsibility for it it will be rectified this week but isn't it a question of you said daily cleaning right I'm sorry well I'm for me I mean I would expect that the bus is being swept out and that's a daily process by our drivers okay our drivers have and so the good thing about I shouldn't say the good thing cleaning all the buses this weekend will give us a benchmark for all of our drivers we know the buses are going to be spotlessly clean now we'll do spot checks to ensure that the buses is staying clean okay right the interior of the buses the exteriors they have no control over right now until we get into winter time we probably won't have to wash them again until we get

065into winter when we start to see the salt in the roads and it comes up on the buses then we'll do a wash but but right now the exterior once we clean them once they're usually good for a few months okay yeah and I get on the buses and I got on every single bus and I had the children all sit down buckle their seat belts unbuckle their seat belts raise your hand if your seatbelt didn't Buckle so we've checked all that as well we also did we also did raise your hand if you don't know how to buckle a seat belt and I'm calling it parents no that's not okay other uh Melissa yeah yeah accountability however I I just need to make one thing clear if these were problems that you saw were

066happening last week our upper Administration was pulled out of the Ba's office our superintendent our ba everybody in that ba it's office because your company wasn't doing their job so if you're going to take accountability I don't want to hear it's getting better parents are putting their kids they're saying that saying goodbye to their kids for the first time when they put them on their on that bus and they're trusting us and our Administration with their safety and it came down on our district and our board because your company was not doing the right job and was not doing a good enough job if these routes don't get fixed you put another person on that bus do not take someone from our district in our office to ride the buses with those kids because they're

067needed elsewhere and it's not their fault that you guys could not meet your obligation so please own up to what you did do not put more burden on our parents our Administration and our board and fix what's happening okay people hold you accountable to it I appreciate that I think I owned up to that you know I took the responsibility for it as my for my company definitely take responsibility for it we we it's inherently a problem all beginning of school year every District we do this was much worse than that this is much worse than any experience we've ever had so that's not what we want to hear we just want to know it's going to be fixed we want to know these kids are safe and we want to know that our administrators

068and our teachers are going to be in their their classrooms in their offices doing what they're supposed to be doing and not fixing the problem that your company caused got it I don't I apologize for doing this but I guess in a way I'm I'm piggybacking on her I have to say this and I've been on the board I've been here for 25 years this has never happened before I can tell you that we've never had this amount of complexity of problems I just just laying that out okay let me appreciate that thank you I'd like to add my two cents you say that uh the buses are tough to be kept clean except if God decides to rain on them um the inside of the bus is pretty easy to be kept clean um

069you have to go at the end of a route and turn the sign in the back saying there's no kids in the back of the bus right correct why can the driver not look over and say oh there's a piece of paper here there's some a gum wrapper there take a quick broom so that in the afternoon when the kids get out of school they're tired they know they've been respected during the day they get back onto a clean bus why does that only be cleaned at the end of the day these are simple things that cost you almost nothing and this is a service that you run for three different states absolutely and nobody else has said please clean our buses for our kids no we police buses every single day and every other

070facility we police them here now we hand out brooms we hand out dustpans and we require them to be cleaned we did not do our job by going in and taking a look at the buses to make sure they were being cleaned can we do that going forward that is going to be yes it's absolutely it's part of the day end of each run absolutely they should be especially they go into the back of the bus to turn a child's Child Check sign around to check every single seat in the bus they should have a broom in their hand and they should be sweeping the the debris forward if there's any debris at all it might not be happening but with the three-tier buses you've got three groups I would agree with that but I

071also don't want to blame the bus drivers because we're very lucky to not have a shortage of bus drivers so so this is frankly this and I'll leave it at this this is not an issue of necessarily the drivers this was an issue of leadership from your company yeah okay okay thank you thank you Mr Alexis do you have anything else or should no that that's it we can move on okay okay go ahead Ian as well I it was with a question more for us and for the communication that we have with um with Watchung Hills and then with the community it sounds like they have fixed the ability for us to now see where the buses are at and I think that um when you're waiting for a bus and it's 30 minutes

072late uh if we could make sure that we hear from the high school if because their buses are our buses right so if their bus is running late correct then our bus is running late um so so I think um you know it starts there but then also um if we could go back to the communications I have been getting some of them uh more from us and than from the uh alter group but um there's nothing worse as a parent like what do I do you know I mean so it sounds like that's been resolved but if and I know that their efforts there but that to me is something that we could immediately do if your kid is going to be 20 minutes late or if you're standing out there you know you

073know too long at least you know like is it coming is it not coming some sort of communication there yeah that's what we've put in place on Friday yeah I appreciate it's been getting better but today we had to send out fewer because buses were more on time but that's what we we've made that and Jack's been helping out with that also I've failed to mention Jack's help in all this process so he's been amazing yeah yeah so that will continue thank you thank you okay um Robin you have more things that you're going to address so that was like Transportation okay Transportation but but let me just add okay we after Robin um finishes some other comments after that on the agenda we have comments from the public on agenda items so normally nothing

074related to transportation is on the agenda so normally any comments related to items that are not on the agenda are saved till the end of the meeting but because we know that people have you know it's getting late we are opening up that portion of the meeting for people to also comment on Transportation so if anybody's here to comment on Transportation um you're going to be able to do it after Robin finishes but I'll also add just for um Tim and Bob if you can stick around I think there might be some things that come up in a couple of minutes that you may want to take back and maybe even answer some questions so I'm just gonna put that out there so Robin go ahead sure um I think Finance report is short today

075so um cares in and we did nice part was they were in and out in three days so let's hope that leads to some positive things I think it does but that's just you know that hopeful we'll find out soon um but they're they're all done so that's nice the audit is finished um on the agenda for approval you will see um that we have conquer math workshops and a bunch of our staff is excited to be attending these I wanted to let you know that we're paying for these out of Title II funding Title II is a Federal grant program that provides supplemental funding to support effective instruction so it's the perfect use of these funds so I'm really happy that we're doing that we're also asking you to approve a Consulting agreement for

076e-rate remember e-rate provides discounts for telecommunications internet and Inter internal connections eligibles to schools and libraries so that's on the agenda I know Karen mentioned the filing cabinets I mean personally I am just really excited about this I was going to order some we got 14 of them so so that's really nice really nice great shape so so I'm thrilled with that so thank you to edminster and that's all I have for today okay any questions for ramen no okay all right so next we have comments from the public on agenda items or and or transportation that means if anybody has any comments okay come to the microphone uh at this point the Board of Education welcomes comments from any member of the public on agenda items only and transportation please note that as per

077board policy number 1120 we have a total of 15 minutes for public comments at any single board meeting in order to provide residents the opportunity to comment uh individual speakers are limited to three minutes each at any particular board meeting the board May extend those time limits at its discretion any questions should be directed to the board president which is me and depending upon the nature and complexity of the question it may or may not be answered during the meeting by the administration if so the response would occur after this public portion of the meeting has concluded everyone has the freedom to speak but please be advised that anything said in public may have legal ramifications and there is no protection regarding statements made by the public please state your name and address before you

078begin hi Eric Calabrese 126 Winding Way in Sterling um one would be on the bus I was going to wait till the end but since we're jumping it here uh last week my bus never showed up but drop off no less than 40 minutes after it's estimated you know time to be dropped off so that was 40 minutes 42 minutes and 50 minutes so uh having a first grader get off the bus that late not acceptable and anyway I'm a teacher I used to hold a CD out and drive the bus for coaching on the high school level I'm well aware of the stresses involved in that I would just say like we need to work on that and obviously you are this morning my son's bus came 22 minutes early for pickup in the

079morning I don't know how anybody can manage that on either end of the spectrum me being a teacher I'm not there my wife works in the city so that's quite a predicament for my family to you know navigate with so you know if it's just going to be late at the end of the day I'd rather just be late at the end of the day rather than you know first thing in the morning really hard to obviously handle that issue the other one I wanted to call your attention to is uh agenda item number 16. if you guys want to take a look at it agenda item 16 is about the I guess a contract with Thrive Alliance Group to provide Mental Health Services is that in place of having an in-house student assistant counselor

080known as a sac I'm not going to answer until then yes thank you Miss case I would um implore you at this day and age find the money for an in-house sack my questions that I would go beyond that would be is if you're going to have a an outside vendor essentially handle our children who in the Middle School level obviously have a billion and one questions that they're seeking to have answered um you know is this going to be something where it's an individual that is on a rotating basis where it may not be the same counselor coming in to handle these student issues are they in-house in building on a daily basis or are they only there every other day because last time I checked seventh and 8th graders sixth graders don't have

081questions and um you know travesties that occur in their life that they need to have handled right then and there from my experiences teachers seeing a sack in my building on top of two guidance counselors there is never a shortage where that sack is not a need whether that's an individual threat and you need a threat assessment done I would implore you guys guys pleased to do that this is coming from an individual who has lost two friends that I grew up with here in this town I live in the same neighborhood I grew up in who have I've had two friends who grew up here who committed suicide I know how that pain feels and I implore you guys to make sure you find the money for it don't make excuses don't make excuses

082find the money for it you can't tell me the kids aren't worth it thank you thank you any other comments okay oh yes oh yeah so um my name is Brendan Flynn 19 Francine Place Millington um I'm in a unique position that I'm in school busing as well I'm part of the third largest contractor in the country where Durham's the second largest contractor in the country and so we've had some issues with busing as well but I I'm a little bit easier to overlook some of those first day first week issues um that being said I've driven my kids four days so far and they've gotten the bus once and arrived to school late the day that they to get in they did get the bus and so I I think some of the things

083that we want to take a look at are the roots themselves and part of it might just be not having had some of that data because I know the bus if it shows up the time that we're told it's not getting to school on time just not going to happen first student has done it for a number of years the pickup time at our stop should be about 7 35 today our kids missed the bus because our pickup time's at 7 52 7 42 they're out there bus came by at about 7 30 7 38. so the drivers need to know I think you got 10 minutes on both sides and so they either need to wait or if we need to adjust the times I know ours needs to be adjusted in five or

084six emails have gone unanswered and I get it's busy my wife sent an email to to the business administrator today prior to that it had been going to the transportation email and just not one response and ours is simple you know we've got a way to be able to get our kids to school and so so it's not that big of a deal there's certainly other ones that are more important one of the things you had referenced was GPS going on vehicles and as Mr Scarpa knows or indicated GPS is on them were you referring to navigation School District s such as Roxbury anymore have these average easy safer I'm familiar we've got them down in Willingboro so we do their transportation similar similar setup and that's that's what I was just trying to make

085sure that what it was that we were talking about whether it was specific to GPS or or the navigation um okay nope that's and that's perfect um so again I just think the key is just making sure I think it's important that the parents should have the roots it was great the other day we got an email or a text comes through saying the route has started without context it's useless if the if the route starts at 7 30 and we're told that it's at 7 30. it'd be nice to know where it's going so I know hey do I have some time should my kids be out there at 7 37 7 42 7 52 um and so that's something worth looking into uh to consider providing the the specific route for those kids

086uh to each of the families we don't need everybody it's just our own um just so we can have an idea with that but um like I said it certainly has gotten better uh you know so I'm I'm one that's willing to give them give them a chance to get them through it um and you know like I said just uh try and do the best we can and getting a little more communication out there to everybody so thank you thank you I'm sure the issue security issues looking for some sort of I know good evening we were looking at it through Genesis I don't mean to interrupt gentlemen I don't mean to interrupt but this might be important for people at home that might not be able to hear you Dan do you want

087to come to the mic downstairs thank you lawyers always insist on a clear record Dan Borgo I was the interim for two years here at Long Hill we've been looking at a lot of our different ideas to communicate better to our community one of which was how to get the entire route to parents so when we say the route has started and it's 802 they could say add 18 minutes it's going to be here at 8 38 and uh some of the issues are that big security issue and we are in fact listening to all the emails coming in trying to find a good way for onboarding this you know we're looking at a lot of different things as I said you know it's the worst of my 36 years of doing this and it's

088just uh we want to regain the confidence of parents we want them to feel comfortable that they could go to get to work on time make their appointments on time and if the bus is going to say 8 18 we need that 15 to 18 minute window maybe six or seven minutes before just six or seven minutes later but we are taking and Gathering all the information we are receiving compiling lists talking with our vendor to try to improve this spending our money such as the tablet investment that we would be putting on someone else's bus to assist in a process to make that better for moms and dads to get their children to school safely and Timely I'm not sure how many how many but again doing this I know how often we're sending

089yeah bus 123 is supposed to be out here and today 245 yeah something that you want to kiss anything you probably need 12 . the loads are the holders are almost spring-loaded so they're not affixed permanently to the device so we would hope in your yard that you take them in every night identify then you could just go on and then load in your your routes are all going to be pre-loaded and as Tim has stated this is another good shared service so we could buy one tablet it's one bus that's doing three routes so we could share in that course we both use we both use transfinder so we have a common ground so yes it's something we're looking at or something will work in conjunction with whatever bus company we have to try

090to be on The Cutting Edge that would help you guys as a vendor to get this thing to be correct okay thank you Dan okay let's move to resolutions um minutes items number one Karen will you move those so moved second questions roll call Mrs Butler yes Mr pajamas yes Mrs Daley yes um yes Nyquist yes stain and this is case yes uh Danielle will you move in financials numbers two through eleven so moved second questions roll call Mrs Butler yes Mr James yes really yes Mr grosskopf yes Miss Ruble stainless tattoo yes for the remaining and Mrs case yes and will you move in Special Services numbers 12 through 21. so moved second questions questions please yes on item 15 it speaks to this person being appointed at 86 dollars an hour but it

091does not say for how many hours per week or for or what the limit is it past November 24th is it just a normal seven hour day every day and Robin you can confirm this it's the full it's the full day it adds up to around 30 5.5 hours yeah I think so that they're going this way to cover for this this absentee uh item 16 as we were just requested to look at a sack um is that something we could table and take a look at to see if we can do that by now or do we need to have to sign off on this what's been presented I I would recommend that we we we passed this resolution and in the time being we can then do that look into look into another

092option of a full-time Sac okay anybody else okay roll call and Mrs Butler yes Mr James yes Miss Daley yes Mr grosskopf yes abstained from 17. Mrs uh Mrs McLennan Mrs Nyquist yes Google have yes and Miss case yes Alex will you move in Personnel items number 22 through 37 and A1 so moved second questions uh resolution number 27 should that be Larissa Felix um it says Carissa yeah we can adjust that yeah it's got to be one because another place she is it's Larissa so it's either one I mean like one place we'll correct it thank you for pointing it out Karen okay anybody else roll call uh Mrs Butler yes Mr James yes Stanley yes it's Brooke Mr Copart grosskopf yes Nyquist yes this is rubella yes and this is case yes Tom

093will you move in policy numbers 38 through 42 so move second questions roll call Mrs Butler yes Mr de jamos yes this is Daley yes Mr grosskopf yes Mr McLennan it's Nyquist yes Aruba yes and Mrs case yes uh Melissa will you move in other numbers 43 through 46. so moved questions uh Karen we usually have two meetings in March because it's but a bunch of time do we wait to lend to what schedule it or do we schedule it at a time the March meetings yeah yeah or you know don't we double up our meetings that also says March 2023 instead of 2024. um Back to the Future well I didn't pick that up but I picked up like we had talked about that we had taught that through and Dan was part of

094that discussion and uh we felt that we could do the because the March the second meeting March 16th is typically for the preliminary budget to approve that and get it to the county uh so we decided to go with that one uh and not have the not have the initial one two weeks prior unless unless the board wants to change that yeah after I asked a few questions about that because I was asking about the prior history um it it sounded that it was reasonable to just have the one meeting per month um I would say that when we did our budget this past year that we were incredibly transparent and forward in what was coming into the preliminary budget and then the final budget so um if we feel that we can maintain that

095communication with this schedule like that would be my main concern with it if I remember correctly we when we were going over it that it was pretty much repetitive yeah next we started much earlier last year which I thought was wonderful um and we're going to try to follow the same schedule I mean but I thought it was a great budget process so if we follow the same schedule we should be fine we could always add a meeting in if we thought we needed it okay okay good just can we change that to the to a 2024 yeah okay uh roll call Mrs Butler yes Mr James yes Mrs Daley yes Mr grosskoff yes this is McLennan Ms Nyquist yes this is rublev yes and it's his case yes okay um any items for discussion

096unfinished business from the board any new business okay any comments from the public oh we uh let's not forget the addendum right do we need to I moved it in with person you did I'm sorry that's okay great thank you I'm quick like lightning um any comments from the public on any items okay we are gonna move into interview of uh candidates for Board of Education uh vacancy yes all right we're gonna take a two minute break I'm timing it audio's on no it's on it's on we're on air I don't know how it goes camera two minutes okay is all Robin yes yeah okay so I was in a warm what's on there Daniel too okay and three Alex four Tom five please I'm five yeah five for what the question question number oh

097dog okay call it out okay Melissa sex do I have actually all right yes yes we know okay so um I just want to make sure that we have the candidates so Brady Dylan okay Omar aftog how do I say your listing big okay um Crystal Mar okay and Justin Foster okay great thank you guys thank you for applying thank you for being here um we appreciate it so the way that we're gonna do it is um we are just gonna go in alphabetical order by last name um and we're going to ask a series of questions we're going to have the candidate come up to the microphone we'll ask the questions and um then when we're done um you'll leave in the meantime the other candidates we're going to ask you to ask wait

098in the hallway um just so that we have some separation after everybody's done answering the questions we're gonna go in private session and discuss the um the interviews and then come back and we anticipate taking action at that time it's a little late we're sorry it takes a little time um just a lot going on so can then I have um Mr Big yes he's gonna start and then could I have everybody else wait in the hallway please okay thank you it's cold in my hoodie I know hey hi hi we're just gonna jump in and just get started sure yeah all right so we're gonna start each of us has a question to um ask you I would I mean we were just chatted about time limits but I feel like it would really

099only be like two or three minute answers but I'm not going to limit you to anything but I think you probably can work through we have and just so you know point of reference we have seven questions okay so that probably helps um so Karen let's start with you okay uh we obviously got all your material you know the introductory letter in your resume but can you tell us why you want to be a member of this particular Board of Education um there's always go for improvement and I think uh as an advisor working now for Cigna for about two years I realized that every school you know whenever you started a school uh September there's always going to be something that needs work and uh obviously I seek the opportunity I looked at you

100know their uh empty seats people are leaving they're going away so I have four kids and I definitely take pride in raising them the right way and this was an opportunity for me to basically step in and help you all and help my kids make it a fun space again it's cool thank you thank you um what specific skills would you bring to the board so I currently work with uh it in my space Healthcare um but I also work on security uh Target hardening specifically with houses of worship so I work as uh pro bono within New Jersey office of Homeland Security and preparedness uh they have a chapter called Interfaith advisory Council I bring all the fates together not just the book religions abrahamic religions but everyone together to make sure nothing like

101what happened in New Zealand should happen here um it we're working hard but there's more in in home like homegrown terrorism now than ever statistics show and whether it's after Insurrection or just soft targets schools and houses of worship are soft targets we need to invest in the infrastructure whether it's school buses um schools facilities itself teachers trainings like the gentleman before he said Eric I believe he said you need suicide awareness some guidance counselor that's 100 needed so students and kids are at the next level that we need to be investing in and I 100 agree with that that's where I stand and that's the skill set that I have on top of my it skill set thank you you're welcome um could you please give specific examples of your experience working as part

102of a team absolutely so um currently I worked uh on a recent project with houses of house of worship and Basking Ridge which was already a target for hate crime um I collaborated with New Jersey office of Homeland Security and preparedness for Target hardening Grant I was given an okay for a Federal grant worth 150 000 and then I applied for another state grant for another hundred thousand dollars which is in process generating a couple of reports including vras which is vulnerability risk assessments I also generated a lot of pictures a lot of evidence-based information to report to State and fed and not able to for for us to get that grant money and it was a collaborative effort between me other houses of worship um and also you know local PD and New Jersey

103office of Homeland Security so that's uh you know getting on the time timeline time schedule hey we have uh strict you know deadline okay the house of worship is open during Ramadan or some some other uh festivities so we have to work around and everyone is working on the house of worship specifically as a volunteer so it's very hard to collaborate but sometimes email work sometimes picking up a phone call text works creating a group chat so there shouldn't be an excuse for not communicating yeah as the role of a school board member um first as as you know as if I get to be this on the board to understand what's needed and I have a doer mentality so I just want to get work done put out contingencies okay we have plan a

104plan B plan C what works best and in what amount of money like we're talking budget right so in twenty five thousand dollars what could be more efficient and effective so we you know kill the bird with two stones not really literally but you know hitting the targets so that's my goal to understand to absorb what's needed and where how do we get there thank you again so you're getting a thing seven times thank you again for coming you're welcome um I think you've touched on this but can you please preview describe your previous Community or non-profit experience uh yes so as I mentioned you know recently I worked with the house of worship but also working at Interfaith advisory Council I get to hear issues like Hey we're having a vigil so my Approach

105being the youngest member when I joined Interfaith advisory Council was rather standing individual before that let's break bread let's sit together talk you know why so different when we're the same so um so let's break and I have an open door policy my neighbors leave their kids in my house you know because they're comfortable and I leave my kids to their house if something happens we communicate kids are kids yes security is important but at the same time people are also people emotions are there you know kids are there when whenever kids are involved emotions are there so we want to make Community a safe place utilize maximum funding that is available free you know if reports need to get made Let's make those reports if pictures need to be taken let's take the pictures

106specific events need to be held around the year let's do that for training purposes we offer them in houses of worship we also ask doctors that could be available in the house of worship especially during covid to send you know evites or you know e-scripts for blood work for covet testings for people who don't have insurance because they lost their job so you know bringing all the resources from everywhere and asking them hey could you please help in that situation so that's how you know this is going back to cover days but since covert is over whenever we need them we we utilize and we tap into those resources thank you oh thank you um what other areas would you like to strengthen in our district um don't say Transportation no no my uh so

107I I want to share this a little story um I grew up in Saint Thomas Virgin Islands fun place you know tourist place um but I also traveled the world I lived in Pakistan and I studied over there and I understood you know schools are losing their fun element learning isn't fun anymore it's getting stressful so the gentleman before that mentioned guidance council is is very important and after school is college the biggest thing whether it's student indebtedness because of student loans or it's just stress of college competitiveness um that's a real thing and then you have you know responsibility to pay off your loans can you afford to get a house or your car it's and right now to be honest student loans are at a higher rate than getting a brand new car

108so in a nutshell we want to make learning and schooling fun again that's my uh you know goal when students are having fun and they go back home tell their parents parents are happy okay um are you aware of the time training commitments and ethics law disclosures required for school board membership you are okay okay thank you thank you very much thank you thank you thank you um can you send in um Brady Dylan yeah yeah well that's fine too foreign but we will each ask you a question and then I would say like two to four minutes I'm not gonna stop you but you have seven questions to answer so that gives you like to keep going that's a point of reference Mr Alexis knows me okay so let's start with Karen please sure

109excuse me uh why do you want to be a member of this particular Board of Education prepared for that one so I do have notes on that one um well I have been a lifelong advocate for public schools I've you know Built My Career on advocating for public schools I am a board shirt by behavior analyst and what I've done in before I I've been a district behavior analyst for six years out of my career but I've primarily been a consultant in working with districts to build up their special education programs to keep kids in their local public schools to really help you know districts build up and expand their programs so that kids didn't have to be sent out of District I think it's really important to keep as many of our students whether

110they're neurodiverse or general education in you know with their community and you know especially small on Pre-K eight districts you know don't have as many resources and don't have as many programs so um you know being here in this in Long Hill and having previously worked in Watchung around the corner you know getting to know the communities in the sending districts and in this air area I really am passionate about you know working with the board and working with the district on you know providing services for this community and keeping as many of our students here in this um you know here in District and building up the programs um and also you know I've learned through the years in working in education that not all parental requests are reasonable um and that we need

111the board I think it's really important to really look at what some parental requests are and I feel like being on the other side and spending you know 15 plus years in public education I've been you know on that side of it I've helped write policies I've helped write curriculum I'm currently getting my Master's in educational leadership I've been on in teachers union I've also worked in positions where I wasn't part of the teachers union and saw some of the faults of teachers unions so I feel like I've um you know just been on any in which sides of public education but I'm also a parent of three young children the oils of which is four so not quite school age so I have three that are coming up and on the cusp of being

112in the school district so I really um kind of looking forward to being part of something that is going to be a huge part of my family's life and wanting it to be you know the best it can be I also know that you know we might not be the most culturally diverse Community but we are economically diverse and not all families have the ability to choose different options for their child's education so I want to make sure that the families that don't have any other option other than public school that our public school district is able to be comparable and you know meet the needs of the families that you know don't have any other options like I want our district to be just as good as any other you know private school Catholic

113School options in the area I don't want this to be just the only option that they have and have it be just like the second rate option I want them to be proud to send their kids to our Public Schools I want you know that I want us to have that reputation you know like the the Basking ridges in the Summits where you know you're moving here to choose to send your kids to Long Hill public schools um and that regardless of your financial abilities that this is where you know you're choosing to send your kids because it's you're gonna get an amazing education and you know we we're kind of on the cusp of that like it's you know people are still kind of making that choice of one or the other but I

114think that we really you know are are on the cusp of having people move here specifically for that and I really want to be part of that thank you um what specific skills would you bring to the board um well not only oh so like an example like from like a finance standpoint when I consulted with the East Orange School District over the course of two years I helped build up their autism program and they saved 1.8 million dollars over the course of two years um exclusively on the programs that I built in bringing back kids from out of district schools so I worked with the superintendent and the director of special ed and the two supervisors of special ed on really identifying what programs what staff training what program what um what staff to

115hire what programs to build and really just looking at what was feasible what their budget was and over so over the course of that two years that I consulted for them it was exactly 1.8 million dollars that the district was able to save in tuition that they were currently spending and transportation to send those students out of District so from a finance standpoint even though we're on a smaller scale I do know that we do have um you know students that are at not to say they shouldn't be but we can kind of look at our special education department and look at what our programs are and see if there's any ways that we can enhance programs that we do have and maybe meet needs of students that we you know are currently paying to

116send out I also think that from a policy standpoint the last time I was standing at a Podium I was actually also standing in front of Mr Alexis um pitching a policy revision um because I you know do have written policies in two different districts and I have pitched them to Boards of Ed and I'm very passionate about you know updating policies and you know ensuring that we are always meeting the needs of our students and our community and making sure that the policies are also in line with what's important to our families and our parents um I think that also getting opinions from you know from the parents and from the community members is really important but number one we have to make sure that the policies are in line with the most recent

117data and educational strategies because things you know being being an educator things are really changing so when it comes to the most recent information about how students learn you know the science behind different strategies and all of that like we really need to stay on top of that and I think that with my education and my background and my experience working in public school in all these different leadership and administration roles and you know being in on child study team I just think that I would kind of bring you know I guess experience to all those different types of committees thank you um could you please give specific examples of your experience working as part of a team I'm sure um well like I said so I've been part of the child study team for

11815 plus years the first seven years was as a consultant role so districts would hire me to come in and actually be a child study team consultant or consultant to um the like director of special ed and I would come in and I would you know do A needs assessment and then I would actually work with the leadership on you know what changes and things they can make and we would actually work as a team on that aspect and then I'm also a member of the Junior League of summit so I've been through a lot of you know leadership training and a lot of I'm on a you know committee there and I've been a committee chair there as well um so I did you spend part of actually my entire career has been being

119a member of a team I've never been in a a part of my career where I've had to work solo I've always had to be you know members of IEP teams members of you know staff meetings all those types of things I've never worked so low in anything I've done career-wise um or you know out doing like volunteer work I mean that's a huge part of what I do in my free time hi thank you for coming in of course what do you see as the role of a school board member well I think it's the liaison between the families and the community and the school district itself you know whether it's you know Mr Alexis the teachers there needs to be it's the it's the leadership that is you know making the decisions that

120is going to lead the direction of the school um you know as a board member you have to you know take away your personal biases whether it's for your own family or own children that are in the district and look at the overall picture of what is best for the community for all the students um so you really you know are taking on the responsibility of you know looking at whatever the decision is that's in front of you whatever the problem is that's in front of you and you know working with your other board members and colleagues and deciding what is best for all the students that are in the community um please in your own words describe your previous Community or non-profit experiences sure um like I mentioned before I'm a member of the

121Junior League of summit um in the June League of summit is a volunteer organization that works to empower leadership skills of women I'm a third generation member and um it's I've held leadership positions there and I you know it's um I mean it's monthly volunteer work and it's I go to leadership trainings and every single month there's a leadership Workshop I've been a member for seven years so that's that's a lot of leadership training as well and a lot of volunteer work so I'm very passionate about connecting with those women most of the women are also on other boards so that's another reason why I you know sought this out as well as utilizing that training really has motivated me to seek out you know being a part of a board and utilizing that training

122and realizing that even though there's a lot of very strong women on this board I think it's also important to you know have our voices be heard and you know kind of make our you know utilize skills that we have as women and and not kind of um you know to sit back and utilize social media in other ways I think it's kind of pointless so you know if we have strong ideas and make a point make a you know Make a Difference by getting out there and actually you know utilizing those skills thank you very much thank you what areas would you like to strengthen in our district um I so I was on the preschool committee actually with Danielle and um it was really eye-opening I think getting to know see it was

123like we focus a lot on um the grounds and the buildings and so there was a lot of discussion about um like what improvements we can make as far as maybe doing like a referendum or something about doing like an addition on Gillette or like where we could expand space so I think that um more discussions about Universal preschool is needed and what steps we would need to expand our preschool program I think that that was a discussion that I think got a little bit lost when um when you know Dr Mucci like left I think that that should be Revisited and how we can do that whether it's going to be using Community preschools or whether we are going to do an addition on Gillette or remove the first grade over and move you

124know there's so many things that we kind of I think had great ideas our committee had great ideas and I feel like the conversation kind of ended with just we're not going to do anything right now um so I'd like to reopen that conversation if I was a board member and you know possibly even like lead that discussion because I was so passionate about it and I was like where did you know where did the conversation go um I came from working I worked under actually Jerry clone she was my previous supervisor and then George was my next supervisor um in South Orange Maplewood and they have Universal preschool and they're up to something crazy like you know 38 preschool classrooms or something all over the community and so I have a lot of experience

125with universal preschool because I was there when they had no Universal preschool no preschool at all and then I was there when they had five preschool classrooms and then all the way through um so I've seen them build and then I moved to watch hog and you know they don't have the need for Universal preschool because it's so small um but you know that's that's something that I would love to be a part of and you know looking at that preschool piece um and then again also just because my passion is in special ed and just looking at that piece of how can we expand um or enhance our programs like now you know Jerry's been around for a couple years now and she's absolutely fabulous and I worked you know she was my supervisor

126for a couple years in South Orange Maplewood and you guys were you know amazingly able to get who you know George Alexis and Jerry who I think were like the two best you know supervisors I've ever worked for now you guys have this dream team put together um but now just trying to look at you know could we be a receiving district for other you know specialized students in a way to make money and like charge tuition is that a way that we could you know be a place where whether it's Watchung or Warren would want to send students to us and we could charge tuition because we have uh you know top of you know like an amazing autism program an amazing BD programmer you know a program that we're just known for being

127the best of something like let's be the ones that we are known for being the best um because right now it's you know working in the area I don't know what we're known for like it's in the special ed world like we're not known for anything and it's just being that that's my area of expertise like it's just nice knowing like we know you know Green Brook is known for their BD program it's known like county-wide that they're known for that um it's just it'd be it'd just be cool to be known that you're really awesome at something and that you're providing an amazing service to your local students and you're doing it really well and I think that not only is a great way to save money you can also make money that can

128you know offset the cost of say your preschool program um so it's like kind of all intertwined with my passions so okay um are you aware of the time training commitments and ethics law disclosures required for school board membership yes okay that's it thank you um would you mind sending Justin in for us please sure thank you so much thank you it's okay hello so we are going to ask each of you uh each of us is going to ask you a question um we have seven questions in total so you know and we think it'd be like two to four minutes two to three minutes per question okay okay but I'm not going to cut you off but just you know we're gonna start with Karen why do you want to be a member

129of this particular Board of Education yeah um so I just moved to the district probably about two years ago I have three kids a five-year-old who just started at Gillette a three-year-old and a one-year-old and I've always said I want to be part of whatever they're doing whether that be the PTO or the Education Foundation I've always felt that I want to give back I want to be part of whatever it is that they are a part of I want to show them that things don't just happen you got to earn them you got to work for them and so for me it's about showing my kids what it looks like to give back to a community that you take something from every time you go play outside every time you go play with a

130neighbor they're part of the community and you have to be part of building up and cultivating that Community as well thank you um what specific skills would you bring to the board yeah so I'm an HR executive at a mortgage insurance company and so I specialize in things like Talent acquisition executive recruiting diversity Equity inclusion Learning and Development HR Communications my resume Hall has all that so I think that when you think about the most important asset in this district is our teachers our Educators our staff our paraprofessionals that's the the human capital that we have to manage on a regular basis and we spend a lot of time on the financial Capital because that's important right that's important to the the taxpayers but also the the the function of those dollars into the human

131capital is what I do for a living and that's what I love to do how do you get the most out of people how do you make sure people are engaged how do you know how do you make sure people want to continue to show up and and invest in your child I think that's important and I think that's what I bring to to this board thank you um can you please give specific examples of your experience working as part of a team yeah yeah so I served on a board similar to this for six years the reason I left that board is I was term limited I was elected twice um I served and that was a fraternity board so served as with with brothers and and friends and sometimes those conversations uh got

132heated but we always said we're going to be courteous and depression and Urbane and deportment which basically just means that we have each other's back we're gonna we're gonna disagree because that's what makes a better product or services or service um and that team I was sad to leave right if that's not a board that you can continue to to operate on but you can take a break and come back that's that's one team that I say that I cherish and also taught me a lot um in my in my my short tenure and then I did some sports in in high school and things like that that I would draw back draw back to thank you come on time am I doing it thank you for that so what do you see as the

133role of a school board member yeah primarily um policy making an ear advisors to the superintendent and fiduciaries for the taxpayers those are those are the most important things but I would also say you know we most of us are at least I am a parent and we see the product and the quality of the product on a regular basis and I think it's important for us to speak to that as much as we can to the folks in the administration that we come in contact with and so primarily a policy making board a sounding board for the community for the parents to come in and share their perspective and for us to take action on that but policy making and an advisor to the superintendent are primarily thank you again please describe your previous

134Community or non-profit experiences yeah so I touched a little bit on the the board experience that I had that was non-profit we managed about 50 million dollars in assets and that's based in that's housing and that staff that staff was about um 60 people so staff was not quite as big as say the district but we had a 125 000 constituents 10 000 undergraduates and one of the things that we were focused on is bringing the cost of a fraternity experience down and so if you've ever been a fraternity and sorority member or even just some club members in in college they tend to be really expensive and so one of the things that was really important to us was access to those opportunities and so we were able to reduce the cost by a

135third to join our particular fraternity across Nationwide on average varied by chapter but that was really important because we were I would always call it service because we served at the pleasure of of our constituents who elected us to those positions and it was important that we continue to always have that in mind that we're here to serve I'm sorry what areas would you like to strengthen in our district uh one of the things that I think is upon us that we have to talk about and think about is things like generative AI chat GPT and things of that nature um I think there's two things that we need to think about when we think about those things one is the in classroom impact of that how do we know that our students are actually

136learning if they can type in the question to chat gbt and get a pretty reliable answer sometimes so I think that's one side of it academic integrity and how we're going to continue to manage that the other side of it is how do we get responsible use out of our staff faculty and administrative Personnel because I tend to believe generative AI is not going to replace a lot of people I believe that people who use generative AI are going to replace those who don't because I think those people are going to be faster more efficient more productive and I think we can be good for fiduciaries as well as good stewards if we educate our Workforce on the proper use of those tools and get the productivity impact out of it earlier than maybe some

137of our our peers are you aware of the time training commitments and ethics law disclosures required for school board membership yes so I am actually on the ballot in November um I was planning to to run and uh but this opportunity came up and so I decided to to see what came of it here but yes everywhere thank you um hey good evening hi okay so we each have a question for you okay and so we have seven questions in total and we're kind of saying like two to four minutes per question but I'm not going to cut you off but that seems to be working out for everybody great um okay let's start with Karen okay why do you want to be a member of this particular Board of Education so I have a

138second grader and a fourth grader at Millington I've been in education for 18 years now I'm in Summit at the board office you have my resume but um one of the things that's interesting and new to me in the state of New Jersey is that where I work is not where my children attend school and that's just how it was in the South and so it's um it's become challenging for me not to be involved in my children's education and I believe very deeply in service to my community I believe that as an educator I believe that as a mother I believe that as a community member and so in my opinion this is absolutely one of the best ways to give back and to be involved and to make positive change in a community

139is to serve on the board of education where not only my own children but everyone that exists in the community is learning and growing and they're going to stay here because this is a fantastic community and it seems to have long like generational roots and people come here and they stay here and so ensuring that they have access to an equitable and excellent education is um core to what I do but really to who I am thank you sure thank you um what specific skills would you bring to the board um so I think obviously my experience in education I've been in the classroom um and K-8 is my love so I'm not so much to high school um it's great too but um but really my my strength was in curriculum human resources at

140the elementary and metal level I've also served as a school administrator so I'm really aware of school-based issues that exist and commend ours we have a wonderful group of Administrators and then additionally I am aware of board and governance and and what it means to serve on a school board not only in how we interact with the community but how we interact with the stakeholders throughout and so I I do feel like I have extensive knowledge of curriculum Human Resources Personnel matters and something that I deal with in my job on a daily basis and so it's something that I feel like I would bring here I will also enter in that I am overseeing diversity equity and inclusion efforts in our school district and I think that um today that understanding how to um

141encourage and ensure access within a system has been it's it's different sometimes it's challenging to understand that it's an apolitical environment and education and that we really are and we are working to ensure that students have access to the learning standards and that's our job to keep them safe and to keep them whole and so um I think those are some of the things that I could bring to the table thank you please give it specific examples of your experience working as part of a team wow okay so I like that question a whole lot um I I funny when I when I have my new job I have an office and it's the first time I haven't been in a school building and so it was by myself a lot which was really uncomfortable

142um I'm a huge believer in collaboration and collaborative teams and um that kind of decision making so a specific example I think something recently that we did for our opening we had our opening day and our day back with our staff and um and so we really wanted to ensure that students were the focus of that so often we get lost in like the theory and the pedagogy that we really wanted to focus on students so um I worked collaboratively with our administrative team our Communications officer our superintendent and we put together a vision initiative and um every student by name by strength and by story and the trust like we we created a video the administrators talking about experiences they've had an education when they were in schools stories and kids and things that

143have touched their heart um and and really like focusing on the why so they had to be very vulnerable um I asked for a little bit of extra vulnerability in the video and so the trust that I think that we all had to build with one another to be able to um to make it what It ultimately was was huge so um I had to trust that everyone was going to take their piece and do do what they were supposed to do with it and they had to trust one another and the team that we were going to package what we were doing in a way that shined the light on them as they would want to be seen right and that was really important so I think it takes a long time to Foster

144and to build that and I think that those relationships have to be very intentionally but when they are built very intentionally like I have to say like really amazing things can happen and our opening was was something that I think is very special thank you what do you see as the role of a school board member I see the role of a school board member as um obviously the first and foremost governance and ensuring that students in the school district are um have access to an equitable and excellent education I understand that policy development is uh core to to what we do board members in partnership with the school district I think that um tonight is a really good display of what a school board has to do because these are the sort of situations

145that happen and um and are thrust upon us and sometimes like even the best laid plans um can have transportation issues and so in that the school board's role I appreciate the I can tell like there's a really good partnership here between the board and the district and I think that those Board District relations are super important and so ensuring that there is you know budgetary oversight policy development the health and safety of students Personnel really learning how to ask the right questions to assist and help a school district be the very best that it can be thank you for taking the time to hang around for a little while oh that's my kids are in bed it's fine yeah right they're asleep they're good but Dad had to do bedtime duty tonight please describe

146your previous Community or a non-profit experience could you repeat that for me please describe your previous Community or non-profit experience sure um so um I think I said before I Hill from Florida and um when I was in Florida I worked as a teacher in a school district and um we um I worked with the Union on a lot of fronts and so we did a lot of advocacy work we did a lot of work with our state legislators and lobbying and policy and sorts of those things but I think one of my favorite things that I did we had a um and I was on the Panhandle in Pensacola and so we we developed a youth like citizens board and so what we did is we had students from from a lot of different

147places throughout the county it was a very impoverished area and so we had students that lived like 12 minutes from the beach who never got to see the beach and so what we did is we took the citizen Advisory Board and we worked with the youth in our community to to come to school board meetings and to teach them the public speaking and community service skills in order to really like lead and grow and so whereas my job has taken I would say like Community work is ordinarily outside of that just been my job because I work with the community I think that that experience working with them there is something that I'm probably the most proud of and um but it's it's always with kids first and foremost thank you what areas would you

148like to strengthen in our district so I've been here unlike many of you from what I've heard I'm new to the area so we've been here about a year and a half two years and um and I think that this is a from everything that I find this is a very healthy school district um it's a very functioning School District um it doesn't appear to anything here that's broken and um but I would say and things that I would like to see strengthened um the the board goals and the district goals that pass tonight like are a really good step in the right direction like that movement towards student-centered and individualized education I think is really important um not just for my own children but for all children and ensuring that they have like rigor

149and relevance in school and so um I I would I would really I would really say that like a focus on I understand there's like a facilities upgrade and like those those pieces um are already in the works but just that Focus really on student-centered project and problem-based inquiry-based learning I think is um is is something that I see is on the radar but definitely something from my individual visual experience which I recognize is just my own something that I am encouraged to see moving forward in the district are you aware of the time training commitments and ethics law disclosures required for school board membership yes okay so we're just since you're the last person here we're going to move into closed session we go back there and then we're going to talk but then

150we're going to come back out so okay do you want me to communicate that message out there I got it I got it all right thank you all very much for it shall moved closed session to discuss the qualifications of candidates for the Board of Education vacancy action will be taken upon return s second second all in favor aye opposed abstention okay okay please there you go thanks Jack yeah okay we're back from uh executive session discussing the candidates for the Board of Education vacancy I want to thank everybody for your time and for your in interest you know for those that were not selected please come back again there's other ways to get involved and we'd be lucky to have um any one of you and has motion Kim I'd like to make a

151motion to approve Justin Foster for the vacant seat for the Long Hill Board of Education second second uh roll call please yes yes Mrs Daley yes uh Mr grosskoff yes Mrs McLennan Miss Nyquist yes missed Roblox yes and Mrs case yes so the board would like to thank all the candidates for coming out and being willing to support our schools in this way and congratulations to Justin for his selection tonight Justin will be sworn in at the beginning of our next public meeting on October 2nd 2023 the term will run from October 2nd 2023 until December 31st 2024. thank you thank you really thank you all [Applause] can I have a motion to adjourn all in favor any extension any nose any extensions okay thank you you guys didn't make it easy on us by

152the way so thank you all for your interest