Mahwah Board of Education Meeting February 17, 2021

001okay please note due to the government the current government declared emergency this meeting of the mall board of education will not be available for members of the public to be physically present procedures for members of the public that wish to participate including opportunities to email questions in advance of the meeting can be found on our website as an alternative to ensure transparency of board business and meet guidelines by the new jersey division of local government services the board meeting will also be available to the public via zoom the webinar id for this meeting is 850 and the required password is zero six seven seven nine four members of the public may also call into the meeting using the following telephone number 929 205 6099 during the public portion of this meeting members of the public

002will be given the opportunity to participate verbally with the board all participants must provide their name and address and are reminded to follow participation rules stipulated in the board policy zero one six seven can i get a roll call mr coplin here mr de silva here mr denise here mr gallow here miss conaco here dr morphy here dr park here mr cone and mr kazamarski here uh please rise for a salute to the flag if you would lead us the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all agenda questions please limit your questions at this time to resolutions under new business on this agenda as a matter of fairness you're asked to limit your question to no more than one

003and your remarks no longer than three minutes if you were here representing a group please identify yourself the group and your position in the group if you were here as an individual please give us your name and address this section of the public participation will be limited to 15 minutes please specify the resolution you are referring to in your question man please give me a motion to open the public with conoco and mr powell mr kuzmoroski at this time i have received some questions in advance from members of the public i also have some questions that have been submitted through the chat feature right now they are not related to the agenda uh so if you um like i will move them to the public session that is at the end of the meeting um

004feel free to one person okay we had one person had their hand raised i do have one um that i will uh open to allow them to speak to see if it's a question regarding the agenda um okay no there are no hands raised at this time again i have received questions in advance but they're not related to items on the agenda okay thank you okay seeing none at this time can i please get a motion to close the meeting to the public dr morty sorry conoco all right dr fitz do you have a report for us okay thank you very much let me report on students tonight i had the opportunity to spend the day in the high school and it was a delightful day to get a chance to see faculty to see

005students to see staff and to see how everyone is carrying out their work in such a thorough and efficient manner but i began to read announcements about kids and it really excited me it should excite you i'm just delighted to congratulate zachary hawk and oliver wayne they are the finalists in the 20-21 year competition for national merit scholarship awards that makes a statement about your school how kids are doing and we want more kids more kids and more kids to get these opportunities but here's the one that really caught my attention we have a student i don't have his name but i've gotten a notice from the air force academy because that office up the air force academy would like to make some comments at graduation so i've got to talk to the team and

006talk to john well we've got a kid that's headed to colorado i'm sure you've had other kids to go to other academies but i rejoice when kids pull down these kind of honors and bring this kind of recognition to a school district which we should all be proud of let me just go on move on to my next announcement this is the time of year that we have to start looking forward to the next school year no matter what it looks like and one of the things that's required of the school district is to publish its school calendar and so we are publishing our school calendar but i want to apologize first about the school calendar because it impacts on part of our community so we apologize for the current concerns related to the school

007calendar for the 22 school year that the first day of school is occurring on the second day of raj john it's regretful that we had to build a calendar around that but provisions can be made for people to get accommodations for the day that they would need to be out for a religious holiday thank you very much okay uh mr griezmann uh yes i do i have a handful of items to bring up tonight uh first is a change in the board of ed meeting calendar uh this was mentioned last meeting that we may have to adjust the calendar and speaking with the board of education and their availability uh we have made the decision to uh cancel the may 12th 2021 board of ed meeting that is going to be replaced with the meeting

008on may 5th um so we again we're removing the meeting originally scheduled for may 12th replacing with one on may 5th that will allow us to align with the calendar that's been given us to the by the new jersey department of education for the submission of the budget for the 21-22 year uh related to the budget to reiterate a couple things i mentioned at the last meeting the governor's budget address is scheduled for next week on february 23rd uh shortly after that address we typically relieve our state aid numbers which is one of the last pieces of the puzzle uh that we need for the budget to um uh compile it and put it together for the next school year i spoke with mr gallo and we're going to be meeting soon after with the

009finance and facility committee of the board to discuss the budget for the next year uh the dates have not changed for the preliminary budget submission the first presentation for members of the public will be march 17th that's going to be our submission of the ca of the budget to the county and a final adoption of the budget is scheduled again for may 5th we were contacted by the mahwah library regarding a uh expansion of the parking lot that they are considering to do on their property uh will uh impact um and is right up against where our property is who joins the mahwah library property behind the cfa building so wanted to bring to the attention of the board uh that that they have reached out to us and we're having discussions about the proper

010way for them to expand their parking lot near our property uh thanking mr gallo who met with me and um mr hadler the director of the library last week to go over the particulars of the project uh broadcasting of sports games this was brought up the last two board meetings i want to thank mr pascal and mr pelletier and just give an update to the board as well as members of the public that that is now active in live please go to the athletic department's website on the um our webpage on the mawa website for information on how to access and view uh sports sporting events that take place in our gymnasium uh two last items one is just another thank you once again to our maintenance builders grounds and soil staff for all the

011hard work they've been doing this summer we're not out of the woods yet we still have some more snow expected and on the way uh cannot thank them enough for their efforts to keep the parking lots the walkways stairs safe for the students and staff coming in and out of schools and lastly there were two additional items added to the agenda after the agenda was posted publicly for members of the public so i just want to highlight those two items from the benefit of the members of the public since they were not on the verge of the agenda that was posted earlier uh the first item is item 15f london p meadows chile replacement final payment application resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools the mama board of education approves the final

012application for payment in the amount of thirty seven thousand five hundred eighty-five dollars and eighty-seven cents to see doradine company incorporated for the chile replacement project at lenovo middle school new jersey state project number two nine zero and the other item that was added is item 16e submission or approval of an fmla leave of absence resolve that upon the recommendation superintendent schools the model board of education approves the leave of absence for employee 9560 effective march 3rd 2020 to may 7th 2012 i'm sorry march 3rd 2021 to may 7 2021 using 39 to have sick days and two and a half personal days and fmla concurrently from march 3rd 2021 to may 2021. uh those are the two additional items that were added to the agenda after it was posted this is market thank you

013very much thank you reporter um assistant superintendent report mr fair are you out there yes can you all hear me okay yes all right so um this evening my colleagues and i prepared a short introduction of some of our ideas related to what phase two could potentially look like so i'm going to share my screen can everyone see that all right great okay so last time we formally presented to the community and to the board of ed it was in august of 2020 and as we started that presentation we must again uh provide admission that we do not have all the answers and quite admittedly that is really hard to say um it's a tough place to be in for us and that includes all of us our administrators our teachers our professionals our parents

014and our students but i'd like to preface our presentation um by just sharing uh our gratitude and respect for the work that our administrators our teachers and our students are doing um every single day i think it's really important that we don't forget that piece um because that's the reason uh our work has been so successful so what we what we will be sharing this evening is rooted in potential solutions as we review what phase two could potentially look like um and in reviewing some local data we're at this place because our covid cases locally have significantly improved so this is the timeline thus far it's looked like this so while we anticipate a review of phase two back in november the number of covet positive cases significantly increased in the fall so throughout this

015time we have reviewed cdc guidance department of health guidance and department of education updates regarding coven 19. uh and we've also learned within the school uh how everything operated and we work through our hybrid and fully remote instructional programs to the best of our ability so the key elements that root our work and are reopening in september still remain as we review what phase two will look like but we must keep in mind uh as we review this guidance the coven 19 pandemic is not over and so our planning requires us to look at safety and wellness of our staff and students when looking at potential solutions for the increase of on-site learning as recent as february 12th we received guidance from the federal government that was labeled the operational strategy for k-12 schools through

016phased mitigation and these actions are essential to maintaining the wellness and today our staff and students are successfully participating in universal and correct use of masks the physical distancing and when we're not able to physically distance the use of plexiglas hand washing and respiratory respiratory etiquette signage and floor markings cleaning and maintenance of healthy facilities and ultimately contact tracing this has all been deemed as the mitigation strategies most recently encouraged by the document of february 2021 in addition to that was a discussion about vaccinations obviously and continued um testing of students and or faculty we know that the recent media has been emphasizing double masking and we've not yet embraced this as a requirement we recognize that the potential for an increase in the school day will result in longer mass use by staff and

017students so it is a portion of our program that we're reviewing and considering as we discuss phase two so a big piece of the mitigation strategies is placed in our contact tracing process um it's an important aspect related to school operations and keeping everyone safe so at a board meeting uh this past fall we presented what our process looks like logistically so that's on the right hand side of your screen and um we've we've talked about the 48-hour investigative window and our decision making when we conduct contact tracing and we have a school closure for any amount of time we are working a central office in partnership with our administrative team at the building level we are working with our school nurse or district physician and of course our our local department of health um

018we shared an email notification that we've also created the kobit 19 dashboard which is found on our reentry website and uh here uh it's here the the late the hyperlink here um which will be available after this meeting is over we will place this on our website this link provides all of the data related to our coveted positive cases so um our covered 48-hour investigative window remains a mechanism that allows for thorough contact tracing but as we have seen there there have been cases where we are able to complete the contact tracing under 48 hours and in those cases we are able to resume in-person learning sooner than 48 hours but we have found that this 48 hours has been a really good buffer in some instances in speaking to some parents um just informally

019uh there have been parents who have asked me why do we close the building every time there's a coveted positive case for two weeks um we based on the specifics of the case uh we've had 51 total number of cases in our district uh we've which resulted in a two-week classroom closure um four times a two week school build building closure five times um that was our first time at betsy ross school we had two times at uh rampu ridge middle school and two times at mawa high school and then our two-day investigative window occurred five times so based on this the specifics of the case uh there were 37 uh clue there were 37 investigations that didn't result in any sort of closure and as you can see um it's been a learning process

020for all of us as we moved throughout the school year so um as we're looking at the investigation we're looking at which classrooms are being shared right so we often find that at the secondary level the contact tracing may take longer than when the students are only using one classroom you look at students or staff members class schedules we look at extracurricular activities of those support in the district and those outside of school whether in the township or in another town we look at transportation we look at bus seating we look at involvement with other schools and we also look at siblings and family members so we try our best and i think we do our best to do a really thorough job when it comes to contact tracing and i believe that we've gotten

021better at it as time has moved on throughout this beginning of the school year mike you're muted as mr fair shared um back in october uh towards the end of october beginning of november we sent out a survey uh to to all of our stakeholders our parents our teachers our students just to understand how re-entry went uh with that information we wanted to start to to craft a plan of what's next um and obviously uh the numbers spiked uh over december and january um and it really put us in a paused position that's something that we reached out to other districts they were in that same holding pattern um that being said uh now that the numbers are coming down thankfully uh inoculations are are being distributed uh throughout the state we felt it was

022a very important time to start to put some sort of plans in place to consider um we wanted to take the same uh informed approach that we had in phase one and we didn't want to put together a plan that that is uh rushed or misinformed so we wanted to make sure that we're looking at all three aspects of our re-entry that we had back in august which obviously is that instructional uh umbrella the social emotional umbrella and the facilities food services and transportation umbrella and breaking that down and we'll be talking about that over the next couple of slides when you look at instruction there's a number of different aspects of instruction when you start to look at adjusting plans especially mid-year they're scheduling ramifications that need to be looked at along the lines

023of how do we adjust our schedule mid-year and how does that impact our students our families our teachers um and other parts of our of our functioning the classroom set up if by chance we are looking to increase capacity or whatever it may be how does that impact the way that we set up our classrooms and and what types of ppes would be needed if we are considering that um remediation what we put about that is specific to if we do increase time in school um are there opportunities for us to embed uh additional support for our students to continue to build their foundational skills we are still committed to providing professional development to our teachers as mr fair said in the beginning we are extremely grateful for the effort that they have put in

024in such an unusual time um they have taken everything that we've asked of them and put it into place i mean they've been very successful with it and we are very grateful about that but we know that that professional development can't just stop here there's ongoing supports that need to be put in place for them special education related services that really falls under the umbrella of scheduling because there are a number of different aspects of their day that need to need to be attended to and different services and support agencies that we need to engage to make sure that they're able to provide them with support down in social emotional learning that's been a commitment that we've had since the beginning of the year for not only our staff but our students as well we've

025been trying to put forth different experience for our staff that they could take care of themselves because that's that's extremely important um we can't take care of others until we take care of ourselves um also there's been a focus on our students we know that this is a different difficult time for everyone i've talked to a number of parents and i understand as a parent of three children that this is a very difficult uh situation for them uh the in and out um the the remote uh the in school uh it's not the norm and and we know that that impacts them so we have been committed to keeping an eye on them talking to parents talking to our counselors and providing supports where appropriate we have a parent academy coming up um i see

026there are a number of people on the board meeting so it's a perfect time to plug parent academy next week um this is an opportunity for us to provide supports to our community along the lines of engaging in productive online learning and virtual learning i'm gonna get right ahead of it obviously we want our kids back in but that our current reality uh doesn't necessarily allow for it so virtual learning is something that we are engaged in and we want to provide supports for something like that kyle facilities yes um under facilities there are a couple of different areas the first being transportation obviously some of the things to consider and look at for transportation are both the number of seats that are available on the bus as well as an availability to have proper

027distancing on the bus as well as the drop off and pick up locations at our schools we also note that since we students came back in september there's been an increased number of parents dropping off their students at the school so we want to make sure we have uh things in place for uh the bus drop-offs by buses as well as for student parent pickups and drop offs too student flow entry eggs in common areas this encompasses our hallways and cafeterias and proper use of those spaces and in the hallways making sure that we're providing again distancing and um proper pathways to get from one spot in the school to the other cleaning protocols and schedules i want to again give a thank you to our custodial team and maintenance team have done a great

028job uh since september keeping our buildings clean and and safe and providing a good environment for the students and for the staff uh we're going to look at those as well to see where we can improve upon them and lastly food services we still have waivers from the federal government to provide a school lunch for free at no cost to all students in the district regardless of your income level regardless if you qualify and apply for the free reduced lunch we need to continue to make that commitment to our students and see that they are receiving the meals that they are permitted to have through food services um along the lines of of what are possible solutions and i gay again i say this uh very carefully because these are are things that we are

029starting to discuss and nothing has been finalized just yet part of this process is to gather information from surrounding districts we have had a number of phone calls with uh superintendents in a number of districts and we've also been fortunate enough to be provided by the bergen county um superintendent association they just recently put out a survey um about 21 districts answered that survey and that survey was asking things specific to schedule um in school experiences virtual experiences the length of the day and this is all these are all things that we're going to utilize when we do start to work with our different committees when i say committees each school the administrators have asked a number of teachers in each school to sit with them and start to look at different options for us

030to consider along the lines of the possibility of increasing seat time for our students i wanted to share a couple of those ideas and i'm saying initial ideas nothing that has been formalized just yet but things that when you talk about changing schedule these would be the things that you speak of so when you look at the elementary our current elementary model is an am and a pm what that does is that creates the the experience of half of our students coming in at am and the other half coming into pm now to adjust that there needs to be some significant changes it's either that we can go full day a day and b day with the same split um cohorts that would includes a couple different challenges the first challenge that will include which

031makes a number of uh people in our district but also in our surrounding districts pause is the uh the opportunity to embed lunch in the day the the idea of dropping masks and what other measures need to be put in place to ensure the safety of all those things have to be considered so that's something that is a point of challenge for that specific schedule when looking at um having our remote students each day for a compressed schedule let me explain what that means that means at the elementary level we're in the process of gathering the numbers um in each cohort the am cohort and the pm cohort and seeing what it would look like if we brought them in for a truncated day i'm having them come in let's say for uh from a

032nine o'clock to a one o'clock and don't hold me to the to the times i'm just putting it out there or an 8 30 to a 12 30. what does that mean along the lines of population what are what would what would that impact along the lines of distance of desks what types of ppes would need to be included um if we do choose to go in that direction so those are the ideas that we're looking at at the elementary level but there are more ideas i'm sure that are being discussed in the different committees at the secondary level they're very similar at the secondary level we have a day b day already established so what would it what would it be like if we had them full day again we have the challenge of

033lunch um and i have to say when looking at the the surveys of the 21 districts only only two districts had lunch embedded in their schedule um it's not something that districts are taking on um around around our our county there might be one or two that that that's reported back but it does create challenges that we need to talk through to see if we're comfortable going in that direction um again the second option is the idea of taking a look at the numbers of each section in each period to see what would that be like if we brought a day and b day together each day and have them in each day for the five days uh what i can tell you is one of the questions that i was asked in the past

034which i'm sure some of you will ask which is a good question is um what are our numbers for our remote students our fully remote students really how does that have an impact on our schedule as it stands right now we have 26 of our elementary students are fully remote and and 46 of our secondary students are fully remote so those are the numbers that we have to use when we're taking a look at if we do decide to bring the two cohorts together um so i wanted to be very clear with what that looks like other conversations that i've had in the past revolved around virtual wednesdays again going back to the conversations i've had with the superintendents and the surrounding districts virtual wednesdays are virtual mondays or virtual fridays or things that a

035number of districts are using but full disclosure it really varies so there's there are um probably about a third of the districts um that reported back so i want to be very clear of the 21 a third of the districts um do a virtual day each week so oftentimes they have people come in eight uh monday tuesday virtual wednesday thursday friday other districts have virtual wednesdays or virtual days two times a month there are other districts that have virtual days one time a month and there are districts that do not have virtual days at all let me talk to you a little bit about our virtual wednesdays and i'm going to go back to what we spoke about um in august virtual wednesdays serve a number of different purposes i know what people um understand

036and i respect that is the the idea of the deep clean obviously that is important but virtual wednesdays also take on a role along lines of supporting our admit our our teachers and our administrative team and what i mean by that is there are a number of opportunities that we've been able to provide to our staff along the lines of professional development for them to start to employ different instructional strategies that they've never been asked to employ before and as i said before they're doing a great job doing um there are also times that we use virtual wednesdays specific to academics and and and how it impacts our students aside from a professional development is that the state put together something called a learning accelerated guide uh a 21-page document on how are we going

037to support our students to the learning loss that could have occurred from march to june and also with the truncated schedule that we have ever since september so those times we are working with plc's with our teachers our teachers are leaning on each other along the lines of what ideas they're putting in place with curriculum pacing and instructional strategies they're also talking in teams about identifying students that need support so those times and virtual wednesdays are definitely not a day off but definitely a day on uh for our staff members when you look at the productive work and the product that we're trying to put out here in mawa again uh i'm i'm going to be very clear and transparent that that's not a standard across all all districts that's why i tried to give

038you the numbers specific to one day two times a month one time a month or not at all but i felt like it was important for me to share the purpose and work of that of that time um last but not least is is is snack um i i know i spoke about lunch already in the first two bullets but i want to talk about snap that is something at first we were surprised about which was a conversation that was that was discussed but it's a very real concern along the lines of the the time in school um from from the morning to the afternoon obviously our initial reaction is well they can have breakfast and lunch but if we decide to extend a day for um for our students it's something that we need

039to continue to consider um i can tell you now we got a great recommendation um by by one of the stakeholders that we we spoke to which we greatly appreciate of talking about utilizing the outside space to have snap so that's something that obviously we're always concerned about when we drop our mask and how long does it drop for and what are we doing when our mask just drops but it serves two purposes of being able to utilize outdoor space space outside and and be able to to take part in snack at that time so i just wanted to share that with you can you i mean dennis can you turn slack so quarantining is part of a layer of strategies that we spoke about earlier that affords us the greatest amount of protection for

040our staff and students and i know for most of us we're going to walk away from this experience having some degree of disdain for the notion of 14 days but really the cdc guidance on quarantining is up for local interpretation and enforcement and the reduction of the overall time in quarantining was really put out by the cdc and described as a means in which to ensure that organizations had work force present in order to meet the needs of their clients or their or other population and we really believe strongly that as a mitigating factor the use of quarantining um is really essential to maintaining the wellness of our of our students and while we take a conservative approach more often than not um we are open to looking at all aspects of quarantining particularly relative

041to travel however we are going to remain cautious and be attentive to that right now recently in our district we've had several instances in which students were ending their quarantine window and had it been shortened they would have entered the school building unwell and or positive so several of our older students in particular and we've discussed this with medical staff emerged positive um as late as day 12 and day 11. go ahead dennis you've also heard about various streams and you know this is a virus we we unfortunately are still learning about so that's inclusive inclusive of how long it takes for the human body to shed the virus so our conservative approach of 14 days just ensures that much more safety for anyone who is returning to the school building whether that's a staff

042member or a student and while they have recently released guidance relative to those who have fully been vaccinated until our faculty is invited to that vaccination line and deemed eligible um outside of extraneous circumstances um we really can't even implement the notion of uh altering quarantine based on vaccination we just don't have the number of faculty who are eligible and while we are doing our due diligence to reach out and advocate for our faculty relative to their opportunity for vaccination we're not even at the stage in which the dialogue around so now i'm vaccinated what does that mean for me can even take place for us we get to the reentry website i just think this is an appropriate time to give a shout out specifically to our school nurses all seven of our school

043nurses have been um the bearers of all of this news and uh we also uh appreciate their medical guidance along the way so as we have shared we have a reentry 2020 website that is constantly updating so our re-entry plan once we have final details related to phase two um our lengthy document will be that much more lengthy um all of our communications related to covet 19 and anything related to either of our instructional programs will be listed there i mentioned the covet 19 dashboard which is updated every time there's a copic positive case dr toro that's me that's me it took me a while to get to the mute i apologize so along the lines of what's next um obviously as i said we're we're starting this process we're engaging the teachers at the

044school level um but we're also interested in identifying information from people outside of those committees again like we did in the past it was over the summer in our october or in october we got great feedback from our parents and our community members as well as the teachers and the students so that's something that we're committed to to to moving forward with of gathering that information of you know what what are the questions what are the concerns um if by chance we do go in this direction what are some things that that would make people feel comfortable um so those who are being created and it's my hope that we will be sending them out either by the end of this week or the beginning of next week so please keep an eye out for

045that uh we will continue uh to hold uh stakeholder meetings whether that's with our teachers um whether that's with the parent advisory committees um or the other committees that we have worked with in the past um we are going to once we do get some sort of understanding of what is next um we got great feedback from the virtual office hours with the building level principles and also our creation of any additional faqs to to identify any areas of question concern um and provide clarity where we think it's most appropriate now last but not least i think it's important for us to just say thank you to everybody um i know we we said thank you to our teachers but i do want to want to thank our parents um our parents since the beginning

046uh put their trust in us with the students coming in um we we take that very seriously and that's why we're trying to be as informed as possible in any additional step um that we take um obviously we said thank you to the teachers but their commitment to us um is second to none and i hope that they understand that we're going to do this the right way and and really think about what what's appropriate for for all those involved we ask the community that's really to continue to be vigilant in making safe choices because that community impact uh comes into the school and then has a direct impact on the way that we function as a school community um i am very much aware that i can't make statements outside of the school walls

047i'm just asking for consideration because what happens outside is then coming inside and we are are trying to do our very best to to provide the best educational experience for all of us um again thank you to all those who i've spoken to on the phone um all those who have emailed please know that we take your your feedback very seriously and we will continue to reach out and provide the clarity that we think will allow the parents the parents and community to feel informed okay thank you very much for that presentation um i'd like to open it up to the board uh if they have any questions with regards to the presentation we've seen or reopening plans in general uh mr gallery um one of the struggles i know or challenges we've had in

048the reopening is dapping and perhaps maybe dennis or one of the other team members could address some of the lessons learned and some of the challenges we have with staffing in a covet environment staffing has um definitely been a challenge but we have been um in every building very creative so um our parents on on the zoom right now um they probably have heard about a substitute being in the room and a teacher resuming from home because they were they either need to quarantine um or isolate for any reason um so we have graciously uh because the the board uh voted this through um we've been able to get substitutes because we've increased that rate and we haven't we haven't closed down a building because we weren't able to staff it so um we've just

049been creative thank you dennis anyone else from the board oh sorry i didn't see your hand out there brad go right ahead uh thanks everyone for the presentation appreciate the uh all the work i had a question regarding quarantining uh specifically lisa you presented so i'll present i'll ask you the question if you don't mind um in regards to expanding the cdc guidelines which are you know seven 10 days however you want to read it was it our decision meaning that the district decision to expand it or is it the local health department that's giving us guidance to expand it to remain at the 14 days well um the decision is not made unilaterally by a group of educators um as you know we've gained medical knowledge along the way by the connections that we've

050made within the community and via our own um district physician so ultimately when we reviewed everything with the school nurses they are our first line of defense and provided recommendations and and guidance to us and then we in turn share that with our district physician and or we also look at what's taking place in the district itself relative to health and wellness we have to bear in mind that as an organization to have a scattered approach does no one any good and so we tried our best to develop a systemic approach a consistent number so that we were error-free or error-less in our decision-making and our number counting and so that um in the absence of us being on the dialogue the nurses or the building administrators were able to comfortably follow um a table

051that we devised with the nurses and the physician so it was it was a collaborative effort based on all of those factors and let me just can't hear you dennis you're muffled i i also want to add add to that piece because i think that the example the very real example that miss rizzo has shared where we've had we've had students or staff who were required to quarantine and the 10th day the 10th or 11th day they contracted the virus so again we don't know how long it takes for the viral load to shed because this virus we don't know everything about so for us because we need to maintain the safety health and wellness of all of our staff and students we feel most comfortable remaining conservative with the 14 days and also keep

052in mind you know miss rizzo is right we're not making these decisions in a vacuum as educators i often joke around i'm i'm a i'm a guy with an english degree so i um i i go to our district physician and we consult with all the medical professionals to make sure that we're making every right decision in the interest of every single staff member and every single student denise yeah hi um dr detero had mentioned um have an additional stakeholder meetings and he specifically mentioned parent advisory committees um i think it'd be worthwhile to have this newly um parent group that's concerned about reopening have them involved in this process as well along the lines of people who are who are involved mr denise you're absolutely right we want to hear from um all of

053the parents to be quite honest with you um the the the use of the parent advisory council um is really for a number of different things um and that's why i didn't want to leave any parent um out that's why the survey is going out um but along the lines of of what parents are on the committee i'm not the group you're speaking up um i've spoken to a couple of them but i don't know exactly who's on there but that's why i think the survey is something that can be a broad stroke everybody gets a chance to share all their information and what they would like to contribute specific to either we want to come back in or there are other parents that saying if you decide to increase my my kids are not

054coming back in so there are a number of parents on both sides to be quite honest and we wouldn't hear from all of them um my question uh is to the group and again thank you for um all the hard work that all of you are doing and looking at all of these issues for us and i just wanted to get a sense of you know sort of surveys meetings you have a number of factors you have to look at in terms of a preparation for this um uh dr datturo or or perhaps um mr fair or miss rizzo could just is there any sort of a timeline in your mind that you're working with i know i'm not trying to put anyone on the spot um i think these are just questions that you

055know our community is kind of thinking of look we could keep meeting we could you know what specific factors might you guys be looking for to say hey we've reached the point that we could consider entering phase two um so you know just loose loose i'm not not holding you to it well i i i i completely appreciate it and and asking it in front of 95 people is very loose but i'm going to go with it dr morgan um here's what i can say in all seriousness um i think it's extremely important um you know my my my hope i'll speak for myself i'll put myself out there my hope is that we can have something in place before the end of the third marking period that's a big hope and let me tell

056you why it's a big hope which i didn't get into in the presentation but i think it's important i'm glad you brought that up there are so many different aspects of this planning process that needs to be thoroughly vetted number one is transportation ramifications which doc with kyle spoke about earlier you know we have contracts already in existence with all of these vendors we have to identify what a plan is and then go to them and see if they can accommodate number two once we do have a plan that we feel is a is is effective we then have to buy ppe's in order to do it now i know a question is gonna be why don't you have it already because the current plan that we have in place doesn't call for additional ppe's

057and the pps that i'm referring to are the or the desk shields the desk shields if we do if we do go in that direction uh our significant cost to the district we have to identify what vendors can accommodate it and what the lead time is for that specific ppe and we're not talking about let's just get a hundred we're talking about can we can we acquire 1500 desk shields up to 2800 desk shields so there are a number of different aspects along the lines of rolling it out i also want to make sure that we are talking to all the people involved and we're not forcing something through just to get to an ending because what what we did right the first time is we were able to be thoughtful about this and i

058know in the back of everyone's mind and me as a parent i think the same thing is like i just want my kid back into school and we do too but at what cost so we need to make sure that we're doing it in a right way that ensures that we're putting everybody in the safest safest situation possible so i'm going to go back to it again my hope is by the end of the third marking period i can't promise that and and and feed to the fire it could depending on all the different factors could get pushed but we are working tirelessly i can tell you it's not something that we have on a meeting agenda once a week it's all encompassing every single day that we're meeting with our principals vendors we we're

059starting to talk with the teachers which i'm excited about and we're putting together surveys so we're working it's just i know that everyone's timeline is is yesterday and i get it and i respect it like when is the end of the third marking period i'm just curious um i know you're going to ask me that it's either april the 12th or april the 19th okay thank you thank you now i gotta check the calendar i'll i'll go back and look brett's reason is here and one more um actually i have a question please i'm playing i'll jump in here once in a while you know thanks um i i guess this question is probably for i think dr dittora will take it but um i've asked it before but i think with the amount of

060members of the public here and interested in this very topic that you know we as we as parents on this board are very interested in as well um the the concerns of the mental health of our children um and and what we're doing to i guess i identify issues or or identify you know situations going on or concerns that are that are had if not just by the parents but by teachers or administrators and you know what's being provided for them what's going to be provided for them as they return and return to in full-time instruction um hopefully you know before next year but uh i i i'd just love to hear uh you speak to that a little bit for for us and the group uh assembled so there there are a couple things

061um that we did and please ms rizzo jump in because this was something that you were the spearheaded in in the re-entry starting back in august and into september um there are supports that we trust we provide to our staff um via email along the lines of different types of activities that they can embed into their everyday class specific to mindfulness um and and social emotional learning that's also specific to them as well um also we have uh we have a connection with mindful practices that we've provided pd throughout the year on a number of occasions um to to our staff members again to provide on well i wouldn't say on-site training because it's you know um uh training to our staff along the lines of what how they can create their classroom uh that

062allows for this type of environment to to be established especially with all the different obstacles that we have in front of us that's that's the the pd side of it the uh the the observation side of it is that lisa and her team as well as uh the guidance department are working with the staff on what they see what they hear what they think is happening with the students whether it's do their their personal check-ins with them or what their observations are of the students in the class that's also coupled with communication at home it's it's very important for our parents to to to partner with us of what they see at home and and are their concerns and we act and will act accordingly so it's really a a number of different aspects coming

063together to make sure that our kids and our teachers are well um because we know that this environment is challenging for everyone whether it's the things that are occurring at home and how they're dealing with that along the lines of all the challenges that this epidemic brought to us at home or the inconsistency of of of of our our normal schedule of of the past and how this is impacting our students here um and and and also you know as much as we we we're glad that we we have sports here you know things like us a team going in the quarantine you know that impacts the athletes there too and that's where we lean on our coaches uh to really have the pulse of that group and and if by chance additional measures and

064supports need to be put in place we can do that as well so to be honest with you um mr bismarck this is something that is an ongoing focus i'm not gonna sit here and say that we have every single answer and we're open to to all the other ideas that that are put in place because we want to do right by our staff and students a large component though to the sel right now is um focusing on community building and that came about through the parent advisory committee that said please find opportunities for our children to just relate to each other on camera and not about academics and so one of the things that we threw out to the administrative team and the therapeutic team was jump on zoom just to say hi to

065people so we have school therapists we have um counselors just connecting with students on on the on the human level and not solely about academics each building has put in place we are already on top of so we are attending to how can we do a prom what can a prom look like how can an eighth grade dance what can that look like so all of those activities have been funneled in and um dr dettoro may recall but he had an amazing yet intensive encounter with the child study team therapeutic component in which they just bombed him with all of their ideas that um they are waiting to have fruition so while he's giving a public service announcement for the most coming of the parent academies um the therapeutic team is chomping at the bits

066to do a parent academy um in which he attends to um provide parents with just the relief to know we get it it's not easy to be a parent to support the school system in the way that you are to deny certain social rights of passages for your children for the sake of health and wellness so we recognize that our therapeutic obligation exists beyond our youngest citizens and also translates into our parent population as well if my social emotional committee had it their way the new time built into the into the schedule would be devoted solely to social and emotional so we're trying to find that balance mr kasmarsky thank you very much more questions there we go uh thanks uh miss rizzo thanks for the shout out for the snowman building contest we're having

067number three starting tomorrow so thank you um presumptuously sir of uh the spirit cohort i wanted to bring this up uh we didn't address it in the presentation the spirit cohort has gotten the short end of the stick this month february obviously we can't control the weather but it seems like mother nature has a target for that cohort and has dumped snow on us every time these kids are supposed to be in the building are there any plans to kind of adjust the schedule to get them into the building i think at most recent count i think the spirit cohort at the ridge has been in the building maybe once this month i may be off but i think it's been only one time are there any plans right now in the in the in

068the immediate future quite honestly to um adjust the calendar cohort calendar to allow these kids to get into the building i i can speak to that um let me let me preface it with obviously anytime we do a close we don't take it like um we asked mr corey to run the numbers on the pride and spirit breakdown because we we have heard from one group that says that they they have not been in as much as the other group and i and i get it um the actual numbers year to date i can give you and i am i don't i'm not saying anything about the number that you gave mr coplan but it's it's it's 26 to 24. so i do understand it's impacted one group this month and i'll take that lightly

069um we're looking at um we're looking to make sure that there's not inequities from one group to the other group um but to answer your question we do not have a plan in place right now um because of that number of the differential of two days um again i'm not saying that that's you know obviously the idea would be 50 50. um but we do as of right now we're not working on a schedule to bring them back in to offset those dates uh this is a quick question for mike i just wanted to follow up on the stats you had for fully remote uh elementary and fully remote uh secondary i had heard 26 fully remote for elementary and 46 for secondary did i get that correct mike yes you did i i think

070i know your follow-up question so i'm trying to grab that information bye where were we in september oh i don't have that i don't have that answer i i i could have sworn i was going to get the answer before you no i don't i'd to be honest um uh mike what's happening right now is that there's always variations in the numbers we have kids coming in we have kids going out and those and those numbers uh fluctuate and and honestly it seems like it there's there's really no rhyme or reason um what i can say is there have been parents espec specifically at the secondary level who have shared when they do go remote that that they felt there was inconsistency um and they wanted to to go out because of that um but

071along the lines of the actual numbers um it when you average it out and again again i have to pull up the numbers one more time when you average it out i think we're hovering probably around around 35 across the district um and and and that's not far from our initial number i can't give you the exact breakdown elementary to secondary but i i'm pretty sure when we came out in september september um the number for remote hovered around so there hasn't been a spike or a decrease either way um but i but name for name i can't give you a specifics yeah my recollection two is 30 in um in september district wide enough yeah i i was somewhat taken aback by the uh the larger number on the secondary side so i could

072i could speak to that for one second mike um i think what what happens is is because and there's a number of factors of why this schedule's the way it is i think their ability to zoom into the class um allows for them to feel like they still got the classes they still have their their student uh their their friends in that class so that that that ability allows them to feel comfortable going in and out and obviously it's depending on the family there are some kids who are more comfortable remote and some kids who really uh thirst for that in school experience i can speak for my student my kids my kids love being in school so they they they enjoy that in school experience but i think the schedule the way that secondary

073is allows for that number all right anyone else okay thank you very much for that presentation uh moving along president's report i have uh no report this evening uh we'll certainly get into committee reports and i know there'll be questions from the public i'm sure board committee reports from anybody matt park technology yes um this past week the technology committee met with carlos rosa and ruth davis um they wanted me to thank all of the teachers across the district for them for the wonderful job they have done adapting to all kinds of new technological circumstances since the beginning of the pandemic to now i also want to thank carlos and ruth for their hard work on the one-to-one initiatives and also of their support of instruction and especially their support of parents who might have

074been struggling with technology and wi-fi issues at home and finally i really want to praise the digital safety and citizenship initiatives that have been put into place regarding technology great thank you dr park any um brett okay community relations committee we uh met recently and discussed the priorities for this year and one initiative that came out of it is what we're calling our community corner um basically what we're going to be doing during these reports once a month maybe twice a month is to highlight and recognize events holidays special accomplishments awareness months that are impacting our community so with that being said i'm going to jump into february i want to wish everyone a who celebrates a very happy lunar new year and here's a little fun fact the lunar new calendar is associated with

07512 animal signs in chinese zodiac so every 12 years is regarded as a cycle this year is the year of the ox and next year will be the year of the tiger today's ash wednesday i want to wish those that celebrate a very blessed ash wednesday as dr detturo mentioned earlier the next parent academy supporting virtual learning at home is scheduled for february 24th so please keep an eye out for info in addition to february being black history month it is also american heart month so get those tickers checked to congratulate varsity bowler ethan moskowitz this is pretty cool he's the only the fourth bowler in the 50-year history of the bergen county coaches association tournament to bowl a perfect 300. so congratulations to ethan i thought it was pretty neat um the malwa museum

076is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the mawa train station uh in 1848 a single track railroad ran from suffering to patterson but they never stopped in mawa until 1871 and obviously with that train station it helped open up the town and uh provided for our growth and development last but not least today is random acts of kindness day so if you have not performed a random act of kindness for someone you still have some time um i want to encourage residents to please email me or any of the members of my committee with anything that they'd like for us to highlight uh during our community corner our emails are on the website so thank you thank you very much uh mr gallon i'm just going to report on behalf of negotiations for a moment this

077year in on june 30th our contracts with our administrators and with our supervisors expires and we will begin the negotiation process next wednesday with these groups and we look forward to a constructive dialogue with those groups great thank you dr morrissey um quick report from instruction and curriculum um and i also actually uh have to issue an apology to uh ruth davis who i referred to as ruth gilman because i i don't know i just had a senior moment so my apologies last time when i gave report it was ruth davis who uh worked on the digital citizen piece etc and had given this report um i just wanted to speak to in keeping with our strategic plan um we on the instruction curriculum committee were given an audit of the curriculum looking at some

078of the thematic elements of diversity equity and inclusion we were given a wonderful presentation by our k-6 supervisor and by our six through 12 supervisors so basically this was looking at what is our current status of the curriculum um perhaps where can there be changes additions and how do we make a nice bridge from each year to year and then between school districts so this is just a plan that is developing it is a work in progress but i wanted to um just highlight that our staff is looking at all of these issues under our guidance of our of dr dettoro and the administrative team um and i also just wanted to say that um we recognize that um there will be like black history month there will be monthly thematic months that we might

079recognize different communities in our district and we look forward to putting some of those things in place during the upcoming school year so again work in progress but um exciting stuff on the horizon thank you dr morrissey anyone else for uh committee reports okay with that said board member remarks additional comments and reports on other non-agenda items oh back to brett sorry dr fitz i want to thank you for acknowledging the calendar for our next for next school year and wanted to ask that the administration review that calendar again and see if we could figure out a way to adjust the first day of school i would just want to be clear i'm not asking for another day off of school for the second day of rosh hashanah what i'm asking is that we adjust

080the calendar so that those that celebrate don't have to choose between the holiday and the first day of school second day rosh hashanah has always been considered a floating holiday i'm not sure if that's the proper term but it's always been a day where those that celebrate could take off without being penalized with a um unexcused absence uh the first day of school is a day of school that should not be something that we need to kind of you know decide between a religious holiday and go to school especially with our staff members as a parent if uh you know if we went to the first day of school and my stat and my kid's teacher wasn't there because she had to or he had to uh observe a holiday probably wouldn't be very happy

081about that so um just asking administration if you could please review that again um and see if there's anything to do thank you great thank you for that uh any other board member remarks okay seeing none uh moving on to uh old business there's some minutes to approve uh mr bleaker if you want to call the role online yes okay for approval of item 14a minutes uh was there a motion oh sorry so about brett's comments thank you i have a motion that's uh mr gallo and dr morty okay uh for right some 14 a minutes mr coplin yes mr da silva yes mr denise yes mr gallow yes miss conoco yes dr morty yes dr clark yes mrs yes and mr kizmorski yes 15 new business we have again items a through i along

082with the asterisk of f that was read into the record um can i please get a motion uh miss conoco second by mr cohen um um awarded a bid for the interior renovation joyce kilmer room 315 315 is that a computer lab uh that currently uh had been a computer lab we are looking to renovate it into an innovation space for the students at jk innovation space uh like a steam uh yes similar in concept uh roll call for 15 a through i'm mr coplin yes but i abstain on check number one zero one six six eight thank you mr de silva yes mr denise yes mr gallow yes except on 15 a i abstain from checks one zero one six five seven one zero one seven two two and one zero one seven seven

083eight thank you miss conaco dr morty yes dr park yes yes yeah mr kizmorski yes uh item 16 new business personnel a through j with the asterisk of e that was read into the record can i get a motion to approve mr denise and dr morty uh mr coplan yes mr da silva yes miss denise yes mr gala yes miss tonko yes dr park yes mrs yes and mr kizmorsky yes okay item 17 public questions or comment this section of public participation will be limited to 15 minutes i'd like a motion to open the meeting to the public mr da silva uh miss katako okay uh yes mr kuzmarsky if you will i'm monitoring uh questions and um comments have come in through the chat uh there's three separate themes uh if um you like

084i'd like to take each team individually i have a couple questions regarding the uh superintendent search and update on that uh questions and comments regarding the um calendar change for the 21-22 school year and questions comments regarding the um the phase two reopening uh for questions regarding hiring the superintendent search uh we have questions from miss evelyn slockbauer 43 thunderhead place janet question special meetings will there be any additional special meetings for interviews and she also asks uh again from ms slockbauer where do we stand in the process of hiring a new superintendent hey i i can uh take that and give a brief update um interviews um have been completed uh there's been no formal action taken yet by the board there's conversations happening with the potential candidate um my expectation is in those

085conversations will be taking place the remainder of this week obviously from there contractual matters or what has to be sent to the uh the county superintendent for their sign off before we can take any formal action as a bull uh my expectation is i don't think there'll be a special meeting with regards to this matter i i would believe that uh the candidate chosen once we do vote as a board but hopefully affirmative um we would have given an opportunity to probably give an opportunity to you know do some sort of meet and greet if that happens at a special meeting uh or during a formal border reading uh remains to be seen so um i think we're still several weeks away from that enough i would certainly look forward to it thank you um

086regarding the next item uh 2122 calendar i have a handful of questions and comments uh most are comments which i believe dr fitz had addressed during his super tense report but i will read them into the record um first is from miss kathleen taub uh i've attached a letter sent to members of the administrative team as well as board members i'd like the opportunity to have it shared it's nice board meeting during the section for public comment and i will uh now read this letter into the record my name is kathy taub i am an elementary school teacher for the mawa township board of education i was surprised to see the calendar for the 21-22 school year i was surprised to see the school year begins for students during rosh hashanah that is not a

087day i work surely i expect to be told i can take a personal day i should not need to take one i remember when mawa had paper forms for personal days for staff members to fill out i had to check off a box to indicate if my personal day was for family or household reasons often i would draw my own box and write religious next to it i knew days i took would be religious holidays whether or not i had a family or a household i also remember being a student and having to get a note from my local rabbi when i did not come to school for religious holidays in order to have my absence excused i'm not looking to have my absence excuse me on september 8th i am looking to have my

088absence i am not looking at how my absence tolerated i am expecting religious acceptance our district teaches inclusion the situation given the school board a chance to truly be inclusive by choosing a different day to start the school year as i write this letter on february 16th the day schools are closed today is not presence day but the day after this indicates the school board has flexibility in citing the calendar please use that flexibility to adjust the calendar for the next academic school year it is the right thing to do respectfully kathy taub uh also on the topic of the 21 22 school year calendar uh mr rebecca pearlstein i'm emailing to please include below comment question in tonight's meeting uh good evening and review in the calendar approved for the 21 22 school year

089it come it came as a surprise and disappointment that the first day of school is scheduled on the second day of rosh hashanah one of if not the holiest days of the year for jews forcing jewish staff and students to choose between attending their first day of school and observing their religion is both insensitive and puts parents in an impossible position how are we to explain to our child that he must miss his first day of school because we attend religious services on our holiday what message is sending to our town and its jewish residents we are all hoping for a more normal year in the coming year for our family this includes being in our place of worship during one of the most holy days of the year while historically mawwa has had school

090in session on the second day of rosh hashanah is never coincided with the first day of school with this much time to prepare is it possible to examine and modify the calendar year with the start date of school being september 9th 2021 as many burn county uh school districts such as glenrock and tenno fly have done doing so would demonstrate sensitivity to our town's jews students faculty and staff thank you for your time rebecca pearlstein 2022 beatrice court mahwah new jersey there was also one comment uh submitted through the chat regarding this same topic of the 21 22 school year uh this is from miss lori bregman i just need to say that i am so disappointed in the way the calendar was handled it is very inconsiderate to start school on my holiday that

091is just as important as easter good friday and christmas all holidays we all holidays we do not attend school in addition i have taken a personal day for this every year but never on the first day it should be changed for all staff member students and malwa residents so they can observe their holiday without thinking about missing the first day of school and again those are the comments and questions that have came in regarding that topic which uh again i believe dr fitz has already addressed any more okay um with that i'll go into the uh comments and questions that came in regarding the reopening of phase two or phase two reopening uh i have approximately 30 questions that were in comments that were submitted most were answered during the presentation that was put in

092i am going to read them into the record however if only if any of my colleagues or board members request that they be answered will they be responded to again many of them were answered as i review them in the presentation at the end of this we will open up for a couple people that have hands raised to comment uh through the um vocally verbally through the speaker starting with questions that came through the chat miss eliza baldwin is there a target day for you to have in mind for opening again will it be this year miss laura rose why are desk shields needed if kids are required to wear masks christine aceta beeman is there a is there a 46 percent of remote and secondary why can we not combine them my daughter sometimes

093has two students in her class chris mclaughlin there have been media reports that some school districts nationwide are already talking about continuing with hybrid program come september of 2021 what are the mawwa school district's initial thoughts on september allison mclaughlin 52 karen drive okay miss wood has some questions regarding the 21 22 school year which i will come back and read into the record afterwards all right sure what we're doing is we're responding to the questions that are currently in the chat before we go to the 30 question list okay so miss baldwin asked about the target date i think dr shared we're working towards the end of the third market period um so again we're working to make that happen this year in terms of a phase two miss rose uh the reason for

094the desk shields because you know we've emphasized the need for safety uh even when students are required to wear masks because what's happening is if we combine the cohorts then the capacity of the classroom will then be increased potentially so in order to have another layer of protection uh desk shields for for us may be required um miss aceta beeman she asks about the percentage of remote in the secondary why can we not combine them and uh that is certainly one of the options we were talking about um there are some classes that do have only two students but we also have classes that have 12 to 15 students so we have to be conscious of what that combination would look like with all students in attendance but that's certainly one of the solutions we're

095talking about uh in terms of miss mclaughlin hi allison um here uh we don't know what september is going to look like unfortunately i think it is dependent on the vaccination rollout uh we are awaiting guidance from the new jersey department of education because i think that's going to be a big piece of what our road uh our road back looks like for uh the 21 22 school year um so again once we know uh our school community doctor detour do you have anything to add i mean i was just saying that no you answered it all it was perfect all right very well done thanks um those are the questions that have been received through the uh chat on zoom i have two emails that were sent to me as well uh one from

096mr louis theodoro one from miss allison theodora which includes um several questions uh about 20 25 questions again i'll read them into the record and we'll answer anything that uh was not answered during the presentation uh for mr theodoro his email is a statement that he would like read into the record dear dr fitz mr fair dr dettoro mr kasimarsky mr da silva miss conoco this gal dr morty mr denise mr copplan mr cohen and dr park firstly thank you so much to dr fitz and dr dettoro for taking the time last week to conference call and hear my concerns about remote learning i very much appreciate their commitment to doing the best that can for our children i'm writing today in response to the virtual wednesday email i was greatly disheartened to hear that

097virtual wednesdays will remain through march i'm writing to implore you to return to full in-person learning for all parents who choose it as quickly as possible as i am sure you are aware the number of positive covet cases in the area are decreasing furthermore and less recognized the number of flu cases in the area are non-existent also common cold and other respiratory diseases are dramatically less than a normal winter vaccines are rolling out with astounding efficacy eliminating over 90 percent of disease nearly 100 chance of hospitalization in all deaths recent research even shows a likelihood that a vaccinated person is significantly less likely to transmit covet to another individual today the states vaccinate almost 800 000 individuals with a first dose and almost 200 000 with a second dose as more people become vaccinated the

098need for hybrid learning becomes moot all of these factors combined with recent peer-reviewed studies out of north carolina about the lack of covet spread in schools speak to how this how safe the school environment is in many cases school is indeed safer than home this makes imperative that schools reopen to more in-person learning as quickly as possible i'm seeking the following actions for the mawa schools one a return to full-time in-school education as multiple multiple private schools in the area including don bosco prep and st paul's have done for all that choose as soon as possible to an immediate elimination of virtual wednesdays as multiple local districts including allendale ridgewood and ramsey have done three an immediate adoption of the center for disease control in new jersey department of health's updated quarantine rules this would

099lessen quarantine of eligibility persons to seven days with the negative coven 19 test or 10 days without a test from the antiquated blanket 14-day quarantine mama currently adopts in my discussion with dr fitz and dr dettoro they reference that the quarantine policy is decided upon by recommendation from the mahwah board of health along with the district nurses and district physician the mawa board of health recommends that mawa residents follow cdc guidelines when current quarantining is required this leads me to the assumption that the district nurses and physician are pushing the antiquated guidelines what specific qualifications do the school nurse or school physician have that allow them to overrule accepted national and state guidelines i postulate that they don't have such expertise in malwa has just been slow to adopt new protocols this must change i'm

100keenly aware of how some would consider mawa to be lucky as we have had the option of hybrid learning for most of the year how in many districts teachers have walked at returning to school even refusing and threatening to strike i understand some teachers and administrators are scared and do not want to return to in-school teaching as a wet finger dentist i too shared the concern at the beginning of the pandemic however as new data has emerged and new protocols adopted it is quite clear that a return to work can be done safely i've literally practiced dentistry for the last 11 months seeing dozens of patients a day all without masks and have never had to close my office due to covet neither myself or my staff have contracted coven why is the district continually

101sending emails about positive cases and the need to close schools for periods ranging from two days all the way to two weeks the data from multiple studies including the aforementioned north carolina study is crystal clear except for very rare circumstances covet is not being transmitted in schools i eagerly look forward to your response and thank you for your attention to this matter before we begin the questions from miss theodoro is there yeah because i feel like there were a bunch there so um i think we spoke to the 14 days but although dr leodoro refers [Music] as antiquated um we've worked with medical professionals who are on the side of caution because we are required um by virtue of our very certificate to maintain safety for all staff and students so again we don't know

102how long the virus remains and how long it takes to shed so we're not willing to take that risk for any staff member or student at this point well we agree that there has been no on-site transmission we believe it's it's most important to remain as safe as possible um dr theodoro mentioned our teachers i mean i have to applaud the mea they've acted as partners with us throughout this entire uh this entire process they've been honest um but they've been supportive about what in-person learning could look like in phase two um the reporting and the communication of our positive cases um our goal here is to just be transparent so while we recognize that the important email the important information emails uh may become a little redundant we believe that in conjunction uh with

103our kobe 19 dashboard is important to let all of our parents and all of our staff members know exactly what is happening with this virus especially because as dr theodora mentioned in his letter um people are scared um the other question that was received through the email uh came from miss allison theodoro uh i would like to submit the following question for tomorrow's boe meeting we're a group of parents who have come together through facebook in a group named mawa parents for in-school learning many of our 200 members will be in attendance please let me know if you have any questions about documentation again i have the document here there are approximately 20 to 25 questions i will read them into the record and then we will address any that have not been spoken about

104during the presentation first question from yvonne mayo can a survey be sent to to students to see how they feel about school this year how they are doing mentally emotionally similar to the surveys that were sent to parents and then the results would need to be presented to parents second question from yvonne mayo other towns around us have removed virtual wednesdays and started to add more days and hours to the day some districts around us have even added back lunch in school what is mawa's plan to add in more in-person school time question from yvonne mayo why is it that mawa almost always closes an entire school for a positive case to trace and cleaning while towns around remain open to do their tracing and cleaning after school hours question from tony fennerfinitery why are

105we following cdc guidelines for school reopening but not for quarantine tony finnery why can new jersey have gatherings of 140 but children can be in a classroom with masks on six feet apart alyssa baldwin is there a plan or target day for when mawa hopes to have the kids back in school full time jackie lancek we should start now taking small steps to ensure getting back to school eliminate virtual wednesday's snack at desk longer day jackie lanseck if we have cohorts why not have a longer day a full day perhaps eat lunch at desk they are already six feet apart jackie lanczyk what endpoint are we trying to achieve safety and physical health of our children and teachers at the expense of mental social and emotional health of our children because it is starting to

106show too long and too much for these kids allison mclaughlin i would like to know the rationale behind the continuation of alternating virtual wednesdays at least through march when studies have shown that people are unlikely to catch covet from touching a surface are there plans to phase them out other districts in our area have done away with them wouldn't regular cleaning of frequently touched services after school and or on weekends suffice perhaps deep cleansing can be done on alternate weekends or when schools are closed for a break maggie fulman why do we need to quarantine for longer than recommended by cdc if if exposed a negative test after five days of exposure should allow for kids to return to school janine grasso why does malwa have more stringent covered protocols compared to state cdc and

107even some surrounding schools michelle salzman who is making the decisions to close school for every case what is the decision making process in general michelle salsman what is the point of cohorts if the entire school closes michelle salzman why can't kids eat at their desk and simply through throw away the desk liner when they are done michelle salsman why are cdc guidelines followed when they keep kids out of school and not when they would help get them back in michelle salzman what percentage of the district is remote now as opposed to september allison theodoro i know in august some terms to reopening were negotiated with the mea can you tell us what those terms were and how long they would be in place would any of those terms prevent us from reopening full time in

108person this school year next question uh there's no um person that it came from the new jersey department of education has a specific curriculum for students of all ages has this curriculum been updated to reflect virtual learning if yes what was the process and where is the report which determined that this curriculum fully supports the mental health and educational progress of its students and last question from mr john morin if this new virtual curriculum does not meet the standards of the in-person curriculum then the state department of ed boe is not providing the services required by law therefore the taxes spent for these services should be credited back so the customer parents and consumers students can choose another option which does meet the in-person curriculum pre-pandemic directed by the state as the only option for

109students graduation requirements right there were um several questions related to the procedures that malwa uses uh for school closures so again our presentation the people who make the decisions um are central office in conjunction with uh our administrative team and our medical experts so of our 51 cases we've had four 14-day classroom closures one at joyce kilmer school two atlantic meadows school and one at randall ridge school uh of those 51 cases we've had five 14-day school closures uh the first was at betsy ross school uh wonderful timing oh we had two at mawa high school and we had two at rampo ridge middle school of the 51 cases we've had five 48 hour closures to conduct a thorough investigation uh and to conduct contact tracing um once was my choice former school once was

110at mobile high school uh three times where it ran pool ridge middle school and 37 of the 51 cases that we've had um required no closure so um we were we were either able to conduct the contact tracing or we were able um to take take uh precautionary measures if someone showed any sort of signs they were out of the building or if they were identified as a closed contact they were out of the building for 14 days and being a building of 14 days allowed for if that person did end up contracting the virus there was no school closure that took place and that's why we've been following this protocol and we've been trying to follow this protocol consistently throughout the duration of the school year i don't have the question about the virtual

111curriculum in front of me but i think the question entailed is there a variation between our in-school curriculum and the virtual curriculum and is this curriculum that the person's asking was that provided by the state is that the question um if you like mike i'll i'll uh tutorial i'll read the question if this new virtual curriculum does not meet the standards of the in-person curriculum then the state department of ed poe is not providing the services required by law therefore the taxes spent for these services should be credited back so the customer parents and consumer students can choose another option which does meet the in-person curriculum free pandemic directed by the state as the only option for students graduation requirements and just above that mike this may have been where you are dr detour this

112may be where you were referencing new jersey department of education has a specific curriculum for students of all ages has the current been updated to reflect virtual learning if yes what was the process and where is the report which determined that this curriculum fully supports the mental health and educational progress of its students okay so as it pertains to to curriculum there has been no change in curriculum specific to virtual learning um as it's delivered by the state what i can tell you is the standards have been established obviously there's a curriculum cycle um or a standard cycle and they're continuing the following so this this coming year there's new standards that are going to be put forth that we are expected to change our curriculum with as it pertains to the virtual learning experience

113our virtual students and our in-school students are are doing a parallel experience meaning they're being exposed to the same type of curriculum whether you're in school or you're at home um along the lines of adjustments of curriculum um i mean i don't know if you want me as granular as that i spoke initially in the presentation specific to the learning accelerated guide and what that speaks to is um the state is very much aware that there was an adjustment in or or a change in instruction from march until june and there's also there's an impact as it pertains to instruction september until now uh specific to schedules and things like that the teachers have worked extremely hard in identifying uh what assessments are appropriate for their students to see what types of proficiencies they have

114and looking at the pacing of their curriculum to identify any gaps that might have occurred from last year and weaving them into the current scope and sequence of this year so that's the only variation if there is one um specific to curriculum but that being said the curriculum stands as is and is delivered to the in person the in-school student as well as the remote student at the same level actually i i want to respond to one of the comments related to the terms of the contract with the mea i think it's important the comments that dennis made that we have a very close working partnership with the mea and all its members there has been no formal change in the contract we take the terms and letter of the contract very seriously no change

115has been made but in any employment situation there's always dialogue between employer and employees and we're trying to make a difficult situation work for everyone um mr kushmarsky before we go to we have two uh members of the public participating remotely that have their hand raised for them to speak uh before we do that there was one two yep yep i hear that um we have one regarding the uh reopening uh from michelle salesman have there been any cases in our district where a child has passed kuva 19 to a teacher uh no so there's been no on-site transmission from um student to teacher and from uh miss jennifer wood this relates to the 21 22 school year calendar does that mean the calendar is not up for discussion due to the start on a

116religious holiday again dr fitz as you had mentioned in your uh report earlier i believe the calendar will be will be reviewed thank you dr fitz um i have no other correspondence in the chat no other through email again we have two members of the public that would like to speak to have their hand raised miss janine grosso i'm going to bring you in momentarily for you to share with the public or share with the board and miss grosso can you hear us i can still hear you yes we can hear you mr please go ahead with your comment sure so name and address for the record please got it janine grasso five herring lane um so first i want to thank everyone who worked so hard tirelessly through this pandemic especially those teachers who

117continue to nurture and educate our children having said that though there are so many children of our own who are hurting who are becoming disengaged with virtual learning we've gotten feedback from a community group formed in town this group is represented by over 400 in-district kids 200 parents and dozens of teachers both on and off the record after research we feel that our school administration is falling behind in some critical areas that we would like to address as an example ramsey montville oakland suffrin franklin lakes have all evolved their in-person learning eliminated virtual wednesdays and have increased building time since january dr deturo i know you did mention some of your own analysis so there could be an overlap here um and we realize we won't be back to normal overnight we are not suggesting

118that or believe that however we would desperately like to have our kids back we believe they are suffering and we see it day in and day out and realizing you just walked through your plan too we are anxiously waiting for a date the second point i want to make is around the guidelines and i again i won't um rehash the 14 days but there are other health protocols that are not being adopted by the cdc such as if your child has already tested positive you still have to quarantine if your child is exposed again again that is not what the cdc says so when are we going to evolve our health protocols to get more current and then lastly who is responsible for making the final decision on increased building time or removal of virtual

119wednesdays and again the health protocols it is it the administration or is it the mea thank you [Music] how specific would you like me to get with the other school districts okay uh along the lines of um and and again i miss grosso and i have had a couple conversations already so not to not to negate what she's saying she's absolutely correct there are districts that don't have virtual wednesdays and and and that is true uh there are also a number of districts that do so along the lines of what's the standard there is no standard um along the lines of our ultimate goal getting kids in school miss crosson i have the same uh the same mode um but but specific to what's happening with virtual wednesdays at this point we're not comfortable with

120removing virtual wednesdays so um along the lines of who makes the decision um obviously there's a collaborative experience that is already established with talking about our our hopes and considerations for our plan but yes administration set schedule yes administration uh dictates different protocols but that's not in isolation so i want to be very clear along the lines of who makes the final determination i guess we can say in consultation with many different groups the administration will put forth a recommendation uh to the board along lines of adjustments and then we go from there and today that's the question to the question regarding someone who has previously been identified as testing positive for copiod we've had multiple in our school district where we've had either a student or a staff member who maybe got the virus

121in the summer and then in just january they tested positive again with covid compatible symptoms so for us because this is a virus that we don't know all of the information about we always are on the side of caution if you have no further questions i will um put you back into the attendee room and remove your put you back on mute sounds good mr kazmarski i have no other members of the public with their hand raised to speak or comment verbally with the board uh there was one follow-up comment from allison and lou theodoro in the chat wire administrators no longer responding to my emails um outside of that comment there are no other comments in the chat nor is there anything in emails um we do have one other individual that just raised

122their hand to speak i will bring them in right now okay uh somebody with a um attendee named magda fullman can you hear us yes hi good um actually good evening thank you for all your time and thank you for all that you have done so far so janine actually started interrupt if you would please just say your name and address for the record sorry uh it's mag the performance and heritage lane thank you so i do have two children in two different schools with remote learning both my husband and i are healthcare workers and something i didn't ask and i want to ask both my husband and i have been working full time since the covet happened and i would like to see some additional support for those that have to work full time

123and don't have a parent that can stay home especially for the virtual wednesdays when it becomes you know scrambling or the last minute close closures of scrambling and trying to find you know care for my children okay miss miss fullman thank you for that statement uh do you have anything further to share with the board at this time no i would just like to say that you know it's very hard the kids are very um emotionally harmed by this inconsistency with going in going out who am i staying with who who is going to take care of me um you know i i have to work my husband has to work uh the virtual wednesdays really pose a huge concern and and you know i get that there are families in the in this neighborhood

124in this town that have a parent that can stay home i don't have that and um the virtual wednesdays has been such a huge um level of stress for our family because i have my mother who has to come and expose herself to me and my kids and has to learn how to use zoom i have a first grader who has no idea how to use zoom and especially in the beginning um keeping up with the schedule the inconsistency of the schedule from being two weeks full fully remote to um no it's tuesday it's a snowy but no it's a virtual day and we're just going to do it not there's no morning meeting there's no attendance link but then wednesday virtual meeting is there is an attendance link and there's a morning meeting and

125it's so hard to keep up with the scheduling at least if we are consistent with the scheduling our my first grader who is so accustomed to the consistency and knows what to do will be less it will be a less of a fight in the morning to say oh no it's not a snow day it is a virtual day because that's what we're going to go with um so the consistency and the virtual wednesday um really doesn't work for a lot of parents and a lot of families your comments seeing no other comments uh i will uh can i just respond because i feel like it's worthy of some sort of response uh miss fullman um i we we hear your frustration um through your your zoom square um we get it uh we uh

126we totally get it um first of all thank you for for your for your service um but again this is what we're going to keep all that in consideration as we continue to phase into phase two um but we do hear you all right thank you miss fullman if you will that that last um thing that you said i it wasn't open for the mike here in the uh room if you could please repeat yourself thank you that's all thanks thank you miss fullman i'm going to return you to mute and put you back in the uh attendee list um another hand raised to speak um on the attendee list identified as ct when i bring you in if you would please uh state your name and address for the record okay please go ahead

127hi this is allison and chris thompson um i just wanted to jump back into a specific question there's a lot of great points that parents raised and i know there was a lot of thought and time put into it and that it's just not possible for you guys to dig into the answers but i just wanted to touch on something that i think is really important right now a parent brought up virtual wednesdays and how they wanted to know how why we're still continuing with virtual wendy's when virtue when uh neighboring towns are still holding them we're not holding them and uh mr de toro not to put you on the spot but you fielded the answer to that question and you were explaining that there is no standard and that we just have to

128follow our guidelines but i feel that when it comes to figuring out if virtual wednesday still make sense that the final determination should come from balancing what the cdc recommends and the transmission data that we just revealed which is that there has not been on-site transmission to date i know that you guys are trying to get the same goal as us which is to return to the normal school year and let kids have the learning experience that we intended them to have but under the premise of not knowing everything about this virus we could really stay closed next year too and what we're hearing from the town is that we don't want to do that anymore and we we have reason to start small and start changing things now and i just i feel like

129again this is probably not the time to really hash through all these major points that everyone is bringing to you but i really feel like that was an important comment that got glazed over a little too quickly um miss thompson with thank you very much for your comment i'm going to return you to the attendee room and uh meet you once again okay uh three people waiting to speak uh next miss christine assetta beeman miss beamon can you hear us yes i can can you hear me go right ahead please thank you my name is christina seta beeman i live at 66 sunnyside road um i'm staying with the theme of the virtual wednesdays i also am a teacher in fort lee i teach in fourth grade we just this week got rid of virtual

130wednesdays so we are hybrids in september and we go five days a week we don't do a rotating a b we do an aaa bb a a bbb kind of a thing um my problem with virtual wednesday or my question with virtual wednesday is that um one of the reasons you said that you had it was for professional development and i know in my school in my district in fort lee we do professional development after school ends after the 1 30 to 2 o'clock lunch so i'm not quite sure what happens um during the teachers afternoons after school has ended what that time is allotted for so maybe pd workshops could be done then um also deep cleaning i am kind of a little foggy also no pun intended on the deep cleaning on regular

131days versus wednesday i know in my school they're constantly going around with those atomizers that smell a little off but that's what the cleaning is um and my other question is with regard to the dreaded state testing as of right now they're still planning on having it and i'm wondering how that's going to be administered because i'm having a big problem with remote kids going in to take the steak test versus at home students who would have a major advantage and with a daughter in eighth grade and using these scores you know it's gonna be very interesting to see what the scores are number one because it's really they're gonna be really high or really low depending on where you're going to school and what you're doing um but you know we use those scores

132for information for the next year so how can they be valid i really don't know if they can but i was just curious as to what mom was planning on doing as far as administering that and that's really all i have to say thank you for your time thank you for your questions um let me start from the from the back and then i'll work to the front along the lines of the state testing we just received guidance from the state that it's been postponed um and postponed meaning within this year so they bumped the start date of the test up over to april um and in the meantime they're looking to see if there's any federal guidance along the lines of waivers for that for this year so we're waiting on that along the

133lines of how students will be tested remotely again there has been no guidance to this point on that um i'm i'm wondering if that that pushback is to with the hope of uh that waiver being put in place along the lines of the virtual wednesdays as you stated um your district did have it you just went away from it now um in my mind to be quite frank um i shared the purpose and worth of virtual wednesdays along the lines of a couple different things uh whether it was the cleaning mechanism which i totally understand that can take place at other times but also the professional development experiences and also working along the lines of the curriculum um as i said with um with with other parents i do understand that there are districts that

134don't have it in place right now um i don't i do understand that there's a need for us to get uh students back in school but obviously safely um in my in my perspective um as opposed to going away from virtual wednesdays and then possibly doing uh something along the lines of the adjustments of schedule um i feel like there is a need for us to continue our virtual wednesdays until the end of the term of this current email cycle and in the meantime look to see what options systemically we can do to increase seat time along the lines of some of the suggestions and again uh these are suggestions and not something along the lines of uh these are absolutes by any means but the suggestions that we need we're talking about trying to

135increase seat time in school by 40 at the elementary level and almost at the secondary level so there is definitely a focus and a passion on all fronts of bringing our kids back in um and that passion obviously um is on everybody along as of administrators teachers have shared the same thing we want to do it the right way so that's where our focus is going to be uh for the next couple of weeks and then we'll be able to report back on that phase two where do virtual wednesdays fall is that something that we continue is that something that we pull back um and how does that fall in the recommendations of these two mississippi thank you for your comment i will turn you back to the attendee room and go on to the

136next um next member of the public with their hand raised thank you thank you uh the next person i have is deborah kostrom is the name in the attendee list deborah kostrom are you there yes it's actually down racostron i live at 10 grenadier drive in malwa and i just want to say that i do support the uh the end of the virtual wednesdays i know that you said that you're looking at the superintendent's uh survey that only one-third of the superintendents in bergen county had actually um you know were surveyed or actually even were participated in this survey but um i i like other parents feel that this could be one thing and it could just be a small baby step into getting back into the school year i look at my my family

137of educators in the state of texas i actually was in texas in august when they were in the height of the pandemic and they are all have been full-time since september so i just want to bring that up i know that the state regulations are a little bit different here but they have figured out a way since the beginning of the school year to be in school full time five days a week you know with just their regular school the next thing because i i do feel like um maybe it doesn't matter what we say that you may not really uh look at the end of virtual wednesdays but i just implore you to look at the september plan we have uh the j j vaccine that the fda is going to be making their

138recommendation on february 26th this will be another vaccine that is um it has a lot of very positive results in addition to the moderna and to the fire vaccine and i do feel like that a lot of the teachers should be vaccinated i would think um by may or june given the fact that we will likely get approval of a third vaccine and i think what i would like to say is if you are if you're resistant to the virtual the end of the virtual wednesdays which i'm in disagreement with i think that you should be working on a plan um for the september time frame that we can be in school virtually because i believe at that time the teachers will be all vaccinated and i do understand that there will probably still be

139masks involved there will be ppe equipment that will still be needed but if that is the case uh then maybe there is something that the parents could be doing on our own to make sure that we supply our own children with ppe equipment by september and so what i'm talking about is a is a little bit longer term plan and not the short-term plan of what other schools in bergen county are doing thank you all for everything that you have been doing but um i i think i'm i'm looking for a little bit longer term plan as we get back into school in september thank you miss uh kostrom um i will return you to the attend the list and go on to the next person we have two individuals right now to speak thank

140you once again um next we have two individuals who spoke previously first miss michelle salesman the salesman yes can you hear me yes we can go ahead thank you uh my name is michelle salzman i'm at 10 stonewall court in mawa i have four kids in district i have two at betsy ross one around hill ridge and one at mahwah high school and i have a question regarding the virtual wednesdays not the elimination because i know that we've discussed that a lot um i have a question as to why they are not live taught at the k-5 level but they are live taught at the 6 through 12. i think that the not live taught at the k through 5 level puts additional pressure on the parents because as the other woman mentioned they are

141for the most part unable to manage themselves um so i have twin boys in second grade if they have to do slides or they have to move between technological functions or if they get excited because the mailman drives by and they run to the window i have to go and get them um whereas at the six through 12 level the instruction while while it's remote and not ideal um is live so they are required to sign in they are required to be in front of their their screen once virtual wednesday comes and that morning meeting's over it is the parents responsibility to make sure that whatever is assigned is done so unless you have an adult in the house um you you have you can't leave your child to to figure that out on their

142own um that's my first question which leads into my second i think that the technological impact of this is a little underestimated i think the teachers are trying to keep things fresh which i totally understand and appreciate but trying to learn see-saw flip grid google classrooms abc yeah connect ed um and i could go on ixl i could go on and on and on forever try to learn all these things and teach a seven-year-old or an eight-year-old how to do it at the same time is a nightmare uh virtual wednesdays are a nightmare and i'm not talking because it's at their home i'm talking because of the logistics of trying to work through the day all of these technologies while they're great at that level can be accomplished with a pen and a piece of

143paper okay we're not splitting the atom we're learning how to add subtract and read so if you send home a textbook and you're not going to teach anyway at least let me do it in a book and not on seesaw because by the time my brain figures out how to navigate seesaw and get out my stylus and you know draw in a box the size of a p i've completely lost interest and so have my kids so i think that we have to look at the technological strain this is putting on families who aren't good at either navigating this or just haven't been exposed to them yet if i didn't have two other older girls to help me i would be completely lost to be honest with you um so those assignments keep coming home

144on these new applications which are great but again at the age of six or seven i'm not really sure you need all of those things and my last question which goes to who's making the decisions um we had a situation i'll just say the k-3 where there was a child's case in the classroom none of the kids had to quarantine but the teacher was out of the classroom for two full weeks so that none of the children were close contact nobody had a quarantine but the teacher did so i'm wondering how that decision is come upon is it the teacher's comfort level is it the administration's comfort level why would that teacher have to be home and i understand we have the technology quote-unquote to live stream it in but when you have an eight-year-old

145coming home and saying yeah there's a teacher sitting in the classroom but my teachers at home live streaming across the board it's so it's a lot for them to kind of digest so i'm just wondering the decision process that's being made on when you keep a class in but you pull a teacher out so those are my three questions thank you very much for listening to all our questions um we appreciate all your time and effort so again i'll start from the last question and then i'll go to the first question the last question being specific to the teacher ms salzman um along the lines of a teacher's need to quarantine that's specific on the case um if they meet the criteria of being close contact then that would deem them um it'd be necessary

146for them to quarantine um we are very fortunate that when the teachers do quarantine they do continue to work from home and that rule creates at least some level of consistency for our students you're absolutely right it's very different for a child who's in second grade to have their teacher on a screen as opposed to in front of them while they're in the classroom but again that's another impact of this virus along the lines of not only the people who are sick but the people who are deemed close contacts so that has happened on a couple of occasions throughout the district that the teacher has been deemed a close contact but through our formula and our evaluation of contact tracing the students are not um so we thought it was important for the students to

147come into school while they were taught from their teacher again it's not ideal but it's an effort to keep as consistent as possible get our kids in the school and have a familiar face in front of them as opposed to having a substitute for two weeks um as it pertains to the virtual wednesday experience at the elementary level what i can tell you is there's been a commitment k-5 that you're absolutely right at the secondary level they are in front of the class the entire class let me be very clear entire class bell the bell for each period at the elementary level from k5 and i don't want to misspeak um this is my understanding of of the schools they are getting on doing their morning meeting and that's a part of the sel experience

148and then the teachers are providing work while they're working in small groups with other children this is an opportunity for them to differentiate their instruction based on the need that they're not really able to get three four or five kids together in a small group in class due to social distancing so that's their opportunity to try to maximize that they do it digitally at home i completely understand what you're saying along the lines of the technology again it's an effort that our teachers have done an amazing job of trying to put some sort of um supports that are computer-based please know that that doesn't mean that the teachers are against sending things home um if they're the need for a paper and pencil type of experience these are all things to be quite frank that

149that we're learning as we go and stuff that we're getting feedback from our parents and saying you know this is working for the population this is not working for the population you know um so my suggestion to salesman is to contact the teacher and see what opportunities there are along the lines of that paper-based experience um but it's also something that can bring the administrative team to talk with the teaching staff saying let's at least have a combination of both um because of that the difficulty especially at the lower elementary levels that k2 experience of being independent online um i i this also i think i answered the questions did i miss one nope you got them all thank you very much thanks ms salesman can i can i just add a little bit of

150context related to the contact tracing that dr otoro just shared um so when he refers to closed contacts when let's say a staff member may be out that may not be as a result of contact tracing related to the school right so we have that whole world outside of wawa that if by chance of staff members spouse or child at home ends up getting the virus they are then identified as a closed contact by their local department of health and as a result they would have to quarantine so it might not have anything to do with what's happening in the school house in that particular case in that particular case it did i just happen to know but i do know that they have had a quarantine if there's a case in their family or

151they think that they went somewhere where there was and it's unrelated to the classroom this particular case was related to that that's why i was just a little confused by it um because i thought that by definition they were always supposed to be six feet apart and masked so i you know they set out of an abundance of caution which i i do appreciate um i was just wondering who makes the decision on that is it that the teacher doesn't feel uncomfortable is it that the principal um would be more comfortable having the teacher out of the classroom you know we're just trying to learn who where this all comes from with these sorts of closures and removals from teachers from the classroom happens um how it works and i totally understand that so what

152the process looks like is uh the school nurse from the building will contact us at the board of education office and central office administration works with the building principal we often interview um a covert positive case based on that interview we conduct the contact tracing so in abundance of caution if someone is sharing a room if they're within six feet um regardless of mask we identify them as a closed contact thank you very much thank you ms salzman um going to lower uh your hand or returning back to the group of attendees um next person that has her hand raised to speak is magda fullman miss fullman yes hello again um please go ahead so as i've mentioned i'm a healthcare worker and i've actually had the privilege of being in charge of the vaccination

153effort within rockland county and was uh solely responsible for providing over 7000 doses within rockland county what is the push for the teachers to be vaccinated in new jersey as i personally have vaccinated teachers in new york state and i don't understand why new jersey teachers are not included in the new jersey group to be vaccinated miss fullman we agree with you we don't know why teachers and educators and employees for school districts are not listed as under 1a they're listed under 1b so uh we fully uh are in agreement with you that we believe teachers need to be on the 1a list in fact we are working on writing letters to the governor from the administration and hopefully co-signing them with our teachers union because that too is important to us so um we

154agree okay thank you thank you miss fullman i'm going to return you to the attendee list now thank you again okay um we have another individual in the attendee list with the hand raise uh the name in the attendee list says george washington hso when i bring you in if you would please um say your name and address for the record good evening i apologize for not updating my name earlier my name is sabrina mulay and i live at 20 windsor terrace in mawa i only wanted to first of all thank the board for their time this evening this has been thoroughly informative and i've enjoyed hearing all of your thoughts and hypothesis on how we can move forward in the district i wanted to ask if mr fair could elaborate on his definition of

155exposure uh not for me but i think it could be helpful for parents within the district who are uh you know just thinking about things on their own terms coming up with different hypothesis uh mr fair you did mention that it is regardless of mask wearing which i understand is in in alliance with how the cdc defines exposure and less than six feet apart however there are other weighted factors that the cdc does use when defining exposure uh when concerned to proximity such as the length of time that people are within that less than six foot proximity whether it is defined as 15 minutes continuously um or over a 24-hour period and i just thought it might be helpful for other parents in the district to hear what you are using absolutely miss melaye uh

156so when when we identify exposure or someone who has been exposed it is within six feet for a cumulative amount of time of 10 to 15 minutes and that's cumulative over a period of 24 hours so originally the guidance was within an isolated period of time of 10 minutes and as the cdc has updated their guidance um they've updated it to be cumulative so it's it's added some complexity to to the calculus yes i fully understand and i thank you for elaborating on that personally i do run multiple close contact businesses and so that was precisely the definition that that i was looking for i just think it was important for other parents within the district to understand that this is not a matter of people walking past each other quickly in a break room

157or in a restroom or down the hallways but that there is a sustained amount of time within that proximity that we are using to define exposure that makes it important to classify whether or not quarantine is necessary yes thank you thank you okay um miss maylie i'm going to return you back to the group of attendees thank you again for your comment thanks uh mr kusmarsky at this time there are no other members of the public who have their hand raised to speak we have a couple of items to read into the record that came in through the chat um miss evelyn slockbauer can media center be set up for full-time working parents on virtual wednesdays with substitutes to supervise um ms slockbauer i'll i'll answer that uh that would constitute a um child care

158facility which we are not set up to have we need special permissions from the state of new jersey for a childcare childcare facility to be run so there would be some difficulty with having that established somebody with username warren again please use your first and last name and address when you are inputting your questions this is a comment i'm highly concerned about my child with adhd attempting to do virtual learning this is very difficult for us and him it's also very difficult for me to work from home while helping him with school because he cannot work independently has an aid in his class for a reason i also pulled my child from the bridge because the inconsistent schedule and the lack of in-school learning became more difficult for us when she had to go in

159and took took off her routine to actually go in comment from andy butel mba president good evening i just wanted to thank the administration for their continued efforts in keeping the staff and students safe as we navigate this pandemic we have appreciated the willingness of the administration to hear and respond to the concerns of the staff and will continue to engage with the administration in productive and collaborative dialogue as we move through the year two more jessica le piccolo i just want to make note that your perception of k5 curriculum is not accurate there is morning meeting and then slides that need to be executed with with the parent supervision uh again one last comment from um an attendee with username lauren seesaw is not something a first grader can handle alone if a child

160cannot complete the work independently then it should not be sent home or expected that whoever is watching the children can assist with the schools have to be mindful that the home situations may not be conducive to giving the child assistance with work unlike at school in person mr kuzmarski that is uh all items that were in the chat email and uh no other attendees have their hand raised at this time at this time i just want to thank all the parents for their comments and you know feel free obviously to attend more board meetings keep sending emails keep having you know fruitful discussions um it is a shared experience members on this board with children in history and we all want the same thing i can assure you that we all want this thing to

161return to school and to return to school safely with that i i thank the parents for the questions i thank the administrative team for their presentation and their answers um and and the teachers as well for their continued efforts so with that i would like a uh motion to close with um [Music] of the executive session so this will in fact uh end the meeting for the public but uh if i can get that motion now mr gallo and secretary mr denise so thank you and thank you very much