001good evening everyone adequate notice of this meeting was provided by sending such notice to the asberry park trust the middletown patch the middletown township public school district website and the posting episodes notice that the august d minor administrative offices in each elementary middle and secondary school website and districts oh paul this is kennywood here mr dahlman here mr jamma here mr heffernan mr little this is tobacco here this is right here mr capone here this is the news yeah into executive session for matters of personnel contracts and negotiations second all in favor opposed abstentions good evening everyone how did we notice that this meeting was provided by sending such notice to the asberry park press the middletown patch the middletown township public school district website and approaching that such notice that the august t minor
002administrative offices in each elementary middle and secondary school website your district oh call mrs cannady here mr donlin mr jama mr heffernan [Music] we're going to have a moment of silence for a um long-time dedicated custodian charles wells from lincoln elementary school he passed away on september 26th mr wells served the district since 2001 and was the husband of ruth wells a retired ocean avenue elementary school teacher we extend our deepest condolences to the wells family also for alex savage 24 year old former student of middletown special education program he was the most kindest dedicated student and young man that i've ever seen to our district you would find him at high school north or high school south at any sporting event supporting all the teams everyone knew him he had a heart of gold
003our prayers and our thoughts go out to his family if anyone is interested and has time his services are friday at leaguers from 11 o'clock to 12 o'clock only so if we get a chance everybody please um go and show your support for his family and respect and may he rest in peace one nation under god indivisible with liberties thank you everyone okay this time we're going to open for public comment on agenda items only i just like to comment on the item on mr parcells i worked with him i don't want to age myself it was probably more than 10 years ago of the elementary facilities ad hoc committee um it's a great committee he prioritizes getting new mama it's walls he didn't have walls um and a lot of other things done and
004um he is a quiet leader um but when something's wrong and serious you know he's upset he's going to fix it and i would just like to say that i think this is a an investment that we should make i just want to say that we're thankful that mr parcells agreed to come back and help us and we had a need for someone to step in [Music] to approve the proclamation for alpha delta kappa [Music] for executive session on [Music] executive session 824 and the voting meeting on day 24. so second second discussion all in favor propose my object to the pre-meeting workshop during the minutes of august the 18th 2021 as well as the voting minutes of august the 24th thank you okay under the report of the president i do want to say
005we've been trying to attend as many back-to-school nights as we can um it's really nice to see everybody back in the buildings um parents are excited to be able to go into the classrooms use their teachers in person and uh see what their kids are actually up to and um everyone that i've been to it's been a positive experience so um we still have a few more to go i know tonight i went to naval state before here and um they're pretty well attended so um we still have a few more to go in the next couple weeks so it's a good thing see everybody back all right under the report of the business administrator i need a motion for number one through four seconds discussion on favor um some questions about um some of
006the items that build this to the uh legal expenses i noticed that um i guess in july and august apparently we're doing work on the critical race theory called crt um and it seems like i don't know 2 2500 and um yeah i know this has been a topic just out there um being on the curriculum committees legislatively i don't remember the topic coming up is something worth looking into it's not something that i'm aware of being the chair of the curriculum committee i know that um we had two state mandates for health and call it social studies and i know that um members of the curriculum committee we went through uh the written curriculum that was obviously shared and voted on by the board and i don't know if there's any instances where anything
007like that was found i know there was some edits and you know the final answer that we had the diapers the biggest part in curriculum was um an honors elective for 11th and 12th graders which kind of was a catch ball help us um i guess get to the cusack which would basically score you how you you meet the mandates um i guess my concern here is that um this is a topic that you know i guess in the news media or you know wherever you're going to see it i just don't i just don't know why we're spending money uh legal expenses on it and i don't i don't know if anything coming out of a pipe or maybe a curriculum meeting i think in a couple weeks it's not on the agenda so
008i just like to understand who authorized that and what it is we're trying to do here and some of the work that i saw there was um things like putting together a map of other states fans on critical race theory concept in 1691 project um downloading house builds from states that pass the crt vans prepare a chart on state status i mean some of this stuff is stuff that people can google on their own like there's people on the board that are interested in this you can google it or whatnot so just understand who authorized this sort of work it could come through a committee or you come from board being there i'm not sure hey john i worked i asked a lot of questions about some of the stuff that was in the curriculum
009so i don't know if that building was coming from me or not but i had a lot of questions when i was going through the curriculum before we approved it and uh the questions that i had so well so in the meeting yeah we asked a lot of questions here i think it's me it's me you jackie or myself you jackie frank were on it but the council doesn't attend those immediately so um i i can't imagine 2500 work and some of the work here is not just phone calls it's actually working to produce it looks like a policy of some sort so [Music] i just you know i think when we spend the money with this money i think we need to have understanding whether this is the direction that we're going in terms
010of the board we think there's some sort of um items out there that might come down to the state i mean at the end of the day we are not lawmakers here right municipalities we also have state representatives who've been kind enough to come to our meetings you know this is sort of their job to figure out what their constituents want and to promote and to talk about these type of topics i think the southwest assembly assembly person comes to our meeting i just don't know if this is something reports i understand is this you're saying this came from a committee or someone else would approve the legal work this is a good question john because you're the chair of the curriculum i don't remember having a meeting for curriculum it was [Music] and the
011issue the issue with curriculum not not only an issue but the same person [Music] the legacy right because this wasn't discussed in curriculum and i'm just saying it could have been discussed in curriculum but you haven't had a meeting for over six months oh sorry absolutely so what you're saying is is that board members use council services regardless of whether it comes up their committee out of warranty does the didn't come up let me say that i'll say it one more time to you you know you know what i hear an idea of what you're saying what you're saying is irrelevant it has nothing to do is that irrelevant every every every word meeting we talk about curriculum topics whether we have a meeting right we have we have curriculum topics in our workshop we
012have breakthrough voting kim and dr kerrigan are very kind enough to give any kind of updates there really haven't been any other updates besides the fact as the uh administration is described some of the work with google vids and work with personality have been a little bit taxing to find time for our administration in six months i'll take a look at whether six one seems like exact exaggeration but we do have one okay over six but that's irrelevant the question is to authorize this work and i'm not arguing whether crt i'm indifferent to that i just want to understand why this is coming up but it's not something that both by the state and i haven't seen it come through anywhere so john you or anyone on the board really can speak to the attorney
013if you have a question at least i'm not aware of the charge i it's on the buildings it's under the july of august it's on the list from our council it's very detailed so anyway i wanted to i i also want to say anybody here at google would you say i don't that's my question because before i voted on it i want to understand it was something that senior person i don't recall exactly who had requested it but but generally i only speak to the president and vice president separate from the administration unless um another board member seeks approval of the board president to speak to me so i assure you i have plenty of work i don't need to create work and someone had asked about it and we looked into it so based
014on that statement can we assume that this direction this authorization tool to look into this to do research to do analysis to prepare a chart and to issue a memorandum which we've never seen was either given to you by mrs manuels or mr capone i don't recall exactly so i'm not going to say typically [Music] i do a lot of research that i talked to mary ellen mr ranella mr kirkpatrick kim there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes that you're not aware of who will authorize this particular one tom we'll get back to you on that how's that yeah i answered the question i said i don't recall specifically but i i didn't create this and i told you generally i speak to board members only the president vice president or certain chair
015people so somebody told you that something so i'm happy to look at the bill i'm happy to look at the bill i'm not going to do it right now in the middle of the meeting and speak about legal matters so thank you i'll i'll review and get back to you mr jim when did you receive a copy of this bill portal when was it on the portal can you please step away from me when was it on the portal it's been on the portal for some time but you wait till we're here to bring this up when i didn't even get a chance to see it if you have some comic courtesy or professional courtesy as an attorney you could ask joan hey i got some questions about the bill do you mind if i
016talk to californians so in fairness it has to be discussed in public so i know in fairness if you have questions about a bill from three months ago three months ago [Music] okay and friday is october so for my purposes [Music] many bills and clients i have and you're going to ask me about 12 entries right and we all have day time jobs and so they were on the portal since last week and now that we've had a chance to actually fully review which we have we have a responsibility so you had a chance to ask questions beforehand i could have reviewed notes or reviewed the bill instead you're handing me a bill in the middle of a public meeting asking me questions about one of my 100 clients bruce who authorized this one i
017told you i don't recall you specifically but i speak to some reason all right i'm just gonna answer this board member that asks me if they can speak to the lawyer i am not going to deny them so i don't know what topic was discussed but i have given anybody who's asked me permission to call the lawyer [Music] i'm telling you that i have not denied one board member access to our attorney that's my answer yes bruce can we have copies of the memorandum with the direct memorandum [Music] i i'd be happy to review the file i'll get back to you i will be happy to review it and get back to you are we going to get copies i believe i answer your question thank you okay gentlemen no bruce are we going to
018get you here with the boy our attorney says he's going to review it and he'll get back to you that's exactly what he's going to do whatever is there how's that we'll get back to you last time we're the client yes there was not correct right at that time the attorney will get back to us whatever his findings are and give it over to you and me right your bills reflect the preparation of a medal and a draft policy will we be provided [Music] okay any other discussion all in favor [Music] um under the report of the superintendent mrs walker do you want to give an update where um i've been in the schools these last two and a half weeks and i can tell you it's wonderful it is just so great to see
019the kids they're happy um they're they're glad to see their friends they're glad to see their teachers and their teachers you can tell are just so happy to see them you know all of them together in the same room not half one day at the end um i've also gone to the pre-k and kindergarten orientations and they're all excited um mike jones i've been to the back to school nights and parents seemed very happy walking into the building you know they weren't able to do that last year and we have kindergarten we're actually first grade parents who were coming to our buildings you know for about school night for the first time so it's pretty exciting time um so you know these are the good things that that we get to see and do and
020and you know kind of realize this is this is why we do this you know it's been tough for parents these last year and a half it's been tough for staff it's tough for students and it's been for our administrative team and and it's been stressful for the world so you know these are the things that we want to start really focusing on um you know stop you know we have to do what we have to do for help but you know we really have to start talking about education and our kids and how we're going to you know make this a great school year for them academically socially emotionally um and we're going to start talking about that a lot more because that's that's going to be our focus um i just do also
021want to remind everybody that on this agenda we have a proposed calendar revised calendar um the board's going to take action on it tonight and if it's approved um school will be in session on october 11th and november 11th they were originally tv days and one day for students has been added to the end of the school year we'll get that out to this whole community um after the vote if it's approved um but that's pretty important for us to get out there so i did want to mention it and that's it [Music] okay i need a motion for number two through seven seconds discussion on paper number two abstentions [Music] standard number 11 is technology there really isn't anything student services you need a motion for number one through six seconds discussion all in
022favor [Music] opposed abstentions policy is the second reading i'm succumbing so we need to vote on that on number one i need a motion so we have a second second discussion all in favor oppose abstentions on curriculum i need a motion for number one and number two curriculum [Music] discussion under finance i need a motion for number one through three [Music] discussion i have a question sure um i've just been hearing a lot of complaints that the buses are being cancelled for middle school athletics is this going to affect this are we still paying the process get cancelled or begin to get canceled because of no bus drivers from the other team or our team or right browse get cancelled because of us companies can't fulfill the issue we do deduct from those routes it
023is i mean it's a constant conversation and discussion about athletic transportation it's very difficult we're sometimes literally going day by day but we are putting together as many rounds as we can but be assured that if the bus company does not run around we will not pay for it thank you okay any other comments all in favor opposed abstentions over to personnel i would like a motion for number one through seven [Music] let me just let me know when you read second discussion all in favor aye opposed abstentions i mean emotions remember one no eight what yeah number eight okay sorry number eight nine ten and eleven so discussing in favor opposed ascension i need a motion for number one through 20. no 12 through 20. [Music] committee attachment chart two [Music] seconds so plenty
024of classification since we didn't get really great copies of this what is c oh we got puppies [Music] now [Music] as needed [Music] we're just confused but we really never discussed this so i'd like to just get a little bit more of a understanding what really says that it's 13 positions at almost 50 an hour for 60 hours on the weekends for contact tracing it's up to 60 hours for each for the year but we don't it's just as immediate last year we had a nurse on duty every weekend that's not the case this year so something happens say there's a uh you know a saturday morning thursday or friday night even we get a um you know notification that there's a few students positive on the team in order to let that team continue
025to practice or play the next day saturday we would we would get it done with contact racing so the rest of the students could continue with their game um depending on what's going on we may need to consult with the nurse and that's all that's for it's just for consultation services um having to do with you know a positive student with students and the contact facing so it is contractors they should be doing practices [Music] and something happens on this weekend the kids can't play it that's right but the your administrators are going to be taking care of that on the weekends if they do take care of the weekends they have any questions there's going to be a pool of nurses that are approved for consultation hours so if there's an issue at a
026particular school and that principal needs an opinion on something that's medical based they may be more comfortable reaching out to the principal i mean the nurse in their particular building so they would call that nurse it may take an hour it may take two but it's not necessarily contact it's getting information medical information so they can move forward with consulting only they are not going to be and again like mary ellen said last year we had a nurse on call we were paying him all day this year it's an hour hour-by-hour basis [Music] and there's a pool so principal a might be more comfortable with calling this one particular nurse or uh principal b may be more comfortable calling the difference so we're not anticipating a string of hours needed for these nurses it's just
027so it's really just a phone call to make a phone call right it's not really hold on to the principal to be able to reach out to the nurse yes do you want to try it i'm going to withdraw my motion yes it's just not presented the right way i just didn't know the same okay okay so we have our first and second for number 12 through 20. any other comments all in favor [Music] okay at this time do we have any old business any new business okay this time we'll open it up to the public comment uh reminding everybody you have three minutes [Music] i [Music] now [Music] um [Music] my first question has to do with strategic planning um before copenhagen that was a very trump shorter issue for our district and i
028know there's a lot of things coming down the pipe we have them alone in the groom with room presentations um some scenarios that were played out some enrollment numbers that we were looking at and i don't believe there's been any update on more discussion with them or what our plans are for things that are coming down the pike i know we were focused on the covet stuff you know past year and a half but the other issues in the district have not gone away it's actually likely gotten worse but we haven't been looking um i know i drove past the target today the development across from target looks like people could be moving in tomorrow i know that's not true but it went very very fast where are they going are we ready for them
029do we have the space for them in those schools are the schools safe for them um honestly the lead report that came out was very concerning to me because it shows it's an indicator to me that our schools are deteriorating and i don't know how often you've been looking at the red reports if this was just a one-and-done with kobit or we actually do them every year but we have aging buildings we are aging more and more we need to deal with these issues and i know a lot of the focus has been on focus recently we can't ignore the bigger fish picture issues the things that are happening now we're going to affect my property values education five 10 15 years so i need the board and the administration please start allocating resources to
030that i think it's very important um the only other thing i wanted to comment on again i haven't so i haven't seen the dynamic of the board um and i think joe and i'm directing this mostly to you i am kind of flabbergasted at the tone between the attorney and some of the board members i obviously know this is divided forward um and it's clear who the attorney sides with quote unquote on the board um joan please take control of this is not fair the way that people are being treated the optics are terrible we as a public need to have faith that this board can work together and that the attorney works for the whole board and for the whole district and for the public not for a few members of the board please
031try to gain control and stop things when you see them happening it looks awful to the public we are losing faith please thank you [Music] anybody else amy just for one thing i know we went over the lead report and we know that some of that information was put out there that wasn't really supposed to be tested and um we don't use water fountains anymore we use refilling stations could you kind of clarify that report on how it went above and beyond what needed to be tested and that's why it works the way it is well i think what you're referring to is the fact that we did and we explained this at previous meetings we did take a uh over and above approach to our lead testing we did test outlets that were not
032required to be tested under the leg testing and just to address the frequency of the lead testing this is only the second time that we've gone through this process the legislation that came out within the last six years or so we tested it for the first time in 2017 we just tested it again this summer because that's when we were required to test it but like i said we took it over and above uh approached all this we tested all of our outlets and the legislation and the code dictates that we test drinking outlets so a lot of the outlets that ended up testing as over the actionable level were not drinking outlets they were they were classroom sinks and things of that nature that we weren't required to test but we did test anyway
033and since we didn't test it we did publicize it to everybody so i there were some drinking outlets that did test over the actual level anything that was a water fountain or a kitchen sink that was in a food prep area we addressed immediately but i just wanted to clarify what mrs mimi's was referring to that many of the outlets that we tested we didn't have to test but we did because we wanted to test everything and we tested everything and we tested it during the summer and we are addressing everything but it's really over and above what the code requires fun to clarify that because there were a lot of things the report looked horrible horrible but even in our last report when those things would have been tested it would have come up
034in the same way it's just things that we didn't listen to when that we tested this time that we didn't even test last time right because it's not required to be tested but we took an approach that we were going to test everything and we did and we publicized everything we were totally uh transparent with what we tested all of the outlets that we tested and we're addressing everything but again i just want to state it's above what the code requires amy the last time it was tested in 2016. 16 or 17 in that range and that was the first time that the lead regulations came out uh we now tested it again because they originally it was a six year window they've narrowed that to a four-year window and we did comply with that
035but again we tested out until we weren't required to test but our approach was test everything and see where we're at and that's what we did and we're remediating everything but again if we just tested what was required to be tested there would have been less outlets reported as above the actionable level uh laura 16 waiting for um i have some concerns about how we are dealing with quarantining right now the students um my son is at nuts mom he's currently quarantined um the class that he and i understand that there's a lot of um privacy issues and um you know a lot of information can't be given out as to you know who the contact was what not but there are a large number of children especially in that sponge that are quarantined right
036now 13 or 14 of 21 students in my son's class are currently quarantined my question is i honestly don't understand how 14 kids out of 21 can be quarantined and i've done my own investigative work and i'm not going to use things but [Music] if the children are wearing their masks all day which i don't want them today but we were told that by the children wearing their mask the need to quarantine will be significantly reduced [Music] because the kids are not if as long as they're socially distanced which they should be and they're wearing the mask they don't need to quarantine so i went back and forth today um trying to understand how this is happening i know specifically for my son um it didn't happen at lunch because he sits on the ends
037and the boy that sits next to him is still at school so that's where you would i can understand you they're not wearing an asset in the cafeteria i get it they also don't wear their mess and gym but the nurse showed me that they're supposed to be apart for if you're inside so [Music] his teacher's still there she didn't give it to him so it basically leaves that he was in contact i was told that he was within close contact of somebody for more than two for cumulatively more than 15 minutes during the day so i don't unders i i don't understand when this happened and i understand that there's privacy issues but i think his parents we have a right to to know what's going on what kind of protocols are being followed
038when did my son not have his mask on for 15 minutes in class he tells me he always has his mask he should always have his mask on we argued about that so he should always have his mask on so i want to i i'm really trying to understand what happened power 14 kids in one class quarantined for following masking and social and work being socially distanced i know there's i just run day day 12 of school this is now going on three years sorry i'm getting emotional and my son is home again and to think that this is gonna go on all year like i i just can't i can't do it i can't do it i'm wondering every day if you're gonna get that phone call they have to be foreign it doesn't
039make sense with working with 21 kids in one class of warranty i understand you you've got lunch gloria sorry you have lunch [Music] just email mr um kirkpatrick and he will discuss it with you i i can tell you that most of the quarantines were at lunchtime so i i don't know specifically about your son and you know there may be reasons why mr kirkpatrick can't tell you specifically but i can give you a little more information because i know there was a group of students there one [Music] hi my name is stockhausen and i live at 167 place i know you can hear me because i can hear the reverberation coming back um many of you know me obviously from my big boot um i'm an actively involved parent i've been attending quarterback meetings
040here probably for a better part of 20 years let me start by saying i don't really care about masks i had it open i'm fully vaccinated but i do care about foods and when i the rule is to wear a mask i wear a mask when i don't i don't have to um moving the meeting here to avoid following the mask rule sends the message that our kid sends the message to our kids that rules don't apply if you have enough money to make them go away and i don't like that it also begs the question that what else what are the rules can we start with them by throwing them don't want to redistrict that's okay we can privately raise funds and put it in those [Music] i'm getting very upset standing up here
041and like i said 20 years i've been attending these meetings anymore i've never seen people shout at each other and i'm rewarding this i i find it amazing i mean you have to be civil you're representing us it's embarrassing i'm sitting out there embarrassed by this and people at home that's all they talk about i've never heard attorney speak so much at a meeting i've never heard a vice president speak so much at a meeting i'm used to the president taking control i keep waiting for you to take control of making this better it's not you can't have this infighting it sends the wrong message to everyone i'm gonna go back to the last thing and why wouldn't purchase me um i listened to the last meeting and i heard you say joan that you
042moved it because you were afraid that it was going to escalate to violence that's not exactly what i said no no i have never mentioned the violence you said you didn't want our cops to be taxed i didn't want our police department to be the ones in the middle of having to find people and remove people from a meeting that's exactly what i was telling you so you weren't worried about violence or anything else i was more worried about getting our police involved because our meetings have been out of control why do you think they're out of control now as opposed to all of the other times that we've tackled difficult subjects i mean we've had teachers strikes right nobody had to get kicked out of that we've had redistricting meetings nobody had to get
043kicked out of that why all of a sudden over mass do you think that we're going to have to have people removed by the police christine i think you're missing the main point i'm going to speak to this um because i think everyone's missing i'm sorry you have to address the board but i i think one thing that i'm going to respond to because i'm tired of being attacked on facebook by you and everyone else [Music] i have never attacked anybody on facebook or anywhere else and that's insulting and you should you know we're better than this we are better than this [Music] a copy of this six page essay written by alba guerra shire this is from hillsdale college they accept no federal government money in fact they don't accept any government money um
044and she wrote this book called irreversible damage i guess a key phrase and it is uh gender dysphoria uh gender is allied to sex probably not in inseparably so but we have disputes over it uh the latest uh rumor i've read that there's in under intersectionality there are uh 62 sexual gender identities 62 i got it this week previously i was 52. um this book never mentions the word conscience but uh conscience is always there uh the laws that uh um tim pincus uh curricular staff sent me the three laws signed by the government never mentions the word conscience never mentions any word conscience this book never mentions the word conscience but is basically hitting doctors of all sorts and counselors in schools do no harm do no harm uh there was a point in
045time there was no ethics department in any medical school in america i don't think they still that harvard started a um a literary program under robert cole's a psychologist and he taught literature and he taught ethics medical ethics to interns medical interns um the gender euphoria is an emotional subjective uh a feeling that young boys and girls have it's being treated medically chemically surgically and they're finding out when they when the procedures are going through when they're 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 puberty then they get oh why don't they tell me this i want to reverse it so they try to get it irreversible damage um [Music] shakespeare has sentenced conscience doth make cowards of us all so that's why we have thrown out of many uh uh uh things in america uh
046uh from conscience out conscience by definition here you have to start wrapping it up your time's up i'm sorry conscience is the capacity the power of the mind to judge what is morally right and morally wrong pennsylvania university has a law school has a latin motto which translated in english which says the law without morals is meaningless law without morals is meaningless um if there's such a thing as gender dysphoria this book and this essay based on this book never mentions gender euphoria euphoria is the opposite the words never mentioned just so we have to stop our times up i'm sorry we have to keep everybody to the three minutes i'm sorry you're already up to four i'm sorry thank you leo thank um you paseki um just real quickly on on the um on
047the lead for anybody in the public that's concerned i know at our pfa meeting our principal went through very specifically what was done in our building so i think if anybody has a concern they should definitely um reach out so that they can specifically because the principal they had a down path um also on on the vfw um i benefit from not having the mask i'm claustrophobic so it does help me um if somebody's immune compromised or is not comfortable with me not wearing a mask i can put it on but it's a struggle after a period of time so for me i i appreciate the accommodation um but i i just i know you guys are going to not want to hear this but for all of the single parents parents with kids with
048special needs which we talked about over 20 percent of our kids are classified um we really need the accommodation of the zoom meeting and i am blessed i have a senior in high school i am a single parent as well as have a child with special needs i have a child a senior in high school who can pick up the slide for me when i need next year he will be in college it will be a different story i know you guys would miss me horribly [Music] but i i really um i don't necessarily understand the fight as long as it's controlled um so i would really like to see that brought back for the members of the community that this is just really a struggle to get out you know here so thank you
049[Music] abstentions