MTPS Board of Education Workshop Meeting (8.18.21)

001good evening everyone adequate notice of this meeting was provided by sending such notice to the ashbury park press the middletown patch and the middletown township public school district website and the posting of such notice at the august t minor administrative offices and each elementary middle and secondary school website in the district roll call here mr heffernan here mr little mrs tobacco here right here here i need a motion to go into executive session to discuss matters of contract personnel negotiations second all in favor opposed abstentions good evening everyone thank you all for coming out tonight adequate notice of this meeting was provided by sending such notice to the asbury park press the middletown patch and the middletown township public school district website and the posting of each notice at the august minor administrative offices and

002each elementary middle and secondary school on the website roll call here mr donald here here can we all please rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge and to the allegiance for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice at this time mr kirkpatrick is going to do a presentation on hiv board members they're asking us if we could go sit in the front row so that we would be able to see the screen behind us yeah thank you can we just turn good evening my name is matt kirkpatrick i'm the district director of student support services i also serve coordinators is so every year the student assistance coordinators and the spss in the district work for the district administrators to assess their buildings with procedures during the course of the

003year tonight we're going to talk about the hit grade from the ninth 2019 2020 school year so this is not last year's grades we're always a year back these are the corrections this is the self-assessment that's done by the administrators and staff members and these are the criteria and the indicators that are scored the head programs and initiatives that occur in the building trainings that occur staff instruction curriculum that is related to hiv that's presented to our children the personnel in the building that address hip related issues the building's hip related procedures the reporting investigation process these are some of the indicators that are used to come up with self-assessment scores now this is very very important information when we're scoring our building and we're answering the questions for these indicators there's either a three

004a two uh two one or a zero if you score yourself with a degree you've exceeded the indicator if you score a two you've met all the requirements if you score yourself with the one you partially meet and if you get a zero you're not meeting the requirement at all please pay attention to the bolded information if a school were to meet all requirements and give themselves a two for every indicator they would receive a score of 52. the maximum grade would be a 78. therefore each indicator would be scored as a 3. if you take a look at these scores right here these are going to be the stores for each one of our buildings in the district i just want to highlight again this is based on a self-assessment done by school personnel

005these are all the scores and the district scores on the bottom please note that these scores are listed at the bottom of every school website there's a couple sheets open allegations and investigations that occurred not only in the year 2018-19 but 2019-20 as well so in 2018 2018-19 there were 217 investigations compared to 2019-20 where there were 133 investigations hibs that were confirmed in 2018-19 were 58 in 2019-20 60. so again this is a process that occurs every year we're still waiting for the state to give us our assessment for last year and when we do that we're going to be reporting on a board meeting as well are there any questions that are related to this presentation i appreciate your patience thank you very much that's good to know thank you yes um good

006evening everyone i would just really like to ask everyone um to respect everybody's opinions mr kirkpatrick was just doing his job we're going to have discussions on our policies so you know just give us a chance to get through it but please be responsible tomorrow administrators okay under the president's report the first thing i want to discuss with the board is um mr capone and i were discussing uh sending a letter to the governor and tonight's the night tonight tonight for us as a board to discuss it do you have copies mr kabon yes did you [Applause] hey john try it again press the button yep there you go okay is this better it goes right now press it down i know the button is saying sorry okay um mr capone and i put together

007a letter that we would like to send to the governor uh mr capone would you like to read it yes it's not a letter it's a red it's a the middletown township board of education county obama resolution demanding governor murphy recent executive order 125. whereas by the want this whereas by the way of executive order governor murphy continues to mandate mass school children in middletown and whereas by letter dated may 27 2021 members of the middletown board of education are requesting an elimination of mass mandate in favor of allowing mass to be optional whereas middletown township public schools have been open safely with in-person instruction since september 2020 for full-time in-person instruction since may 10 2021. and whereas middletown township public schools have been open i'm sorry whereas over 90 percent of the teachers and

008staff in school have been vaccinated according to whitehouse.gov warehouse the district whereas the district undertook extraordinary measures to secure access to vaccines for all staff as soon as vaccines were available resulting in over 80 percent of middletown township school staff being vaccinated and whereas as recently as june 7 2021 governor murphy stated the school officials should be empowered to make decisions based on their community and their facilities [Applause] and whereas august 2nd 2021 governor murphy stated one side doesn't fit all for opening up school conditions and whereas on august 2nd 2021 commissioner judith persicelli stated it's up to the individual if they shall want to wear a mask indoors and whereas the middletown board of education believes there is no factual basis or change in the circumstances presented in the middle town from august 2nd

0092021 to ishna's issuance of executive order 251 to justify the imposition of mass mandate now therefore he resolved the middletown township board of education that the board called upon governor murphy to rescind executive order 251 and allow school districts to make individual decisions and be it for further resolve the copy of this resolution be sent to governor's office to senators decline of scanlan's office assembly person schaffenberger and dimaso senate president steve sweeney and assembly speaker coughlin and dr alan mcmillan acting commissioner of the department of education so we put this together because we both felt that we needed to send a letter but this is the time that the board has input to either agree with us disagree with us recommend changes if you don't want to be a part of it that's fine if

010you do well you know we need to get a consensus so we can send this letter we get a consensus showing well i think some of our social's trying to review it since you actually just came out this seems to be similar to the letter we signed until five minutes ago to review okay um what we're going to do is we want you guys to meet this and we will um take your consensus to put it on the board meeting [Music] there could be a resolution policy which is different than what you're reading right now it says attachment i'm not sure what that is it reads similar type stuff information but it talks about the resolution so what is that exactly i yeah that's coming next under the president's report there's two different yes this

011is the next one right yes different that's not what's being discussed right now so that's a different yeah yes this is the one that frank just handed out so when we're talking about now now everybody needs to remember this is a workshop so everything from the board this is where we should be discussing it on the table okay yeah um there was a motion to table this even though it's not a voting meeting don't push that down we had emotion it's not working it's not working to staple this does anybody we need to do business [Music] can we please ask everyone in the crowd to just keep it down i i know everyone wants to speak there is a time to speak everyone in the public but we're not going to be able to get

012through the agenda if there's a lot of shouting out i understand there's technical problems with the table mics but we're trying to get through it right now the status is there's a motion that was brought forward by the vice president to demand governor mercy murphy rescind executive order 251. that was that was given to the board members mr jaimo made a motion to table it which was seconded so under robert's rules is not debatable so right now before i think it was either mr liberal or mr doble everyone please please please stop yelling outside please we're not gonna get for the meeting if everyone's yelling are we voting on putting this on the voting agenda for next week right now you're voting to table it i don't know what i'm saying is what's the other

013proposal a consensus john i want to the consensus of the board if we could send this letter out is what i wanted to do okay like right now yes workshop i don't know this in this voting meeting i apologize this is a workshop meeting well right now it's just being discussed so what you're voting on is mr jaimo's motion to table this but what i'm saying this is this is the proposal here is to put this on the voting agenda it was to discuss what the board thinks of it not the point that's the words of mr capone's mouth but that's my understanding of why he brought it forward okay we wanted we wanted to we want to discuss it and if possible get a consensus if we should go forward with it [Music] please

014everyone can everyone not yell out from the crowd please we can't conduct the meeting if that keeps occurring okay mr gibbon made it motion to table it's seconded under robert's rules now there's a vote on that and the board if they vote yes it gets tabled till indefinitely because that was the substance of the motion from the language used if if the board votes no then the discussion on the resolution will continue to vote yes you can't vote on this resolution until next week right we can't discuss it until we get take the motion off the table so that we can discuss it cause i'm just asking because you can't the resolution said is say send a letter now we have to vote on a resolution john right now we're voting on should we take

015away if motion passes that we're not take away it then we will have a discussion okay okay i just want to make sure i know yeah nothing's going forward on that unless there's a possible so if i vote no to that that means i want to discuss correct correct okay okay [Music] yes yes yes mr heffernan absolutely not [Music] yes no no so now that motion fell okay i know everybody just got it and we're not looking to push anything through we want to um look this over hopefully get a consensus that we can um we could go through with this if you have changes we want to hear what your recommendations are it's a draft that we want to send something to the governor to get on our side yes i'm sorry mrs benuis

016i'm sorry that's okay um mike no i think i'm okay so again and just discussing this i'm not stating what my final uh decision is going to be i do have some issues with what's here i'll take the microphone okay thank you so in looking at the one two fourth whereas i don't think it's entirely i don't think it's entirely more accurate keep it down in my opinion i don't think this is entirely accurate without acknowledging the fact that our schools were open safely with in-person instructions since september 2020 and for full-time in-person instruction since may 10 2021 without noting that we had mitigation procedures in place such as masking such as the shields such as social distancing you know for a good period of that time we were not open for full-time days because

017everyone was still trying to figure out how to safely serve lunch so without adding that in there i don't think that that is accurate um the other things that i would just point out again just noting in the second group very note quotes from governor murphy and also the commissioner i don't think that's really necessary quite honestly to actually just put that in there these quotes it really doesn't add anything else to the sort of impetus of what we are basing this resolution on which is to have choice in the district so i don't think it's necessary i would take that out and then also looking at the following one where it says whereas the milltown board of education believes there's no factual basis or change in circumstances present in middletown from august 2nd to

018the issuance of eo251 to justify imposition the mass mandate i don't actually believe is true and again i would say that that should be taken out if that it doesn't really again add much to the letter which is to say basically you want school districts to have choice want to come in [Music] so deb yes those words should be sent right back to them with two days later than they required masking so what changed in those two days please i mean that was their actual words yeah it's quoted exactly the way it says [Music] requested an elimination of mass mandate in favor of the option i would ask that [Music] we have yes [Music] you could put the majority of the middletown board of education [Music] in fact if he was going to send that

019one in his individual capacity he said he would yeah as it turns out [Music] and others in their award of education [Music] i asked you that question that was your response and that apparently was not the case every board member up here minus two signed that letter every board member up here minus two yourself and mike donald signed that letter so what is your point [Music] see that's an approval [Applause] [Music] and i followed up with every board member to ask who would like to sign every person here wanted to see it in person and you never even replied [Applause] tom i believe that's the biggest problem with us having board members on doom because a lot of information [Applause] we did at a board meeting frank wrote it he offered to go to everyone's

020house to get them to sign it or meet them somewhere else seven of us did that if you didn't reply i can't control that [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] okay let's move on any other comments [Music] i endorse that paragraph because it certainly has caused a underscores and a divide between the board of trustees and the district administration so perhaps we should put that in bold language [Music] i don't think that has any relevance to this should be removed [Music] in this case no i don't i don't mean to be disrespectful i really can't hear what you're saying nice enough for the guy right next to him [Applause] okay guys guys we need to get through this please respect us give us the opportunity we got another whole resolution to go through tom are you still

021going or does anybody else have any other comments at this point i'd like to take consensus to put this on the agenda for next week's voting session i'll second it do a roll call roll call's not necessary but you know you need at least five people to put it on the agenda from what do you think absolutely back home absolutely uh is kevin andy yes that's right um i'm abstaining i'm sorry i'm abstaining it's jaimo yes and yourself yes okay so it moves and we can put this off next week's voting session is that a single on the agenda or you know what we need to make sure amy has a copy put on the agenda [Music] okay the next thing under the president's report is a resolution demanding um no that's a different one

022sorry such a joy before i even read this i i want to explain how this went down we were advised that we need to have a policy slash resolution on math squaring i asked it to be sent to our policy chair so it can be put in a policy committee mrs tobacco with that being done mrs tobacco reached out to me and asked for permission to meet with mr padula our board attorney because there's a lot of legalities to this um i i granted her the permission to do so with mr capone filling in for me because i was out of town at a funeral so they got together with our lawyer and they put this together it was discussed last night at policy for over three and a half hours back and forth so

023we are presenting this tonight but what we need the public to know is that we are not defying governor murphy's man mandate we can't do that but we are trying to help things help people students um move forward with this until something changes so um mr capone um who's going to read this mr pedor i don't know we don't have to did every board member get a chance to read this that was sent to you on your portal this is on the portal for the public as well so you can read it and look into it what it is is the resolution implementing a policy pursuant to executive order 251. so at this time we're looking for board comments this was structured yesterday in the board committee meeting on policy and it took about three

024and ten hours to finalize it there was approximately ten people in the room administration and board members [Music] that is that is a policy resolution what i read earlier was just a resolution [Music] correct this was not the one that was originally presented to policy this was a revision based on the discussions at the policy gateway [Music] i'm sorry i couldn't hear you and i've been invited with a copy of one so i can compare it to version two which we received at two o'clock this afternoon right and that's because it was discussed that policy until almost eleven last night uh but yeah i mean i'm sure we'd be happy to provide you the original this is the version that came out of policy last night so this is the version that's going to be

025on the agenda next week can we can we just read or re-read this it's kind of long right educators not talking about vaccines yes it does okay so why why is being discussed looked at this resolution yet or for policy [Music] can you hear [Music] was me discussed after hours and this is what we came up with between the administration and this question is why is there a mention of any vaccine in here and what he's referring to is part of her policy is a little bit reactionary in response to what has happened this past week for the njea teacher trainings training teachers on how to influence your student on vaccination um from teachers in our district who disclosed um some training some of the [Music] whether pro or against [Applause] committee we just got

026this [Music] guys please please let us continue on tom like all committees we had the committee meeting last night you got it today this is not being voted on until next week so we can't get it to you any sooner because it was directed to policy to try to form this resolution policy and that's exactly what happened last night it took three and a half hours to get through it and i i'd like to say and get a policy chair i'd like to say that just for everyone's education we are following the letter of the law um exactly as governor murphy's executive order 251 is laid out which also include we are following all of these exemptions let's take a look [Music] shall accept an individual for parental testimonial letters evidence paragraph 1a1 it indicates

027the district shall accept an individual or mental testimonial order and inhabitants and wearing a mask [Music] make it not reserved to itself to want to reject the letter continue on is there an ability for the district to reject the letter why would we reject a letter from a parent or a doctor yes small letter i and small letter i i are the disjunctive correctors not conjunctive no correct there are three separate exemptions so paragraph one small letter i all the district would require is a letter from the parent [Music] does the perhaps have the ability to screen or reject a parent's letter and if so what is the criteria the district can look at the letters if you read the entire section it says any such letter must describe how wearing a mask specifically affects

028that individual or student general statistics or assertions about mask wearing are not acceptable so that's the standard that you were just asking okay so does the district have the right to reject the letter no it depends on the letter i'm not going to comment on hypothetical letters or what the letter might [Music] well you know as a lawyer we don't like to address hypothetical questions we address the facts as they're presented to us so i don't want to put anything out there and have somebody say at some point i don't want to have somebody say at some point the board attorney or somebody said something at a meeting that this is what the letter should or shouldn't say but there is a standard built in and that was specifically built in to avoid situations where

029where it would just be a parental opt-out which is not permitted under executive order seems to read that way by the way lawyers get hypotheticals all the time from our clients i mean judges during oral argument but i know i've been trained for 23 years to never answer a hypothetical question especially sitting on a desk but as a lawyer you can't have all your facts i'm [Music] i said as a sorry you're entitled to your opinion but as a lawyer you're not entitled to your own facts [Music] that's correct [Music] part it talks about the executive order discussion [Music] in other words we're we're addressing the exact order of this resolution but now we're talking about vaccinations discussing vaccinations [Music] we all have time to speak john i think that that is really put in

030there to um to protect us and protect our kids we did say at the last board meeting that we were not going to allow staff to encourage or discuss vaccines with our students that we would put on the front web page where vaccines are available if people want them but we do not want to discuss with our students [Music] the premise for why you're adopting the policy but if you look at the whereas clauses in eo 251 they do speak a lot about the vaccination status of the student population the executive order the whereas clauses and the entire factual premise of the of the eo is that there's low vaccination rates of students or their ineligibility for exactly should we add that tomorrow [Music] yeah i mean i don't see a need it doesn't lend

031to this i mean it did though the fact that it's in the whereas clauses of the executive order open the door to you including part of that in this policy here but we could add the whereas clauses to this but it's not legally necessary i'm just saying it starts with masks and then later on you have to read it to talk [Music] we should put that in there then and we also should talk about it says talking about it in general it doesn't say to whom the whom i don't think it just says you cannot discuss at all so i don't know if that means you can't talk to teachers about it i think we should be very specific of who we're talking another thing that i would piggyback on there and this came out

032actually last night at the policy committee meeting mrs pickus did raise the concern that it is possible in one of the learning standards for health classes that they may talk about vaccines in general how they came about how they were developed what they are supposed to do so is that going to prohibit us from now meeting a learning standard i would like the board to answer the question thank you no that's right it would not because that would be legally required and that would supersede this in the policy this does this sorry this policy [Music] which says general statistics [Music] the intent of the exemptions is that there has to be some individualized indication of the impact on an individual's health which is that comes right from the language of the executive order that says

033one of the exemptions is when doing so would inhibit the individual's health so the purpose of that language is to have a specific causal connection between the adverse impact on the health and the mass rather than than just a general statistic of how masks affect children generally because i know there's been a lot of studies about that i think jama even [Music] this is [Music] incorporating general statistics or assertions did you say you could not see that occurring uh well i mean through the course of my representation of several school districts i've seen hundreds of mass exemption letters and a vast majority of them cite general stages [Music] so i think i don't know who said this before um can't hear you i don't know who said this before but you said that the letter

034would be submitted to either the principal or the nurse where is that stated that is not specifically in here but that would be a protocol on how administration implements the policy that would be replacement no yeah i believe that was brought up last night it's in there too also it's it would be that way also because of hipaa you don't want the letter the letter would only be going to the school nurse or the head administrator in the building [Music] he said that should be included yes everybody agreement we can add that it's going to go to the nurse and the principal i don't think we're going to get it it's going to be appealing it's okay uh the superintendent recommends that we do not put that in the polls i have another question sure

035so under 1a3 the current heat exemption shall continue until significant change in weather conditions is that to imply that when that decision is then made everyone's wearing masks i'm sorry i can't hear you it would not be that everyone is wearing masks if you were subject to one of the other exemptions then you would obviously not be required to but the blanket heat exemption would not be implicated any further [Music] we're not predicting what the weather's going to be at that time we're just saying as of today the heat exemption was implicated for students that were in the school and visitors that were correct around today so so that status quo is going to be maintained until there's some change that would no longer actually support implicating that exemptions because all that is [Music] this

036is [Applause] meeting last night i've been involved with the schools for over 20 years and for me the best advocate for a student is their parents [Applause] and you're right [Music] there's not specific enough criteria for this policy we simply recognize do you think this specific information in the eo 251 job are there any other comments on this resolution is this anywhere in our actual agenda anywhere like a workshop so i noticed that i missed it no we were only notified in last week that we had to come up with the policy resolution and that's why i sent it to the policy committee i mean as a board member say you know look i look at the agenda right and i didn't necessarily expect a resolution preview tonight is there a way we can better

037communicate so we know it's coming um so it was on the committee policy committee agenda right i think i could help it was on the policy committee agenda it was sent out in the portal today and available a copy on the portal and if you look at the draft agenda for next week it's under the president's report i i got you what i'm saying is before today i didn't know this i don't necessarily know this is coming because i don't i'm not on the policy committee and when we look at our workshop under our committees we don't put any items up all i'm saying is i'm fine reviewing it's a workshop but it would have been nice to have just a bit more of a heads up that we were talking about you know because

038we we've slimmed down the workshop items here it just says committee meeting so it's easy to miss that stuff if you're not like me that's all i'm asking it's a big deal right so it would have been nice to get an email or just a heads up i mean i'm fine reviewing it here but i know people are getting frustrated but it's not as easy as people think you don't expect you look at the agenda you say oh what's going to go on today i had no idea john yeah following the procedure we have sorry can we just follow the an email saying that procedures a word today yeah but that's my point jackie i don't know why you're arguing i'm just saying it's just like everything i have no idea facilities either you found

039out so you had an agenda we found out where we issued an executive order are you the president [Music] i asked a question and that's when we were informed that this policy resolution needed to be formed right so right away i did what i was supposed to do and sent it to the policy chair and that's how it started we get 48 hours usually sort of see what we're talking about that's all i'm saying i'm asking i understand that but this is what a workshop is for our meeting with last night please stop shaking your head [Music] it's a big topic right so i didn't realize it was going to be an agenda item because you know folks are saying when we speak about it so you speak about it at the end of the

040meeting it's not an agenda i'm saying put it into a heads up that's all i'm asking i'm not saying procedures were violated i'm saying it's a big deal right so i'm just thinking about a question but i i was asking a question you the proposed resolution to working together what it is tonight and then tonight was for us to discuss and next week is for us to vote fair enough i'm sorry it was no i'm not asking is that in the future usually we do really quick we tried putting meetings together last week a couple of people had vacations administration and board members that's why i myself personally was at four board meetings last night four o'clock until 11. i'm not about questioning that's the only reason why this is uh behind it all i'm

041saying is that an email or text or something heads up there'll be no first and second reading you want to answer that he wants up there's the first and second reading no i'm starting with covid policies in the spring i've advised several clients that due to the inherent uh temporary nature of covid that adopting it by simple resolution is easier and legally sufficient rather than adopting a policy because a resolution is a formal action of the board and it implements your standard operating protocols and procedures and policy as it applies to the mask wearing as required under 251. is this a resolution or is this a policy this is a resolution establishing your policy as required by 251 and under my legal opinion due to the temporary nature of copa 19 and the expeditious nature

042in which we are required by the executive orders to implement these policies doing it by a simple resolution with one reading rather than two readings how you normally do policies is legally sufficient so there'll be no policy number correct [Music] i'm sorry um in here there's a date saying when the executive order uh over what or not that just that this resolution is no longer in effect or tied to the date of the executive order it is not but by its nature that it implements a policy pursuant to the order if the order is amended or rescinded then by its nature this would also sunset any other comments so what the one change we're we're not making a change right marion recommended not okay we could talk about it okay all right so this i'm

043sorry i just have one more question i'm sorry as we're sitting here trying to work through this so um clearly as a board you know one of our our first and utmost duties is to maintain safety of our students and our staff that is clear the other thing is that we have a fiduciary duty to this town and one of the things that we have to consider is potential liability and so i'm not getting into the hypotheticals but i do want to ask this question so normally in a work setting if someone is asking for a reasonable accommodation they have to provide some documentation to back that up and one of the strongest things and honestly the only thing that i've ever seen in my experience is a letter from some type of health care

044provider to state why that accommodation is necessary which would then allow that person to continue working so now if we start accepting individual letters from parents and again it is still loosely defined in here in terms of what it is those letters have to state to say why mass cannot be worn if we face a potential lawsuit from a parent whose child contracts covid right and you then have to jump through the hoops to figure out whether or not you can actually prove that it's in school transmission please please please keep it down does that increase our potential liability as a district again a determination of liability is extremely back specific i know we talked about this at some length last night so i wouldn't want to give an opinion here in a public meeting

045about a hypothetical liability on some virus that we don't know where it came from or how somebody got it or the effects of mask wearing either having one being required to have one or not having one that's kind of difficult but i rather talk about those issues privately because that implicates attorney-client communication and potential litigation [Music] yeah i mean i'm not talking about i'm not talking about specifics clearly we would never be able to do that but what we're doing here is adapting a resolution that could potentially open us up to liability i think you can give a general about that i would say generally if there's a lawsuit that you know the general rule is that people go for every deep pocket and that's a possibility here and that could be a possibility if

046someone is compelled to wear a mask and the requested accommodation is denied it could also work that way or it could work you know the other way if someone claims that they um contracted tobin as a result of some i'm assuming that you're saying an allegedly improperly given accommodation i'd just like to also also have to remember that [Music] [Applause] this is not the point to actually belabor that but thank you okay let's move on now okay no other comments we're gonna move on um i i also have to give a report under um the president's uh report is that leonora and i and mrs gallagher met with whitson's food service to see how our lunches will be expedited this year we were guaranteed that we're going back to our normal delis open in the

047high school hot food stations we looked at certain schools they're going to add more lines to expedite the lunch period there's a few pieces of equipment that we're purchasing that needed to be replaced so what i could say now whitston's will be coming to do a presentation in september but we just wanted to update the community that going back to school that lunches will be as usual they're opening all lines and serving all students [Applause] that's it okay next we are moving on to committee report legislation this month technology yeah we are meeting monday night and we'll report tuesday perfect student services yeah yes so we met as a committee on august 12th one of the things that we were able to talk about was esy and esy had actually ended on august 6th and

048it ran from july 6 through august 6th and it was at harmony elementary and then also thorn all the student participation we were told had 213 students which was 142 at the preschool in elementary level and 71 at the secondary level i do believe um the total of students was a little bit down from previous years but we were very happy that we were able to actually have esy this summer program um and in some ways it actually was beneficial to the student that did participate with actual numbers being a little bit lower because the classes were actually smaller and so the children who participated had a lot more one-on-one time with their teachers and overall it actually was very successful so we were happy to hear that um we talked about the new bill

049which was s 3434 for compensatory services and the aging out returning students which was signed by governor murphy which allows students to typic who are typically aging out to be considered for an additional year of instruction and services as determined by their iep teams so the iap teams are now starting and continuing to go over to determine those students particular needs and services of those who are interested and so they will continue uh through the rest of the summer here to figure that out and so we'll have perhaps some more information at a future meeting we had a very brief update about the inclusion grant which we have been talking about over the past year the reason why is that the inclusion grant committee had not yet met over the summer but the administrators are

050continuing to plan for those committees continued work when the news starts and one of the things that we had talked about um we had actually talked about this at the last couple of meetings right before the school year ended was that those committees are now planning to now add parent representation on those committees so we'll have more to actually talk about that uh when the school year begins i do believe that uh actually last week there was to be a wilson training to try and actually train more of our teachers um i think there was a program that was actually supposed to be a combination of in-person and hybrid but dr cheatham and let us know that literally i think it was like a day or two before the program started a decision made not

051by the district but there was a decision made that it would be all virtual but all of our teachers did participate who wanted to take that training there were nine staff members who took the training and so now i believe at some point and don't quote me on this because i was trying to remember myself the other day what the number was we were somewhere around 40 teachers in the district who were certified under wilson so these will now add another nine which is really great for our students and then the last thing that we had talked about again was another update on the disproportionality and so uh dr meg young and then also dr fergus who we have consulted with out of temple university are continuing to meet and continue to meet with the

052committee to talk about and look at the data that we have and then throughout the summer they were continuing to talk about target areas identified for the continued disparate disproportionality work and then how that would be rolled out for meetings that would then happen at different levels with different staff once the school year begins and so we'll have more update on that once uh september rolls around thank you deb it was really a great meeting oh yeah it was information coming out it was a very good meeting okay let's see finance and facilities starting to pick this up it was a very small short meeting so i would let amy uh talk about it with a few topics mainly in the area of rescanning uh reviewing the results for that we've had some preliminary results

053back then show some outlets that will need uh remediation filters and so forth we do have it's primarily sinks and and also any specific uh findings uh for a particular school will be communicated out to those school communities we also talked about the link rock library lease agreement which is on the agenda for next week for the board to approve uh the board has been uh leasing the library facility that is not being used in the library at this point to the township for the past several is thank you amy policy i think we just had a full discussion jackie anything else to add no that's always no problem all right curriculum our meeting never transpired but i know that so i don't have a microphone but i have a pretty loud voice so hopefully

054you can uh hear me um we hope to have a meeting soon as you can imagine most of the curriculum department has been really busy with staffing um that's been their priority over the last several weeks however we did want to let the board know that our summer programs are coming to a conclusion this week on friday will be the last day for our students summer school for middle school and high school friday recovery as well as our sword program the attendance has been very high this year we appreciate the parents partnering with us and making sure the students have attended their programs um i have to say the most successful most um highly rated by the students i was able to visit them program was our esports program there was a wait list uh

055the students were excellent we visited with them with the executive county commissioner mrs walker myself and mrs burke um they were very eager to come and tell the board how much they learned and how they hope that the program can be expanded and i know that that's something that we're talking about uh later uh with expanding esports stipends for our advisors the other thing is civil air patrol and i think this is uh this is to address that in our student activities report because we actually discuss that as being an extension of our curriculum uh through an extracurricular activity and community partnership and the last thing we just wanted to give the board an update on is through our strategic planning over the last two cycles that i've been involved at least uh so over

056five years there's been a lot of community feedback regarding increasing programs for career and technical education hands-on programs i just want to let the board know that this come on board and middle school and high school level she's connected herself with the department of education representatives and we are in the process of pursuing uh and surveying students once they return to september uh to apply for cte certifications which will allow the district to take advantage of perkins grant funds uh to expand programs for students so be on the lookout we'll let you know what our survey results um show where the student's interests lie right now we're going to be focusing on our current eighth and ninth graders um and uh stay tuned for more updates thank you i think that's really exciting thank you

057john shared services anything [Music] [Laughter] i said no respect she missed co-curricular yeah we're going back to it so you want anything yes yes so we did not meet this month as many votes we're continuing to where we're putting together disability [Music] so we are working on that okay we met last night yeah as amy was saying earlier about the finance committee bubbles are being reskinned next year so as far as our our weight rooms they're being maintained but they're hoping to update things next year for the weight rooms for the high school students uh sports are back everything is status quo we're back to playing sports uh also we discussed a little bit about uh pasta parties and different things that are going on in the community and i believe that the district is

058doing it in-house so we can see what's happening with our students when they have these parties and gatherings that they normally have we're trying to get everything back to normal as normal as it can be for our students we do have as kim said about uh this esports it is something very new it's very exciting it looks at the stipend that we're putting in to have a club for the kids it's a curriculum but yet it's a club also to expand with these children doing it's very interesting it's gaming but it's a different level it's at a different level it's it's something that's going to become a career for the kids going forward it's very interesting i'll tell you i would they opened my eyes with it last night the other thing that i can't

059really discuss i'm going to need help from either mr kirkpatrick or pat civil civil air patrol please i cannot discuss this because it i just i need your help with it let's put it that way so curriculum goes outside of the classroom right so mrs burton i had an opportunity along with the high school administration at old schools to meet with um two gentlemen uh one of which is a community member actually um and former teacher here in middletown lieutenant bob cartwright and um they presented the program to us uh which would be beneficial to students 12 to 18. um it was a completely voluntary program but things that it really emphasizes is character education physical fitness areas of core values that they believe in such as integrity volunteer experience being respectful towards others and

060a lot of different soft skills that students will need to go into you know jobs within the 21st century another big piece of it is teaching them how to be aerospace leaders so they would get to work with you know different pilots that are certified to learn about aerospace um it has also has a parent component of parents which could be volunteers for committing company members that they can learn more about the civil air control program another piece that they emphasize that students wear uniforms because they feel when they are presented when they start to wear their uniforms we have a sense of teamwork we have a sense of leadership and leadership is a very and then they have an activities element where they take all of these core values and they go through projects

061and simulations um to emphasize all these areas that they learn in the weeks that they're together in their meetings uh the lieutenant did emphasize that um they uh all the things that they would need um a request is a storage space for all the like technology supplies that they have as well as meeting rooms to meet with the students so this is the civil air patrol which is an auxiliary community faction of the u.s air force and it is in no way shape or form the students have to make any binding committee by participating in this auxiliary core uh to the military um and uh they just asked that we'd be a community partner with the bayshore squadron by offering them as mr indicated space to store things like flight simulators drones stem kits and

062other materials that they use in training the students on aerospace engineering and design and this is just a club just a club and just after school it's actually open to any 12 to 18 year old in the area they actually have students residents in middletown who are currently in the squadron as well as students from other neighboring uh towns like freehold and howell they were having their meetings many years ago at modern day they lost that space they most recently have been at cva but unfortunately cba is uh knocking down the building that they were using so they can be asking us if we can partner with them it's going to be house stat high school north that is what we are thinking right now for the club yes so club is going to consist

063of our students plus the bay shore area children correct okay thank you thank you all right we did personnel in executive presence does anybody have any questions on the meeting agenda for next week okay old business i have one item for all business um so at the last meeting we had talked about uh doing away with zoom for board members and the public and i know that i spoke and i believe that my daughterlin also supported this as well that i thought it was a mistake that we got rid of zoom for the public to continue to be able to not only view but also participate and contribute whatever thoughts they had on issues that were coming before us i do want to say that while we were virtual although it was difficult at times

064with technology it was the most engaged i think we ever saw our school community i know that when we had our meetings i would actually be on zoom but i would be monitoring uh the youtube channel as well looking at questions that were being asked and every single meeting that we had we had upwards of 200 participants on each platform who were watching what we were doing and engaging with us and giving us important feedback which is extremely valuable for us to be able to make decisions in terms of where this district should go and i do think it was a mistake when we actually got rid of that and in fact actually the township committee at their meeting on monday night is still operating not only meeting in person but having a webex platform

065for the residents of middletown to be able to view because there are many reasons why people cannot attend meetings in person and they also allow the residents of middletown to have that opportunity to voice their opinion on what their agenda items on through webex so i'm making a motion tonight that we should re-institute the zoom platform for the public to fully participate second motion can we make a simple request can you if you're going to speak i'm sorry can you just pass the mic down the line it seems like it's not too much to ask because don't hurt that i can hear you in front it's not hard to do your esther children okay speak up please so what i had said is this even one what i had said was that at last month's

066meeting there was not an official vote but we were asked to come to consensus as to whether or not we should get rid of the zoom platform not only for board members but also for the public to be able to fully engage with us by viewing what we are doing during meetings and also having the opportunity to voice their opinion during public comment via zoom i said that i disagreed with actually getting rid of that platform for the public mr donlin spoke in favor of that as well and then it was quickly decided that we were going to get rid of it i do think that was a big mistake because it actually has stopped us from being able to engage with our community for those who cannot attend meetings in person there are a

067lot of reasons why people cannot attend meetings in person it doesn't mean that there's a concern about what it is we're doing or where the district might be going and we're losing that valuable input and i also stated that while we were virtual though there were times when technology proved to be a little difficult every single meeting i was on the zoo and then also on another device monitoring the youtube channel i was curious to see how many participants were actually there it was easy to tell who the board members were and then separated by who the participants were on each platform we had upwards of over 200 participants each time our community members engaged with us and we have now lost that the township committee at their meeting on monday night they are still

068operating meeting in person and having a webex platform for the residents of middletown to be able to not only view but also voice their opinion over webex on whatever their agenda items are because they value the opinion of their community and inclusion of everybody in the committee to have the opportunity to say whatever it is that they want to say and i do think that that was a mistake for us to get rid of so i make a motion tonight that we reinstitute the zoom platform for the public to fully participate i second that motion [Applause] this would have been the same way as the resolution [Music] actually i do want to address that comment that i just heard that i want to sit on a zoom meeting if you actually paid attention to the

069way i voted last month i actually voted saying that i thought board members should appear in person that is exactly what i said public comment is coming up shortly please let us finish you know we had a lot of people calling from other a towns chaotic you know if you have a problem with what's going on please please just keep it up a chance to speak later and harmony if you come on down to say something you should wear a mask because that's the law right now every [Music] we are in the middle of a meeting let's finish it the public will have their opportunities um if you want to yell at them you'll have your time later please be respectful how is that appropriate it's not appropriate none of it is dead made a

070motion you can't do motions here i can't do motions similar to the way we did the resolution for the governor uh to rescind 251 you have to do that the same way to see if there is a consensus among members of the board to consider that at your voting meeting not tonight at the voting meeting because we did a consensus before you would ask for a consensus now on your okay on your voting meeting okay so you have to ask for the consensus to put it back on for the agenda next week okay that's fine i asked for the consensus to put it on me for the agenda next week please please please you can't yell out i made it very clear that it was for the public to be able to fully participate and

071i am i don't have the option of only joining that this is i don't believe there's a back and forth please consider instead of having it i do i'm not there with the public calling in i understand people watching it and seeing it i agree with that but the calling in part if you feel strong about something i think you should come into the meeting and be present not on on the telephone or on a zoom call because with technology there's a lot of fluids too and we were getting a lot of people doing things on technology that really weren't appropriate and it's going to get worse not better that part be appropriate and i would rather could you if you would tweak it i might be more open to it so so i'm not

072quite sure obviously leonardo how you would tweak it any further what i'm asking for is have a platform where people could view what's going on at our mirror but i know you have now but she's actually for zoom and we don't have zoom we have uh whatever the youtube youtube [Laughter] but maybe maybe some people don't know how to use youtube i don't know i know there's no there's no there's no ability on youtube to be able to interact with the board that is my point so that's why with zoom you're able to do that because there are many reasons honestly listen you and i may be different than somebody right if we feel passionately enough we're going to try to make time to actually get in person to say it there are many reasons

073why people cannot and i'm not going to judge them for okay it's not my place but if they feel passionately about it we have now taken their ability away from them able to weigh in okay [Applause] and i'm going to say this frank you and i can go back and forth about this the entire night right but i've had parents who reached out to me saying that they were not able to come tonight but they were concerned about what was going to be discussed or what direction the district was going to be going they have now not had the opportunity to be able to weigh in like the rest of the public that's all i'm asking now i'm not making the motion that it's for the board i'm making it to allow our community to

074engage with us and for us to engage with them all right let's take let's take your consensus okay let's take the consensus who um is in favor of bringing back zoom and if if we have the consensus it goes on the agenda next week if we don't i say no start with baron jackie no deb yes mike yes tom it is [Music] all right [Music] yes [Music] what is your consensus yes or no bring it back bring it back john no and i'm a no i think people should i think we've done this for years and i know times have changed but when people really have a passion they show up this room is full [Applause] now we're all available by email i i truly think and tell you my personal opinions when we did

075zoom there was a lot of people calling in that weren't from our town there were fights being picked back and forth between who's on zoom and who's in person it just pits everybody against each other come and make your comments it's easy to talk always available [Applause] wait i can't hear you you never know when our meetings hard to expect people to sit here for x amount of hours you know you can just make a complaint i've got something that's hard you know so that's not the question that i like i know what you're saying we've heard a lot of big oh yes [Music] is very active all day long so everybody is welcome to email you it may be true anybody else have old business new business i do have something we had a

076board retreat and i thank the five members that showed up and i also thank the five members who filled out the board self-evaluation i'm going to read to you what our goals are we need to make action plans by september so we can read them into the meeting goal number one was to develop a plan to monitor strategic plan for the middletown township public school district some of those recommendations were on agendas you could put things but that's really up for us to come up with a plan continue to work with the township to enhance shared services for shared projects goal three develop and implement a plan for improved communication amongst and between board members develop and implement a schedule for ongoing professional development training for board members support the district school reopening plan to

077ensure our students have the best educational experience so those are the goals that um new jersey school board sent me if anybody would like to write action plans for any of those please contact me we need to have them done by the september voting meeting and that's all i have any other new new business okay at this at this um time we're going to open up to public comment and i please ask everybody to just be respectful of each other's opinions not everybody has the same opinions on everything and we need to respect everyone we have to get a mic over there okay oh get a mic so if anybody would like to make a comment you could please come up to the mic state your name and address we will be giving you three

078minutes each joan is the 30-minute public comment section as much time as needed well we're going to go on to 30 minutes if we need to extend it i'll make the motion i'm going to eighth grade and i attended middle school for some people master a feeling of being protected with my debt and respect for me some feeling of anxiety suddenly covering my face and irritations making up headaches and not being able to catch my breath very hard for the dead during the period during mass i felt that my teacher was more worried about my my mass than my education during the winter was too cold to go outside so we had to stay inside for indoor gym it was very hot and caused me out of a migraine and i felt like petted so

079i sat down and pulled my mask down and try to catch my breath but i got yelled at two seconds later the last thing you have that most people use clearly say not for medical abuse so i ask you to award please fight to give us a choice as an american citizen we have the freedom to make choices they may not always be viewed as the right one but they are still ours to make thank you hi my name is been a middletown resident for a little over a year i'm a practicing attorney tomorrow is actually my son's third birthday for me uh preschool this year my daughter's entering kindergarten and i'm here advocating for their right to read register in the classroom [Applause] [Music] restricting the airflow of the most healthy young and emotionally

080vulnerable among us for eight hours a day five days a week obviously not including extracurriculars if they're on school premises constitutes nothing short of child abuse bodily function the ability to breathe air is the very definition of something that is not in the best interest of a child's health you as a board are tasked with making decisions that are in the best interest of our children i can't imagine any one of you up here being able to explain how masking a child for eight hours a day five days a week is in their best interest some of you have been strong advocates for us for all the parents in here who feel this way and there are more of us to those of you who have been who have been on our side i thank

081you to the others i say you have your seat because we allow you to have that seat if you are not serving the best interest of our children i have to ask you whose interests are you serving [Applause] us we're against that i had regarding the exemption in the executive order and i am so happy to hear that you have uh adopted a resolution for a mass policy that acknowledges that um so rather than calling for an outright projection of the order which obviously would all be in favor of um i believe your close resolution reaches a compromise that will allow parents to regain their right to make the decisions that are well within our rights the executive order provides for an exemption for wearing a mask wearing a mask would inhibit an individual's health

082such as when the individual is uh you know the order is silent as to whether or not any medical licensed professional is able to make uh such a determination or need to and given the fact that the order is silent it leaves the uh reasonable interpretation of a lay person which we all are we as parents are the best advocates for our children and the fact that this exemption exists there are no mitigating uh you know factors that prevent us from making a determination in the best interest of our children if a parent provides uh an exemption to you under this provision we expect the board to accept that without question constitutes you watch congress and they can do that but that's not allowed here [Laughter] good try though i'm kelly i know i've lived

083in middletown for 40 years there was something that i noticed tonight that needs to be pointed out you guys aren't supposed to be looking at the best interests of the children that's already been said not to talk about you know what the masters do to the kids we all know that our children are in school to learn mr giamma there's one maybe two feet away from you mr donald a foot away from mr little multiple times you leaned over pulled down your mask our children are supposed to sit in the classroom what about those kids flashers behind plexiglass and then they're going to be tested on things that they're supposed to hopefully hear from their teachers you're supposed to be educating them this is [Music] [Applause] separately i thank you all for watching i just

084wanted to say that you know i went to no swamp thompson south my children go to these schools [Music] you know i don't recognize this family i really don't [Music] parents are going to be at the point now where you know it's not a disrespectful statement to any of you we're not going to listen we're not going to abide by this anymore [Music] coming like this and we're not going to follow these we're losing it's been 517 days to slow the spread i agree with 15. i've had enough so again i thank you all for working for us but again you work for us and our children so just try to remember that remember that's the best [Music] we don't want to and it's against our rights i almost passed out twice in school because

085of the mass and my mom had to come get me master not healthy if you follow murphy you're just playing into his game [Music] i so many times i want to say thank you very much for this resolution that you've come up with i feel that it's extremely fair and something that hopefully gets voted on and passed and something that i think the majority of us will be able to be able to work with my question is regarding the resolution is does this apply to teachers are teachers going to be afforded the same uh and i don't have i'm just questioning well maybe if we're the same ability as our students are they are the ones that are teaching our students again hearing behind masks i know for my children has been very difficult so

086just curious if this policy or this resolution is going to apply to the teachers of middle town also um are the students still going to be with plexi in september i don't know if you can answer that yet or not i'm curious again i know mrs walker was very kind to answer my questions at the last meeting and they did not have um plexi in the summer so i'm hoping that they don't have legacy in the fall and the students who do get massive accommodations will they be discriminated in any way in the classroom or in any sort of activity will be sort of limited from anything or is it just they will be exempt and no discrimination will happen so those are just my questions and i also thank you for putting in the

087resolution about talking about the foundation i was the one that asked that question at the last quarter meeting and that was in the new jersey board of entry opening plan that's where i accept that that question from because it was the board of education reopening plan that teachers would be allowed to talk to students about vaccinations so that is why i asked the question last month if our teachers would be allowed to so i appreciate that that is in the resolution that our teachers will not be speaking to our students about the 19 vaccinations hi my name is grace mendez and i'm an income i'm an incoming eighth grader at foreign middle school i've always had a problem with these maths ever since it became a big thing i've realized that learning and food has

088been very difficult either my glasses are fogging up or my mask is falling off a lot of my teachers are more worried about my mask being held properly or it being over my nose when i was in seventh grade last year i was signed back from gym yesterday we were forced to run around in our masks and sprints i was not if my teacher told me that if i was not putting my mask up i would be sent to the office i put my mask up and i sat there for the rest of class a few minutes before class ended she yelled at me again and sent to the meanwhile i was in the back of class behind a plastic screen by myself what i'm trying to say here is that copen is not the

089only challenge that we face at school thank you excuse me could you just like this young lady she's been trying to get up and she has crutches so just give her a chance sorry [Music] they give me panic attacks and make me feel like they can't breathe but i was wearing them the whole day if in school i can be there in person and not have to do virtual learning if there's one thing i hate more than masks it's virtual learning schools in florida have gone back recently the governor says those schools can mandate masks as of last week there are four fourteen thousand students and staff in quarantine over five thousand though are positive for clothing if we wear masks it allows us to be in school to play sports and join slept in

090person if we don't want our mass there's a good chance of we will be under feeding virtual you might think students and parents should have a choice wear them in middle school there's a lot of peer pressure if everyone in my class is not wearing a mouse i will feel obligated to not wear one either at the end of last year we were allowed without mass concise that was because the transmission rate was so low in our area right now 17 counties and nutrients we have the highest rate of transmission and one of them is ours the cdc recommends masks inside even if you are back for use at my sister's welcome 15 weeks though our pediatrician also supported all the children wearing masks in school please follow the governor's mandate and enforcement center school

091buildings your job is to help kids with their education if our school year is interpreted by virtual learning foreign learning as well [Music] thank you hello my name is emily bulmer and i'm a soon-to-be eighth grade at north middle school and i'm here to speak on behalf of the students we think it's unnecessary and ridiculous that you are trying to mask this thing again but it should obviously be a choice we've been put through so many emotions from optimism to disappointment let down and can you even stay drained kids k through 12 have suffered mentally and educationally because of the choices made mentally kids and teens have suffered by getting their hopes up and getting let down time and time again when all this started we were just told two weeks and that was a

092complete lie this year we miss seeing the smiles on our friends faces as we walk the halls and our teachers and they were proud of us most at one point in the year i met a new friend and for the first time a few weeks ago i saw her without a mask i said hi and she completely couldn't recognize who i was and had to ask if i was who she thought i was which is disappointing from this example you can see that we can't even tell who's who at this point and it's a complete guessing game that you keep making us play will we go back or not is that them mass or nomad i'm not sure how you expect little kids to be able to adapt to this when eighth graders can't even

093recognize who people are anymore i'm disappointed and let down by the people who make the dishes in this district solely based on the fact that you're making us miserable and you obviously can't see that we are affected every single day whether this is made because we don't know when we will be back to school and we feel that you have deserted us of our education and school experience we have lots of deprivation of education and social interactions that half of us are going to struggle throughout the next years at school all because you can't make up your minds our mental health and physical health for our mental health and physical health please give us a choice and give us the fresh breath of air while walking into the school building this fall many people that

094wear masks still tend to get covered so i honestly don't see what the point is you guys should not have the authority over if i wear an astronaut and that should be my parents choice we aren't going to stand for that anywhere as we are the children that are being put through this we're counting on you to do what's best for us thank you push it two or three hi my name is sheridan and last year i was virtual for the whole entire year because i couldn't wear a mask even a short trip to the grocery store or whatever i gave me headaches and i just couldn't do it last year i couldn't socialize or do anything with my friends which is needed for a girl or boy or anyone my age i just couldn't

095wear a mask and the fact that you're putting us through this is obviously not right for anyone so i think that the school district should not be doing this thank you [Applause] hello hey my name is alexander gohan i'm going to eighth grade at thorne middle school i spoke last year and sadly i have to speak again about our freedoms being taken away ripped away from us let me explain a few things to you this whole summer we went massless nobody had a mask on nobody worried about any of this but now governor murphy wants to take control of us again we want to take the kids control that's how sad this is this is all game we all know it is it's all about control this board always talks about mental health but when

096i put a mask on i feel stressed i feel like i can't even think i missed a lot of classes this year because i get headaches i passed out almost a couple of times this year so why missing my whole math lesson it's all because i had a mask on and it's sad looking at some of you that want to keep us masked it's sad because you're taking away our rights and our choice here i was written up because i had to run a mile in gym with the mask on inside and i already have asthma and then i went to my next class and had my mask underneath my nose because i couldn't breathe and my teacher told me that i had to put the mask over my nose i was six feet at

097a big table away from everybody with the shield around me and then she's yelling at me because i can't breathe she froze my chromebook i couldn't even do my slaps i couldn't do any of my work for the rest of the class so i had to do the rest of it for homework and i got written up all because i couldn't breathe this would be a choice i'm not saying everybody has to not wear a mask it should be your choice i don't know what some of you are getting out of this money or whatever that we want to mask us i don't know what it is but it's definitely something let me make one thing keep clear god is protecting my body not a mass that the government wants to force i'm not putting

098a muzzle on me let me tell you that hello again i'm not a sheep i'm a lion and i'm standing strong hello my name is lisa cordova seabreeze avenue my husband and i have two children in the district um i won't take up too much time telling you here about both of my children's disgusting experience wearing a mess at school i've sent you all an email dated june 19th excuse me june 15th in case um you're not sure you know where to look i'm not sure if any of you had a chance to read it it has all of the details that will help you understand my most recent email dated august 6th where i reiterate that regardless of any change in the cdc guidance suggestions from the aap or proposals for the department of

099education or help my husband and i do not consent to mandatory masking as a condition for our children to receive an in-person education this fall we consider a mandatory mass requirement for our children to be an impermissible medical intervention i would like to thank you deborah leonora and board member um excuse me president menues for replying to the email um that specific email clearly i'm here to advocate for my children and for parents choice to unmask mrs walker stated in an email to the district on june 21st that we most significantly have trusted you with our most precious asset our children and i would like to remind you of that my children are my property and no you may not make their health decisions for me i'm their mother i stand for a parent's choice

100i stand for my healthy deeply loved unmasked children what do you stand for when you're done when you're done just leave it on green okay yeah no it's okay my name is michelle mandel i've been a middletown president for 38 years my daughter went here and now my grandchildren will be going as well my concern is number one i'm a physical therapist and for 30 years actually but at any rate i know more than any one of oxygen that's required physical activity or mental thinking the capacity to function during the day we use post-op scissors for a reason we use it because we test the oxygen in the blood during activity minor activity major activity when it drops you make an adjustment it completely impedes the breathing the young girl who spoke about she couldn't

101breathe this is a real issue this is a major issue in our country and number one i thought this was completely debunked i mean many doctors have come forward and said the analogy of using a mask is like stopping a mosquito in a chain like that we know it doesn't [Music] through work you cannot use a mass and expect it to stop the virus number one number two is ron paul made it very clear in congress and clearly debunked it right in front of him hypocrisy with wearing it not wearing it two three how are you all convinced that this makes sense thank you that's exactly what it is it's about control another girl invention that's what it's about why are we letting the people in this country control us but we know different i've

102done my field for 30 years have seen the ramifications of oxygen deprivation i received the ratification and i not only i left a nursing home because of what was going on there is so many things that i to be here for hours talking about what's going on with this particular virus what it's doing why it's here but wearing a mask all it does is show that you're compliant rfk just did a video out he's phenomenal people i urge you to follow this man he is when he just spoke about this very thing and how it's all about control the old mill study electrocute people without knowing what it was going to do because a man in white that pretended to be a doctor told him to do it 67 of the people harmed others not

103wanting to being upset with 67 67 complied because they were told what to do so i hope i could go on but i think i made my point masks are useless [Applause] [Music] can we extend it another at least another 15 minutes [Music] anybody object okay go ahead honey um hi my name is delaney i am nine and i'm going into fourth grade this year has been a very crazy year for me because we've been going on maths on mass golf and what is very crazy when i was in gym class like people said i had to wear a mask and when it was winter i had to stay inside and it was really hard for me to run because there was this exercise where we had to like do push-ups and crunches and it

104was really hard because i felt like i couldn't breathe and i had to stop and take a breath 15 times or more and at the end of the year when i got out of school it was really nice because i didn't have to wear a mask anymore and it felt like i was wearing a muzzle and i couldn't breathe anymore thank you [Music] um [Music] with good intentions but there is a major problem going on right now and it's it's pretty much something like this there's a lack of common sense going on and every one of us can understand observe things you just have to address your comments to the board okay so you heard me outside anyway so i have some issues here the biggest issue here is basically my daughter said my son

105comes home you know red stuff around his lips the kids they come on with headaches and i'm disappointed that any one of you here could say that for you mr guillermo i'm just surprising you would be so bold to say it's in law [Music] comments to me please yes there's no problem i'm surprised that anyone would say what the status is of something that's false they're saying he said it's the law of our mask it's not we all understand that we're being taken for a ride here and we don't want our kids to go through that and they have a writing if i want my children not to wear a mask it's that simple never there's no analyzation of is this you know i'm sorry okay you know you can't analyze a letter saying is

106this good enough for a parent to have their children not wear a mask either where you don't should not be a requirement it's that simple and any one of the board that are that are contemplating not pushing this simple letter to conrad murphy to say hey listen this is how we're feeling this is what our residents no one wants our kids next they want to wear masks but to make it a a requirement we're all not going to show my children and these children here will not wear masks at least my personal opinion so to be voted out and that's it thank you very much [Applause] [Music] hi uh thanks for taking my comments my name is chris whitehouse i'm a newer resident of the town and i have three basic points and comments um

107one is if this is about following the science like we should really do that we should know that the science with coping and young children is so clear that the effects of opening young children are almost nothing and we've all heard the comments from the kids about what is the real implications of the mix masters so much harm like the flu the flu is so much more effective a worse effect on children than coca could ever have and there's never even thought of this but you know we're just kind of like we're not problem scientists we're just like sheep following like the leaders so that's one two is i worked in corporate america so in my office which is pretty packed right now there's nothing but you know 30 40 50 year old men and

108women and who are a lot more in the in the fourth open like range the rules are in corporate america's like oh look you're in your destiny is necessary so how is that for such a more uh affected crowd that's the norm but when we're putting it on our children jesus the law has never taken them all that does not work that is not what corporate america is asked to do so i think that's that's a real like mismatch on you know where the the focus should be and then three very personal so i moved to this town because my son was in crisis in and he has special needs and you know we went to this town basically blindfolded hoping for the best and the first three years it was like magical like this

109was god's gift excuse me and now for the last year and a half it's been a completely different story and now i see my son every day and it's not just about the myths it's about the whole response that he has no friends he has no interactions with fear i don't fear i fear that he becomes he's going to become a different spirit in his life because let me tell you when you have a son with special needs and for two years he has no press that'll keep me up at night not open i'll take over every single day please hi my name is ella hilton i'm going to fourth grade in baby when i wear a mask i makes me nauseous and feel like i'm going to pass out or throw up when i

110have plus flexi glass around me it feels like i'm in a cage i during the morning meeting i couldn't even tell what my teacher was saying because it sounds like she was mumbling i can't take the mask anymore so i'm not wearing a mask anymore [Applause] [Music] first i want to thank the board for accommodating um everyone that's participating here tonight in a larger room um it's been a great turnout i think you should expect to reserve this room next week so if you're voting on two key issues you can expect double the head count i think [Applause] after governor murphy's announcement that matthew be required furniture the children um grades k to eight regardless of vaccination status in our schools um i got super anxious my fifth grader said she didn't want to return

111to school this year she had to wear a mask and why because she went to movie theaters went to amusement parks went to family gatherings one on vacation all right um so i'm struggling to number one i spent the summer deprogramming her because she's so in fear um and we took weeks to get that mindset out that she's not sick and she's not going to make other people sick so um what i did is formed a petition here in middletown to make mass optional because i believe in granted choice we have 1100 signatures um so i want to thank everyone here tonight that signed that and i'll be sending that to you [Applause] i'm not needing a petition to make mass mandatory which is interesting um given that it sounds like we have a lot

112of that going on um maybe i don't know i would encourage those folks who want to get their voice heard to come to the board meetings um submit you guys comments and questions and form the petition of their own [Music] couple points i just want to make new jersey remains in the top five states in vaccination rates among the eligible with over 80 of adults receiving a first dose as of last night according to the new york times which pulls its data from nj.gov last night there were seven patients in riverview with copic seven none of which were children so the fear and i can appreciate that young children and parents they need to look at the monmouth county statistics on children and hospitalizations in our state and get some real information the seven day

113average for death with copenhagen county is 1.2 yesterday there were four hospital reported deaths in the state so i don't have that on children because the state hasn't made that available and i think that transparency is sickening if you're going to ask to mask our children you should be transparent with the data so that the parents can make decisions for the health of their child the question is is the risk of coping outweighing the risk of masking our children all day and you heard a lot of testimonies today from children and real life experiences that we should point out so i came up here in may and i asked the board to write a letter in conjunction with other districts to governor murphy and a majority of the word signed that letter and i appreciate

114that did you mess it up i'm going to ask for that again and i'm going to ask that you apply leniency to the exemptions in order which i think you will i want to bring up the point of parents making the best health decisions for their children versus the doctor for 18 months i filled out a health screening for him every day you guys took that as fact and now it's no good anymore my assessment of my child's health no no good i don't know what's good for my child i would petition parents here to fill out a house reading form at the end of your child's day document everything that you see with them [Music] next school year [Music] i felt very strongly about coming tonight in hopes of offering your name please i'm

115sorry my name is abby barbara terrace um i have felt very strongly about coming tonight in hopes of offering my support to my fellow parents and family members of this community b as a family happened to be a homeschooling family but it wasn't always this case back in 2020 when we were told two weeks which not surprisingly turned into the entire remainder of the school year and the next personally our family wasn't willing to subject our children to the questionable policies and fear-based politics my children were about to lose their right to be free and provided with a public education so i chose to keep them free and educate them at home when i withdrew my children i said to our principal at the time we went to harvard elementary should things change and to

116safe and safely go back to what we feel supports their physical emotional and educational needs compromising their health both physical and mental i'm sure you'll see our faces again yet here we are an entire year later and i can honestly say that this district hasn't met single one of those requirements and the policies are worse now because we know better we know that our children are not vectors of disease and should never be treated as such i hope that you as the board will see that forcing our children to wear masks is setting them up for failure and putting a distrust in the hearts of our community towards the school district we do not co-parent with the state or this district we are the ones entrusted with these young lives and we will not back

117down force masking of our children is unacceptable what will it take to get your attention a mass withdrawal from public education to the families in this room that have felt like you would have no idea what it's like to do that i've been there it feels scary at first but not nearly as scary as hoping and trusting in a system that is failing to treat our children as free human beings with choice over their bodies this issue isn't the mask it's forcing the mask if a family or child or teacher or other staff member feels safest with their mascot i support that choice but if you don't feel safe or comfortable on that that is also your choice remember that coercion is not consent i was pregnant and made the decision to lose my six

118figure in your income to stay home with my children to make sure that first they were taken care of virtually while we were still enrolled in school and then stayed home with them after the fact to make sure that i could continue to provide them with what i felt middle class school district could no longer do this isn't the case for everybody there are families that can't give up their jobs or don't want you or shouldn't have to because of the mandates that have been put in place which are not laws my children are my priority and it is my job to protect them and provide for them and i've done what i felt is the very best thing but we should never be asking our children to sacrifice for us and that one parent

119on this board or in this room can look me in the eyes and say that they would willingly sacrifice their child's well-being and the possibility of bettering their own but yeah our state and therefore those of you up here that would choose to forcibly mask our children are making them the sacrificial land to policy and politics for exactly that reason i haven't asked him another good time sentence that is unless you get it right this time and you stand up for our children by saying no to forcing them to be in a basket [Music] comments i've modified a bit because i'm encouraged by what i've heard tonight it's clear that this board has been working hard since this executive order came out i thank you for that um i think you all have an awesome

120thank you thank this job even in the normal year and you're like this is anything but um so you deserve to hear more than just the complaints of the people out there but when you work hard and you're clearly you know digging into the facts of what's best for our kids who deserve our thanks in some ways a mandate that came down was probably in some ways a relief in theory because it takes the burden off of you it takes the controversy out of your hands but this board and this administration is credited a number of times this past year and a half uh you've shown that you know that what's easy is necessarily always what's right and sometimes it's worth the hard work it's worth the critical thinking it's worth exercising your professional judgment

121that we've uh entrusted that we've elected you to apply and hire to apply and we appreciate that um so and it's clear from what i've seen tonight that you're prepared to continue doing that in the circumstance we find ourselves in now um so i had a few comments uh requests i was going to make tonight about what comes next what i've heard tonight i think we're we've heard some very sound proposals proposals that i think take a lot of the facts into account proposals that take a lot of um you know the burden you have of actually being public administrators of the school district i get it we get it i think it's clear that most of you are really taking that to heart and doing the best you can and we're making progress um

122the only thing i would say is that if there's anybody on this board or anybody in the room when when as i hope is voted on tuesday the resolution to the governor goes out i'm sure there are a lot of us here on this stage in this room who have contacts where doctors psychiatrists psychologists counselors clinical quotes get them to submit a follow-up get supporting when this work was out because if if the governor actually has the audacity to to push back and respond to what districts like ours might be sending to him it's time to shift the burden back on him if he doesn't want to acknowledge all the you know randomized controlled trials out there you should be forced to and you all are familiar with it i've sent them to you you

123all know them other folks here but if you haven't yet there's sound at all from emerging infectious diseases there's one guard at all of internal medicine there's canadian the french study from 2010 randomized clinical studies that's what counts that's what this should be based on so let's put the burden back on him to respond to that um you know folks here tonight tonight i mentioned that local hospital statistics that's what matters that's what counts and again i'm not i don't want to rant for the sake of renting it sounds like most of you get that and we're applying that i'll just i'll wrap up i know a lot of you or some of you are parents of kids in the district who are in our schools now i'm not sure if you've broken the news

124to them yet since the executive order came out my wife and i personally we haven't been able to bring ourselves to do that yet we have two little girls who are eight and five and i can't bring myself to do that just yet again i'm encouraged by what i heard tonight but when i do talk to them about it i wanted to be able to look them in the eye and tell them that their mom and i are not laying down on this that we aren't just doing this out of ideology or emotion but out of fact science and truth and i'm glad to say that after what i heard tonight you all are saying that too i'm sure that you don't want to tell your children or the families you represent as administrators and

125board members that you haven't done that but i think in what i've heard tonight we're getting there and you can book your kids in the eye tonight tonight or tomorrow morning when they wake up and say they have i know i sure able to the alternative is letting these kids think that they are the disease-carrying rats out there for some god god knows what reason because we've known for a year and a half now that's not true i'm sorry happy to thank you it's not true it's never been true we now know better and i thank you for for really paying attention [Music] hi my name is melissa isabelle and i am albert i've been a resident of middletown my entire life and i've been through all middle town schools tonight i'd like to speak

126as an educator i'm a 6th grade teacher in a neighboring district and i've been teaching middle school for 18 months last year was by far the worst year i've ever experienced in my profession none of your teachers are going to speak going to speak to you tonight for fear of the repercussions i'll admit that i'm not going to speak to my own board because i would be fearful of my job and what could be done to me as a result but i'm here to tell you what's actually going on in the front lines the classrooms teaching is nearly impossible with the masculine as you have experienced tonight you cannot be heard you cannot be understood in addition to that frustration there is the physical task of speaking for elongated periods i take 20 minute blocks

127you know how hard it is to have a mask on your face and continue speaking for that long i left school daily with studies but i'd like to speak more about what i've witnessed in the classroom students unable to hear their teachers unable to understand each other unable to concentrate or focus and most importantly unable to learn kids with learning issues such as adhd or sensory prostate disorders struggle enough on a daily basis can you imagine what they feel like with something on their face the level of hypocrisy here is frightening my students couldn't be inside without masks but as soon as we took a mass break inside they were in each other's faces they would rather go outside in the freezing weather then stand to the inside masked one more second this was something

128by the way that middletown never offered and i never understood why my district was mandated to take a 10-minute mass break each block in middletown we had to stay mass the entire time all day long students pulled their mass down to speak just as board members have done here tonight how is that safe where is the consistency there mask up mask down to talk why bother we can take the mask off to eat a snack but not eat lunch that was another thing that was done in my district we couldn't eat lunch but we were also again mandated to give the students snack in the classroom does kobe recognize what you're eating and discriminate based on if you're eating a snack but you can get it if you're eating lunch my school pushed stl social

129emotional learning as most are now doing but the hypocrisy of what the school is doing is disgusting i've personally seen kids struggle with anxiety attacks because they aren't comfortable with the masks on their face i personally won't do that to my students and i sincerely hope my child teacher feel the same way i will reach out in september and make sure they know i let my students take a breath and the look on their faces when i told them while six feet apart or behind plexiglass it's okay that their noses are out that was priceless those were the most memorable and meaningful moments as an educator good evening everybody my name is jerry schachtenberger i'm the assemblyman from legislative district 13. and first off i just want to say thank you professors resolution that you

130did i think to have your voice heard is critical um i like to say that i'm your eyes and ears and trenton and here i am to report what i'm hearing for the past several weeks ever since the governor first started making noises about mandating mass i've been inundated with emails and texts and calls from concerned parents and from what i hear in in my position a lot of times for an issue i'll get a few four of you against it it's kind of a wash it is completely lopsided i have not gotten one email in favor of a mass mandate and one of the things that's so frustrating to me is the word mandate this is not where the masks work or not not whether the vaccine works or not it's just allowing us

131to make up our own minds give me the information i'm a pretty smart guy i think my wife is way smarter than me we can make up these our own lives so to mandate anything is ridiculous especially when it comes to people's health it's a very scary prospect when you talk about vaccines and mandating that people inject something into their body whether it works or not it's not the issue i'm co-sponsor of a bill a that would prohibit mass mandates on buses and schools and in schools [Applause] but the legislature is not meeting so it's sort of in limbo right now but it is out there i encourage everyone here to contact legislators from all over the state and demand that they become co-sponsors so i want you to know that you have my support

132i think you're doing the right thing with the resolution making your voices heard and i will continue to fight in trenton for for you and be your voice there one other thing i wanted to say too i've drafted a bill that would prohibit critical race theory being taught [Applause] a number and it's introduced i'm gonna let you folks know i'm gonna let everybody know and i'm gonna stream it from the rooftops because this is not history if you really research it the way i did and my staff this is some what devices hateful ideology [Applause] first wants to tell you they despise this country so we should not be teaching our children racism we should have true history rewards and all and this bill will do that i know it's getting late okay so thank

133you for everything you do you know i don't be here for all your concerns please stay in touch okay thank you hello my name is jeannie isaacs and i live on roxbury road in belford i don't know where i want to start because i've spoken at every meeting i've like all of you nice time copies of why master useless i even took a picture today a few months ago about the local blue mask that everyone has on and how they don't protect you from a virus or disease with auditory processing it doesn't work you know everyone wants to trust the science i'm sure if you've googled any of these articles you're not going to find it because uh i do have a recording too i want to play because i know that everyone believes in

134science and i know everybody wants to listen to uh dr flipflop so we should but it's not providing you should listen to everything he says right trust the science it's a bunch of bs and not for nothing you held a fundraiser for frank lloyd with howard [Applause] i have had it i have got a majority of these people to come tonight and bring their kids and have their kids talk so now that you're having a meeting next week i'm going to make sure there's twice if not however many people i can fill this room with 786 [Applause] thank you [Applause] [Music] mma mouth first falling all over this is what you're doing to our children you are breaking them the depression and the anxiety is ridiculous showing me these facts that the works [Applause] hi

135ben brown i'm in middletown and i would like to thank you for the resolution but i just need to take a quick minute and hope that you dig deep inside of your heart tonight and you listen to these children these kids are being tortured you are putting your fears that is evident right here tonight all of us on them that's selfish and disgusting do you hear me i hope you do it's disgusting what you're doing to these children this is a political mess and you're using them i am so proud of them for standing up to you it's gonna change their lives they're gonna grow from this but some of them aren't some of them are home like that man that we heard from mr vitale i believe his name was his children his child

136is broken you're breaking this child you're breaking special needs children you need to stand up to this and say enough enough is enough i am a registered nurse i was a coping front line i see a nurse none of you can tell me what it looks like none of you have a clue you all live in an imaginary land where you believe you understand you do not it is not here now covet is not here will there be coping cases for the rest of our life if you are educating yourselves properly you will understand that it's here to stay it's a virus it's a virus you have an immune system nourish it instead of masking yourself up you don't ask children their immune system i don't care you guys their immune system you feed them

137properly you feed their brains properly you need their emotions properly that child will get sick from his stress these are facts not fiction the masks you wear are not helping you when i went to copenhagen i wore it at 95 because these stupid masks that you're wearing on your face is don't do a damn thing it's been proven over and over again you choose not to listen to the science you choose to make up your own science how am i getting another one you choose to make up your own science maybe that's god thanks but you do i believe in my immune system i believe in my children's immune system i also believe and know that i push them out of my own body you didn't push my child out of your body you are

138not their mother their father their creator and you're never gonna govern my children from this floor ever all right i won't be long kate harley q ivy hill road jen is a tough act to follow um but she did hit on some points um that i think are worth emphasizing um a lot that i was gonna say tonight i'm not gonna say like many other people who've spoken i'm you know heartened by a lot of what i've heard tonight and i think that the board is heading in the right direction within the balance of what we're allowed to do in this state um but what has really been striking me tonight listening to some of these comments especially from the children is the i think it's a travesty that we have told these children or

139that some of them think that if they don't mask their faces they might not be afforded the right that they deserve to attend school in person the fact that we are now making these children live in a world where because of the trauma they've endured over the last year and a half and having to deal with virtual learning and everything that that entails they are so terrified that that could happen again that they say oh fine i'll just wear a mask and many people many of my friends many parents feel that way about their kids fine if i have to send him in a mass so that they can go to school they just need to be in person that is a horrible decision that we're being forced to make and it's wrong we should

140not have to sacrifice our children's health their well-being the things that we as parents know are the best things for them we're the ones that see them when they come home from school with their headaches the nose leads dehydrated sad just stand and run down from having to battle with these masks all day to just be kids and it's just one of the greatest disasters of this entire situation which has largely been a disaster that our kids have been made to feel like they are these vectors of disease that my sweet five-year-old kindergartner is gonna have to walk into school on september 8th and feel like oh my god if i don't keep my mask over my nose like my teacher thinks that i'm going to get her sick that's horrible she's healthy i would

141never send my kids to school sick no one in this room would like we need to get away from this mentality i am so concerned about what it's going to do to these children to spend another year like this my son is going into second grade he has never known a school year without coping he's been impacted every year and it's weird and strange and sad and we have to realize covet is endemic it's not going anywhere we have to start treating it like we do every other illness which is to say if you're sick stay home and if you're healthy come to school and learn and play with your friends and speak to your teachers and socialize and do all the things that children are supposed to do and that school is supposed to

142teach them beyond just reading and writing and all of that to stop putting this as someone else said our fears people's fears on these innocent children blessedly this virus does not seem to impact the way that it impacts people in other age groups thank god and we need to just let them be kids again and stop taking this out on them for yet another year thank you everyone for