001good evening everyone um i'd like to call to order um our for our district meeting this evening um this is the north hundred and voorhees regional high school district board of ed meeting on tuesday august 22nd and it is now called to order in accordance with the requirements of the open public meeting act njsa 10 4-6 adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by submission of notice of the time date location or instructions for remote access to the hundred and county democrat on december 9 2021 the star ledger on december 7th 2021 and subsequently re-advertised on may 19 2022. notice and to the extent known the agenda of this meeting has been posted at north hunterdon high school voorhees high school provided to the municipal clerks of bethlehem township california town of clinton clinton
002township franklin township glenn gardner borough hampton borough highbridge borough lebanon borough lebanon township tewksbury township and union township as well as all as well as other interested parties and posted on the district websites fire exits are located in the direction indicated if alerted to fire please move in a common orderly fashion to the nearest smoke-free exit and at this time i request that you please all silence your cell phones katie can we have a roll call please mrs president mr chapman president mr logo president mr banish here listening here here mr strait here we all stand for the black saloons of america the republic for which it stands can i call for a motion and a second to approve agenda item 4.1 which is the minutes from our june 28 regular school uh board meeting
003second and um all in favor any abstentions tara glenn shelley um and any opposed okay now it's time for the chief administrators report um first thing i'd like to do is invite mr tim mckinnon a technology education teacher at north hunter high school who has a presentation for the board on behalf of the technology students at north this was the room was redone four years ago last year was the first year we really got into the room for a full year and the tech two students and being able to catch up on the machines decided one of the items they wanted to make was to present a present to the school board president and what they ended up making was a gavel for you which hopefully this is for you personally oh my goodness wow
004thank you it's beautiful it's very detailed [Music] absolutely [Applause] on behalf of the students that my enrollment has just really changed and just the students i have it's a real appreciation to be able to dream beyond what they have is just a solid piece of wood and to see something that they can make further so wow has come through and i actually have to express expression appreciation dr control because it's a machine that he ordered back when he was a teacher we finally have been able to get it up and running completely so thank you very much yes so the students made all of that so oh that is so impressive thank you so much thank you wow i'm going to take you guys one video yes you take the old one we'll do away
005with that uh continuing on uh school opens for all students on thursday august 25th we have 2449 students enrolled in the district this year that's not counting the polytech students we look forward to greeting the new class of 2026 at freshman orientation tomorrow august 24th back to school nights are scheduled for next week august 30th for north and september 1st for voorhees parents can attend in person or can review videos online that will be prepared by our teachers and posted on the school website and the safe return plan for 2223 has been posted to our websites and distributed to staff students and parents which details the kobit 19 protocols for the year we are following the recently revised cdc guidance that no longer recommends certain protocols such as contact tracing of individual cases quarantining of
006closed contacts and testing positive coveted cases should still be reported to the school nurses as they have to monitor for outbreaks and clusters individuals who test positive will be excluded from school for five days hiv report july and august we had two investigations one of them was founded and then just a reminder of what was reported at the june meeting we had one investigation which was founded we need a motion for that second all in favor and the monthly reports are attached for your information um just a notice that our regular school board meeting is scheduled for next month on september 27th at 7 pm here in the district office we also have a number of attendees who are looking forward uh to the nj sva conference in atlantic city this year from october from
007october 24th to october 26th and um also attached in the agenda is a [Music] final draft from gwen of our district and board goals that we discussed with her at the last meeting does anyone have any questions or would like to go over anything with the district goals that gwen provided back to us i think they're pretty she summarized our objectives pretty well so um moving forward let's go through our committee reports um and why don't we start with tara tara's got the a lot of news to tell us and my system is all down so okay then we'll go to someone else first well no jude's gonna have to give me in let's start with curriculum and we'll we'll move on to um but mary maybe can get you a copy of our min
008can you get terror a copy of the minutes thank you um okay the curriculum committee met on august 17th virtually everyone was in attendance with the exception of miss celino it was a very full robust meeting which was exciting we had seven items that we covered the first agenda item was the board items number nine through 11.6 that are on the board agenda for this evening we discuss all of the textbooks that will be in use for this year existing and new and the tuition agreements are from money that we are receiving from students that are coming to us from other districts the second item that we discussed was the benchmark assessments this was a rather lengthy conversation there was a lot to go over some highlights in the past we have used linkit for
009our benchmark assessments for the past few years some key things to keep in mind there were no standardized test results in 2020 or 2021 that we could compare those assessment results to to monitor the effect effectiveness so when they receive when the district receives the preliminary results of the njsla there was tremendous differences between the linkedin benchmark results and how the students actually fared in the njsla and how they fared in the njsla was higher it was a higher scores and they were also in line with what the teachers had been uh how the teachers had been assessing the students so the administration um reached out to uh to link it excuse me directly to have a conversation and to express some of their concerns to try to get clarification and linkedin really was not
010very forthcoming and didn't see that there was an issue with the differences so the district has decided that they would no longer like to use linkit for the benchmark assessments we are so they're not going to renew that contract in the interim they are examining the correlation between marking period grades and nj sla there are state wide ascent benchmark assessments that can be used in its place that are already happening and they'll keep monitoring it and obviously talk to the curriculum committee about this so we'll be watching this this year the third agenda item was the state standardized testing schedule um pretty robust schedule for 2022 2023 from nj the new jersey department of ed there will be three main rounds of testing this year the start strong testing in september nj gpa for juniors
011in march and njsla for freshmen in may new jersey department of ed is requiring that start strong does actually happen again this year even though last year they said it would only be for last year so for now it is definitely happening and scheduled for september as a district we still have not received the official spring 2022 nj sla results so when that happens the committee will review them the fourth agenda item we we talked about the new digital citizenship curriculum again this is something that came out of the surveys that were sent to the staff and the students in the 2020-2021 school year and the administration along with mr brone developed the digital citizenship curriculum last year it's very exciting very innovative not many districts have this so it's really something that the administration
012should be very proud of and it's being looked at there are six different levels for each grade level within the high school the lessons are in health english and social studies classes if they the administration is providing training for staff members on digital citizenship including having someone from nj cyber security and communications integration cell talk with staff members about cyber security also implementing the curriculum based on as i said the results of the technology survey so this this curriculum they will be monitoring since it's new the effectiveness of the program throughout the year and we'll be touching base with the curriculum committee on this the fifth item we talked about we reviewed the mentoring plan for this year and and i'm sorry we will be doing that at next month's curriculum meeting the sixth item
013was the health and pe standards we reviewed the changes in the again 2020 health and physical education new jersey student learning standards we looked at it as a whole even though most of it is k-8 and we looked at the very few items that were impacting nine through twelve and then the last agenda item was our data analysis for the month there were three major items that we discussed the first being the results of that technology survey given at the end of the school year lesson learned they will be administering it a little bit earlier in the school year to try to get more responses the survey results were exactly the same from the previous year from a comparison the second analysis that we looked at was the climate surveys administered in school at the
014end of last school year and that went out to parent students and staff members the comparison report shows how parents students and staff members answered similar questions and then the third item we reviewed we also discussed the results from the 2022 ap the advanced placement tests the number of students who actually took the ap exams last year was down from the previous year and this is mostly students now get credit for the ap waiting whether or not they take the exams so the attendance was there but it's just the people who are actually taking the exams less students did that overall the ap exam scores were consistent with how they have been in the last few years but i would like to highlight that the environmental sciences ap exam scores went up and it it's
015definitely a nice achievement for that teacher in that class and that was our jam-packed agenda so if anyone has any questions i went over a lot of next week back to school and tell parents right there's an advantage taking the test right the kids are going to college is certainly what you mean like get that classes out of the way i mean it's worthwhile to make it to the parents right to encourage the kids so they aren't required to take the test only if they want to look to get the college credits in so yeah why would you be so motivated to take ap class and then not follow through to get the college credits i mean is it a small number or is that a substantial number of the students yes but secondly students
016are able to look at the college see what they're able to accept for that score so on the college board's website you can put in your college and see what score you would have to receive in order to earn college credit but the biggest impact is also um students are taking a lot of these courses for college credit with us already through seeing hall of fame valleys so they're already going to be college transcripts for that course thank you for that so i had a question about the technology survey he said the results were similar to the prior year um but was there any like findings or takeaways or learnings from the survey like aside from it was consistent year over year like what what did we find out just that the digital citizenship was
017something that had been regularly identified as something we needed to do okay so the good news is we're doing that yeah okay did the climate survey was tara how you doing well we're here but we're here so yes we're good all right so uh community relations please community relations we met on august 18th and everyone was in attendance except for miss seleno we discussed as mr bender said the covet and reopening safety opening and um ms magalla sent out a wonderful letter to all the students and parents uh regarding the plans so that was discussed and outlined and put into fruition um the other action item that we had was that we have a referendum coming up on this next ballot and we discussed uh campaign tasks which would mirror our 2016 campaign um and
018the committee reviewed other items both old and new tools that we can use some of the talking points would be that there's not going to be any increases on our taxes and to also note that on the last referendum from 2016 monies that were not used we gave back to the taxpayers so there was a reduction in what would be the two percent tax was reduced because of that so we want to let the public know that we're physically responsible and that we need this referendum but we will be diligent in the use of the funds when we go out to the taxpayers to ask for the referendum one of the other items that brought up mr chapman in our um discussion was on the solar panels and um we're talking about doing a ribbon
019cutting um once that all gets put in place but we're getting closer and closer to being fully online so that's going to be quite exciting so when that happens we'll let the public know about the river cutting for the solar panel project and that was it so we're going to be busy working trying to get the message out there about this referendum and hopefully we can get the community behind us in this effort and that was it any questions uh john you give us an update on facilities sure uh facilities um finance and transportation met on the 15th everybody was in attendance um i might as well jump right into the referendum that was one of our items of discussion um you'll see on the agenda tonight um letters of approval from the department of
020education for the projects both at forties and north hunterdon they are approved for debt service aid which is the whole point of these projects are there a state funding that they um qualify for um so that's what we're looking to uh obtain um and also um there's a resolution um to authorize the bond question for the november ballot so we're you know taking those formal steps to to uh see this these projects through and as far as projects there are summer projects at the high schools that are winding down uh north hundred and court courtyard and also paving um those are done um solar is complete at four he's and north hunter didn't did the cut in go successful last week i know it was scheduled for less it did it did so we are
021online uh for both schools okay right now the work is done just jcp l has to bless it okay we're close we're really close um let's see also oh at uh vortis and north uh the tennis courts um work was scheduled for this past summer uh specifically at voorhees i guess we had done this type of work at north before it was it was uh maintenance work but at north or at vori's it was more substantial work it was the first crack at this technology which eliminates the need to totally resurface um however there's been a problem with the contractor not with their work but with the product the materials they've been receiving from the manufacturer they've been substandard so um that portion at 40s is uh isn't complete and as soon as the contractor
022can have those suitable materials they'll they'll commence work again uh unfortunately there's going to be some disruption at worries but we're assured that the athletic departments of both schools will coordinate so that to limit the interference for the 40s tennis players [Music] transportation it was a lively discussion two months ago at our meeting regarding the potential cutting of the runs um so that is not uh that's not going to happen um the administration studying this uh this issue um and what's planned for this year is to eliminate the thursday run keeping the monday and wednesday run now the reason we're looking to cut it as you probably recall we've seen a lot of inflation especially when it comes to fuel and directly impacts their transportation budget so looking at the overall transportation budget the administration
023was able to keep it at uh within the five percent increase from what had originally been budgeted that's with tweaking some of the the regular runs eliminating one of the the 315 runs but then also um of those two 315 runs that will run weekly one of those we've qualified for funding from the esser grant funding so we'll be able to utilize those those monies to cover the cost of one of those runs so transportation budget is is where we want it and we're maintaining two of those runs so some of the discrete uh discussion was around the usage of those 315 buses and whether or not they were vital or not so we're going to do a better job this year of tracking the actual usage so it's not anecdotal evidence that we're using
024to potentially cut cut those runs so um we'll follow those more closely uh that grant funding is good for two years so at the end of that two years we'll will know better whether they're necessary or not um other than that it was just some agenda items um annual contracts that you've seen in the agenda but those other items i talked about where the meat of our meeting if anybody else has any questions if not i'm finished thank you all right all right you're saying that 2.25 million dollars for the transportation is within five percent of what we wanted to be when we made a budget of the year yes right um you answered another question uh already uh so let me jump to 14 7 that's the word just i'm wondering about the wording
025of the uh uh that's not a resolution what is it um the voting item uh the ballot right so it says and you can just explain it maybe so everyone could understand it says in the end at the very end it says so we're going to appropriate six and a half million dollars but we're not going to raise taxes is it obvious to you as at least someone who's familiar with this kind of language that that's well there's there somewhere that the taxes are not going up well there's two things um so the total budget for the projects is this is that number um the state matching money reduces that 40 i think is the number but it's maybe it might not be fixed but we're hoping to get close to 40 so then you
026can back off 40 out of that 6.5 million uh immediately um and then there and the reason you know the statement was made by terror as far as we're not going to raise taxes these are capital projects that we would be undertaking either way so we're ready to pay for them however in order to um acquire that 40 funding we have to run it through a referendum so we're gonna hopefully we're successful with the referendum get the approval and then immediately after the projects are complete pay for them out of our capital budget so i guess my comment is it's if we aren't good at doing you know our job it may not if someone only reads this they don't they ever got any other messaging right that's why it's so difficult and we're optimistic
027that uh you know tara and her committee can really be successful the whole world actually for that to message this properly because it is it's something that's very unique um are we not allowed to say that in the in the question are we not allowed to state that taxes are not being raised we did ask that question and since the board has not authorized the use of capital reserve you can't do that in anticipation it's on questions so you can't reference the use of capital reserve in the bond question and it was something that we tried so that's great yeah and then this approach the state's not giving us anything if we do it this way we get 40 which is so that's the message we want to make sure we let the taxpayers know
028we have this money to complete these projects that are needed but to get any state funding we have to go this route so we have the monies to pay back the referendum we're going to use them no matter what but we'd like to be able to use it the the governmental channels that can get us the money back um and i think we deserve but brian that's so just a comment on brian's point though which is a good one right so like the aside from what the marketing that we need to do to like make sure that education education yeah marketing i don't know it's like we're we're of taking advantage of the state funds that are available right and so education marketing right um aside from that all that part of it and within
029the limitations of what we can say on the question is there anything else we can say in the question without directly saying we're not going to raise taxes as a result of this like can we like other ideas right like can we say that it's intended to be a like a very short term um borrowing from the public like can we can we define like what the intended payback period is we were working with donald counts in the past two weeks to draft this proposal we've added additional projects to this list because we anticipate the 40 savings so if we actually if this referendum failed we would probably pair back that list to what that original number was minus the 40 okay the reason we're going a little higher is because we know that uh
030if it's successful we do qualify for that 40 matching so um but if it fails then we're not going to be able to do as much work and these are all projects like their said on our long-range facility plan and they you know they're not done real estate they will be done really soon right it would be a shame if we if we were are not successful in getting this passed because we're just leaving money on the table like it would be a shame for the district that being said katie back to your two weeks with bond castle isn't there always a like there's the question right and then there's that interpretive statement like thank you the interpretive statement that goes next to it that explains it in like english what like do we have
031much room for do we have more room there to explain what we're doing in the interpretive statement we could add the explanatory statement um their advice was to not have that in here but it's not something that we couldn't explore it's just right now we're on a tighter deadline do we have to submit the x the interpretive statement at the same time is the question correct interpretive statement no new taxes all right trying to read our choices [Laughter] like we're going to mark there's going to be a big portion of the community that are that will get knowledgeable on this by how we're um publicizing it but then there's a sizable chunk that won't and they'll be reading this question for the first time at the ballot it's a mouthful okay okay we have our
032work cut out for us we do i'd recommend we look at whether or not we can come up with an acceptable interpretive statement in the amount of time that we have left and how much time do you have left katie we have until september 6 to submit it to the county to get it on the ballot for november so unless we were to change our course of action as far as getting on the november ballot if we were to go off of that yeah i and i'm not like i'm not suggesting any of us are bond attorneys and have the right knowledge to like over override that but i think it's an important thing to just push on a little bit and see if it's definitely not in our best interest to do that and
033why okay we did originally look at maybe doing this as a special special election but we felt uh it wasn't costly well a would be costly but then b would be like why are you doing this during the normal election what are you trying to uh you know pull on us so and because we're altruistic here we think we're doing the right thing we're not trying to hide anything that's why it's going on the uh on the ballot for the general election but those are the pitfalls that i mentioned any other questions for john all right shelley give uh personnel sure personnel i met virtually on tuesday august 5th 16th at 6 30 p.m all committee members were in attendance as well as mr purchases mr bender and jessica viata with the exception of deborah
034bonomi we went over the personnel agenda and discussed the agenda and reviewed it and that's all i have thank you thank you um and policy and school security yes hi uh the committee met on monday the little notes disappeared i've got the tara we met on the 15th of august at 5 30 pm all committee members were in attendance and we have a slate of first readings that are on the agenda tonight so um none for action all for your first readings those eight include a new mandatory policy for student representatives to the board of education which you know i think we should feel pretty good about because we were ahead of the curve there having had our own temporary policy or trial policy for having student representatives to the board so that's good that
035everyone else is catching up to us and the others are like non almost all um mandatory policy revisions with the exception of policy zero one six three which is about the quora the definition of a quorum and what to do if you can't have a quorum um if there isn't a quorum and there's there's set there's action that needs to take place in a timely manner and there's no quorum and how you invoke the doctrine of necessity and that's all spelled out there so if anybody has any questions direct them to john [Laughter] and uh brian i got you i know brian sent some questions with some email some some clarification questions to some specific words um that seemed like good points i didn't send that today but like clean up items like on a
036couple of policies so we'll look at that in between the first and second readings and then the other main thing that we talked about was that ryan and i are going to get together before the next meeting to talk about implementing the district goal of revising of continuing the policy revisions for the non-mandatory policies and putting a timeline and a plan of action in place to get that done this year that's great anyone have any questions for uh rob that he can direct to john it's about the doctrine of necessity no questions for rob um did we have any meetings that were outside of the regular committees with the liaisons or delegates i don't think there was anything held in the last couple for the summer so i think we're good sending district men again
037remember the oh we did we did i but i was not there so can you tell us about the sending district meeting yeah so we had a part two of the regionalization sending district meeting this one was coordinated from the high bridge sending district coordinated this meeting it was sent out with about two months notice and asked for responses every voorhees sending district was invited and responded yes unfortunately um not everyone showed up so we couldn't have the full meeting that we wanted to but the districts that attended were highbridge uh north huntington voorhees we were present lebanon township was present so that was it so what we did discuss was what was their thoughts um they threw out some ideas but ultimately what it came down to is another meeting is going to be
038scheduled and we're actually inviting gwen thornton to come to that district that meeting live because even though it's the same people who saw gwen's initial um presentation on the topic there was still some misinformation so it was suggested that we bring her again and they all agreed so hybridge is trying to schedule a meeting with all of the sending districts with gwen in person at the high bridge uh district facility um hopefully within september october yep were the north sending districts invited no and that wasn't clear at first so i'll be very honest um what the voice i did not recognize that either when the invitation was sent out by hybrid because at first it was yes it was circulated um to all the sending districts and then um hybridge kind of it became a
039mind of its own and um she stepped up and said she would like to organize the meeting and we when we we thought that she was organizing it for all and it it came as a surprise that it wasn't so when i asked about that in person highbridge feels strongly that they wanted to hear from their community first before they met with the full 12 sending districts um and unfortunately it was only aside from us there was only one other district there and they were okay with either way and you know i preferred everyone to be there but i'm open to you know whatever need whatever conversations need to happen we were willing to have them so i think what's what's going to be beneficial is to have having gwen present because again it's the
040same people who were at her initial presentation they were presenting ideas that were not accurate so after three times of that happening that was my suggestion can we bring gwen back and you know do you think that gwen would do it for all of us like we should do it for the whole crew we did so the meeting before this was for everyone um and all because when we normally when when we work with marin to organize it it's every sending district um and hybrid asked specifically that they could they organize it um and they took it upon themselves to organize it their way which is totally fine i think no it's totally fine yeah i mean i think at the end of the day conversation is good exactly right i think we just need
041to do what we can to be facilitators yes of that dialogue we might be present at all and we can't always drive but we can certainly like we can facilitate we can influence we can lobby and bring in facts right yeah yeah and bring in you know support yeah so does this imply that do we have our board's conclusion how we feel about this no no no it's nowhere near that stage okay i think i think what has been discussed here multiple times though is an interest in having that dialogue and and like break and calling the question yeah and finding out you know what are the potential cost savings in doing this as well as you know it helps with the teacher shortage that's that keeps building you know like there's so many aspects
042that this can help but i would say it's probably also fair to say it's calling the question and having the discussion isn't just looking at the positives it's looking at what are the like what are some of the potential downsides of it yes and gwen does a good job of that so we should have i think it's on us to facilitate a holistic fair conversation about it and look at the positives and negatives and then call the question and since the state guidelines changed dramatically it the we do need to have an expert who can interpret um those those new guidelines so i think including gwen again is beneficial so the date hasn't the email hasn't been sent out yet on what the new date is but we'll keep you updated and we'll keep attending
043all right at this point in time it's there's an opportunity for public comment during this portion of the meeting the public is invited to address the school board with questions or comments the public is requested to sign the register provided for this purpose and to state their name municipality of residence group affiliation if applicable and direct their comments to the school board president while all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate school board members will not respond to the speakers at the time of their appearance the public comment period will be a maximum of 30 minutes in length unless there are no unusual circumstances those appearing will be allocated three minutes to speak and no one will be permitted to speak twice until those that have not yet
044had an opportunity to speak have had a turn baby just uh would like to maybe offer a little bit of my experience being on this side of the board beside the table regarding the referendum clinton township school district recently had a referendum and uh it did pass although the messaging was very confusing for a lot of residents and a lot of parents uh personal friends of mine didn't know which way to vote um another issue with it was it seemed like it was leaning towards a push for a yes vote even if it's not uh explicitly uh saying that if it's implied it's against administrative law so just my my advice is just be careful with the messaging so it's neutral it's supposed to be neutral um but a lot of people didn't know which
045way to vote and uh i sat down with the the board secretary mr gramer i expressed my concerns i asked him is there a way that we can maybe speak to the town council and get messaging out whenever you have a referendum because it's everybody's tax paying money that is going towards these uh projects and so forth and they should they are allowed to vote they should know what is in it and all the messaging was sent just to the parents of the school district so nobody at home in the school district even really knew about this we had 200 people vote so my suggestion is maybe we could speak to the town council maybe we could get some kind of list of all the residents so you whenever you have a vote we could
046get everybody involved so everybody's informed i think that might be a good way to go i think to get it out to more people because 200 people voting in this township is dismal to say the least so that's all i have to say about it and thank you for your time hello my name is dr alexa offenhauer i'm an assistant professor of english at raritan valley community college a north hundred in alum and a resident of the town of clinton i'm also a member of the north hundred and voorhees intellectual freedom coalition after last year's situation with the reconsideration of five books we wrote a report called this book must stay we sent you that report more than seven months ago you have yet to respond in a substantive way to this resp report and
047my request tonight is that you do so as soon as possible as documented in the report during the many months it took to move through the reconsideration process and finally vote on the five books this board violated a number of its own policies including the timeline for response and the makeup of the reconsideration committee further although the board reported that school administrators were tasked with developing an improved format for reconsideration reports that work was actually dedicated delegated to the same librarian you had failed to support or defend when she was for months publicly and falsely accused of heinous crimes in fact that same librarian martha hixson researched and developed an improved reconsideration form that would prevent frivolous costly and time-consuming book bans by people who had not even read the books they were attempting to
048ban that form has received wide acclaim from the librarian community yet this board is refusing to adopt it at the beginning of every meeting this board says that a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate a response to our report is appropriate and the time is long past due the north hundred and voorhees intellectual freedom coalition calls on this board to act immediately on the constructive recommendations we offered in january members of the nhv iff and the district's librarians would be happy to meet with the policy committee to help implement appropriate changes we request a report from the policy committee at the october board of ed meeting status on each of the recommendations outlined in our report thank you good evening um nicole gallo lebanon township um i'm here to ask the board tonight
049to vote no on the pamerana education resolution the past two years have been quite unprecedented times have been turbulent hostile students have been swallowed up with fear anxiety and confusion student suicide is at all time record highs and i bring this up to further support my point we are going on two years of these surveys and they have provided nothing besides fostering division among the students these personal questions should never be asked by school ever as the survey gains more notoriety many more parents will opt their kids out so the information collected will not be fair or a true assessment in addition this data is used to help further decisions based around curriculum how is it accurate or inclusive if the survey lacks all the students the results are skewed making them inaccurate and therefore
050unproductive in addition the results which include names ages gender and all answers to intimate and personal questions are sent to a database and sold to third parties which is called data mining panorama has made national news because of the backlash of concerned parents around the country for data mining of their children school districts across new jersey are being sued at some point school districts will become accountable are you willing to put your name in support of this resolution knowing that at some point you will be liable for endangering minors panorama education made national news is reporting on negatively for selling sensitive information on facebook facebook gathers information then individually targets individual children with their specific interests or lack thereof an example would be if a child was struggling with depression they would begin getting ads
051for counseling programs and materials on their social media it would affect friends suggestions and organizations to follow all unbeknownst to the parent this is extremely dangerous because the information may be misinformation or could put up could could be a plot to traffic children by getting them to trust the vendor by supporting this type of behavior puts all of you in the school district at serious risk the school does not have the authority to alter manipulate individual family values this has no bearing on education whatsoever question example how do parents feel if you smoke tobacco marijuana prescription drugs not prescribed to you what is the point of this question all parents should be concerned on all the above why and how is this the school's business what is the question asking will the student begin to
052get ads related around drugs and alcohol please do the right thing and vote no to this resolution please do not continue to support the manipulation of our youth they rely on you to make the right choices you have signed up to represent your constituents and do what is best interests of our students and our community please do not continue to make them victims by exposing them thank you starting us has good evening my name is amy barrett i live in highbridge and my children both graduated from voorhees high school i'm a retired teacher who taught middle school in union township for 17 years i'm here tonight because i'm concerned about the increasingly vocal group of people many who were here last time who want to ban books prohibit comprehensive sex education and discriminate against lgbtq
053students by erasing any mention of them in the school libraries or curriculum i think concerns about sex education and sexual orientation have to do with fear many parents have the feeling that sex information will shock or disturb their children or even worse it won't interest them too much some fear that by giving children and adolescents information about sex we encourage them to rush out and do it my daughter might suddenly decide she's a lesbian or my son might come home and announce he really wants to be a girl this isn't what happens good sex education gives people the tools to understand their own bodies and to think before acting studies confirm that teens who were taught their comprehensive sex education curriculum are more likely to delay having sexual intercourse and less likely to get pregnant
054catch a sexually transmitted disease or engage in thoughtless or exploitive sexual activity new jersey public schools must provide a safe and inclusive learning environment for every student regardless of their sex orientation or gender identity or expression to create a safe learning environment for everyone the new jersey revised physical education and health standards are designed to promote understanding and respect for those who are different from us and those we may not agree with if parents have a problem with the sex education curriculum they know they have the right to opt their children out of those lessons the revised pe pe and health standards are certainly not pornographic or obscene they are guidelines for talking about age-appropriate topics for example second graders already have a sense of their own gender identity as girls and boys learning that
055gender stereotypes may be limiting seems appropriate fifth graders approaching or already experiencing puberty really do need to learn about masturbation my colleagues and i sent quite a few sixth graders to the school nurse to learn that this is a private activity that shouldn't take place in the classroom eighth graders already know about sex and different forms of sex from each other tv the internet and social media high school students who are already engaging in sexual activity need to know about consent contraception and stds lgbtq plus teens also need relevant information from a sex education curriculum sex education can save adolescents lives when children's are provided with an accurate and age-appropriate understanding of their bodies they are more likely to develop safe and healthy relationships with each other and are less likely to struggle with mental
056health issues education about respecting others who are not heterosexual or cisgender reduces bullying harassment and suicide thank you for respecting all the students in your curriculum so good evening board members long time no see i hope you had a restful summer i'd like to take you back to may 24th when you adopted a revised version of regulation 9130 which governs public complaints including section e which has complaints about library books whereas the superseded 2001 version of the regulations stated within 10 working days of the receipt of the complaint form the superintendent shall appoint a review committee the updated version states within 10 working days of the receipt of the complaint form the superintendent may appoint a review committee this seemingly small change is significant for several reasons according to the legal information institute at cornell
057university the word shall connotes inevitability and an illegal document such as board policies shall is an imperative command usually indicating that certain actions are mandatory and not permissive this contrasts with the word may which is generally used to indicate a permissive provision ordinarily implying some degree of discretion the regulation provides no criteria or conditions under which the superintendent will or will not appoint a review committee the regulation does not explain what happens to a complaint for which the superintendent declines to appoint a review committee the discretion imparted by the word may confers to the superintendent the power to protect a book or place it at risk for banning based on his personal preferences or beliefs hypothetically the superintendent could refuse to appoint a committee in response to a complaint about dinesh d'souza's 2000 mules but
058choose to appoint a committee in response to a complaint about jonathan lemire's the big lie in that situation the d'souza book would not be at risk for removal from the library while the lemire book could face removal depending on the decision of the committee the composition of which is also dictated by the superintendent and just before you panic neither book is owned by the library it's just for an example uh during the 21-22 school year the district faced the book faced five book challenges which generated massive public interest and participation at board meetings yet the board adopted the revised regulation behind closed doors with no public notice or review although public presentation of the regulation change is not required failing to discuss the regulation change openly and failing to notify district librarians of a regulation
059change that affects their work creates the perception that the board is not operating in good faith in 2019 the superintendent demanded that the district librarians remove fun home one of the books also challenged in 2021 claiming that the book risked debauching the morals of minors and asserting that district reconsideration policies did not apply to him offering a superintendent unilateral power to determine whether to protect or indict books is a troublesome development i urge you to adopt the recommendations of the intellectual freedom fighters and establish a time delimited threshold for declining repeat reconsiderations of previously reviewed material thank you anyone else moving forward with the agenda um i'd like to call for a motion and a second to approve the 2022-2023 textbook list yes ms hinz yes ms hoffman yes mr hershberger yes mr mueller yes
060mr stanton yes yes thank you excuse i didn't say i didn't respond enough for me to speak is it too late we did we have time left for public comment did you want to speak yeah okay you finish that vote oh i'm sorry we need to finish the the roll call motion carrier okay come on okay all right um eric luckminko um i've been i live in franklin township uh i'm coming to you today about really underst asking more questions and the understanding of the panorama survey as it pertains to how it's administered it's ministered as a climate survey but in the past we i have emailed i've emailed the school before and it was stated that this was supposed to be administered or to students as more of a new law that has passed
061within new jersey as a depression screening but i do want to point out that when we look at panorama panorama states in its own mission statement we measure perceptions of of equity and inclusion and they do not state that they are a qualified company or qualified organization in order to do depression screenings although i have responses from tara and responses from the principal stating that it was to fulfill the new uh depression scanning cert that was supposed to happen um so the confusion goes it also was also state in previously that this is supposed to be anonymous um that the this is an anonymous survey but if you contact panorama panorama actually has the child's name has all of their answers has everything that was completed by the students that information idea um and also
062just want to actually point out there was a lawsuit that was brought up in regards to screening it has to do with um it's called ppra uh requires written consent from parents of unmasked unanimated minor students and students who are 18 years old or emotional minor students before such students are required to participate in a survey if i recall and i think everyone is rumored that these surveys are sent where parents are automatically enrolled and they're also sent without actually two parents without the survey you have to actually request them so there is nothing in terms of written consent so my question is what is panorama is it supposed to be something that's supposed to fill it's supposed to be what was stated um was to actually fulfill the depression part of the new resolution
063that was passed as opposed to come into 2022. if that is the case panorama states that that's not what it is but yet they are asking these questions to our miners and does one also state that y'all pinpointed 243 students that had some type of um high alert but if it was anonymous then how can you pinpoint those 243 students and then also say that they're going to be in contact by the guidance counselor so my question is is yeah okay so i'm just going to throw that out there because i see that there might be some confusion on what exactly this is and what and if it really does fulfill the need thank you moving back to the agenda the next item on the agenda is to call promotion in a second to approve
064agenda items 11.1 to 14.28 motion does anyone have any questions regarding the items in um from 11.1 to 14.28 it's rob and deb jeff or ms spender i'd like to uh ask the board if they would consider tabling 1412 while we look into some of the issues that were are you comfortable with the motion being amended to table 1412 and not offering i'm comfortable with that okay so it is amended in the amended motion that is to move 11 1 through 14.28 holding 1412. any further questions or comments uh this will be a voice vote so all in favor because there's some things i have to stand on voice yes so um your abstentions sarah and it's just the 1428 i'm on it to travel okay 14. um any so the abstentions we have those
065any of any objections all in favor aye motion carries um is there any or old new older new business that we would like to discuss at this point uh as of right now we haven't gotten clarification from the state it's only because of code that we could use so we have them in our calendar yes and there will be no more virtual learning any other older new christmas okay seeing none i like to call for a motion in a second to adopt resolution zero eight two three two two dash two for executive session to discuss matters falling under category eight as reflected in the attached resolution the board expects to be in executive session for approximately an hour and to return and upon return to public session action will be taken all in favor oh
066wait i'm sorry second all in favor or abstentions all right um can i have a motion and a second to reconvene public session second all in favor aye aye aye opposed study we are back in public session um at this time i called to see if there are are there any items of new business that we would like to discuss i would just i know it's going to be so busy in the fall but as the chair of community relations and that if i can just kind of touch base with everyone because we're going to put together town meetings and that because we'll go to all the municipalities so i could use some help on helping us get out to all of the that way as the one person has spoke um a lot of
067the parents of the students are informed but we want to reach the rest of the population because it is a big election um and get out there so i i'd love to be able to tap in everyone too hey marin you're going to have a schedule i already got it ready all right all righty sign up is yes i think the question was using other resources not uh individual board members posting individually certainly you can go to our town county yeah go to the town council meeting we also have a board right do you write up on town facebook we have a town i think it would probably be helpful for parameters to be discussed okay so that we stay within the scales yeah of advocacy and information and not lobbying for a specific position
068you know which is important that was discussed tonight you know but i think it would be helpful to talk about what those rails are because as discussed it's important to convey this information and i'll have talking points everybody tomorrow so now that you've proved everything i'm going to shoot your emails tomorrow i'm actually super i'm actually interested in that distinction right like the about information versus advocacy for a ballot question that the board is bringing is like introducing like why wouldn't we like why are we not able to have a point of view on that again i mean i i guess i'm understanding that we're not allowed to but well i guess unethical you you can make a statement but say i'm saying this as rob not as a board member but as a taxpayer
069in my town and this is my thoughts you could do that but you have to make that disclaimer right no i i i'm understanding that as the rules i guess i'm we've talked very openly in this room about the advantages of that it would bring to the district and that's why we are introducing the ballot question right right so we're obviously foreign where's the line right where where is that line because i feel like we haven't even i'm not sure we've been trying to i mean maybe we've been i've been uneducatedly you know stating why this seems like a good idea which feels like advocacy so the the schools let me jump in just real quickly mindful of the time that you had mentioned the target here it's 8 29. um there's a whole series
070of uh school ethics commission decisions on this issue going back to when communities voted on budgets uh and i think it's instructive for this because similarly uh and i think this is the concern it's not so much each of you using your voice particularly it's not each of you using your voice as individuals it's the use of public resources to advocate for a specific position and i think that's where if you look at the school ethics act decisions as to budgets schools could not use public resources to advocate for passage of their own budgets sec has said that i think similarly here uh and not just use of resource like the website will say this we're going to put out a flyer that says vote yes for these reasons or we're going to dedicate a
071website specifically to this you know vote yes in a referendum for this it's not just the use of the resource it's the thought that the board itself since this is a matter left to the community to vote the board itself can't lobby and the school ethics commission has said this cannot lobby specifically for a position can share information can share information as to why can share information as to what successful passage of this would mean and what the reasoning was to bring the referendum forward but stopping short of saying and you should vote yes okay thanks that's helpful thank you can i call for a motion in a second to approve agenda items uh 19.1 and 19.2 including any hand carries that provided so moved second tara brian um this is a roll call vote
072okay yes yes mr mueller yes mr stanton yes yes i have a motion and a second to adjourn motion all in favor [Music] motion carries you