001high school district board of ed meeting on tuesday april 22nd 2022 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 time date location or instructions for remote access to the hundred and democrat on december 9 2021 and the star ledger on december 7 notice and to the extent known the agenda of this meeting has been posted on the north hunterton high school and voorhees high school and provided to the municipal clerks of bethlehem township california town of clinton clinton township franklin township glenn gardner borough hampton borough highbridge borough lebanon borough lebanon township tewksbury township and union township as well as all other interested parties and posted on the district website fire exits
002are located in the direction indicated if alerted to fire please move in a common orderly fashion to the nearest smoke-free exit at this time i do request that you please silence all cell phones and katie can you please take a roll call vote ms president mr chapman president mr logo president mr banish ms sure we rise for the black salute allegiance to the flag of the united states and to the republic of which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all can i call for a motion and a second to approve agenda item 4.1 which are the minutes from the march 22nd regular school board meeting tara special um does anyone have any questions all in favor aye aye i need to abstain okay motion carries um at this time
003we'd like our school board student representatives to present their report um vanessa for north hunterdon of course so i just want to start off about talking about some activities we have coming up this week such as day of silence which is a day where we stand up for the lgbt community to spread awareness about the effects of bullying and harassment of lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer and questioning students so students take a day-long vow of silence to represent the silencing of the community um we also have psych for a cure coming up on friday so a lot of students are excited about that another thing that we also have coming up is relay for life so we still have lots of kids signing up for that a lot of the community is still signing up
004for it so we're really pushing to get as many sign-ups as possible special olympics has started practicing so they have their um competition on may 1st um another thing that i really want to bring attention to so some activities that we did have was the therapy dogs really like those the only complaint that we have is that we wish there was more sign ups so there wasn't enough people that could see the dogs personally i didn't get to see them so it was it would be really nice i heard a lot of good comments about that um another thing that i did want to talk about was that the senior class is really excited about project graduation so we really want to thank the ptsa for putting that together because i have heard a lot
005of word of signing up who's going who's not going so we're really excited to partake in that i looked into the tutoring times that i was questioned last time we do like the times that we have now the only thing is maybe extending them a little bit later now that we have the ap exams coming up these next couple of weeks so some students would like to get in a little bit more crunch time studying just about little questions that they have before going into these bigger exams um besides that the only other thing i want to touch base on is the final show that we have at north the spring cabaret which will be on may 6th 7th and 8th does anybody have any questions for vanessa thank you bethany you have an update
006from voorhees yes um so as the year progresses warriors high school has facilitated many projects and we've had a number of successes our drama club presented a musical crazy for you april 8th 9th and 10th which is a really big success for them prom tickets have started to be on sale this week and they're on sale the 29th of just friday for our prom on may 26th which is at steelstacks in bethlehem pennsylvania um came away with county competition which is a big win for them our spectrum club hello also held the day of silence in solidarity with members of the lgbtq plus community um students for change held a successful exchange program with students from rawa high school so they came in and walked around their school and learned a bunch of things about
007porgys they came and talked to teachers and students it was a great way to see how horses run and dad played games and they really enjoyed their time there um our baseball team who were last year state champs are currently 5-0 in the skyline conference in 8-1 overall rosa lacrosse has produced a 6-2 record for this season as well and mascot masked optional has been a seamless transition seemingly and that's really my report anybody have any questions for bethany thank you um at this point in time we're going to open the meeting up for public hearing and adoption of the 2022-2023 school year calendar dark school year budget i'm sorry it's gonna be a quick meeting if it's just a calendar blue i'm the um administrator for north center and working's regional high school district
008following presentations to explain the 22 and 23 school year budget the following speaker budget so the budget's been prepared for the over 2 100 students at the north and vorges and the over 300 vocational students that are also in our high schools the budget was developed to maintain all of our current academic co-curricular and athletic programs it is a priority for our district to build a budget that will maintain health be healthy and safe facilities to hire and maintain top professional staff members and to continue to provide opportunities for excellent student achievement so the overall budgetary tax increase is 1.7 this is a net increase the total general fund budget is increasing 2.8 which is being offset by a 1.1 decrease in the debt service the 1.1 percent we're utilizing is a return of funds
009to the taxpayer we had a successful referendum in 2016 and since then all the projects have been completed and they were completed under budget now is the time that the district can return those funds back to the voters as an offset to their tax levy payment so the ability to raise our general fund is also to 2.8 by using banked cap so in the 2020 and 2021 budget the district did not utilize the maximum allowable increase of two percent so therefore that amount was banked so what is bank cap her statute the amount that the district did not utilize in that 2021 school year can be banked for three succeeding budget years we use a portion of that last year and we're using a portion of that this year between myself and the finance committee
010we've been analyzing seven year projections for the district budget and we're seeing how expenditures right now are outpacing our revenue and if we do not utilize all of the two percent allowed um that could put us into trouble seven years from now so therefore we have a three year plan to utilize the bank cap from the 2021 school year in conjunction with returning those referendum funds to the taxpayers to allow us to increase taxes under the two percent while still raising the general fund 2.8 so how do we compare to other districts our per pupil costs you can see in this chart are compared to other regional high school districts in hunterdon county the overall per pupil costs are in light blue the administrative costs are in dark blue and the classroom instruction costs are
011in orange so as you can see north hunter divorces is the lowest in all of those categories even though we operate two school buildings in comparison to the other two schools on this screen which only have one school building each so state aid is also another main driver of our revenue we discussed our primary revenue sources tax levy stated you could see is decreasing 470 000 approximately from last year to this year this is an annual impact to our budget which is the state calculating the declining enrollment in our area for the past several years so cumulatively our state revenue has decreased over 1.6 million over the past five years as you can see in this chart and these are projected to continue until 2025. as you can see in this chart you can see
012the 1.4 million in tax levy increase offset by the approximate 470 000 state aid reductions so the overall operating budget is 61 million 275 608 which is 920 000 and change more than last year so as far as what makes up our budget the largest part of our budget is personnel salaries of 50 and the associated health benefit costs of 15 so salaries and health benefits as 65 of our budget the other large budget drivers for us are transportation professional services and out of district tuition so the appropriations that are built into our budget what is really driving the budget and what is included in those large sections that we reference well the budget is in support of anti-bias activities and professional development we're working to maintain our aging facilities including enhanced cleaning protocols that
013have been very affected through the kobit 19 pandemic we have enhanced school security that includes a school resource officer and class 3 officers at each high school we have a district-wide campus system along with electronic ids and a visitor id system that provide enhanced security measures and mental health is and has been a top priority each building has full-time crisis clinicians for mental health support as well as support for our lion pride academy at north the district is maintaining our technology initiative for the one-to-one device for every student the hardware and software is continuing to support remote learning if it's needed in the future we also continue our robust athletic programs that include 18 types of sports capital projects that are planned for the summer of 2022 which are not included in this budget at
014capitol reserve are the resurfacing of the voorhees tennis courts to rectify safety hazards the regrading of the asphalt area under the north pedestrian bridge for safer vehicular access and the clearance height of the bridge and site improvements at the theater entrance of north to improve the security lighting better building signage and replace brick pavers to eliminate safety issues so what is the budget tax impact for each municipality we have 12 municipalities and in each year this allocation can change based upon two reasons the total equalized valuation of properties for that municipality or the ratables or the number of high school students that are attending from that municipality so for this reason each taxpayer may not see a flat 1.7 percent increase they may see something that is a different fluctuation and that is based on
015those other factors so this chart is just to show what our tax rate was last year compared to this year for each municipality and then how much it is for each hundred thousand dollars of value for these properties so what are the next steps we have our public hearing and adoption of the budget tonight there'll be an opportunity for public comment on the budget primarily then we'll certify the taxes to municipal clerks implement our 2223 budget and then post all those resources on our website along with this presentation thank you for your time during this portion of the meeting the public is invited to address the board with questions or comments on the 2022-2023 school year budget the public is requested to sign the register provided for this purpose and state their name municipality of
016residence group affiliation if applicable and to direct their comments to the school board president just does anyone have any public comment regarding the budget um my name is linda i live in union township um i want to thank the board for everything this is not an easy thing that you guys do especially the budget part um i just want to talk about the importance of having the robust budget that we have um and yet the largest part is salaries and that's for for good reason um i find it i think it's wonderful if this board is willing to pay the kinds of monies and use the taxpayers funding to have excellent teachers in the school once again the school is winning the school's meeting awards um and getting accolades and considered by the media to
017be one of the better schools in new jersey and i think a lot of the reasons for that is that we're willing to pay for good teachers i personally am a person who does not mind paying taxes and maybe that's because i was adopted and it saved my life because caseworker saved my life um i hate text time because it's paperwork but the taxes themselves i know in all my pay and my thought is taxes are going up because of the schools then that's a good thing it means we are investing in the future of our not only the futures of our children but the future of this country and this temperature and this county and this state bring into the bringing into the adulthood the students who are ready for a complex wallet so
018i just want to say thank you to everybody for being willing to have that robust any other anyone else interested in and providing public comment on the budget seeing none i'd like to call for a motion in a second to adopt resolution zero four two six two two dash six establishing the 2022-2023 school year budget including maximum travel reimbursement and maximum expenditures for professional services miss bonobi yes mr chapman yes miss chris logan yes mr carr banish yes ms hintz yes miss hoffman yes mr kirkberger yes mr mueller yes miss selena yes mr spanton yes absent miss fiato yes motion carries um at this point in time we're um looking for the chief school administrator's report uh prior to uh covert closing our schools our board meetings we used to uh have the principals recognize
019students from each building recognizing the achievements of those students we're bringing that practice back tonight i would first like to introduce dr greg cattrell from north hunter good evening i remember the report of education i'm very pleased to have with me two students that we are very very proud of north carolina for distinguishing themselves and distinguishing our school for their academic excellence so i'm here joined tonight by celine zine as well as ryan chan both selena and ryan took the amc which is the american mathematics competition and scored a sport high enough to qualify for the uh amy which is the american invitational mathematics exam that's a big deal to get to get accepted to qualify for that so the amc is a series of exams as well as curriculum materials are built on problem
020solving skills and mathematical knowledge that begins as early as middle school and then they take the test here in high school so it's again it's a very big deal we only had two students that advanced and not every school even has any students in advance so we have two that did that so we're very proud of them and also in addition to that selena actually scored a perfect score on the amt at am tnj which is the american i'm sorry the association of mathematics teachers of new jersey as well as the u.s am bo which is a usa biology olympiad she was a semi-finalist there so these are two students and just for everyone's knowledge too selena's a sophomore and ryan's a junior i think we have two more great things we're very very proud
021is i was a poorly friendly photographer i would now like to introduce mr ron peterson the principal awardees oh yeah hi everyone it's great to see everybody again and to the new board members i'm not yet i'm not peterson i'm from principal horton's high school so uh welcome and if there's anything you just let me know with that being said we wanted to honor a program that the first last year and looks like they're continuing it this year unfortunately they're in season right now so i'm thinking they're either on the bus on their way back or still playing and that's the uh east boys baseball team last year the boys baseball program enjoyed a historic 2021 season they finished with a record of 25 and four which set a new school record for wins in
022the season three of the four losses were by one run the other being by two they advanced to the semifinals of the 101 sussex tournament and one wisconsin conference valley division but the bulk of their greatness was centered in the njsi double a state playoffs after a close opening win over monmouth and a convincing quarterfinal win over spotsford slotswood the bikes traveled to the top-seeded runson where they came from behind twice in extra innings in a game that took two days due to rain they claim the central jersey group 2 sectional championship of the 9-2 win over rare two days later the second in program history of their likes they took care of business in the group two semi-finals against manchester and beat hanover park with the thrilling softball single to become the group two
023champions on june 19th they were named the number one ranked team in the area by the express times and the 18th ranked team from the state of new jersey and the skyline conference team of the year and coach corey ken was named the express times baseball coach of the year and has just received this award from the scotland conference coach of the year for baseball for winning the state championship on how to launch in for the scotland conference on monday uh as bethany stated they're also having a great season this year because it's uh winning is contagious and uh the winning ways the boys baseball team has continued they are currently 8-1 coming over coming off of a win over the weekend of del barton who is ranked within the top 20 in the state
024there's usually a baseball powerhouse this past sunday in the autism awareness tournament and they're playing burns today we were hoping they'd make it back in time they're kind of also hoping in the rain when they're on it but i know coach kent is happy because the pitching rotation stays so i will make sure thanks uh i want to thank samaritan for printing out all the certificates not only for the athletes that are still on the team on last year's graduating athletes we're going to make sure that they receive these and i'll make sure we take a team photo with that so we can give that to meredith so she can post that as well the last thing i want to add about that team from last year as great as they were on the field
025it couldn't have happened to a better bunch of young men they really represented what it is to be able to use viking uh to the uploads they really were a great group of character guys that were on that team so we're proud of that [Applause] i have just a couple other announcements i would like to extend uh our congratulations to the voorhees mock trial team who won the 2022 hunter and county mock trial competition in the regional competition vortis made it to the finals but were defeated by the team from burlington county great performance by the 2022 voorhees team i also want to share that the month of may is a busy time for testing in the district advanced placement exams will be administered during the first two weeks of may then during the week
026of may 16th freshmen will take the new jersey student learning assessment for math and english and juniors will take the science assessment information has been shared with all parents and students as we will run two bus schedules the week of may 16 to accommodate testing may is also prom month north hunter and senior prom will be held on may 20th and the voorhees junior senior prom will be held on may 26th we hope our students have a great time hiv report for this month we had uh seven incidents reported and investigated three of those incidents were founded i made a motion for last month i call for a motion in a second to affirm the determinations of the hiv incidents reported on at the march 22 2022 board meeting second taran depp um all in
027favor extension any nays any objections motion passes katie and the monthly reports are attached for your information okay um just want to let everyone know that may 22nd 2022 is our annual goal setting and regular board meeting um i'm sorry may 24th oh may 24th 2022 sorry um is the annual goal setting in regular board meeting at six o'clock which is a different time uh here at the district office um at this time uh i want to go to the committees and and see if they can um report out their minutes uh tara why don't we start with community relations oh we didn't have it it was canceled this month yeah it was kind of like a hybrid yeah but jeff touched upon the activities that are going on with the students and it's quite
028a busy time of year it is it is thank you um deb you want to go to curriculum sure um we had a another robust agenda um this month there were five topics that we discussed the first was the draft 2022 2023 professional development plan we reviewed the draft of next year's professional development plan that the professional development committee developed within the school administration uh we also discussed how a new mandate from the state uh is in place for next year um it is to integrate information about asian americans and pacific islanders into the curriculum so this will be added to a focus of our goal related to diversity equity and inclusion the district also will be providing summer hours to staff members in order to incorporate this content into the curriculum as mandated the
029district will be implementing a new digital citizen citizenship excuse me i can't speak today curriculum next year very exciting this curriculum will help students understand how to be responsible citizens online and how to evaluate the credibility of resources among other topics um which actually came up in a meeting today which was just to prove the importance of this for for us to teach our students we also discussed the professional development topics that the state is requiring on a annual basis the final plan will be on next month's board agenda for that for the professional development the next item we discussed was mental health supports within the district we reviewed the continuum of mental health supports we have in place currently we also discussed a survey that students complete three times a year and based on
030their responses the support that the district supplies to these students confidential results excuse me we the third agenda item is we discuss two items under the curriculum the april that are on the board agenda the home instruction and out of district placements the fourth item discussed was the monthly data analysis that we do in this past month we discussed the third marking period grades we reviewed the also just the proposed topics we re-evaluated what we will be looking at each month going forward as a committee we added to the analysis for the upcoming year marking period grades and final grades of the year we also discussed and added data on the benchmark assessments and the psat so that that will be new um analyses that we will be looking at with the administration and last
031but not least we discussed the um recent in the news the sex education in 2020 new jersey standards the changes that are from for k through eight schools but we discussed them as well we discussed covid and how some states what they're doing with mass mandates and um something we did not discuss but is worth just including and it might be in john's report as well in finance that the esser funds that have been given to the school districts we will actually be moving some of the funds um and we're hiring an outside company to help supplement the tutoring needs which i know that um you asked and we're delivering as a district um so we there's a need for additional hours that the teachers cannot support so we're just going to take some of
032those esser funds and put it into that anyone have any questions that's great thank you thanks john okay getting it over to facilities finance thank you um our committee met on the 11th um and uh you know the big the big topic was the budget so i'd like to thank katie and her staff for um for an excellent job it was a challenging set of circumstances as we see uh declining state aid we see escalating costs and maintaining a reasonable budget for the taxpayers it's not an easy task especially when we're looking forward a number of years and seeing somewhat of a fiscal cliff when some costs will catch up with us so we don't want to be blindsided when that happens but yet we still want to be respectful of people's tax dollars today
033um so thank you for that um other things that we talked about on the agenda there's an rfp out for substitute staffing services just so that we maintain some competitive pricing also because of the referendum and the projects contained in them that we're working on for november our architectural services um has exceeded the amount that was budgeted originally so you can see some action on that in the budget um also um regarding the polytech the the building that we received the presentation on uh they've been meeting um just meaning every two weeks so they're still working towards that hopefully they can meet some of their um aggressive goals to to break ground and get that project up up and going um another concerning item as most people can can imagine uh transportation outlook uh with
034the cost of the rising cost of fuel is is problematic uh it's bad enough having bus drivers uh salaries but now fuel on top of that is a is a challenge so we are the office is is looking into some of those routes and some creative solutions to keep the costs uh somewhat under control also last lastly uh canadian reports that the solar solar project uh they're nearing completion so we can finally tidy that all up so that's all i have if anybody has any questions thank you the declining support from the state that is a formula like that it's based on just student population well i mean katie can probably attest better to the exact formula but it's something we've been you know according to the presentation we've been dealing with for a number
035of years and uh you know some some districts are really getting hammered by this some are seeing increases some are flat we happen to be you know losing substantial amount of money and we're part way through this process and um so it reduces that number each year uh yeah that's i heard it's what i'm basically trying to understand is what what is about our district that makes us go down and others go up enrollment and property basically and values the driving factors they also look at us and say we're over adequacy so that's the total amount of our budget and how that compares to other school districts in the state so they're saying that you know depending on how much you spend they also take that into the equation so i could i could talk
036to you i'm not looking for detailed details that's that's what i'm trying to understand it's about the declining enrollment and i guess that last comment is kind of where viewed as a little inefficient versus some other artists it depends on how much you spend in your budget versus the comparison of other districts so they take that as a ratio factor as well even though you show that per people spending it okay all right um and then the other quick question is you mentioned because you mentioned the architectural thing is there a simple reason why we went way over on architectural plans is it something we were we didn't anticipate doing and we did it anyways um i don't have i mean i just know there's a lot of projects i don't have the precise answer
037but when you approve the um you set an annual limit for architectural services and last year we were planning the referendum and we were authorizing um architecture to do more project planning than we would typically do in preparation for that referendum so we just had to increase that total annual cost but we don't typically have to do that anyone else okay uh shelley personnel personnel meeting uh personnel met on um april 13th i had to think about that it's a little off schedule but yeah april 13th we met virtually we discussed the personnel portion of the agenda and committee members were present except for the perception of ryan and john miller last but not least yes thank you policy the policy and school security committee met on april 11th and all committee members were in
038attendance we briefly reviewed the policies the mandatory policies that are up for second reading there's no real um further comment on those there's also a couple of mandatory regulations that are on the first and only reading we briefly discussed the regulation 24 31.4 around treatment of sports related concussions because there was some question about the clarity of the language that was i guess discussed and adequately addressed um we had planned to have a discussion around policy 9130 we've talked for the last couple months about additional languages to clarify um re-challenges to library resource material but we tabled that discussion until we a future meeting when we'll be able to have the board attorney participate in that discussion so we can finalize language to bring to the board that clarifies our position on that at that
039time we also saw a draft of the resource material challenge form for reporting out you know we've been talking for several months about the fact that we wanted to for if we were ever facing future challenges on resource materials that there'd be a more consistent approach to how the reconsideration committee would read out their results to the board so the building administration has been working on revisions to basically making a more standardized form that would be used by that reconsideration committee when reading out to the board so we did discuss that the bulk of the meeting was a presentation by shane berry who is the district's school safety leader and he gave a very thorough presentation on the district's security policy and procedures that are in place for both buildings and i think it was
040quite well received by everyone and there were a couple of new board members who hadn't seen um that the scope of the security environment that we have and so i think it was well received and i guess i would just offer up that for anybody who hasn't um had that presentation because it's not um obviously made available publicly for for lots of security related reasons but if you haven't heard shane uh talk about it i would get on his calendar and it's it's well worth an hour uh to hear about what's going on and what the investments we've made that's uh that's our discussion that was our meeting anybody have any questions i think brian has a question at least maybe just for the first and only mandatory regulations you've said in the past that
041many of these changes are suggested by a third party that kind of helps us keep us our policies clean and up to date right would you characterize all those changes in the first and only readings is that kind of those kind of changes or were there any that you as a committee said i want to do some propose some change no all of these are sort of that sort of mandatory like language cleanup that keeps seems to keep consultancies in business and that's you know on the right side of everything but okay sometimes it's hard that it's a lot of changes and sometimes it's hard to know whether it's those kind of changes or there's somewhere hidden in there there's this like you know you as a committee decided to kind of do something different
042about it yeah no i and and we would certainly like my experience has been that we would um present it that way like some like sometimes we're looking at policies and where we're making modifications like or recommending modifications based on what's best for our district um 90 of the time though like what we're doing is getting handed um policy updates that update like references to state statutes or change the word student to pupil and then back anyone else um i know ryan and um deb both attended some meetings this month on behalf of the board was that did you attend or tara did you just tap the state delegate meeting is may 14th so okay and then you attended a leadership meeting um so the hunterton county school board association had their meeting on march
04324th thank you ryan for um flagging that that's why i thought ryan yeah um so the main topic initially discussed was the upcoming workshop in the fall 2022 for all board members as usual or pre-covet as usual it's being held in atlantic city registration is open for any board member who would like to register for the seminars as well as housing the dates are october 24th through the 26th so you can just go to njsba's website and it's a big banner right on the home page to register and then overall it the this particular month it was just president and vice presidents of boards that attended the meeting and the basically it was sharing insights on um public events what's it like now that peop school districts are back into school full time and masks
044were removed gwen thornton our hunterton county and jsba rep just asked all of us to share insights on any public events like plays what's happening in that respect she asked just about what what it has been like dealing with or working with state and local health departments she asked for some insights on how esser funds have been used and i am really happy to say that some of the things that i presented that our administration is doing on the other districts were not doing so they were really thankful that we shared that and they're bringing it back to their district so thank you mr bender board meetings uh they talked about you know should they be virtual should they be hybrid just that kind of sharing of insights but the biggest bulk of the meeting
045was talking about regionalization because of the decrease in budgets in all of the hunterton county school districts whether it's like k-8 or high school and just how some school districts are truly truly struggling and what to do in the future so they did talk as a group about regionalization and what what what the positive impact could be so that was it yeah so like what was the like take away from that discussion on regionalization like a lot of the discussion was like was it are are people like starting to be more open to that idea or the was it mostly about the negative like what was the end result of that what did you take away from it so um my takeaway was that districts especially k through eight um that were very opposed to
046it in the past because they also have had the few years like we have of decreased funding they're now um kind of seeing the light of what that could mean for their students and for their tax paying residents there's a lot of misinformation out there that those board members were talking about why they were against it and the majority of the reasons gwen had to correct them and say that those points were not true to the point where gwen actually offered uh the hunter tin county school districts just you know to do a meeting just on the appropriate facts of regionalization so those of us in the meeting all said yes please do that and we will have attendance yeah thank you any other questions okay at this point in time it's an opportunity for
047public comment during this portion of the meeting the public is invited to address the school board with questions or comments the public has requested to sign the register provided for this purpose and to state their name municipality of residence group affiliation if applicable and to direct their comments to the school board president while all the 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 our there are unusual circumstances those appearing will be allotted three minutes to speak and no one will be permitted to speak twice until those that have not yet had an opportunity to speak have had a turn is
048anyone would anyone like to approach for a public comment linda i i was just wondering if there could be a clarification even this evening or in some other form as to the actual criteria um for the complaints from students about bias i can't remember the exact name the acronym but the criteria for determining whether or not the incident is found hi everybody topic that you guys aren't going to be happy about okay it is taking me a few months could you announce your name please township i apologize it's taken me a few months to recover um and time to gather the thoughts regarding the unanimous decision regarding the issue of the books being a mother of four i observed a lot the good the bad the other being a parent is by far the hardest
049job god has given us he has instructed us parents to raise his children in the way in his way not the world and he gave us an instruction the bible we may not believe that or agree with that but i can assure you it's true god warns us over and over not to be jaded by the world not to be coerced straight to manipulate or persuade it it is the world's ways versus god's ways however he loves each and every one of us whether we believe in him or not his grace and forgiveness and salvation is for all you have all chosen including the abstentions to keep the pedophilia being distributed amongst minors which is a crime if the school won't hold you accountable leave the community well mostly god we care about all the
050students which includes the lgbt students i don't want to see any child taught sexual behaviors that is a parent's job and it's a family's individual personal choice how they want to teach and raise their children any kind of sexual behavior perversion and pedophilia that shows me that you have done nothing to protect them our children are being taught that their identity is in their sexuality they are being taught that they are not valued by who they are god's perfect creation but by what they are it's gender picking or promoting sexual activity there has no bearing of whether you're hetero homo or somewhere in between to teach minors that they should explore their sexuality teach them to question their natural gender and to manipulate the students to believe that they have a right to choose their
051these types of behavior without parental consent without parents even no one is straight-up criminal mr bender you and the board have and are currently still giving students profiling surveys these surveys are crossing over delicate boundaries and invading into the students private and personal information this collection process is putting our children in danger their confidential personal information is collected and sold to third parties we have invaded each and every one of our homes and are violating our individual family values these surveys either teach the students that they're either victims or they're oppressors to say that crt is not being taught in our schools is a lie crt is being taught under the guise of sel i'm asking you all please stop creating division stop administer any surveys they're unnecessary and they're biased surveys let's return the
052focus back on to academics which is also another national crisis thank you i don't know it's like to speak down libero union township um wait len one second i just want to make sure nobody else wanted you my name is i'm sorry i can't hear a word that you're saying is it better yeah can you can you start from the beginning please sure my name is we are very excited at the same time i'm not because there's so many issues that i'm having trouble as a mother as a nicole stated to even think about i'm not prepared i don't have a speech prepared i'm just going to speak as a from the heart as a mom matthew 8 16 if anyone causes one of these little ones those who believe in me that to stumble
053it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around the neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea those are very strong words she said and one day we are going to be facing god face to face there'll be no lawyers nobody to support you and give the reason it's gonna be you and god and he's gonna ask you i gave you those children i don't care every one of you he gave me my children in my hair his children what i'm gonna do about this i i cannot watch i just cannot watch um seeing that our children are being uh you know not even forced but encouraged to read those disgusting books and setting them up for something that is absolutely terrible i mean we are grooming those
054children for future pedophiles i mean if you if the child is learning this okay so sex with a nine-year-old boy having sex with adult male if it's acceptable mom dad accept this one said well that's okay what's going to happen is that child is going to be in the hands of pedophile he's going to think it's okay right just think about it it's a logic i mean it's i cannot comprehend the disgusting concept that is this we're going to fight this whether you like it or not one time i watch board of education online and i literally stood there and cried watching every single one of you saying and that is so educated i can't even i can't even say it how educating that book supposed to be for our children those materials are too
055heavy for them too heavy they're confused why are you putting more confused confusion i'm speaking to here for every single one of children and i don't want to make any division i love them all and i'm here for them another thing i want to speak about and my daughter was a freshman here she spoke she came home one day said mom planned parenthood was in school today i said for what they clearly stated that you don't need to talk to your parents about if you get if you get pregnant we'll take care of it what is that here i'm going to say something i'm sorry your time is up who's going to hold the charge back up when something really is going man your time is up good evening board members as i sign in
056i just want to note that after many months of watching you on my flat screen at home it's a pleasure to be here in person i feel like i'm standing in front of celebrities i am martha hickson i am a librarian at north hunter in high school and we just finished signing in and i'll tell you what i have to say and several versions of remarks prepared tonight depending on how the night went i was hoping i would not have to deliver this version but here we are thank you for making this time available tonight under the guise of asserting your own first amendment rights throughout this school year protesters have actually attempted to trample the rights of every student in the district let's be clear about their demands they want to ban books in
057the united states of america in the 21st century more than 70 years ago paraphrasing george santayana winston churchill told the world that those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it what can we then here and now learn about the history of book banning 35 years after the crucifixion of christ roman emperor caligula forbade the reading of homer's odyssey because he thought it expressed dangerous grief ideas of freedom starting in 1559 for more than 400 years the catholic church published a list of forbidden works which included condemnation of galileo's theories about the solar system and the discoveries of copernicus and in 1933 bonfires across nazi germany considered the works of authors the regime considered subversive including albert einstein ernest hemingway jack london and helen keller the pattern of history is clear time
058and again when books are banned the long-term result is that the controversial becomes commonplace and sometimes even part of the classic canon also classic is a court ruling from 1949 that offers guidance for us today not long after church award the world to learn from history pennsylvania court judge curtis bach ruled in the case commonwealth b gordon in which 54 philadelphia booksellers faced obscenity charges for offering such works as studs lonigan by james farrell wild palms by william flockner and god's little acre by erskine caldwell in his opinion opposing censorship bach wrote quote it will be asked whether one would care to have one's young daughter read these books i suppose that by the time she is old enough to wish to read them she will learn the biologic facts of life and the words
059that go with them there is something seriously wrong at home if those facts have not been met and faced and sorted by then it is not children so much as parents that should receive our concern about this i should prefer that my own three daughters meet the facts of life and the literature of the world in my library for i can face the adversary there directly if the young ladies are appalled by what they read they can close the book if they read further they will learn what is in the world and in its people and no parents who have been discerning with their children can fear the outcome nor can they hold it back for life is a series of little battles and minor issues and the burden of choice is on us all
060every day young and old unquote april is national school library month in honor of that occasion let us choose to learn from history let us choose not to fear books let us choose to support students i'm sorry thank you one second lin [Music] i think someone else [Laughter] [Music] my name is maureen baumgartner i live in tewksbury township i am managing director and founder of ladies for america first i am very sad i think everybody in this panel should watch the movie whose children are they my goodness gracious where's the line where is it gonna end how far are they gonna push i can't believe i'm standing here and we are actually having a discussion about these books and these behaviors and we are allowing this in our school systems we are going to fight
061hard to take down the nea i am telling you that right now and i'm proud to say that and any librarian who has these books allows them in the library and you guys vote them in it's not about book burning where do you draw the line there's got to be a line here right mr mielen where do we draw the line this is wrong thank you very much [Music] we live in a constitutional democracy and our first amendment to our constitution is free speech there are all kinds of people in this district there are conservative christians there are middle of the road christians there are liberal christians there are jews there are muslims and there are like myself unitary universalists some of us believe one way and some of us but one thing you can
062know for short for those of you who are not aware something called the treaty of tripoli that jefferson basically signed and says that this is not a christian nation and the reason that he said that was because the muslims were concerned about being rejected in some ways from the fact that this was a christian country and he said it because of the separation of church and state that our constitution gives us and as the resident lesbian in the room development let's begin in the room tonight i would like to tell everybody in this room i am a lesbian but lesbian and gay and bisexual do not equal pedophilia my wife is two years younger than me not 20 years younger than me i have no interest in little children other than handing them a lollipop
063and discussing an abc's book this needs to be set here in this world this is not about pedophilia i came from a conservative republican family we did not discuss homosexuality in my home and yet i have known i am gay since i was 19 and i am now 62. i can't believe we're standing here discussing this in the 21st century and i'm concerned that silver's along the line if this continues with the book bearings i'm going to have to move to scotland where it's safe for me a canada where it's safe for me the children of this district are safe from the members of the lgbt community [Music] i don't think that one person stood up here tonight to say that we do not like the lgbt community i never accused anybody that they were
064going to hurt a child i don't want any child susceptible to pedophilia when there is a book with a boy give it a man a that's a problem that's disgusting i'm sorry it could be heterosexual it doesn't matter and if those books are in the library too for heterosexuals they need to go too i am not a racist i am not a bigot i love every person that walks on this earth but i love them enough to tell you the truth and for any lgbt person to stand here and say that i hate them and that i'd say that they're going to pet alive they're going to hurt a child that's not true but when you put books in a library that crossover criminal threshold putting our children at danger that's a problem there's mama
065bears there's papa bears and there's plenty of lgbtq families out there that disagree with the books as well not looking to ban a book this is the 21st century we do have a first amendment right but we also have a right to protect our children i mean every time i come to these board meetings all it's about is about inclusion and diversity and lgbt what about academics this is ridiculous and i've got to be honest with you i'm starting to see faces and i'm starting to figure out who who here we can trust and who we can't trust and that goes in the community that grows in administration looking at the budget enrollments down but the the budget is going a lot to a lot of administrators and a lot of teachers out here why
066do we need all the administrators and teachers is it for the njea dues i don't know seems like there's a lot of stuff being unfolded here but i will not be stood up here i will not be called a bigot and i will not be accused of blaming somebody for attempting to be a pedophile to our kids the books are disgusting they're dirty and even lgdp should not be looking at pedophilia because i care about them too librarians have very little to celebrate because across the country fringe groups are demanding removal of books from libraries and record numbers and those demands come wrapped as we have just seen in misinformation another play with the national scope so to celebrate school library month i would like to give the board a gift a set of tools
067to help you fight this information these are some of the same tools that i give to our students first how do you know that you might be receiving this information the simple answer is let your emotions be your god when you read or hear something so unbelievable that it makes you angry fearful or upset the outrageous claim that school librarians are groomers for example that's a sign that information is being used to bypass your common sense and manipulate your deeply values that's also a sign that you need to unpack that information by stopping investigating finding better coverage and tracing claims four steps that you can easily remember with the acronym sift a set of techniques that professional fact checkers enjoy before using information the essence is for style when you're online that means using quick
068screens instead of clicking on the first search result review the result titles urls and snippets to find a source that is both trustworthy and relevant in a face-to-face forum like this consider what you're seeing and hearing before you engage with the information what kind of content is it is it advocacy research rumor who created who is delivering it is their demeanor appropriate for the setting are they complying with meeting rules if you can't answer these questions use the rest of the sift moves to better understand what you're dealing with i stands for investigate the source to determine reputation and expertise online use a technique called lateral reading leave the pager on and find out what others say about the source's expertise and agenda in a face-to-face forum use your own experience and common sense what
069is the person's connection to the district what is the person's past track record and interactions what organizations or platforms are they affiliated with if you care about the claim but you're concerned about the quality of the source use the f incent which stands for find better coverage get the best reporting or analysis on the topic rather than just accepting the information that happened to find its way to you use the news tab on google to look for coverage by a reputable news organization you already trust or add the phrase fact check to your google search to see what professional fact checkers say about the topic finally the t zift stands for tracing claims in quote to the original context if a source is summarizing information it may have been taken out of context resulting in
070accidental or intentional errors or skewed emphasis we saw good examples of this in september and again tonight when out of context quotes were read from library books examine the original context you may find a very different picture so that's how you sift on your handout is a summary of the steps along with the link to the online tutorials that i use for students i'm sorry your time is up i'm sorry the 30 minutes are up for a public comment like to move forward with the meeting and call for a motion and a second to approve agenda items 12.1 to 14.16 um all in favor i'm sorry any questions there's going to be two extensions for training okay and myself as well 14.16 all in favor other than that abstentions we know and then any knees
071at this point um we are calling for any older new business anyone have any older new business to discuss i get one sure um i wonder if we should consider an ad hoc committee to um start looking again at regionalization in our district it just feels like um from what we heard from deb from the county school boards i association i i think we'd rather not like be laggards here like let's like let's get ourselves you know like a forward-leaning posture and see what our district and our communities and i i say we form an ad hoc committee that and we invite the k-8 to send representation and let's start talking about it because i would volunteer for that i think it's i think it's past time to start talking about it to that note
072the jessica and i as you know each quarter we meet with the sending district board president and vice presidents and we have our meeting coming up in may maybe we ask gwen thornton to attend that one since it's our region sending districts and see if she could clarify because it was some of our sending districts that had the most misinformation on it and just a suggestion do you remember when we it's probably like four years now i think they uh south hunterdon came to speak because they merged stockton through the schools and it was such an a process that we did you know you just don't you don't think of those things it might be great to have someone come from the district a representative to speak on that from south hunterdon because they had
073a ad hoc committee as well with you know parents teachers at admin and they came and spoke to us it was very enlightening so i have a question along those same lines i know i've been at the state level senator sweeney who um who lost this past year he would he was a proponent of streamlining the regionalization process because it it's such a hurdle for these districts to or for any group of districts to go through this process and um but he was kind of on the on off one end of the political spectrum from the current administration in trenton and um it didn't seem like there's a lot of i just don't know if has anything changed in trenton to i know other districts are studying it but is there really anything that's been
074done to make this mechanism easier or is it ultimately going to be uh they've released grant money to help districts pay for regionalization studies but nothing has been streamlined in the process because i think that's the biggest hurdle is once know you can everybody could agree in theory but it's such a a long process it it gives the opportunity for opponents of that regionalization to trip up the process in the middle of it and you know back from when we started studying it originally as a board that was a big concern like you know we can we do all this work for not because it could be easily sidetracked but i think we definitely i agree with you you know it sounds like some of the k-8s who were the original opponents of it they're
075seeing you know that they're suffering from the declining state uh state aid yeah there was a bill introduced in the assembly in january it's a 481 and it's proposing to have the department of education establish a pilot program that studied the feasibility of regionalization of certain school districts and would appropriate 150 000 towards it and it's been a recommended or referred to the assembly education committee and that's where it's still sitting that was introduced in january okay two things sure um the hall of fame committee you know we're celebrating accolades achievements of students as we're you know coming upon graduation um are do we have a committee and are for both schools are they where are we we did tom roll was running it but then tom left so he can we look at that
076um and then also um i was out last month due to an illness um i did attend the um a pd for school board members and it was regarding superintendent evaluation i have um information i can forward to everyone i'm just wondering if we're going to be starting that um we're a little bit behind the april should have started marching in april okay and that's all anyone else camera you're going to email that out um i'd like to call for a motion in a second to adopt the attached resolution zero four two six two two 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 one hour and to return to public session um and upon return to
077public session action will be taken all in favor uh all right any opposed all right all right we're in executive session um call for a motion and a second to reconvene public session second all in favor aye all right the opposed against collusion carries um agenda item 18 is uh any new business we have any new business to discuss can i just ask i saw on the bills list the graduation courts and honors is there any way we can instead of having those turned in i mean it's such a nominal fee that the seniors from those honors they get to keep them because other districts do that they keep them i think we're doing that yeah is that what it was are we are we still doing that i believe they have what they call
078international society now okay thank you okay and um i just wanted to reiterate what rob had said we added new business to set up an ad hoc regarding regionalization and also to re-establish the um uh history of the sports um yeah i think both are great ideas yeah yeah and i like the hall of fame coming back yeah voree's has it had had it i guess in the past if you go into your your driveway mr peterson put it in there it's in your drive if you look at if anyone's interested you can go look it up the other new business okay um can i have a motion and a second to approve agenda items nineteen point one and nineteen point two so shall we second and that's [Applause] oh any items for discussion we
079need a motion for that to remove from 4.5 and 4.6 from the tenure and the recommendations for me any discussion no okay so this is a vote to amend 19.1 to remove mr case's name from 4.5 and 4.6 so you just need a voice voice vote right voice voter roll call i generally on action items okay miss bonobi yes mr chapman yes mr logo yes yes this is yes it's hoffman yes mr kirkberger yes mr mueller yes missolina yes mr stanley yes mr street absolutely yes okay can i have a call for a motion and a second to appreciate we already have that motion if there's just any discussion about any further discussion on that any further discussion on 19.1 or 19.2 we need to have the hand carry now no we're going to hate
080carrie's next sister hershberger yes mr miller yes yes to 19.1 and abstain from 19.2 as i was absent mr spanton yes mr strait and mrs yes can i call for a motion and a second to approve action items one uh through seven including the hand carries as presented and recommended by the superintendent um all positions serve students in grades nine through twelve and payment is from the general fund unless otherwise noted and is made through the payroll check including item 7.1 which is our motion to abolish the director of special services job position job description and position effective july 1st 2022 yes mr chapman yes yes yes ms hoffman yes mr partner yes mr mueller yes yes can i call for a motion in a second to adjourn i'm motion kim second dad all in
081favor motion carry you