001um good evening everyone and welcome to the um board of ed meeting uh of tuesday january 25th 2022 this meeting will be held virtually this evening um there is access to the live stream and recording of the movie or of the meeting and to make a public comment you can visit our zoom site uh the link is in the agenda um so i'd like to take the time now to call the meeting to order um the north hundred and voorhees regional high school board of education meeting on tuesday january 25th 2022 is now called to order in accordance with the requirements of the open public meeting act njsa 104-6 adequate notice of the meeting has been provided by submission of notice of the time date location or instructions for remote access to the hundred and
002county democrat on december 9 2021 and the star ledger on december 7 2021 as subsequently re-advertised on january 22nd 2022 notice and to the extent known the agenda of this meeting has been posted on the north hundred and high school and voorhees high school and provided to the municipal clerks of bethlehem township californi borough 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 feel free to locate the fire exits within your home um and where you are attending virtually and at this time uh we ask that you silence uh all cell phones or if you're not speaking during the meeting that you could um mute your lines um
003katie can we have a roll call please miss bonomi here mr chapman president miss crystal logo president mr farbanisch here miss hints there's something coming on miss since is coming on right now just so you know here good evening here mr spanton here mr street here miss fiato here um and that this time or uh katie we have a quorum yeah um at this time and may we all rise for the flag salute i pledge allegiance to the flag united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all can i call for a motion and a second to adopt the attached resolution one zero one two five two two dash six for executive session to discuss matters falling under category seven as
004reflected in the resolution the board expects to be in executive session for approximately 45 minutes and upon return to public session action will be taken motion second rob and deb um all in favor aye aye any opposed all right motion carries we're going into executive session and a second to reconvene from public session please any opposed extensions motion carries katie um can i have a call can i call for a motion and a second to approve agenda items 6.1 and 6.2 which are the minutes from our regular school board meeting and the reorg meeting devin bryant sure second okay who's hey sorry i saw deb's mouth move you're not on my screen tara um all right so tara and brian uh dad oh gosh all right um all in favor aye any opposed i'm abstaining
005from 6.2 i wasn't at that meeting but i um approve of 6.1 got it thank you shelley no no opposition motion carries katie yes okay um now is the portion of the meeting for public hearing on contract amendments and addendments to the superintendent of schools jeff bender assistant superintendent of schools rich burgess and school and the school of business administrator catherine blue whereas the north hundred and voorhees regional high school district board of education here and after the board wishes to amend the contract of superintendent of schools jeff bender for the effective period of july 1 2019 to june 30th 2023 assistant superintendent of schools dr rich's dr richard burgess and the school business administrator catherine blue for the effective period of july first through june 30th 2022 in addition to the addendum of the
006contract for dr richard dr richard burgess for acting superintendent effective date of 1021 25 through december 31st 21 and pursuant to the njsa 18a 11-11 the board is required to provide public notice 30 days and 10 days prior of its intent to hold a public hearing and to take action to amend extend negotiate and or alter contract terms and condition of the district superintendent of schools assistant superintendent of schools and school business administrator notice was provided to the public via publication in the district's official newsletter newspaper on december 23 2021 and january 10 2022 and the publication on this district's website every day for a period beginning december 23 2021 to january 25th 2022 the subject contracts were reviewed and subsequently approved by the interim executive county superintendent of the north of the new jersey
007department of education hunterdon county office on december 14th for catherine december 14th 2021 for catherine blue december 14th 2021 2021 to 2022 contract and january 12 2022 2021 to 22 contract addendum for dr richard burgess and january 14 2022 for jeff bender now is the time for opportunity for public comment on the amended contracts of the superintendent of schools assistant superintendent of schools and the school business administrator the board pursuant to njsa 10 4-12 the open public meetings act shall not publicly discuss personnel matters and shall not respond to comments made by members of the public please be aware that the subject of this hearing retains to the right of privacy and shall retain all rights regarding defamation and slander according to the laws of new jersey the board shall not be made held liable
008for comments made by members of the public so um rich i know you were going to survey and see if we had any um yes so i'm going to send it for anybody that's in the waiting room um i'm going to send a chat to ask if anybody is commenting on this section of the agenda um so that'll come shortly for anybody in the waiting room and if you can reply back to let me know if you're here for that purpose right now i don't have anyone indicating that they wish to make a public comment now i don't know how much longer you want to wait jess but it's been out there about 45 seconds i think we had a comment but not yeah it's um somebody's asking where the agenda is i can send
009them a copy of that okay all right i think we should go to vote um can i have a call for a motion and a second to approve the amended contract for the period of july 1st 2019 through june 30th 2023 between the board and jeffrey bender so moved second debit brian um are there any questions um all right katie can you call for a roll call vote miss bonomi yes mr chapman yes miss crystal logo yes sister for banish yes this hands yes ms hoffman yes mr hershberger yes mr mielik yes missolino yes mr stanton yes mr street chris fiato yes thank you can i have a call for a motion and a second to approve the contract addendum for the period of october 25th through 2021 through december 31st 2022 21 between the
010board and dr richard burgess motion second rob and shelly are there any questions katie can you call for a roll call miss bonomi yes mr chapman yes where's the logo yes sister for banish yes is him yes miss hoffman yes mr kirchberger yes mr mueller yes miscellaneo yes mr stanton yes mr street yes the miss fiato yes motion carry can i call for a motion in a second to approve the amended contract for the period of july first 2021 through june 30th 2022 between the board and dr burgess well moved second [Music] dan um any questions can you can get a vote miss bonomi yes mr chapman yes is crystal logo yes mr banish yes miss hints yes chris hoffman yes mr kirchberger yes mr mielek yes mr stanton yes mr street yes and miss
011fiato yes thank you can i have a call for a motion and a second to approve the amended contract for the period of july 1st 2021 through june 30th 2022 between the board and catherine blue so moved second i didn't catch you tara thanks thanks rob any questions katie can we go for a roll call miss bonomi yes mr chapman yes mr logo yes mr far banish yes yes ms hoffman yes mr kirchberger yes mr milik yes missoulino yes mr spanton yes mr street yes and miss fiato yes thank you motion carrier um do we know if the student representatives were able to join the meeting vanessa molina is here okay we'll start with vanessa is she in the meeting i don't i'm just trying to go i don't see her can you unmute please
012yeah she's under number 914 oh okay hi vanessa can you hear us there you go i think you're unmuted now hi ken vanessa thank you for joining us this evening um i'd like to i'd like to give you the opportunity to um represent north hunterdon with your representative report okay i first wanted to start off with talking about the upcoming blood drive on february 16th starting at 7 30 a.m and ending at 3 30 p.m we had a lot of people come out and join and participate in the last blood drive we'd like to see more people show up for the second one i also want to talk about the trivia bowl on march 10th we want a lot more student participation in that um similar to that we uh finally got word about where
013prom is going to be located this year so it will be at the forest lodge on may 20th from 5 9 pm that was chosen by the student body so we're all really excited about that we're excited to see what opportunities this could provide us with i also wanted to talk about some fundraisers that we had in the theater department we had a fundraiser at harper's table we are now going to have a popcorn fundraiser coming up these next couple of days i also did want to touch on the subject of virtual schooling sorry you might hear my dog in the background um we want to talk about virtual schooling we have had a lot of really good feedback from it a lot of the students actually did want to stay in i'm so sorry
014they did want to stay in school the only students that really chose to go home were those that had immuno-compromised parents and therefore we had a lot of good feedback that the teachers are doing a really good job of keeping the kids in tech and staying in school a lot of them are only at home if they're compromised and the teachers are doing a really good job about keeping the kids at home focused along with the class and having an equal participation and the student body is really happy that we had the choice to stay home but a lot of them would rather remain in school just because we feel like it's a lot better of an environment and we can participate and focus more when we're in school and that's the end of my
015report jessica are you on mute i'm sorry i was asking if bethany was able to join i was talking with bethany i don't think she was able to oh thanks vanessa do you want to stay in the meeting vanessa or can we put you back in the waiting room um i would like to stay in the meeting but if it's easier you can also put me back in the waiting room um i think you can i just i would uh just ask you to put your line on mute okay all right um seeing that bethany's not able to join us this evening um the next item on our agenda is a presentation by dr burgess our assistant superintendent to review the new jersey department of education school staff assessment for voorhees and hundred in high
016school determining under the anti-bullying bill right district and school grade report for the uh 2020 to 2021. sure good evening everybody thanks jess um so one of the requirements under the new jersey anti-bullying bill of rights act is that each school in the district has to convene a school safety committee that school safety committee will then go through a checklist provided by the state department of education to evaluate how we are adhering to that anti-bullying bill of rights act there is a total of 78 points that are possible for this score both the committees met at both north hunter and voorhees and actually for the first time that i can remember both schools have the same exact score uh they both scored a 77 out of the 78. and you can see the the attachments
017that were on there will show where they actually um gave themselves less than perfect and um and those are the areas that they'll continue to work on this year so what happens next is that after the board accepts this um then it will be submitted to the new jersey um department of education through our county office then once that is affirmed in the spring i'll be reporting to you again that they have affirmed these scores and then they are posted on our website so if there's any questions i'd be happy to answer them did they both lose the point in the same spot no actually it was it was two different spots so same category but two different um items within the category so any other questions all right that is my report thank you
018very much thanks rich um we'll now go to a presentation by rich brown director of curriculum articulation and student achievement to present the fall 2021 start strong assessment scores good evening everybody um am i able to share my screen yet you will be as soon as i can find you in a list here rich hold on here we go it's quite a list tonight so okay i have it now thank you rich all right so good evening everybody i'm here tonight to share with you the results of the start strong administration which was uh which students completed in september of 2021 there's a tremendous amount of information in these slides i'm going to go over some of them pretty quickly and spend more time on some of the other slides although we're presenting these results
019today because we received the official results from the state we've had the results since september we've acted upon the results in september the test was designed to be administered quickly and get the results in the hands of the teachers quickly so we examined and acted upon these results months ago the entire presentation is linked in the agenda i'll give an overview of the test then i'll give the district results then i'll give the school results i'll go over the results by gender and then we'll go over at the end some intervention strategies that we're using to help students who are struggling so i'm happy at the end to answer any questions that you have so the state test this state test was given to satisfy the federal requirement for ela math and science high school
020testing that was not done last spring when the state canceled the nj sla assessment due to covid start strong is not the same assessment as the nj sla it was much shorter it was given in 45 to 60 minutes whereas njsla is over several days and it covered a subset of standards it didn't cover all of the standards that the njsla normally covers and it also covered the subset of standards that students should have learned in the previous course it was designed to give educators quick results in fact the results were available as soon as students hit submit and so that teachers could use the information to inform their instruction so for example this this slide shows the content that was called covered on each of the assessments so for example the ela 9 test
021included questions on a subset of the ela 8 standards so these tests the start strong assessment was given to all freshmen and all sophomores for ela it was given to all students enrolled in algebra 1 geometry and algebra 2 and all freshmen and all seniors for science now one thing i want to point out to you about these results is that we had previously in the curriculum committee gone over preliminary results these results um that i'm sharing with you the official results do not include the students who are part of the academies in the hundred and county vocational school district so even though for most of these students we teach them ela we teach them math we teach them science uh because they are technically part of the hundred and county vocational school district they
022are not included in this report so i want to explain the way that the results are reported there's three different proficiency categories more support needed which is the lowest proficiency level some support needed which is the middle and less support needed which is the highest proficiency level on this slide you see the ela results for the district so around 60 of the students are in the highest proficiency level that less support needed and around 20 in the lowest proficiency level so both ela 9 and ela 10 are included on that slide there for math only about 10 of our algebra 1 students were in the highest proficiency level that percentage increased as the math courses increased to six to forty percent in geometry and fifty eight percent in algebra two you can see that the
023percentage of students in the lowest proficiency level decreased the longer the students were in our district starting with 64 in algebra one to 32 percent in geometry and 14 in algebra two so the longer that the students were with us the better they performed on these assessments for science about half of the freshmen were in the middle proficiency level with around a quarter of them in the lowest and a quarter of them in the highest proficiency level seniors about half of them were in the highest proficiency level so so that's all the district results um the the slides that are that are coming up now show the school breakdown so the proficiency levels for ela 9 just this first slide here by school were very similar when you move into ela 10 it was about
02410 percent uh of the students at north hundred and ten percent more of the students at north hunter and were in the highest proficiency level but still very similar for algebra 1 students at north hunterdon perform slightly better than those at voorhees and again all of the slides are linked in the agenda here in geometry the north huntington students performed uh better than than those at voorhees and you know again they're fairly comparable but but the students at north would perform a little better and uh for algebra two uh vorhees students perform slightly better than those at north hunterton now with science the results are very similar for both schools this is the freshman science with around quarter of the students and the highest proficiency level and when you look at science 12 the north
025hunter and seniors perform better than those at voorhees for the science 12 test so that's all the school specific information you know i started with district and the school breakdowns um we always like to look at uh some of the different subgroups within those groups so uh we did look at the gender breakdown female and male at both schools for each of these tests for ela 9 which is what this slide is showing overall females in the district outperform males for ela 9 and then for ela 10 it was an even wider margin where females outperformed the males for the ela 10 assessment when you look at the algebra one females and males perform very similarly similarly on the algebra assessment um the females slightly outperformed the males but it was pretty close here when
026you look at geometry the males vorhees had lower scores than the other groups and again this is information that helps teachers look at some specific areas um you know if if we see trends we try to address those in the classes that's for sure looking at algebra 2 the results for algebra 2 are very consistent the vorhees females did have the highest proficiency levels overall and when you look at the science 9 they were fairly consistent as well the disparity in the highest proficiency level in females it's two schools i thought was interesting where 31 percent of the females have voorhees were in the highest proficiency level but that drops to 16 at north and and by the way this is all information for the ninth grade scores we shared all this information with our
027sending districts and with our articulation meetings we examined all of these results and looked at the assessments as well this is the first time for a state test that we were actually able to see the tests so we were able to go through question by question we can get breakdowns by standards we can get breakdowns by questions so in our articulation meetings we were actually looking at the actual questions that students struggled with to see what we can do to to better help those students for science 12 males did outperform females on the science 12 test so like i said i went over district information school information and then breaking it down by gender so i just wanted to end here with some of the intervention strategies that that we went through um and again
028we got these results in september so we've been you know having intervention strategies ever since uh one of the most important things that we had to do was based on these results reteach standards from the previous grade or the previous course like i said this these tests were assessing information from the previous grade so a lot of times we had to go back and re-teach some of this information we continue with our english and math classes to monitor their progress through benchmark assessments uh obviously we always have extra help during research resource periods and after school we're starting an after-school tutoring program and we we've always had for the past few years a response to intervention program for students who are not meeting a standard and obviously we're continuing to do that to help our
029students be successful after these two years of disrupted learning due to covent so that is the presentation were there any questions that you wanted me to answer from this rich i have a question uh it's john milic and and thanks for this information i think it's a real handy tool it really shows us a lot whether it's from uh you know the with all the breakouts i one question were we able to use this as a tool to evaluate our own instructors um like i guess since a lot of those tests were for ninth graders that's more indicative of how our sending districts are doing but were we able to the the you know the upperclassmen were we able to um you know um clean any uh information how our staff is performing yeah definitely
030from the ela 10 and then the geometry and algebra ii and the science 12. yeah we well one of the things that we were able to do is create reporting groups so that teachers could see individual student responses all the reports that we can see as administrators teachers in these reporting groups could also see so one of the best things about this assessment was getting the data into the hands of the teachers as quickly as possible but more specifically like for instance if you have two teachers teaching an identical course and one of them you know is doing better maybe we can see what techniques they're using um and maybe what techniques to avoid you know if we have if we can do side-by-side comparisons yeah the the data file that we get identifies well
031it identifies the current teacher it does not identify the previous teacher um so really what the the best way that we were able to do it is by looking at um levels you know cp advanced honors uh the data file doesn't allow us to identify the teacher that they had last year but we we look at the course that they had last year to under to identify um standards that students were struggling with as a whole were there any other questions so rich this is brian chapman um there's a lot of data um and a lot of ways to look at it uh but one of the things that this this um this assessment which was uh not a replacement for nj sla because the things you articulated but i'm sure those tests in the
032past have exposed some trends as well maybe you know north doorhees increasing proficiency as the longer the stay in the district you know uh male female it in it's a very big question really but is there anything that kind of surprised you like a trend that you had never seen before which would might say something about how different groups or places are responding to the learning loss that the kovid pandemic has led to nothing really surprised me um when we typically give these presentations you see side by side our scores against the overall state scores the state specifically told us that we were not allowed to compare these results to the state results we have received them since then so i'm i am able to compare um let's just say that we performed even though
033i'm not happy with these results they are still much better much better than the overall state results so based on the last two years i'm not surprised by any of this information especially because of the the this is a subset of standards um they are they were 45 to 60 minute tests there was no writing included in this at all it was all multiple choice so you know i i'm really not surprised by these results it helped us to identify some areas that we had to go back to re-teach um but no i don't think there was anything really surprising about them thank you sure why are we not supposed to compare to the state numbers i can only speculate uh but actually on the on i'll say this at the december state board meeting
034uh they did give um a presentation on the state results but the link to the presentation was not included on the agenda um through public records uh the newspapers did request them so we are able to see them but the state has not yet released those scores i mean when somebody tells me you're not allowed to compare this data to something else it kind of makes me think that the test is worthless and this is the this is the first time the test has ever been given it has not been normed and uh i i think that eventually the state will release the information but i think that will be done after these presentations to the public are completed richards glenn for banning another question does it does the school get access to a general
035score how kids are doing what or will be doing an s-a-t p-s-a-t ap scores will be able to sort of gauge or sort of mark those over time over the past couple of years also yes we get we had a lot of reports from the college board with sct and psat scores and things like that so yeah i think that that is uh especially with the psat with all of the students taking those assessments we've been taking a close look at how those scores are how those scores are trending especially throughout covet so we do get nap information we get a lot of reports rich has the state given any direction on their assessment on how long they anticipate uh students need to re recoup their learning loss like are they saying anticipated it's being
036spread out over three years to recoup at any direction in the state no they really haven't said how long it's going to take students to recover we know it's going to take a long time and we know that it's going to affect some students more than others it's hard to pinpoint just how long but but we know it's going to take years to get them back to where they need to be i mean it was coveted was a definite disruption and although our teachers have done a great job and we've created a schedule throughout the time to try to um you know make the best of the situation we know that that we've lost a lot of instruction during this time so it's going to take a few years i'll i'll say this a lot
037of the esser funds that that uh that we've been given that we have about two and a half years to spend that money so you know that gives a good indication of how long it's going to take any other questions all right well thank you so much for your time thanks rich um richard or marin um i think we have bethany in the waiting room now um i'm wondering if we can go back to um uh to get her report and we could let her in and get her report she's actually in the meeting uh 8865 is her number can you hear me we can bethany thank you for joining us this evening oh thank you for having me um bethany can you nope go right ahead i i just wanted to introduce you as
038uh representing voorhees and and if you can give your report oh yes of course so yes i'm the voorhees representative and for this report i'd like to first highlight the voorhees administration's staff during the surge of the omicron variant the staff is able to conform to these unprecedented times accordingly i commend the flexibility of the staff and students and are proud of how seamless the transition was and how our outlook has drastically improved on another note the key club voyage key club held a giving tree that is able to provide a large number of families as gifts for the holidays the national english honor society raised 140 through dolly parton's imagination station in december this allowed free books for kids all across the country for sports the girls basketball team is currently 10-1 and the
039boys are close with a 9-2 record boys fencing also has come up strong for the 6-1 record for the winter season that is all for the month of january so thank you bethany we appreciate you joining us this evening thank you once again for having me thanks um at this point i'd like to move to the chief school administrators report thank you i just first want to commend the teachers and the students it's been a difficult couple of weeks a lot of absences had some difficulty filling classes but like the student representatives mentioned everybody did a fabulous job of making the best of a difficult situation so thank you for all of your efforts i am happy to report that the number of positive coveted 19 cases in our high schools continues to decrease since
040the surge we saw upon returning to school you can view the weekly totals on the copa dashboard found on the district website we did extend the temporary virtual instruction option for another two weeks through february 4th that affects 138 students who have opted for virtual learning across the district we will continue virtual learning for any students who are quarantined due to coven register registration for spring sports opens on january 31st in aspen uh spring sports begins on march 7th or 11th as a reminder the board of education has approved the addition of a boys volleyball team as a spring sport starting this year at both high schools we are officially halfway through the school year as today marks the first day of the second semester and third marking period we wish our students well for
041the second half of the year and encourage students to reach out to their teachers or school counselor if they need assistance in any way tonight i am also uh privileged to announce the selections of the 2021-2020 governor's educator of the year program the teachers who are being recognized this year are mike audi science teacher at north hunterton high school and reid kirby social studies teacher at voorhees high school our educational service professionals are ann simanczek special ed esp at north hunterton high school and patricia tomczak school nurse at voorhees high school congratulations to all of you and thank you for everything you do for our kids every day uh hiv report for today for the reporting period starting in november we had seven uh cases reported five of those were founded three founded uh in
042december and two were founded in november and then uh just reiterating the report from november we had one founded case from october i need a motion no moved moved second and we'll go to a voice vote um all in favor aye aye aye aye any opposed abstentions any questions yes sorry extension i'm sorry you're abstaining kim yes thank you oh thank you motion carries and then the month of reports are attached for your information that's all i have thank you thanks jeff um at this point in time we're going to go to the um school are just going to let you know that our regular scheduled meeting um will be held again on february 22nd of 2022 um at seven o'clock in the district office um and at this point i'd like to go to
043our committee reports um rob i i know you weren't um you weren't at policy but do you have uh notes to report out on or i can do awesome thank you i do thanks jess the policy and school security committee met on january 17th in attendance were glenn farbanis dan spanton ryan hoffman and jess fyodo uh i was absent from that meeting uh from the minutes and from follow-up conversations uh about the meeting there were a couple topics discussed one we have a group of second readings of mandatory policies um that are uh that you've had the opportunity to review most of that is uh strauss esme language cleanup also in that is policy 1240 which we did more of the revisions to which was cleaning up and streamlining the language around the evaluation of
044superintendent so those are up for second readings tonight and then there's a couple first and only readings of mandatory regulations again mandatory stress estimate cleanup and then there's a litany of first readings none word dramatic changes or substantive changes so if anybody has any questions on those first readings we can talk about them [Music] or you can present those ques provide those questions and we can talk about them at the next policy meeting and address them before second reading next month there was further discussion on the ongoing topic of our policy around remote participation by board members and the decision of the committee was to table that um pending some expected future legislative guidance as a result of learnings about remote meeting attendance from so much remote meeting happening during covid and so um the
045committee is is recommending tabling that until we see what that guidance is from the state uh we there was a brief discussion about the reading of public comments submitted by email that is a requirement um and just reiterating that requirement that the reading of those submissions that were requested to be read um during public comment um those should also be limited to three minutes of reading time i'm consistent with the public speakers who are speaking live and they um should be read after the public speakers who have come to the meeting to talk and they should be within the constraints of the approved time for public comment and then there was some brief discussion on uh regulation 9130 and i think it was discussed that this is a good opportunity for the policy committee to
046potentially revisit um that policy for review of learnings you know we have a lot of action to take resulting from that 9130 the policy on regulation then um i think we have an opportunity to see after the fact the effectiveness and whether there's anything that we can look to tweak to make it even more effective in the future should we need should it need to be utilized so that's the report of the policy committee and uh if there's any questions i'll defer to somebody who was there probably hi rob it's tara regarding the um public comment by email is that what policy number is that i didn't catch that oh good question good question i just want to look it up and see what's going forward it's policy zero one six four dot six perfect
047thank you you're welcome hey rob two two questions one is um your first reading first and only reading in your second readings have two policies that are uh overlapped they're the same policy 1240 and 5751 but they're different like can you just explain why they're in two different buckets the same policy is in a first reading only reading and then a second reading the regulations are um regulations don't actually require board approval and so they're they're regular and those are regulations they're both regulations that are in the first first and only reading of regulations okay so it's it's more of a it's more of a courtesy reading i guess is is um i think how it functions so regulations aren't appro necessarily approved by the board but okay policies are so this cleanup happened because
048we had somebody help us make sure we're lined up with requirements yeah so part of so um the dozen or so policies that are up for reading this month is is a high it is a pretty high number but there's always every month i think that's part of how stress estimate stays in business honestly um yeah those are using some using some fancy latin terms this is a this is a an outfit yeah strauss esme is a policy consulting company that um i think one i think the new jersey school boards association provides a policy consulting service strauss esme provides a policy consulting service and i think somebody will have to somebody who knows better will have to keep me honest but i think they their value proposition is that they scour the the legislation
049and the court rulings and the department of education and then they make policy recommend language recommendations based on their expertise in that area and so typically on language like you know changing the word from pupil to student or you know things like that you know there's there's there's a lot of recommendations that are just like changing of language and then other times there's recommendations that are more substantive or policy um elements move from one type one policy to another depending on you know how that wind's blowing okay and i'm not an expert in this area and so anybody who is an expert and who wants to clarify or correct anything i just said um now would be the time we're not experts brian which is why we pay strauss estimate to scrub our policies every
050year it's a service that you'll see show up on our board minutes about every three years that we pay for this service for them to keep us current and keep it litigation perfect then one last question then is the the list of abolished policies can you can you speak to why um the two that we're talking about children displaced by domestic violence and religious holidays they're now subsumed into something else or it would seem like a strange list of topics to just say we have no opinion on these anymore yeah i think you it's exactly right is that those were inc those topics were incorporated into other policies and i think actually the the the notes within those policy documents themselves say where they were redirected to so the stand-alone policy on children displaced by
051domestic violence is being abolished but that concept is absorbed elsewhere that's good thank you i think in committee we actually there might even be notes in the committee notes as to what they were um absorbed into i know we covered that in the in the meeting yes um so policy 50 policy 5114 which is the displaced children is now covered in policy 2476 and 8810 which is religious holidays is now captured in two two seven zero all right so anybody else yeah i have a question rob so i i maybe i missed it but it's unclear so you said we have to read the emails that are sent to the board as part of public session now i think so just keep jess or john keep me honest i don't know that we have to
052read every email that's sent to the board but emails that are requested to be read aloud it they're specifically addressed for public comment so not every email that is received an email is a public comment email um the ones that are directed to the board secretary for public comment are the ones we are speaking of right so but if that's going to be the case then moving forward we have 30 minutes per policy for public comment so somebody's going to have to make the determination that when do you stop giving public comment to the people who were there to start reading somebody's email it was determined that after the 30 minutes that we would read the letters um for three minutes each into public comment so the letters extended beyond there's two letters today roger
053so if the letters extend beyond three minutes we'll they'll be published in the agenda but we um we will stop reading them as we would if somebody were commenting so we're amending our policy the 30 minutes for public comment the policy can i jump into this i just wanted to say this is only for virtual meetings i don't know if that helps your question roger this only in context like this do we have to read the letters does that clarify a little bit it makes me happy yeah okay what is that it's policy in regular meetings this came up at regular meetings we it's an open public meetings act and we'll have the people in attendance um are represented in person it's only to accommodate for any challenges we read letters in regular meetings though
054before so how are we addressing that instance john do you do you have any guidance for us on that one yeah i uh good evening everyone and i appreciate uh ryan's clarification and she's correct that uh during virtual meetings that written comments received by the public requested to be read in public comment are to be read i do not believe that our policy speaks to or that there is legal requirement that we read into the record correspondence we have received when we're in person and i would think that that is at the discretion of the presiding officer of the meeting thank you that concludes my report thanks rob can we move on to personnel shall we yes good evening everyone uh personnel committee met on january 19th virtually at 6 30 pm all committee members
055were in attendance as well as jessica villado and mr burgess we discussed the personnel portion of the agenda and that's all i have for you tonight thank you thanks shelly uh curriculum instruction and technology thank you jess the curriculum committee met on january 19th all members were in attendance um as well as mr rich brown was there to give a presentation we had three topics it was a very uh long meeting the first topic we had a covid instruction update which mr bender already went through so i won't give any it's the same same updates the second topic we went through six agenda items the first being the start strong presentation that mr brown just presented to us there was updates to us on that as well as updates on the funding we got a
056little bit more specific guidance on that and there was a discussion around what are some other things we can do in the district to help whether it be i guess previous meetings which i was not on the committee had discussed smaller class sizes and that was table to have the finance committee look at that with the administration just to see if that's even appropriate within the budget due to our budget constraints that are pending we went through the english language learners the ell three-year plan we discussed that because their um our community is growing um our student population in that program is growing so the administration is going to um sorry let me just hunterton central which is where our students are attending and they're just uh making checking in on the program program making
057sure that they're happy with it and so that we can continue to use that program for our students we had a update on our home instruction our out-of-district placements reapproval of the 2022-2023 calendar that we will be voting on this evening as well as the professional consultant list all very self-explanatory and then the last item that we discussed the third was the winter benchmark assessment results that were reviewed by all of us and then the action items are we discussed with mr brown as well as dr burgess just to make sure that the the teachers are absolutely adapting their instruction to take into account the learning loss that has happened over the pre the past two years as well as this year and that that's very important anybody have any questions okay thank you can
058deb can i can i um i'm on the that committee and and so has kim been on that committee in the past as well so this is your first time we have been talking you know this this learning loss that we've been that has hit everybody the entire you know world actually um uh we've been talking about that for a while as evidenced by by scores and testing and things like that um in our our our discussion is kind of i i think is kind of focused on um class sizes because that's a kind of a a suggestion that the board can you know there's a policy about when classes occur how how big can they be and how small can they be before they're and that we might narrow that down particularly for in
059some of the areas that have been showing poor testing you know the say the algebra one for as an example so so the the heads up to to the on the budget side was around you know if if the board were to adopt um force for you know an anticipated short period of time you know three three years or something like that you know the question was asked earlier how long is this going to take but that we would would recommend that there be a kind of a smaller class size to give more attention individual attention to students that need it that that would likely mean that you'd have end up you know hiring an extra teacher or something like that which has obviously budget implications so i i at some point i think we
060we need as a board to discuss that topic is do we want to try to help those these students that are struggling as evidenced by the testing by you know providing them more uh individual you know attention you know they're already doing things like um like tutoring and after school and they're trying to you know the school is the administration's taking a lot of steps already but the the step of adding teachers or you know for help that's one that they need the board to get behind before they can take so brian is so in in your committee meeting was there a is there an actual is there a yet a recommendation on that or is it just sort of just that idea sort of forming that there are likes instances where smaller class sizes
061would be of value and that they're you're giving a heads up about a recommendation that could be coming subsequently could be coming subsequently the way i'm right and left me excuse me sorry dad left it was that everyone liked the idea on the committee but we uh when we were discussing it dr burgess explained to us how um because i believe roger strait brought up that that's it's right now the time happening for budgets for next year so dr burgess said he would go back which is what his role is and talk to the finance committee as well as the administration on what does that look like do we have the but to do this and then we would take the next steps when we get that information yes and and to tag on to
062that debit was the discussion was in speaking with uh rich regarding that um we asked about the class sizes and i believe it's a best practice i don't know if it necessarily is policy and rich can address that uh a 15 minimum 30 maximum and that was the discussion could we go lower is it is it necessitated looking at the start strong scores and rich broom between rich bone and building administration they were going to review that identify the areas and if so make a recommendation to the board and the board would have that discussion but would what the board would like the committee had asked is to have that recommend that recommendation sooner than later with budget season coming did i get that right brian i i agree with that yeah and obviously it's
063not that it's not a this school year thing it's a next school year thing and and the other piece of information is that the administration made sure we know is we're right in the middle or right towards the end of class picking uh season so they'll know better what the class you know what classes will look like next year so they wanted that data before they made any recommendation um which i think is a sound thing to do and because it's not until the 2022 school year that we we'd make any changes um the only timing thing is just to make sure that the budget that we don't miss the train if if there is an increase in staffing warrant if that if that is a outcome of the recommendation process that the budget you
064know that people don't tell us you know great you should have told us that two months ago thanks brian does anyone else have any um discussion items uh before we move to a community of community relations all right um tara can you let us know about the community relations and student affairs committee of course thank you so much jessica uh committee um our committee met on january 20th at 6 00 p.m uh all of our board members were present and in addition we had rich burgas dr burgas and maris magala jeff fender touched upon our covet 19 activity and the new jersey department of health revised guidance uh the virtual instruction was extended as he noted until february 4th and as our our board representatives from both schools the student representatives noted that a lot
065of the students some are taking advantage of that but many of them want to prefer to be in school the other agenda item we had on that was the new polytech building that's going to go in the north hunterdon campus the superintendent of the north hunter and county vocational school district will be giving our board and the community a presentation and overview of the new polytech facility which is going to be built at north hunterton's campus on a future board meeting it may be february but it might not be till march because of all the um items going on in the next two months um once that presentation comes we'll be able to see the architectural design uh the um the vocational school district received an additional five million dollars from the hunter and county
066board of commissioners in addition to state funding but i know because of and as we all know because of uh supply chain issues the cost has been increasing from the original plans but there's been grants submitted and our the hope is and as uh dr bansa will present with us as a district and a community where the funding will come from for the full uh funding of the site it's an outstanding um proposition and opportunity for our district to have a polytech facility in the north part of hunter and county and as a board we should be so excited that it's coming to our campus and it's going to give the students in our district the opportunity to participate in all of the facets and educational opportunities that polytech offers our students and other than
067that that's it any questions okay thank you um at this point do we have any updates from uh any of the were there any meetings in regards to the vocational school the new jersey school board association or the hunter and county school boards association um or jeff was there anything with the uh hundred and county esc we still need uh mr mueller to report out to finance oh i'm so sorry john forgive me take us to finance and facilities i am i am i'll be quick uh the committee met virtually uh last monday evening it was a quick meeting but um we just started talking about some budgetary issues regarding curriculum and uh so my segway into that is um just to give you the timeline for our budget we're going to be um presenting
068a preliminary budget to the board at our march meeting so um we will have a lot more details uh in february for you so as things are developing but i do know i'm keeping uh us current with what we can expect no matter what in next year's budget we're looking at an additional 1.3 million in expenditures for salaries benefits and that comes with a decrease yet again um of 500 000 in state aid so that's you know 1.8 million we have to um to find before we do anything else um our other discussion uh centered around um the referendum which um you know we've currently we've discussed it previous meetings but and um you know there's a list of projects out there which we haven't um settled on the exact list um we've scoped it
069we're still soliciting input from uh uh board members um and we will have more details and and look look for more specific um you know scope of work for that uh proposed referendum as we move through this year so please um if you have interest or questions critiques um you know reach out to the committee uh myself or administration and we can address it that's all i have uh i'll entertain any other questions john why do we lose a half million dollars every every year you said from the state um yes we've been in uh katie correct me if i'm wrong i think we're in here this will be year four of a reduction overall uh it was millions of dollars were identified that needed to be trimmed from our state uh um our state
070funding allocation so this has been phased in and um we've been experiencing it for the last several years and the current reduction um that we're is being proposed is an additional five hundred thousand dollars so cumulatively i'll leave that number to um jeffer katie just as john had alluded to we'll have a lot more information on where we have been and where we're going as we move forward to the budget season so expect more on that in february if i can if i can chime in briefly katie these are all s2 reductions correct that's correct so glenn we'll we'll be talking further about it but uh the legislature retooled uh the state public school state aid funding formula through a bill called senate bill 2 a number of years back and there are some winners
071and there's some significant losers uh and some districts have lost a significant percentage of funding we're amongst them and it's required our administration in the board to really sharpen pencils over the last number of years because as indicated state aid continues to shrink and shrink and shrink in the budget that can go out is also capped at a certain amount but again as indicated there'll be further information about that but this is all consistent with uh senate bill 2. thanks john any other comments for um facilities no okay any um report outs from our representatives at um uh for hunterdon county vocational the njsba or our hunter and county school boards association were there any meetings last month no uh our delegate is uh may in november of every year they do it biannually okay
072thanks tara uh the hundred and county school boards association first meeting is this week so i'll be going on thursday wonderful wonderful um and jeff was there anything you needed to report out on uh esc is distributing a survey amongst all its member districts looking for information on how to uh what services we need them to provide okay thanks jeff all right returning um to our agenda um now is the opportunity for public comment uh 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 with this purpose and state their name municipality of residence group affiliation if applicable and direct their comments to the school board president while the comments will be considered and a response will
073be forthcoming if and when appropriate school board members will not respond to the speaker at the time of their appearance the public comment period will be a maximum of 30 minutes in length unless there are unusual circumstances those appearing to be allocated will be allocated three minutes to speak and no one will be permitted to speak twice until those who have not yet had an opportunity to speak have a turn and uh rich i cannot have i don't have a full view of the waiting room so i'm gonna ask your help with um letting people in um sure i can let people in um if i can if for anyone that's listening um as well as um participating in a waiting room if i can just ask a couple things so we we have quite
074a few people in the waiting room um we're gonna do our best to get through them uh for a matter of making this as efficient as possible um number one if i can ask everyone before i let you in to make sure that your youtube is um broadcast is turned off because otherwise we get an echo in the background and that usually takes a little extra time and then also as soon as your comments are completed if you can then leave the meeting that way i don't have to put you back in the waiting room and again that saves some time so that other people can be let in i can't let somebody else in until you leave the meeting so that being the case i'm going to just try to pick people from random
075and it looks like kara morris is going to be the first person i will admit hi can you guys hear me okay we can tara thank you or kara yeah hi um my name is actually albin um i'm using my mom's uh phone for the time being i'm from clinton i graduated from north and it's easily some of the best experiences my of my life um i just wanted to say uh you won't find my name on any of the yearbooks because i am a trans person who changed their name um the reason why i i wanted to just come in is because i watched the video from last week or the other week's meeting and i'm genuinely not surprised about the responses that these parents were saying and citing out um i know i'm
076not surprised because i experienced their children saying these things to me when i was in high school uh i'm not surprised that these things were said and i'm not surprised that they believe these things um i recall all the times i my mother and i let young queer people stay at my house because their parents wouldn't accept them and i remember the times that i took young trans women shopping because when she came out her dad threw her against the wall and threatened her like this is not nothing that was said at that meeting was a surprise but what does surprise me is that the school was considering and is considering actually endorsing the behavior that was discussed at that meeting and planning on following through on a debate that lasted the last four months
077the fact that that's considered this long sickens me and makes me honestly a bit of shame what happened to my high school i originally had asked if i could run for prom king and the school had backed me up and made meetings to make sure that i felt safe and comfortable and supported by my school and i loved that and i felt part of a community and i feel like what these adults seem not to realize and i feel like i should use adults in quotes based on the in my opinion childish behavior was that queer people exist and we have rights and feelings that are currently being protected by our government and whether or not you agree that we're perversions or shouldn't have rights is not up for debate uh we have the right
078and should be able to have the right to read about our elders who fought and died to have my civil liberties protected and just because some adults seem to think that discussing that dicks are dirty or gross or whatever the quote was is is sad and that we're here and we're real and are human and there's many of them in the north hundred and voorhees system and the fact that these the school and these adults think that brushing it away or banning the discussion of them through certain books is just honestly just makes me sad and i know that whether or not anything gets involved no one really cares about my opinion in this matter but i felt like i needed to say this and just say that the people that graduated from voorhees and
079north and and our lgbt are watching this and i feel like there's countless generations of young queer clinton and dale voorhees kids that will be affected by your decision tonight or in the future so thank you for my time and and i appreciate you guys listening to me uh thank you evan rich do you want to bring in the next um next next person coming in is jude gepp okay hi jude can you are you off mute can you are you off yet yeah give me one moment all right um just setting up my um document real quick all right so hello my name is jude jeff i'm a student at north fountain high school and i live in annandale have you read this report submitted by the reconsideration committee did you notice that it's
080filled with grammatical errors if i submitted that as a persuasive essay to my english teacher she would have to give me an f and a paper covered in red ink i have a few things to add to the eight sentence report on this book as gay the book that you're preparing to ban tonight this book is gay is the winner of the 2018 garden state teen book award that's an award presented annually by the young adult section of the new jersey library association voted on by teen readers over notable books have received the same award will you be banning them too booklist also named this book is gay to its list of top 10 books for lgbtq youth in 2015 in its starved review of this book is gay booklist highly recommended for work for
081grades 8 through 12. they called it witty wise and so packed with information it's hard to imagine a reader who won't learn something new apparently your cons reconsideration committee has quite the imagination because it has recommended removing this learning opportunity from a district's nearly 2 500 student readers how did i and ignorant youth come across this information i used the tools that this district has so generously supplied our our library of research databases thank you for those resources i trust that i've provided you with new and useful information and i hope these facts will compel you to vote against for resolution to ban this book as gay and finally i'd like to direct your attention to the qr code this leads to a website that i've designed that will continually be updated as this process
082continues thank you for your time thank you jude okay next we have mitchell coming on can the board hear me we can thank you mitchell okay hello my name is mitchell decosta and i'm a freshman at north from lebanon and i'm here today to talk about the deplorable actions taking place outside these meetings in the wake of the book bands myself and many students some of whom are here today have been called many names including homophobic slurs just for speaking out about what they believe or by donning a small piece of cloth such as the rainbow mass showing support to other students i personally have also received death threats just from creating a peaceful petition to fight for what i and many other students believed in i have one of those messages i received from
083a student here today and i quote take down this petition or i will come after you at this point i had not even spoken openly about my beliefs i had simply just made a petition some teachers were also afraid of signing this petition fearing the loss of their job if they tried to support their own students i also know multiple people who cannot join this movement because of their fears being harassed and even kicked out of their own homes for being themselves however i would like to point out how many people at the school showed support with over 200 signing this petition in one week and many more who have come to the past few board meetings i would also like to thank the board and the committees for finally coming to a decision on
084these books but i would also like to ask the board not to ratify the results from the committee decision on this book is gay by juno dawson after reviewing the committee's decision i believe that almost all of the committee's reasons for banning these books can be easily disproved i would first like to say that of all the information in the book i can only find one piece of outdated evidence on page 126 it says that there are 80-ish countries in which same-sex marriage is legal the up-to-date fact is 79 as ecuador and chile made it legal another point brought up by the board in the decision that this book is gay is because it contained content that wasn't covered in the school's sex ed program and the book contained outdated information i believe the board
085should know that the book covers more than the school's team pet program because the program is based off new jersey legal code that is older than the actual book itself which the for those wondering is to the 2014 nj sls for comprehensive health and physical education if they think that book is outdated then we need to change the whole curriculum as well overall the committee's decision on banning this book is gay contains many faults and i ask that the board consider these faults in their decision on the book and consider what has been happening outside the board of ed meetings as well thank you thank you mitchell okay i have um amy hanson coming in okay amy i think you're you're off mutant able to speak up you're back on me can you hear me
086yes we can amy can you hear me we can hear amy we can hear you oh gosh hi can you hear me we can okay sorry about it so sorry about that i was muted um i just want to say thank you to the board of ed for your volunteer service and i want to um congratulate the three students who spoke just now they're extremely courageous and i support them entirely i'm a mom my daughter graduated from north hunterdon and um our kids you know they're they're just dealing with so much in this world and they don't need to be told who to love or who not to love and and um i think we need to support our students and certainly book banning should be should not be part of the board of ed's
087um activities for you know banning these books does not make sense and kids need information they're going to find it anyway and we don't need to harm them by shaming or um you know calling them out and banning books because we don't think they're intelligent enough to handle information so i thank you for your time thank you amy yeah i was just waiting for amy to pop off um i don't know if you can remove her from the meeting i think i could put her in the waiting room there she's in the meeting all right we're going to have um joseph mamone joseph i believe you're off mute or you're back on mute hello can you hear me we can thank you okay i'd like to share my video hello hi all right let me
088pull up my document good evening my name is joseph mamone i'm from boston massachusetts north huntingdon class of 2012 i was a teen pep educator during my time at north and i'm currently a suicide researcher at harvard university i've spent the past four months watching angry community members shamelessly threaten the board over concerns about the queer literature discussed because of my disappointment in this community i grew up in i came here today to argue that our collective focus should move towards the queer young adults actually reading these books your district goals entrust you with the responsibility to promote what you are on paper what are on paper very worthy goals foster a positive encouraging environment provide supports for mental health focus on equity and inclusion when i was a student here i did not benefit
089from an encouraging environment shaped by equity and inclusion i faced bullying bullying and shaming i'd raise my hand students would yell from the back of the classroom and my teacher wouldn't even acknowledge it happened it got so bad that my guidance counselor hospitalized me after i disclosed how this bullying made me want to die sadly the statistics show my experience is not unique queer students are twice as likely to be bullied four times as likely to seriously consider suicide and when making a suicide attempt tend to use more lethal methods compared to heterosexual peers the book we're talking about tonight this book is gay is one that exudes acceptance for the reader offers balanced advice on the benefits and dangers of coming out it details what it means to hold various identities and yes it
090provides advice for how to practice safe sex which is the central issue tonight sex between same-sex partners has unique health considerations which leave both parties at higher risks for stis especially hiv if neither party knows how to properly practice safe sex none of us wants our children's first sexual encounter to also be marked as the day they contracted a lifelong disease gay or straight which is why safe safe sex practices are taught in our health classes and in team pep but only from the heterosexual perspective this book contains that information from for same-sex partners where the health curriculum falls short the question tonight is why is this the responsibility of a high school library remember that these 13 through 16 18 year olds rely on their parents who may be very unaccepting myself i was
091kicked out when i came out the reality is that possession of this book at home is not without real danger as a result the safest place for our students to access this knowledge is at the school in the library since this book is gay came to our school library in 2015 it has been checked out 31 times 31 students who found acceptance insight and knowledge about how to be responsible with their bodies where they otherwise could not also in those seven years only 31 students of the more than 18 000 who have passed through the halls in that time checked out this book the alarms sounding from parents in this district about this book's widespread corruption of our youth are ungrounded less than five students a year are affected by this book and there's no
092evidence that effect has been negative sarah kate ellis of glad has said all leaders must speak up against hostile rhetoric and behavior targeting vulnerable young people and books about their lives i beg you to be such leaders focus on these students the isolated teens who are seeking a safe space inside this book thank you joseph hey i'm gonna jump down the list to lend a trip highlander you're off mute linda king harris linda it looks like she's still connecting jess so we'll give a couple more seconds okay yeah i can't see that looks like linda i think you're muted now can i ask you to unmute hello yeah oh hang on let me mute my facebook looks like linda i think you're muted now can i ask you to unmute hello yeah oh hang on
093let me mute my facebook looks like linda i think you're muted now linda we're ready to hear you speak hello yeah hi thank you i want to thank all the volunteers on the school board for participating and uh what take what takes i'm sure an extreme amount of your time as a librarian i'm a public school librarian but i'm also a parent of two previous students in the district i want to support the school media specialist at your school whose book i guess she chose this book based on her qualifications she is a nationally recognized librarian and i just want to support her as a member of the community as a former parent and as a current librarian who understands the um importance of offering books for all students and i feel like as a
094member of the community i object to having certain parents decide what's appropriate for all students and that's all i have to say thank you thanks linda okay i'm going to jump up to caroline licwinko um i don't see her rich she just popped on oh there she is hi carolyn i need you to um can you please take yourself off mute hi good evening can you hear me we can hi um so i too wanted to speak to zero one two five two two nine um and this may be a technical oversight but um wanted to speak to it anyways um so for policy 9130 the purpose of it is to support the educate hello we got you is to support um the entire district and all the students within obviously the superintendent is in
095charge of forming the committee and is aware of who's aware of the results so as you all know the committee did meet and found that the author of this book i'll go ahead and quote it presents and presents the book as facts with no backup authority for the facts um nhv's point in sex ed is about awareness not how to the book presents information that goes beyond what would be taught in school there are a lot of questions about the appropriateness for the population of school-aged kids the book seems irresponsible in the way that it presents information and that there are many explicit descriptions of sexual behavior um so my question to the board is regarding the resolution that states that the removal is only applicable for north hunter and high school library and i
096want to make certain that that is a technical oversight and that this book considering the findings of this committee being presented to the board and to the superintendent that the book is going to be removed from the district and not just north hunter in high school including all the online resources um that the joint media centers utilize for the students to provide information um and that's really my my main question for you thank you all right uh max moore hi max we can't hear you [Music] can you guys hear me now we can thank you thank you so with everyone talking about this book is gay by juno dawson i bought myself a copy of it technically my dad bought it for me but assuming of course that the copy in the library was already
097taken out i read this book as gay in a little over a day and i was shocked this was the book that the committee deemed too explicit for students of all the books on the list this was the one that are the one that arguably helped students the most was causing the most controversy and for all the talk of protecting the students there has been very little communication with us as far as i'm aware there has been no communication with either vorhees or north's gay straight alliance clubs i found out about the committee's recommendation at a fencing competition where as a trans athlete fencing on the men's team it is already a stressful situation enough i was angry and surprised going forward i would encourage the board to consider more communication with the students that
098the banning these books will protect for those who don't already know this book is gay is more or less a gay sex education it does an amazing job filling in the gaps that the school's curriculum fails to in sex ed we talk candidly and openly about what dreams and masturbation the language always centered around heterosexual students even when voorhees spectrum club gave a presentation for the freshman health classes which i helped create the objective was informing straight students if the board was willing to make a committee to remove this book i challenged the board to convene a committee to write a sex education curriculum for queer students i would also like to address the committee's review of the book admittedly there is outdated information on the queer community the language often missing the mark especially
099when it comes to transgender people but bear in mind this is a community that updates its language and terminology almost monthly it's a community that has come further in the five years in the past five years than the 20 years proceeding it's we need to trust that students will read critically and not take everything as stated the book is not irresponsible in presenting its information it's casual and applying to its mainly teen audience the board cannot think about banning this book without making any strides to include queer-based sex education in taking this action the board would demonstrate that they not only wish to deprive queer students of sex education in the curriculum but also deprive them of the ability to fill in the gaps that the board and the school's curriculum have created thank you
100all right let's have jack scary hi jax can you um add me your line yes hello there you go thank you good evening my name is jack scary i am a sophomore at voorhees high school first of all i want to say thank you to the board members for your willingness to listen to us and have public comment open it hurts me to see so many adults going back and forth about the banding of books banning these books directly affects the students so i encourage the board to listen to the stories and the information from the students margaret edwards an american educator and librarian who has an award name after her once said quote too many adults wish to protect teenagers when they should be stimulating them to read of life as it is lived
101end quote this talk of protecting teenagers or protecting the children something that has been along for a very long time i ask what are you protecting the students from reading and expanding the knowledge i read most of the books that people want to ban and they are good informational books longboy is a book about socioeconomics it is a no asexual book genderqueer is a book about a young individual who is finding himself trans teen speaks out is a book about shared experiences within the transgender community the books that contain sexual content are educational and what the school lacks of sex ed if you want to ban these books you should also take out sex ed or add sex ed to uh obtain to queer students so i ask again what are you protecting the students
102from i say students and not children because there are legal adults 18 year olds attending our school these people are teenagers young adults adults but they are not children the books that we have in the library and the books that people want to ban are aimed at young adults and that is what we are please do question what you might be protecting us from if you think you are protecting us from the dangers of this world you are not you're not protecting us from pornography because there is none in these books if you ban these books you will not be protecting us you will be limiting and constricting our learning and our ability to make our life more inclusive thank you for your my time thank you jax rich do we have time for one
103more one or two more comments uh sure uh let me just pick um alex ford okay alex are you um we're i think you're off me we could hear you hi can you hear me we can thank you hello board members i am alex ford from lebanon and i'm a member of north hunter in class of 2024 tonight i propose you propose to ban the book this book is gay on the basis of a report from the reconsideration committee that you pulled together before you take that drastic step and stand the reputation of the district and board i'd like to share some information that your committee failed to provide you the professional book review vocation kirkus described this book as gay as an exuberant guide to lgbt life that speaks with candor humor and enthusiasm
104and a chatty narrative voice that is easily readable for ages 12 to 18. publishers weekly recommended this book is gay for 14 and up saying that readers will find guidance to navigating their sexual identities and more general advice about self-esteem forming respectful respectful relationships and seeking personal fulfillment that endorsement sounds very much like your district's goals for to foster a positive social and emotional environment support students mental health and focus on equality and inclusion it seems a shame to ban a book so in line with your goals and did you know that school library connection in its review recommending this book is gay for grades 6 through 12 describe the book as humorous and informative treating all aspects with respect and candor summing up summing up summing it up its recommendation the review said this
105book will give any questioning youth guidance and support in a non-judgmental age-appropriate manner speaking as a questioning youth myself i could go for some non-judgmental support right now now if you're wondering how i learned all this information i use the tools provided by the district our library databases the same tools that were available to your reconsideration committee had they chosen to use them thank you for these tools i hope that they have provided you with food for thought as they have done for me and i hope these facts will prompt you to vote no on the resolution to ban this book as gay thank you thank you alex do we have time for one more yes we're at 30 minutes now so it's up to you um you tell me jess i'll keep letting them
106in as long as you want me to why don't we um extend it by 15 minutes if it do we need a motion john to carry it for 15 more minutes rich how many are in the waiting room we still have 18 right now um you know some people have the people that have spoken um are not in a waiting room right now but then we have some people who are jumping on every couple minutes so okay thank you i think the uh the the list of people waiting warrants uh extension okay i i should we do we john do we need a motion to extend it by 15 minutes no well why don't we why don't we note for the record we're extending it for 15 as of right now okay so we'll go
107to uh 905 right now and then you you have uh a couple of letters that were received to be read into public comment which is going to take us beyond that also is that correct uh yeah okay so just two letters okay so i'll read them right after great okay okay i'm going to let in jordan jordan you're off me jordan jordan's connecting jess oh i can't see it i can just see that he's that he's there rich can you see if he's still connecting or jordan it looks like you might be on mute it looks like he just connected let's give them a second to unmute there we go hello hi jordan hi okay let me just pull this up okay good evening board members my name is jordan jobert a resident of anadale
108and a member of north's class of 2020. i am honored tonight to bring you the remarks of david leventhon um editorial director of scholastic publishing and the renowned author of more than 40 books for young adults many of which focus on lgbtq experience more than 60 copies of mr leventhal's work are available on library shelves in our district he is among the most knowledgeable and respected voices in young adult literature today and as you hear he has a special connection to the book you're planning on banning tonight okay here are his words as the author of the introduction for the us edition of this book is gay and the author of many books for and about lgbtq experience i wanted to share a few words about the importance of this book and of lgbtq teen
109literature in your schools and libraries i have heard from hundreds if not thousands of readers over the years who have told me that lgbtq teen books helped them know how to be who they are gave them guidance and context in a world full of noise and sensation and in some cases made them realize their life had worth and therefore gave them the encouragement they needed to stay alive our books do not create lgbtq identities instead they affirm lgbtq identities and give lgbtq kids information to light their way because we know what harm can come if they are left in the dark this needs to speak clearly and truthfully if juno dawson wrote this book as gay and why i am so proud to write its introduction is it explicit in its honesty absolutely but keeping
110lgbtq students ignorant of their physical and mental health their community and their emotions won't help them in any way it will harm them the way to help them is to give them the information they need which is exactly what this book does it holds a conversation with the reader that many teen readers won't be able to have with the adults in their lives it is a necessary conversation ignoring the conversation does not keep kids safe the conversation itself is what keeps kids safe i grew up in a town not unlike yours and in fact walked the halls of your high school during some of my sporting meets back in the day i needed this book when i was a teen and i've heard from countless teens who needed this book now who need this book
111now please listen to the students who are talking to you tonight they are the future of they are the future you are meant to serve and if you serve them best by giving them the education that they that teaches them how to be their fullest truest and healthiest selves i hope you consider mr levanthan's work and vote no on the resolution to ban this book as gay thank you so much for your time thanks jordan richie ready to enter uh steph yeager okay nice hi steph hi thanks for having me thank you all for all the volunteer work you do um i appreciate your time so my name is steph yeager i'm from bethlehem township i'm a member of the community group evolve evolve exists solely to advocate for the and provide perspectives of groups
112that are underrepresented in our district this book conversation relates to a central point that our group has been trying to make for over the past two and a half years there is an extensively documented history where nhv that uh here at nhp that exemplifies how our leadership neglects to listen to the voices of students that are impacted by hate bias acts and blatant exclusion we may argue that there's a short list of actions that have been self-determined as successful but all these actions fell short of positive change that impact the culture for the students i wonder for instance if the parents of the students deemed the targets or the targets themselves in hib investigations would rate our schools with a 77 out of 78 points would these students rate our handling of their situations as
11399 effective during their tenure here regardless of whether this is input that is required we should want their opinions as a metric being blind to different lived experiences is a natural consequence of of homogeneous work and social circles however the decision of leadership not to immerse themselves in learning when they're told that students suffer due to the ignorance of their ignorance is a problem and it's a choice not including a member of the lgbtqia plus community on your evaluating committee was a missed learning opportunity and an oversight if this was permitted via the protocols then the protocols should be relooked at i do not condone the banning of this book for of any book for any reason parents have the right to forbid their children to read since there's a growing nationally circulating list of
114books that you should be offended by it would be easy enough for parents who hold these strong opinions to send that list to the school and as to not infringe on the freedom of the rest of the population who wants to choose that book it hurts no one if my child reads a book of their choice many books classified as young adults cover reading topics such as sexual assault rape dating violence murder and to reiterate all these topics are covered in books that are categorized as young adult reading if it's easy for you to accept that these hard topics rooted in the pain of others sit on the shelves of our library but difficult for you to accept storylines that center on self-identity and the love people share i guess i need help understanding that
115perspective i'm not asking for anyone to be forced to read selections i'm just asking that my children have access to the award-winning books that were selected by a professionally trained staff to be in the high school library in closing i encourage the boe to reject the committee's recommendation to ban any book and lastly i want to once again invite the boe um to hear directly from evolve's nine-member steering committee as we represent just under 100 parents in this district who share our sentiment about the many ways that we are failing to center the voices of our marginalized populations and on one different note i just wanted to mention a question that i know can't be answered but i noticed the metric of almost 60 percent of our kids uh coming in or were failing math
116um or in needing much support or strong supports and i know rti interventions don't usually service um of our population of our grade levels and i'm just wondering um if we could use that metric to definitely follow through on the recommendations that brian chapman had brought up about increasing staffing to try and absorb um that that piece and support our students because for this school year we didn't have enough in place obviously to um to capture to to support those 60 of students thank you we're at third we're at three minutes thank you okay i'm going to let even okay hi eve can you hear us eve hello rich do you hear her or him i can't hear i hear like a no sorry like a scratchy noise i'll move her back into the waiting
117room okay uh and i'll let sarah in hey sarah can you hear us sorry i show you on mute hello hi sarah okay all right sorry gotta increase my volume all right you can hear me we can thank you all right perfect uh my name is sarah varga i'm a voorhees uh graduate of 2015 and i live in a lebanon township um i first want to say thank you guys for your time i know this is long we're at nine o'clock you've been here since 6 15. i really appreciate your time um okay so hello board members i know you have a big decision to make and i just wanted to remind you of the policies you will be held to tonight the policies we're dealing with are policy 2530 library resource materials and policy
1189130 public complaints and grievances which extends into regulation 91 30. uh policy 9130 bullet point 5 states the superintendent shall appoint a committee of professional staff members and community representatives to review the challenged material against the standards for the selection of resource materials established by board policy which is policy 2530. the committee will report its findings to the board no challenge material may be removed solely because it represents ideas that may be unpopular or offensive to some this is elaborated in regulation 9130 section e bullet point 4 the review committee will meet to evaluate the complaint and review the material objected to the standards used by the committee will be those set forth in policy number 2530. regulation 9130 expands on the details of forming a committee in section e bullet point 3 which states
119within 10 working days of the receipt of the complaint form the superintendent shall appoint a review committee consisting of the head of the department in which the work is being used a teacher in the subject area of the work a library staff member a board member a lay person knowledgeable in the area of the work the principle of a school in which the work is used to remove the ambiguity of what work means in bullet point five it says if the board acts to remove the work complained of uh thus work in this context means the book up for the complaint the committee isn't restricted to just those members so i asked the board before you make the decision who was on the committee uh these books range in topics that span social studies english
120and health were all of these teachers on the committee uh did the committee contain an lgbtq plus representative as the layperson since all the books coincidentally uh involve lgbtq plus characters to remove the ambigu uh sorry uh i have reviewed the report and it does not reference the standards of policies 25 30. it doesn't even reference the complaints brought against the books the report isn't rooted in your policy as it should be policy 2530 has sections on the objectives of selection and criteria for selection none of these sections are referenced in the report and i don't have time to read it for all of you but you should read it before making a decision uh finally policy 2530 states that in the event that materials are questioned the principles of intellectual freedom and the right
121to access materials must be defended rather than the materials themselves your obligation based on your policies is to first defend the students right to access material and their intellectual freedom and the second obligation is to hold the books to the criteria set forth in your policy i really hope the board follows their policy and recognizes that there are gaps in this process and the repo and the report from the committee that should be addressed before a proper decision can be made thank you good night which i believe were at less than um three minutes we'll let one more in uh we got martha can i ask how many are waiting rich there's 12 more um after martha right now thank you hi martha i can see that you're um in the meeting now but you're
122still on mute can you hear me okay we can now thank you that's great before i start i have got to say our students are awesome i hope you've noticed and i our former students i love you morris i'm delighted to see you joe mamone you're a rock star all right hello board members i am martha hixson librarian at north hundred in high school we last met in january on the occasion of your reorganization tonight though is no cause for celebration as you prepare to ban this book is gay a band predicated on the report from your reconsideration committee consisting of eight sentences comprising 134 words and zero solid facts in the absence of data from your reconsideration committee you should know some numbers first the district copies of this book is gay have been
123checked out 31 times since 2015 more than once every marking period in comparison nicola young's everything everything a best-selling novel that arrived the same year has circulated only 19 times the popularity of this book is gay demonstrates students interest in and need for the information school library journal explains why it said quote this witty no-holds-barred look at the lgbtq experience provides information that parents or school friends often can't or won't give unquote they describe the book as an insightful option for those with questions about what it's like to be lgbtq although the reconsideration committee would have you believe that this book is gay is all about sex school library journal accurately reports that the book covers dating religious perceptions bullying coming out and more another key figure you should know is 28 that's the number
124of titles listed in senior high core collection a resource that evaluates young adult books senior high poor collection rated this book as gay as essential that's its highest rating given to books that quote are the highest priority titles for purchasing or retaining all libraries will want these books frequently multiple copies these items are the best of their kind and have staying power unquote the final number to keep in mind is 10. in naming this book is gay to its list of the best children's books of 2014 the guardian of london proposed quote that every school library should have at least 10 copies of this book on their shelves and make homophobia a thing of the past unquote if we can't have even one copy of this book is gay on the shelves at north i
125fear that homophobia is here to stay in an institution that you claim is no place for hate all of this information was readily available in school databases or by speaking to any library staff member at either school resources your consideration committee failed to consult i have one more point to make and then i will finish please consider carefully the evidence-based arguments that defenders of intellectual freedom presented tonight an act is serious as a bridging student's first amendment rights should be based on a foundation more solid than 134 words from your committee please remember that today's students are tomorrow's voters therefore i urge you to vote no on your resolution to ban this book is gay thank you for your patience thanks martha you're welcome thank you for your patience all right at this point um
126we've gone uh past the the 15 minutes and i'm gonna move to um read the two letters that are in um that came in for public comment um hello board of ed uh katie can you keep me honest with the time with the letters please um hello board of ed members in school administration my name is alyssa malespinia and i am a fellow new jersey school board member i'm on the board of education for south orange maplewood school district and a school librarian in new jersey i'm speaking to you today as a concerned citizen and my views are my own and not those of south orange maplewood board of ed i bring up my school board experience because i know how challenging this situation is for all of you i know what it's like to
127get tons of emails phone calls from parents students teachers community members and the people from all around the state and nation all passionately advocating for what they believe i also know firsthand how hard it is to make a decision that will be unfavorable to many i don't envy the position you put yourselves in and i know how hard it must be for everyone involved your policy states that you support principles of intellectual freedom inherent in the first amendment of the constitution of the united states and expressed in the library bill of rights of the american library association and the students right to read of the national council of teachers of english so how does banning this book is gay support these principles that said i ask that you follow your board policies especially policy 2
12825 30 and not banned this book is gay i was honestly so impressed with your policy that i used many parts of it when i rewrite when i helped rewrite the south orange maplewood library resource policy last year your policy states that you will remove materials that will enrich and support the curriculum and personal needs of the users taking into account their varied interests abilities and learning styles by banning this book is gay from the library you are not considering the personal needs of the lgbtq plus identifying students in your district and many students that have questions about their sexual identity this book is gay helps the lgbtq students feel seen and heard and helps educate students who are not lgbtq plus on what it is like to be lgbtq plus your policy states that
129you will have materials in your library that are realistically represent our pluralistic society and reflect the contributions made by these groups and individuals to our american heritage and the broader global community by removing this book from the collection you are removing a book representing a large section of people in our society it also indicates to many that in the lgbtq plus community that the district does not believe their contributions to society are worthy or essential library resource policy library resource materials policy 2530 also states that books in the library collection should place principle above personal opinion and reason above prejudice in the selection of materials of the highest quality to ensure in order to assure a comprehensive media collection appropriate for the users by banning this book as gay from the collection you are placing
130personal opinion about principle and prejudice you're placing personal opinion about principle and prejudice above reason your policy also states that library resources should be relevant in today's world which this book is okay thank you i'll move on to the next letter hello my name is beckett thomas and as members of the board may recall i made speeches at two previous board meetings regarding the banning of certain books in the school library tonight i want to discuss the verdict of juno dawson's this book is gay according to the notes of the relevant committee meeting on november 18 2021 there were complaints of the book such as a lot of questions about this book and its appropriateness for our population of school-age students there were concerns about the outdatedness of some of the terms or technology-based references
131within the book first of all i would like to take the time that this book was to note that this book was originally published in 2014. if you're banning books on irrelevant or outdated material then we might as well ban every guinness world book of records every encyclopedia every atlas almanac just and uh dictionary etc just because a book has information that might not be old doesn't warrant it being banned from the library i also want to take this opportunity to point out the fact that as a student myself i know the high school student population consists of young adults from ages 14 to 18 which the tart which is the targeted audience of this book it is for young adults we are young adults we're not kids another complaint was that it mentioned that
132the school sex ed program is about awareness and not about not a how-to and this book presents descriptive information and slang that goes beyond that is what is taught in school but that's just it it's supposed to be more informative than what may be taught in schools because in the terms of the lgbtq plus community lgbtq plus sex ed history psychology and other subjects students are taught next to nothing in school and that's why we need this book because information like this lgbtq students have the right to learn about and since we don't learn in our school curriculum we have to look for other places besides aren't we in america the land of opportunity the country that guarantees the freedom and representation taking away the book this book takes those rights away from us thank
133you for your time and that concludes our public comment um for this evening at this point i'd like to um we're going to discuss the resolutions for library materials following public complaints the following resolutions affirmed that the north hundred and book north hundred and high school book committee evaluation of library materials following the submission of public complaints as per policy may i call for a motion and a second to approve resolution 0125 22-11 related to this library book lawn boy by jonathan everson motion second brian dad you second that was me okay oh thank you before we open for discussion did you want me to talk about the process at all and the uh regulation the committee the standard yes please thank you so we've got a motion and a second we're going to have
134discussion in a moment uh and then we'll put for a vote uh the other books that uh are on the agenda uh the board had asked me to speak to the regulation in the process i want to first note to everyone who spoke tonight to everyone who has spoken at previous meetings the board has heard you the board sees you the board has listened to your comments the board sees and hears you tonight and is has listened to your comments tonight i wanna again as was noted before and as was probably uh will be noted uh again this evening i wanna congratulate our students for the courage it takes to step up and for their voices to be heard and i want to congratulate them i want to also on behalf of the district as
135to those students who express concerns about inappropriate comments directed to them our students please bring those concerns to your counselors or to school administration please know that there are vehicles for those concerns to be addressed in the building and if you have questions about them go to your counselors go to school administration so that those concerns can be expressed uh as has been discussed previously a number of complaints were filed under the district's public complaint policy which is 9130 there is both a policy and a regulation it's available to the public on the district's website you can see it you can look to it please know that the committee that was impaneled is consistent with the regulation that that committee met on multiple occasions that committee reviewed all of the books considered all the words
136in the books had appropriate conversations and discussions during those multiple meetings with regard to the books there are standards which have also been noted here tonight the policy itself 9130 notes specifically that no challenged material may be removed solely because it presents ideas that may be unpopular or offensive also as was noted earlier board policy 2530 because we're speaking about library resource material we're not talking about curriculum we're not talking about books in classrooms we're talking about library resource material policy 2530 is relevant and it's relevant to both the committee and to the board's discussion and review tonight that policy speaks directly to what the board's consideration is here and what the committee's consideration is do the materials enrich and support curriculum and personal needs of the users does it provide material that will stimulate
137growth in factual knowledge literary appreciation aesthetic value ethical standards does it provide material on opposing sides of controversial issues that users may develop under guidance the practice of critical analysis does it provide materials which realistically represent our pluralistic society reflect the contributions made by these groups and individuals to our american heritage in the broader global community does it place principle above personal opinion does it provide exposure to information technology lastly is it relevant today's world does it represent artistic historic and literary qualities reflect problems aspirations at attitudes and ideals of our society is it appropriate to the level of the user does it represent different viewpoints on controversial subjects provide a stimulus to creativity and be of equality and durability appropriate to the intended use and longevity these are the standards that the committee considered
138these are the standards that the rails if you will that the board considers with regard to this first book for which we have a motion in a second and the subsequent four books as well thank you thanks john um at this point does anyone have any um comments for discussion or regarding lawn boy so i'll just just note that just so that we're all for my fellow board members we're all understand that the resolution is to approve the recommendation of the committee which was to keep the book so a vote in in a yes vote is a vote to keep the book in this case for this one that's correct you are correct does anyone else have any items for discussion all right seeing none katie can we have a roll call vote please miss
139bonomi yes for chapman yes this chris the logo abstaining mr farbanis yes miss hints staining miss hoffman yes mr kirschberger yes mr milik yes miscellaneo abstain mr spanton yes mr street yes miss fiato yes thank you motion carries hi i'm joe jess sorry this is deb yes um as per nj sba board members are allowed to ask fellow board members why they're abstaining from a vote so i'd like to know why there were abstentions shelley tara or kim would you like to um reply to uh deb please actually mr conniss glenn asked in our executive session if we had to justify our votes and per robert's rules of order we don't and i have it all backed up so i don't have enough information what was given to me at the last minute i don't
140have dates of the committee meeting the notes that were presented per public session were not suffice enough so i'm going to abstain because i don't have enough information based on the committee's results given to us so tara just to clarify you don't have to justify a yes or no but when you abstain as per njsba and robert's rules of order fellow board member is allowed to ask why there's an extension versus a vote which we were all we were all elected to actually make a vote actually per the njsba i don't so you can look it up i'm abstaining i'm not going to vote on this issue without enough information shelly and kim for the same reasons uh same reason i didn't i would have nipped that before before tara even said that it's my
141vote it's an abstention i feel there was enough gathered culminated in that summative um uh evaluation that was presented um it was not articulated and we also were not given the complaints so you s in the in the summation i didn't see the complaints identified or answered or discussed it was a summary so i feel i do not have enough information that is my answer and i vote just to clarify i don't have any inspiration the vote is if you read the book and made a decision on the book as well i've actually read all the books but that's not here nor there it's about what was presented us from a committee a committee that i don't have fully identified i don't have fully identified on the dates they met and the summary as some
142of our former students said that their english languages teachers would have said were poorly written i'm not voting on something that i don't have definitive answers to all right anybody else have any items for discussion on in regards to long boy john uh we have uh the the resolution carried as to book one and i believe i don't think we have yet a motion or a second on book two but i think book two is up yep that's for um can i have a motion can i call for a motion in a second to prove to approve resolution one zero two five two two dash one zero related to the library book genderqueer a memoir by um maya kobe motion second brian brian and ryan um would anyone like to discuss um this vote prior
143to uh to the roll call i'll make my uh same statement this is the recommendation of the committee was to keep the book so vote in yes is to keep it a vote in no is to ban it okay thank you brian anyone else katie may uh can you conduct a roll call vote please it's bonobi yes mr chapman yes this personal logo abstaining due to the lack of information provided by the library book um committee mr farbanis yes miss hints no miss hoffman yes mr hershberger yes mr melik yes miscellano abstaining mr spanton yes mr street yes espiona yes thank you motion carries okay moving on um can i have a call for a motion in a second to approve resolution 1012522-9 relating to the library book this book is gay by juno dawson
144katie did you catch both katie yes yeah i'm good okay um would anyone like to have any discussion in regards to this book be prior to us voting rob yeah i just wanted to just make a comment i think the bar for removing books from the from any library should be very high it should be a really really high standard and i think john read through most of the standards that are articulated in our policy and regulation related to this and both from the report that was given by the committee and for my own personal reading of this book i think it falls woefully short of that high bar for removal like it's not even close like and i respect the work of the committee and i respect the time that was invested but i
145don't think this even gets in the ballpark of being considered for removal from the library based on the standards that we have in our policies and just general standards for first amendment protections so i'm voting no so rob just to to piggyback on you um there are many things that the student said tonight so i won't repeat uh mitchell talking about the research that was done on the stats in the book and jude about the rewards um so so well spoken tonight but the biggest issue i would like to add is that our students are taught from elementary school and they're still being taught in our district today to use critical thinking skills on a daily basis and this book would be a great example if we used what the committee said to use their
146critical thinking skills it's a great example so here we have something that there might be a stat that isn't properly supported hence they would use their critical thinking skills in research so why i would challenge why would we remove something that is encouraging them to use what we're teaching them to do so i'm with you rob i i also agree with both everything that you all said i've been amazed and so encouraged by all of the students that have spoken over the last four months we've all listened to these amazing impassioned powerful speeches by our students i think that our district policy related to this issue is completely protective of leaving these books in the library every single one of them i agree that none of them meet the standards for removal and not i
147don't think any book should be removed but um and our district goals are too which was also brought up by someone today our district goals are um our strategic plan goals are supported support diverse material in our curricula and libraries and our ethical and legal obligations are to leave this book just where it is and let people that need to see their lives affirmed have access to it there's there's no reason we should be taking this book out of the library thanks ryan would anyone else like to comment before we vote i guess so i'm sorry roger yeah so from now on should we get rid of committees we formed a committee in order to come up with a decision we formed a committee of all these people that we couldn't make a good decision
148now we say we don't care so roger whenever any committee gives a recommendation to the board the board vote on it and these are said or no i i don't agree with that i'm i'm just making a statement that you know if we're not going to take the recommendations of the committees that we form what's the point making the committee in the first place i don't i don't i don't know roger like we've we've talked many times over the years about we're not here to be a rubber stamp right like so and we're not here to just accept every recommendation that is made the recommendations inform our decisions that the work of that committee informs its its input to a decision that we have to make that's my point of view can i add um
149i am personally outside of the board adamantly opposed to banning any form of intellectual thinking freedom of speech books i'm an avid reader my life my whole home is filled with books but we do have as a board the obligation to protect minors and i think we as a board and as adults forget the fact that we also have upcoming eighth ninth graders so we have to look at statues both state and federal that protects the integrity of our minor students so irregardless of this i'm abstaining from this i will never ever vote to ban a book so one of the things is that the freedom of expression without freedom to offend ceases to exist and that's from salman rushdie he has got warrants on his head to kill him because his thoughts conflicted with
150other ideas so we as a board need to also understand that we also protecting our population of our students our 9th graders to 12th graders the 12th graders may be the few that are considered adults and we have statutes both in our state and federally to protect minors and we always have to protect the integrity of a a minor child so irregardless of what we think as adults that might be appropriate we need to also look at things through the lens of children whose cognitive development may not be where we are we've had the the gratuity of having me like 50 some years of understanding life so as board members we need to understand that there may be things that we think that are perfectly fine and again i'm going to tell you right now
151i will never advocate banning of any kind of book ever intellectual thought we need to understand and be exposed to everything but we have an obligation to protect our most vulnerable and our most vulnerable are the students that are in our libraries that may be you know what 12 13 14 so anyway so i'm going to just tell you right now that i find this very difficult so that's one of the reasons why i'm abstaining i don't have enough information to make a a vote on this just just one thing i i really appreciate that that description of of protection i i agree with that i agree that we have an obligation to protect and and i would just offer that i think that information access to information is protective especially a wide range of
152information and there's a lot to protect our students from bullying for instance which is cl you know we we heard tonight is happening so we we're talking about protecting from one very small thing like like a some descriptions of sex which are not obscene by the way they're just you know they're they're they're it's sex whatever but but we're talking about protecting from one you know exposure to one thing but there's a a lot that we could also include in this conversation around protecting our students and maybe we should be doing that as a board having those conversations about what what other ways we can be protective of our students who are coming to us saying we're not feeling protected bigger conversation but but it's a great conversation thank you ryan brian are you going
153to give your public service announcement about what our votes mean for this one right before i think we're about to take the vote i'm waiting for everybody else with substance yeah like john's gotta we'll go ahead brian does anyone no no my only point is that this one's gonna be different roger i mean i have a tough time disregarding um you know all the work that the committee put in um and um you know i respect respect and i'm planning on voting along with um their findings on all five of these books so um you know i i certainly i wasn't one of the board members on that uh studying it um as thoroughly as they did and you had a diverse group analyzing it so for that reason i'm voting along with the recommendation
154i would like to add something just you know i appreciate all the work that the committee did and their findings and gathering that information but let's also let's also realize that they weren't unanimous in their decision so there are there is some um concerning opinions there so please consider that as well yeah i wouldn't characterize myself as disregarding as take it into consideration and just i have a different opinion but i do want to remember yeah state that this recommendation is the opposite of the other one so this is the ban so a vote for yes is to ban the book anyone else have any items for discussion before we go to vote katie can you call for a roll call please miss bonomi no mr chapman no is crystal logo abstaining mr farbanish no
155this is abstaining chris hoffman no mr kirchberger no mr mueller yes missolino abstain excuse me abstaining there's stanton no mr street yes and miss fiato no motion does not carry i have 1.7 votes out of 8.7 in for voting motion does not carry i call for a motion in a second to approve resolution one uh zero one two five two two eight dash eight related to the library books all books aren't blue by george m so johnson back in second brian would anyone like to discuss um anything before we go to vote katie can you get a raw callback please miss bonomi yes mr chapman yes miss crystal logo abstain mr farbanish yes abstaining miss hoffman yes mr kirchberger yes mr milik yes miss celino abstaining mr stanton yes can i call for a motion
156in a second to approve resolution zero one two five two two dash seven related to the library book fun home a family track check comedy uh by allison bishop bashad so we have a motion and a second katie on book number five is that correct yeah i want to step back and go to book number three if i can uh where we had two affirmative i think seven no's and then three abstentions your calculation of the vote is that that resolution failed correct correct okay so the resolution to adopt the committee recommendation removing uh the book failed uh which uh i i would then interpret as uh the book stays you agree katie yes okay i just want to note that for the for the record in the minute so that there's no question so
157as of books one two three four uh each of these books stays based on uh resolution for book one book two and book four being in the affirmative book three being uh a no you agree with me yes correct yep thank you let's let the minutes reflect that okay uh just so there's no confusion book five we've got a motion a second is open for discussion thanks john i really appreciate your clarification um does anyone have any items for discussion regarding fun home okay seeing none um katie can you start a roll call vote please it's bonomi yes mr chapman yes miss crystal logo abstain mr banish yes miss hints saying yes mr hershberger yes mr mueller yes viscelino abstain mr spanton yes mr street yes miss viato yes motion carries okay thank you all
158moving on um can i have a call for a motion in a second to approve agenda items 17.1 to 20.20 um this will be a vo voice vote and before we take that well let me get a motion in a second i moved him second um does anyone have any questions or um anything they'd like to ask about agenda item 17.1 to 20.20 i i have a question about uh and i don't know who would cover it but um oddly enough 20.2 approval for book donations to the north hundred and high school library given what we just went through did the libra headlight i'm sorry maybe using a dated term but the head librarian um endorse putting these books you know does that person want to put these books in the library are we just
159receiving books that have the potential to be a you know bomb later on i believe these books were vetted and uh approved for placement in the library yeah we talked we talked about that in uh finance committee meeting as well i think rich um bert jackson confirmed that as well that they were approved by the librarians yeah i'll i'll second that um in finance and committee it was reviewed who donated them and the books were fully vetted fantastic anyone else have any questions okay if there's and i've one more um 20.7 what is mental health wrap around we provide uh therapeutic counseling for students in need and the wraparound is actually we wrap services around the student that extend beyond the school day provide parent counseling and resources outside the school thank you very much
160thanks chef good night brian any other questions in regards to ieps or an additional recommendations students with ieps are provided with therapeutic services by these counselors but this is also students who are not identified okay thank you all right um oh it's a voice vote um so all in favor aye any nays or um abstentions i have to abstain from 21.02 0.10 can you say that number one more time it's under 20.20 and it's 21-20210 it's for 20. yeah it's for my legal seminar tomorrow got it thank you got it okay these mission carry yes great um can i call for any old or new business to be brought up at this time okay seeing none um can i have a call for a motion and a second to adopt the attached resolution zero one
161two five 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 an executive session for approximately one hour and return to public session and upon return to public session action will be taken all in favor so oh i'm sorry second it's getting late i apologize rob robin tara tara um all in favor aye aye okay any against abstain motion carries can i call for a motion and a second to reconvene public session please still moved second not who called it um and a voice uh vote all in favor aye against or opposed okay um are there any new business that um we'd like to discuss okay seeing none um can i call for a motion and a second to approve
162agenda items 25.1 and 25.2 including any hand carries if provided so moved roger yes um did you second that or no did i miss that i did yeah that was me okay thank you i it's hard for me to tell my my squares don't always cover who's talking i'm so hurt you don't know my voice yet i'm trying roger it's it you're whispering right in my ear um can we go for a roll call vote katie yeah chris bonomi yes mr chapman yes this person logo yes mr barbanish assistant yes chris hoffman yes mr kirchberger yes mr mueller he's not here okay we lost john uh yes but i am abstaining from 7.2.7 mr spann yes mr street yes bispiano yes but i and um john's back john for voting on 25.1 and 2. yeah
163yeah my apologies um the personnel agent in the executive minutes yeah thanks john all right thank you emotion oh motion to adjourn it's roger roger and john all right all in favor aye aye opposed any abstentions all right motion carries you