NHV BOE Meeting - 9/28/2021

001thank you for attending tonight's meeting before we start the meeting i wanted to just take a minute to address you all i'd like to share a quote from a recent new jersey.com article that was brought to my attention earlier this week and i think it rings true this evening we cannot find common ground without civility and we cannot solve our problems without finding common ground being polite reasonable and respectful at board of education meetings might seem like a trivial nicety but civility in public life matters the volunteer members of this board spend long hours in boarding committee meetings they should not have to be subject to rudeness or incivility public comment is welcome and mandated by law and the public comment period is just that a time for our citizens to make their opinions heard

002i respectfully ask that you wait until that time to make your opinion and your questions heard as your board of education we want to work together with engaged and respectful community we are committed to a healthy and safe and learning a healthy and safe learning and workplace environment with that being said we are asking for 100 compliance this evening of the mandates 251 and 253 set forth by our governor out of concern for your safety and for the safety of those around you i must insist that all mass be on and worn properly and by properly i mean over your nose and your mouth if masks are not worn properly i will have to recess the meeting until masks are properly in place and with that i'd like to call the meeting to order the

003northern embroides regional high school district of board of ed meeting on tuesday september 28th 2021 is now called to order in accordance with the requirements of the open public meeting act njsa 10-4-6 adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by submission of notice of the time date location or instructions for remote access of the notice of the time i'm sorry for its or instructions for remote access to the to the hundred and democrat star ledger on january 21st 2021 and subsequently re-advertised on july 22nd 2021. notice and to the extent known the agenda of this meeting has been posted at the north hundred and high school at voorhees high school and provided to the municipal clerks of bethlehem township california town of clinton clinton township bethlehem town franklin township glenn gardner borough hampton borough

004highbridge borough lebanon borough lebanon township tewksbury township and union township as well as at all other interested parties and posted on the district website fire exits are located in the direction indicated and alerted to fire please re move in a common orderly fashion to the nearest smoke free exit at this time i ask that you silence all your cell phones please be advised that in accordance with executive order 251 face masks must be worn indoors in all school buildings this order applies to all after school activities events and meetings held inside including the board of education meeting we ask for your cooperation to remain mass throughout the meeting so that the board may conduct its meeting in an orderly fashion in accordance with board policy 0161 the board may call a recess or adjourn this

005meeting at any time if necessary such as non-compliance with the mask requirement katie can we have a roll call yes miss bonomi president mr chapman president mr logo president ms hintz president miss hoffman here mr hershberger here mr mclaughlin here mr miele here here mr street here here you stand for the flag salute [Music] one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all can i have a call for a motion and a second to approve agenda item 5.1 so moved second um sorry no i'm sorry we're not um that that's we're not doing that this evening oh yeah i'm sorry there's change in the agenda yeah i'll talk yeah is that table until next month guys i'm sorry to do this but we still have non-compliance with the mask mandate i would hate

006to go into recess this early in the meeting but um do you feel that you can comply with the mass mandate and put your mass over your noses thank you it's a table until next month uh it will be tabled until next month i'm sorry i didn't hear you tara i am okay oh okay it'll be table till next month i'm sorry i thought that had been communicated to you all no no okay okay um can we have a voice vote um in regards to the motion um all in favor aye aye aye any opposed or obsessions needed is this on the meeting this is on 5.1 okay i i reviewed it okay uh just before it came and um i think there may be some discrepancy in them um the motion in the minutes

007report that john neely made the motion to recess and rob herchberger made that motion and as well as a public comment um as one of our community members seems inaccurate specifically the full gala um and then and then that's all there is there's there are a few other there was um a public number left off the admittance as well um [Music] and i believe we talked about the switch with johnny ellick and rob kirchberger there's a few there's a few and there's some language so um and you can go back to the audio and it's it's definitely different here technically the motion carried i believe if i should get carried um can we make a friendly amendment to fixes if if the board wants the board secretary to revisit this and bring this back up

008we can certainly do that uh but for right now uh demotion care i believe i didn't vote okay i thought i had heard ten ten yes and i didn't hear your vote so no we didn't have anything yesterday typically there's never been a public discussion so i apologize for that so [Music] so um why don't we do this why don't we just deal with it right now uh i want to deal with it right now let's have uh discussion on the minutes and then uh we will uh we'll call for a roll call vote so we're clear on our body stance so there have been there was a comment about uh a motion being made for recess which was uh not uh correct did we have agreement on that well i know there's comments down

009here and agrees my memory isn't good enough i would defer to the not did you make that i probably did make that motion i sat next to rob it's in the very beginning motion by it said motioned by john mielek and second by rob cruzberger rob made the motion john seconded it and if you go back to the audio it says so okay so it's just flipping that that's the yes that was a flip and then the public comment says and rod and john you're good with that i'm fine with that okay agreement to the mass mandate as long as the students would physically be in the school and not virtually okay and do we have any other notes on that um so what is your recollection that what are you saying should say that

010she spoke of the um division in the school with the kids as well as requesting a letter [Music] okay other comments on the minutes uh and there was a board there was a member of the public left off the minutes um i believe right after nicole gallo kathy lenski was left off her comments were left off completely she's not even on there so can i can i i'm not sure the proper roberts rules here but can i make a suggestion that we table this month's minutes to be reviewed and re-re-presented to us next month do we have to do we have to vote on them today who moved this idea dad and i believe roger and someone else is but if there's consensus with whoever moved and seconded this motion to withdraw that so that

011it can be reviewed by administration and brought back we don't even need to do that so are we in an agreement on that yes okay all right from a procedure standpoint can i also ask um these minutes have been out for two weeks in in advance for all board members to see and as a productive board we have an obligation to bring these items forward to katie to correct it before the board meeting we have two weeks when njsba only requires the friday before but we are giving them two weeks in advance so i would ask in the future that we follow procedure and give this information to katie so that where we all have the right information okay can i ask another process question because i'm not really sure how katie does it so

012and this is directed to katie but i'm just wanting to just take notes during the meeting like i do and then write those up or do you actually go back and listen to our audience we do go back to the audio unfortunately in the gymnasium it was really difficult to go back yeah that's what i was thinking microphone microphone it was an anomaly because the audio was so difficult to confirm okay thanks i was just curious how you did it unfortunately not everyone wrote their name down so i think we just need to be more diligent in making sure that happens is it easier for us to like we do like to do with the bills list when i send you questions is easier for us than just to send those to you is that

013how you want it yes do you want that from now on moving forward i want to send it to you that's fine actually kim i think you should send them to me and then i will direct them to the board secretary or the superintendent as as needed i apologize okay all right so then moving on csa reports okay say your report welcome everybody my name is rick fergus i'm the assistant superintendent i want a few things i want to mention i want to thank all of our administrators teachers staff members for adapting to a new normal as we fully reopen school with in-person instruction while still dealing with cobia 19. i appreciate everyone's hard work and dedication to the education of our students if your child is having trouble adapting back to school please reach

014out to our counseling staff as they are here to help also want to thank our students and our employees for complying with the governor's executive order for the mass mandate we had very limited issues with masks in the beginning of school and none since then students have been very compliant as as a reminder if students wear masks and they are more than three feet away from each other they will not have to quarantine if they are in close contact with someone who has a positive coping case unless they start to show symptoms um that means that mass will mean less students having to quarantine so that has been a positive of the masks is having less students quarantine and we have had some cases and it's been very limited for the amount of students ahead

015of quarantine as we adapt to our new normal it's great to see the schools return to holding traditional activities such as north hernan's recent pep rally outside and the upcoming homecoming dances at boat schools which will be held outside so no mass will be required we look forward to continuing to offer traditional activities while maintaining a healthy and safe environment for our students and lastly i want to share that all of our setting districts have been trained now in the lifelines suicide prevention program which is the program that our district has taught health classes for over 10 years um having descending districts uh we had every sending district send somebody to that training so that was great that's something that is very difficult to get every sending district to participate something they did so i'm

016glad they saw the importance of the program and this will be very important as our students are being trained in middle school and then we can further train them when they come to high school and take that to another level so hopefully this will be a great tool in suicide convention so i have that and then i also have um a report on harassment intimidation bullying in august there were zero incidents related to the board so i do need a call for a motion in a second to affirm the determination of zero incidences so we got rachel all in favor extensions motion carriers and i also have to report to you we had one incident since the last board meeting of him it was a founded incident and you will be voting to affirm that

017at the next month and then we have our monthly reports that are on the agenda for your review and if there's any questions on that if not then i also want to call for a motion a second to approve the annual renewal of the new jersey uniform state memorandum of agreement between education and law enforcement officials for the 2021-2022 school year our documents are available here in the board always view it's a fairly large document that's why we weren't able to pdf and put it up there but if anyone was interested in what that document says basically just an agreement between law enforcement and education on how they share information and how they cooperate with each other in regards to criminal matters second roger john in discussion all those in favor all right all those

018opposed any objections no okay thanks um as part of my report this evening i just wanted to give everybody an update um on september 15th we held our sending district deb and i held our sunday district's board roundtable meeting we had attendance from uh representation of myself and deb from our district we had marin was there in attendance as well as union township clinton township highbridge and glenn gardner or clinton glen gardner schools we discussed current shared services we discussed the impact of remote learning and remote instruction and learning laws as well as mental health and regionalization our next um meeting will be held uh in december we haven't come up with a date yet but it'll be for it'll be um before the end of the year uh and the meeting adjourned um it

019was held virtually and was adjourned at 7 55. in addition to that um our next regularly scheduled board meeting will be october 26th at 7 pm here in the district office um at this time i'd like to move i'd like to open the floor to discuss our community our community reports tara could you start with uh community relations sure thank you community relations student american committee met on september 23rd at uh berkeley at six o'clock in the tenants were myself brian chapman shall make this logo from salinas and our administrators president were referred just we had marriage with us we discussed uh based on a new business from rachel mclaughlin at a meeting regarding graduations and see if you could alter the times of the start times between north before easter that all board members

020could attend both ceremonies um the class of 2022 graduation date and time have already been published on the district calendar which has been shared we are sending a survey to the boards um in january after reorganization to see who would like to attend both ceremonies um the effect could not take place until um and um i think it's beyond as i don't think it's just the board members attending i think that the reason that rachel put it up was that the district as a whole we have our our administrators not those schools so instead of dividing up so we'll find out um after the next reorder if that's going to move forward for 2023 our second agenda item was combat 19 updates there have been positive cases one at north with a staff member 10

021students at worries one staff member of 15 students there have been no incidents of discipline uh regarding mass compliance as uh mr burgess said brian requested that we get data cases to be shared with the board on a weekly basis so we can see anything transforming uh kind of like last year's dashboard that had been on the website because we were doing it and out of hybrid so that was brought up before the committee and that we implemented to the board on last meeting mr hershberger brought up if we could look into business ways to minimize the downside of mass squaring such as creating opportunities for mass costs and schools have been trying to open up opportunities for students to remove their mask primarily for eating or when outside some of the examples that have

022been put into place so far are there removed during lunches pe classes held outside and designated eating areas as study halls boys have some outside tables for lunches so they can dine outside there's been some classes that have been going outside with this nice weather to meet and hold their classrooms outside to minimize the mask wearing um north pep rally outside on the 17th uh both homecoming dances for both schools will be held outside under tenths there won't be any maps required uh the dances will be um for boys on the second this uh coming the october 2nd and north hunterdon's homecoming dance is going to be on the 16th of october north's annual friendship day will be held outside this year in october instead of closer to thanksgiving to be able to take advantage

023of the nicer weather um so the school's continuing to brainstorm other ways to make mastery opportunities while the weather is still nice for our students and another topic that was brought up that hadn't been on our original agenda was um regarding board meetings uh kim selena brought up um for the location that we have overflow and to look at contingencies because of the audio that was in the gym was not very conducive for a good meeting so it was proposed and they were sending out a survey to all of the board members that if we put into contingency plan for any overflow in the future to utilize the theater as opposed to the main gym because of the acoustics being better there tara i actually have an update on that we do have the survey

024results in and i mentioned i meant to mention in my presence report um and uh we have a unanimous decision that um if available we should use the uh auditorium instead of the instead of the gym going forward and i think that'll help with the acoustics yes i i agree wonderful so that's our update to that and that's all we have uh can we move on to curriculum can i ask a question oh sure i'm sure yeah but actually two things so thank you for bringing it up because my point wasn't just for board members it was for administrators i think the greatest thing i want to reiterate that we can do as board members and administrators to celebrate student achievement and i think it's right a great thing when everybody can do that together

025um i asked a clarifying question about the eating outside because when i toured voorhees i did noted on the tour that they had a nice area for students to go outside and eat their lunches um is that something that can also happen at north i don't think we have areas right there picnic benches or anything i know well the worries and picnic bench is donated and that was what allowed that to happen as quickly as it did so and i think too with worries the proximity to right where though it kind of flows right out easily for them so and it's protected with those um cement blockings so right it's cars yeah it's a really nice area so i don't know if that's something that in the future maybe we could look for donations or

026something yeah so that was a parent it was actually two students um full disclosure was my two daughters they actually contacted the boy scouts and worked with the local boy scouts so it had nothing to do with the board so if any uh community it was community members maybe grant money look at grant writing anybody else curriculum instruction and technology that's me um the curriculum committee met on september 21st um all board members were present and rich burj ex and rich brone were present as our administrators we had several items to discuss the first action item was around the state of emergency that has been declared and we as a school district have the ability to turn in a plan where if we are out of school for three consecutive days we are able to

027have virtual instruction that counts toward the 180 day requirement we reviewed that plan and we had no additional changes to it so that has moved on to send to the state it will be only used if there are reasons for three consecutive days in a row to have the need for virtual instruction once it is approved by the county office then it would go into effect we will be reviewing six items on the curriculum agenda tonight they are related to our remote plan which i just discussed out of district placements out of district tuition home instruction and providers an addendum to an agreement we have for the llc that we use for something related to curriculum and we also have an agreement for on-site covet testing for those staff members that currently are not vaccinated

028we also discussed standardized testing now that we're back in school the state of new jersey has developed a start strong test that is occurring many students in the high school have already taken this test in the fall and those that have not will be continuing to take that test in the next few weeks that really is looking to measure learning loss during the time at home during the pandemic there will also be an added requirement in the spring for juniors to take a graduation test and there will also be the new jersey sla test again in april and may for those students that are juniors if they do not pass the graduation test they can use some of the traditional measures that we have previously used for graduation such as the sat or the asvab

029test we also continue to use benchmarking assessment we're using the linkit assessment to track the progress of our students during the fall winter and spring assessment periods we reviewed an average during our data monthly analysis we reviewed the average number of years of service per department per school and we discussed coding staff members who leave we noted that we were concerned about the turnover rate in our child study team department and our special ed department so we will continue to monitor those numbers and that is my report does anyone have any questions for rachel moving on to facilities okay thank you thank you um the facilities committee met uh september 20th all members were present as well as jeff katie and rich first item up we talked about some restructuring the facilities department will get

030more into that in personnel katie also touched on the driver school bus driver shortage and the challenge is posing not just to our district but all districts around the state um the esc is doing the best they can where we're seeing some impacts surrounding athletic events um there's some challenges because some of those routes conflict with uh other other school uh other districts um so it's an ongoing challenge and uh i'm sure most of you are aware of that um so the big discussion we had uh was regarding our some of our capital projects um and a way a way to accomplish some of these so um essentially at the conclusion of our 2021 audit we'll have uh close to a 2.2 million dollar deposit into our capital reserve um so we've we've talked about

031the capital projects on our on our on our plan and and the list and we're continuing to review them and and rank them um and you know how to attack those um and i've mentioned at past meetings there is the idea of um forming a referendum in order to accomplish some of these projects and the main reason for the referendum is that is the only way we can um capture some state funding so while we have a healthy capital reserve and can pay for these projects and will pay for these projects um using the referendum mechanism will trigger i think it's roughly one-third state funding for these projects so essentially if the referendum passes we do the work we get the state funding then we pay off the referendum in that one-year period currently the

032interest rates for that short term money would be uh a half a percentage point you know so we would budget in something like a one percent for that one year period where uh um where those projects takes place so essentially we're um there's two there are two projects we're working through in final design that aren't uh eligible for that type of funding so we'll see we're on we're progressing towards having that work done this summer so the projects that would be part of a referendum wouldn't um you know that would be scheduled for uh next uh next year's election in november so we still have plenty of time and so our board is continuing to analyze those those additional projects and we we ask any board member you know to review those lists um in

033the file um submit comments to us prior to our next meeting um you know because we're continuing to scope that and as well as the size of the referendum like i said um you know we've been analyzing any any number like a dollar figure between three and five million dollars of capital work that we want to um you know accomplish that you know we feel that we can afford based upon our capital reserve now so you can tell if it's a uh three million dollar question then that would free up roughly a million dollars in state funding and well you can do the math if if we go larger so that's where where we're spending a lot of our time so uh please uh review that and solicit uh comments to us and i guess

034the last thing um you'll see on the agenda is a school health insurance fund grant in the map of eighteen thousand dollars that we're accepting for um for our staff members to uh um for some increased uh exercise and uh awareness so um but other than that i don't have anything else any questions for me or katie thank you i sent you the email last month but the question of the bridge milling is that's all separate but we're not we're not encompassing that in the correct is that money already been earmarked um it's already encumbered that money for the for the bridge in the building the architect has started the plan so we've already initiated that with the architect but that is a separate entity from our referendum yeah and that's what we do that's

035the project they're not eligible so right and they'll be completed this summer if we when the when the arctic is done and presents the uh dual slope of uh you know the estimate well we'll we'll be approving that at a later date before work be done this summer okay i just wanted to comment i guess john about the idea of that taking advantage of state money right and so i just think it's smart that we are thinking about how to take full advantage of the money that's out there from the state and i think it's going to be something that's important for us to communicate to our constituents and to the community that unlike a traditional referendum where we're looking to borrow money to get projects done and not pay that money back but spend

036that money to do the projects i think in this case we're looking at the the idea is you borrow the money for a short term and that triggers getting like a basically a 33 kicker from the state and then pay that money back to the public that follow year so it's like a short term one one-year borrowing not to spend but basically to borrow then we get the state funding and then we give that money back and so it's just a different typically like referendums we struggle to get public support because not everybody wants to spend that money but in this case it's not actually spending that money it's borrowing it taking advantage of the state funding and then reimbursing so i just think that that's a genders it feels a long way away next

037november november of 22 when that when hopefully we'll have a referendum on the ballot but it's not that far away and i think communicating that idea of how we're trying to be fiscally responsible and take advantage of money that's available is i think something that we all should be reiterating to the community yeah that's a great point rob um and for those of you who are on this board a number of years ago or maybe other boards know that uh roger going to speak to this rich there were a lot of projects that we we took care of maybe five six years ago where you didn't have to do the referendum to qualify for that state money and um unfortunately that it has changed now and so a referendum is necessary to to qualify for

038that but we we did a tremendous amount of work capital work um and you know the state participated with that what's the window for that closing you know like is there a time frame in which we have to decide whether or not to move forward on the referendum or state respect the money like how long is that opportunity open well our i don't know that there is a closing window i mean um it has to be a referendum and we did explore doing a separate referendum vote but then that i think uh katie's estimates are like ninety thousand dollars to do a separate election just for that and i i we don't wanna spend any more money on this and we have to we don't want to uh try to appear like we're setting up

039a special election to railroad this through so um you know because that's definitely not the intent here um i don't have a you know a definitive answer i think i guess things could change at any second but we've been assured that the process that we're following setting up for a 22 referendum um specking out these projects um is you know you know well within the time frame of when that money's still available okay if i could just um the next step that the board would take would be to pass a resolution in support of having this specific list of projects submitted to the state to see if it is eligible for state funding for them to give us a report back saying yes you are eligible for state funding here's our certification that time frame

040is a little bit long right now it's like anything in the state things are taking longer than expected but if the board takes action which is that next step then we can start moving the projects through trenton and then get those certifications back so that we know it is definitively able to be state funded and that's why it's important for everybody to if you want to express them uh input in you know not only the size of the referendum but specific projects as you know um as we're looking at them to um you know to figure out what the exact scope will be so that when it's a complete list that we submit to the state were there any other discussions of any uh other projects added from last month to this month no we

041did not have we didn't have detailed discussions on like on a on a ranking that's where we're going next we're gonna we're gonna not only force rank them but um then um try to figure out where where we're comfortable um in you know leaving a you know an adequate capital reserve balance on hand too we we know we have budgetary concerns going going forward um but you know right now we have we do have a healthy reserve and we don't want to see that to be excessive because that's not a good thing either so for but can i just add this would be great for articulation i know god several years ago i think it was it was fran goger and all the sending districts and frank came went to every sending district and spoke

042and i think that goes a long way with the constituents and each sending district that board member representation from the north country employees board goes to the district at a board meeting and discusses this so parents aren't community members parents staff they're informed just it was a great way that's how we found out um and got involved so i just think we should utilize that mechanism that's a great idea i think it went a long way last time too it does yeah [Music] does anybody else have any other questions for john um negotiations meeting did meet our negotiations committee met we reviewed the proposed salary guides which are going to be voted on by the association once that comes back it'll be coming to the board to ratify and moving on to personnel yes personnel

043committee met on wednesday september 22nd at 6 30 pm virtually the meeting lasted about an hour committee members of attendance were myself john mueller debenomi ryan hoffman as well as assistant superintendent rich burgess we discussed the personnel portion of the agenda we also discussed the facility maintenance gel descriptions after evaluating our current position and the responsibilities that each have we are proposing that the district facility coordinator be stipe a cited position instead of a full-time position to accomplish this we will have a revised job descriptions for both physicians to allow the building level supervisor that reports directly to the principal and a stipend position for various district reporting requirements this eliminates one full-time physician results in savings for the facility and maintenance department we also discussed two proposed clubs for the schools one being a

044philosophy club at worthy's high school this will have a stipe this will be a stipend position and it's on the agenda tonight for approval and the other club was careers in sten that's to be held at north carolina high school which will uh be an unpaid position as we know right now right rich and then finally uh we reviewed and discussed the superintendent's 2021-22 miracles and that's all i have thank you does anybody have any questions for shelley rob onto policy all right thank you uh the policy committee met on september 20th at 5 30 pm myself deb jess ryan jeff and rich were in attendance we discussed several topics the primary discussion was around the requirements for board meeting attendance and the current policy requires in-person attendance for board members and now option for

045remote attendance as as a sort of follow-on to the pandemic and virtual board meetings there's a lot of discussion and and strauss esme has a couple of policy recommendations for boards who are interested in considering or allowing remote participation by board members under certain circumstances that the board that individual boards would determine so the sample policies discuss um sickness so if you're ill or you're under the weather and you can't make it or you don't want to create risk for others or if in unavoidable travel for work or other um rare instances of not being able to attend in person to have a mechanism to allow that participation virtually the strauss esme sample policies um range from requiring notification to the board president in advance you know x number of days in advance to be

046set to be determined by each individual board or in a full meeting in advance so if for the october for the november meeting if you know you're going to be traveling for work you can alert the board president prior to the october meeting and then it's presented for a vote and the full board approves the participation of one or more members virtually and that's um that's the recommended language from strauss esme um it it basically protects the protects the balance between the fact that there's no remote option for public participation in board meetings so we it's a one-way transmission unless you're in the room so the only way to dialogue with the board or to share comments with the board is being here in the room and the idea is to have the board member

047two-way dialogue require that part that direct participation as well so we didn't come to i think the general consensus of the policy committee is that we are supportive of the idea of allowing for a remote participation option we didn't get to a firm recommendation yet to be considered for action by the board but i think we are interested in coming up with a way to allow board members to participate remotely in those certain limited situations so um you know happy to hear thoughts on that but that's the general consensus of the committee and then i imagine we'll be back next month with a recommendation a policy recommendation for first right reading there be limits to how many meetings you would be ascertaining i mean it's important for face-to-face being here and it says a lot

048and i know when reading the policy it also noted we would not be participating in executives at least vote in an exact session so that's important right i think as a board that we're here um i mean to as much as possible but is there going to be a number set how many meetings you can right so that concept was discussed and like that was along with the general the general approval or what's the word before not approval but the consensus that this is something we wanted to propose to the board was that we were in agreement with the idea and the idea of like limiting that to whether it's but we didn't set a number okay but you had a discussion so it's not it's ongoing i can take it yeah okay so i

049think at today's age for us not to be able to be virtual it's crazy we have our kids to be virtual for a whole year and we're going to sit here as almost hypocrites and say you have to be here at full time i mean i for one drop for my job there's a lot of times i'm going to miss the board meetings and i have in the past and i've always asked for virtual meetings and for us to have the technology yet sit here and say you have to be face to face as ridiculous we ask our kids to do it we ask our kids as as young adults in order to learn this way and yet all we're doing is having a meeting and sharing information about what goes on in the board

050and we can't do that how is that not productive how is it you have to be here face to face to be productive i don't get it i never have that i could be on the phone in chicago and i could still be productive i could still participate this to share my thoughts to share what my constituents want but have to be here face to face to tell you so you can hear me that's crazy point noted roger i agree with the technology and with facetime you could interact now um and i think one of the positives that we would think about is that you travel but you're volunteering your time which is a blessing there's a lot of people that would love to do the board but they know they have commitments or they

051travel so it precludes them for running because they say i don't have the time commitment that would free up if we had policy it would free up some people who traveled for careers to be able to maybe say i could probably do this but before that they would say i couldn't because i traveled too much that's uncertain yeah would they participate in executive session because that was difficult for us during the pandemic would they be allowed to participate in executive session because that was difficult during the pandemic when we were in that room and some people were at home and some people were in person it was just difficult with the audio to hear right so um i would i would defer to to john however i'll just open by saying neither of the policy

052recommendations by strauss estimate allow for participation in executive session remotely and john may be able to tell me if that's like somehow statutory or if that's just an abundance of caution but neither of those um policy recommendations allow for that so there was split authority before the pandemic with regard to whether or not the public meetings act permitted public bodies to have members of the assembly participate remotely there was some authority that municipal authorities could and many did and that often raised questions about hey this is going on at the municipal authority why the school district communities there was no general consensus there was an attorney general's opinion as well that school districts boards of education discussed your team could meet or participate you all participate remotely obviously we go virtual uh there's a shutdown

053there's specific actions so that the ill public meetings act can we can honor the old public meetings action which is what we're doing tonight remotely but that is in the in the circumstance of a state of emergency public health emergency right public health emergency continues state law the state of emergency continues public public health emergency continues data emergency doesn't so now we're back in public right boards cannot act virtually although many are we're not because we're following the letter of the law so there are very strict limits and circumstances when members can participate remotely and it has to balance confidentiality going to the executive session issue it also has to follow the letter of the open public meetings act which remains without the benefit of the bills that permitted us to act virtually and the

054overwhelming consensus and and i don't have strauss's language in front of me but i think he captured it well it's emergent unanticipated circumstances right somebody's sick can't be here there's a family emergency or uninter anticipated travel you know to the point that was made before about committing oneself through elected office to be here and i think certainly the spirit of uh even strauss's two proposals there is so that this is the normal folks are here in public if there's an emergent circumstance under certain circumstances typically with notice to the president with a certain amount of time then a member can participate but it's the exception not the rule and i think from a policy consideration and i would encourage the whole board to think about this you don't want the exception to swallow people there

055are reasons why the old public meeting act meetings act has the rules that it does it permits the public to be here to hear this body in public right to to hear what everybody has to say to see what everybody's uh uh doing uh also to offer comment because those proposed policies also and from a consistency standpoint don't say that the public can participate remotely so we want to be mindful that as well i want to be consistent about that and i don't think the law so i would encourage the board to think about that as it's mulling over this thank you yes yeah i think john stole a little bit of my thunder but my point was how would it appear if the public was here and we all sat somewhere else what kind

056of a meeting would that be so i think this is a much more useful format for conducting a board business face to face and um um i think you know those that elect us want to see us here not somewhere else participating partially so um you know it's sacrifices we made but that's comes with the territory that's why you know we hold these positions so i'm in fa you know i'm on only on rare occasions you know what i like to see board members permitted to participate remotely okay so that was the first topic we talked about let me work with that and i no actually that was the major that was the bulk of the meeting we have another topic that we tabled actually because rachel couldn't be there about the um the policy

057policy zero one five two which is in part about how you nominate the president and vice president each year um our policy calls for a nominating committee there's um discussion about whether nominating committee is the format this is the best format so we're going to continue to discuss that in the policy committee bring back a a recommendation for the board to consider but we don't we've tabled that for another month and then the other topic we talked about was any policy implications and um we didn't really have it there aren't any policy implications about um the masked mandate and everyone following that mandate during board meetings uh i think jesse you articulated the policy at the beginning of the meeting but we did talk about that as well so that is what we discussed at

058the policy committee any other questions did we ever finish the csa evaluation policy did we end up rewriting that the timing of the csa policy now how we is that still up for discussion um that is sure i mean anything's up for discussion but did we ever finalize that one no that has not been finalized that has not been rewritten we had talked about it but we had a lack of membership on our committee it was just rob and i over the summer so you guys should get them we thought we needed more memberships and as of next month i think we will have full membership excellent there we go any other question for rob um do we have any reporting uh anybody to report out on the liaisons or delegates that we have um

059tara did you was there a meeting that you attended this month no not yet the next delegate is on november 20th so i do you did okay just a pleasure for the hunterson county school board association our first meeting is tomorrow night you can still register online uh there are two options you could be remote or you could be in person it's a hybrid meeting so if you're interested check it out tomorrow night's meeting is the mountain view chalet thursday i'm sorry thursday night yep thursday night i'm already thinking this wednesday is it wednesday or thursday night thursday 30th or 30th and you should have gotten an invite from school boards in your email yeah yeah i just don't have it in my head anybody else have anything to report out ok now it's an

060opportunity for public comment during this portion of the meeting the public is invited to address the school board with questions or comments the public is requested to sign in at the register provided for this purpose and to state their name and municipality of residence group affiliation if applicable and direct their comments to the school board president while all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate school board members will not respond to the speakers at the time of their appearance the public comment period will be a maximum of 30 minutes in length unless there are unusual circumstances those appearing will be allocated three minutes to speak and no one will be permitted to speak twice until all those who have yet had an opportunity to speak have had a

061turn question am i able to yield my time to another member no i'm sorry am i able to yield my time to another member no okay but if anyone would like to make a public comment they can do so now hello um my name is justin stewas i was raised to be respectable and treat people like the way you want to be treated i was also raised by respectable people people's beliefs such as religion politics socialism social issues and other differences there are topics that we don't bring up amongst family and we're even friends because they can easily divide us and these topics should definitely not be implanted in schools schools should not considerate on politics or any type of um religions or et cetera because it will segregate people and it will hurt it

062would hurt friendships relationships and etc without ideologies being imposed on students of course this would create a more healthy learning environment for all and that's about it thank you thank you justin did you sign in oh no um so [Music] foreign gina delusion lebanon township new jersey statute 24-4 states it is prohibited to knowingly distribute an item depicting sexual exploitation or abuse of a child allow me to read you a few headlines out of a book called longboy by jonathan edison that is available to check out here at north hunter and high school library caution this content is not appropriate for kids and so if you'd like to remove your kids or cover their ears please do so now i'm sorry gina could you please put your mask up thank you god damn ass i

063yelled page 91 what if i told you i sucked another man's dick i was 10 years old but it's true i put duff gobble stick in my mouth i was in fourth grade it was no big deal he sucked mine too it wasn't terrible page 230 i can't believe you gobble you're insane we sucked each other's dicks page 231 this is i hollered you sucked my dick you crazy page 298 i got to thinking about it and as much as it grosses me out you sucking dip and the rest of it you're pretty brave page 299 sucking dick is dumb dicks are dirty dude mine sure is here are some illustrations taken from another book genderqueer by maya kobaki that is also available to check out north hunter uh high school library this book depicts

064graphic illustrations of sex violence child porn and pedophilia both of these books are labeled as adult reading levels yet my 16 year old son was able to check them out as a matter of fact martha hixson our school librarian remarked to my son as he was checking out the books quote i love that book and whoever wants to read it has very good taste and book if i brought into school of older pornographic magazine to share with the children i would likely be arrested and rightly so i equate the material in these books to that inappropriate pornographic magazine explain to me how this perversion enriches or benefits the young minds of our students or anyone for that matter our contrary this amounts to an effort to groom our kids to make them more willing to

065participate in the heinous acts described in these books it grooms them to accept the inappropriate advances of an adult those not familiar with pedophilia methodology need to understand what grooming is we have entrusted the schools with our kids bodies and minds they have failed us school should be a place of transparency and accountability instead it has become a source of subversive coercion it is illegal under new jersey state law to possess view distribute share receive photograph or allow a child to engage in child porn new jersey state statute 24-4 states it is prohibited to knowingly distribute an item depicting sexual exploitation of abuse of a child and the pellet penalty is felony possible prison sentence depending on the degree of crime fines community service and mandatory sex registration it should be no different for the

066persons responsible for putting this pornography in our school in fact they should be held to an even higher consequence for they are supposed to be representing the best interest of our children and our community so tell me how does promoting child porn and pedophilia do that gina they're responsible i'm not done i understand but we have there are going to be more people behind those are responsible by the curriculum committee of this board of education the curriculum consultant and the student superintendent curriculum community chairperson rachel mclaughlin brian chapman kimberly celino robert straight the president of the board of education jessica viado who that who acts as executive official over all committees and the superintendent jeffrey bender the curriculum committee decides the curriculum based on the recommendation of the superintendent in my opinion sex offenders and

067or perpetrators have no place in or even near our schools those responsible for this disgusting and material in our schools should be required to step down investigated and charged accordingly thank you just is very concerned honestly i'm not sure how much more i can take the negative unproductive disgusting and disturbing things that are happening here at north london passed me at a crossroads of the extremely hard decision of unenrolling my child from north hunter and high school for good one would realistically think that it is a no-brainer to expect that the school i send my child to every day as a school that i can without adapt trust one that has enough common sense decency and morals as to where parents can wholeheartedly feel comfortable in the quality of their children's education honestly i don't

068feel at all comfortable with the things that are taking place at northumberland high school [Music] one of the concerns i want to bring up is there's banned book month why is my child school highlighting this activity by putting up a white board at the mall hallway highlighting it on the white on the library's website and making this part of the morning announcements and they're even offering a dunkin donuts gift card who paid for that basically encouraging the band content is intriguing these books are banned for a very realistic and concerning reason and that they highlight racism sexuality homosexuality pornography drug abuse and other issues that have no place in a child's school here are a few of the titles that are clearly listed on the banned book section of the library's website brought to you

069by north's very own vigilant library martha hixson one title two voice kissing which has a pick with two young boys on the front cover kissing the next book this book is gay titled self-explanatory stamped a book about racism anti-racism protesting and social justice beyond magenta trans teens speak out being jazzed my life as a transgender team fun home a story about a team with a homosexual father this book has very graphic pornographic pictures in it prank the title on the cover is spelled out in lines of the street drug methamphetamines [Music] parrotfish another one of the plethora of books available here at north about a transgender teen why is there so much emphasis being put on sexuality transgender issues racism social justice gender identity gender pronouns and other highly controversial topics the very issues that

070have been tearing our country apart and dividing americans for years why is this being jammed down our children's throats in the name of peace equality and equity don't they have enough on their plates i know my child does and i have no reason to think other than it's the one-sided closed-minded agenda that's core principles are to create division and instill fear and what easier subjects than our precious children to use to indoctrinate their open undeveloped and impressionable minds this needs to end today thank you so um hi guys um lebanon township nicole gavin um i had a lot of stuff prepared to speak to tonight and at the beginning of this meeting mrs bioto kind of brought up the catastrophe that was at last month's meeting since i've been dealing with this board and it's

071been a very short time since june i have noticed that there's been miscommunications errors on the agendas unorganized board meetings changed agendas as again was tonight edited videos and the list goes on considering the amount of community involvement that as you can see people are now aware of what's been going on in our schools we count we elect you the community comes first as much as the students and their parents now i know we're not all going to agree i understand that but we have to find some unity here last time miss biota as i approached the microphone you interrupt me rudely stating is there any other comments besides masks that want to be discussed it was dismissive rude and passive-aggressive which i find a little hypocritical considering at our last board meeting there was

072a student that disagreed with another student's comment and then there was an hiv filed against him and when we went back to go look at the video it was edited he didn't move he cheated he died was it great taste maybe not did he deserve an hiv absolutely not it's freedom of speech we can agree we can disagree that was horrendous that was unethical that was terrible these are students they're hurting not that saying the student that spoke wasn't hurting him of course she was hurting i understand that but to file a complaint of bullying because the parent got upset that a student disagreed wow we have first amendment rights in this country we get to speak freely freedom of speech whether you agree or not agree it is what it is let me remind

073you of your oaths i board member solemnly swear that i support the constitution of the united states constitution of the united new jersey and i repair true faith and allegiance to the same into the governments established in the united states and this state under the authority of we the people if you guys can't stand up for all of our children and stop being biased your elections are coming up you will be unelected this is not unity this is disunity and i don't see the superintendent here is there any reason why our superintendent of our schools is not with us anymore i haven't seen him at one meeting on that [Music] thank note so uh my name is patty bechto i'm from uh franklin township um i like nicole i want to say i have a

074son that's a freshman here in out north i've never really been come to this war meetings but i was at the last board meeting and i was appalled at what i saw the meeting started off with our president basically saying she's going to start the meeting that we couldn't hear in the gymnasium with the bands going you guys weren't prepared for for that tonight our board president talking about people making sure your master's over your nose your speaker that came in the last time that when she got to speak you kind of was like she's our closer she's our nurse and her scrubs she's going to be our last person to speak he kind of planned it that way i could see i see you guys kind of motioning she had it below her nose

075the entire time talking about how important the masks are she had below her nose the entire time touching your mask all the time i'm a nurse as well this touching your mask like that below your nose and she's preaching about how wonderful the maths are it's a joke i might be fit tested for an n95 mask to protect me from a virus when i went to the or or set a delivery table i put a surgical mask on to keep from a spit baby out of it handed the doctor to the instruments it's not to prevent any kind of virus from going on because we went any behind a bacteria most people know that when you go to surgery they're given the antibiotics to cover anything that you're sterile environment because it's really not that

076sterile but what the thing that struck me the most was when uh mr john nielsen wants to make the motion for us to write that letter which was a very weak worded letter by the way our board president pretty much attacked you and basically said are you sure you really want to make that motion to me so i just wanted to know that what i saw on the first party i came to not very good things going on and i'll be coming back and i think most of them are going to be coming back because as you've heard tonight there's other things going on not just the math stuff you know stand for kids there's other stuff that's going on that was brought to your attention that i mean you know but you didn't know

077but there's a lot of parents kind of we're getting fed up done so hi my name is kim rogers my um children well one ghost forties the others the other two already graduated um and i just wanna give my support to what you're doing um to go go through this time that i'm going through right now and um dealing with what you're dealing with there's a lot on your plate and so i just want you to know that there's a supportive voice in this room that's been here for a lot longer than the last few months so what i would also like to say is that along with those parents who've been a part of attending these meetings for a long time now is that we are in support of hearing from the voices of

078those that we have not traditionally heard from in the past so when you talk about different groups different religions things like that it's necessary conversation i want my children to know how to talk about these things when they leave this area in a way that is helpful understanding i want them to know how to engage in those conversations they are not divisive conversations what's divisive is when we don't have those conversations that's divisive so i just want to give my support to having those voices lifted up and the reason why they're being lifted up right now because of things that have happened in our country that have opened many of our eyes my eyes being i'm not a member of a lot of those groups that are being talked about right now i never had

079to worry about the things that those groups had to worry about my eyes have been opened and they continue to be open there's so much i have to learn and i know that my kids have to learn those things too our teachers i do teach good champion director director thank you gary [Music] please please go ahead please continue i want my kids to be able to go out the world and have these conversations so i encourage these kinds of conversations and what i really encourage is for our teachers and our administrators to have training because it's hard conversation and i just um as a former teacher i know that those are hard conversations to be able to manage like with adults let alone with kids in my own classroom so um i would encourage for

080you guys to really support the teachers to have the support that they need in order to have these conversations in their classrooms [Music] as a parent i am here today after speaking after hearing everything that is happening i am so lost for words not lost for hope though okay i have a lot of love in my heart okay and i believe and i respect and you know what if there are parents who feel they need a school to teach social issues religion sexual conflict and and behaviors then you know what maybe you should go on and create your own school for your children education is education basis when i grew up i didn't have any of these issues brought to my attention i had to get a consent from my mother for any type of

081um you know health related topics can be discussed in school now everything is so open you know what it's a parent's job to teach those things at home to be respectful of others whatever they choose to do it's respectful and i find it very disrespectful that someone is imposing this on my child i'm sorry i don't agree with the parent that was just here but you have every right to feel how you feel but maybe maybe there should be a teaching session or class for parents who want that for their children that should not be universal in the schools [Music] i would never in my life think i would see such thing as an adult i don't want to see them i wouldn't want to see heterosexual people having sex illustrated on my books in

082a school what is this it's not appropriate it's not appropriate it's inappropriate again i respect if someone feels a certain way but do not do not bring it to the school it is not the school's job me as a parent i have a responsibility i have a job to raise my children the way i feel fit my children would not speak about religion politics social issues as justin mentioned in front of family or friends we have friends of different backgrounds different beliefs different religions we're in sexual orientation we don't discuss those things we're not hiding it from our children it's not hiding it's respecting and it's a parent's job to teach that i did not come prepared to speak at all but after hearing and seeing and my son being brave enough to come up

083here we have to stand for what we believe in and this is what i believe in and from hearing it from other parents i believe they're right there thank you yeah there's is there anyone else who would like to make a public comment um many of you are parents grandparents um i'm very upset today i'm here for my money order who brought up a lot of concerning issues and what i've gathered today and since our last board of education meeting i am shocked i'm shocked you are divided to you i see whose god i think he's not good you are here for us for our church i don't feel that way i'm gonna say that we feel that our children are seriously under attack parents are haven't attacked families if you attack a cell of

084a society which is the failure then comes the entire nation signals entire nation to the garbage what are we teaching about diversion no you better know you're not good enough because you are a different color skin or a different kind of whatever children love each other they don't say that but you guys as adults are forcing them to hate each other our children come home depressed they don't like being he don't want to be here but they don't want to be at the same time you are guys providing all this workshop oh for example stress but you close on that you are causing the stress on our children i'm gonna do your job if not please don't waste our time we will gladly replace that seat we will i am very disgusting from the last

085several hour meeting here especially justifiable i think i couldn't believe it when i saw i couldn't i could not believe you purposely tried to sabotage an entire meeting i'm very very disgusted in your mother i hope nobody will ever treat your child like this i'm praying for that but karma is a i'm sorry so what are we gonna do about this are we going to finally say and say you know our kids are hurting let the parents decide what part of sexual position you're going to show them disgusting it's wicked it's evil vibrations me as an adult 42 years old i could not look at those pictures we imprisoned pedophiles and we're teaching that for our children what are you doing people how disgusted who are the morals are you trying to demolize the whole

086country you know where this is going where is this going our babies are under attack this is our future it's not looking good right now but i am here today and i'm going to stand up against you and i'm going to fight you're going to see my face every meeting i'm going to bring more people and we're going to do what's right for our children so help us please we have about a minute and a half okay i already signed it i just wanted to address the reason why a lot of us haven't been here i'm sorry nicole gallo again township is because we trusted what was going on in our schools it wasn't until this last year and a half that our eyes were open that we had virtual schooling that we were able

087to see what the teachers were shoving down our kids throats to understand why our kids were getting sadder unmotivated and i know that woman had her feelings and it's great that she's been here month after month now i understand why there's all this sel and critical race theory that's already been in our schools that we weren't aware of but we're here now we are here now but we are not going to stand here to let this happen we're going to move forward with the agenda i need to call for a motion and a second to approve agenda items 10.1 through 12.12. motion roger brian i'd like to have a discussion overnight field can someone trips how coded protocols will be administered on an overnight field trip with students staying in the parents who are the

088people who are going with them uh in in hotels what is are they covet requirements in school in place in those cases i i don't know if those have been discussed i think they're planning these trips to the future in hopes that there won't be political issues if there are these troops may not have so these have to be approved for in advance though in order to get hotels things that plan for it and that's what i think they're trying to do okay so um but there will have to be so we're having to support false place before they actually happen yes or there might not be because when somebody decides there's not what's the school then okay so we'll have to follow executive order 251 this any of these events if that still stands

089you would not follow that exactly as we are in school so any overnight wheelchair any future period is a school event and samples are applied as the tool okay i just also encourage them whoever starts to plan those they have some contingency clients but you can imagine a case where a student while on this field trip overnight starts to come down with quoted symptoms for example what's going to happen the school nurse is on the trip with all three events so we have a nurse on hand someone who gets sick of the chat room so just so you know that's that's contingency that's in place there is a health professional uh on overnight for our students and i believe brian without everybody there is a health professional on every schedule yeah i mean they'll have

090to be quarantining they'll have to travel back separately you know there's a lot of things that could happen there's a lot more planning that would have to happen you would have to have contingencies in places where to foreign any other items for discussion i'm sorry can we shut the door or ask them to move just because thank you are there any other items for all discussion um we need a police we need a voice vote on this um yeah okay all in favor any opposed abstentions yes she cares is there any old or new business anyone would like to discuss somebody else go first rachel i don't know i'm going to refer to someone else first all right anyone else have any older novice brian um i will um be discussing i'll give notice to

091to my colleagues in executive session but i will bring you up after the executive session two new business items related to the mass mandate and the discussion in the letter we sent the discussion we had last meeting so just um i'll let you guys know that i'll be bringing this up in an executive session just to give you guys some heads up and then i'll bring those up and after we get out of the executive session okay i have kev um just questioning um we're into the school year are we going to continue with the student representatives on the board have they been elected i mentioned that last time too yes the principles have until the end of september to make the recommendations and then that the student reps will be here in october for

092the first meeting which is what we did last year as well that would be typical so firstly first month of school those principals have an opportunity to gather information from the students figure out who's going to be the representative they recommend it to the board they come at the october meeting the board accepts that and then they become stupid that was just that was a great asset and they did a great job last year the young ladies behind it's still impressive very so um the another um the website um i don't have a child here in the district so when i go on and we're having changes you're looking at the website you're looking at the district page and it still has old it has last month's happenings like are they getting updated i know

093i brought this up in community relations a couple times there's things that are outdated but that front page when you go on if i'm gonna if i don't get an email you know i don't have i'm not i don't get those emails as a parent so i don't see any to see those so that's just speaking for me and i'm sure there's other other people as well can we have looking to uh have updates should we have congratulations okay we can either do it in curriculum where we can look at community relations yeah i'll tell you okay i'll add it to the next month and uh board center do you want to add it to next month's agenda for community relations as well as a double check perfect thank you and we normally do a

094board self-evaluation and i know we were working on that and we finished our csa evaluation and we had gwen thornton from our field route scheduled she did not could not come did we reschedule her to or so we can complete the the board evaluation and look at board board number goals we didn't do that are we going to do that we are going to do that i don't have a date on it yet but i know um i think we are waiting on the superintendent eval and that hasn't been completed yet either we're going to work through that tonight and then we'll be up are the i know we're going to work through the goals tonight in executive session and then i think the eval what's the next name i'm sorry i i didn't really

095hurt myself for that i believe we're waiting for input i think here are only two people are we being directed to finish it are we going to complete it and discuss it yeah this is my question yes okay that's all i have today okay i have a whole business um the letter that we wrote to the governor that reflected in the meeting minutes for this month it differs from the actual letter that was sent out from the governor and um it's much the verbage is different than what the attorney read into public records um so i just wanted to make more of that the actual letter that's in the meetings this month is what the attorney read in public records but the actual letter that was sent the verbiage is different and one word can

096change the whole meaning of it what's the wrong word well in the first sentence me see if i can get that up okay okay well the first sentence says that we the north henry board of education right um i just requested to send a letter about in regards to 251 and the actual letter that was sent says certain members of the board but we voted on that we voted on what was right into public record actually what i recall is the fact that we said that this is what we propose but if we need to change certain language based upon the meaning that it doesn't violate any particular outstanding issues that some of the language may change because whatever i don't recall that saying verbatim that was what was going to be said because he

097made it up on the plot right and he said that if if i have to change certain language massage it a little bit based upon you know state statute whatever and we'll send that and it was sort of it was circulated before it went out so i made the motion i don't have a problem with how it's how much i mean might not be to the t but i mean i think it gets across what what the uh you know what we've voted upon right i don't have a problem with it it went to all board members before it was sent so from a process because i'm just listening to this that was actually on my list just because i wasn't back to the audio so from a process perspective going back to what we

098talked about with the notes if something is read into public record and it is deemed to be inaccurate by someone or not what we felt we voted on then what is the process emailing you jessica before it goes out to say listen this is what the audio says and this is what we voted on is that the process because i'm just like picking up on yeah if there's a if there's a question about something that was read in a public record or there's a question about that needs to be addressed and then i can redirect it to john or i can redirect it to jeff or rich however it needs to be addressed but when we received the letter we already received it with the tracking code so obviously i never had a speculated letter

099before it was sent i just checked my email the only thing i got was what rich said was the final letter with the shacking so just so when you say it was circulated beforehand it wasn't i just reviewed my email so the first i saw it was already it was written and sent from rich bird jacks um sorry mitch i was destroying the name sorry i'm so sorry on august 27 that was the first time i saw anything regarding after the board meeting and it was sent out as a final copy pdf with the tracking so it wasn't distributed beforehand for the board to look at i guess my question rachel is if are you asking specifically about that letter because that's what roger rogers i'm listening in general like i noted that sort of

100things on my list is that what was read into public record and voted on was different than the audio because i did like katie said had a hard time listening during that meeting so i wanted to go back and see if i could listen to the public comment more specifically and i didn't know like that was something that i was like oh that was the letter was different from what was read so as a process question because i feel like some of the issues that come up a lot are process related on our board so i wanted to know process forward if now is not the time she should be bringing that up and in that case if it was not sent to us prior to it being posted stamped then what is the course

101of action you know my suggestion my thought is just as a peer a member when that came out in april and even though you got it with the postage stamp april no i'm sorry oh my god girl i'm sorry i'm looking at april in front of me august whatever the day is that we get it if we have a question we submit that immediately to katie and we don't wait for a board meeting okay that's that's every principle of new jersey school boards but that you go to your president immediately and on that note when i saw the minutes i had a question about something that i saw that i thought was not right i immediately went to jess and then it went to katie and it was corrected immediately okay in this case we

102received the tracking code so it's pretty hard to retract after once it's sent so in the future it would be nice to receive that before we sent something like that official with a tracking code for us because it was sent so there's nothing we can do and the question is is that is that how we're going to conduct business moving forward um with the roll call votes and this is a this is the first letter we've ever written as a board that that i can recall to the governor um so i think this is a special circumstance shelley so i don't i think we'll take each circumstance as it comes i don't think this was i think this is a very unique situation it's it's it's was very relevant last month to to address what

103we just addressed but we don't typically write letters to the governor on a regular basis you know and can you look into why we weren't there were some of us that were not part of the letter beforehand because that's you know you will say some things but we're not even part of the threads and i i could be mistaken i thought the letter went out ahead of time so i'm looking through my notes as well which do you recall that it was like ahead of time i don't believe it wasn't ahead of time i think it was sent after it was already mailed yeah that's what people asked for was a copy of the letter that was mailed and a copy of the um the phone i know you didn't say it was distributed to

104everyone beforehand if you had questions at that time we were fast and it wasn't so it was distributed excited i apologize it was distributed you asked you're asking me questions that i'm not i'm trying to answer on the fly i didn't go back and research i know that i saw the letter um at some point in an email and i thought it was distributed at the time or at the time before but okay thank you does anyone have any more new world business i do some of them was already covered so i don't add many ones um the first one is i just wanted to see if we had an hiv training date we had discussed that in committee and i just wanted to continue to bring it up so we don't run on the

105back burner so i don't there was never a motion made for that in a board vote so if we you know just i agree i mean i would vote yes so if you want to make a motion right yeah yeah the school board said that they did not provide the training so that's why yeah because i think i brought it up it was part of the it's part of your when you're we you come on as a new board member and then continual training for all board members and i had asked if we could be part of the training for this when we do staff trainings so it's in our policy and that might be the way we move forward with it is we do have a safe school training we distribute to staff members

106they go through training take a little test at the end and you know i think for this time because it was an initial request we wanted to reach out to school boards they said they didn't conduct that training and so we as council um we are supposed to be having a miracles discussion and executive session was jeff price for that he was yes okay and then um i had sent an email on august 25th regarding the process in executive session and i had suggested corrective action so as a point of order i would like legal counsel on um appointing a new board member i'd like to go back and revisit that topic and initially council on appointing for the open board seat okay for the one that's currently being appointed yes yeah the one that

107we did last month okay what would you like legal counsel uh what was in my email did you read that you were cc i believe on my email jessica occ jeff will succeed i see a bunch of people on my email if i'm cc the name i like to really think it's addressed to the person that it was sent to and then i it's just for my information yeah well we didn't follow the policy so i would like to discuss it in executive session [Applause] hmm is there anyone else with uh older new business nope can i have a call for a motion in a second to adopt the attached resolution 9092821-2 for executive session to discuss matters falling under the categories four seven and eight as reflected in the attached resolution the board expects

108to be in executive session for approximately an hour and upon return to open session action will be taken motion second all in agreement um abstain i should carry and a second to reconvene public session motion [Music] new business right as i promised i have two items that i'd like to bring up um so uh both of them are with respect to the actions taken by the board at the last meeting and the perception that i have and is shared by others that i've talked to in the community that the board came down on the wrong side of this issue and in particular the importance of masks as a mechanism to reduce the spread of coping so i'm moving to enter a resolution uh by on behalf of the board which i can give somebody anybody

109who needs a copy to enter into my suggestion into the record so you don't have to listen take notes but i'm going to read the resolution that i would like the board to consider it's a resolution on mitigating the covit 19 health emergency by the north hundred and warheads regional high school district board of education which i will refer to as the board here thereafter whereas the kobit 19 virus has created a public health emergency that continues to threaten residents of the north hunter and voorhees regional high school district and beyond and whereas infection with cobit 19 can have serious health consequences including death even for teenagers and especially for those with pre-existing adverse health conditions and whereas the virus is known to be highly contagious and whereas people infected with the copin 19 virus

110may not exhibit symptoms and whereas people who contract covid19 at school may then affect members of the broader community outside the school and whereas the primary means of transmission of the cobit 19 is through droplets in the air and whereas a mask worn by an affected person dramatically reduces the distribution of the virus in the air and has proven to be an effective way to mitigate the spread of cobit 19 and whereas the board is duty-bound to protect the health and wear fail welfare of the district's students teachers professional staff administrators especially the most vulnerable among them and whereas the board firmly believes in the importance of in-person education be it resolved that the north hunter and voorhees regional high school district board of education commits itself to taking actions such as developing enacting and

111or supporting policies to minimize the spread of cobit 19 by effective means including those that require mask wearing under appropriate circumstances without sacrificing in-person education i'd like to know how the board stands on this issue well there is a motion is there a second second open for discussion so um thank you for putting that time and effort into that um while i agree with at this moment in time wearing masks and that the school should adhere to not only the executive orders but should be doing that my opinion instead i would honestly vote no to the resolution only because and please tell me if i'm wrong john it sounds like what you're saying is what the is what the superintendent and the administration's job is to to carry out the executive order um so a

112we don't need this because there's the executive order but b that's what their job is and and our job is just to make sure that they're doing it so that that's i agree with what you're saying um i just don't i personally don't think that a resolution needs to be put in place can i respond yeah what happens when there's not an executive order so i personally um you know my understanding because i've looked into i've asked some questions we don't know what the governor's going to do um i there's some say that they might then say okay now it's going to be at the county level but we could cross that bridge you know when we come to it my objective yeah is to have the board recognize that this is an effective way

113to reduce the spread of coca-19 the idea of optional masks at this time is this equivalent to no masks at all that's fair i agree but that's right now can i make a comment yeah so i appreciate the effort in drafting that language i i think i i disagree with the fundamental premise that the thing you opened with which is that this board communicated its opposition to masks and i think we were very deliberate in what we what we approved which was a majority opinion that disagreed with the statewide mandate not a and not having that decision at the county low or local level so i don't think that in my opinion i don't think the board signaled that we disagree with mass i think we signaled that as a majority we disagreed with the

114a statewide mandate it signaled it to me and it signaled it to others right so i'm giving you my opinion back right so i i and i think i open that with i disagree with the basic premise the other thing i guess that i have a concern with is you're asking us to to make a proclamation about something that we're already enforcing that we're already doing so like we could just as easily write a statement in support of any of our school safety policies that prevent any of the ongoing threats that were already that we already have in place so locking all the doors and having cameras everywhere and having you know school security officers those are methods that are in place to address clear and present danger just like our current that we've operationalized

115wearing masks to address the clear and present danger of coping so i don't feel like singling this out through a proclamation or resolution is necessary it just walks us down the path of let's just do that for every law that we're following again my my response to that is if those other rules will not change this will change if the board if the if there's an executive order in place right the administration has demonstrated that it will go to optional masks that's what the coming back safe was to begin with it also covers not just mass but all efforts to minimize the spread of the virus by effective means okay so i so to me this is not um the stock does not fall in the same category as locking doors that's that's water that's

116not that's under the bridge we are going to do that in a lot that right now could change right and okay like i'm not going to turn like this isn't like a debate between me and you i i've expressed you some advice you could offer i mean i i i understand the various perspectives that have been shared uh i understand that you know i think that well the words big for themselves the sentiment speaks for itself um i think that presently and i think this was acknowledged uh this doesn't change implementation 251. no i'm not going to say anything else unless there's another legal question can i make a statement you know i i i agree with you that it doesn't it doesn't change the implementation but neither did that letter but we swear we

117sent it and it made a statement to the community we knew it wasn't going to change the math mandate but we we sent a letter to the governor about it so what what would be the difference between doing that and saying this board is in support of mass wearing when it's appropriate to mitigate the spread of the virus i'm just so is then do i not understand the resolution like once we adopt a resolution it's there right regardless to brian's point regardless of a mass mandate and then we would have to go back and change it when we no longer need masks well i think that the humane is not yeah i'm sorry i think that this says the board is um commits itself to taking actions such as right so it's by example developing

118an acting and or supporting policies to minimize the spread by effective meanings including further by example those that require mass wearing under appropriate circumstances without sacrificing in-person education so this doesn't say masks have to be worn in all circumstances after the resolution in july of 2020 um that was a resolution supporting uh or condemning racism so we did we took a board i wasn't on the board at the time but the report has taken similar actions in the past but you know to your if i can't just real quickly thank you you know to your point resolution is a resolution and it is binding unless something changes so unless there's executive order statute regulation etc something that would otherwise modify this change it or the board takes some other action yes this would direct the

119operations i was just going to say that i concur with most of what rob said um i feel in my position as the board i'm not a health and i'm not a doctor i'm not a nurse i don't have a background in health and my job as a board member is just to oversee that the schools are well run and that the statutes and policies are followed and we hire the administrators to administer the schools and it's up to them to follow the executive orders and the guidance of the state so i would leave that up to them and we're already following the executive order so i feel like that's something that we don't need to do as a board that's just my personal takeaway can you like uh discuss it if you're just going

120to bring up the conversation without being possible for us to have this like obviously it's a broader conversation about what the data is then if we just talk about it would it make sense to talk about that well there's a motion and a second so unless it's going to be withdrawn or emotion to table is made this is you know once discussion's done there's nothing down i would like to hear the board's opinion about that further discussion we'll call vote please miss bonomi at this time now mr chapman yes mr logan no it's him no miss hoffman yeah no are you sure the man's run [Laughter] i would like to say i appreciate the effort that you went through and and the thought that is that and the sentiment that goes behind this so i

121do thank you for that my second item is to ask the policy committee to consider host haste what metrics should the district use to guide changes in our cobit posture outline how the district should respond based on those metrics specifically covering social distancing masks quarantining vaccines and in the worst case scenario transition to remote learning or hybrid strategies i asked the policy committee to consider using a survey to assess how the students parents teachers and staff feel about those items and the reason i make this request is that right now i don't agree with rachel's position that this should be all on the board all on the shoulders of the administration this is too divisive of an issue and too hot of a topic to leave to the administration to in us to stand behind

122behind them and let them take the shots so brian uh i will add that to the policy agenda for this month um do you have that in that sort of list that you went through in writing that you could email to me because i was jobbing i was trying to keep sure i tried to give it to you in executive session but [Laughter] thank you sure i want to be proactive about this i think the board has been very reactive and maybe that's the nature of it you know because you know none of us have lived through another pandemic before but something's going to change and we're going to the board is going to stand behind the administration and say you guys make the decision and we'll either back you up or we won't and

123i'd like to take a more proactive role the board to take more practical role and suggest this is how we should respond any other new business brian thank you i know you took time on that so thank you can i have a motion in a second to approve set the settlement for student number two zero one nine three 3001 as we discussed in executive session motion all in paper do you have to do a roll call for something oh do logo yes it's hints yes chris hoffman yeah mr performer yes mr mclaughlin yes mr miele yes mr straight yeah cristiano yes thanks can i call for a motion and a second to approve agenda item 17.1 through 17.2 including any hand carries if provided so moved second and that's a roll call vote yes mr

124chapman yes is crystal logo yes since yes hoffman yeah mr cruz burger yes mclaughlin yes mr mueller yes yes i have a call for a motion and a second to adjourn you