001[Applause] okay good evening welcome to the august 21st saravo board of education meeting 24th what'd i say 2024 24th my apologies oh boy off to a good start okay please take notice that this portion of the public meeting of the several board of education was transmitted to the home news tribune and the star ledger in accordance with chapter 231 pl law in 1975. further in accordance with njsa 104-6 10-4-6-21 the copy of this notice was posted outside the board secretary's office and a copy was also filed with the clerk of the borough of sayerville please rise to salute the flag please [Music] thank you mr president [Music] thank you mr president it's with a heavy heart that i announced the passing of linda coffey she was a long time much beloved principal of truman school
002and of middle school she retired in 2015. her loss is a big loss for for for the cerebral community and for our district as a whole i'd like to deserve a moment on her behalf thank you thank you mr fernandez okay miss hill may have a roll close mr belka here mrs bloom here mr fernandez here mrs kenny here mrs napolitano here mrs pavone here mr john walsh here mr patrick walsh here and mr esposito here can you please summarize executive session for us the board discussed personnel including but not limited to agenda matters uh and matters falling under returning client privilege related to illegal matters sca grievance and board member contact thank you i don't believe there's any correspondence so uh may i have a motion please to approve the minutes from the um
003regular and executive session from our july 20th meeting so move mrs bloom ms babone roll call please mr belka yes mrs bloom yes mr fernandez yes mrs kenny obstine i wasn't present mrs napolitano yes mrs cabone yes mr john walsh yes mr patrick walsh yes emma esposito yes okay i think we can go all the way down to um more discussions unless i'm mistaken we don't have any presentations this evening no so uh miss kenny can you give us student achievement summary please sure the student achievement committee met twice actually since our last meeting we met on july 27th and again on august 17th and this is just a summary of the major items that we discussed um one of the things was a middle grades career awareness exploration grant thanks to the hard work
004of donna socola and malama harana cerebel was awarded this very competitive three-year grant the first year award is over 68 000 which is actually 16 000 more than we requested and these funds are going to be used to hire a part-time career counselor design a new course for career fair guest speakers field trips etc we talked about our summer programs the camp xl and learning acceleration both concluded on august 5th they were very successful we had almost 400 students enrolled the middle school credit completion ended on august 12th and only i'm sorry and 184 of 186 students enrolled successfully completed their coursework and were promoted to the next grade level at the high school students were given an opportunity to take online course for credit recovery and 190 students were enrolled and we don't yet
005have the final results of how many students passed but it does not appear unfortunately that a high percentage will successfully complete the courses so we're going to explore other options for next summer to improve the results for our financial credit completion there were orientations today actually we had middle school orientation for grade six students at two different times and then seventh and eighth grade students who wanted to visit were also invited to do so during a different session and incoming high school students were also invited to orientation today stamcell is holding an orientation on august 31st for fourth grade students and also students who went on school last year and our preschool kindergarten orientations will take place in september we also reviewed and discussed the results of the ap exams administered this past spring the
006results were disappointing disappointing but they were not unexpected given the instructional challenges of the past 18 months a summary of the results along with comparisons to previous years were attached and the teachers and supervisors are reviewing the data to take steps to re-energize the students and provide them with the instruction they need to succeed and in fact there is a summer app camp designed to get the students off to a strong start um we also discussed whether we should continue to require that the students take the exam if they are enrolled in the course and if the board should continue to pay for the quest of the exam standardized assessments this year will be during the first week of october we're going to be administering the stark strong assessments in grades four through ten and
007language arts grades four through eight algebra one and uh two and geometry for math grades six nine four science um they're required by the state and they are based on our prior year standards and we discussed back to school night and parent-teacher conferences um about having both of those virtually again this year we had very overwhelmingly positive uh feedback from last year more parents were able to participate so we're going to talk about those revisions tonight and request your approval for that and we're meeting again on september 28th thank you um just for the record i guess the reason for those test scores being low um we're we're making it's due to coping correct that was the discussion in the meeting wasn't it was kind of an odd year right so not you know in
008direct relation to coven but in relation to you know the instruction that you know the the disrupt and instructions right that's what you should say yes yeah so we hope this is a one-time thing yes gotcha thank you for any questions from the board thank you miss um 68 992 that's a middle grades career awareness exploration grant that's for one year yeah oh the questions uh go to finance thank you i think that um oh someone else allison no no no i thought um i thought dr was going to add something no [Music] someone asked about the middle school grant the um for the career grant we have it's a three-year grant so far they've only told us how much we will receive for the first year and the first year of the grant is
009almost 69 000 and we anticipate that the next two years will be a similar amount and we had actually requested fifty two thousand and they awarded us sixteen thousand nine hundred dollars more than what we had actually requested for the first year terrific terrific thank you okay thank you very much mr balco got finance for us yep okay we met on august 3rd at eisenhower school on the east sip side the lighting project looks like it may have a 50 000 change order as a reduction in scope the middle school media center project had a slight delay all other projects were in progress but nothing was complete at the time the solar ppa agreement is not moving along smoothly on the infrastructure side the high school gym hvac contractor has agreed to correct the item
010we were questioning truman eisenhower floors were in progress and supplies for the middle school bathrooms were finally coming in we did a walk through eisenhower school that that day and their wishlist inclined their wish list items included the expansion of the media center in addition to the school to create a secure courtyard an additional multi-purpose room replace all ceiling towels throughout the building reconfiguration of a teacher's room and a storage room by the cafeteria and water fill stations and during the finance part of the meeting we briefly discussed the candidates for the director and assistant director of transportation our next meeting is scheduled for the middle school in september great thank you any questions to mr balcon that was a good tour did a good job okay not last but least this month mrs bloom
011what do you got for middlesex county okay middlesex county school boards association we're trying to get back to normal our first meeting is tentatively scheduled for september 27th which is a monday uh you should all get an email on that you should all have also received a survey that came out i believe it was yesterday where they are asking your preference for in-person or virtual i'm pushing for in person but i know there are some people who are still not comfortable so in which case we would do hybrid meetings uh as we did the last month so that's what we're looking for now great any who do we have the guest yet but do you have a guest i should say um they haven't told us who they've secured yet we gave them several suggestions
012and when patty sends out that email she'll let you know who the speaker is going to be and it should have the whole list of dates great do we did i know i asked you less meaning are we planning on having one here this year again i i would love to have one here yeah it was they you guys did a good job okay is that okay doctor lobby absolutely i hope you don't be an honor great any questions for mrs bloom okay none uh so miss fernandez you have uh you have an update on the what is it the uh rotary club for south amboy and several i do thank you mr president the rotary club of cereal south amber we recently held a blood drive we had we had 60 registered participants which
013represented a full capacity which was impressive considering it was the summer and everything which the the blood collected ended up saving 54 lives the rotor club is also holding a fundraiser at the irish festival this week in south amboy if you have an opportunity to come by it's a great event and they'll be down there at the waterfront selling t-shirts the rotary club also recently obtained approval for two locations for a free mini library program for those that aren't familiar with the program those are those little community boxes you see with books in them where you can pick one up and draw and drop one off so they're they're in the process of funding that and and there and there are two locations approved for in the cerebral area for that okay and they've also
014recently funded two two other donations for local food banks great good thank you thank you mr fernandez i have a question and uh not to give eric any more work but is it possible to put a link on our website so people can go like this food bank i know people are interested in donating time or money or food so we could just click and see what events the rotaries are taking rotary uh are taking place no we have the ability just um yeah but i'm not sure that that that's the appropriate place for i'm not i don't i have no idea that's why i'm asking yeah i mean that's something we can discuss but okay i'm not just you know sure that that's the appropriate place to put that okay um okay thank you
015mr fernandez uh before we open it up to the public on agenda items does anyone have any other questions about uh i think personnel i don't know if mr walsh had a chance to do personal oh did i miss you john that's okay we had a brief uh personnel meeting earlier today uh where we talk about uh anticipated vacancies etc but the uh highlighted meeting for sure was uh meeting our new candidates for uh both the director of transportation as well as the assistant uh director of transportation so uh very impressive candidates uh that our committee have found so very excited to see them on board that's it thank you okay now i can ask if there's any questions um for anybody about any meetings that we've had committee meetings okay seeing none at this
016time we'll open it up to the public for agenda items only i don't know eric if there's anyone online there's no one and doesn't look like anyone's going to speak here okay we will close public for the agenda items and we'll give it to you dr lobby okay thank you if i can bring everyone's attention to um the finance portion of the agenda i'd like to highlight a few motions for you [Music] among others i wanted to look at numbers 12 and 15 which you can find on pages three and four we're asking you to approve the submission of the american rescue plan act 2021 individuals with disabilities education act um application and the american rescue plan elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund grant application the total allocations for the arp idea is and
017thirty six thousand two hundred four dollars and for the arp e-s-s-e-r it's 3.5 million dollars three million uh 569 120 dollars to be exact these are additional grants um we have an idea allocation uh so this is in addition to that so um well we're already moving forward in allocating that funding we're going to spend approximately of the 3.5 million dollars we're going to spend that on hvac upgrades and then another amount of money on the translation of our safe return plan there are additional monies that we're going to get throughout the year approximately another 1.5 million dollars and that will be used for the continuing of education through our summer acceleration programs in the summer of 2022 um supplemental tutoring through our academies and tier three tutoring in the 2022-2023 school year home instruction
018for this school year as well as um the to sustain our our educational devices and mobile hotspots uh for the 2022-2023 school year so both of those grants um come at a very good time and uh we're putting them to use immediately number 16 and 17 which you can find on pages four and five um we're asking to approve an agreement for professional services with our architect the spiesel architectural group in which we're going to pay them 337 thousand dollars 600 337 for services related to i just spoke of it the hvac upgrades for large spaces at multiple schools and that's going to be paid out of um the two cares grants that we receive the arp es that we've asked you to approve today as well as the c-r-r-s-a-e-s-s-e-r-2 funds those are part of
019the three cares grant acts that cares act grants that we receive so we're immediately starting to make those hvac upgrades that i spoke about previously and we're asking for professional services also in the amount of thousand nine dollars um to start the professional services for the referendum preparations um both of those motions you can find on pages four and five i'm going to ask you to move down to number 41 which you can find on the addendum we're asking a proven agreement with heartland for the use of my school bucks to allow parents to make online payments for student activity fees at saver war memorial high school this is something that our senior class advisors came to us and asked us about and we're proud to say that miss hill had a great conversation as
020well as miss benino with my school bucks and were able to actually make this happen so hopefully this will alleviate some of the burden that our parents have with regard to fundraising for different activities at the high school and if it works out well well we may carry that over on to the other grades in high school and even to the middle school similarly we had some teachers reach out to us about some different um tax sheltered annuity plans some that were less costly to them and um again miss hill and mr ruiz did some research and they were able to find some so on item number 42 which you can also find the addendum we're asking you to add the security benefit um the nea vanguard and fidelity tax shelter annuity companies and brokers
021for the periods of september 1st 2021 through january 4th of 2022. number 44 which you can also find in the addendum um mr belka made reference to it in his finance committee summary we're asking to prove an amendment to the power purchase agreement for solar um photo voltaic systems uh to easy energy llc and green skies clean energy as negotiated by the our board attorney um and reviewed by the district energy consultants um we've had a considerable amount of difficulties with um this uh with one of our vendors with regard to our power purchase agreement uh and the rates that are entangled with it but um i'll let miss hill fill you and i know the details with regard to that sure so um we were we approved this agreement originally back in february of
022this year and then it took several months to negotiate the terms of the contract the vendors uh because it's easy energy and green skies they wanted the contracts broken out into different pieces because they're different locations and they needed to be able to turn the systems on at different dates our board attorney worked with them but the process did take some time um by the time our negotiations were finalized and we were ready to submit to the um it's called the t-rex program which is where the green skies would get the the wrecks from the solar by the time they submitted there had already been a cut off that the bpu which is the board of public utilities implemented without any warning the original deadline for this was supposed to be august 27th but they
023issued a cutoff date of anybody that didn't submit by june 24th would not be eligible for any extensions the problem that easy energy and green skies think we may have is that they don't believe we can get the carports implemented within 12 months a lot of that has to do with lead times due to covid so what they're what they're asking us to do is to approve a revised rate if they cannot get it implemented but within that 12 months because we would no longer be eligible for the t-rex program and there is a new program for the rex which is at a much lower rate for them so the revised rate would increase the board cost um but it would not increase the profit or anything for green size or easy energy we're still
024negotiating with them right now the rates are instead of 1.33 cents per kilowatt hour for the samsung carports it would be 4.33 cents and then at the high school carports it would be 5.23 cents um it's still possible that we could get this done within 12 months and if we do then the original rate of 1.33 cents would prevail uh the other issue is that we do want to still appeal to the bpu the board of public utilities to request that if we cannot meet that 12-month deadline for the carports that they will grant us an extension so we are working on getting that together with our attorney i do believe it should be something that comes from the board and we can do a petition to the board of public utilities since this is
025public dollars however the good news is even if with the additional rates because the system sizes proposed by easy energy are larger than what we anticipated in the ecip program the district is not going to be losing money overall what we anticipated in the essa program i think that covers it wow and i thank the soul for that um it's far easier for her to express that than it would be to me um but i i do also extend my gratitude to her um for again doing the mind-boggling calculations that she's done to ensure um that the district is fiscally protected uh and as you just saw even with those higher rates we are so again she's showing off her her genius ability so we thank her for that great job numbers 45 and 46
026which you can also find in the addendum like we did last year we're asking you to prove contracts with the delta t group for supplemental substitute teaching and supplemental nursing services i thank mr i thank dr aguiles for working that contract out as everyone knows we're in a teacher shortage right now and when in a teacher shortage you're definitely going to have a substitute teacher shortage and we need all the help we can get to get as many you know qualified and certified substitutes in our classrooms in the case that we need them so that's a big contract for us and that's one that we do every year so hopefully that'll be of great assistance to us during the school year those are the major motions of emphasis on this agenda are there any questions
027from the board on these or any other items on finance and infrastructure i'm on 43 why is the period for the uh tax filter ability very so short like from the 7th of january we redo these at the reorganization meeting we redo these at the reorganization meeting so we only ever approve them through the next reorganization meeting so it's just because we'd be implementing it in september then it would only go through january at that time beyond that yeah yeah just i uh also if we can just speak not you just because you just spoke but just uh speak a little more clearly to some people out there that are having trouble hearing us so just speak into the microphone please thank you i'm sorry dr labbe please proceed i didn't hear you mr esposito
028i couldn't resist that one you lobbed that up to me um without any more questions i don't think i see anymore i'd like to direct your attention out of student achievement and i'd like to again highlight a few motions for you beginning with number three which you can find on page 17. we're asking to approve of some new curriculum guides the 2021-2022 school year number four exciting news we're asking to approve a new club at the high school and you can find that also on page 17. it's the junior state america program and it'll be at the high school with christopher howard as the advisor and if you're unfamiliar with the junior state america's club mission it's to is specifically and politically engaged teenagers through debate leadership and activism number seven which you can find
029in the addendum we're asking you to approve the revised back to school night and conference calendars for the 2021-2022 school year as you can see by that due to the pandemic we're going to do what we did last year we're going to have our teachers produce videos um and post those videos on september 29th so that all of our parents at that time can go in there and learn about their child's classroom teacher as well as the systems that are in place within that classroom similarly like we did last year we're going to hold a full week of parent-teacher conferences virtually in the first week of february we will have early dismissals on each one of those days and at least every school will at least have one evening conferences but all conferences at this
030time will be virtual any questions on student achievement either the items i mentioned or any others um eileen i have a question on the new um junior state of america because the kids are going to be learning how to speak civilly and i guess you know without any discourse on political items or jet or political stories whatever may be going on are we going to make sure that all political views are addressed such as conservative liberal as well as independent yeah they'll be able to express they'll learn how to express themselves and you know they'll learn how to do so in in a politically correct manner yeah any other questions or comments on student achievement what one more question on that when you say politically correct manner well i mean if just as any any
031any any person does in any kind of debate you know doing it with diplomacy sensitivity okay not one person's point of view no no but they'll be able to express their views but do so in an appropriate um you know sensitive um in diplomatic manner thank you [Applause] moving along if i can bring your attention to governance beginning with number two which you can find on page 20. we do this every year we're asking you for you to authorize me as the superintendent to appoint the necessary staff that i need to open up schools and i'll obviously ask you to retroactively approve that of those appointments on the september 21st agenda number four which you can find on page 20 we're asking you to approve the revised 2021-2022 school district calendar which now includes the
032juneteenth federal holiday at the end of june number five which you can find um also which you can find on the addendum and this is a real special one to me um if you read talk soup which i i think many of you do not and that's okay um mrs pavone you read it though i do yeah i do i love reading in one of my later issues of last year i talked to you about the accomplishments of a young man who was graduating last year his mom is actually a staff member in the district his name is brody gallagher and when brody gallagher was a fifth grader at the samsung upper elementary school he and his classroom classmates put in a petition for legislation to make salt water taffy the state candy of new
033jersey and back then in 2014 the board of education then did a resolution supporting him in doing so brody recently reignited um that those talks so we are supporting once again uh brody gallagher in his fifth grade classrooms from back in 2014 with that resolution in hopes that not only will the senate and then the assembly but the governor will sign off on salt water taffy as being the state candy as asked for or as supported by the students from sayerville particularly those kids back in 2014 from the samsung upper elementary school so if brody's listening i know his mom might be um we are so very impressed with his leadership and so proud of the way he's represented our school district with such a very special and meaningful um petition for the state candy
034so that's number that would be the end of my governance report are there any questions on those or any other items on governance anybody else no okay okay so if i can bring your attention finally to the personnel agenda and i'm going to ask you to start off on item number 39 which you can find on the addendum and of course we have one of those bittersweet moments in which we have to say goodbye to a beloved staff member lisa payne is retiring effective december 31st 2021. lisa payne has been an active member of the samsung upper elementary school and the saverville community since she began her career in education in 2004 mrs payne values education and takes the necessary steps steps to remain abreast of educational trends and best practices she is an advocate
035for her students and always goes above and beyond for them and their families to help her students find success during her time at the samsung upper elementary school she has served her um as a grade four teach math and science as well as social studies teacher and as a math asi teacher in each role she found creative ways to help her students understand concepts while supporting them socially and emotionally a lifelong learner mrs payne continues to take advantage of professional development opportunities including social and emotional learning mid-jersey math science partnership den and nasa lunar meteorite disk certification wow that's amazing she's also a part of the esteems program and has attended many many inclusion conferences and that's just to name a few she is a self-motivated individual who is always looking to better herself and
036provide more for the students who she adored during the 2014-15 school year mrs payne was recognized by her peers at the samsung elementary school as the governor's educator of the year a title in which she is well deserving of mrs payne shares her wisdom with new teachers and future teachers by mentoring and hosting student teachers and observers leading by example miss mrs payne exhibits the commitment and character of a valued educator who truly cares for the community as a whole especially the beautiful children that she serves so impeccably always willing to help she has been involved in safe technology night family fun night school safety team ed council character education movie nights fundraisers and speakers stem club diac rainbow facilitator envision math trainer st math builder leader nfl play 60 representative arc of new jersey
037everyone belongs bulletin board contest winner family reading night astronomy night and responsive class and she was a responsive classroom teacher wow that that's quite the list and as you can see she's quite amazing mrs payne is a woman of integrity when she puts her mind to something she puts forth the effort and passion needed to accomplish the task all while keeping others in mind the samsung upper elementary school will be losing a strong professional who cares deeply for her students colleagues and the entire community we wish mrs lisa payne all the best as she begins this next chapter the samsung upper elementary school community is grateful for her dedication and commitment and they look forward to the visits that they are expecting in the future especially those in which they can hear about her newest
038adventures so on behalf of the students and staff in the saverville public schools um we congratulate mrs payne on her very well-deserved retirement and we wish her nothing but the absolute very best in all future endeavors moreover we thank her for the impeccable way in which she taught her students and led our community in so many integral activities dr lobby if i'm not mistaken um this is this is her second career isn't it i believe so yeah my both my children had her she was amazing amazing you can see what she does she do all the volunteer work she does and all the how she gets involved in all the activities with the kids she was great well and and then on a personal level i can just add too one of the things that
039was left out there is she was part of our uh be strong serval and she was making lunches for us every day um so i can't thank her for enough uh thank her enough for that and i gotta tell you um you know i haven't had a chance to interact with her on on a great basis um outside of that particular volunteer activity that she participated in with us but every day she came in and despite how tragic the pandemic was back in the spring of 2020 she came in every day with an incredibly positive enthusiastic attitude and was willing to do everything and anything that we needed to get out those lunches and supplies to to parents and i can't thank her enough for that um you know this speaks volumes but it doesn't
040speak enough about the amazing work that she did and the incredible person that she is and uh naturally the incredible whole that she's going to leave when she goes so we wish her nothing but the best all right so moving along on numbers 8 and 10 as well as 32 and 33 which you can find on pages 23 and 27 in the addendum we're naturally asking you this is the busiest time for us for hiring and appointing staff so we have a lot of people that we're asking you to approve at the certificated level and the non-certificated level so that we can have our district fully staffed for september 8th but i want to make particular mention of our new director of transportation and assistant director of transportation that mr walsh referenced earlier in the
041meeting so it's my pleasure to recommend to you patrick seniglia as the director of transportation patrick has well over 25 years experience in the public schools transportation industry he actually comes to us from a vendor perspective where he has worked a great deal of time with two national transportation vendors so he is someone that we are incredibly fortunate that um you know we have the opportunity to bring him into our district and i really do feel that we're blessed to have the opportunity to recommend to you patrick seniglia as the director of transportation similarly um stephanie padilla is an accomplished and experienced transportation employee from the old bridge township school district and she too is going to bring an incredible amount of expertise to our district she has a an expertise with regard to transportation
042software so i think that with the overall experience of mr seniglia and the specialized experience of mispadilla we have found two very exceptional and highly qualified directors and assistant director for our transportation department along with that numbers 11 13 as well as 11-13 and 34-35 which you can find on pages 28-30 and the addendum we're asking to approve the transfer of some certificated and non-certificated fact members [Applause] are there any questions on any items pertaining to personnel [Music] i have a question um 15 uh approval of volunteer coaches is there a reason why we don't pay the coaches that seems like a hard job a budget budget oh budget yeah um we you know we have a a certain number of paid coaches um but um a lot of our coaches they they you know
043you know like to have as many coaches as possible um football particularly the more the more coaches out there you reduce that the player to coach ratio um but um you know obviously um our budget restricts us from hiring um a lot you know a lot more people than we can so um we're gracious enough to have individuals that have either come through our programs as players or are respected coaches um within the community um asked to volunteer um and again we're very blessed that so many people want to take an active interest also we do have staff members teachers that although they're not getting paid they volunteer to coach as well and that demonstrates their character and commitment to our students it's also a stepping stone something in some cases isn't it people want
044to prove their worth and they absolutely yeah this is an addition to our paid coaching right this is just a volunteer oh yeah it's in addition to it i thought yes that's just a volunteer coach right right and it's not only that that's not only with regard to athletics i mean um if you talk to dr caruso from our band there are many parents and there are many former musicians that volunteer um to help our band out because again we do have enough we can staff and pay for enough people but to move to that next level you do need the help of volunteers so we have a number of volunteers not only on the athletic side of things but on the you know performing arts side of things many many people volunteer and just
045so everybody knows and i'm sure you do but just remind you all of our volunteers have to have a criminal background history check and they have to be board approved by you before they can begin working with our students all right thank you any other questions on personnel mr esposito that concludes my report okay thank you dr labbe uh before we uh ask for an approval any final questions about the dr labby's report [Music] okay so you know and i would like to entertain a motion to accept our superintendent's report some of mrs bloom second mr walsh what's going on allison you're slow tonight you're right in there okay i can't keep up anymore go call myself please mr falca yes mrs bloom yes mr fernandez yes mrs kenny yes mrs napolitano um abstain on
046finance page two item five check number one five three six nine seven the rest yes you said all right yes yes okay aaron i'm sorry i have to abstain on number 17 the first candidate under personnel page 31. okay sorry i missed that uh mrs pavone yes mr john walsh yes yes mr patrick walsh yes mr esposito yes okay thank you everyone at this time i'd like to open it up to the public for uh any items pertaining to our district when you come up when you come up please give your name and address for the record i just want to get a sense from the public tonight how many people intend to speak at the microphone if you can just raise your hand it's not that many of you okay but just to give
047it's fairness to everybody an equal opportunity we're gonna give everybody three minutes um to speak and uh obviously we're going to do something we're going to try something which we've tried before but we're going to try to let you um finish whatever it is you want to say some of you may have questions and that's totally fine we do our best to answer as many questions as we can but what we'll do is to be fair to every person is about to come up if you can just use your time if you have questions to ask them we'll try to write those down and at the end we'll do our best to answer as many of those questions as possible so to these things you have questions just continue as you ask the question and
048just continue that we don't break into any of your time okay thank you and good evening my name is karen bailey beibertz i am a residence in cerebral here all my life and many generations back [Music] it has come to my attention that there was a national education association conference with new jersey education association an instructional essentially given to teachers in new jersey regarding the covet vaccine as a means to train teachers to speak to their classes um essentially using teachers uh to speak to their to speak to the children and parents you know through to initially essentially to get to the parents so that they um because they trust them um if this is true i i've had a teacher friend there too had told me they had to listen to the four-hour instructional
049one of them on their vacation actually if this is in fact true i am extremely concerned by this they are not doctors uh they really have no business speaking to my child i have a 14 year old coming into high school um those are medical decisions that i would certainly hope would not be uh influencing our children through the teachers i would hope they would not utilize them to do that i don't know if you are aware of that or not i would also like to know if there's going to be any posters or displays to vaccinate around the school [Music] and again if this is true can we opt out of the content i would certainly hope it's not because if every teacher throughout the day is going to give the kids a spiel
050about vaccines or why they should be vaccinated again i think that's a medical decision and a family decision so um [Music] the masks are very concerning to me with children i had the opportunity to uh sit with my significant other after his catheterization procedure he was put of course in a recovery area where he had a pulse oximeter taped to his finger the whole time i had we had our mask off in the room the nurse came in he put the mask back on we did and then when she left he forgot to take it off we were watching tv so i'm watching his actual pulse his um blood oxygen level go from 97 down to 88 to where the orange alarm came on now this is from having a mask on for 10 minutes
051maybe my concern is what's happening to these children in school oxygen wise has there been any studies to review any of the physiological effects of depleting children or adults from oxygen i saw firsthand the effect of it these children particularly young children and i've had many parents come to me with their concerns with children that are on ieps have disabilities they need to see the faces of those who are teaching them the faces of their peers so i was concerned about that i i'm just curious i i wanted to circle back if i can sorry if you could just wrap up your comments thank you very much that's it well your three minutes are up but you can finish up if you need to okay i just can't finish just one thought thank you okay
052i want to just circle back to the last meeting i was at in june i was not here in july i had family issues i wasn't able to be here in june the last meeting i had witnessed like 200 teachers probably around that here in support of one of our teachers here um there's been a lot of stuff on facebook and i'm trying to sort through all that and just actually find out what the truth of the matter is from what i see between what i witnessed at that meeting which i did not expect we were here about mass crt and sex ed for kindergarten we it seems to me that what had happened is that you had a teacher who also happens to hold two positions in this town who had no show no
053call got paid and is upset with people's and and even the the cerebral education association defending that position as well as the vaccine mandates for children i'm not too happy about that either but um i will leave it at that so i was trying to get clarity on exactly what that situation was the way it appears to me from the facts i've acquired is that literally that person who is a leader in this town as mayor and as a sea vice president literally robbed the taxpayers because i don't know about any of you but if i had a job that i didn't go to for nine days or call or no show i would sincerely not have a job so i'm guessing you guys are very generous thank you thank you thank you thank you
054dr lovely you're going to answer all questions at the end right okay we're having some microphone issues here but when when uh when when people have um obviously when you're here the timer from miss hill uh our board secretary business administrator if when that goes off if you could just finish up your your time again with the whole point here is to be fair to everyone we really want to hear what you have to say thank you thank you hi everyone my name is jennifer edwards attend vincent street parliament new jersey um for about 17 months now there's been an incredible push by the experts to mask the children there's been a whole lot of back and forth between those who believe that masks save lives and parents who have read numerous studies and disagree
055and experts and doctors who disagree and much more consideration should start to be given to what kind of damage the masking is doing to our children i've emailed the board earlier an 11 11-page well-researched document providing information about why masks have simply been a charade made to make people feel good like they're doing something to change the world as well as a listing of 47 studies from sources such as the cdc and pubmed so not just news articles they're actual for 47 actual research studies confirming that masks are ineffective in preventing covet infection and transmission this has been a concern for me from the very beginning of kovid from march 2020 and there are more and more studies growing and growing more growing concern over the past several months as the dangerous health and emotional
056effects especially on children are becoming more pronounced and anecdotal information is being used to mandate them for hours with no actual data or studies proving safety or efficacy in fact the nih director francis collins was recently quoted during an interview saying i wish i had that data regarding the masking kids issue and then he admitted that there isn't any data showing that those kids are at greater risk of hospitalization or serious illness from taking their mask off their meaning in school actual studies show that masks become pathogen-laden petri dishes on people's faces restrict oxygen intake by up to 20 percent and induce dangerously high carbon dioxide levels in children's blood streams they may cause the wearer to inhale plastic micro particles from them not to mention other risks such as headaches severe acne tooth decay
057difficulty concentration difficulty concentrating and psychological damage to our children wearing masks may also exasperate anxiety and breathing difficulties and cause other health problems due to mouth breathing so i wanted to discuss murphy's executive order with you i understand that the board of ed is expected to comply with all state mandates of course and wanted to respectfully ask this board to push back i wanted to see if any of you had seen the brick board of education letter to governor murphy i took the liberty of emailing a copy to each of you earlier i thought it was really good along with some additional documentation just to reference it here tonight i feel that the board's letter was really well written and a powerful statement regarding the stress this pandemic has put upon mostly our children which
058hasn't been discussed very much and speaks to the inability of families to have freedom to make decisions for their children's health social and emotional well-being this letter imported the governor to rescind the executive order and suggested that society not be expected to continue um to accept mandates and restrictions indefinitely as this expectation is unrealistic and unjust the board suggested that the time for mandates is over and it's time to return decision making authority to the districts and the parents you can just finish up your comments please thank you okay so uh let me let me just get to the point here okay so um they referred to the executive order as a hindrance to voices freedom of choice social justice and equity so i am here to respectfully ask this board um to adopt a
059resolution to make masks optional for our children and staff at school and to ask to write such a letter on behalf of the families in our district to make math optional that's it thank you thank you [Applause] hello i'm dan pavelchek uh first thing i like to say it's a little hypocritical that your hand needs handing these masks out i don't know if that lady has covered i don't know what you did but you're giving me uh give me a mask it's kind of silly uh second you got two masks on you should put a helmet in case the ceiling tile falls hits you on the head that's ridiculous but uh you guys weren't wearing a mask in 2018 were you coronavirus is always here it mutates you don't you don't find that hypocritical look
060what's going on in australia right now look what's going on israel israel 95 vaccinated this went from 14 days till i get the vaccine up until i get the vaccine till 80 is vaccinated now let's put the mass back on if you think this is about health and safety you're brainwashed you're ignorant i don't need three minutes that's it this is about this this is called a great reset google event 201 check it out looking into it for yourself i'm starting a little bit nervous but i'm passionate about this this is nothing about safety and you know you're sitting up there fraudulently [Applause] hi my name is erica rivera lived in parliament my whole life i have three children i have taken uh i have taken my daughter out of the school um to home
061school i do have two younger children that i'm putting through their system um i just want to say that you guys are um you're voted upon right you guys are elected officials and you're here to represent our children and the best the best right for our children and education and their safety um one thing about this covet is that uh since the beginning one thing that hasn't changed is that the children they said their children don't get sick and if they do get sick and it's been proven they've said it they've said it since the beginning that hasn't changed it's been confirmed that in rare cases where the child gets coveted they don't get severely ill they don't pass it on to people and another thing is the children don't are extremely low risk and
062they not they have a natural capability of evading the sars virus um they don't even have ace2 receptors in their nostrils okay look it up this is about control um this whole thing is about control with the double mask the mask it's funny because we went all summer without mess right all summer without messing isn't it weird that all of a sudden now september comes around and they're like oh mask up the kids mess up the kids but we were fine now all summer we can go to the restaurant everything's fine here but september comes around if you guys don't see it's about control i don't know what is my next point is about uh critical race theory you guys already started to train um our uh educators here in sayerville to to bring this
063critical race theory to light um you're sending uh what is it a gillis a gillis edward um two uh training to start this let me just go to uh oh god i just had it up there's um decolonization um let me get the titles so that you guys can actually hear this madness um [Music] i'm so angry that i'm trying to control myself i really am um let's just say that one of the classes um that you're sending um actually the truman school uh with goodman is her name right so she's you guys are paying for these by the way um it's i guess get you get funding so it's uh creating affirming and includes in inclusive educational environments decolonization of our education is the subject of another of of the other training that these
064guys are going to now i don't believe in this critical race theory i'm not oppressed as a minority woman of color okay i'm not i teach my children to be an individual they have all the liberties they have in this country they could be their own person this isn't about this isn't about diversity and let's be let's let's you're actually encouraging children to be separated that's what you're doing you're making my child think that there's something wrong with her either it depends on who's looking at her whether she's brown or whether she's a woman or whether she's white or she's supposed to have whites this is out of control and this needs to be out of our school system now and you guys are letting it happen i don't know what you have to do
065whether or not accept grants from the state on this subject or what but you need to get rid of it now [Applause] [Music] um my name is thomas fritzen uh 143 main street i've been living in sanerville for 20 years actually 25 years now dating myself um before before i don't know if i can hold the clock for a couple of seconds to say we had a bigger meeting here in june and you gave everybody five minutes and there was a lot more people but i will take my three minutes and and try to um i think you guys have been saved by the uh the new jersey um state legislation because you don't have to do masks you don't have to make the decision about mass mandates and i agree that if i don't
066if we don't want something here in this school we should have to take a vote of all the parents and then say yes all the parents or majority of the parents agree that we should send a letter to um governor murphy and say hey can we what can we think about this masked mandate but one person coming or two or three people coming up here and speaking for all the parents to send a letter i think is uh not good um as far as some of the studies i've heard all this stuff going around and unfortunately i think this is split down the middle politically because i can go on a website and i can find 10 different reasons why masks are great and i can go to another website and find 10 different reasons
067why masks are wrong why the delta variant is so bad why the delta variance isn't a thing it's we have to put focus on what's down the middle to make sure that we're doing what's best for our children and i hope and pray that you're doing the best for our children this argument shouldn't be here as far as mass mandates is concerned we should go down to trenton and make that argument if we want to make that argument it should not be here um what we should have here is to make sure that our children are safe and that we can have a complete school year in this building and all the other buildings in the district because remote learning that does not work and that would be a red line as far as i'm
068concerned because i know it did not work i suffered for the past uh two year and a half almost two years trying to get my daughter to do her work in remote learning and it just does not work as far as i'm concerned also too i heard somebody mention also the critical race theory teaching i don't think we do that here in saverville because apparently critical race theory if you look at the history was a pre-law or a a law course that was designed back in the 70s i don't think we're teaching our children college graduate law school curriculum at least i don't think so now it was basically what it was is that what it was so you have your time go ahead finish up your point if you can wow that was fast
069that's fine thank you for your time and uh and i think yeah i really i'm sure that you have the best interest of our children in this school thank you thank you sir good evening um i wasn't going to speak today but i just wanted to see my my piece i have a six-year-old in just give us your name and address i'm sorry oh i'm sorry uh lauren alfieri uh uh chest uh uh you said where what do i have uh address address yeah please 25 chesterfield way thank you oh no problem uh i was six-year-old in truman school last year was a little traumatizing for her i mean although she's pretty strong-willed but when she did start back at uh in person she would come home every day with her mask wet how is
070that something that's safe for the kids how is that not exactly what another parent say a petri dish i'm surprised she didn't come home with struck through you know it is disgusting what the government has done to this virus and made it so political it's it's just a disgrace on what i know what is america this is not the america that i want my children to grow up in it's scary you see what's going on in australia do i want them taking my kid away from me to vaccinate vaccinate them that's something that i don't want or this is a supposed to be a medical device did i give permission for a medical device to be on my kid that it doesn't work i know several people that are mask all all the time that
071get copic it doesn't do a damn thing unless you have an n95 mask fitted to your face which i'm sure 95 percent of people do not wear and my kid is she's just so upset about it she i haven't even broken it to her that she has to wear a mask i'm trying to get her out of it i don't know what to do where's the fight where is the fight from our district it's disgusting i'm so sick to my stomach about this whole virus about about the the 99.9 survival rate especially from the kids it's even less where is the fight where's the fight from you guys you guys are supposed to be speaking out on our children there's nothing i haven't i've sent emails i get nothing why aren't you guys fighting why
072i just i'm i'm just sick to my stomach about it i want my daughter mask free this year please thank you [Applause] hi everyone mr lavi jessica garbowsky pulaski avenue and again with the ongoing mass crap that's going on um just an fyi i don't know if you knew about this what happened today when you guys were in your 4 30 meeting but the little pal murphy about your comments stating if you have an iep 504 you can go to your pediatrician and get a certain mass exemption letter for like a therapy or an extra mass break according to mr preston one of my um friends children preston is denying all of the exemption letters it's right here clear as day so she said what's the point in even saying that it would be considered
073and you know there would be extra mass breaks if the principles are saying no not happening so what i'm saying is is with regression my daughter is in speech therapy i kept asking her can you see your teacher's mouth no who else is in that classroom with you just my brother which is understandable they lived in my stomach together what harm are they going to do sitting in the classroom next to each other if it's just them with the teacher sitting six feet away why wasn't she able to pull her mask down so my daughter who has a speech impediment can see her lips move why was my daughter having to wear her mask when she needs to enunciate the th the m's the f's what's the point we fought myself and miss leah theresa
074fought to get them back in there for this for the fall semester instead of waiting until spring like you guys originally wanted to do we finally got them back in for in person and it was a waste of time complete waste of time instead of moving forward like because of arlitz program my children were doing great they regressed and i do agree virtual option completely pointless you're keeping the kids at home around their toys around their video games around everything that's going to make them want to say to heck with that stupid computer and another thing with the teachers my children's therapist sitting alone by herself in a room nobody else around her would not pull the mask down we could barely hear her over the computer it's pointless it's absolutely pointless at this point
075and like i said i don't know if you knew that he dropped that little clause in there this afternoon but he pretty much took whatever you said about the mass mandate about us parents able to getting a letter that's going to be built into the iep he said don't even bother because it's not going to be accepted anymore which i think that is a croc i carry them in my stomach i died for them three months after they were born and i'm here today to fight for them so whether you like it or not my kids will not be wearing a mask come september thank you [Applause] good evening everyone my name is frank roman president of parliament sorry i'm going to transition i apologize to the parents but i'm going to transition to another
076topic real quick this is for uh uh dr labbe at the last meeting you mentioned went on the record that you were considering and i know this seems minor with light of well the parents are saying right now but you're considering uh eliminating this senior parking at the high school have you made an official stance on that last comment that you made the last meeting that's a direct question we're going to answer all questions at the end i'm sorry sir it was stated earlier that we're going to answer all questions at the end actually the gentleman stated that if i wanted to yield my time you can answer that question right away that was during the beginning i don't know no it was just that zero fairness to you that you just asked me okay
077you say the question and i'll i'll answer it later okay i'll wait then and the last question i have is um obviously i've seen some reports throughout the board of education as i've been looped in on some of the chats throughout the state government the state of new jersey is facing a major teacher shortage for instance paterson school district is teachers short with two weeks before school starts i'm sure you're aware that trying to just follow your agenda here it looks like we're looking at 14 resignations uh we send the positions nine beliefs of the assets plus one retirement we're looking at 34 positions since the last meeting uh in approval of just one substitute teacher so you'll answer this question i'm sure at the end is the school fully staffed with teachers for this
078upcoming school year which starts in 2020 and how are we looking with substitutes thank you [Applause] hi i'm carrie zonkowski i live in parlin 52 shy drive i have two boys that will be in the high school this year um i've been wanting to get more active so this is my first board of ed meeting and it really was an eye-opener because being here not knowing any of you i had a very hard time figuring out who was speaking and i could barely hear the majority of what was being said and i was sitting at that first that first table there and i am anti-mask and anti-vasque wax but i am open to people's choice however for you to tell us that our children have to wear a mask it was really an eye-opener i
079wasn't planning on speaking tonight but realizing being in a room like this with several people i couldn't understand what you were saying and i couldn't even see who was speaking and it really was an eye-opener i'm not going to repeat everything that was already said tonight because i support everything that jen edwards and some of these other awesome parents said but i just want to leave you with that and i also want to mention when we get to the point of deciding on mandating a vaccine that is experimental and has not been through the testing process of at least five years i'm a market researcher and i test packaging and i test consumer products and if there are any adverse reactions two people three people before they go out in the market we have to
080tell the client that they have to retest it because we cannot put it on consumer shelves in a grocery store yet this vaccine has not been properly tested and we're giving it to everyone they're mandating it in countries and states and it's it's getting ridiculous so please just open your eyes and realize both of my sons told me on their own accord that if they are mandated to get the vaccine they want to be taken out of the public school system thank you [Applause] good evening my name is gerald shine i'm from edison new jersey the reason why i'm here tonight is because i'm running for commissioner in middlesex county and this is probably the fifth board of ed meeting i've been to around the county in regards to special needs students wearing masks uh
081i really would hope you as a board you guys will look into this i know there's a lot of students that have slow speech speech impediments and things like that and i really really really would hope that you guys will look into this i brought this up to uh edison board of education and they will look into it and hopefully you guys will it's important for for the kids to have slower learning that they get the help that they need please look into that please thank you [Applause] eric do we have anyone online we do one person okay there's two online one who's raising their hand at the moment okay so i presume they can hear me um they can hear you and i've sent them the unmute request oh great what's their name um
082karina i'm sorry um if you can hear me why don't you please uh state your name and address and uh tell us your question or comment please um hi yes um my name is frania sanchez i'm so i'm sorry to interrupt can you speak a little bit louder please i'm sorry are you able to hear me now a little i'm just a little bit louder oh we're going to raise the volume here hold on one moment once you give it a shot um my name is felia sanchez are you able to hear me now yes please what's your address with sanchez uh my agility is 143a main street okay thank you my um right now is um my daughter is going to be going to pre-k for the first time we've only been living in
083southville for about a year and a half um with a pre-k will teachers be required to wear the full um face mask covering their face i mean with their mouth only because my concern is being that in pre-k level they're learning about feet and the importance of our lip reading and nothing in their lips how it moves into pronouncing certain vowels or words for me that's an issue with a child that is learning how to read you know and how to speak at a two and a half page you know you know this also is an issue with kids and students with speech and listening imperative students that maybe english is not their first language um just like my daughters and also just a struggle to the um differentiate you know sounds with letters like
084p and t so i'm just wondering um with teachers like in pre-k or those that teach um students will listen impairment um or speech impairment will they be able to wear those masks that are clear so also when teachers are teaching pre-k levels of certain words their face expression when they're teaching about sad angry happy excited um not seeing the teacher's face or the way their lips their tongue moves and everything to pronunciate words correctly i'm not fully against math but i'm also worried about just the speech development on on kids especially at that age level um so that's just that that's a nice question and concern about it and just how much also obscure facial expression when you know um whether you're reading a story especially at pre-k love elementary level that you know
085t-shirts are tall you know to make it exciting the expression that you put into storytelling so just you know would t-shirt at a pre-k level be able to wear those clear face masks so at least they could um kids they'll be able to you know be lit got you thank you is that your only comment or question brother miss rivera we loser we got the question though thank you very much anyone else one other okay well um i'm muting now i believe it is mr curry mr curry you can just give us your name and address please gary he's there give him a minute [Music] can you hear me now uh a little louder mr curry if you could oh can you hear me better yeah you're good thanks thanks sorry my laptop's pretty terrible
086that's right thank you corey i'm from 161 south hill drive um i'm calling behalf of uh try to make mass optional for kids i work with construction ppe uh i deal with a lot of silica with construction and i deal with i talk to industrial hygienists administer testing when we deal with ppe we deal with respirators that form fit to your face when that is done is an upper seal on your face it is 100 done correctly it gives you good protection when wearing any of these masks they have gaps air seeps through these gaps around you there's not a hundred percent we do not rely on other protection this virus in relation in reference to industrial hygienists i've talked to is the size of smoke it goes through any mask completely as i said
087i'm pushing for this option because i realize people one side want one thing people the other side want another thing but there's a couple questions i asked here in 2007 2018 and the flu killed more than that we didn't imagine we didn't lock down there's no medical waste baskets anywhere this fire is so deadly we're having contagion they'd be chucking them in trash cans and disposing them obviously that's not that that's the statement is because if they're they're trying to say it's deadly and they're not doing anything correctly you've got plexiglass they're irrelevant the virus just when you're in a room for 15 minutes it doesn't make a difference you're breathing the same air so masks are ineffective in actually doing anything in relation to coping as i said i'm still pushing for optional because
088i know people want to do one thing so that's all i have to say thank you [Applause] before he comes up anyone else online just okay great good evening my name is christian anahaha some of you may know me or potentially know me as a leading uh you know political face within the republican party in town and a current council member a candidate for a borough council in our town here in cereville you know over the past few days past few weeks we've had the opportunity to discuss with many families and hear a lot of the concerns about i believe executive order 253 concerning this mass mandate uh overall uh even hearing you know some of the concerns today from our parents regarding this mandate and the fact that there will not be a resolution
089put in place to kind of go against what the governor has said there are a lot of questions as to why and you know i want to believe that it's because you know just as much as i do that our governor means business that he's willing to go as far as suing the schools and go as far as affecting the funding which can eventually affect our children so with that in mind i guess my comment is to you know all those watching online and you know even our parents listening that it kind of leaves us with you know another option right which is to make an adjustment this coming november to consider other candidates that will not affect our students in this way that will give us the opportunity to you know have to consider
090the recommendations of other health experts which can allow our students to go about without wearing a mask which can put them in a better position from a dental standpoint and you know other health perspectives that has been brought forward today so again you know for those who are asking why is it that we're not seeing pushback like or putting forward resolutions as is going on in brick or in in in middletown or or other places in the state i want to believe that that is you know your stance today and it's because you somehow have the students first from from a funding standpoint hopefully you can speak more to that i i came a bit late so hopefully you can elaborate a bit but um you know that is my comment for now thank you
091thank you [Applause] can you hear us i believe miss robert hi can you hear me a little loud miss roberts can you hear me now yeah better thanks okay hi donna roberts 369 washington roadster i just want to say that i support the parents who are speaking today and the right to choose um i think it's very dangerous when you take away parents rights and i am really proud of the advocates that are there tonight and i do stand behind them and i certainly help me in the next thank you [Applause] okay anyone else before i wrap it up okay at this point seeing no one else will wrap uh close public session um one more time if i can go around and just ask the board uh if they have any uh well you
092know what dr lovely right you want to answer first before we okay let's do that my apologies okay so uh let me begin with um i did the first question are we aware of um nea or nj ea classes instructing teachers to talk to students about becoming vaccinated i have i heard nothing about that um to my knowledge i don't know if any of my administrators have i have no knowledge of anything like that uh will there be pro-vaccination postings um posters placed no no we will not be posting pro vaccination posters in our schools have there been any studies about adverse effects of mass wearing i'm sure they have been um but but i'm not aware of the particulars of any but i'm i'm not disputing that there are there what was the truth
093about a teacher whose increment was withheld i'm not permitted to speak about personnel matters um if you're if you're if you want to know what was said during that meeting as per what that teacher's increment was held for i asked you to go to the video on june 15th and uh you can hear my comments then the teacher compelled the matter to public so i was able at that meeting to speak to why we withheld the increment but unfortunately because it is a personal matter and she did not compel it to this meeting i cannot speak about it um somebody asked about what governor murphy said at four o'clock or something we were in um a retreat then so i have no idea what uh governor murphy said nor have i had a chance to
094check my social media or anything like that so i'm not sure of the comments that he made um but the question was made with regard to mask exemption accommodation requests so as i stated at the previous meeting when a parent is asking for a mask exemption accommodation they must provide us with a medical reason for that the medical reason is then vetted by our school district physician dr matthew spiesler it's important for parents to know and i had a parent that commented about this because they didn't make this point it's important parents know too that if you send us this medical documentation we're also going to require you to sign something that gives our doctor permission to speak to your doctor about the matter at hand because without that authorization your doctor won't speak to
095our doctor so i want to make that clear that that was a part of the process that i did i accidentally withheld but again if a parent submits a medical note from their physician requesting for a mask exemption for a medical reason um we'll then ask for permission for our physician to speak to your child's position and then we'll get a recommendation from our school district physician dr spiesler if it's for a non-medical reason and there have been cases in which doctors are writing reasons that are non-medical they're actually met reasons pertaining to a child's individualized education plan in those particular cases those matters will be deferred to the case managers of our individualized education program uh teams if any if a meeting needs to be held or discussion needs to be held it will
096be held that would become an iep matter not a medical matter and that goes too for if a child has a 504 assistance plan if again if it's not a medical reason then that might go to the case manager which is probably the school counselor for a 504 assistance plan if there's one in place for that student so there are two types of requests one of a medical nature one of an individualized education program or a 504 assistance nature excuse me excuse me superintendent speaking thank you thank you are we eliminating student parking at the high school yes we commented about we were looking into doing that but i'm happy to announce that we will not be eliminating the student parking permits that were given out to the students this year at the high school
097is the school district fully staffed for this school year and are we looking for substitute teachers i would say and dr aglis is in the back there i would say that we're probably about 95 to 98 fully staffed which is where we normally are at each school year at this time you make comments about resignations and resentments you know unfortunately we do have a teacher shortage right now so there are times when we interview candidates and they accept the position but then they go ahead and interview someplace else that might be closer to home or not and then they tell us no they're not coming and so forth so we've been then forced to go out and research for that position but we are about 95 to 98 fully staffed and that's for both certificated
098and non-certificated staff we are having a little bit of a difficult time finding non-certificated staff as you all know governor murphy extended the unemployment benefits for people so for some of our non-certificated positions it's very hard finding people to do those and i think that a lot of businesses and organizations in the community are feeling the same pain that we are when it comes to certificated i would say that we're close to 98 fully staffed for our teachers and other certificated staff however if you recall what i mentioned earlier in the governance portion of this meeting the board has authorized me the ability to go ahead and hire anybody from this moment forward and then retroactively approve it on september 17th which is something that except 21st which is something we normally do because again
099we're about two to three percent off of being fully staffed this gives me and my administrative team the opportunity to fill those positions prior to when the students arrive on september 8th so we have two to three weeks with regard to substitutes um we do have a pool of substitutes that we are going to retroactively ask the board to renew but on top of that as i mentioned earlier we are contracting with the substitute service delta that's on the agenda for both teachers as well as nurses to help us fill vacancies that might arise during the school year when a teacher has to take a personal or a sick day and so forth um will will teachers be required to wear the full mask yes everybody in our schools according to governor murphy's executive order
100has to wear a properly fitted and appropriate mask including our teachers will teachers wear clear masks yes there are clear mats there are masks that our teachers can wear and we can provide as well that are clear especially for speech and language therapists so that the kids can see their lips they can see their oral muscular uh movements um you know when teaching uh or when providing speech and language therapy um and i believe those were the full questions that were asked there were many many comments as you know but those were the questions that were asked mr esposito there's a little delay on this i apologize there's been some i'm the board attorney and i just said i know there's been some some comment and suggestion that the board you know follow the bottle
101of some other school districts but at the end of the day you know i'll just advise the board that if the board decides somehow not to enforce the mask mandate just understand what the stakes are i mean the stakes are that you risk the funding from the state to state funding is is one and frankly it's a you know the governor of new jersey under the constitution of the state of new jersey is one of the most powerful executives in the united states and the reality is that if you fail to follow an executive order which has almost the strength in many ways of a statute or regulation you could be guilty of a disorderly person's offense so this is really in new jersey unlike other states where individual communities make decisions on behalf of
102their communities you really have very little i'm just you know sharing this i don't think this is anytime speaking out of turn here this is pretty clear under established law but you really have very few options as a board as to what you can do in some places around the country there's much more local control you know in some states school districts have much more control than you do over what is taught in your district because you have universal curriculum throughout the state of new jersey you know whether or not for example to follow what the state guides you on and in this state you have you know almost i think over 600 school districts every which one is required to follow the same guidelines so that each district is different now there have been
103some districts who are frustrated on this and reacted i'm sure some of you at this table are in fact frustrated but the reality is that you're i think somebody earlier said it and it's fair point uh the the argument is really with the state of new jersey uh and not here uh with before the board of education thank you thank you thank you jonathan i appreciate that okay where are we here um okay i asked if there were any questions prior about the um uh that the board would like to ask you to dr lobby any comments they would like to make before we adjourn mr bone please oh hi i'm one of the speakers arlene thanks um one of the speakers had indicated or had stated that we were sending teachers to learn critical
104race theory now i am unaware of that i don't see it on the agenda so i want to know is that true no no there is no reference we've stated this in meeting after meeting at the meeting there is no reference at all whatsoever to critical race theory in our curriculum nor is there any mention of it in the new jersey state learning standards however we are required by executive award and i'm proud to say that we've been doing it for a very very long time we are teaching our students about diversity equity and inclusion and that is not critical race there is over teaching our students about appreciating the differences in others including others and teaching about equity that's what this is all about but but can it may i jump on something for
105one moment and and and i understand exactly what you're referring to i do i am of the volition to of volition of that parents should be teaching this at home just my personal belief i raise my children a certain way i'm sure you do as well we are required by the state to cover certain topics which we do if i'm wrong please tell me dr lobby if i'm mistaking this but my personal opinion is and i'm telling you right now and i don't care who knows it or who hears it i'm again and not that i'm an expert but i've really been reading up on this for the last few months crt in my opinion is detrimental to our youth i don't know why or how to even be totally in school it is not
106being discussed and threatened to my knowledge and i'm telling you now i'm telling you now whether i'm here or not here next year you're going to have a hell of a fight on your hands if it's supposed to come into our district so i can assure you that [Applause] does anyone else have any discussions any points of discussion they would like to speak it out no okay um and just so everyone knows you know if i can just make one more comment you know social media is an interesting forum a couple things and i don't want to preach but you know our kids are going to read what we write so it never goes away and it's always there so i'm asking everyone here if they could just and i do this at every pto
107meeting i do it all over the place please just if you have any questions any anything you'd like to know direct it to this man right here dr labbe or any one of us is fine as well you're not going to get the answer out there i assure you you're not you're going to get opinions that are probably wrong most there are they are wrong i read them they're wrong send them to us we'll get you the correct answer you may not like the answer i'm sorry to tell you but you're going to get the correct one so please i i implore you to please just email us or come to every meeting you know you may not believe it but i i'm very happy everyone's here tonight i really am i like when parents
108participate um that's all i'll close my mouth at this point uh at this point i'll make the motion to adjourn mr walsh mrs bloom is second oh sorry all in favor i hope i see everyone in september