001i can't do it next time i'll just wait for them [Applause] we just a whole new learner hmm good evening welcome to the scotch plains fairway board of education open agenda meeting today is june 17 2021 this is sarah dakke will you please hold the road mrs bauer here mrs borough here mrs brody here mrs suryani here mrs winkler here mr murray here dr kulakowski here poor mr president thank you mr saradacki please join me in the salute to the flag i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you tonight prior to coming out in the public we held our executive session at that time we spoke about the personnel agenda
002the hip update the out of school suspensions and the legal status report at this time we have the superintendent's message dr mast thank you dr kulakowski so tonight tonight being together for for the board meeting is just another example of ending strong to start strong so welcome everyone to our first our first live board meeting in a long time it's it's good to be back the new jersey doe recently provided a template for a required safe return plan and we're going to briefly go over that this evening so in march of 2021 president biden signed the federal american rescue plan act into law this act will provide an additional 122 billion in elementary and secondary school elementary relief to states and school districts to help them safely reopen to sustain the safe operation of schools
003and to address the impact of covet 19 pandemic on the nation's students the the purpose of the additional funding is to support schools in preparing for and responding to the impacts on covet 19 on educators students and families the act requires each school district that receives funds to develop and make publicly available on its website by june 24th a plan for the safe return to in-person instruction and continuity of services for all schools a safe return plan is required of all fund recipients including those like spf that have already returned to in-person instruction given the careful and safe reopening and attention we here in spf have given to accelerating learning with each pivot we are in a good position for our full reopening as i have discussed previously the law requires that we have plan
004we have plans for maintaining health and safety and ensuring continuity of services tonight we would like to review the various components of our plan which builds upon the foundational work we have accomplished together this year so first we're going to start with mrs cleary our director of operations thank you the scotch plains family school district has developed cleaning procedure manuals which will establish schedules for increased cleaning and disinfection targeted areas to be cleaned including the frequently touched surfaces and objects and frequent sanitation of bathrooms and methods and materials that will be utilized district custodians will conduct increased cleaning and disinfection with special attention paid classroom desks and chairs door handles push plates handrails bathrooms light switches and other frequently touched surfaces each building will be clean sanitized and disinfected on a daily basis certain frequently
005used surfaces will receive more wipe downs as necessary specialized cleaning equipment has been purchased including electrostatic sprayers to more effectively assist in the disinfection process the district also will continue to adhere to existing required facility cleaning practices and procedures water bottle filling stations will be available for use and will be cleaned frequently during the school day drinking fountains will be turned off and not available for use additionally ongoing air quality monitoring monitoring will continue throughout the year uh mrs rudimbus the district will also continue with its diagnostic screening and testing our screening procedures will include providing and requiring for the completion of the covid19 screening questionnaire for families to confirm daily that students are free of covet 19 systems before um symptoms excuse me before the student is sent to school and for as long
006as necessary and practical if after the screening questionnaire is completed a student's status changes the parent should immediately notify the school nurse before sending the child to school staff will also be asked to complete the covid19 screening questionnaire on a daily basis for as long as necessary and practical the school nurse may assist a student or staff member if additional screening is deemed necessary this may include but is not limiting limited to an evaluation of their temperature and other symptoms during screening and visual checks the district will provide accommodations with guidance for students with disabilities as necessary contact tracing in combination with isolation and quarantine in collaboration with the state local territorial or tribal health departments will also continue upon notification that a student staff member or parent or guardian has tested positive for covid19
007the district will coordinate with the local health department to determine close contacts to whom they may have spread the virus quarantined persons will be based on the new jersey department of health and cdc guidelines of the time the district will assist the local health department in conducting contact tracing activities including ongoing communication with the identified individual and or their contacts the district will ensure adequate information and training is provided to the staff as necessary to enable staff to carry out responsibilities assigned to them a staff liaison shall be designated by the superintendent or her designee and shall be responsible for providing notifications and carrying out other components that could help ensure notifications are carried out in a prompt and responsible manner the district will also allow students staff and families to self-report symptoms or suspected
008exposure we look towards contact tracing in combination with um all of the isolation and quarantine items and working with the the departments of health upon notification that a student staff member or guardian has tested positive we will didn't i just read that oh that's repeated sorry now we're moving on it sounded the same now we're moving on to the next piece of the protocol which is our mask with mr patooka masking requirements will be implemented in accordance with the executive orders that are issued in the district will follow the new jersey department of health requirements for wearing masks the district will evaluate guidance documents as updates are made to adjust local policies and practices accordingly the district will utilize cdc resources on proper math squaring and staff will assist in training and reinforcement of proper
009masculine if necessary ppe will be provided to staff and students whenever necessary staff and students will continue to be encouraged to utilize their own ppe our physical distancing will still be in place classrooms and instructional spaces will have physical distancing that will be in accordance with related cdc and department of health guidelines in effect at the time furniture will be adjusted accordingly to accommodate for distancing and desk shields will be available and used if needed cafeterias will be utilized for lunch and physical distancing will be in accordance with the department of health and cdc guidelines in effect at that time furniture will be adjusted accordingly to accommodate for the distancing dividers will be used as necessary in certain circumstances distancing will be accomplished by adding additional lunch periods and or utilizing additional large space areas
010with dedicated hvac systems high air exchange rates and enhanced filtration transportation the physical distancing will be encouraged where possible windows will be open to improve the ventilation and buses will be sanitized between routes the district will evaluate guidance documents as updates are made to adjust local policies and practices hand washing and respiratory etiquette the staff will be trained on the proper hand washing practices and ppe as prescribed by the cdc and other infection control precautions cdc resources and guidance documents that promote proper hand washing etiquette will be hung throughout the buildings hand sanitizing stations will be available in the building hallways classrooms and lunch areas and students will be provided intermittent mass breaks to support healthy respiration now mrs rabindras will discuss accommodations for children with disabilities the district will continue to provide appropriate accommodations
011for children with disabilities with respect to the health and safety policies medically fragile students with ieps with complex disabilities and students who require accommodations according to their 504 plans will be provided appropriate accommodations with medical documentation efforts will also be provided to help our students staff and educators to be vaccinated through the district local health officials and vendors there there have been coordinated efforts to see how our district team can can communicate this information um out to the to the entire community mr mcgarry or dr mcgarry so a big focus is also on ensuring continuity of our programs and our services so sel and mental health is is a big concern and building on the focus of this that we had during this year will be further strengthening these areas over the summer and as
012we come out of the pandemic and lead students towards returning to a more more normal way of what i call doing school the district has a partnership with effective school solutions which will continue to provide wrap-around mental health services for students identified as needing a high level of individual support and the district is also as you may have been hearing over the the last several meetings has developed a partnership with rutgers university behavioral health care which will provide us with individual family and group counseling after-school programs and in-school supports crisis intervention psychiatric consultation staff development workshops and consultation and case management and integration with community-based programs as well to complement all of that we're also planning some end of the summer programs to support the return of students who were fully remote during the 2021
013school year because we still have a number of students who are still learning from home as well as students who may show signs of school anxiety after the summer comes to its conclusion in terms of academics as as dr mast said each shift we've made this year has led to an acceleration of learning and we're beginning to see the results of this in our first set of map results map is an assessment that we're using to sort of capture what our students are most ready to learn and as we grow into using this new tool we're going to continue to use it throughout next year to monitor growth and the acceleration of learning and adjust instruction as we see we need to um in terms of that monitoring and what we're doing each building's intervention
014and referral services team is going to meet routinely to identify areas of need and or support um and students who have individuals individualized education plans or ieps those meetings will continue to be held to address the individual needs of those students in terms of food services another topic that's that's talked about a lot the district will be operating full day schedules during the 21 22 school year which will include lunch plans are underway for enhancements to our food service offerings which you will hear more about at the end of the summer and in the event of a school closure is necessary which we're hoping it's not necessary the district will have access to meals similar to the way we've been providing them throughout the pandemic most of our families have received a message from me
015recently about remote access and technology we're going to continue to provide devices for our students so that they can use them both in school and out of school in the unlikely event that the school is closed we'll continue to provide the processes those services as well in terms of the coordination of all of this our building-based administrators will coordinate the efforts of our teachers our school counselors our child study team members to identify trending student needs and develop interventions our student our school counselors in grades 5 through 12 will review student progress attendance and discipline routinely and our student assistance specialist one of who you're going to meet tonight will deliver curricular lessons to all elementary classrooms and i think that does it for ensuring continuity of our services dr mast yes thank you so
016the the act further requires that the district seek public comment on a safer term plan and take those comments into account in in finalization of the safe return plan the district then must periodically but no less frequent frequently than every six months through september 30th 2023 review and appropriate appropriate revise its safe return plan so the draft that we we discussed tonight will be available and posted on the district website tomorrow and we welcome comments from the public on this plan which i will ask the board to approve next week i'd like to thank everyone who has helped us to end strong for all and for all of your encouraging feedback throughout this year as we put together this plan certainly it's reflective of what we did of what we've learned incrementally to bring us
017to where we are now right now as you know we're fully opened as we will be for for next year and that really is our living plan the one place where we have a minor tweak is at the high school where the high school will have that full block lunch during the day so we we certainly um look forward to a review and input to our plan thank you thank you dr mast thank you dr mcgarry mrs cleary mrs remembers and mr patuco for that information since uh dr meth and i met getting ready for this meeting we had some additions to the agenda that was since friday june 11th we have eight letters to the board we uh 7b us is a receipt of fire and security drill 8 bus school bus purchase 9
018bus cepelian sun general construction proposal 2 bus bid award for lease purchase information was added 3b us bid award for athletic reconditioning information added 22 bus atra janitorial supply company 23 bus rutgers biomedical health sciences university behavioral health care 24 bus athletic officials fees seven obb legal costs additional and then we will be returning to executive session for the superintendent's evaluation after this public meeting the new jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend meetings or public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the scotch plains family board of education has closed notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof
019at the board of education offices located at 512 cedar street scotch plains new jersey such notice was also provided in written notice and forwarded to the times the star ledger the township clerk of scotch plains and the bura clerk of family and the annual notice of regularly scheduled meetings as adopted march 26 2020. at this time we will have an instructional update ssds and hip reports from september 2020 through december 2020 by la kendra mcfadden dr mcgarry is going to do a small introduction so it's a pleasure to introduce for the first time ms lakendra mcfadden who joined our team in january of this year as a student assistant specialist over at burner elementary school and she also serves the district in the capacity of being our hiv coordinator for the district the kendrick comes
020with a lot of experience in that in that back in that world of hiv she was the had a similar position in the verona schools before joining us in january she holds a master's degree and a bachelor's degree from montclair state um one of those degrees in child advocacy and policy and the other as a school counselor and counseling so i've been thrilled to watch um le kendra's work over the last several months and look forward to a new start to the new school year um in september over at brunner and district wide so mckendra welcome and the kendra mcfadden everybody [Applause] can everyone hear me show you yourself yeah good evening everyone um that was a wonderful introduction thank you very much dr mcgarry i appreciate it um so as you know my name
021is lekhendra mcfadden i am the district anti-bullying coordinator and i will be going over the hiv bullying report the following data is for the reporting period of september to december 2020 total number of investigations is one number of confirmed hiv is zero status of all investigations is complete bullying based on protected categories is zero our invest our one investigation was done by lauren markovitz and our other investigators are myself kaelin france april chastain christina russi laurie ledovsky amanda wolf jason cross and christina christopher the remediation that was imposed is the referral to the counselor for conflict resolution counseling and focus on the impact of social media trainings included hiv policy and protected classes training hiv interventions training hiv prevention trainings school culture and climate training social emotional learning lessons and activities conversations on equity mental
022health first aid resiliency for students and staff social emotional character development hiv student training examining the evidence supporting students with disabilities trauma-informed yoga recognizing and responding to student distress during a pandemic accept tolerate and find meaning practice distress tolerance skills mental health for returning to school protocol what does it mean to be an anti-racist educator equity in action stress anxiety and adverse childhood experiences effects on the classroom green dot program implementation and substitute training the programming included green dot bystander intervention program effective school solutions wraparound services anti-bullying psa announcements school-wide assemblies on bullying and related topics ace program to reinforce positive behaviors star program pals cyber safety program for students classroom based character education lessons school spirit and cultural activities community service based clubs ruler program social emotional learning lessons and activities start with hello
023sandy hook promise new jersey state bar association anti-bullying lessons week of respect activities responsive classrooms program bucket filling program new student luncheon lunch bunch social groups student spotlight new student and parent orientations counselor-led classroom lessons hero program agents for change mental health lessons in high school health classes and suicide prevention and awareness lessons are there any questions the ssds public report the new jersey department of education updated its reported system from the evvrs which is the electronic violence and vandalism reporting system to the student safety data system which is the ssds the ssds combines two state testing reporting system the evvrs and the harassment intimidation and bullying investigations trainings and programs system the data presented is based on five identified categories by the state department of education and is entered biannually into their reporting system
024this data is reported publicly to the board two times a year the following data is for the reporting period of september to december 2020. violence there was one assault vandalism was zero weapons was zero substance was zero and hiv with zero confirmed cases one alleged case not confirmed any questions yeah what was the list category that you said um hiv zero confirmed cases one alleged not confirmed thank you no problem anyone else okay thank you thank you kendra thank you alexandra just come up now so in accordance with the scotch plains fanwood public school bylaw zero one six four zero one six five the meeting will be open for 15 minutes for public comments maximum three minutes per speaker speakers addressing the superintendent items business functions and other board business will be heard first if
025time remains speakers may address other matters if you'd like to speak please come up to the podium state your full name and the town in which you reside please note board members cannot respond regarding concerns with individual students or staff members and such members such matters should be addressed with the superintendent's office so if you'd like to make a public comment please step up to the podium and state your name in the town of which you reside hi my name is uh camilla trevka i'm in fenway so um last time to the last meeting i was cut off so i i think that um there were some things that were not clarified mr silvestro i don't want you to take it personally but i don't feel the presence of a lawyer is necessary in these
026types of meetings there is no judge here and your presence suggests board of education and parents are in conflict and not in collaboration it makes these meetings become confrontational and not amiable especially since multiple times you didn't let our superintendent or any other board of education member respond to our concerns even when they were willing to do so my understanding is that in the nearby districts lawyers don't attend these meetings we are not paying you to do that it's a waste of your time two to the board of education everybody here it has come to my knowledge that you spend or are willing to spend thirty thousand dollars on an inclusion and diversion diversity training for the teacher sustained by a person who wrote a book named white christian privilege this makes me worry about
027your and mrs jose's agenda about my children's future my kids don't see skin color they see friends and colleagues and i would like to i would like to stay that way i don't want them to see themselves as oppressors just because they are white they should not know the term of oppressor or oppressed i come from a communist country where christians were oppressed i never mentioned this to my kids because i want them to live in a free world that's why we moved here in the future and not live in the past you cannot fight fire with fire you cannot talk about inclusion and diversity pointing pink fingers on others i hope you reconsider hiring this person and focus on other things that are more urgent and more important which i will nev i will
028cover below this money can be used for one ac in all schools it's outrageous that children have to wear masks or even not wear but go in a different class with an ac and have to put it on and are yelled at when they are not wearing it when when they're uh too hot and can hardly breathe so so they take it off and i've seen i've heard so many cases like that curriculum when i moved here i chose this school district because the ratings were high based on test results not excellent but high so i thought your focus was to the academics and excel your every year improving every year the results unfortunately i'm disappointed to see your focus is more on politics the math curriculum is way behind kids moving to other states
029proved they were way behind because school had an old program they followed who is responsible for improving the curriculum man that that's your time if you could just no i i have to finish because i i don't have much left there's another thing right ma'am there's another public comment period you can come up with the next public comment period if you still have comments to make but there are other people here we'd like to move on to see if anyone else would like to make a comment i know it's not three minutes i've done this at home ma'am i i i did the same thing for everybody that i do that i wait until you say your name and your address and then i begin the timer yeah i i don't control the phone app
030it has been three minutes again there is another public comment period if you'd like to make a comment later in the meeting thank you thank you for coming up to make a public comment the next person please approach the podium and state your name and the tarana which resides please john denning scotch plains thank you thank you to advance their vision the district administrators have invited dr josie to come and train district staff they continued to do this even after they were aware of some of the information i'm about to share they've been defending their choice telling parents there's nothing to worry about but their words are not relevant what is relevant is dr joshi's words which show her character and her motives among those words are the statement georgia republicans are not human beings
031she made an assessment based on information and past judgment based on geography and political affiliation she used words posted on her public twitter page meant to influence her followers words literally meant to strip millions of people of the dignity and respect and protection of human beings words written by an author who understands the power of words written by an academic who knows the historic impact of such words words that dehumanize are never acceptable i have read her book white christian privilege where she assigns guilt and blame on the basis of race and religion coupling her views on critical race theory that were used in an interview with her to explain how white christian americans in the 1920s doomed six million jews in the holocaust given the offenses that she attributes to whites and christians on
032the basis of their race and their religion any criteria she could have used to strip georgian republicans of their humanity would also judge a large number of the district students as not human on the basis of their race and religion she offers guilt by association blame promotes suspicion and division with acceptance only for those who conform their being to her views of what they should be this is not a message worthy of our school district so while the administrators have been proceeding down this path the choice is not theirs they are answerable to this board which in turn is accountable to the parents the taxpayers and the voters each of you has a right and an obligation to use your voice and the vote granted to you by the people of scotch plains and fanwood
033to reject this message and this messenger i urge you to find a worthy message and worthy messenger will elevate not denigrate the great unifying factor of our shared common humanity for the sake of our children i pray you find the courage to do this thank you thank you for your comments mr jenny gonzalez scott clinton and we're here with representatives from real parents and we as real parents of sds have done the work to understand the need for this educator training in order to achieve true representation equality anti-racism and literary diversity in our classrooms and beyond we 100 stand behind the doe and continuing on this past better place if anyone here in this room would like to know more of why this is a benefit to our community uh we're happy to share a
034list of resources for individuals to read through on their own time uh we believe that doing so will show that this diversity and bias training will make it a safer more inclusive environment for all the students to learn in enriching our overall educational experience throughout their time in the scott plains family district that i'm also being trained by dr garcia as a teacher in november public schools and do feel that she has offered incredible incredible help for the teachers to really understand and learn how to be better and how to respect all different races in every religion every being every culture so that we need to understand who we are and the privileges that we all have in different ways in order to understand that and i do think that she has a lot of
035value and i'm sorry that maybe maybe reading a little more about her would help so thank you so much for your time and for doing that for us we appreciate it thank you both for your comments tonight yes all right good evening timothy mayo scotch plains i'm seeking an update on the communications consultant i was hired back in uh october i don't i believe uh something was due in march i haven't seen it yet maybe i missed it um just a note on the communications in general way too long do you guys know what tdlr means too long didn't read the technology update that mr dr mcgarry sorry i sent out was seven or eight paragraphs and i've spoken to several several parents they didn't even know that that was about technology about technology i'd
036like to return the devices i don't think our kids should have technology through the summer i don't want google classroom next year if we're going to be no remote we're going to be in person there's no reason to have google classroom my first grader sits there with only one person remote and every other person in that classroom stares at screen all day while they're in school it's it's not comfortable for them it's not necessary i think that one remote student could be dealt with differently i know one week of school enough right so uh in the mass i mean everyone here knows you don't have to wear a master vaccinated right so you know in school i think we can lift the mass for everybody i think we should follow what clark is doing they
037made it optional for everybody um you know we're following the exact letter of the recommendation on ac or not ac but you take a body of 20 students that's in a non-ac room and then you move them to an ac room an hour later now they have mass they're confused my recommendation is just to remove the mass mandate from school and make it completely optional for the last week of course every board meeting that stated how many emails the board receives i'd like to know how that is calculated because from january 21st until march 25th there were 44 emails reported from board members or from the public to the board 44 i've received 190 for my first grader in that same amount of period of time from the school so it just doesn't seem like
038it seems like the metrics are off i think there's a lot more emails coming in that are that go unreported um i know dr mast that you usually do a lot of phone calls the day of a board meeting to talk to parents um we'd rather you know an email back to us in a more timely fashion you know talking about the questions we had rather than kind of doing a catch-up phone call you know the day of the board meeting again communications is just too long lunch really needs to improve i think we all know that uh the option of either a bagel or a yogurt uh is is subpar um i think the health screening form you gotta get rid of it i think there's more than 75 of the parents i've talked
039to have never even read that they just click no no no no no no no every day um you know myself guilty probably for the first few weeks of not ever reading that and seeing new questions and new updates um it's a little it's a little uh obscene i mean are you going to sue us if something happens we're not going to send our kids to school if they're sick we know we're still in a pandemic we have a little bit more trust here we don't need to be so litigious question on vaccine requirements going into next school year is there going to be a religious exemption for students or staff or faculty not to get vaccinated obviously i'm speaking to you without a mask i've been vaccinated so you can feel safe there excuse
040me sir that is your over here sorry uh that is your time again there is another public comment period if you'd like to make more comments thank you thank you for your comments mr meal is there someone else that would like to make the public comment at this time are we within our time yeah we still have another five minutes of time you can have another three minutes [Music] thank you so i was continuing with how the money could have been used uh which is a security software i see you keep wanna you wanna keep the devices for the next year which like that's like uh mr mel uh noted like mentioned we want it out like we don't want them i don't want them moving i this device destroyed my kid like he didn't
041he is way behind academics he didn't learn anything while he was virtual he learned how to use the computer he learned how to play how to go on youtube there was no security and this is what i wanted to ask it's like if you're gonna keep them and i hope you keep them in school for exceptional situations and not in our house um uh there should be a security software installed where they basically they don't have access to all this um internet predators youtube games and i think it can be done if there is a will and if you don't have the right person to help with it then you should hire one this would instead of mrs joshi what i do think you have the right person here you hire the right person here
042to deal with anti-ball in bullying we don't have we don't need mrs joshi to tell us how christians or white or you know are wrong um in the end i really want to emphasize that while i understand that it's hard to please everyone you are key to our kids future so and therefore you are held responsible if our kids fail epidemic academy medically as i am held responsible for my kids if they fail as a character so thank you thank you for your additional comments is there anybody else that wants to make a public comment at this time there will be another opportunity later in the meeting you know and then i'm going to close this public comment position and move on committee reports does anybody have a committee report they want to present tonight
043mrs faryani i have to read it on my phone used to doing this virtually with my my computer up okay so the curriculum committee the curriculum committee met um on june 8th it was a shorter meeting we actually usually don't meet in june but we we did meet and we talked as dr mcgarry actually already discussed we talked about map implementation which at this point is it completed at this point okay so it was um underway over the course of the last several weeks teachers basic skills teachers basic skills teachers and media specialists were trained as proctors and students um implementation was staggered sorry my phone is giving me trouble implementation was staggered and students took it during the school day if they were virtual they took it at home and one of the benefits
044as we already discussed of the map assessment is that reporting is available to the district immediately the district can see where students are academically where they should be at this point and the results will be reviewed over the summer so we can make decisions about how to move forward with student learning we also discussed summer curriculum work planning last meeting the board approved the summer curriculum work but this week we are going to approve the personnel that is needed to work on the summer curriculum and our third agenda item was talking about the student summer assignments which we do every year at this time and the student summer assignments at every grade level look similar to past years and communication is is going to go out about summer work and i know already has about
045devices and technology moving forward and we will meet again in august to prepare for the coming school year thank you thank you mr ceriani any questions for mrs ceriani thank you other committee reports community relations and finance committee reports so the community relations met yesterday and we each gave each other our own feedback on the communication action plan that was drafted for us um so a few conclusions that we came to was that dr mattis and the administrative council are going to review the objectives and prioritize internal objectives as a group together during the summer we are going to review any current policies regarding social media accounts so we can make sure everything is handled before we start our social media accounts it's all like we have the right policies in place we're going to
046audit review any existing social media accounts that are in place we are also going to restart the event calendar that we did last year we're going to redo that again and um we are going to take all these we're going to use this draft plan and the objectives and goals in this plan and then we're going to come up with our own customized goals and adjust objectives and the and have it ready for the strategic plan any questions okay i also have finance i get to go first this time so um we had a visitor we had mark vitovet vidovich from promptonian he came in and discussed the struggles they've had over the past year and had and plans for next year so one of one of the notable plans was they want to get
047the students involved in the menu planning and and take their input quite seriously and add menu items to the to the day they want special event days so so that way the kids are not eating the same thing every day there's a little variety and they're exploring an app to for pre-ordering and pick up lunch in a desired location this has to do with the high school with the block schedule because they have to feed every kid in the high school at the same time so this was a way to expedite it so if they're the kids are eating lunch upstairs in room a they can have pick up in upstairs in room a so so that that is something they're exploring which will make everything run much smoother mrs cleary went over the ventilation
048report and all findings were within good range and it supports the improvements that we've made we discussed doing a facility condition assessment so we're looking to get the phyllis facilities assessed from duke's solution and this would involve specialists visiting sites taking pictures and providing a narrative on the current tradition of different aspects of our facilities and this information will then import into our maintenance direct software which we already own um and then in turn it will then it ties into our capital forecasting software this way it'll help easily create maintain preventative maintenance schedule um and it will create more efficiency and the pricing of the service is reliant on the square footage being assessed and it's a one-time fee also with this we're gonna they're gonna review the facility software that we currently using and
049making sure we're using it properly and creating efficiencies with that um there we had a quote for a raptor system for an extra cost this is the security equipment that we have at the schools and we're going to add additional equipment to the vestibules to have more use and efficiency use of those best views of the schools the field lighting assessment will be done in august and the report would be issued before the end of august we have quotes for sidewalk repairs and the amount of 137 thousand seven hundred and forty dollars and before this work is uh awarded and that what exactly is going to be done um mrs cleary and mrs saradack you're to walk all the sidewalks with all the schools to make sure that that but what is what is on
050those quotes is something that we really need to be done we also have bid awards um to be handled tonight this is this is yearly bet awards that we we make sure we have on the agenda for now is that custodial and electrical supplies bid and that's been combined this year the lease purchased for technology equipment and the athletic reconditioning contract and um mr sylvester was would be assisting with verifying the procedure for purchases for competitive contracting for the 2021-2022 essr2 services contracts and we discussed the purchase of a handicap accessible bus using excess extraordinary aid and that is it thank you mrs brodie any questions for mrs brody regarding her reports mrs ceriani more of a comment than a question but i just want to say i'm glad that you were able to have
051pomptonian come in because i know over the last month we um based on public feedback and also what we were seeing we were concerned about the performance and i know they had staffing difficulties and other um operational difficulties during the time of this pandemic um you know which a lot of companies have so and i know our staff was diligently working to help supplement what we needed um during lunch time but um i love that idea about the high school and pre or i was just wondering if maybe next time you meet with them your committee meets with them we could maybe that could be a pilot for the rest of the district i hear that you know sometimes there are lines at the elementary school then at the middle school so maybe that's something
052we can consider piloting and then rolling out further down the line to other schools yeah good idea but i'm glad you were able to meet with them okay that's it thank you brodie and mr mary so finance met um right before uh facilities met sorry right for finance i'm not going to go through all the items because everything is is the same as miss birdie went through the only thing i will add is that for the presentation from esm which was the certified hygienist that came back in to do additional air quality testing um based on the the prior tests we had and the different changes that we've made that full report will be posted on the district website before the before monday i believe so that'll be available to the public um for with
053the results of that and and the recommendations so other than that the report is um identical we had um hamtonian come in and speak twice at two different times that's all thank you mr murray any questions for mr murray from the board none thank you mr murray any other committee reports this evening being none we'll close our portion of the meeting and move on to letters from the board there were eight emails to the board and the appropriate administrator responded and that brings us to dr matt so thank you dr kolakowski i just wanted to circle back and and make some comments based on the comments that you make at the mic um the the letters to the board is a good example so you're right today i did call one person who wrote a
054letter to the board but the other letters i usually try to to get in touch with them first um my preference is to to make a connection with the person and to have a conversation it's much more dynamic if i'm unable to do that then i i often write an email as well but thank you for that recommendation um regarding air conditioning you know i agree like it's really hard to to learn to teach in in a hot school and we we had some of those very hot days we have been working over over the past number of years under debbie saradaki's guidance to to really take funds and move our schools to be air-conditioned schools some of them we've arrived they're completely air-conditioned so those schools are park middle school and the high school
055and school one yes and other schools now all have air-conditioned spaces but it is i it is a goal to to air-condition all of our schools and the 30 thousand dollars we paid for dr joshi that wouldn't really get us a lot of air conditioning though i understand your point the work that dr joshi has done with our teachers the intent of that work is really for all students and for all families to to have the same access and to feel the same level of comfort in our schools so if you feel that way that you have that access and comfort that's very good news to me but i've heard from other families that they don't so that anti-bias training is important the political statement that she made regarding republicans when i saw that statement
056i was concerned i called her immediately i spoke to the board we do not stand behind that statement however it was a statement that she made in the political heat again not defending her but it was the only tweet that i could find that she stepped out of raw and i as a christian have forgiveness because i've worked with her i see the quality of her scholarship i see the quality of her engagement i've talked to experts in the field to see the positive impact that they've had in the school i've done work with her with our entire administrators this professional group stands behind her so what we are going to do though because i i'm also concerned about your doubts and concerns is we are going to invite her in in the fall and
057she's going to have an open public parent forum and that way you'll you'll be able to to get a sense that way you can't get a sense of a person based on based on what you're just reading in in a text or a misinformed tweet again please please there's a there's a time for public comment now it's not that time thank you thank you mr sebastian yes so so um and additionally let's see what else i have so so there are protocols that we have in place regarding you know our cove pandemic operations some of those are the daily health screening and i understand that people you know take that in in ways it becomes kind of perfunctory automatic at best and if you don't do it then you know kids have um they're stalled
058before they could actually get to class all of that we're considering as these ever-changing conditions continue to change we look forward to all of this sun setting and for schools to be back as much as normal we we are opting to wear masks because the governor has told our teachers during the school day they do have to teach with their masks on unless they're in extreme heat so we're in compliance with the governor and we're modeling the conditions that that our teachers have to and there are some people who in fact are more comfortable wearing the mask for whatever personal reason they have but certainly if people are uncomfortable if they're comfortable not wearing a mask we're not mandating any of that and the devices the devices are simply this that there your your child
059will have that device now not as a google classroom not as a remote learning classroom but as a learning tool and you can we're asking you to help us to keep it in the summer you can put it in a drawer and your child doesn't have to use it but there are also opportunities for kids to learn should you choose to do that but we want each child to have that device for for four years so we're assigning it to families in that way and that's it for now okay thank you for speaking to those points dr matt but we are going to come right back to you for the superintendent i report about that so 1s for the superintendents report is out of district placements i moved that the board of education approves the
060listed private and public out of district placements for the 2021-2022 school year do i have a motion second thank you any question or discussion all those in favor post any abstaining promotion carries dr mayor for 2s i move that the board of education approves the following additional esy 21 private out of district tuition and also the additional esy 21 private out of district aid costs where tuition was previously approved second any question or discussion uh amy did the motion i did second and debra voted no questions or all those in favor all right any opposed any obscenity [Music] for yes move that the board of education affirms the superintendent's decision in the three hib cases reported in executive session on may 27 that were all determined not to be hip so thank you mrs winkler
061thank you mr murray any question or discussion all those in favor any opposed any abstaining motion carries and the following are for the next meeting for 4s it's the hiv and ssds to prove that for 5s it's the approval of the annual review of code of conduct success is the danielson rubric and marshall rubric which are our evaluation tools for administrators and teachers for 7s the curriculum approval which will be for the summer assignments for 8s it's the bi-annual gifts to school report and 9s will be providing the superintendent to take action while the board is on recess thank you dr mask how about the personnel agenda here we go personality the personnel agenda is i move that the board board of education approves the superintendent's recommendations for personnel on the what we discussed in
062executive this evening second thank you mrs winkler thank you mr murray any question or discussion mr sarah doctors will you please call the role mrs winkler yes mr murray yes mrs bauer yes mrs borov yes mrs brody yes mrs mitchell abstain i'm sorry mrs ciriani yes and dr kulakowski yes motion carries thank you mr saradacki dr matt move that the board of education approves the following board officials appointed or reappointed for the 2021-2022 school year the board's secretary until july 31st debbie saradaki for the board secretary after july 31st will be our new business administrator christopher jones our affirmative action officer for employment practices will be peter patucco and our affirmative action officer for educational programs is dr mcgarry there's a lot for our management compliance officer our indoor air quality officer our integrated pest
063management coordinator and our right to know contact person will be anthony miranda our ada 504 officer is christopher jones trying to give your job away lisa ribimbus for public agency compliance officer and custodian of public records will be christopher jones our school safety specialist will be gene cleary our health and safety officers will be lisa ribimbus and anthony miranda our health and safety officer our title our title 6 compliance officer is ryan miller our school physician will be dr susan k our our football physician will be saint barnabas medical center and our anti-bullying specialists will be april chastang jason cross kailyn france amanda and christine ayarusi christine krazowski laurie ledowski lauren markovitz lechondra mcfadden and amanda wolf thank you dr matt do we have a motion so move thank you mrs brody and mrs winkler
064thank you for the second any question or discussion okay seeing none mrs saradek will you please call the roll mrs brody yes mrs winkler yes miss bauer yes miss borah yes mrs mitchell yes is ceriani yes mr murray yes dr kulkowski yes motion carries thank you mr sarah jackie and thank you dr man sarah when you're ready business functions please yes i'd like to start with the 2021 business functions uh one the u.s i'd like the board to approve the staff training report dated june 17 2021 and i don't think that's the only one in this section okay um this is winkler just made the motion and mr murray is seconding it any question or discussion being none all those in favor any opposed any abstaining on the at the next meeting i'll be asking
065for approval on the used computer public sale to be us three bus transfer of current year surplus to reserve four beers business reports five u.s acknowledgement of disbursement listings six bus the bill list for the period may 22nd through june 18 2021. seven bus fire and security drills eight bus a school bus purchase uh this replaces the last of the buses that we have that are aged out and this one will be have the ability it will be for two wheelchairs wheelchair adaptable and be full size so that if we have any wheelchair students they'll be able to tr be transported with their class on a field trip um and nine bus this is for uh uh masonry this is for concrete repairs in the district where we have need of for safety reasons repairing
066the concrete for 2021-22 there's nothing to be approved this evening it'll all be next week one the u.s will be the bid award for custodial supplies two bus will be the bid award for the lease purchase for technology three bus and oh we did receive the bid today it's at one the interest rate is 1.15 percent um three bus will be the bid award for athletic reconditioning uh we did receive two bids rydell uh bid fifteen thousand one hundred and fifty five dollars and sixty six cents and stadium systems who uh we have used previously uh bid seven thousand six hundred and sixty eight dollars and ten cents so i'll be asking for the board's approval that next week for bus we will have numbers for our district general insurance there are a lot of
067changes to insurance for next year because a lot of insurance companies are no longer going to be covering viruses and if and also cyber insurance many of the deductibles are going up significantly because of all the cyber attacks that have taken place so we'll have numbers on that for next week 5bus will be renewing our facility applications for 2021-22 that's for the modulars and it's for classrooms for a preschool in kindergarten if we have any that don't have self-contained bathrooms 6b us i'll be asking the board to approve pay schools for the software licensing for next year for the cafeterias said in the u.s i'll be asking the board to approve the frontline renewals for our various service software packages for absence and substitute management applicable tracking iep direct employee evaluation management and professional learning
068management management they were going to offer us an increase of almost five percent but if we agreed to a three-year contract they agreed to three percent so we'll be approving that three percent increase systems 3000 renewals for accounting personnel and payroll systems the total will be for 20 21 22 47 nine bus we'll be asking for the renewal of the contract with energy for america for 2021 22 at a two percent increase 10 pus will be asking for the tuition agreement with union county vote tech schools with a zero percent increase that includes the vocational technical school includes the magnet schools and also tuition for our special ed students that go to the vo tech schools 11 bus i'll be asking for the approval of the union county ed services agreements for special education for
069special education professional services and all of our non-public uh costs that flow through us such as tech technology textbooks transportation nursing security monies and they handle our non-public idea money and chapter 192 193 services 12 the u.s i'll be asking for approval of the district's intent to collaborate with the regional mckinney-vento education of homeless children and youth project for 2021-22 13 u.s i'll be asking for the approval of don dietrich for to be our e-rate consultant for 2021-22 uh for several years he's had no increase in his cost at forty eight hundred dollars a year fourteen bus i'll be asking for approval of reappointment of arthur j gallagher risk management services our contact there is dan reagan the area executive vice president as our insurance risk manager 15 bus i'll be asking for the approval
070of centric's benefit consulting edward gunther as our employee benefit agent for 2021-2022 16 bus i'll be asking for approval of our architects of record for 2021-22 of ei associates and part of architects 17 the u.s i'll be asking for appointment of bond council and that again is a four thousand dollar fee for next year a zero percent increase uh for a decade uh 18 bus i'll be asking for approval of related service vendors which i believe will have for the next agenda 19 bus i'll be asking for approval of atlantic health systems urgent and specialty care for things like new employee physical cdl physicals etc for an estimated cost of twelve thousand dollars over the year they bill for actual services provided twenty the u.s i'll be asking for the approval of dr susan k
071of atlantic health system uh to continue services as our school physician for july 2021 through june 2022 and we'll have those numbers next week i'll be asking for approval of use of saint barnabas medical center again for providing football physicians for football game days i'm 21 the u.s 22 bus i'll be asking for the approval to purchase from at your janitorial supply under the ed data bid for custodial supplies in the amount of 131 474.95 for the 2021-2022 school year 23 bus i'll be asking for the board to approve rutgers biomedical and health sciences sciences for clinician to provide therapy services to students and families who are referred by district personnel for the period july 1st through june 30th at a cost of 134 958 funding for this will be under the sr2 grant and
072as a shared service bidding is not required 24 bus i'll be asking for the approval of the sport official sports official fees athletic fees we will change that wording for 2021 you should uh have a list in your editions with the athletic fees proposed and that's it for the 2122 under procedural there is nothing to be voted on i'll be asking for the approval of payment of invoices during the summer parliamentary procedures uniform minimum chart of accounts collection and maintenance of student records authorization for budget transfers establishment of our annual petty cash fund 403 b and 457 tax shelters the mandatory direct deposit program uh i'll be providing the board with a report of awarded contracts approval of the current board policy manual and the existing master agreements we'll be busy next week tomorrow all
073right thank you mr sarah jackie look forward to all of that information next new board business does anybody have any newborn business none at this time other board business liaison reports and liaison reports um i just want to mention that the truth racial healing and transformation uh committee did meet but we really it was a very informal agenda and we were really just talking about how to organize ourselves moving forward so i don't really have a formal report but what we okay well thank you any others okay thank you then moving on to two obv requests to attend workshops three obb adoption of resolution for negotiating services we'll be talking about that at our next meeting also at our next meeting we'll have the appointment of the treasurer of school money at our next meeting
074five obb legal counsel for special education six obb the board attorney that will be at our next meeting zero percent increase for both obv legal costs additional at our next meeting from garanthini and holland seven ovb legal clause you want me to start that okay so we are starting 7 obv legal costs additional um i'll move that the board of education approves the additional estimated legal fees of 35 for legal counsel for special education to run c holland back llc on june 25th 2020 the board approved a 55 thousand dollar retainer for nathaniel g simon esquire of scarinsini and llc so the total estimated legal cost for the year is approximately 90 000. do i have a second thank you mrs winkler any other question or discussion this is due to legal cases and we
075will probably see some of it back from insurance oh okay great thank you for those additional details mr saradacki all those in favor any opposed any abstaining motion carries at our next meeting we're going to need approval for the minutes of may 10th for the open agenda meeting executive session and public sessions as well as may 27th executive session and the regular public board meeting that brings us to our second period of public comment in accordance with the scotch plains family board of education bylaw zero 154 the meeting will be open for 15 minutes for public comments with a maximum of three minutes per speaker speakers addressing the superintendent items business functions and other board business will be heard first if timing means speakers may address other matters speakers when you want to address the
076board please come up to the podium state your full name and the town in which you reside please please note board members cannot respond regarding concerns of individual students or staff members and such matters should be addressed with the superintendent's office so if you'd like to make a public comment please approach the podium state your name and the town in which you resign john denning scotch plains thank you dr mass thank you for replying to my comments however this is the board of education meeting and my comment in my question was directed to the board our elected officials i asked and still ask which of you has the courage to speak your mind and do what's right for our children when it comes to who comes into this school to spread their ideas thank you
077thank you for your comments mrs is there anybody else that would like to make a public comment my name is thank you thank you for having us here today just a question really and i don't know if there is an answer i think fifth grade terrell middle school had field day scheduled on the calendar maybe mistakenly or inadvertently and i think we have a lot of disappointed fifth graders because it was cancelled at the last minute by an error or some omission many of those kids missed their fourth grade activities last year so we're not really sure why it was cancelled we didn't hear directly from dr holloway only through the pta so maybe there's something fun we can do for them next week i know it's not that hard to plan some outdoor activities
078um dr mast you mentioned having a community open public comment parent forum to meet dr joshi yoshi i'm not sure if i'm saying her name right but i think the public would really like to have that with all of you i think we've been asking it for a really long time it's good that we're all here i know there's a lot of school activities going on tonight which is why others couldn't be here but i think it would really do a lot to help improve the communication and the collaboration that we have been wanting for the entire year we're moving forward in the right direction and i think we need to keep doing that together we need to collaborate we need to be on the same side we need to get all the kids back
079in school full-time in september the plan that you um presented sounds very good um i just wasn't sure is full in-person instruction going to be the only option i know you previously talked about maybe having some sort of virtual instruction somewhere along the way and i know we don't have details about that just wanted to clarify that with the plan that you talked about earlier today i think that's it thank you thank you for your comments miss wolf can i can i just ask are you asking for a forum with with the board or with the board and dr joshi yeah i wasn't sure what you were i think all of you as a board and a superintendent need to be more involved with the community and be more open i mean it's great that
080we can be back here in person now but we haven't yet just happened because we have done that just to clarify for the public every year we have a superintendent's coffee and bought a coffee with the board that we all attended every year prior to covid and the only i don't i mean it was very well advertised and we would get a very low turnout but i'm glad i know the whole board is very glad to do that and talk to the community and we would have a q a um so you know now that we can be back in person we can plan those for next year but i know i i attended that um i think we did it twice a year since forever back when we were a lot get to know
081each other better and be in the same room talking like this thank you not really on the screens i wasn't sure whether you were saying that you should get together with dr joshie thank you from all of you all the time thank you and just just to clarify one thing that ms wolf mentioned is it it is it to be very clear that the plan is for school to be fully opened in september and any type of um wavering from that would be an act of god that but it seems that we have much evidence that we're going in the right direction and we we anticipate it to be as normal as possible in september dr kulikowski dr mastiff i may as well uh just a couple of clarifications and points um if i understood
082ms wolf's question about the virtual option as we're being told right now um there's not going to be legal authorization for us to have a virtual option in in the fall um the only reason we're able to do that and we're required to do that uh this school year and a little bit at the end of last school year was because the state passed laws and executive orders that allowed us to uh it is currently the the authorization will expire prior to next school year so unless the state legislature or the governor takes action to give us the authority to give virtual option we can't have a virtual option um with respect to the meetings with the board uh you know the the coffee with the board called for the superintendent something they've done before
083but i do want to just let the public know that the board is legally limited in the type of exchanges they can have as a board and as individual board members with the public the code of ethics for board members which is a state law actually requires that for example if you bring an issue to a board member or to the board they're legally required to direct that issue to the superintendent of schools not to address it themselves so um just to the extent that i know there's a question earlier from the public about uh correspondence with the board the reason why a lot of times you'll get you might send correspondence to board members or to the board as a whole you'll get a response from dr mast that's because the board is required
084to send that to the superintendent for response so just to clarify that for the public thank you thank you mr sylvester was there anything else happening no any other public comments at this time i i it's a response um this is in response to mr sylvestre to your comment and you can look at me well that would be nice uh because the question i mean you keep saying that the board of education are not allowed to answer any questions like even the coffee that like i don't even know which what every one of you is responsible in this board of education what's your responsibility i keep saying i keep hearing you know all this we need we do this this but i need to know what's your role with within this this board of education
085so if i go and ask her do i go through you as like am i allowed am i legal i'm legally allowed to go to her and ask her you know what what is your what how did you contribute to my child's future am i allowed to do that because this is what parents are asking they're not asking for their personal information i'm not asking to know what's your social number i'm asking something that i'm actually concerned about and i need to know who is responsible and who i should reach out to in in certain decisions that are made here i don't think dr moss takes all do you make all the decisions i mean all they presented and you were the one making the decisions i don't know it's i don't think i'm asking
086for or we are asking for the impossible and we're not here to fight we're not here to you know we just want to know how we can work together how i can help you ma i me maybe i'm not you know specialized in whatever in school or whatever but i do have kids and i do love them and i want the best for them and i want to know that you'd feel the same and regarding the the mrs joshi or yashi or whatever her name is she wrote a book she wrote a book about white christians privilege do you know what was my privilege during communism and this is coming this is sign of that is coming back to me this is not right please dr must read the book because this is something that
087she wrote i didn't write she wrote it and this is not and i i don't feel any privilege and it's not right for kids to know there is a christian privilege because there is not and there and there is not right to know that you know for the kids to be put in this situation i am back in that situation it's not right so that mr celestro don't take it personal i just feel like every time we're opening up and try to collaborate you come and say legally they're not allowed what are you legally allowed to do we want a sincere conversation we want to know how we can help each other how we can make the school better how can help our kids together and when we come here and bring the problems is
088not because we have something like you know uh oh here is only the problems we see the work that is done behind it and we appreciate it but there are still things that probably you're not there to notice or maybe you can you know let's see how we can fix all these problems because they do affect our kids so don't don't say they're not legally allowed to respond because they are legally responsible for my kids when you're finished with your comment i can respond to your questions i i'm just it is but i'm saying that when you're finished with your comment i can respond to your questions so i just if you could finish your thoughts i i believe myself and dr mass both have a response just one okay i just finished my thought
089the point i want to make a point like if it would be nice to have like something to hand this out and let us know what's your responsibility what's your contribution and to know you know if there is who hired mrs joshi who heard about it how how they heard about it because we we are concerned about it this is true thank you so uh here for your comments mr dr kolonkowski dr mastiff if if i may um so with respect to the board um your man your specific question about you know what the board's role is is absolutely something the board can and tends to talk about at their their meetings with the public uh it is something i'm perfectly happy to answer now uh as a matter of law the board is required
090to limit themselves to policy and planning so what that means is as you know in a direct sense is the actual policies of the school district are adopted by the board of education individual members do not have a specific role they serve as an entity of the nine no individual member is allowed to take any kind of action on behalf of the group they do serve on various committees to kind of move the business of the board forward as you see earlier in the meeting they have the committee reports so they'll break up into subgroups so that they can have discussions with the administration um and to move things forward so that we can come up with these agendas that come up every month dr mast as superintendent is essentially the ceo of the school
091district um she is in charge of actually the the operations of the district and is legally titled and authorized to take most of the actions relative to actually running the schools um the board's uh role is really more of an oversight one they kind of give guidance to the superintendent generally speaking the board's most important role is hiring a superintendent but they do have a lot of input on things like curriculum although a lot of that is given by state law um they have again if you look through the board's policy manual for example that has the the the touch of the board members um in terms of what the board can share at the public again the questions you asked are are 100 things the board members can answer um if you notice that
092when we do when dr kolakowski does the opening up of the meeting for public comment there's that please note section of you know we can't uh talk about individual matters regarding students and personnel um we added that line because a lot of people were coming to meetings to want those kinds of answers from the board and again we didn't add that to to try to discourage people but to direct them to the right way to get that answer so um your questions about you know who makes hiring decisions for example so uh when it comes to staff members and i know there's been a lot of talk about dr joshi she's not a staff member but when it comes to staff members um those decisions are are made primarily uh by dr mast but dr
093mass needs the board's permission to do those things so for example um dr master relies on her administrative team to give her recommendations she makes recommendations to the board and then ultimately the board uses its authority to finalize those recommendations so um the board is not a rubber stamp but they do rely heavily on the people that are legally uh entrusted with the actual operations so uh just to summarize the board's role it is uh again as the law puts it policy and planning um i mean we could they literally give classes on uh board member roles and and things like that so i could go on for for days my role at these meetings is not to tell the board that they can't do something it is to give them advice um i know
094there was a member of the public they commented earlier about you know uh not wishing to be litigious and my presence here isn't to be anything other than to give legal advice to the board when they need it some boards that i represent have me at their meetings some do not uh that is a discussion of the board obviously um but what i am here to do is to make sure that the board is aware of their their legal obligations and to encourage them to follow those obligations in terms of responding to the public again part of the concern is that the board members have not only a legal duty but a legal ethical duty to not take individual action uh so that's why a lot of times when members of the public ask individual
095members for responses to things the board members do have to be careful they're not they're not creating ethical issues for themselves that can get them in trouble as board members um by responding personally uh again that's why a lot of times we'll often recommend that people direct their comments to either by email or by phone or even at board meetings to dr mast as she is legally entrusted with responding to those issues whereas the board oftentimes is not um again it's not a desire to avoid the public uh it's really a desire to make sure that the board in in their volunteer roles right none of the board members up here getting paid for what they do that they don't get themselves in trouble with the law by acting as individuals um i i hope
096i've answered most of your questions about the role of the board um like i said i could go on for a long time but the questions you specifically had about what their role is how they see themselves on the board how they help and work with the district those are all types of things that you certainly can ask and talk with with individual board members especially i think it would be great to have a coffee in the fall though because i think something that we did lose over the pandemic and i think everyone can agree that you lose some of the humanity over when you're talking over zoom so i too would appreciate that opportunity and i do also just want to point out sorry that that that the board did vote on the contract
097with dr joshi i don't remember what month that was because they're all girlfriends february i don't remember when when dr joshi started her work but we did have significant discussion about it and the whole board did vote it wasn't just the administration so you can go back and and look at the minutes regarding that one this is i just wanted to point out one question so this is one question that i want to kind of think of has any of you before voting yes i don't think this is the time for for discussion but i was just going to further point out i was just clarifying our role that we do vote on the uh recommendations of the administration and i was gonna to add on that i you know understanding it is hard to
098follow all of our roles and what committees we're on if you go onto the scottish plains family board of ed page though and you look at the board of ed members it'll tell you what committees that we're all on and i think it tells you who leads the run who the committee head is and that would be a good contact if you have a specific question that you could reach out to that the head of the committee for i could be wrong on that no you're correct on the website there is a board of ed tab and it does say all the committees who the committee chair is the policy manual is there how to become a board member is there the responsibility but i agree with stephanie and that's something that with the communications
099we've talked about doing is reinstating those you know we didn't do it over there we usually do have one in the fall and in the spring and two years at two different schools one in the morning one is usually the afternoon or the evening so we try to accommodate all people's works it's usually been in october it's waited until after school has started he said that the school market yes in february march every time that is correct dr mesa you have a few yeah i i just would like to um make a comment regarding dr joshi's book um certainly that the title is is provocative it stirs emotion and we we aren't using that particular text in the work with dr joshi however we are working with case studies not just ones that we work
100with her or any of her colleagues and we we learn from things that happen we learn from things that happen in our own schools or things that happen across the nation and an example in her book was one that i found interesting and i think is reflective of the type of work that we're doing it was said that the main reason we are working with dr joshi is we want to respect all families all children in our schools and one of the excerpts from the book and i'm recalling it but it and it was in another district but it was a coach and that coach began his his games i believe it was soccer he began his soccer games with doing the lord's prayer now i'm a christian i'm familiar with the lord's prayer that
101wouldn't make me feel uncomfortable but if it was not my religion if it was not my faith and i was required to pray another religion's prayer that would be uncomfortable a student told the coach i'm uncomfortable with that prayer coach and the student was punished he was held out of the game because he wouldn't comply and that coach expressed white christian privilege by not being sensitive to the diversity of the team so the title itself of the text i can understand where if you're a white christian and your faith is what is the most important thing to you in your life the title can sound upsetting but i think that the tenants of the work are very christian or very universal in the sense of the golden rule so this isn't going to be a
102book group meeting tonight but i will say let's put on the calendar to meet dr joshi and to continue the conversation thank you dr mask okay upcoming me uh was there any other public comment excuse me you you had your turn and turned out hi timothy mel scotch plains um really just one question um karen mitchell why'd you abstain one pers can i answer i got that one for you karen yeah one more thing uh congratulations to mrs saradack and her retirement if we don't see you again yeah just for the public miss mitchell was not legally required to abstain but she abstained because the personnel agenda is discussed in closed session prior to the meeting miss mitchell was not in close session she abstained because she wasn't present to hear the discussion no no
103no no no i'm yeah i'm trying to do miss mitchell in favor of just explaining to the the the public's question did i accurately uh reflect what you wanted to say yes the only thing i would add is that i was at the band concert at park middle school seeing it which was outstanding by the way um so i didn't feel comfortable uh commenting good question commenting on that if i wasn't there for the discussion and with mr sylvester said is that she did not have to abstain because we all get copies of the personnel agenda before our meeting and executive session about a week ago so she did have access to it she did look at it but any further discussion that had changed since we received the printed document that's why she did
104not feel comfortable acting upon that if there were any changes since she read it thank you any other comments from the public being then i'll close this public comment portion and just announce the upcoming schedule of meetings next week wednesday june 23rd a regular public board meeting here at the board of ed offices and then we are off in july we will see you thursday august 26 for a regular public board meeting again and then back in september both of our meetings will be on wednesday september 29th and 22nd because of the back to school nights are on thursdays in september so are there any remarks for the good of the order aaron just to follow up thank you dr kolakowski i had to comment on the band performance tonight at the middle school and
105thank um elias ellis nick ellison ellis his enthusiasm was shown in the kids performance the eighth graders were recognized and given leadership roles my son is in seventh grade the joy of being outside was outstanding so that and between that and the senior car parade today we're back baby so it's really good to see thank you thank you mrs mitchell mr sorry annie did i see your hand raised uh yes i had the pleasure of going to the outdoor terrell chorus concert earlier this week and i i have to say that the format of being outside really is it's like seeing a concert on the green leg and um and it was wonderful and um mr gillis shared the uh guilt shared the enthusiasm from mr ellis i think like um you know just to
106have the arts and music back in in person is so powerful and um the students did a great job and also i was at the car parade today and it's one of my favorite um kind of covet well not that i have a lot of favorite covid um but but it's one something that was started last year and we held on to it because it's just so festive and um and it was great to to be able to honor all the graduating seniors thank you mrs cernan mrs brody did i see your hand going no no okay mrs winkler was it you yeah it was me i was just gonna say that it was great to be at the car parade today and um give a really good send off to all of our seniors
107and um they deserve it it was really fun you could see that they got into it decorating the cars and you know waving out the windows and all they were they were adorable it was it was really nice i'm glad that that we are continuing that because great weather this year too yeah yeah thank you mrs winfrey mrs borough thank you great weather um which unfortunately we didn't have the greatest of weather for that amazing spongebob play that we did um it was so hot i had i felt so bad for everyone's out there that they didn't i don't know if we've met since then it feels like it was so long ago um i got to go on the first night it was fabulous um per on a personal note just because you know
108i have my daughters in ninth grade now seeing all these kids that i've known forever um watching them grow up it's just nice to see everyone together it was lovely to be outside thank you to whomever the gentleman was that um was our sound guy or a light guy that saved the day by running home to or wherever you went to pick up you know brooklyn we had that big snow that sleet storm that night and um it was a little bit delayed but anyway um really kudos to everyone for being you know doing what we could at the end of the year to put on all these events that are outstanding and smiles you know are flying around so thank you mr forward anyone else i have a couple things go right ahead dr
109math so last night the moon glowers uh played on on the green and scotch plains and they were as incredible as as ever um mr moscow was back there recording it on the green too and um it's they they have historically had just such a professional sound and it continued even through the pandemic i've read two publications that have come out of the schools so one is the yearbook and the fact that the students have been able to come together in this time and still produce a quality celebratory yearbook was outstanding i got the fan scotian the high school newspaper delivered today i've only read a few articles but you know here our student voice is something that's very important to to to me and the board and the fan scotian is one way that
110we do that um i agree with mississippi annie that the having having the arts back having the music back is something that we miss very much i did get to go to the park session that was the grade five and six earlier in the week and you know that outside venue was just just delightful um i know there's there's more there's just there's just so much happening here it is um i i hear that we we should see if there's some way we could do something special for the fifth grade we did take um you know back when we were unsure if we could have an eighth grade trip trip we made the decision optimistically that that we could and we planned to do it and we kept our reservations and the eighth grade trip
111i heard was awesome that the chaperones even had fun so so the kids had a blast and it it was a great a great memory maker for for our eighth grade so really these are ways that we know that we've built the memories for the kids that were coming back or as as ms mitchell says we we're we're back strong we're definitely ending in a way that that is very positive and um i know that's delightful to all of us here and to all of you so thank you dr matt mr murray any comments okay my comment is i'm happy to be back to see all the nice artwork that's been hanging up i missed that being on the zoo chat this is a year and a half [Music] and it's really a pleasure to
112be in the same room with robin broadbent and ray moscow who are technicians and helping us throughout all the zoom meetings this past year and a half nice to see you in person and be with you and welcome to our cameraman and this having a cameraman instead of looking at the screen so why don't you come in the front and say hello for yourself and what's your name julian julian what thank you julian martin welcome i look forward to seeing you next week all right um so if there's no more remarks for the good of the four and i just want to say the promise i'm sure that the whole senior class is watching us on facebook live i know that's what all the seniors are doing right now so right is yours watching us
113on facebook yeah anyway i just want to say um have a great time glad we could have it this year and um have a great time but be safe and make good decisions [Laughter] thank you mrs soriani so we're going to have to have a motion for executive session because we are going back in to board discuss education matters and subjects about the superintendent evaluation we're going to talk about some subjects that are not appropriate to be discussed in public and whereas the aforesaid subjects to be discussed are within exemptions that are permitted to be discussed and acted upon in private session pursuant to pl 1975 chapter 231 therefore be resolved that the aforesaid subjects will be discussed in private recess in this board and the administrative staff information pertinence thereto will be made available
114in public section as soon thereafter as possible and reasons for the non-disclosure no longer exists mrs brodie has made the motion second second from mrs boroff all those in favor aye okay we're an exec will not take any action you