Secaucus Public Board Meeting January 20th, 2022

001in accordance with the provisions of the open public meetings act the board secretary has forwarded notice of this meeting advertising by having the date time placed thereof posted in the sea caucus town hall on the bulletin board of the education administration building as well as notice being provided to the bergen record jersey journal and district website suit to the flag okay present mr lewis mr mcstowe president miss o'connell here mr patel here regular minutes motion to approve the regular meeting minutes of december 16 2021 mr bartletta yes mr bolanino dr paranola yes uh i think you have to abstain on that i have seen i read them miss gonzales i'm staying miss kish i abstain mr lewis mr mcstow yes miss o'connell yes mr patel yes showcase good evening everyone each year nearly 38 000

002high school students from across the country entered the vfw's voice of democracy audio essay competition recently seacock has councilman bill mckeever who was also the vice commander of vfw post 3776 announced that 9th grade student paul yoon is the winner of the vfw voice of democracy contest and this is the first time in 25 years that a seacaucus high school student is representing our local vfw at the state level the 2021-22 school year's theme was titled america where do we go from here and the judging criteria included originality content and delivery winners of this contest have the opportunity to receive national scholarships ranging from one thousand to sixteen thousand dollars paul the board of education would like to recognize your accomplishments with a certificate if you can come to the front please [Applause] all right

003congratulations [Applause] good evening mrs wargacki and i would like to do a brief presentation on our concept for expanding the dress code so i'm just going to start with a little introduction of how we came about this idea and then she's going to walk you through the powerpoint we also have some student models here so when the dress code came about in 2008 i was still a teacher and in looking at it 14 years later we've realized we have to keep up with the trends the styles have changed i realize my students don't wear coats they wear sweatshirts that's their only warmth and we have so much going on with what they're a part of and what they're proud of and what they represent that it's a shame sometimes when we save that just for

004special days or fridays our students look amazing in the uniforms and even though i'm very tough on them and i know mr vigiani miss rorgakiar too when we've been to other schools and seen it we think our students look very professional representing our colors and the things that they're proud of so what we were proposing is our school store is thriving um they have a pop-up shop and mr sorry is amazing at running it and what we're hoping we can do is enter a few more pieces into the uniform that would reflect um the sports they're involved in different use of our new logo on different shirts we have a really nice sweatpant that's tapered with embroidery and we find that it'll also be a little easier fiscally for parents that if you're buying something

005it's not something just to be worn outside of school it could be worn in school these sweatshirts are not inexpensive when you buy them let's say for a team we try to keep everything at low cost at the school store so about 25 and under but i'm sure some of them can attest that you've paid a lot to buy some of these items and i think as well we've done them as fundraisers so by not letting the students wear them we kind of undermine our own fundraising a lot of the classes have done it to raise a lot of money a lot of the sports do it so they're here to show you a couple of the options part of it would be introducing the hoodie in because if you read the verbiage in the

006policy it talks about it under head coverings meaning really it just shouldn't be up and we do the same thing with caps or snow winter hats students can't come in the building covering their face so we've explained to you know this is part of what's here tonight is the sgo and our middle school patriot ambassadors that the same rules would apply for putting a hoodie over your head we have to be able to see you on camera at all times and identify you okay and with the masks especially even more so needs to be down so they're under the understanding that with this if this gets passed with a great power comes great responsibility um and that we're not looking to um not see the uniform have a theme going and just wear whatever we

007want but be more specific about um i think the hoodies i don't know for some reason you just love them i guess it keeps your necks warm or there's just something about that hood they just adore okay i don't know so mrs roragoki is going to walk you through it more formally to show you some of the options and then guys when you come up here maybe you can just face the board event and then you can show the audience how great you look this is correct it's already well this is what's been approved and also things that i don't think i've ever seen so good sure good evening amanda organ assistant principal c caucus high school so what you see up on the screen are our current approved items which include a sweater vest

008a blazer uh which are out of date so we're hoping to refresh our dress code and just to reiterate on some of the things ms candela said right and guys correct me if i'm wrong but we want to show off our school pride right so we're in extracurriculars we're in clubs we have over 30 clubs we have 19 athletic teams our classes individually have a number of fundraisers and this is something that every student in the school can participate in every student in this school has the opportunity to purchase or to fundraise for or to receive patriot pride gear so the positive impact that this has had on our students they can tell you it's been wonderful to see so we want to give them the opportunity to be able to wear these things on

009a daily basis from my perspective we have something called dress coding right guys right i didn't make this up it's called dress coded when they get dress coded that means they have to come down to the office because they're out of uniform and when that happens they're missing some instructional time and we don't want that they've missed enough instructional time so we want to keep them in class as much as possible these items also come at a fraction of the cost that some of the other school uniforms items do when you go to an approved vendor some of the items are 50 or more it's certainly not the case here by any means so we we want to allow our students to be able to wear all the things that they fundraise for that they're

010excited to have and to show off so are you guys ready to do a little little fashion show all right so we would like the opportunity we're going to put up a slide here just to give you some idea of what our students are currently wearing what we'd like to have them wear so we have kyle leading the pack right so all of our school colors still falls within our red white and blue so we have a number of students that are sporting from our athletic clubs our extracurriculars our classes that they fundraise for wonderful wonderful job guys excellent displaying our new logo [Applause] very sharp jack yes so these are some of the items we are hoping uh to update our code with sarri said which us really nice is she actually itemizes on

011the school store what is allowed and what would still be only for special occasions but there might be something on there that she does sell in a black or a different color where we're not going to have that in the uniform but i think they have plenty of decisions now that gets passed no reason to speak to me no dress coding going on that's it here's some other options um i really like the sweatpants and um we've had many models over leggings myself and ladies so these sweatpants are extremely comfortable and i think they look very professional all right and if anyone has any all the items are purchased through the school store correct but most of these items aside from something that would represent their graduating class can be purchased store or i will

012say like that's from your track coach right your soccer coach so that's also through the athletic program and then you guys sometimes do that as a fundraiser as well right okay but anything that's just generic and we like you know for the middle of high school i i could say this and attest to it i was the same height and eighth grade that i am now so um and more of a generic than middle school there will be kids that can wear the same thing in eighth grade that they can senior year thank you all right thank you guys thank you so much i have a question oh yes so are we looking for this to be approved some like tonight or yeah we are yeah that i think it's just that would be wonderful

013yeah they're very excited for it mr lewis i did receive the updated copies of the um and i did share it with the board and indicate where the updates were for the student dress code of the uh the middle school handbook and the high school handbook so yes we are looking to up to approve this tonight okay i missed you sorry you can get a lot of it and you there are some back uh ordered things but that's like all over the world now it's happening but we can get a lot of it in pretty quickly okay if you have any questions just let us know after that okay all right thank you thank you i like the blazer i wonder how many kids are going to be wearing that blazer before we move forward

014board members i'd like to make a recommendation because the public has addressed this to me a few times when we speak we lower our mask as we speak into the mics because the public is having a hard time hearing us okay we got that that's called organization reports oh sure that showcase okay sure good evening again everyone stephen vigiani principal of c caucus high school so we're also here tonight to to propose what's called the discovery program coordinator we have always had in the past an internship coordinator we have not run our internship in two years because of the covet 19 pandemic our students were not going out into the community the idea is now to under one umbrella include dual enrollment internship senior opportunity college accredited opportunities and the associate's degree program which we

015hope will get off the ground in about a year just to take everyone through what some of this means so discover is an acronym okay so dual enrollment uh students at chicago's high school have an opportunity while they're attending school here to also accrue college credit through saint peter's university we started that a few years ago with four classes now we have about 30 dual enrollment classes students do not leave our campus they are able to take a course as long as it's approved through saint peter's with the teacher has a master's degree and they accept that as college st peter's college credit so they get a transcript from saint peter's and that is at a fraction of a cost which is about less than uh 300 dollars for a three-credit course again we had

016internship here where we send students out to the community and we want to continue that starting next year we have a program that's called senior opportunity so for any of our seniors well they're gone was fasting a few of our seniors are part of that anyway if they have if they have uh all of their graduation requirements accomplished by the time they hit their senior year and we can fit into their schedule the rest of their classes in the morning they have an option to leave school after the after their morning classes and when they leave we don't want them just sitting home and and not being productive so we encourage students to either get involved in volunteer work a good portion of our students have employment through through through this program and they also

017have an opportunity to to go to saint peter's um and and to acquire additional college credits um so so we talked about dual enrollment in addition to that um and this is again at the same discounted rate students have an opportunity to take college credits online through st peter's university they can go to saint peter's while they're still our student they're able to take summer classes as well um and i mention this it's not on here but in the next year or so we're going to have a full associate's program that we're going to be able to offer so students will not only graduate with a high school diploma but they'll also graduate with an associate's degree okay the criteria for this program the candidate must hold an sel which is a structured learning experience

018certificate certification and that is so that they're able to go out into the community and and observe the students who are part of our internship program in an internship program it's an unpaid internship but students involved in that program do receive 10 high school credits they will also advertise and disseminate information regarding purchasing the dual enrollment credits they will send final current transcripts to st peter's university so they can receive that dual enrollment credit they will find and coordinate internship placements for students interested in our internship opportunities they will create and monitor insurance internship internship application process they will conduct and supervise visits they will grade students on their internship experience and they will communicate with the high school assistant principal to monitor attendance of our internship students they will also determine eligibility for students

019who would like to be a part of senior opportunity that does come with an application process that students have to complete before their senior year they will communicate with their guidance counselors to monitor the eligibility for senior opportunity keep track of parental permission slips and student contracts for senior opportunity students and communicate with the high school assistant principal to monitor attendance for senior opportunity students again they will communicate with colleges to expand college credit options research and provide opportunities for volunteer work which looks great on on our students as they apply to colleges research and provide opportunities for employment and hold parent information nights that describe what this discover program now offers i talked briefly about our future our future vision part of that is uh is introducing the associates program through st peter's university

020the other part of of that is is creating a a cte program a career in technical education program we would like to eventually get ac gain access to perkins funding which will open up many different avenues for for students to to expand their educational experience at sea caucus high school thank you back everybody okay this will be my last presentation for the night um this is on behalf of the football program uh team elevate team training is a company a private company that provides strength and conditioning training in addition to that they provide team building experiences it's appropriate for all sports teams right now football coach is interested in providing this to our students it would be available for any of the sports if if the coach is interested in in having them come on

021campus they're used by recreation facilities and over 25 of our local high schools use this same company this comes at a great benefit to seacaucus high school students if a parent wanted to take their child to this type of strength and conditioning training it would cost 100 per session if they were to provide admitting a midi private training camp it would cost 60 per session um seasonal camps or twenty dollars summer camps are seventeen dollars and the price for sea caucus high school students will be fourteen dollars per session uh plus they will provide a scholarship to any student who cannot afford this training camp scholarship means that the student will pay whatever they can if the student can afford twenty dollars then they pay a twenty a one-time fee of twenty dollars so far

022we have 24 students who are currently registered and six students were provided scholarships seacaucus recreation center will be used for sunday training they they have already agreed to this that began on january 16th and they have waived their fee what we're asking for is for our students to be able to use seaguar high school gymnasium every wednesday for the next seven weeks beginning january 26th so our request is to have that fee waived thank you steven i have a question first question is with this training and they mentioned scholarships did they put a limit on the amount of scholarships so we have six students right now um so and and it started already through through sega recreation if five more students want to sign up and they can't afford it they will they have left

023it up to the coach to um to allow those students there's no limit no limit on who can receive that scholarship and i guess because it's a for-profit uh entity where is our liability for so so if i may mr president under under the board's facilities policy uh this is a for-profit corporation and so under the facilities policy they would be required to pay the uh the fee for the use of the facilities regardless of whether they pay the fee or not they would have to produce insurance as required by the facilities policy naming the board as an additional insured and identifying the board in the event there's any injury to any student athlete so all of the other policy provisions they would have to comply with the request here is to relieve them of

024the fee that is otherwise imposed on for-profit companies that wish to use our facilities so where's that liability in well we're still i'm trying to find that we're still covered under our liability we're covered under our liability insurance but also uh this organization uh uh um the uh the elite team training uh would also have to provide us with insurance identifying us and naming us as an additional insurer okay thank you steve thank you sure sorry i have a quick question as well haven't they already been using our facilities and haven't we already waived some of the fees elevate has not used our facility yet they've used the recreation center and seacock okay thank you okay organizational report from seacaucus high school um our students are very our students and staff are very happy to

025return to imperson instruction this week um believe it or not marking period two comes to an end on january 31st and grades will be available on the parent portal beginning february 8th the national honor society will be selling valentine's day candy grams beginning february 1st and all of these proceeds will help to help to offset the cost of the national honor society and raise scholarships for our students the seagate high school class of 2023 and the scale and the sale program in conjunction with secaucus high school ptsa are currently selling 50 50 raffle tickets and this fundraiser will help support some exciting future student activities for our junior students as well as provide senior scholarships to our sales students and tickets can be purchased by reaching out to the advisors miss palmisano miss lee or

026miss oakes and the drawing will take place on february 18th and members of the literary explorers club are pleased to introduce the first issue of secrecy high school's literary magazine titled student snippets the magazine features students original writings and artwork and can be viewed on the secaucus high school website thank you thank you sorry good evening christine candela principal of c caucus middle school judging by the greetings we got in the main office alone from so many students this week they were they seem to genuinely miss being here so we're glad that they have once again been able to return to in-person instruction the middle school students seamlessly transitioned to the online platform for the week and as much as we all prefer in-person learning i have tried to find the bright side of virtual

027classrooms i'll always be grateful for the digital readiness it is instilled in our students higher learning courses will ask that they make use of technology in useful meaningful and innovative ways and learning online has helped hone those skills the hudson county spelling bee has just been switched to a digital platform for this year so to align with the county we'll be moving our school-wide spelling bee to the online platform as well after our language arts teachers host their classroom bees the winners will participate in the online spelling bee through scripps network i'm proud to announce that our national junior honor society students are participating in a nationwide movement called blankets of hope blankets of hope is a non-profit helping students practice empathy and kindness by donating blankets and handwritten letters of encouragement to people experiencing

028homelessness the students have already surpassed their goal of raising 500 and are continuing to accept donations they will be delivering 24 blankets of hope to those in need in our local communities the character club is focused on giving back as well and is continuing to collect colorful and decorated band-aid boxes throughout the end of february these band-aids will be donated to saint joseph's children's hospital and finally i'd like to take a moment and thank dr reiser for putting together a professional development day that provided worthwhile learning opportunities for our entire staff i was lucky enough to attend several diversity equity and inclusion workshops throughout the day conducted by both staff members and outside presenters and the sessions were informative engaging and powerful the discussions promoted self-reflection exploring stereotypes and microaggressions that would lessen the racial

029disparities in school systems and enriching our curricula to make sure that representation is at the forefront of the materials we introduce to our students from pre-k through to senior year each school has a social justice committee that sends representatives to our district level committee and we look forward to analyzing the staff surveys from this day to see what further opportunities can be made available and learn to learn more in the future i'd like to formally welcome dr fanning ms gonzalez and ms kish to the board i look forward to working with each of you thank you and have a wonderful evening thank you together a unified force good evening i'm dr danielle garzon principal of clarendon school and i have with me the principal of huber street school rob valente uh we have a lot

030of events that have taken place this month and they've actually taken place in both schools so we thought what better way to present our organization report than it would be together it's amazing to think that we are in the middle of january already 2022 has been off to a busy start we are beyond proud at clarendon huber street school the scripps national spelling bee is one of the nation's oldest and most iconic competitions dedicated students in grades first through fifth have become a part of this unique experience by participating in preliminary spelling beads grades first through fifth competed in the preliminary spelling bees during the week of january 10th our finalists will be competing in our spelling bee finals this coming week in their respective schools students in grades one through five from both huber

031street and clarendon schools embarked upon upon a shared journey full of hard work determination and the opportunity to make memories that will last a lifetime congratulations to all spellers that dedicated their own time to study and prepare for the 2022 scripps national spelling bee and vocabulary on monday january 17th the faculty and staff from clarendon huber street and the millerick school participated in our annual professional development day in addition to the multiple ed camp trainings available our teachers received training and development on dyslexia training and the reveal math program and as just mentioned by ms candela the highlight of the day was diversity equity and inclusion training presented by tyrone russell and the rest of his team from faces international we'd like to take this opportunity to welcome newly elected board of education members dr

032faranola ms gonzalez and ms kish welcome to the team we look forward to working with you pre pre-kindergarten registration will be conducted during the week of february 14th and kindergarten registration for both schools will take place during the week of february 28th all documentation is available online thank you happy new year and have a great night thank you correspondence no corresponds okay acting superintendent's report [Music] good evening this past monday was dr martin luther king jr day which was a holiday for our students and a professional development day for our staff dr king worked tirelessly to bring greater equality to america and to ensure civil rights for all people regardless of their differences we were able to offer all of our staff training in diversity equity and inclusion presented by faces international and higher learners

033presentations were well received and a great way to honor dr king on his special day i would like to thank dr garzon for organizing this training as well as all the administrators in helping out throughout the course of the day other workshops we offered to our staff during this pd day included cpr something we were pretty much unable to do the whole pandemic dyslexia classroom technology integration reveal math non-violent crisis intervention integrating social justice into the curriculum which was a great complement to our diversity training writing across this curriculum lucid interactive white board caesar training for staff and nurses we were able to utilize title ii allocations to run a majority of the day saving funds from our local budget i'm happy to say that we have successfully returned from virtual instruction to full-day in-person

034schooling this week i want to thank the school community for their patience through our brief virtual instruction period although it wasn't a popular decision it helped us recharge and allowed a large number of staff and student isolation quarantines periods to transpire we look forward to continuing full day in person instruction going forward i truly believe that adopting the update to the safe return plan with the nj doe approved isolation quarantine guidelines will also assist us in remaining open for the remainder of the school year fingers crossed finally on behalf of gracio and myself we would like to thank the members of our board of education for their dedicated service during new jersey school boards recognition month a lot of people don't realize the time and effort that is invested by these volunteers that are sitting

035up up here with us tonight there are so many difficult decisions all of you face on a daily basis for the betterment of our schools we commend you for a job well don we would like to present you with a small token of our appreciation as judy and dr iser hand out the gifts i will read the school board recognition month proclamation whereas school boards create a vision for what students should know and be able to do whereas school boards establish clear standards for student performance whereas school boards ensure that student assessments are tied to established standards whereas school boards are accountable to the community for operating schools that support student achievement whereas school boards align school district resources to ensure that students meet standards whereas school boards create a climate that supports the philosophy

036that all children can learn at high levels whereas school boards build collaborative relationships based on trust teamwork and shared accountability and whereas school boards are committed to continuous education and training on issues related to student achievement now therefore acting superintendent riser and myself hereby declare our appreciation to the members of the secaucus school board and proclaim the month of january to be school board recognition month we urge all citizens to join us in recognizing the dedication and hard work of local school board members in preparing today's students for tomorrow's world thank you all i would like to dismiss the principles um you're free to go we had a very early morning today with the inclement weather so please if you you are free to free to go home didn't i want to go i don't

037want to go good night i would never do that okay we had one hiv um one confirmed hiv this month i need a motion to accept it motion i need a second roll call mr bartletta yes mr bolanino dr paranola yes ms gonzalez yes miss kish yes mr lewis yes mr mcstowe yes miss o'connell mr patel yes is this administrator's report yes good evening on tonight's agenda under finance resolution r 5.05 i am asking for board approval to award the contract for hvac upgrades at clarendon elementary school project to patent plumbing for a total contract sum of one million one hundred and twenty two thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars on december twenty third twenty twenty one the district held a bid open for this project a total of five bids were received a review

038for material defects in the bid documents of the bidder was performed by bogerty and harrah on board eternity upon review all documentation are in order the hvac upgrades at clarendon are in the gymnasium main office vestibule nurses office and central office this project will be funded by the elementary and secondary school emergency relief grant resolution r 5.06 is before the board tonight for approval requesting permission to enter into an agreement with delta t for per diem custodial services the district has advertised and continues to advertise and keep the job posting open application open on our website under the employment opportunities unfortunately the district has interviewed candidates only to decline the position in order to maintain and keep a safe and healthy environment for our students and staff it is necessary for the district to subcontract

039out the manpower which will support our current custodial staff during this continued difficult time the cost associate associated with this is equal to what we pay our per diem custodians in salary and fringe in addition delta t belongs to the co-op educational services commission of new jersey which means this vendor won the award for the lowest bidder for these services resolution r 5.07 was presented earlier this evening by mr vigiani as to the benefits of waiving the fees for elevate team training to use our facility and resolution r 5.08 the rotary club would like to make a donation of three thousand dollars the rotary club was able to secure a rotary 7490 district grant in the amount of three thousand to purchase laptops for kindergarten students to use in their home the goal of the

040grant is to provide equity and technology resources for undisturbed underserved students our supervisor of technology dr jerome kaiser will spec out the computers for our students thank you thanks grace okay time to do the ethics review that the board do a number of critical things approve curriculum that meets the new jersey student learning standards adopt an annual budget that provides for thorough and efficient education hire the necessary certified personnel to educate the district students and develop policies for the management of the school district important to note is that none of these actions that the board takes does the board take alone it acts based on the recommendations of the superintendent of schools there are very few actions that the board may take without the recommendation of the superintendent of schools i'm going to talk a

041little bit about that as i move through this this evening the board also is the final decision maker the final arbiter of various uh things that come before the board you heard tonight dr reiser present a report on harassment intimidation and bullying harassment intimidation and bullying winds its way up to the board and the board makes the final decision so while those cases are investigated by our anti-bullying specialists ultimately the superintendent makes a decision based on that record when it is presented to the board the board is the final decision maker any appeal of a harassment intimidation and bullying decision to the commissioner of education is not an appeal of the anti-bullying specialist decision or the superintendent's decision it is an appeal of the board's decision long-term suspension hearings anything over 10 days that is

042imposed on a student cannot happen unless the board conducts a hearing and ultimately imposes that suspension residency appeals if someone is alleged not to be living in sea caucus is attending our schools illegally those residency appeals must come to the board only the board can exclude someone from sea caucus because they do not live here grievances under a collective negotiations agreement we have several collective bargaining units in the district grievances that are brought by those bargaining units ultimately find their way up to the board the board is the final decision maker with regard to any grievance terminations for cause any contract that is terminated for cause personnel matters must also be decided by the board and increment withholding if the superintendent decides that somebody's performance does not warrant that they get a salary increase from

043one year to the next that increment withholding must be approved by the board non-renewals superintendent makes the decision on may 15th whether or not non-tenured employees will be renewed in the subsequent school year that is a final decision but if it is appealed to the board that is the one and only time that the board can trump the superintendent's decision following an informal appearance the idea being that that employee was at one point in time recommended by the superintendent that is the only personnel decision that the board can make without the superintendent's recommendation the board functions only when it is in session and a quorum of the board is required to convene a meeting and take action that is governed by the open public meetings act committee meetings are less than a quorum they are

044not subject to the open public meetings act however some admonition here and that is that if we are meeting uh if we are emailing one another if we are sending text messages uh if we are having a live chat whether it is on social media or in person and it involves more than five members of this board that potentially can constitute a quorum and doing so would be a violation of the open public meetings act because the open public meetings act requires that those discussions that action that deliberation take place here at a public meeting and so if you are sending emails you want to be very careful uh not to involve more than four members of the board you want to make sure that you indicate that you do not indicate reply all you

045want to make sure that your text messages also do not do not run a file of the open public meetings act and i'm also going to talk to you in a few minutes about those emails and text messages in fact let's do it now your emails and text messages are also subject to the open public records act so your emails your text messages they are considered government records whether or not the public has access to them depends on the content but understand that if somebody requests a copy of your text messages or your emails if you happen to be at a meeting like this this evening and someone from the public observes you using a cell phone and it appears that you're text messaging then you could be subject to an opel request the following

046day asking you to produce that text message we would then have to determine whether or not the content is accessible and obviously if you're sending a text message to make sure your children are are all right you are sending a text message to some somebody outside the district because you have because you have a personal emergency that is not subject to access but if you're sending a text message to another board member or to a third party about something that is being deliberated here this evening that would be subject to access and potentially would be a violation of the board's policy on social media the board and the administration the board's direct responsibilities are to make policy develop plans evaluate outcomes and not manage the day-to-day operations of the schools it is often said that

047it is the board's job to make sure the schools are well run not to run them so members are responsible not to administer the schools no board member by virtue of his or her office shall exercise any administrative responsibility with reschool with response respect to the schools or as an individual command the services of any school employee what does that mean command the services that means that no board member can call the principal and command the principal to provide that board member with information board member cannot call the school business administrator and request that the school in school business administrator prepare a report or undertake some activity uh as a result of that request uh cannot speak directly to a teacher unless that conversation is oven about your own child again a board member does

048not have the individual capacity to command the services of any school employee that discussion should take place with the entire board and the entire board should determine whether the information that you are seeking should be produced by that employee before that command is made board members do not have access to district schools and and in many respects have no more authority than any other parent or community member you can see that there are references there to the board's policies policy o142 uh very specifically uh describes and and prescribes the duties and responsibilities of board members uh board policy zero one four six explains that board members visiting a school must comply with the district policy and procedures for school visitors and the board delegates certain responsibilities to its administrative officials so who is answerable to

049the board the board has the obligation to make sure that the schools are well run and who's accountable to to to ensuring that the board's policies and goals are implemented the superintendent and the business administrator the board administration relationship is intended to be cooperative not adversarial members should share their concerns with the administration in advance of our meetings it assures an effective public response members should be mindful of which matters are appropriate for public discussion and those that are reserved for private consultation and the code of ethics for school board members and board policy 0142 uh specifically state that a board member confronted with a community complaint no matter where that complaint comes from whether it's the soccer field or the grocery store where someone calls you and they give you and and they are

050and they communicate a complaint to you uh no response to that complaint should be given until after it has been referred to the superintendent for an appropriate resolution the board does not have the authority either individually or as a collective body to take up a complaint and provide a resolution until after the superintendent has had an opportunity to address it and only if the board is not satisfied with that response can they actually uh consider uh a uh another resolution code of ethics specifically requires board members to support all district staff including the administration uh you can see right there what the code of ethics says a violation of this command occurs when there's evidence that a board member takes deliberate action which results in undermining opposing compromising or harming school personnel in the proper

051performance of their duties this doesn't mean that board members cannot disagree with a recommendation made by the superintendent but generally under the school ethics opinions that requires that board members support our superintendent criticizing the superintendent could lead to a violation of the code of ethics where it undermines or compromises the superintendent's ability to do her job division of responsibility between the board and the superintendent so the superintendent is the primary professional advisor to the board and policy should not be adopted or revised as revised without consulting her so the policy committee if they're considering a change to policy no matter what it is whether it's the dress code or whether it's some other policy of the board that policy should not be recommended for final adoption or revision by the board until the superintendent has

052waited on it the superintendent is responsible for the development supervision and operation of the school program and facilities and has to be given wide latitude to implement and administer these policies the role of our board members the board is a unit not a collection of individuals members are expected to share opinions but once the board elects a single course of action by majority vote the board is expected to support it in open meetings to preserve decorum and ensure the board expresses a single consistent position the president alone speaks for the c caucus board of education he may request other members contribute to that discussion but he is the designated individual to speak on behalf of the board members professional expertise and personal experience are instructive we come you you come to your elected public offices

053as educators and attorneys and physicians and uh from all and from all walks of life and you bring to you bring to this process your talents and your expertise but you have to rely on the talents and expertise of the professionals that you have selected to represent you whether it is your physicians or your attorneys or your auditors when that advice is given it should not be overruled based on your own particular uh profession or expertise the powers of the board and the authority of a board member are not co-extensive excuse me mr ferrari can we ask questions of course i just want to clarify i know the president speaks for the board and he can ask for contributions from other board members but individual board members are also allowed to speak at board meetings

054particularly during discussions and during board member comments as long as they make it clear they are only speaking on behalf of themselves and not representing the entire board actually i would answer that i would i i would i would respond to that comment in two ways first of all board members are encouraged to actively participate in the discussion with the board and when resolutions are being proposed there's an opportunity to address those resolutions and have and to have a robust discussion uh there's also an opportunity for board member comments at the end of every board meeting and it's not necessary for you to disclaim or to say anything because you are now an elected member of the board and when you speak on any matters you can speak on any matters that you wish to

055speak about during those designated times in the agenda when we say that the board president speaks for the board what we mean what i mean by that is that as we conduct this meeting here this evening anybody from the public that wants to speak to the board speaks to the board president the board's board president responds and decides whether or not we will comment or we will answer any of those questions at the time a member of the public comes to the podium so when a member of the public comes to the podium no other board member can address that member of the public even if they're speaking in their individual capacity as a board member that is correct the opportunity for board members to address that would be during board member comments or you

056could ask for a point of order and ask that you could address it ultimately ultimately then the president would respond to that thank you you're welcome so board policy uh the the board policy zero one four six also explains no board member by virtue of her office she'll exercise any administrative responsibility with respect to the schools or as an individual command the services of any district employee and you know i want to give you a very kind of kind of a basic illustration of this you know let's say that we come into this venue this evening and you go into the restroom and you're unhappy with the condition of that restroom and our buildings and ground supervisor is here and you take it upon yourself to direct the buildings and ground supervisor to deploy a

057custodian to that restroom uh in in order to clean it up and maybe justifiably that needs to be done you do not have the authority to command that response as simple as that is nor do we have the ability to kind of canvas or to survey administrators or employees about the climate or the culture of the school board members don't have that authority if you want that to be done then that's a discussion that we have with the superintendent and we determine the means and the mechanisms by which it by which it occurs so we have an obligation to to preserve the confidential confidentiality of information that comes to you in executive session i often say to board members this seems to be an area where board members can get themselves into difficulty and find

058themselves on the other end of a complaint before the school ethics commission those things that we discuss in executive session about students about staff members it is sacrosanct that information should not be disclosed to any third parties not only because of the individual privacy rights of those individuals but because you would be taking private action that would compromise the board because it could ultimately find its way into a civil lawsuit with regard to an invasion of privacy claim so for example a member learns during closed session that the administration has suspended the district's seventh grade math teacher pending the results of a psychiatric evaluation that information could not be disclosed to anyone and in this case before the school ethics commission the information was disclosed to the board member's child who happened to be in

059that teacher's class uh the results of that could be potentially very serious and the liability could be extreme the board is deliberating over whether to reorganize its facilities such that all pre-k-4 students will attend school in one building and 5-8 students will attend in another board member has a friend that wants to move into sea caucus wants to know where they should buy a house in order to take advantage of that even that information should not be disclosed uh to to to a third party so now grace has to catch up with me so one of the main limits on the role of board members is the code of ethics for school board members it was enacted in 2001 probably the most aggressive code of ethics for any elected public officials if there's a violation

060any member of the public can file a complaint with the school ethics commission the uh the only body that cannot file a complaint against a board member with the school ethics commission is the board itself if you're going to file a complaint against one of your colleagues then you have to step back and you have to do that as a private person the c caucus board of education no matter how concerned they may be about the conduct of one of its own members cannot file a complaint as a as a as a board the school ethics commission has the power to recommend that the commission of education reprimand censure suspend or remove a board member who violates the code of ethics so this is the code of ethics i'm not going to go through all

061of these because most of these i have already highlighted for you but again i want to emphasize that our response of your responsibility is not to administer the schools you need to maintain confidentiality with regard to any executive session items and uh also we have to enforce the laws the rules and the regulations of the state board of education and this became a significant issue over the course of you know the last several months when we were dealing with masking in schools and whether or not executive orders had the force of law what our obligation was as school board members and i know many school boards struggled with this throughout the state because an executive order is in fact a law and regardless of the fact that school is not in session if we're conducting

062a board meeting in a school those laws are applicable so you can move to the next one please so you're agreeing that you will vote to appoint the best qualified personnel available after consultation uh consideration of the recommendation of the superintendent that doesn't mean that you have to accept that recommendation you have the right to say to the superintendent we're not satisfied with the recommendation please go back to the well bring us another candidate uh this uh provision of the code of ethics is intended to ensure that you do not leapfrog over the superintendent and bring forward your own candidate uh to be appointed uh you will support and protect school personnel in the proper performance of their duties which means essentially that you will not malign or vilify or administrators or our teachers uh

063uh in in public or in any individual communications and you will refer all complaints to the superintendent and as i've said to you as i said you previously we can't act on any complaint until the superintendent weighs in so the limited role of board members is also seen in a number of sections of the code of ethics and you can see there that uh all of those statutory provisions uh really deal with the code of ethics that i've just reviewed with you so i can i can move past this so the limits imposed by the code of ethics are clearly seen and the limited involvement board members have in personal decisions the board member's role in hiring is to vote to appoint the best qualified personnel available after considering the superintendent's recommendation the board cannot

064withhold its approval for the hiring of a candidate recommended by the superintendent for arbitrary or capricious reasons superintendent comes forward to you and recommends uh the remo the renewal of a teacher who would achieve tenure you cannot vote against that recommendation because you're philosophically opposed to the grant of tenure um that would be an arbitrary and capricious reason the board should generally as a best practice limits limited involvement in hiring to hiring the superintendent and then only considering the superintendent's recommendations for all other positions to avoid interference with the superintendent's power to recommend those candidates to the board that's a best practice it is not a legal requirement there is nothing that legally prohibits the board from being involved in the interview process it is a matter that is subject to your discretion and your

065development of an appropriate policy this is an advisory opinion so the school ethics commission does two things they adjudicate complaints and they issue advisory opinions so if there's something that you want to do something that you're concerned about your outside activities your conduct whether or not you can participate in negotiations because of a relative that's employed in another school district anything that you are concerned about you can request an advisory opinion from the school ethics commission and they're pretty good about this you get it in by the 10th of the month they'll get you a decision by the following month so this advisory opinion a board member requested an opinion regarding authority to conduct exit interviews of staff members to determine causes of staff turnover concerned about the resignations that were occurring in that school

066district the board members said you know what we want to find out what's going on here so that we can improve our retention of staff in the district obviously the school ethics commission said that is not your role that is the role of the superintendent of schools it is not the role of a board member because it is the day-to-day operations of the school district another advisory opinion board member requested an opinion regarding the appropriate level of involvement of board members in the interview process the commission explained that one or two board members may sit on an interview committee when established by the superintendent and that's often and that's critical when established by the superintendent without the superintendents uh uh without the superintendent's acquiescence to this or authorization for this it cannot happen but must

067be strictly limited to functioning in an advisory role to the superintendent what does that mean you could attend an interview you could not ask questions you could not interject yourself it would not be an interactive process you would really only have the ability to observe the interview process which is why most boards of education by policy do not involve themselves in that process in impermissible personnel action so this is a board member this is a complaint that was filed with the school ethics commission this board member accompanied by another board member went to the board office without prior notice to the administration to review resumes of candidates for an open position so what happened here is that the superintendent had recommended a candidate for appointment these two board members were unhappy with that uh with

068that recommendation they wanted to know who else had applied for the position who had not come forward and so they took it upon themselves to to go to that board office to request copies of the resumes uh went to the director of human resources she wasn't there they had the secretary get a key open up the office so that they could secure copies of those resumes i don't need to tell you that the reaction by the school ethics commission to this conduct was swift and serious one more the complaint alleged in this case that a board president violated the code by personally issuing a rice notice to the business administrator so here's the board president not happy with the school business administrator's response to requests for information decided that the that the business administrator should

069be hauled before the board of education for an executive discussion the rice notice received by the business administrator resulted in her resignation ultimately the the commission determined that even though this was the board president that the board president took unilateral action without the authority of the board the only one that could have issued that rights notice was the superintendent of schools the the only other rights notice that can be issued is by the full board or in the case of the superintendent it can be issued by the board president no other board member has that single unilateral authority facts in this case two board members allege that the director of special services was double dipping by working uh in another school district they took it upon themselves uh to decide that they were going to

070conduct an investigation that they were going to camp out at the other school district and find out whether in fact that school business administrator was double dipping by working in two school districts uh basically uh uh went on their own reconnaissance mission uh ultimately they were dead wrong about all of this and ethics complaints were filed and it was found that they had violated the code of ethics why this if this complaint was legitimate it should have gone to the superintendent ultimately then to the board this was unilateral action by individual board members without the authority of the full board one more volunteering in the schools so there's some bright lines here board members have the ability to volunteer in our schools are provided that they are not supervising students or staff members so you

071could not be a club advisor you uh uh could not be involved in the selection of students who might uh who might get parts in a theatrical production uh you can be involved with the stage crew you can be involved in fundraising you can be involved in any class activities with your children but you cannot become inextricably involved with either supervision or the delegation of responsibility that's yes so what happens if mrs o'connell asks what happens if it's a program that is held in the school but it is an outside activity outside activities there are no restrictions so with regard to outside activities whether it is a before school program an after-school program a school camp or if it is an educational foundation if it is a booster club you can be on the board

072of trustees you can hold in a an official position as long as it is an outside activity not under the auspices of this of the c caucus board of education no restrictions however if anything comes before the board involving those organizations for example the use of our facilities you must abstain you're welcome so a little redundant here and i'll go past this this was an advisory opinion about being a club advisor and the school ethics commission said that cannot happen free speech in the school ethics act so the question is are your free speech rights abridged are your first amendment rights abridged are they restricted in any way when you become an elected official the answer is that they are not abridged but there are certain limitations on what you can do and say uh

073with regard to your role as a school board member so very simply what it means is that you have an obligation to self-identify and what i mean by that is that if you are going to write a letter to the editor if you're going to make a public statement if you are going to uh if you are going to place a social media post you have to self-identify you have to say that my name is jack mcstowe and i'm the president of the c caucus board of education and this statement was not authorized by the board of education i am making this statement as a private individual and you must do all of those things and board members that have done some of those things but not all of those things have found themselves on

074the wrong side of this with regard to school ethics complaints so there's no wiggle room there you must state all of those things may i ask one other question sure so if uh something like that we're over here so say um someone commented something on social media and had a comment or a question about a board policy or a practice i also would not be able to say i lea agree with you and so does the board or so does abby and ruby i cannot speak for other people is that correct that is correct okay thank you you're welcome and and and with regard to that the only thing that you could post on social media without violating the code of ethics would be general information so if someone were if you were on a

075social media page and someone were to ask you the date of the next board meeting you could certainly provide them with that information if someone were to ask you who to file a harassment intimidation and bullying complaint with you could certainly answer that information it is the expression of opinion or commenting of and about matters that would be coming before the board that require that you self-identify yes to have your own facebook page it's our campaign page specifically so so the the the short answer is so the short answer is that with regard to a web page with regard to any kind of social media communications there is no per se violation to either having that web page or being engaged in social media communications provide it that you don't violate the school ethics act

076and c-caucus has a discretionary policy on social media which i'm going to get to in just a moment which is not required by law or by the school ethics act but you have decided uh to adopt such a policy and i'm going to talk about that before i leave you this evening sorry uh according to our own policies under board member authority it says board members are entitled to express themselves publicly on any matter including issues involving the board in the school district so how does that relate to what you were saying about us not being able to post on social media social media is the new town square so i'm not saying that you cannot post on social media and if that's what was misunderstood i apologize because that is certainly not what i

077intended um you are permitted to post on social media provided that you do not violate the code of ethics and provided that you self-identify if you are going to be posting on social media about issues concerning the second school district so if we were to create a facebook page that clearly indicated we are not speaking for the c caucus board of education in the in on that page we would be entitled to everybody participating in that page would have to be very clear about that self-identification and i would discourage groups of board members from doing that as a group i would rather suggest that each board member who might be participating in that has to self-identify is that your suggestion or your legal recommendation that is both that is both and again my my role

078here as your counsel is to keep all of you on the right side of this so while it might be viewed as a belt and suspenders for every board member to have to self-identify i think you want to be very careful of that when you're posting on social social media oven about issues concerning the sequoca school district um so i wouldn't uh i i would discourage you from just making a a blanket self-report so if each post we post we put up we self-identify we'll be fine yes great thank you thank you okay next slide so this case uh social media posting a board president filed a complaint after another board member posted certain statements on facebook in a local newspaper school board president doesn't let students speak the board votes for programs that are

079not effective six months is not long enough to write a plan parents and students be scared now if we could only do something about our local terrorists that destroyed dreams and burn futures under this statement was a link to the superintendent of school's picture that posting on social media was found to be a flagrant violation of the school ethics act next defamation of character and substantive due process rights so what i want to talk about here is slander libel and defamation we as board members have to be very careful that if we are going to be posting comments on social media that we have to be certain that what we are posting is factually accurate that it doesn't implicate the privacy rights of of our employees as public figures in the community we must use

080caution when posting comments regarding other individuals posting inaccurate or inflammatory statements could result in a civil lawsuit for defamation of character or a lawsuit alleging deprivation of a liberty interest and reputation and when that happens it would also be a violation of the code of ethics because it would be private action that prejudiced the board in this westfield board of education case you can see that a middle school teacher and a former school basketball coach filed a defamation suit claiming that a member of the board published a defamatory comment about him on facebook and twitter teacher contended that these facts uh that the the allegations were false it resulted in his wrongful termination from his coaching position uh the teacher alleged that one of the board members had posted uh these derogatory statements about him

081suffice it to say that the court found that there was an actual malice uh that's the standard that is applied to public officials actual malice means that you did something that you knew was deliberately false or it was in reckless disregard of its truth or false falsity my issue here for you take away here for you is i never want to see you in a caption in a lawsuit because of the disclosure of personally identifiable information you can move on another case plaintiff who was terminated from his position as the director of security and safety filed a substantive due process claim against the superintendent and the assistant superintendent uh uh for uh alleging that his constitutionally protected liberty interests in his rep rep and his reputation were violated when they disclosed personal information so this

082is a separate due process claim based on protected liberty interests that all of us have and if that information is disclosed and if that information uh that interest in our reputation is uh is is adversely affected there is potentially then uh a a claim for uh a violation of his uh a violation of his due process rights next thank you social media guidelines so we have policy 0169.02 as i said this is not a legal requirement it's discretionary the board has chosen to adopt a policy to provide guidance uh with regard to how our members should conduct themselves on social media um because this is not a mandatory policy um uh uh except that it does refer to the code of ethics for school board members because this is not a mandatory policy uh the

083board alone uh has the ability uh to to ensure that board members conduct themselves in accordance with this policy so the question is what happens if a board member deviates from this policy well if the school ethics commission doesn't have jurisdiction over it and i want to point out by saying that the school ethics commission does not exercise jurisdiction if we do not treat each other politely it's often said that the school ethics commission is not the civility police if we treat each other badly at a board meeting the school ethics commission is not going to exercise jurisdiction over that kind of a complaint however if the school ethics commission cannot exercise jurisdiction it means that we can so the board itself then has the ability to police itself and if a board member were

084to violate this the the the social media uh policy then the board would have the ability uh to give the board member the opportunity uh to uh respond uh to a complaint that they had violated this policy and then the board would have the ability to publicly censure one of its own board members the board can only act to publicly central one of its own board members if the school ethics commission does not have jurisdiction over it so if it's a code of ethics violation we can do nothing only the school ethics commission can act upon it so with that said these are our guidelines uh not post anything that would violate any of the district's policies for board members uphold the district's value of respect for individuals and avoid making defamatory statements about the

085board the school district employees students or their families not disclose confidential information about the school district or confidential information obtained as a result of being a board member not use or refer to their board of education title or position when soliciting for a business organization that he or she or any immediate family member has an interest in next slide refrain from having communication through social networks with other board members regarding any board of education business and avoid the potential for a violation of the open public meetings act not respond to postings regarding board of education or school district business or respond to any question or inquiry posted to the board member or posted on any social networking site regarding the board of education or school district business and refer any of those questions or inquiries

086to the superintendent and what that relates to is referring complaints to the superintendent of schools and that's a trap for the unwary because when we're involved in social media somebody can say i have a complaint and you know reflexively we want to respond to that i mean that's the business that we're in uh that's why you've all that's why you've been elected to these uh to to the positions that you hold it is because you care about your community and you want to respond to those complaints and provide with the res provide them with a resolution but now as elected officials you don't have the ability to do that without referring those complaints to the superintendent of schools do not post any information on a social network determined by the new jersey school ethics commission

087to be a violation of their provisions indemnification so what happens if an ethics complaint is filed against you and so there is a statute that provides for indemnification when a legal proceeding against a board member arises out of in the course of the performance of the board members duties and so what you do here as board members what you do at a public meeting what you do in exec in an executive session it is privileged the likelihood is that anything you say or do here um if if you are called uh uh to task for that if there's a legal proceeding brought against you you're going to be provided you're going to be indemnified and held harmless which means that you're an attorney will be appointed for you uh and uh you will be able

088to defend against those allegations without that without without with without that causing you to incur any financial obligations however if you involve yourself in something that is outside of your elected duties outside the course and scope of what you have been elected to do you run the risk that you will not be indemnified and then if a legal proceeding is brought against you you are responsible for your own defense the number of cases in which that happens are few but they exist so i want you to be cautious about that and understand that we need to stay within the contours of the school ethics the code of ethics for school board members and the board's policies mr fogerty i have a question about the board social media policy sure it says board members are advised

089to so advised again not required because of the first amendment i'm sure not to respond to any postings regarding board of education or school district business board of education is the board of education certainly we are allowed to respond as individual board members to board policies or anything that is within the realm of the board and not under the superintendent correct if you self-identify if we self-identify okay so that should really be only school district business we shouldn't or we can respond and direct the person to the appropriate administrator principle but we shouldn't answer the question because obviously we're not running the schools and we don't have the answers but if it's regarding board of education matters board of education matters you're required to self-identify if somebody if somebody asks a question or makes an

090inquiry that must be referred okay and again i want to say i really appreciate the information on social media use and engaging with the community however i would like to advise my board members my fellow board members it is very important that we don't let this legal advice limit us from engaging with the public that's also one of our requirements so i i as a lawyer myself i know very well how important it is to make sure we understand laws and abide by them but i worry that when you are listening to these presentations it makes us nervous to say anything or to engage with the public in any way and we cannot let that happen as board members because that's one of our vital responsibilities to the community thank you mr fogerty you're welcome

091and i would say to you that um i would never discourage board members to actively engage uh in discussions uh with with with the public and to have robust discussions um uh with the public with regard to issues that are so critical to to the families in c caucus we just want to make sure that we do it consistent with the code of ethics and the board's policies thank you thank you all right public forum anything jude before we move on uh to items on the agenda i just have one request or recommendation or just something to consider i'm finding that our setup here so when we were sworn in two weeks ago we were over at huber street and we were almost set up in a u so it was really easy to engage

092in conversation to see who you're speaking with to just understand things a little bit better i noticed that joe was very smart actually in moving to a nice comfy seat for that presentation is there any way that we could possibly consider maybe like a like a end parenthesis shape or some type of you just because if kathy is trying to have a conversation with dr reiser she's talking to the back of her head it's just i don't know if there's anything we could do about it but i know i'm uncomfortable so i just want to put that out there yes i agree with leah the setup is not meant for discussion at all i'm talking to jax back right now so there you are thank you we could ask sal if there's some way of

093setting it up okay thank you all right school governance committee i make a motion to accept the recommendation of the acting superintendent to approve and adapt resolutions r 1.01 through r 1.1 as described below discussion thank you you're very welcome grace and judy i'd just like to make a quick comment i'd like to thank the um below mentioned people on r 1.06 to uh substitute teachers as we know we have a major shortage of substitute teachers so if anybody in the public is interested in subbing please come forward because we can always use your help with that being said roll call mr bartletta yes mr bolanino dr faranola yes miss gonzalez yes miss kish yes mr lewis yes mr mcstowe yes miss o'connell mr patel yes policy anyone like to make a recommendation on policy

094need someone to move policy of the acting superintendent to approve and adopt resolutions second discussion i have a comment uh this policy that's being discussed it was brought to the attention of the board on friday after this week's committee meetings as we are out of compliance moving forward i would like to know if we can consider the practices at our committee meetings to avoid redundancy i think one thing that might be helpful and i have expressed this before is in writing in advance to the meetings if there's some way to get a briefing just to say what the change is what the proposal is what the rationale is and then any supporting information or potential concerns this way we can make informed decisions moving forward okay yes i also um have a comment on this

095so i believe this was brought up this week because the policy has five committees and we're running three committees and so we like leah said we're not in compliance i'm wondering why we are suspending the policy rather than just creating a new policy to correspond with how we're running things right now and i worry that if we suspend this policy and can't agree on a replacement policy we'll end up with one that is worse than the current one personally i'm fine with having the five committee structure that is currently in our policy and one other point just to echo what ruby said i think that what our concern is is not the suspension of it but just the correcting of it and proposing a new one i know obviously due to time constraints but i

096wouldn't be comfortable suspending anything without the possibility of the replacement being reviewed prior yeah we we we will be replacing the current policy because it doesn't meet the criteria that we're using now it's just a housekeeping issue so we'll align it with the committees that we currently have thank you okay anyone else local mr bartletta yes mr bolanino dr faranola i vote no miss gonzalez i have seen miss kish i vote no mr lewis yes mr mcstowe yes miss o'connell mr patel yes education recommendation of the committee superintendent to recruit adopt resolutions r 341 3.04 discussion yes i have a discussion on 3.01 the safe return plan actually it's for both 3.01 and 3.02 we were able to see the changes because dr reiser emailed us specifically which pages are being updated however i'd recommend

097that when the update goes out that those pages are highlighted for parents as well because otherwise the only way to know that there's a change in the plan is to kind of look at both and then give me one second okay so for 3.01 the safe return plan i see that we have made the decision that we could possibly quarantine cohorts from a specific building instead of going virtual for the whole school which is what the previous plan was so i guess the confusion is now we have two policies for when we when students go virtual there are the students that are quarantining and then there are students that go virtual under this safe return plan so the students that are quarantining will have synchronous and asynchronous instruction correct so i guess my question is

098when a whole class is going virtual based on again the need to isolate that class in response to an outbreak well that class and i'm talking about the elementary school level also have more asynchronous instruction that class will operate under our emergency virtual instructions so if they are virtual they will operate as a class they will operate under the emergency virtual instruction if the whole class and the teacher is quarantined during that time got it thank you for clarifying the safe return plan also to clarify also updates the isolation quarantine guidelines as recommended by the new jersey department of health from 10 days to the five days also updating um who is fully i mean i mean in his eyes immunized um yes um and who is not yeah i think that's great i think

099that's going to be enormously helpful to reduce the number of teachers especially that might have to be out yes um also dr reiser i just wanted to thank you for continuously and consistently considering and revising everything and always entertaining all of our emails and suggestions i really do appreciate all your time i know that we have a lot of questions specific to our 3.03 assuming that this is for the handbook with the dress code yes i just wanted to see if based on these changes is this something that we would have to revise for board policy 55 11 as that is is it not a change no we would not have to revise the board policy because it kind of fits into the word policy um it is a little vague so the specif specifics

100of the dress code are are contained in the various uh student handbooks great and i think a lot of times the language might say that the contracts or handbooks supersede that language too the other thing specific to our 3.04 i understand that this is about the k-12 uh chemistry the k-12 chemistry for the high school right this is this um a curriculum change per se i just was a little unsure it's just a supplemental for the temporary time and no cost correct no cost supplementary for our chemistry classes at the high school awesome thank you anyone else moving on yes mr bolonnino dr faranola yes ms gonzalez yes miss kish yes mr lewis yes mr mcstowe yes miss o'connell yes mr patel yes operations i make a motion to accept the recommendation of the business

101administrator board secretary to approve and adopt resolutions r 5.01 through r 5.08 as described below discussion i have a question on 5.07 are we uh are we going to approve this pending uh indemnification of the liability or mr fogerty i believe they have provided um proof of insurance so so the the only thing that you that the board would be voting on here would be waiving the rental fee the um the elevate team training company would otherwise have to comply with all of the facilities use application requirements which would include insurance and identification thank you you're welcome yes i have a comment on r 5.01 to r 5.03 the check register budgetary transfers and financial reports so we received those documents tuesday evening in dozens of pages of spreadsheets and numbers and i understand you

102know from the new jersey school boards association that one of the most important roles of a board member is to review this information it takes a tremendous amount of time and look over every expenditure and ask questions i did go over every single expenditure and have a million questions which i know now is not the time and place to ask so at some point in the next month i hope to sit down with grace and go over those spreadsheets to better understand them but for now i don't feel like i have enough information to to vote on those issues i'll abstain on those i'd just like to clarify r5.06 as i see the sea is sitting here this service is only to be used when we have no other options available to us just to

103clarify that we're not just going out for services it's just only when we have no other options uh i actually had a question on that one too our pr 5.06 we have in our packet that we received a sample agreement with the company delta t but it it clearly says sample and is not an agreement between the board and the company yes we obviously haven't approved it but i just wondered if those terms of that agreement are identical to the terms that we would enter into should we should we enter into the agreement we currently do have an agreement with delta t for nursing services so we are already working with delta t for nursing services so this is just like an extension of what we've added on this as a service for custodial okay

104great thank you you're welcome anyone else nope so be it roll call mr bartletta yes mr bolanino yes dr faranola i abstain from r 5.01 5.02 and 5.03 and i vote yes for our 5.04 through 5.08 ms gonzalez i am staying from r 5.01 through r 5.03 and i vote yes for r 5.04 through r 5.08 miss kish i abstain from r 5.01 through r 5.03 and vote yes for r 5.04 through r 5.08 mr lewis yes mr mcstow yes miss o'connell yes mr patel yes safety security builders and grounds i make a motion to accept the recommendation of the business administrative board secretary to approve and adopt resolution r 6.01 as described below will hear a second discussion that yes i just had a question i i didn't understand why we needed to enter

105into this agreement for the one student is it because of the bus driver shortage that is correct okay thank you just wanted to clarify anyone else folklore mr mr bartletta yes miss mr bologna dr faranola yes miss gonzalez yes miss kish yes mr lewis yes mr mcstowe yes miss o'connell yes mr patel yes we have any any uh reports on the ad hoc committees yeah i got a i got an athletics um for a a little bit of athletics information um we are currently in the uh winter season for all of our sports teams girls basketball team currently first place in their division they've had a couple injuries this year but still still doing very very well boys basketball team also doing well second place in their division swim team is competing in the njic

106championships on saturday february 5th the wrestling team will compete on friday january 28th versus kresgel that is also wrestling alumni night so um the match begins at 7 p.m and beforehand there will be some um prior wrestling uh people that were from the school come out and and get to see everybody say hello to the wrestlers it's a really fun night so if anybody's got time come out and enjoy the annual cheer competition will be held on saturday january 29th the indoor track and field team will compete in the hudson county championships on monday january 24th and the state sectional championships on saturday february 12th okay public forum nobody board comments um yeah i have one after listening to steven over the years whenever we've had questions um as far as a board member we

107would always go through the president of the board and rather than going directly to central office only because kathy i'm sorry i can't hear you is your mic on i forgot the mask i have a good mask on it i can't hear it all right um over the years that's i mean close to 10 now anytime we've had questions um regarding the ongoings of central office we always went to the board president first because rather than interfere with the operations of the superintendent acting superintendent business administrator we went to jack or whoever was president at the time and they would take our questions and set up appointments with central office and get our questions answered for us rather than us going directly themselves i know over the last few weeks they've been inundated and i

108mean basically their job is to run the district and as our board members for us to be constantly like in emailing and sending things it it interrupts their day so i always thought that there was a policy where you had to go through the president first and when i looked through there really isn't one and after hearing steven saying that you know we're not allowed to individually seek out answers information or reports from central office i would like to since we govern ourselves through policies proposed and even as far as make a motion to possibly have the policy committee create the policy then that i thought existed where questions that we have go through the president and the president will then field them to the board office be it our ba be it our superintendent

109our acting superintendent secretaries rather than us disrupting their time of trying to run the district and if possible i'd like to make a motion for the policy committee to do that can i ask a question about that so you're asking for us to go to the president for the president to go to the superintendent like a game of telephone why well because first of all it's under i mean stephen said we're not supposed to individually seek out answers information or reports from them and this way they can let jack know when they're available jack does go to the board as president all the time rather than having nine people sending emails it's always been that way i think people do it what jack has told us is that he doesn't prefer to communicate via email

110and we ask a lot of detailed email questions we would have to call him on the phone to ask those questions or and it's just another barrier when we know the answers are with the superintendent right but their their job is to run the district yes and having extensive emails is taking time out of their time for money in the district maybe jack has to honestly i agree i think if we run our committee so that we get committee we get reports on the issues that will be presented in the agenda detailed reports we will not have to ask any questions of anyone i think the problem in these last two weeks was that we didn't have information to be able to vote on the agenda items and because we got information so late on

111tuesday there were a lot of questions a lot just to be able again to do our due diligence and be able to vote on these issues we needed answers and i think if we review how our committees are structured we can get that information in a way that we will not need to do this again and that's what we're really hoping to do is to to work on how the board structures and runs those committees so as never to have to go to the superintendent for information because it's all given to us well in advance right but i mean i'm making the motion to form that policy only in order to stick with the ethics i mean ethically we're not supposed to individually seek out answers information right stephen did i get that correct if

112there is an agenda i don't then board members can certainly ask questions of the superintendent or the school business administrator to get clarification on agenda items uh what would not be appropriate to be would be to be contacting the superintendent or the school business administrator with regard to acquiring information that would be outside of those agenda items okay so other than agenda items okay so if my email today specifically followed the agenda and directly addressed agenda points for clarification i'm assuming that it's not only beneficial for me but i'm i believe not to speak on behalf of anyone but i think it might have also been a very productive conversation between myself and the superintendent too if not though you know just let us know and i do want to and it was in my

113comments but i'll do it now i really want to thank dr reiser and grace for just being amazing in these last two weeks and really helping us to get through and understand the agenda items we were not adequately prepared for them through the committee process and i think you know it was a quite a surprise to us to get all that information on tuesday and try and comprehend and understand it in such a short period and they have really been amazing at that and we really appreciate it and hope moving forward we can figure out a strategy that will not impede so much on your time um i also had a comment uh any of the opinions or statements that i'm providing right now are certainly representative of myself as an individual i'm not speaking

114on behalf of the board just my personal accord i want to thank the superintendent dr reiser also grace and the whole central office staff i think judy anne-marie everybody you are extremely patient with us over the last two weeks as we work towards understanding the structure and function of our board of education i also want to acknowledge and thank the very devoted and resilient school employees the teachers custodians uh everyone that worked through the week of virtual learning and ensured the successful return to in-person instruction a lot of teachers have certainly expressed the sentiment that virtual learning is not preferred so i'm very very happy that we were able to go back in person on tuesday i ran on a slate with two incredibly talented passionate smart and committed women the three of us do

115not always agree on everything but often our ideas do align as we will continue to advocate for transparency communication and involvement we are focused on ensuring compliance with regulations laws and policies when we are pointing out things that we want to discuss it's not because it's something that we want it's something that as a collective group we must adhere to we are attempting to streamline communication and processes so instead of sending nine emails we do try to send joint emails but then we only get a response to the sole author we want to make sure that we could address any protocols procedures and practices with the school board we are here to advocate for the changes that are needed for our schools and we will continue to be the voice of the community and advocate

116for things to be done correctly in compliance with policies and regulations and to ensure the success and benefits for our students families staff and taxpayers and thank you to all the parents who have continued to reach out with different ideas or feedback or just in general support and thanks for people that came tonight too mr president uh as a point of order there's a motion on the floor i think somehow we diverted from that so this is o'connell made a motion we need to see if there's a second on that motion second open for discussion can someone clarify is this a motion that school board members cannot reach out to the school administrator on agenda item issues i think the motion is to refer the um the appropriate procedures for communications with the central office

117to the policy committee for consideration of an appropriate policy i think that really was the motion i think that motion was presented as it was the belief that what is currently being done is in violation of some type of procedure but i believe mr fogerty confirmed that there is no issue in fact i just think there's a little bit of confusion right yeah yes it's not a violation of the school ethics act to reach out to the superintendent for clarification on agenda items so why would we vote to restrict our access to the superintendent what is the purpose of it kathy you brought it up working day and running the public running our district okay yes you thanked them and that's wonderful but it also took a lot of time out of their day and

118i think they could either be curtailed to shorter or any the motion basically is okay cannot be agenda items but anything other than that any because we've always done that anytime we've had a question we've always run it through jack and jack will sit he'd ask the superintendent he'd sit with the board with grace and then come back to us with an answer i think sometimes just being able to send an email and get a response would be less intrusive than having to schedule a meeting and play there all the time he's the president he's there all the time and rather than getting you know i mean we can do the policy where other than agenda items it's the same amount of work so it's either i'm emailing jack and going back and forth with

119jack or jack's just but this way instead of possibly getting nine emails to having i don't think that there are nine emails i think there's only two that are happening and it's it's ruby and i i'm having a hard time hearing the second one and if the issue is that ruby and i shouldn't be sending emails excuse me excuse me if everybody could try to come closer to their microphone we're having difficulty on this side hearing your comments please okay i just don't think we need a motion i think yes we do need to figure out a way to better communicate as a board and to understand the agenda items we need to restructure the committees i think we can work on that without a motion that will limit our ability to really understand the

120agenda items were new board members dr reiser's been amazing at helping us you know to clarify these issues and it would be a real shame if we didn't have that connection with her um and had to go through the board president and it would also limit his ability because then he would have to be responding to us as well but do you realize that the board president is where we're supposed to go to first for information he knows just as much information as daniella dr eiser or grace i mean but yet we're not we're supposed to be working as a board no that's not true no well there's been times that i've been in meetings and i've had the answers that the board president may not i just think it's right but i think what

121i'm thinking is i would like to work more as a cohesive board rather than everyone just going to grace and when we feel that we have the appropriate answers and we're following the procedures we are we are so on board with that but unfortunately i feel that i as an individual speaking right now i'm going to have to be be shown that and and get that trust it's a two-way street so by us having uh more discussion tonight than i think the entire 2021 calendar year by your response being you want a motion to prevent us from talking that's that's what's just alarming my emotion is so that their day isn't taken up with other things than agenda items if you would like to send them emails questions about agenda items that's absolutely fine yep

122and that's what i do but the motion would be that anything other than agenda items go through jack and jack will field other things in that as far as the board president i think all our correspondence has been agenda items agenda items or items on the committee what else would we raise we don't we're not raising issues that we just come across yeah i'm sharing like updates from the cdc that i get from bergen county before dr reiser receives from hudson county so it's actually i think beneficial i know it's up to the board i think what i had a conversation earlier tonight is that we can try and filter some of the things through me so i can answer questions that don't have to go through the superintendent that would be board related questions

123anything doing with the educational of course the superintendent and the business administrator would have to answer i'm just asking to be a filter so they get a little less on their agenda that's so i've asked that already and i'm hopefully everybody will abide by that and so we don't have to go ahead and make it a formal so yeah jack any any board policy questions i will find them myself and then go to you for clarification the things specifically that we have been reaching out about are specific to education and agendas so they are specific to dr reiser so there's no need in my opinion to involve a third party just to make us we then it's another step it's another delay it's another opportunity for miscommunication i ask extremely direct questions and it's it's

124easy to just get the answer quickly so but anything board related absolutely i completely respect your role as the board president and i know you have a wealth of experience and knowledge that you could share with us okay so at this this moment i just like to move the table that motion just to go further and see if we can as i said filter let's make it easy for everyone all right so i'm just asking for a motion to move at the table second vocal mr bartletta yes mr bonino the motion is to table the uh on mrs o'connell's motion at this time dr paranola yes miss gonzalez i'm sorry can you repeat the motion again i can't hear it the motion is to table the motion made by mrs o'connell at the present time

125there's no discussion on the tabling motion and so the roll call is being taken to table that motion yes this kish yes mr lois yes mr mcstowe yes miss o'connell mr patel yes so be it any other comments yes i had a comment so i want to echo uh leah's thank yous i've already thanked numerous times dr reiser and grace but i also want to thank my fellow board members i know that we have come in like a whirlwind with our questions and our concerns and i know you guys have all been very patient with us and i appreciate that and i really do believe that we can work cohesively together and do great things for our school district so i want to thank you guys for your patience so prior to joining the board

126of education in that time between election day and the swearing-in i watched a lot of school board meetings my youtube recommended list was full of nothing but school board meetings and the reason i did that is i wanted to get a sense of how other school districts operated their school boards and what i noticed right away was a lot of discussion among the school board members in those meetings and this was a sharp contrast to the board meetings that i have attended in the past here in c caucus where there was no discussion on any items ever in the public and this was really it stuck out to me because one of our campaign promises we made three major campaign promises that if we would get elected we would focus on and one of them

127was transparency and decision making so when i saw these other districts running their meetings in a way where the public could see how decisions were formulated it really made an impression on me and i started to do some research on this issue and how we could push for these changes in our district and it turns out that this is not just a luxury that some school districts have managed to accomplish for their community but actually it's a requirement so i just want to take a minute to read the preamble the to the new jersey open public meetings act and it says the legislature finds and declares that the right of the public to be present at all meetings of public bodies and to witness in full detail all phases of deliberation policy formation and decision

128making of public bodies is vital to the enhancement and proper functioning of the democratic process that secrecy in public affairs undermines the faith of the public and government and the public's effectiveness in fulfilling its role in a democratic society so by moving the discussions to the public forum we are adhering to the open public meetings act and i'm sure you all noticed everyone out there who's watching a difference in how this board meeting was run compared to any other board meeting that you've watched and i think it's amazing not only are we adhering to the spirit of the open public meetings act in a way that we haven't in the past but also you can see how board members make decisions and i hope that moving forward we'll hear more from our board members because

129i've heard them in committees and there's a lot of thought that goes into the decisions that they make they ask amazing and you know questions to really try and understand the policies that they are voting on and so i hope that as we move forward we will continue to have these types of open discussions and i think it will benefit our school district and also allow the public to see the commitment of my fellow board members thank you thank you anyone else just a little check i'd like to the board to uh start looking at calendar dates for the month of march i'd like to propose that we hold a a town hall meeting sometime in march to invite the public in to ask open questions so between now and next board meeting we come

130together with a date that we can put the forum together and we'll be able to announce it to the public that that's the date we will hold the open town hall so with that being said motion to adjourn you want a favor