Wall Township Board Meeting 6/15/2021

001a little more so much paperwork delivery right that's it well you never know somebody may use this one i know good evening at this time we will reconvene the wall townsh board of education meeting for tuesday june 15 2021. uh mr smythe could we have a roll call please uh yes mr guards here mr hall here is hotnett here mr krupa here mr nasser here mr sam flippa here mrs here mr bondrack here mr adenisia here thank you all right at this time we are going to start with our student rep report good evening thank you dr handerhand mr ednesio and the board of education members i would like to start by thanking you all for allowing me to share my report with you and the wall community each month i am grateful to have

002had the opportunity to represent the student body with the year coming to a close and graduation in just over a week i would like to reflect on what we have accomplished for an entire school year and more our students and staff were forced to adapt and make the best of what we had we were able to have great success over athletic arts and academic programs it was far from easy and everyone was faced with challenges each and every day however coming to school the last few months with almost everyone in the building walking in the last few days masked optional and feeling the normalcy come back i believe we conquered this year i am thankful to have been surrounded by some of the best teachers and administrators as well as my peers thank you again

003for this opportunity i am so excited to see what the future holds and congratulations to our new board of ed student representatives kyle gerber and ally cartonella [Applause] on behalf of the board of education i'd like to thank you um as you know that unfortunately this year wasn't the best of years but we we made it through and we thank you for contributing um we we certainly hope your senior year was everything you kind of hoped it would be uh one question how was your senior prom it was super fun it was like better than i could have ever expected um so thank you it was really good that's good that's great to hear well thank you um we wish you all the best with the rest of the school year good luck in college

004and don't be afraid to come back and visit us thank you mr president we are going to move on um we are going to go to superintend superintendents update stockholm again good evening i'm sorry i i think we'd also like to thank trevor lokersen for his participation absolutely as well yes sorry no problem okay thank you mr adenizio before i start with the superintendent's report i would like to introduce the 2021-2012 board of education student representatives and the primary representative is kyle gerber and the alternate student representative is alison cartonella i believe you're in the house tonight a little bio kyle is a rising senior he's extremely involved in school life he is vice president of the wall business and finance academy he is a member of both the varsity soccer team and the varsity

005basketball team he hopes to make a difference by representing the students of wall township as a student board representative next year alison allison is a rising junior she is equally involved in school life she is the student council vice president and a member of the yearbook club she is a triathlete participating in varsity field hockey lacrosse and the basketball teams alison is very excited for her role as the board of education alternate for the next year congratulations to both of these remarkable remarkable students and i look forward to your participation as student representatives next year and before uh isabelle is we uh you know release her from her duties i just want to thank her for doing such an amazing job so isabella uh isabel my best to you as you uh move forward with

006your future endeavors this is such an exciting time and uh i have to say the prom was pretty awesome so i do agree so with that ladies and gentlemen good evening and thank you for coming out tonight i would like to begin by sharing some wonderful news i am so pleased to share that high school art teacher ms jill alexander was named 2021 outstanding educator in visual arts by the monmouth arts monmouth arts education awards i had the opportunity to meet with miss alexander and i can tell you that after meeting with her it was so clear to me why she was chosen she is incredibly talented and has son done so much for the students of wall township thank you miss alexander walt high school has been an exciting place it's been an exciting

007place this spring a lot of great things have taken place here are a few of them this spring we had three congressional art competition winners named avery noel for blood oranges evelyn kenickie for a roller coaster of life and samantha nemergat for earning the best in show for her work within the shadows just a little plug these works are available on our website so i invite you to check it out after the meeting congratulations artists on earning such a prestigious award i would also like to thank merlie kirshenbaum solara panagakos meadow pilla and maddie soto for advancing to the state level teen arts competition this spring the music department also had a lot to celebrate this year students chosen for the offshore chorus have it here what did i do with it we have so

008many musical accomplishments ah here we go the all-shore chorus andrew heim dominic paduano the all-shore symphonic band kirsten begornia abigail rubino molly matri megan gallagher sophia sabangian isabel donafrio ashlynn wells sienna rouley hudson o'reilly tristan o'neill aaron flanagan brendan lee joseph bueno michael steitz tyler alonso andrew heim vincent manzo anthony doria jared mclaughlin the nafme national guitar orchestra selected will krebs and the njmea honors guitar orchestra selected lauren damiano joey hop hooper ethan fletcher and once again william krebs i would very much like to congratulate all of our artists for an amazing amazing um made their amazing accomplishments i would also like to congratulate the following sports teams football congratulations for the short being the shore conference undefeated super pod champions finishing their season ranked number one in the state of new jersey boys soccer

009undefeated central east region state champions girls volleyball central jersey group 2 state champions and boys golf hot off the press central jersey group 2 champions and overall group two champions knights you have done an amazing amazing job and the students that were recognized this evening and their classmates uh the cl i would very much like to recognize the class of 2021 for all of their um all of their leadership during a time where it was difficult to be a leader so with that class of 2021 you will forever be certainly part of the fabric of this school part of the district but you know you had a special charge and i just wanted to thank you for that so congratulations to you [Applause] at this time i would like to introduce a very special update

010from the pre-engineering academy at wall high school please join me in welcoming senior jack alexander mr dan leonard the director of the pre-engineering academy and mr dan pearce the assistant director of the pre-engineering academy gentlemen i have been looking forward to this update literally all month so i'm going to hand the floor over and thanks for coming out tonight good evening everyone quick introductions i'm daniel leonard the academy director joining me is my colleague mr daniel pierce as well as mr jack alexander one of our seniors in the program i'm very excited to to talk about the program as a whole as well as the type of things that we're doing and what the future holds for the pre-engineering academy at wall high school just a quick history starting in the fall of 2012 the

011program was conceived that worked very closely with building administration to develop the program and to present it to the curriculum committee at the time in the spring of 2013 the program was approved by the board in the fall of 2013 in september we welcomed our very first class the class of 2017 and in june of 2017 that first class graduated fast forward to today the class of 2021 is now our fifth graduating class the goal of the academy is to incorporate a rigorous and challenging curriculum that will increase technological literacy as well as prepare students for post-secondary education and ultimately a career in the fields of engineering technology or science there are many goals or many advantages of the academy and this is not just for the pre-engineering academy this is basically the academy model

012students are grouped together they're with like-minded individuals so it's students who have a passion for their studies or they're highly interested in science or technology or engineering they may have similar goals they may have similar wants and needs and being together helps them move forward more than if they were acting as an individual or on an individual path the prescribed rigorous and challenging program that's incorporated within our curriculum really pushes students to go beyond their comfort zone what we found over the years is that many students will actually take that extra honors class or that extra ap class where they might not normally have taken it and that challenges them and ultimately will prepare them for their future in addition we have career exploration we have guest speakers that come in we take trips and

013shadowing experiences they get to see what their careers might be or what they want their what they don't want their careers to be and that's just as valuable professional development opportunities all of our students leave with a solid resume interview skills that is one of the things that we're going to continue to push for the future is we want polish students coming out of our program so that when they get to college they are more prepared than their peers in addition networking after graduation might be the most valuable aspect of the program and this is something that is difficult to really foresee because in a program like this the feedback loop is extremely long and what we found is that the networking opportunities that we have after they leave wall high school are actually more

014valuable than when they were here we have a linkedin group of several dozen individuals made up of graduates of the program as well as industry members and what we're trying to do is merge those individuals together and allow them to find their careers before they graduate from college the curriculum that's involved in the program and this is slightly misleading now they're not taking eight math classes when they're in high school that is the sum of the classes they could take depending on where they come into the program if they come in taking geometry they'll move to algebra 2 to calculus and then to or precalculus and then to ap calculus some of our more advanced students that come in taking algebra 2 might take ap calculus as a junior and multivariable calculus as a senior

015and some like to throw in like i said they'll take that extra ap class they might throw in ap statistics science is a little bit more structured in the sense that they're taking biology and chemistry as a freshman and sophomore then they have the ability to branch out into their desired field so some will take physics some will take an ap science all of our graduates are going to take at least one of those ap sciences and the engineering component is very simple they're taking an intro to engineering course an advanced engineering course as well as a robotics and then a senior capstone course which is a guided independent study where they're working within a team on a long-term research project where they're producing a very high quality prototype at the end to guide and

016kind of direct our curriculum and to fit it into what industry wants we work with advisory board members from the company seen here they are hyper local several are in wall township several are in howell township most of them are extremely local a lot of the people that we work with are either graduates of the graduates of wall high school they live in wall they have students in wall they're highly vested and what they do for us is they give us guidance they tell us what they want when they leave college we tell them where they could be and we try to meet in the middle and i think that's a really valuable component of this looking forward is it's not just the four years at wall high school it's the four years here and

017then it's your career afterwards some of our graduates now the class of 2017 i got a little bit nervous these are the colleges that they were attending have attended or are currently attending i got a little bit nervous when our first graduating class came through because there are some high-powered schools here university of pennsylvania georgia tech nyu but what we're going to see as we go through the years is that each class rose up to that standard we've had students accepted to very very highly powerful schools schools with low acceptance rates schools that are very difficult to get into schools such as stevens institute of technology clemson georgia tech brown cornell just to name a few and these are the schools that they're attending these aren't the schools that they were accepted to there are

018a whole nother set of impressive lists of schools that they actually turn down and offer from our class of 2020 is no different and our current class of 2021 is equally as impressive they are getting into schools that a lot of people dream of getting into they're not going to a magnet school they're not going to a private school they're going to a comprehensive high school in this great town and they're still getting into the schools and i think they're more prepared than the other students that are attending those private schools and i truly believe that and again the feedback loop is extremely long and i believed in it all the way but now we've finally come to fruition and we've realized what the value of the program is i'd like to turn it over

019to my colleague mr pierce who's going to discuss what a typical academy student might see daily in their class [Applause] as mentioned earlier academy students take both honors and ap math science classes but that's not all the classes that they take they take honors uh english honors history and a lot of honors instrumental music so of our students they're very well-rounded but very busy okay but when they get to our classes however they're met with different challenges that are not necessarily what they're used to we want them to fail and we want them to fail frequently and often whether it is building a bridge in engineering one or designing a balsa wood plane and engineering design two we prepare our students to put the time and effort develop the ideas build the prototypes but when

020it comes around to testing we want them to fail okay the reason we want them to fail they learn more from that one failure than we could teach them in any lecture once one of my students earlier in the year made a comment about this past year she said to me the one thing that i truly missed this year is just to sit and think about a problem or solution in the in class once i heard that i could i uh i could not help but smile but in all of our engineering classes throughout the four years we strive to make our students independent thinkers that can come together and work in as integral team members um to solve problems so when they get to their senior capstone project they're ready to develop or design

021and come up with an invention or innovation that rivals most um college capstone projects okay to have a a a different opinion or a different slant on it we have jack anderson jack alexander sorry my bad hello everyone i'm jack alexander as mr pierce mr leonard of albrighty probably introduced so the first thing i've learned with the engineering academy is how much it demands from you before you even start so for example when i was in eighth grade and applying to the pre-engineering academy i thought okay this is going to be a slam dunk my math grades are solid my science grades are pretty good however that letter got that i got in the mail was a rejection letter however a week later i got it i ultimately got accepted into the engineering academy and

022it was at that moment that i became that much more excited about this opportunity then with the p like after that i realized that i'll be working with some of the brightest minds in our class then with some of the projects that we started to develop in high school the first assignment was to draw mock-ups of 3d prints that mr leonard had set up for us in wacky dimensions and shapes and this is really a valuable skill because even though i'm not pursuing engineering per se in college and rather taking the architecture route it's still a very useful skill to be able to draw something on the spot and be able to represent show representation of it for the consumer and then in the next year for sophomore year we made co2 cars which was

023such a fun project and it really kind of showed us physics principles without even going into physics so much with like momentum and if it's released with the same momentum the lighter it is the faster it's going to go when we and all of that was pretty much shown through our co2 car races or in junior year when we got to see the amazon warehouse out out in west new jersey and then we got to see like how all the products were packaged and how they're going to be shipped out and everything along those lines and then for the senior capstone project i developed pretty much where you use keypad technology uh to open the box and because you enter the code and then the motor turns and then you can open the box so

024through that project i learned so much too as mr pierce mentioned piggy backing off him with several failed prototypes i think we've had over 11 3d prints however the whole thing was just to get a functional product at the end of the day and we got to that point so that's really the important part and i learned so much along the way even with coding for example i didn't know how the code i know the first thing about coding but now at least i know basic principles such as that you have to set up your code and then to actually have it perform its task or whatever where it's in the setup it translates from how the computer interprets it to how we would interpret it and then in the loop we can plug in

025how we would interpret it and then so on and the product would then function after that more importantly though than the academic um more than the academic things that we learned within the pre-engineering academy i developed many social skills that i never could have developed without being in the pre-engineering academy for example whenever i was in the hallway i would often botch a hello encounter or i certainly didn't have the capability to speak to all of you right now however through the through doing group projects you get to make friends and then you say hi to those people in the hallways and then you build up your confidence and those opportunities would not have happened without me being in the pre-engineering academy and then also one more thing real quick going off what mr leonard

026was talking about with the challenging classes it really does push you to go the extra mile per se as with with like it pushed me to take like ap calculus classes and then go above and beyond and take geometry this summer beforehand so i could be in the similar classes with the kids in the pre-engineering academy per se and then i never really thought about an ap science class and so it was a requirement in the engineering academy and now i have ap physics and ap environmental science under my belt because of the way the framework was set up within the pre-engineering academy so overall i owe a big thank you to mr leonard and mr pierce for making this such a wonderful experience over the past four years as i can't wait to see

027what my future holds as a result i i can tell you jack's future is going to be bright he's he's an extremely hard worker he touched upon a lot of the points that we kind of emphasized through our program we're going to challenge you it's going to be tough you're going to fail sometimes but in the end it will be worth it one thing i can say is i know jack is making an extremely informed decision about the next four years a lot of college students can't say that most of ours can when they say they want to study environmental engineering or pharmacy or business they're making extremely informed decisions and that's based on a lot of their experiences that happen within the program now outside of the academy one of the interesting aspects of

028the program of the academy is the fact that the program outside of the academy has grown equally as well so in addition to our 90 plus students that are currently involved in our pre-engineering academy there's nearly 100 students yearly who are taking one of six engineering courses that are not involved in the program that to me shows an interest which i think is fantastic for our futures my children's futures but it's not just about the academy it's influencing the rest of the school as well i think that just is beneficial for everyone in the community the future of our program we have a fluid and evolving curriculum we're constantly working with industry to to identify what needs they have what we can accomplish here what needs to be accomplished later an increased emphasis on programming

029and computer science that's one of the things that we've identified that looking ahead to the future we're always looking five ten years ahead uh collaboration with colleges and universities to establish that relationship and increase professional development and networking opportunities if you'd like to learn more our academy website is tinyurl.com whs dash pre dash engineering all the information a lot of most of the information i presented tonight is up there including our college uh commitments etc i'd like to open it up to the board if they have any questions mr leonard i'd like to thank you for your time and dedication to the program uh how many kids apply on an annual basis and how many do you accept roughly or is it flex there's ebbs and flows in the applications i would say in a

030given year the average is probably 40 applications that come in uh we limit our acceptances to 24 yearly and that's based on space faculty combination it's it's a combination of everything they're in the space that we have the faculty that we have the unique courses that we're running within the academy as well as trying to create connections with industry and making sure that each one of our seniors gets that connection and how many schools in the area you know within a couple miles or so five miles or so have a similar program to what we offer a similar program there are some a program at our level i i don't think there are any and i truly believe that because this is a very very difficult thing to do well there's there's not a lot

031of proprietary information in regards to just the curriculum any school can offer a course in robotics calculus ap physics what we try to do is take it to the next level with our professional development our connections with industry our advisory board it's an extremely difficult thing to do well anyone can do it and create a facade i actually i'm a jackson resident i serve on the jackson's academy advisory board they're trying to match what we're doing and it's it's very difficult it's something that a lot of schools are trying to do but there's a lot of roadblocks in the way i congratulate you again because just the presentation that was given you know it was wonderful and to see the mental health growth and the social growth beyond the engineering and knowledge is pretty impressive

032so thank you thank you you mentioned that there's a linkedin page for alumni and people on the is that a public page the linkedin group is a private group okay we try to to limit it to industry members that i've gone through and vetted i don't want people coming into the group that are predatory or and it's it's only for our graduates so it's when they leave here jack is not involved in it it's only for our graduates when they leave wall high school but it is a closed group we try to keep it close knit and not be extremely large so what's the best way if there's working professionals in town that want to become involved i'm in contact with many professionals in the local area and as soon as i make contact with

033them and i have a discussion with them i immediately send them an invite because i want them involved as well i love highland if you're local you're invested and i love vested people so if they contact me and i have a brief conversation with them and i can do the vetting process myself i immediately make that connection thank you okay okay um i am so incredibly grateful that you were able to showcase uh really such an incredibly uh strong program for us and uh i learned a lot tonight so i'm really grateful um mr leonard mr pierce and mr alexander thank you so much for a wonderful presentation and mr alexander we look forward to your connection with wall high school um in the years to come and maybe you can serve as a mentor

034in the program of which um you were such a valuable member of um so with that i thank you for coming out tonight principal sergio i've this evening i've watched a big smile um and i i can't imagine something to be more proud of so thank you for coming out tonight to show your support thank you for your time i appreciate it okay i'd like to continue with the superintendent's report during the last few weeks the superintendent's office has received many phone calls and emails regarding the use of masks i would like to respond publicly as to why i have not made a public declaration dismissing the use of masks for the remainder of the school year i believe it is necessary to provide a granular explanation since it is necessary to cross-reference executive orders

035new jerseyans were told via executive order that effective friday may 28 2021 individuals in indoor public spaces are not required to wear masks regardless of their ability to maintain six feet of distance from other individuals or groups in accordance with cdc recommendations individuals who are not fully vaccinated should continue to wear masks in indoor public spaces however executive order 242 specifically paragraph 2 provides that in addition for purposes quoted above this order indoor public spaces do not include child care centers other child care facilities youth summer camps and public private and parochial preschool program premises and elementary and secondary schools and this includes charter and renaissance schools these schools continue to be governed by executive orders number 149 175 and 237 and any applicable standards issued by the commissioner of the department of health executive

036orders 237 and 149 apply to youth summer camps child care centers and other child care facilities and it is not relevant to this particular discussion however executive order 175 provides the authority for parochial preschool program premises elementary and secondary schools and charter and renaissance schools executive order 175 provides that all school districts that reopen for full or part-time in-person instruction must meet the following health and safety standards delineated in the department of education's checklist for reopening of school 2020-2021 and detailed in the road back restart and recovery plan for education which include but are not limited to mandatory use of face coverings by staff students and visitors except in the following circumstances when doing so would inhibit the individual's health when the individual is exposed to extreme heat outdoors when the individual has trouble breathing

037is unconscious incapacitated or otherwise unable to remove a face covering without assistance when a student's documented medical medical condition or disability as reflected in an individualized education program or an iep or an educational plan pursuant to section 504 of the rehabilitation act of precluding the use of face covering when the individual is under the age of two when the individual is eating or drinking when the individual is engaged in high-intensity aerobic or anaerobic activity when a student is participating in high-intensity physical activities during physical education class in a well-ventilated location and able to maintain a physical distance of six feet from all other individuals when a student as part of music instruction is playing an instrument that would be obstructed by the face covering or finally when wearing a face covering creates an unsafe condition

038in which to operate equipment or execute a task please note that executive order 242 paragraph one only concerns the wearing of masks executive order 242 paragraph 2 specifically provides that elementary schools and secondary schools are not considered indoor public spaces for purposes of paragraph 1 and mask wearing thus executive order 175 continues to govern the wearing of face coverings or masks at the elementary and secondary level schools pursuant to paragraph two of executive order 242. as superintendent of schools it is my duty to ensure compliance with executive orders that said i am also charged with the health and safety of students and staff across the district for the last week i've responded situationally by using the provision when doing so would inhibit the individual's health as stated in the letter i sent home sunday evening

039i reevaluated the conditions in classrooms throughout the district today and after assessing classroom conditions and factoring in the extended forecast throughout the end of the school year i have determined that the district will remain mass optional through the end of this school year at this point i would like to shift directions a little bit and talk and move into the special presentation i would like to share with you the first step in securing district funding as provided by the federal american rescue plan act you may have heard this grant funding referred to as safe return plan funding a few weeks ago wall township public schools was allocated two million one hundred seventy one dollars to to two million one hundred seventy one thousand two hundred seventy nine dollars from this federal aid package needless to

040say i am very happy about this funding may be spent over the course of two years there are requirements that must be met to ensure that the district receives this funding twenty percent of this funding must be dedicated to learning loss activities that address social emotional and academic needs and disproportionate impact on subgroups the remaining 80 percent may be spent on a wide range of activities with special emphasis on implementing public health protocols consistent with cdc guidelines other requirements include that prior to this evening's meeting the district leadership needed to meet with various stakeholders to discuss the eight required writing prompts of this preliminary plan presenting these prompt responses in a public forum with the opportunity for public comment is another tomorrow the responses to the eight writing prompts must be posted on the district's

041website it is a requirement to revisit these questions and other components of the application every 60 days i would like to stress that this is a federal requirement and schools across the country will be completing the identical written tasks i mention this because many schools never opened for in-person instruction throughout the country as i go through the responses this evening some will look familiar to you a few of the prompts are akin to pieces of the reopening plan we completed last summer please keep in mind this step is a first step which includes very targeted writing prompts the actual grant application is to be submitted no later than november 24th the district has a long way to go on this application districts were tasked with just responding to these eight writing prompts at this time

042nothing more these prompts pertain to maintaining health and safety the first question relates to mask management and the correct wearing of masks here is our response due to the nature of a real-time pandemic response the district must be in the position to pivot to mask implementation as required by executive orders new jersey department of health and cdc guidance will be consulted as required this past year measures were taken to instruct students on the proper wearing of masks measures included school nurse video demonstrating proper mask application and removal staff referrals to nurses when students needed extra support with proper mask application and visual reminders signs throughout the building demonstrating proper mask wearing these practices will continue as needed disposable masks face shields and kn 95 masks will once again be available to staff and students if

043they are needed the second prompt refers to social distancing the district's response is that new jersey department of health and the cdc guidance will be followed to the greatest extent possible social distancing signage will be posted as needed throughout the schools the third prompt speaks to hand washing and respiratory etiquette our response notes that the use of hand sanitizer with at least 60 percent alcohol and encouraging students and staff to either wash their hands regularly or use the readily available hand gel proper hygiene with respect to coughs and sneezes will be stressed the fourth prompt speaks to cleaning and improved ventilation all of which we implemented this school year the district instituted a more intensive cleaning procedure for the 2020-2020 school year in addition to cleaning all high-touch point areas throughout the day water bottle

044filling stations were installed in every school since water fountains weren't permitted ppe was provided and given to all staff members such as masks and face shields plexiglas barriers were provided to staff and students where where they were needed additional disinfecting was completed at night as part of the daily cleaning the district also hired an engineer to provide a report to identify fresh air in the buildings the report displayed where fresh air was being introduced into each room in the district in the spaces that did not provide fresh air the district introduced fresh air into that space and that all took place before the opening of school this year additionally merv 13 filters were provided in the units that could accommodate filters we added that the use of merv 13 filters will be reviewed during the

045summer months so that we can dive deeply to see what their impact was on district air conditioning all filters throughout the district are changed quarterly the fifth prompt asked for the school's plan regarding contact tracing isolation and quarantine the district's response is quite detailed and is available within this evening's agenda whether it be online or in the handout provided during the tonight's live meeting in essence the school district will consult with the freehold area department of health and utilize the guidance and best practices for schools provided by the nj doh and the cdc the sixth prompt speaks to diagnostic diagnostic testing and screening the district will continue its practice of self-screening prior to reporting to school or work the seventh prompt speaks to the efforts the district has put forth and will continue to put

046forth to encourage vaccination this past year wall township public schools along with other districts participated in a pilot program run by the visiting nurses association of central jersey to vaccinate school staff members families with children 12 and above were provided with vaccine resources special arrangements have been made for students with disabilities that were interested in receiving the vaccine the district has explored opportunities to extend partnerships to make vaccines available on weekends for regional families if they chose to participate none of these vaccine clinics have been scheduled to date however i would like to add that there is no plan to require student or staff vaccines vaccinations at this time the eighth and final prompt speaks to making special accommodations for students with disabilities the district recognizes that mask wearing can be difficult for certain children

047with disabilities therefore accommodations will be provided according to the students particular need and in accordance with applicable applicable laws and regulations alternative personal protective equipment will be provided such as face shields and plexiglas barriers and or additional distancing staff are offered additional protective equipment such as face shields and or k95 masks when caring for students who are unable to tolerate a face mask visual cues and pictures scheduled schedules can be assisted in creating a class procedure or schedule for hydrate hygiene measures such as hand washing clear face coverings are available for students who rely on speech reading this concludes the overview of the eight required prompts i would like to drill down a little bit with respect to the vaccine because i did you know i heard some comments you know as i was speaking

048i would like to say i indicated that i said that we are not looking to require vaccines for students or staff at this time because i don't have a crystal ball and there are vaccine requirements that the new the state of new jersey requires whether a corona virus vaccine is one of them i don't know but i will tell you that we have received no guidance on it so i just wanted to make that clear that i do not know what the future holds and we do have required vaccines by the state of new jersey so i just wanted to provide that at this time i would like to invite participants to comment on the eight district responses to the prompts please keep in mind this is a time to comment our task for this

049evening was not to provide a detailed plan for the return to school in september as no additional guidance or mandates for september have been shared with school districts yet i thank you for your time at this time is there anybody that would like to comment on this report come on up yes just state your name in town for the record my name is michelle burns and i have three kids in this school district and first i want to say thank you to dr handrahan for the email tonight stating that mass were optional for the rest of the year my 10 year old son was jumping up and down with joy my husband and i were raised here and went through this school system we were very happy to be able to raise our kids here

050i want to tell you about my family's personal experience this past year with the mass mandate ms burns i'm sorry could maybe move that microphone a little closer i don't know if everybody back there can hear you can you hear me yes okay thank you i want to tell you my family's personal experience with this past year with the mass mandates in school i could recite the scientific data supporting how our kids are not asymptomatic spreaders or how the vast majority are only getting a very mild case that resembles a cold if they contract it at all but i think it's clear to everyone that the science means nothing to the powers that be sixteen thousand four hundred dollars that is the amount of money we have spent from may to november 2020 for therapy

051in my home for one child my other two completely shut down it took me about two weeks to actually find a therapist that could fit us into her schedule forget about finding one that takes our insurance they were completely booked the sessions were over zoom i don't know if you have ever dealt with a therapist over zoom but it is not ideal or comfortable especially for a child after all those months of not seeing real progress i finally found one that would come to my home we are finally starting to see some progress thankfully all of my kids love school they love their teachers love to be with their friends they love to learn when the school's first shut down for what we were told was two weeks to flatten the curve they weren't happy

052but what's two weeks those two weeks were a nightmare and virtual learning was not ideal in my house to put it mildly as we know two weeks turned into the end of the year all the activities graduations class parties all cancelled we were all devastated we missed the teachers the classrooms classmates everything we appreciated how the they acknowledged our fifth grade graduates but it wasn't the same and that wasn't the worst part the worst part was the message that was being sent to the kids you must stay away from your friends and family you must wear a mask so you don't make your loved one sick and worst of all do you want to be the one responsible for killing your grandparents my grandmother is 102 years old she made it to this age because

053her whole life she had been surrounded by her family that loves and adores her her grandchildren and great grandchildren keep her going my kids would ask me if it's okay to be near her we don't want to make her sick they would say i would remind them they are healthy and cannot pass along a virus they don't have the mass were working they were working in a sense that they were making people afraid to interact definitely not working from spreading the virus that is clear we had the longest and strictest lockdowns yet the highest rates of infection and death among any other state as much as i teach my kids at home about the realities of kovid how it affects people differently it can be dangerous for some especially the elderly and the immune immuno

054compromised they were still afraid they would hear people talk about how they were afraid to be near others and especially scared to be out in public without a mask this has caused severe anxiety in my children they can't fall asleep at night and when they do they have nightmares they have constant stomach aches they have headaches from wearing the mass in school even though it's a half day they complain of not being able to take full deep breaths and the mass shaming is alive and well if you pull your mask down for a moment someone is there to tell you to put it back on so forget about drinking water at your desk even if they are allowed to they are afraid to one day they seem fine and the next they are just sad

055and they can't articulate why just a general feeling of sadness we have been to the dermatologist twice for skin issues i can tell you that since we have been mass optional in school the past few days i have already seen such a great improvement in their attitude in the morning when i told my son no mask he jumped out of bed and was like yes like a normal day mommy as the mass mandates are lifted everywhere except schools the message is very clear to me it's about vaccines for years this governor and some senators for years this governor and some senators have been trying to take away our religious exemption in january of 2019 they were trying to pass a bill that would eliminate our rights as parents to choose to choose trying to mandate

056vaccines only a medical exemption would stand well the parents stood firm protested loudly but peacefully in trenton bombarded our senators assemblyman the governor and anyone else we had to with emails and phone calls to fight these measures and we the parents won new jersey senate president steve sweeney declared war on the parents of new jersey he actually said those words the teachers and any adult that wants a vaccine have had plenty of time to get one there is no emergency among children my daughter's best friend in fifth grade unfortunately was fighting cancer we would visit her multiple times a month at chop when the patients at the hospital would leave their rooms they were the ones in masks not the healthy people if you follow me on facebook you know i share information that gives

057parents the ability to make informed decisions i share data and science not memes i don't call people names i speak respectfully i am here to fight and stand up for all of our kids they should not be the group targeted to bear the weight of this virus a virus that will continue to run its course the pandemic is over one coveted death was too many why is an increase of suicide among adolescents acceptable why is a death caused by the vaccine acceptable as of june 7 according to the cdc there are 5 208 deaths mental health is part of the health care system all the symptoms our kids have suffered are from are physical as well as emotional these should be accepted as medical exemptions from wearing the masks at school i truly hope by

058the time september comes around we will not be facing these mask mandates again we will continue to fight for the rights of our children we will write emails to our governor senators assemblyman the board of education the superintendent and anyone else we need to we will make phone calls peacefully protest whether in trenton or at the wall township board of education building or the department of health and freehold everyone has their line in the sand i know where mine is and i will not quit until we as parents have the right to decide what is best for our own children i thank you for listening [Applause] thank you is there yep come on up [Applause] before my time starts just please understand what a difficult situation i'm in oh i'm sorry christine shanklin 2-124 saw

059milne before my time starts i just want you to understand what a very difficult situation this is for me tonight and my goal is only to inspire and unify us for the upcoming school year to unmask and unplexi our children and i hope our state dictator is listening to this right now i stand before you tonight not only as a concerned parent but also as a dedicated veteran educator of wall township allenwood school who has lived almost 180 school days with an amazing group of students during a very challenging year i want to say that we need to start to do better as a community i've seen so many actions portrayed by angry people residents over the past few weeks that are rather alarming the keyboard warriors and disrespectful words and actions of some are

060both ineffective and poor judgment on the part of adults pointing fingers at anybody in this room is not going to get the job done you see this is exactly what our coward leaders on the state level want to create a divide and as parents and teachers we know that we are the best examples for how we want our children to be brought up creating a unified community is the only way to fight this fight and we need to do better i thank each and every one of you on the board of education tonight for your service and dedication the time you put into our district is great and it's commendable and it's far from easy and you do it all as volunteers and i fully support your efforts but let's take a stand now for

061our kids in our district i also want to thank you dr handahan our superintendent you have been present for us staff and for the kids throughout the year in making decisions and keeping us in school and i thank you for that all the dedicated teachers out there thank you i'm not sure many of you realize how difficult it was for us a good strong teacher had to pour their heart and soul into every bit we did this year being at school full day is much easier than a half day and the majority of us wanted to be there all day i could tell you this i along with my colleagues have never worked harder than we did this year for the sake of our students academics and social emotional needs so saying anything different than

062that about us is creating fake news and unfair and believe me the kids hear it and absorb it thank you to our school administrators and staff for working so hard for staying optimistic i know it was very different from middle school and high school but on the elementary level we've been there for five days since september and it made us amongst the minority in the state as a community we should be thankful that our students were provided with this opportunity to do so and it was no small task i know the staff did not take one minute for granted the gift we were given to interact in person on a daily basis no one in any of these groups had an easy job this year in fact many hands were tied we worked in uncharted

063territories learning as we went along thank you to the parents your support through thick and thin gave the children everything they needed this year along with us teachers so thank you on september 16 2020 we all walk through the doors of school with hope and enthusiasm every first day of school we always ask our students how they're feeling and if they're upset that summer's over and this was the first year in my 15 years as an educator the students in my class unanimously answered that they were happy summer was over and relieved to be back in school the enormity of that response is huge it left us all extremely emotional we began the year with a motivated mindset and excitement like no ever other but however things started to change around the holidays when the

064reality set in seeing students including my own child my behind rows of plexiglass and masks is nothing less than tragic students on every level are now afraid not to feel good in school they're afraid to go to the nurse and be out of fear of being sent home and tested not in fear of a virus how can we continue to let this happen it all needs to stop it is not my place to instruct a child to mask up or to determine if they could breathe properly the kids are not okay the small child or adolescent inside is being robbed of experiences that help shape them as people while caged behind their plexi coping spills have also been affected and students present to be more emotional this past week was absolutely incredible in school we

065took a class trip to the middle school we had field day we had our fifth grade picnic with no masks or plexi it was as if all the kids woke up from hibernation and were able to come alive again they laughed and cheered as we were taking a trip to the middle school but you would have thought we were going to disney world they were finally able to be kids again we need to be their voices when they cannot talk and be their advocates when they need cannot express themselves as a mother and an educator i am certain that nobody can make the best decision for anybody else's child parents and guardians are responsible for that and with great passion and concern i stand before you and state that this is my child and my

066choice under any circumstance going forward for both masks and plexi no matter what the temperature is or the virus numbers it is our right to choose [Applause] i want to see their faces in class i want to give them what they deserve as students i want them to have the strength and tenacity to persevere through challenging situations but if we continue to let our state officials dictate a one size fits all when it comes to masking we are depriving them of this and as educators we all know one size fits all never works i'm by no means an anti-massacre i'm an anti-dictatorship show me the signs that masks are not needed in extreme heat situations in school but if air conditions present they must be warm show me the science that other states have been

067living freely for months with no issues but we're one of the last to have our freedoms back show me the signs that our children could go to a packed restaurant or venue unmasked i can't go to school like that explain to me how information is coming out about those that were supposed to be our medical leaders on a national level during this ordeal exposing them as a fraud but we still have to abide by them and to our state leaders if you're listening do not try to push your vaccine agenda on our children because i'm sure most of you are not going to let that touch your young child without further information and years of research [Applause] you see mr shanklin yes your time as well can i have a few more seconds please okay

068you see we we can't show the science here because we all know that science is a political game and our children are being used as pawns whether you're on the right or left red or blue it's not about a mask it's about standing up for our children and our freedoms as americans what we have under attack here is our liberties the mass complexity are only the first step to the loss of freedoms and socialistic plans that are behind the hidden agenda [Applause] [Music] i could have somebody finish it for you for me if you'd like please stop yelling out would you like me to hand it off to somebody else yes because i'm sure there's a lot of people but thank you [Applause] christine disarno 3117 truman court it's nice that somebody else did the

069work for me i appreciate that these freedoms are slipping away from us at an alarming rate these children are our future they are our future of our schools the future of our communities the future of our town wall township the future of america school is supposed to be a safe place for kids a home away from home mandating these children to wear a mask and sit behind plexiglass gives them an impression that this safe place no longer exists i'm not sure how many of you have ever heard admiral mcraven's commencement speech excuse me commencement speech at the university of texas he talks about various life lessons using analogies from seal training many of which we teach are kids at home and in school and here is an excerpt about standing up to the so-called sharks

070to pass steel training there are a series of long swims that must be completed one is the night swim before the swim the instructors joyfully brief the trainees on all the species of sharks that inhabit the waters off san clement they assure you however that no student has ever been eaten by a shark at least not recently but you are also taught that if a shark begins to circle your position stand your ground do not swim away do not act afraid and if the shark hungry for a midnight snack darts towards you then summon all your strength and punch at him in the snout and he will turn and swim away there are a lot of sharks in the world if you hope to complete the swim you will have to deal with them so

071if you want to change the world don't back down from the sharks from the words of admiral mcraven it is time we start to show them the hope and beauty again in education and experiencing school with your friends and teachers the way it's intended to be ladies and gentlemen it starts with us on the local level i do not have a clear answer as to how to achieve this but i know it starts here together unified not pointing fingers communication is key at this point it takes a village we need to lead or excuse me we need to live by example and stand up together to our so-called dictating leaders the sharks in this state and our country and fight together as a community parents teachers board of ed administration to ensure that we protect

072our constitution and our country and do not fail our children we must show them that we believe in the very things that this beautiful country was built on liberty and justice for all our children our town our choice thank you for your time and let's do this together as a community god bless america always let's take back our country [Applause] thank you next hi um dr richard greco i have a child that goes to central elementary school is just finishing first grade and i'm very grateful that she got to attend classes this year as well as somebody who lives with hidden viruses every day i am a surgeon so literally every time i'm operating a break in the glove a barrier things like that could end up with infection hiv and much more worse things

073than we're talking about here okay so these these are all battles that that we all have to to live with in terms of helping people and doing those things so i appreciate your effort and all that um it's quite unusual to see people gathered in a room with no masks on but yet our children can't and that bothers me i mean i was in atlantic state two weeks ago for a 40th birthday party of a friend and there was no mass i mean people were masked if they were afraid you know that's your choice again choice you could stand in an elevator with 10 people and there'd be no mask on nobody's worried about it now okay we got past the battle that we needed to to make sure everybody was safe i work in

074the hospital we lost all of our elective surgeries for many months during covet that affected my bottom line and my family's bottom line for many months not being able to operate i still had to pay my health insurance my malpractice insurance nobody's covering that okay then we started back in doing elective surgeries back in may or june and we had to gradually work our way into it now there's no restrictions everybody gets surgery i mean they get their covey test make sure they're not covered paused before they have surgery elective surgeries booming the hospitals are open we're not overrun with covet anymore it's time for the kids to go back to school without mass full time thank you amy mckinnis 1609 holly boulevard as a parent with four children in the wall township public schools

075i'd like to take this time to express my views concerning the upcoming school year this is a nice follow-up i'll first disclose that i'm a pediatric physician certified by the american board of pediatrics in both general pediatrics and pediatric intensive care over the past half past year and a half or so i've cared for children and adolescents with covid the postcovid multi-system inflammatory syndrome and in the past few weeks a cohort of adolescents with myocarditis in the days following vaccination for covid i provide my qualifications to make it clear that my opinion is educated the viewpoints and express are anchored by the knowledge and experience i've gained throughout the pandemic i'd like to make two points firstly vaccination against kovid should be an individual decision left to children their parents and their healthcare providers not

076their governor not their governor their school or their school board trust me it is a blessing to no longer witness the demise of pediatric patients from vaccine preventable illnesses however questions surrounding these vaccines particularly in children persist in an opinion piece from the british medical journal earlier this month the authors write for each coveted 19 vaccine the benefits may ultimately outweigh the harms or they may not or we may end up with some nuanced position finding that benefits outweigh harms for some populations but not others only time and better evidence will tell reasonable people will come to different conclusions regarding the risks and benefits of vaccination and accordingly members of the community should be given the liberty to make the choice that best suits them encouraging children families to consider vaccination is fair but requiring

077such intervention either overtly or covertly through force masking is unreasonable secondly independent of vaccination status children should be given the option of returning to the classroom without wearing a mask evidence would suggest that children are less able to transmit sars cov2 and newly published data suggests that masking in schools may not decrease viral transmission additionally in my opinion and as others have said the social and emotional implications of masking children in school has not yet been fully realized society's response to the code pandemic has been filled with decisions that may have seemed like a good idea at the time but in retrospect ultimately we're not in the best interest of the community this is no longer an emergency this is the new normal we must stop talking about things as safe or dangerous and instead

078acknowledge the uncertainties that have and will continue to exist an editorial in the january 2021 issue of the journal pediatrics reads we fear that one day we will look back on this terrible pandemic and recognize the extent to which we have failed our children by being more afraid of their infection and transmission risks than of the prospect of letting them down precisely when they needed us most i encourage the school board to create an environment where families are given the opportunity to evaluate the risks and benefits of health care interventions like vaccination and masking without outside influence thank you thank you hi my name is colleen fulling i'm at 4707 broad street in wall township good evening my name is colleen fulling i'm a licensed social worker i have my bachelor's from elon university and

079my master's in social work from rutgers university i specialized in health mental health and aging i am here tonight to discuss why there should be no mass in school and for those that want to wear it can continue to have their choice to do so i believe in freedom of choice and our body my daughter is a first grader this year has been so challenging my daughter is very very upset every day i wrote a note or an email to the teacher she says i'm done with the plexi class i want to see my teachers faces i want to see my friends faces and she cries and she has tantrums it's it's wrong it's so wrong i mean in the school system the reason why i mentioned my degrees was because we were always taught

080to research think outside the box challenge ideas discuss as a group why are we not doing that now i think it is so important we start working as a team and stop the you against us we need to be here for our children and also the teachers i don't believe that all families and teachers educators were okay with the mass mandates i believe many were fearful to stand up against the leadership that makes executive orders that make no sense the mainstream media has fed lies and fear to the masses if you [Applause] thank you if you look at the research and studies that have been done you will realize very quickly that mass are useless not to minimize the loss of those during covid19 but masking and other extreme measures like closing businesses down and

081all the limitations that our children are educators the teachers are wonderful i've never come across anyone that was disrespectful i moved to wall township for the schools i was born and raised in point pleasant borough school went to nelly bennett middle school and high school i'm proud to live in this area and i just want my children to have a normal education that i had in the 80s and 90s you know we need to bring that back you know it's not like that today it's just not and it's really sad my daughter loves school she even requests to do work that's not even a sign sometimes that's the most unpl you know like at nine o'clock at night when i want to go to bed because i'm a social worker working full-time you know we

082all did what we had to when you know march when the schools closed down in april but it was very clear by mother's day last year that we you know there was medication coming out there was more information coming out you know the fear within our own family i'll speak for my own family started to get less and less by mother's day last year and you know the more i learn the more i realize that we've been out of this pandemic i've been listening to people that have a lot more knowledge than me and knowledge is power and we were out of this last july and then there was a little uptick in november but since that nothing if you read the research you know i printed stuff out but you just gotta look for

083it or contact me um i just want everything to work together i just every day i feel like i'm in this battle you know every day i'm praying every morning before my kids wake up i'm reading my mother's you know devotional book and that's what keeps me going you know i'm a woman of faith we all need to come together we can't we can't do this we can't have agendas we can't follow the money we can't follow the narrative that comes from the mainstream media we can't we just can't i see how my precious little daughter is different you know and for the most part she's still there but i see a decline enough is enough i'm already looking into other options because i don't like what i'm hearing so far i'm not and i've

084made calls and i don't want to have to do that i don't want to have to feel like i'm living in survival mode every day we shouldn't live in a country like this aren't we america the land of the home and the free and the brave come on we need to stop the nonsense we do okay and i thank you for your time thank you can i speak to a specific agenda item or is that no agenda items will be next okay hello everyone my name is jennifer spierer not the jennifer spear of the grade school teacher that's my sister-in-law i don't want her in any trouble for my being up here tonight okay but i don't want to reiterate everybody's stories i think we all kind of know where everybody's been for the past

08515 months let's say drop off pick up mass no mass temperature no temperature air conditioning not air conditioning half days at work half days at home kids yelling in the background excuse me i'm sorry client my kids are yelling it's been a disaster absolute disaster going forward into 20 the next school year okay my son will be 11 he'll be going into intermediate school my daughter will be seven she'll be a second grader at old mill my son will not be of age to get a vaccine if it comes out i wouldn't even do an emergency type one so if it's going to be mandated you're going to lose the spirit family in wall township plain and simple um the other thing that i feel is very important to say and it's kind of hard

086um i understand you guys are all listening and you're taking it in but is it falling on deaf ears or is it actually going to go somewhere the money that's been given by the american rescue plan if you take that money are you basically signing on a line saying we have to follow every procedure that you people say if murphy says hey today i feel like masks should be fashionable and says eo175 back on the table what do we do can we not take the money did wall need the money i don't think we needed the money if we didn't take the money we may not have to have these mandates put upon us our children could go back to learning full time no mask we already know the science i'm not going to reiterate

087the science i'm not going to talk about the fake news we all know about that we trust you guys to be our voice if you're not going to be our voice and tell them what we feel and we do not want then we don't want you here you can leave there's plenty of us here [Applause] i ain't betsy cross has been written in many times never gotten on [Music] other write-ins got on i don't get it okay give the money back hear us let our children be children and go to school like normal let me get back to work okay we don't need it give it to other districts i was born and raised in plainfield new jersey do you guys know where plainfield is then after that i went to asbury park i graduated

088here class of 93 i came in 92 started as a junior i haven't left since but i've moved all my life i'll do it again my husband who has lived on south m street in west belmar his entire life does not want to leave here he loves it here okay i told him i will pick up my children and go that's what will happen families will start to be torn apart hear our voice give the money back don't sell our children down the river for a dollar thank you [Applause] mr president mr hall yeah um to that point that's a great that's a great point and and uh and i would like to ask mr uh mckeever or attorney um are what these people say is that is that just silly talk or is that

089real if we don't take money do we have to we still have to follow the rules can you give your legal opinion on on that so that we know where we're at [Applause] the the two point the two million dollar grant is a federal funded grant the executive orders are from the state of new jersey so whether whether you take the federal money or not you're guided by the executive orders in the state of new jersey so dennis you're saying if the governor still requires masks and we don't take the money we still have to wear masks according to the executive order right is that what you're saying what i said is the the grant that's in place is a federal grant the executive orders are from the state of new jersey so to answer

090your question you could you could to to the woman's point you could take the money and then have the governor of new jersey trigger executive order 175 and be guided by 175 you could reject the money and have executive 175 require you to wear masks i'm saying it's there's there's an attempt to correlate the two but the money is federal money and you're guided by the the executive orders for the state of new jersey plea please don't yell out i i understand that mr mckeever i just was trying to underst trying to get to the bottom of the idea where you have the federal government which is all reaching all powerful and they say all these things then you have the state of new jersey they put additional rules in place and i think what

091i'm trying to understand and trying to get to maybe the parents to to get is that if the department of education says here's two million dollars fill out this form and tell answer these eight questions and we answer them all please and we answer those questions please if you need to talk please step outside that's all right ralph they don't want to hear the answers i'm trying to get to them so to clarify mr mckeever the the federal money from the federal government is not tied to the state of new jersey at all the state of new jersey is its own entity that creates its own executive orders that pretty much everybody here has disagreed with but we're obligated to follow because that's the law of the land could you the the law of the

092land of new jersey right now is governed by the executive orders that have been given to the the public schools to be guided by the board of education this board of education is obligated in fact all the board of education members are obligated to uphold these executive the regulations and orders for the state of new jersey the federal funding could there be a correlation if we were to dive or drill down to the correlation you could find one but i would tell you that the federal money whether you accept it or not you're going to be guided by the executive orders in this state if that answers your question i hope it does but that's the answer you could not take this money and still have executive order 175 in your executive order 278 that

093governor murphy well let's take murphy's 170 excuse me i'm i'm and this isn't question and answer and this was only comments so so time is up so he could write another executive order that could require masks so i i i i guide that to you and i say could you accept the federal money could you not you're still going to be guided by what the governor of new jersey tells you to do okay i'm sorry i just have one more question to add to that because in the ela plans and the plans that are out when it has the esser funds that are in there that came from the federal american rescue plan that kind of mandates how the the school boards are supposed to put their plan together so they basically want you to

094mirror the department of education's plan if you took the money so that your plan would reflect the same that's my understanding of it okay thank you skip around a lot of it so um my name is jamie sullivan 1295 wedgewood road and wall um so i'm going to be skipping around a little bit because everybody said a lot of stuff today so my son tyler is in old mill elementary and next year possibly intermediate um the reason i'm saying possibly is due to everything that's going on here today um my whole family's in jersey um it's a little harder for me because um i have my ex too but i've already told him if you know these things play out the masking continues and god forbid this vaccine gets mandated that we are out of

095here that i am taking my son leaving my whole family and going to florida um even if it takes me through a foreign court battle i will do it because i'm not going to watch my son be played with like he's some test subject i've seen my son decline over the last year he used to be you know very confident he's not anymore um he's always worried he's going to get yelled at is my mask on right are people going to yell at me and you know i had to tell them i'm going to stores now no it's okay you can go in a store you don't have to worry you're not going to get yelled at um and it's breaking my heart because that's not how children need to feel and be treated um

096you know there's many studies on masking and how you know it's as simple seeing a smile it makes people it brightens you it helps you get confidence and that's not happening anymore to these kids to me it's like a form of child abuse you know the children play freely when they're not in school you know they play in groups with one another they get together they do sports um and the way they're in school now they're currently taught to fear freedom like hiding behind a face covering that scientifically is not effective i mean it even says it on the box of the the mask and it's causing more harm you know emotionally it's teaching the children to be submissive and to be fearful and physically they're they're not even breathing fresh air anymore not to

097mention you know they drop their mass they get dirty they're putting that bacteria on their faces it's just not healthy um and there's no medical benefit to it and it has to end you know we as humans you know we're social we depend on facial expression you know to learn react to feel to understand and now these children aren't doing that you know there's numerous studies even on babies when they're in the nicu that they have to see facial expression so that they can grow and that's not happening and so it's our job to protect these kids and it's your job to help protect them that's why you're here to be our voice and we just need you to do that um so that's really all i wanted to say today is you know be

098our voice like we need you to be or else we're leaving thank you good evening mary connors woodchuck lane just want to say can you add my name to mrs shanklin's speech just put it right on the bottom i was home watching zoom because i was in the middle of dinner and preparing my lesson plans for tomorrow and getting everything ready in our house and she moved me and my son who was her student to tears thank you very much she taught my son last year who if anyone knows my son he leads his life through his heart and he wears it on his sleeve he's not understood by children but miss misshanklin had him down to a t and she brought him out and created this beautiful young man to see him shut down

099again i'm sorry two years ago to see him shut down again in his seventh year he's down to two friends maybe possibly a fringe three because people don't get him and behind the mask it's even harder for them to get him i know ralph you see him now he's pushing the lawnmower we took your job away because i had to get him outside you know i said this boy needs sunshine he needs air he needs light he needs he needs to be in the world again he's been removed from the world i'm sorry i'm emotional but in addition to that adding my name to mrs shanklin's speech i want to thank you because you gave me a job because we're half days and we're masking a private daycare put in full day kindergarten and i

100got a job i'm now a kindergarten teacher so thank you for forcing families out of wall township schools [Applause] we have to ask the children to mask but we can't because so many of them are under two and it's impossible to keep a mask on children's face but the ones that do keep it by the end of the day they're soaking wet they're touching it they're touching their face they're touching me and i've had zero cases of coven so you're not going to prove that by me through the science and i would love to lose my job so please go back to normal thank you hi robin lynch uh roosevelt street i'm just going to make a comment on the plan um i'm just a little disappointed that there's only 20 of the funds that

101are being allocated to mental health especially after hearing all these people speak so i know that you've already passed the um the budget amount but i don't know what kind of negotiations or what power you guys have in terms of um those fundings or whether there's any more room in the budget to allocate for those mental health for their children or different programs or even resources for our community members that's all thank you [Applause] hi my name is jennifer cortese i live on foxfield circle and wall so i'll keep this brief a lot of this stuff has already been said but i just want to speak tonight on the plan for reopening full time in the fall so first of all i am thankful that my children have all been in school in some form

102since september but i am honestly concerned for what the fall may bring what i thought would be a transition to full-time school this spring did not happen so like many others i am concerned as to what the plan is for this fall i am trusting you all have the best interest for our children and our kids really have had a year like no other so if we are speaking about data and following the science i know other people have spoke about it but we do know that most children will not get a severe case of covet 19. also our children have been for months involved with sports activities being social with friends this whole time fortunately the numbers in children with that have not risen yes there have been severe cases but this is a

103very small percentage um i do work in a local hospital and the numbers are at the lowest since march so and i do believe that we have not seen a positive case in our schools in weeks many teachers are vaccinated now and we have been mass optional for several school days and to my knowledge there has not been any negative impact to this point thankfully we are moving forward and we want to continue to head in that direction now while our governor tells us children may need to remain masked until vaccines are available to them my question is is he he's assuming that parents will be getting in line to vaccinate their children as soon as it's available this is every parent's individual choice and i think to single out if we were going to

104mass mandate i think that would be a terrible thing to keep a child in a mass that is not vaccinated and i feel like it would just be mentally detrimental and cruel to do that so i would never fault anyone for vaccinating their child or vice versa there are potential negative side effects from the vaccine and from covet so i think it just needs to be a personal choice for the parents and the child and i just urge you as you plan for the next school year please do not mandate mass and do not mandate vaccinations for the children of this district thank you thank you [Applause] cam rubino hillcrest path so i just have to touch on a few of the points um the return to school so there's eight points i'm just missing

105where there's anything about education in this i know we talked about hand sanitizer the percent of alcohol in it tissues um the mirv 13 filters um just in regards to the vaccinations for educator staff um dr handerhan i happened to mention it said you said um wall township is not saying vaccines will be mandated at this time if you could put that in the point so that's submitted in our plan it for be but we don't need this money we don't need two million dollars we need our kids to learn where does it say i mean none of this matters i mean my ch like my child is finishing third grade he can't really read it's a problem where's the plan for the schooling the learning this is all just for two million dollars like

106that's that's pocket change to wall township we know that we see the budget and in regards to mrs shanklin's speech tonight um it it touched everyone's heart here she's one of my best friends since the beginning of time and she is a person that you need to keep in this district she's a mother of children and it we're on the fence here because she doesn't want to teach in half a library with mass on her kids for the rest of time so we need to have a better plan to facilitate learning education and this this doesn't mean anything what what's our return to learning you're the schools right yes okay um so if dr handerhan the vaccines are just a huge thing if you could put those things if this is what we have to

107do but i'm also concerned that we have to reevaluate this every six months till 2023 so to me you're talking in the future you talked in the future this spoke in the future this whole time about mass and hand washing and contact tracing we're not going to contact trace next year we can't because you can't put kids out of school if we can't virtual learn in the state of new jersey right um and i just we like we're tired of pleading with you we just want our kids back in school happy smiling and just learning learning you know because there's going to be a consequence for the lack of learning i happen to be he'll kill me if i say this but i'm married to a high school administrator and it scares him to death

108that he has to contact trace instead of do curriculum it's a it's and it's internal but you as the board can support your admins to do else otherwise that's all let's do it for the kids guys thank you yes dr handrahan can can you please just reiterate what these talking points are that are federally mandated certainly thank you uh miss stites uh the eight writing prompts that we were required to fill required to respond to speak to health and safety that is not an educational plan so that is not an educational plan so that was specifically the eight areas that we had to respond to i would like to mention that i'm certain that uh you are aware that we are running academic programming this summer uh for uh the students spanning uh the kindergarten

109through 12th grade continuum so that is taking place uh because we certainly recognize that there has been learning loss as has every other school in the state of new jersey monies have been allocated for that and we are very excited with the uh great turnout that is um that we are expecting for our summer programs uh additionally uh at right now wall township public schools is planning for uh we're planning for a full day school year so we've budgeted for that uh during all the budget workshops uh back uh starting back in february of our our intention has always been for the 2021-2022 school year to be back in school full-time uh it saddens me that um you know it in many ways that we're not back in school right now but uh there were

110many reasons you know many many factors that came into that decision so i i know i've talked to several faculty the administrators certainly the board members many parents and we look forward to uh welcoming the kids in september uh you know we we look forward to welcoming them school i've heard a lot of parents parents conveying their experiences as an educator that's none of us came entered the education business because we wanted to see children in masks none of us entered this profession for that we entered this profession to make positive impact on the lives of children and to educate them and to work with parents to really help nurture the students into being the best the best that they could possibly be so that is the charge again i will would like to reiterate

111that these eight talking points were specifically for health and safety purposes it is not a learning plan there is a great deal of work that is taking place certainly it's a summer program is not going to make up for the amount of time that was lost since march 2020 it's a good start but know that there's going to be a tremendous amount of effort our teachers our administrators our counselors there's going to be an awful lot of work digging down and determining what our kids need and one student will certainly have different needs than the other student i also would like to while i have the microphone respond to one of the comments and thank you for it regarding mental health and learning loss with the 20 percent i shared that this evening because it

112is a 20 minimum that is required everyone certainly at this dais and in the schools certainly school school employees recognize that mental health is an absolute priority for this community and as it is in other areas but know that that was a 20 minimum so that is money's the actual actual allocations have yet to be done again we were required to have the eight talking points with respect to health and safety the actual learning plan the budget is still yet to come so with that said i do want to note that one of the reasons why there is a public comment in sharing these talking points is to elicit the is to elicit the feedback specific to these particular eight areas and um i thank you um certainly for your comments i know um masking

113was certainly at the forefront but uh i thank you uh i don't know where you are because i can't see you but thank you for bringing mental health to the forefront and i think if a few parents did so i appreciate that mr president yes so i could just add um i i would just like to to say and again i pretty much agree with just about everything that everybody said here tonight i can just tell you personally and i i think i'm speaking for the board i may not i don't see any scenario where this board would ever require anyone to be vaccinated unless we were dictated to by the state of new jersey and told had to um i don't think anybody here has an appetite to do that kind of thing so

114while i understand your frustration with us because you think that we're not doing anything i think that the the the the volumes of people that came here today if the frustration could also be directed at trenton a little more um and i hope you are doing that um i think that would be really helpful because i think we're your neighbors and we're your friends and and we don't disagree with pretty much ohana what you're saying it's just that if i was to resign tonight and one of you was come up and sat here you think magically that you could start doing all these things that you want us to do and then the reality would be that you can't do that and so i think that's the problem that we're the disconnect we're having uh

115that's the disconnect we're having is that we while you know it seems like people think oh the board of ed can do magical things and we can't we're we're mandated to do certain things and if you know just like you you know the the governor says you have to have car insurance well you can't say well i don't feel like doing that the governor says you have to be vaccinated to get into schools of kindergarten you have to fill out a form we don't want that i don't want anybody vaccinated against a will i don't want anybody wearing mass against her well none of us want that but again we're working towards that and i think you know again i hope that for i hope all you guys are you know going out to the

116state and to your your state representatives and as much as you are to us because i think that's where the real decision making comes from we can do on the edges but yeah i i i don't know you're saying that we i'm hearing people say no you can take the mass away well we can't that's just factually incorrect and you just keep repeating you talk about fake news that's not it's fact news like we can't we please stop yelling out let's not have a meeting mr hall are you i mean i try i think i got my point across i mean they're going i mean i'll gladly listen to what the uh young lady has to say but you got two points there all right um i'm lynn mason 1628 rustic court um i think

117what we're trying to say is we're asking you to represent us to i think [Applause] we would like the board of education who represent us our children the superintendent to write to the governor on our behalf that is what we want we yes we will do individual we will write we will go we will protest but we would like a little effort i feel like as nice as you are and gentle speaking about it and i love that you're you agree with us but you kind of have this like well we just can't change it well but maybe we can if we work together and but we need some effort from you guys to represent our children [Applause] that's what we're asking to represent them on behalf of masks mandate no mandate vaccines and then

118i have a whole other issue i didn't want to get into tonight i wrote in case but i believe part of the federal funds is the social emotional learning let's call it what it is it's critical race theory and that is another issue that i i want to point out issues i have with that and i believe the board of education and the superintendent has to to be our voice to the federal government to the state government [Applause] that's not part of this particular document the federal what are the eight points of the federal grant dr handerhan went through it can she say it again it's it's oh they're not ready for that okay mr president yes mr krupa um i think it's important okay that'll be a later date it's important to realize that

119curricular decisions prior to covid prior to any public crisis that you can think of come from what the community educational experts the needs that we have as a com as a society to better the future for ourselves and our children i believe that if we continue with the review of curriculum content and topics as it has been even during my tenure as an educator that when things that you are concerned about just this individual and others with regards to whatever that topic is and i know what it is but i'm just trying to tell you that there is opportunity and there is right for you to voice your concerns with that and i i wholeheartedly agree with that i want to assure you though that that process will continue to respect those voices but to

120stand up and say what you just said it's it's almost insulting because we are representing you and as a curriculum person i i want to do what's best for my children and yours and that's all i have to say about that ralph yes um just a couple comments real quick um so uh one thing we did write a letter to the governor requesting for mass not to be on there so that is something we have done just to piggyback on what joe was saying in terms of the vaccinations um i think we we are aware of you know news and different things like that i saw a a news program today that there was a prom and they wrote sharpies and numbers on unvaccinated people at the prom i could tell you that i'm not

121going to vaccinate my kids i have three of them certainly not right now and and i think we should write a letter on to the governor in reference to the vaccinations and and i do believe that there's a lot of people on this board that that feel that same way um so i i i want everybody here to know um that your voices are not falling on deaf ears um they were heard last month they were heard the month before that um there are all sorts of understand there's a lot of understanding up here um for what you guys are saying and there's a lot of belief and support for what you guys are saying um so i want you to know that um but i do think and i we talked about this a

122little while ago because i said the masks is one thing and i said you know i said i really think we need to get out in front of the vaccinations um i think that that's an important thing to do um and uh and i have to go to the bathroom so i don't wanna i don't wanna be rude but i'm gonna run out that back door and then i'll be right back so sorry about that thank you [Applause] yes hi hi piper wait so i live on bernadette court i just want to say how heartwarming it is to hear this feedback back from mr sanfilippo because a lot of us are just asking for that we send emails we make the phone calls we just want to know how you are feeling and if you

123support us so we actually i'm sad he left the room i wish he could be here to hear me say that so thank you for letting him say that they don't act like i'm going to be mean i'm not going to be mean patty nowalsky wall township obviously um one thing i want to start with real quick because you addressed dr hanahan you addressed us to read all this to us was how come you haven't responded to emails thousands of them hundreds of them i emailed you you must be sick of me but i'm not going to stop because i need answers even if you said thanks patty that's a reply correct i'm going to say it because i know my friend's probably not going to say it but he'll owe me a drink later

124when you got this job you said last year i'm here to work with you work with us we're asking you to work with us i know many of you volunteer you got the job i know many of you very well i'm not saying never have been that you're not doing the job i'm not saying that i'm taking the job i was asked i'm not doing it what i'm saying is the transparency here and the communication here and you say you're going to get on there and do something but then you don't email anybody back you say at the last meeting i'm here to talk to you you can text or call me because you have my number you don't have to shush me you don't have to tell me to calm down i'm not going

125to calm down these are my children my children i'm entrusting you with my children i'm not even reading half my notes because i knew i wasn't going to do it these are half these are my kids my kids will not be mass next year my taxes pay your salary my taxes pay your salary my daughter faith nawalski and teddy grace nowelski will not be in a mask i'm not asking you to unmask them i'm telling you they're not going to be masked there's no reason for it and you know what you have to do you have to do what madison is doing right now at their board of ed meeting they are getting together as a board to talk to email murphy and say our school district is not going to have masks we're not

126going with the executive order you can read me the executive order all day dr henry and you you read this whole entire thing to us you wasted like 45 minutes we know this we don't want you to read this to us i'm not in second grade i want you to stand up and say you guys hired me guess what wait wait um murphy gets a load of me way don't murphy hears me i can read this i went to trenton i went to trenton who said go to trenton i went to trenton i went to trenton i emailed my legislators i emailed murphy i emailed steve sweeney has any of you ever emailed steve sweeney because he's a slime ball and he's the reason that half our kids are like this so don't tell some

127of us we're not doing it we are doing it we need you to be our support we need you to communicate you chris talking back was the best thing ever the best thing ever i know you don't want a q a but maybe just answer a question he stood up on the board and answered a question thank you chris answer a question talk to us [Applause] one of the board members and i texted and the person said to me we can't be divided we have to be on the same team we have to respect each other i know you get sick of people yelling out but i've been to board meetings years ago when some of you weren't on the board and you yelled out too so why is it not allowed now we're frustrated

128we're frustrated we want answers we want you to show us you're doing something and ralph i know you emailed the governor but that was a pc politically correct email you did not say we don't want mass you said we would like to blah blah it was not it was not saying unmask our kids that's what it was not saying it was definitely not saying unmask our kids and go into this so you said pop-up there's any pop-up vaccines and wall you're going to have pop-up vaccines this summer but you're not going to you talked about having here it is a vaccine sites for the um wall township partnered with visiting nurses association enabling students students 12 and older but you're saying we're not gonna that's pushing a vaccine where do these who pays for these

129who what pays for these do our tax dollars pay for these that's pushing a vaccine you're pushing kids to get back saying my kids will not be vaccinated with a test drug that god forbid nobody knows what's in it and and then what else you have in here water filling stations that you provide you you put in the schools you didn't old mill i'm on the home in school we paid for water filling stations at old mill old mill home in school parents money paid for the filling stations at old mill so if you're going to write stuff just make sure you have it right and my daughter's at wis and oh by the way both my daughter's water bottles have been empty since the mass came off they're drinking water at school thank you

130put it in make sure you write it right i want to sell you something i drove teddy to school today she missed the bus she goes my and teddy loves school my other one doesn't love school she goes i love not going into school i go i know you do she goes no i love it even more mom without the mask she goes seeing everyone's faces is the best thing ever when the bus pulled up last tuesday gary the best bus driver pulled up gary is waving to us like hi nice to see you never met you never seen gary's face i started crying it wasn't gary's face it was the two kindergarten girls sitting in the front seat smiling and waving us at the bus stop i don't know whose kids they are but

131i started crying because i could see these little girls faces that i've been looking at since september and they're little masks they're master free free their faces it's on you you work for us it's on you we are not going to be mean to you we want to work with you hey tell me what to do send me an email say patty we need your help start emailing people i'll sit on the airplane and email people all day for you guys i'll help you if you help me it's we have to work together we have to work together and i know you don't like the yelling out but maybe you just once in a while just go okay calm down what did you say maybe just try to hear it because maybe it's somebody that's

132really quiet that doesn't want to come up here and speak but they have something that frustrates them and then say hey i'm sorry who was that hi what's your name come on up here and maybe you'll get people to come up here but don't yell at everybody and act like we're five-year-old children we're grown adults who pay taxes and we want our kids unmasked that's all we want and i thank you guys all for your volunteering thank you [Applause] before i start i want to before i start i want to ask god to please give me the strength the courage and the words my name is kim housling i'm a wall town wall township president i have lived in this town for 48 years um i've been quite vocal the last week i think everybody

133probably knows who might who i am i know dr handra hand you hi i'm kim housling um i have one child and my only child and i am so fearful for his life that i i'm beside myself i don't know how to act right because i don't know what to do for him my son is in sixth grade comes home with masks full of blood he's got allergies he's got bloody noses he gets a mask full of blood what what's going on here it it scares me to death that my son is not seeing i i don't that the world that right now is just insane and i don't even i the critical race theory crap it's going to be coming up it's going to be coming up so you can't hide it it's going

134to be coming up the diversity inclusionary whatever it's coming up um the vaccine's ridiculous there should be no vaccines on our school grounds or pushed it in any bit in any way um i want to reiterate my son will not be wearing a mask in september jayden houseling eggloth he will not be vaccine vaccinated in september and he will never get a coveted test and he will never be taught crt in whatever critical race theory i'm telling you right now i have been from old middle school to high school graduated and i love this town and i love this school system and i love the people in this school system and i have worked in customer service for 25 years at the local supermarket and it scares me to death what's going on happening to

135our children right now and i'm sorry if i have been disrespectful to anybody or have scared anybody or for some reason made you feel like you needed to call the police on me because i couldn't get an answer and i waited for two hours and still couldn't get an answer and was told that you had no time for me i am a mother of a child in this school district i am a mother who went through this school district and i should matter my son should matter you should make time for all of us you should listen to us and hear us and help us and i agree we need to do this together we can't fight and i am sorry we can't fight each other and i am sorry for the that for the

136things that i have caused anybody any kind of discomfort i i apologize okay but i'm terrified terrified and i feel like we're getting nowhere with anybody nobody's we're not we don't have help it's like all of us out here know what's going on but we we can't seem to get anybody to help us or give us answers i just pray to god to do the right thing for our children unmask them no facts none of this crazy critical race theory or i will not be having my son in public schools in walt township and it'll break my heart thank you my name is ellie rezik and i'm a wall resident and i have two kids in the system many of the things my points kind of reiterate other things that other people have said but

137i just want to dive a little deeper on the vaccine my concern this evening is the idea of the districts actively looking for community partnerships for on-site vaccinations of students 12 and older after reading that agenda item i couldn't help but ask the following question isn't anyone on this board aware of children experiencing serious side effects as a result of the vaccine things like blood clots myocarditis which is serious heart inflammation facial paralysis extreme and irregular menstrual cycles full body paralysis inability to swallow these things are happening out in there in the world okay if the board is aware of these reactions i don't see how our district would even consider facilitating vaccinating for our students in fact the district should be ensuring that parents are fully educated about these risks if the board is

138unaware then i suggest the board members broaden their scope and seek out alternative sources while researching these critical topics because the other side of this issue is being blacked out by the mainstream news currently the cdc's their system which stands for which stands for vaccine adverse event reporting system has close to six thousand deaths and literally hundreds of thousands of adverse events reported in the us from the cobia vaccine okay granted there is a margin of error on this reporting system but to put that number into perspective during the past 20 years total vaccine deaths in the u.s have averaged about 1 to 200 annually for all vaccines we're already at 6 000. close to it i think it's five thousand eight eight eight the last i checked it's it's a little tricky to do

139the search too which makes it hard to actually find the data in 1976 the swine flu vaccine was halted after only a handful of deaths we're well past the point where this rollout should be totally halted as it relates to kids i've come across many stories of young people suffering blood clots in the brain myocarditis full body paralysis and even death these tragic events are happening so often that the cdc announced that they will hold an emergency meeting on june 18th at the advice of the advisory committee on immunity immunization practice to address increased rates and inflammation of the heart muscle and heart lining after covin 19 vaccination particularly in young people in the june 10th meeting the cdc disclosed as of may 31st 475 cases of myocarditis pericarditis were reported in the vares of

140americans aged 30 and younger the condition called myocarditis and pericarditis can cause permanent heart damage one promising 17 year old basketball player i read about from utah who took the vaccine so he could travel with his team this summer suffered life-threatening blood clots in the brain what's worse is this boy could have per could have permanent neurological damage for what an illness that he could have easily shaken off anyway it has since been realized that the boy already had antibodies which intensified his reaction again another very important piece of information blocked from getting to the public those with antibodies don't need a vaccine and their risk of injury increases with antibodies parents need to know these things before i continue i'd like to quickly highlight some dangerous communication strategies and tactics i've noticed during these

141456 days of flattening the curve only one side of ever number one only one side of very important issues like the effectiveness of lockdowns masks and vaccines is considered these one-sided views are forced upon the public and any challenging viewpoints or arguments are dismissed as conspiracy theories or even worse people are deemed murderers for using common sense instead of the so-called science that is never produced number two these one-sided views are pushed on the public through aggressive pr campaigns on tv radio pop culture corporations big tech and we forced to expect that side of the issue as the truth and abide by what goes along with that that again continually being coerced by a barrage of messages telling us to dismiss and shame to to dismiss conflicting information that has come forth that make a

142heck of a lot more sense like the mask mandate this is what happened this is what's happening with the vaccines there has been a heavy propaganda style pr campaign to the general public to take the vaccines and assure they are safe and effective while blocking any opposing views about how they are not fully tested are not necessarily medically necessary that's redundant sorry are experimental and are now causing injuries and deaths they're even resorting to bribing people with beers shots of liquor lottery tickets ice cream cones donuts it's pretty pathetic if the vaccine is so great it should sell itself why do they have to bribe people are people catching on or the numbers declining i certainly don't want our schools to seek to seek community partners and or offer up our school grounds for something

143that could potentially harm one of our students adults like to caution people that the anti-vaxxer label was created to discredit anyone who questions big pharma the public has been cleverly conditioned to dismiss any opposing views when it comes to standard recommended vaccines and or preventative treatments as the anti-vax agenda i can assure you that the vast majority of people quickly labeled anti-vaxxers are not against safe and fully tested vaccines their for parental rights patient informed consent and against untested medically unnecessary experimental injections that could cause permanent injury and even death we're being asked to take an irrational risk with our lives and with our children's lives i know this isn't happening yet but if it were mandated while the pharmaceutical industry manufactures the pharmaceutical manufacturers assumed zero liability with injury having said all this almost

144done i urge the board of the board of this district 2-1 seek out alternative sources of information to become informed about both sides of the issue number two protect parents rights to choose when they want their child to get this experiment whether they want their child to get this experimental injection number three help educate our districts about both sides of the vaccine issue seek out the pros and cons so parents can make the most informed decisions most importantly join with the parents of this town to resist any form of coercion segregation and or state mandates of the vaccine finally if governor murphy told us all to jump off a bridge would we resi we would resist we are at a similar crossroads and should treat us as such thank you is there anyone else that

145wishes to speak on the document from my name is brian fowle i live in apple ridge uh in wall township uh i have family members that sat in chris's seat ralph's seat dr hand your hand seat and my wife's a former educator all in wall township all in wall township mr hall i appreciate your comments earlier when you said that you are up here on behalf of our children and i know that there's other people up here that are as well and i would just urge the board to continue to work together and push dr hand your hand to use her contacts within the monmouth county superintendent's office and the state superintendent's office to continue to keep our children first thank you [Applause] hi i'm betsy cross i live in wall township um like i

146i've been going to meetings for 11 years now and you know people wonder why i still do it and i do it because the majority of the time the people that are sitting up here i don't trust at all so i'm glad christine seitz is now coming back in um because i ran against christine and i put my name in you always told me come on put your name in put your name in i put my name in put my name in a number of times you picked eric brophy you pick christine sites um so i keep coming to the meetings because i don't trust you up here and most of these people don't back here don't trust you either so i know you're shaking your head joe but miss cross do you have a

147comment on yes it's hard it's my time joe you can talk can you give her an extra minute ralph if i mix my time please no you're wasting my time exactly so buy a raise of hands let us know from your email from school how many of you personally wrote to the governor on our behalf raise your hands this isn't question board members raise your hands andy thank you very much for doing that did anybody else i know if i was sitting up there and i wrote a letter i'd be shouting it out to everybody in wall township so i don't know mr adenizio i think your letter was just for yourself it didn't have anything to do with um the children of wall it was your brownie points for you maybe getting the smersa

148job who knows but when you tell people you can't write to the parents you can't email back but but what you can just write to the governor it's ridiculous ridiculous and to have your wife post on facebook that she was on the beach at 205 the day after we were here that was nice you are absolutely incorrect i'm not incorrect you are incorrect because if you want to steal pictures off someone's facebook page and you want to personally attack them still a picture off of anybody's facebook page i think it was posted to a thousand people of her friends you did so a lot of people i didn't steal anything don't you ever ever say that mr adonizio well miss cross you know if you're interested all right this is my time mr adonisio no

149miss cross this is the board of education time no this is my public comment time um i'd like to know where is the questionnaire that you have to fill out that's what we want to see whatever you have to have posted and completed by tomorrow that's what you should have been going over tonight here's our questionnaire here's the question here's our answer i want to know of the 2.1 million how much goes towards item number one how much goes to item number two how much goes to item number three for just rattling off this piece of paper for 45 minutes that got us nowhere um everybody did a great job talking michelle burns christine shanklin colleen fulling i could go over the list i sat at home and i listened to it everybody is very

150passionate and just like i say at every board of ed meeting our lives begin to end the moment we become silent on things that matter and my kid matters and i knew in september when you changed that contract you were never going back and dr handrahan you just said tonight in the february budget we budgeted next year to go back full time so you knew in february you were not going back full time why didn't you let these parents know they might have pulled him out and went to maniswan spring lake spring lake heights you knew you weren't going back because you were taking your orders from the union mr adenisio not taking the orders from what's best for the students correct and if you time february absolutely incorrect as well as usual if you

151what dr handler said was when we created the budget this year in february our plan is to go back to school full-time in september of this year so you're you're all over the place with your facts or lack of facts when did you know you were not going back for the rest of the year why didn't you let the parents know they might have pulled their kids i took my kid out in earl end of august the minute you changed that contract i knew you were not going back till the end of the year and when a principal's kid took their kid out too the writing's on the wall wake up folks these people are not working for you they're changing contracts hiding it i was on that call mr adenizio you didn't even say

152what you were changing you didn't go over it nothing nobody back here knew about it till like a month ago right how transparent are you zero mr adenisio zero and like i've said at meeting after meeting you will go down in history as the worst board of ed president and we have had a number of terrible ones i love your personal attacks your time is up i'm not personal attacks it's i'm speaking the truth could you let us know how your time is up thank you how many murders your time is up miss cross your time is up [Applause] anybody else thank you okay all right seeing no other public comment on this issue we will yes so i was on the fence about coming up my name is kim hanson i live on liberty

153lane and sorry kim hansen i live on liberty lane and wall um dr hannahan and i have a very good working relationship we actually i'm still employed at romson fairhaven high school dr handerhan came there came from romson um and i knew we were in good hands here in wall and what alarms me is that i think dr handahan is being silenced from responding to community and taxpayers in this town because i know i emailed dr handerhan at least 10 times last week about my daughter blakely hanson that goes to central school and i never got a response and i think that's why the community and these parents are so outraged at what is happening is because nobody's listening we are being silenced and we're not going to be silenced i want you to add

154i would like you to add blakely hansen to not wearing a mask any longer and i appreciate dr handerhan sending her email today i think this room would have been filled with 300 more people so i appreciate taking the masks off i think that us evaluating a building every single day is a little bit ridiculous to be honest with you because the air conditioning in central school hasn't been working and you know that because your wife works there and when my daughter would come home and say i'm sweating i'm sweating in a mask and nobody answered our emails not even mrs antonello so they're being silenced and i leave it up to you as the president i came here years ago when the trailers were being spoken about and i trusted you and i believed

155in you and i don't appreciate a superintendent because tracy knows that in romson that would not happen these parents come out and they fight every day for their children and that's what we're going to continue to do and we're not going to be silenced any longer you have the right to email and to voice your concerns to the governor what is happening in this state alone is disgusting and it can no longer happen so when one person raises their hand on this board of ed that wrote a letter i leave it in your hands you should be standing up for these children and i ask you and i continue to ask you to do what is right because when you silence us and when nobody responds to the community and it's all out on social

156media people are enraged you have to respond to us and you hire dr handerhan and i have her contract here that states that she will work day in and day out outside of school hours to communicate with this district and she has not done that and i blame you she should be responding to every single taxpayer that has emailed her because we pay her salary so [Applause] i appreciate dr handerhan and we had a great relationship and i was thrilled with that she was going to come to this district and make positive changes but when she's not allowed to do that because the board of education is not allowing her to do that for some reason and these kids are still in masks and school is still not open we're still on phase one when

157every other school district is open you should be ashamed of yourself so i really hope i really hope if you do stay on this board of education that you make some serious changes because it has to change here and we have to work together we don't want to work against you but you need to show us that you're working with us not against us so thank you so much and dr handerhand thank you [Applause] thank you what i do want to say though is nobody in this on this board has ever stopped any administrator or told any administrator never to respond but okay but i can tell you i think i understand what you're saying but do you there's only so many hours in the day dr handerhan stays at the office sometimes until 11

158o'clock at night and and can and cannot physically respond to every email that comes in and administer the district and i understand the frustration and and hopefully as we move forward things will lighten up and she'll be able to communicate with everybody on the way she was uh prior to all this but you got to understand the amount of emails she's been bombarded with nobody if you did it a full-time job 24 hours a day you still wouldn't be responding be able to respond to everyone and you know what to sit there and be frustrated absolutely because i'll tell you what i've been saying it all along i sit here and i'm frustrated the governor's rules and and executive orders from day one haven't made sense and i've said this before how can you allow

159wrestling and let everybody roll around in wrestling but when they get up they can't shake hands because god forbid covet might spread how can you go into a restaurant and leave a restaurant at 10 o'clock because kovit comes out at 10 o'clock the stuff doesn't make sense all right we have someone at the microphone so let's give them the respect please okay so my name is samantha ignatowitz um i'm in wall apparently i would what i was not going to say anything english is my second language so forgive me for that i grew up in i grew up in burma socialism country i came here at 18. we are very laid back my husband and i not about education we want our kids to be healthy socially everything we were never involved you can ask

160the principals everywhere we go we don't get anything involved we just sent our kids to school they're happy to come home our oldest seventh grader very happy kid high honor student this year she hates it she hates school she doesn't want to go to school it's because everybody has said it to you i have a fifth grader and a third grader in old middle school the fifth grader i fought to be a class parent because i anticipated that the things would be still shut down and they won't get anything my anticipation came through and at the end of the year nothing was happening so we all step it up and help them out okay and at the end i reach out to mr laughlin asked about the lead program i was lied to the police

161station didn't want to do anything police department that was a lie because i reached out to sergeant lister he told me that they are trying through the sources i found out that it was the district denied that one hour a week 11 weeks program you denied it for the kids and law and women enforcement against drugs you you don't support that program for the kids fifth grader and he you are talking about full day school you can even support one hour for these fifth graders i mean they come home at one can you put like 15 minutes a day for them to do that no you can't throughout and we ask for things that they could do at the end of the school year a field trip because everybody else is getting it guess what

162i was told because other elementary schools are not getting it so we're not doing it since when we become a socialism country everything has to be equal everything has to be equal since one won't become that you know we all have our own funding allman has their own funding everybody else we never did that why is this this year why is everything has to be the same we asked for water sites or picnic you would deny it things that we ask for you don't because the other schools don't have it since when we become the socialism i grew up in that country dictatorship everything now i'm back going backwards my kids are going through that right now you're going through the dictatorship and everything stand up for them please for god sake of me god

163this is becoming like really we don't we don't seriously i grew up in the in that country and i'm here escape that and i'm back into it and my kids are in it i will fight hard for them that's what i'm doing i'm not normally not active my husband i live quietly well we party a lot but other than that other than that you know education wise everything we let them be who they are but not not this year not this year i'm not letting it happen okay thank you for your time thank you i i really counting on you as well i really did i don't know how we are so unlucky to have one super after another who doesn't work who doesn't do anything for us i don't know what's going on in

164this township this district is very disappointing for me socialism at its best [Applause] hi i'm tower natalie 24 2174 lawrence way i was not going to speak tonight i have a first grader i was not going to speak tonight i came distinctly to show support especially for my friend christine shanklin i'm here just to touch on the plexiglas situation of course i'm anti-mask that's also why i'm here i want everybody here dr handerhand was informed i want everyone here to know parents included that upon dismissal back in may my daughter got up her bus was called and she got a huge gash in her arm from her shield she's not one to speak up so she scurried along on the bus bleeding all the way home came in her face was white mommy mommy look

165what happened to me we took care of it i let it go told her to calm down then i got mad she's also been complaining of headaches daily and she now sleeps with a bucket next to her bed because of nausea and i fully believe that this is because of the plexiglass it is not necessary anymore i was not even informed that this was going up in her classroom also two days ago she told me that now her desks face the windows not the board so now she's looking out the window and then when the teacher is instructing at the board she has to turn around as if this classroom situation is not uncomfortable enough i'm sorry for getting emotional but this is my child i have one enter in kindergarten next year cameron and

166riley natalie will not be in a mask thank you [Applause] anyone else you thought i wasn't gonna get up maybe um i wasn't going to actually because i have i have laryngitis so you just have to bear with me a little i'll try to speak loudly mr ant just your your name for the record please kathleen duran wall township thank you um i don't know how many people behind me are aware that wall township last wednesday passed a resolution number one 21-0612 demanding of the governor that the students in wall township schools not have any mask requirement levied upon them at that meeting they denied any coordination with the wall township schools wow superintendent 000 a year is your salary and you're not coordinating with the town we're in our town is writing and sending

167this to murphy citing the cdc statistics that show the most recent ones that show that across all their studies to date that using masks in grammar school does not appreciably reduce the occurrence of the virus now i understand that there are people on top of you telling you what to do but the coordination at our level should have taken place what everyone here is asking for that i've heard tonight and i frankly was unaware that that sentiments ran so deep um but they're asking for something similar from the board of education and perhaps our superintendent something that shows that you care something that shows that you've read the same things our town officers have read and they had no problem sending it to the governor why do we why are we the only why are

168we the only school in this situation because we are i have friends just like everybody else here has friends my friends kids have been back to school unmasked having fun doing things way before our kids they haven't lost a year our kids our kids are the people of the the children of the people behind me have my children haven't because i pulled my kids out a while ago for homebound instruction but i hear and and i've been moved to tears several times tonight by hearing these stories i just want to know why there's no coordination and for those of you who are sitting there and have done i i'm happy somebody raised their hand thank you for sending an email to the governor why don't we have a 21-0612 from our board of education why

169not why aren't you coordinating with our town why can our town do it but you not and you're making a lot of money to not do something and i got to tell you i'm a poorly paid state worker and if i have to stay up all night day after day after day to answer emails that's what i do that's what my job is i don't cut you any slack on that front i don't care if it's 24 hours a day frankly and i don't care if you're like other people and sitting on the beach that's not my business what is my business is that you get the job done and that's a lot of money to not get the job done thank you [Applause] just like to clarify that the letter that the district sent

170not only went to the governor's office went to assemblyman sean keane who's also the township attorney and also went to the mayor uh tim farrell so they were aware that we were taking steps to ask for no masks in school is there anybody else that wishes to speak on this document seeing none we will now move on to where are we what was that yeah president's report okay all right i want to recognize the students of the month for grade nine charlie fowler grade 10 frank horley grade 11 jessie glandening and grade 12 jake pepe uh knights of the week uh grade 12 olivia nickerson for the week of 5'3 the week of 5 10 grade 11 matthew dalalf grade 11 charlie sasso for the week of 517 and grade 12 for the week of

171may 24th megan gallagher just a couple of little brief comments uh one you know said it say it again we we understand everything everybody's saying the frustration uh you know to mr hall's point before you know if different people were sitting in the same spot we'd still be in the same situation uh we don't agree with uh some of the orders that come out um but we're bound to follow them because that's the law unfortunately but doesn't mean that we we can't speak up and and certainly advocate on behalf of the parents in this district and the students in this district uh you know many of the people that got up tonight i know personally um you know the first person that spoke michelle we went to fifth grade together and alan would uh like

17238 years ago not throwing numbers out but um certainly i mean i i have friends we all have friends in the district and we hear everything you say and we we do fight we we understand and um we're going to continue to advocate for for the students and make sure the students are safe and the staff is safe and that's what we've tried to do since day one when this thing was uh unfortunately thrown in our lap in all our laps but i want to say thank you since this is the end of the school year thank you to our staff um for their professionalism and innovation during these this school year and the previous school year you know when they went to college to become teachers there was no class on how to deal

173with a pandemic no class on how to uh teach kids through zoom or google classroom um online uh these things just didn't exist and and you know everybody in a very short period of time became an expert in these things um so i want to thank all of them for that you know just not our teaching staff our custodians our food service staff who made sure you know everybody had food uh our bus drivers we made sure the kids were safe up and down the board our staff has worked so hard and uh we certainly appreciate them and along with that you gotta say thank you to the parents um i got a lot of friends that are parents in this district and elsewhere and i know it hasn't been easy you know juggling work

174uh helping your kids on on the computer um you know filling out roovnas in the morning so so the kids can go to school uh it's been difficult i mean there's nothing else you can say about that um you know unfortunately a lot of us have lost neighbors friends loved ones along the way we we think the light's at the end of the tunnel and you know we're all hoping for normal in september that that's what we want we want schools open kids back in kids smiling kids playing sports none of this social distancing you know we want things back to normal and we and we want everybody to be healthy so that that's that's what we wish other than that i'd like to wish everybody um you know for the the parents who have

175students graduating congratulations and congratulations to the class of 2021 and i hope everyone has a safe and healthy summer we will now move on board of education updates does any member have anything bless you no seeing none committee reports policy mr hall yeah thanks ralph um we had a meeting on june 2nd um policy committee met um basically we went over a couple uh policy 2340 about field trips and the regulations involved in it um basically uh just came down whether the committee felt that the full board needed to approve field trips or if the superintendent would continue to approve appropriate field trips basically we decided to leave it the same that the only time the board would uh interject uh on field trips would win uh if if if it required an overnight stay

176or if it was out of state otherwise superintendent in uh handles uh handles that um again the regulation uh 2340 was about how to how that carries out um and then policy 6162 was about corporate sponsorship and advertising on the school property basically it was really more of an informational about how how the educational foundations how they work in coordination with the school and how we can better interact with them basically we talked talked about uh looking at it further to bring additional controls to make sure that the foundations that we uh recognize are are providing the best uh uh you know the best best we can do for the for the students and lastly the use of school facilities um basically we went through um you know how we go about approving people that

177were outside groups that want to use the school and basically we agreed that this one was definitely uh more than we could handle at this particular meeting that we're going to come back and look at it none of those uh meeting none of these regulations were um where uh actually i say none of them were uh you know are ripe for uh to to change we're not we're not looking at changing any of them it was more doing a deep dive to see uh uh what we could possibly do well we'll revisit them in the future and make minor changes if the if uh if that's what our uh our research comes back with but uh again um it was a quick meeting about an hour and one minute thank you mr hall uh mr

178sanfilippo personnel apologize i was not at the meeting um the minutes are posted and uh you can read them so thank you thank you uh curriculum instruction mr krupa yes we met um on the 3rd of june the items on the agenda were the summer programs the esser grants which we've talked about extensively this evening info age collaboration and related to that telescope repair at the allenwood elementary school there was some discussion about the impact of tuition students on on enrollment and uh program and then there were a couple items that were not on agenda but we did talk so the highlight i think would be and speaks to some of the comments that were made tonight about well where's education and definitely this summer program which you know we've had in the past um

179has been extended an and an invite to all if i'm not correct you can correct me to participate in that program and it is optional but if you have concerns it's there for you and one of the things that was not expected but because of the way this has taken shape if there were students particularly at the secondary level of high school if there were any need for credit recovery they're going to be able to do that it's not just taking the course to build up their skill set so we're really hoping that parents take advantage of this if you know your neighbor is not aware please make sure that they contact the the schools and and if they so want to take advantage of this program another uh of the items that was discussed

180that is kind of a nice is that our extended school year program for the preschool is addressing a bike safety and use of the bike which is kind of a big milestone for those children so we're excited to be able to offer that for them and then there's some training opportunity for our paris which is really quite significant in that they will be better able to do their jobs as they have been doing because we're offering a registered behavior technician program i say that correctly and it's going to enable them to be more participatory with their support and logging of notes taken which is essential for often the children that they are assigned to so that's our report i don't know if there's anything from the other committee members that you want to add now

181and thank you mr krupa finance facilities mr gartz thank you on june 1st we met we reviewed our standard procedure looking back at our cafeteria account which had a very good month in our school dude report to make sure that everything's being fulfilled in terms of the work orders mr moretta responded and reported back successfully we're happy with his report on the school dude and the work orders for the current month some things for for vote tonight that came out of our meeting were the need to um you know upgrade some of our communications connectivity uh to make the systems compatible so that's up for approval as well we did discuss our tuition for private students out of district tuition students which is on the agenda for this evening and we're satisfied that we're in

182a good place to recommend that and we are recommending the demographer study to upgrade our data to make sure we have the right information as we move forward in looking at our long-range facility plan and longer than that out a referendum we want to make sure we have the right information in terms of what the projections are for housing starts and potentially new students into the district that's a quick summary of our meeting and the minutes are in the pack thank you mr hearts all right this time we will open up for public comment on any agenda item my name is lauren gallick i live in wall and i have three girls in the district a preschooler about to graduate primary and a kindergartner and third grader at allenwood please stop yelling out can you

183hear me now yes okay i'm going to start over then my name is lauren gallick i live in wall and i have three girls in the district a preschooler about to graduate primary and a kindergartner and third grader at allenwood i am also the always ptg president going on three years but tonight i am speaking as a frustrated special needs parent advocating on behalf of my third grader i am here requesting that you table the vote on agenda item 17 superintendents report more specifically the transfer and replacement of allenwood special education teachers mrs befiji and mrs moore which is listed under section 8 on attachment hr1 allenwood has two md or multiple disability rooms these are self-contained homerooms where the children receive a majority of their education in addition to their related services such as

184otp and speech it is important that this vote is not treated as an hr formality because the transfer of both teachers simultaneously nonetheless will have a negative impact on our children yesterday i met in person with my building principal and mrs duffy director of special services i do appreciate the meeting i asked many questions but they were met with the answer that this is a confidential personnel matter i understand confidentiality but my focus is on the bigger plan going forward are new programs and services being introduced in the department and therefore in order to staff these programs shifts had to be made i don't know if on july 6 when esy or extended school year starts and the only thing that has changed is that my daughter is physically in a new classroom with a

185new teacher then i feel the instability this change brings is unnecessary and there is no plan for the students this is why it's an urgent manner we only have 13 days after the school year ends to transition into esy the advantage of mrs moore and mrs befiji teaching during the school year and wanting to teach in the summer during esy is that they realize continuity fosters growth i understand i understand change is natural but there's a reason why my child is in a classroom where you spend three years at least with the same teacher my child thrives on routine and consistency which provides a stable environment my daughter is not taught from a foundations book my daughter's curriculum is created by her teacher and implemented through her iep she has a rare diagnosis called cast

186gene disorder probably none of you have ever heard of it we only heard of it five years ago and she was the 107 case worldwide documented by chop she is non-verbal walks unbalanced and last year was also diagnosed with myoclonic seizures a form of epilepsy both mrs moore and mrs baffiji have research cast to understand her better they have learned her mannerisms she has very little means of typical communication but that doesn't mean she doesn't communicate gestures facial expressions hugs and just turns of her head are ways she tells you what she wants and how she's feeling this bond between special education teachers and their students is not cultivated in a week or in a month but rather months and years of working with each other like i said change is natural but it doesn't

187come naturally for a special needs child i am asking that in addition to tabling this vote that the board of ed organized a cpag a special education parent advisory group like our surrounding districts and i'm quoting from code njac 6a 14-12 quote a special education parent advisory group is a state-mandated district-level parent-driven group charged with providing input to the local school district on system level changes in special education and related services each district board of education shall ensure that a special education parent advisory group is in place end quote this will this group will provide a constructive forum for open dialogue in a hope to close the transparency gap and build trust in the decisions our district leaders are making in my meeting yesterday i was asked to trust that the right decisions were being

188made in the best interest of our children to be honest right now that's a big leap for me that i'm not ready to take and before i got up here i turned around and i just want to thank all of mrs befiji's and mrs moore's paris that are in the back supporting this and this isn't in my speech but if you've ever worked or been around a child with special needs that teacher is the nucleus of the classroom those paras are an extension if they were ever out of the room for any reason took a personal day i had no concerns because i knew whatever was being implemented through her iep her safety on field trips the like if those powers were there it was as if the teacher was there wall township special services

189program has had a stellar reputation thus far but parents confidence is wavering there are so many issues we need to come together on and address as we come out of the pandemic parents are extremely happy with the growth they have seen in their children in mrs moore's and mrs befiji's classrooms even during the pandemic the choice to create unnecessary change in the md classrooms at allenwood will create instability and undoubtedly leave a scene on the special services program thank you [Applause] okay i would like to ask that the board not vote this evening on kathleen duran and wall township again i'd like to ask that the board not vote this evening on the contract specifically my concern is with the contract of brian smythe my concern is with the contract of brian smythe in particular

190he's now according to the budget that you put out going to be the second highest paid administrator in the county and one of the highest in the state at 304 thousand dollars and that's in a time um yes even more than the superintendents it's shocking um and i hope people behind me are as shocked as i am it's 300 um and my numbers right yeah yeah so his total contract cost that is that's not just his salary that includes all his benefits um which is again the second highest in monmouth and one of the highest in the state um he earns a shocking amount of money and our kids as someone on who's listening at home asked me to say for them our kids didn't even make it to school 50 percent of the time

191this year what are we doing why is he getting a retroactive raise for last year and then again for this year i've come up here i've spoken against raises like this state workers don't get it bus drivers don't get it state attorneys don't get it we don't get raises like that every year and businesses throughout wall are struggling your taxpayers in wall have struggled we are not all new york commuters some of us have local businesses that have struggled through this entire pandemic and there he sits with his contract valued at 304 000 i think it's a shame but the the most important reason is i have asked to be interviewed multiple times on the trailer investigation you all know that i've been up here asking the questions that have not been answered over and

192over again along with others other concerned parents including betsy cross i have been offered an interview i declined because it was just one date and time i offered three weeks of available interviews and mr scrillo never responded or anyone on his behalf from his office and the legal bills on that trailer investigation are up to ninety three thousand dollars and my questions haven't been answered yet so how are you giving and my questions all go back to what mr smythe knew and what he did in terms of that trailer my position on it and my questions have been designed to get you thinking as i have as i reviewed the facts that the steps he took from the minute he bought those trailers to the minute those trailers were demolished that there have been steps

193that have been taken that have been improper and in judicious at at best and actually improper or legal illegal at worst those questions haven't been answered it's not that until that audit is done until we have those answers why are you giving him a raise he may have done everything wrong or everything right but we don't know he certainly doesn't deserve a raise until parents like me who have come asking questions for what the past two years year and a half so we get answers no raises not on our backs [Applause] hi how are you my name is amy saccone i live at 2909 arthur street my son tyler is in the md class at allenwood and i want to bring to your attention even though lauren did a fabulous job on the level of

194care these teachers do for these kids but i would like to table the agenda on the placement the replacement of these teachers and i'm going to tell you why for the last 15 months i've been home with my son doing virtual and doing virtual with my son these md teachers have their live classrooms and then the virtual kids at the same time as the live classroom so what's going on in the class my child does from home and there's not one other elementary class in this district that does so except for these two md teachers i have been in that classroom for the last 15 months every single day i see what goes on i see the professionalism i see how they handle things there be how they handle kids behaviors how they've gone above

195and beyond for my son who's medically you know unable to go to school and do virtual and i just want this committee to know that i have not seen once anybody from special services in that classroom special services has decided that they're going to another option that they're going to expand but yet when the families ask and beg because we know the teachers we have and how well they do it's we'll tell you in july after your kid goes back to school my thing is is that if carol duffy has come up with this program that's going to wow us all what's the secret what what's the secret you have two amazing teachers that do amazing things with these kids now my son's 13 and he's non-verbal when he started school he hated school he

196i we had a hard time connecting with them and patty moore who is the younger elementary md teacher she suggested to us to go home and get my son a dog now that is something outside of the classroom that is something outside of the bubble and we did and guess what i have spent twenty thousand dollars in therapy for my son it worked so these are not teachers that are in the classroom doing learning environment these are teachers that care outside of the school district that care about families and for some reason the special service director has decided well we're going to go another way that's unfair and they're hiring new two new teachers i i don't understand the concept if there was a problem with these families and uh you know and concerns these

197kids excel because of these two teachers and taking them away from a program is just ridiculous it's uncalled for and it's ridiculous um what else is going to say lauren really said everything you when you have a child with special needs you can't just say guess what they have a new teacher there's planning there's social stories they have bonds they have relationships and what we're told from the special service director is that you'll know who the teacher is after your kid starts extended school year well i don't know about you and you could all come to my house and tell my son you're going to school but we don't know who your teacher is or what the program is going to have and i guarantee that he has a hard time because when he goes

198into allenwood school he's used to seeing those same safe faces that he once didn't know and now he is able to to have that relationship because he has teachers that care and to upset a program that works so well is just totally ridiculous and the answer is we want to go other ways but we don't want to share it with you if i if she is so certain that this program is perfect she should be screaming it from the from the rooftop instead of saying well it's personal matters we are we are parents of kids who can't speak think about that we have a child we don't know how his day is we have two md teachers that keep us in contact and let us know that they're safe they're okay and some days you're

199gonna get a bear when you get home but but when we all heard that they are taking this program and redoing it you could have picked me up off the floor these two teachers are known throughout the state as a recommended autism public school program they run it well they do it well and to come in and say okay well we're going a different way for somebody who i have never seen in the classroom and i'm in there every day virtual every single day my son is on my computer virtual i've never seen somebody come in and say let's evaluate this to be honest with you i probably know more about the program than other people do because i'm in there i live it and i think it's important that we table this and keep

200the two teachers where they are thank you hi good evening my name is jennifer varga i'm from wall township i have two children in the wall township school system uh one of which attends the md program at allenwood which the parents here have been talking about tonight my daughter caitlin is five mrs moore is her teacher she has down syndrome apraxia various motor skill issues and some other medical and other needs as i indicated mrs moore is her teacher and she has done an amazing job with my daughter this year and i don't know where she would be this year had it been another teacher or another program i come here today asking you just like the other parents to table the agenda item 17 with regard to the transfer of the md teachers as

201caitlyn's mother i had a series of concerns with regard to her entry into kindergarten particularly after the covet 19 pandemic she would be surrounded by new people in a new school in an environment that she wasn't used to after being away since march of 2020 at home to some extent i understand that this experience is normal for any child going into a new school however caitlin is different she has a variety of disabilities and medical issues she requires physical therapy occupational therapy and speech services she's unable to communicate with people the way her typical peers can it can be a struggle for her for me even at times to understand what she's saying and what she needs the professionals who have worked with caitlin understands that it takes a significant period of time to understand

202what she's capable of doing versus maybe some behavioral issues she's having and like many other children with so with special needs kaitlyn's primary source of social interaction is her peers in the classroom she doesn't attend multiple birthday parties or social events like her typical peers do as with all the students in mrs moore's class she puts together an individualized curriculum for caitlin and the other students to meet their iep objectives and goals and right from the beginning mrs moore was in regular communication with me as a parent regarding all the issues related to my daughter small and large she clearly spent a significant amount of time researching ways to engage my daughter in her in her learning and to optimize her educational experience she developed a rapport with caitlin very quickly which was extremely impressive

203to me she began communicating with her both verbally and via sign language and even with the requirements of social distancing and masks even as it through the pandemic excuse me the children in her class have formed friendships this is not something that comes easily for some of these children they need guidance they need assistance but these paraprofessionals and this teacher have managed to not only help them realize and engage them in the classroom but also help them develop these social relationships which is so important for some of these kids and requires a special person and a special teaching community the md program at allenwood came highly recommended to me as caitlyn was leaving her preschool years and i talked to parents who had children within the program parents who had children who had graduated the

204program and other educational professionals and they all recommended this md program very highly and i know why having had my daughter in that program now for a year when i discovered the other day that they were planning on making these changes to the program that none of us were really aware of i discovered it but through other parents and not through anything that came from the school i was deeply upset because one has to wonder why if something is working so well for these students why we would make this change without any explanation without any idea of why it's being made well i understand as lauren had pointed out that it is normal for teachers to change and it's normal for students to move from one classroom to another this is not the same situation

205these children have different needs and it takes time to get to know them it takes time to understand what works for them and to develop these relationships and as lauren had pointed out so well there's a reason why they are in this class for three years and it works and it's just i i had to come tonight to to ask you to table this vote to allow us to have additional time to understand why they want to make these decisions and to really give it serious consideration before you remove two exceptional teachers who are doing a fabulous job with these students and like i said i speak from personal experience and i speak from the communication that i've had with these other these other parents of these children in mrs moore's class who have all

206shared with me that they have had the same experiences as i have my daughter caitlyn strives on routine instructure and i've she's been through a multiple multiple changes throughout the last year and a half as all of our children have and as we all have but the implications on making these additional changes to these students at this time can have devastating impacts on them we understand this as their parents and that's why we're here so i'm asking you to kindly table the vote on the agenda 17 to allow additional time before you make these decisions regarding the transfer of these teachers and i also uh joined lauren gallick in the request for the special educate special education parent advisory group thank you so much for your time thank you hi good evening everyone my name

207is danielle this is my husband joshua we've been lifelong residents of all township we went to all the schools here we're on a lara road i'm also up here to discuss the uh removal and change of the teachers at allenwood my daughter came to allenwood in first grade she went through two teachers um i was a i have a neurotypical child and i have went through the school system without so much as having a meeting with a principal my teacher my older daughter had teacher changes she went through all the different adjustments that you do through school without so much as you know a misstep but this is the first time i'm actually speaking on my daughter's behalf she came to allenwood and they told me that she would be put with teachers that had

208a wonderful experience the first teacher ended up leaving after six months she could not handle the classroom she was obviously overwhelmed i was told she would be wonderful i put my trust in the administration and in the school because as far as i knew they knew what was best they then put the second teacher in my daughter still talks about that years later how she was on the floor for most of the day with the teacher sitting on her because he couldn't handle her behaviors again this teacher was supposedly highly experienced came from uh you know a wonderful background and knew all the special ed you know knew how to deal with special education teachers that was until we found out about the md classroom the md classroom only came to me from an outside

209source nobody within the school had mentioned to me why don't you move your daughter into the md program with mrs moore and mrs befiji not one person did i had to hear it from somebody else who said you know these teachers are wonderful your daughter belongs there we met with mrs befiji and we never looked back she is a completely different child today than the child she was entering in that school she i'm sorry i'm not i'm trying to read but um yes and to hear that you will be removed um without so much as a heads up to us parents is is unbelievable it's an unnecessary and unjust change these teachers don't want to leave we do not want them to leave us parents rely on the consistency and stability that they have shown

210our our children i have written letters to the administration to many people i've gotten no response our word has not been heard that's why we are here we're hoping that again like the other parents had mentioned that you can table this until there's more information coming out about this we are the parents we know that these what these kids needs and they are with the teachers that they need everyone is telling us it will be better but we know what is best and believe me if this were your child you'd be standing where i am today because there are no better teachers and there's nobody that can replace them my husband wants to say something and this is one issue you said earlier with the other issues you don't have basically it's out of your

211hands you don't have a choice but on this you have a choice and please choose right for our kids all right thank you [Applause] is there anybody else for public comment agenda items thank you thank you piper waitsall um bernadette court i just have a question and i'm very unprepared tonight i don't have the agenda item but it's regarding dr rondo's contract i was wondering if we could possibly as a community have notes as to what exactly her duties will be in the in the next coming school year or in the year that her contract will be good for um i understand that when she was brought on it was for summer school curriculum and all of that but we just would kind of like to know before it's voted on what she will be

212doing in the next um year for her contract thank you that's my question thank you my leg is asleep good evening gail marr wtea president i would like to thank everyone for [Music] the work we're doing to make some changes in the district i want to congratulate jon hyam for his new position that he'll be taking and mr cranston for the hr department what the wtea would hope would be put in place would be some kind of procedure because there is a relative in the district from a confidentiality standpoint where things don't slide away we have complete confidence in our teacher over there and we just want to make sure that with the high level of con confidentiality for that position that everyone knows it and that we make sure that when something does occur

213there's another plan thank you hi i'm betsy cross i live in wall township um on the agenda items i would agree with lauren and the four other families that spoke tonight i think you should table that item i don't think anybody should be voting on it unless you're going to go around and each and every one of you are going to tell us why you're voting for it and if you can't do that you need to table it [Applause] mr smite's contract's on the agenda tonight that item should also be tabled it's absolutely unbelievable to think that you would have it on there with a retroactive raise of three percent last year and a three percent raise this year so he was making 176 000 salary then you're now putting him to 180 and now

214up to 184 000. our police department right now are on pay freezes and they're doing a hell of a lot more than mr smythe is doing here in the business office [Applause] we got the mercury gym floor we got the trailer investigation that's never ending we've had 36 weeks of updates and mr mckeever if you could give us an update like you wrote in your friday report that you would be giving us an update if you can let us know when you'll be giving us your report because i myself are waiting for another interview to do in person at wall pd that's where mine will be so when you're ready to do it i'm ready to do it and that's the only way i'm gonna do it you spent ninety three thousand seven hundred and

215seventy dollars just on trailer bills your attorney bill since july are two hundred and twenty six thousand eight hundred and ninety nine dollars and thirty two cents i think you're over your budget for the year mr smythe is still now holding up your april bills then i'll need your may and your june you're going to be spending over 300 grand on attorney bills get your act together stop redacting items you have now been sued there is going to be an amended lawsuit and it's going to get very very expensive mr smith's total contract cost for 2021 in what i got last year because mr smythe is not returning his own document how he is the custodian of records withholding his own documents is beyond me it's crazy get somebody else getting these documents and there

216a number of them are going to be in the amended lawsuit 304 538 he was the second highest paid business administrator monmouth county as of the last report that i had he's not giving me this one so if mr lester richards has approved something which i guess he has because you have it in the agenda you need to share it with the public and it should have been attached tonight nobody should be approving mr smite's contract unless you're going to tell us all tonight how much his contract costs are and if he is now the highest paid business administrator monmouth county with all these problems air conditioning mercury gym floor trailers flooding in central from a water fountain uh we now have a hundred thousand dollar payment to the wall boe from the diploma joint

217insurance fund i'm not getting answers i sent it to the chief of police today we need answers why is the diploma joint insurance fund cutting hundred thousand dollar checks to the wall boe mr mckeever is the same attorney for the diploma joint insurance fund and agenda was approved with another wall payment on it that now they're saying was a mistake so how 30 people approve an agenda and minutes that are wrong is beyond me because mr smith is a trustee i jotted a couple other things down i know you went over that presentation your tuition for the engineering program you're only charging fourteen thousand it's probably costing us forty grand for that so if you're taking incoming students in they need to cover their costs so that shouldn't be approved either your primary school three

218thousand dollar tuition we're not even covering the cost of this cross your time is up so mr mckeever could you give us an update on when you're going to be interviewing myself and kathy duran cross your time when you're planning on giving the trailer investigative reports thank you is there anybody else for public comment hello again patty nawalski i didn't realize until i saw this um this number 17 removing two teachers that sound absolutely amazing um was even on here and i think it's a disgrace that it's even on here because why would you remove two teachers that are good for someone's kids so hopefully you vote no on that or table it because um then you're really going to start getting a lot of emails because um people watching that's that's awful i also

219agree that um i don't underst i don't think you should be voting on uh mr smite's um uh raise right now like of getting him amending his contract i'm as many years i've been coming here six years of board meetings and watching them maybe i sat in the back all i've ever heard from every parent in every board meeting is where's all the info from mr smith or why is he making more money and then you guys get in here and you're doing the same thing you're supposed to be on a budget so stop paying people too much money like they said when the if the policemen are on a freeze why are we paying somebody this much money heck can i have his job you guys keep saying want to come over here i'll

220take his job for 300 000 but stop approving money for money we don't have um what i wait i did not read my notes earlier because i was getting too you know upset with everything but um several things critical race theory i know they're going to try to push it new jersey wall township better have a plan for that that better not be happening in our schools at all i know it's on the agenda but i got it in there um i also just think my one last thing i didn't say before and i don't it's not on the agenda but i didn't say it before was i listened to the meeting last week and i someone spoke after chris about um you know how they felt of helping us and being like a part

221of like communicating with us and talking to us and um i think that's great and i understand you guys want to help us i think the communication and the maybe what i said last meeting if there's some way we can come up with a new committee of where we have a chat like we can talk and communicate either it's through email or through youtube some way to better communicate with um the parents than just your time's up your time's up your time you know what i mean there's no communication and i think that's where the frustration lies where we all get frustrated being yelled at and there's no communication there's no respect and it's you know quiet down i think that's the problem i think the communication just needs to be a little better and

222i think parents would have a better understanding of your job and then you would have a better understanding of our frustrations so and one last thing if you do push a vaccine in wall township you better be ready to be liable for it because you can't sue a pharmaceutical company you anybody else on agenda items okay seeing none we'll close public comment could i have a motion for number 14 approval of the secretary's minutes from the executive session of may 15th and the business meeting of may 15th i'll move it motion adam can i have a second second second mr smyth roll call please sorry mr guards yes mr hall yes miss hotnet yes mr krupa yes mr nasser yes mr sam felipe yes the states yes mr wondrack yes mr anithia yes could i

223have a motion under policy for letter b um for a second reading of policy 0155 board committees i'll make that motion you have a second i'll second i will open it up for public hearing seeing none we'll close that mr smythe roll call please mr hall yes miss hotnet yes mr krupa yes mr nasser yes mr sam flippo miss states yes mr mondrag yes mr guards yes and mr ed needs you yes could i have a motion on number 16 board of education report make the motion motion mr carts give a second second second mr krupa any discussion mr ednesio i just recommend that the item 8 and the board uh hr report is tabled and i'd like to have a discussion about that or some kind of vote with this board based on what

224we've heard that's nice that's seven under that's under the superintendent's report it's not under the hr reports that's uh 17. uh jump the gun my apologies that's okay any other questions comments i just want to make a comment if you can um so on we're on item 16 correct absolutely item 16 um it's 11 10 at night i just wanted to point out because i know we're all getting tired but on here i noticed some really good things so the multi-sensory reading instruction that we're going to be providing which will give targeted instruction for struggling readers i'm really excited to see that there because i think that talks to the educational needs of learners in the district it talks to learners that don't always learn to read typically and it will provide our k-2 teachers

225with some really quality training to reach you know both struggling readers and students that read with ease it it's an exciting thing to see on the agenda thank you i do have a question uh letters i double a double e double f double g double i they are all private consultants um even double h can can the superintendent comment if any of those people have uh relationships any of those companies have relationships to staff members in the district are they totally outside companies i'm not familiar if there's any personal relationships with these vendors that we use for for services thank you anybody else cena mr smythe roll call please miss simon yes mr crouppen yeah yes is it an answer yes mr sam flippa yes miss states yes mr wondrack yes mr guards no to

226y double a double e double f g double h double i yes to the rest mr hall yes and mr radnessy yes number 17 superintendent's report dr handerhan i would like a motion to approve by consent agenda items a through o with the exception of item a section 8 assignment changes of the hr report to be clear i am moving all with the exception of section 8 of the hr report could we have a motion on that i make the motion could we have a second a second just one question dr henry i believe the there's a third person on that is that first yes we can we can wait till july we're striking the whole section okay thank you any discussion any questions board members seeing none mr smythe roll call please mr krupa

227yes mr nasser yes mr sanfilippo yes the states yes mr wandrak yes mr guards yes to everything except and i don't know how to do this brian so i'm just going to say it the first appointment on item one for the director no why not point of order yes mr texter could you please inform miss cross that yelling out is not uh allowed mr hall yes miss hotnet yes mr amnesia yes number 18 business office mr smythe just double check i asked for a motion to approve items 18 a through t by consent agenda do we have a motion on that i'll make the motion could have a second second second mr parts uh any questions discussion seeing none mr smith roll call please uh mr nasty yes mr sam flipper yes mr states yes

228mr von drak yes mr guards yes mr hall yes is hotnet yes mr krupa yes hey mr adenine yes time we will open up for public comment on any district matters please come up good evening members of the wall township board of education and the wall township community my name is jenny de carlo and i am an employee of wall township public schools i am here this evening not only as an employee of the district but as a wall high school alumni i have been working as an employee at walt township public schools since february of 2014 working as a direct district technology communications assistant unfortunately this evening under the superintendent's report number 17 c dr handler hand has recommended approval for a reduction in force by abolishing slash eliminating my position in the district

229the resolution is attached is attachments s-1 and conveniently hidden on page 31 of tonight's agenda please be advised the wall township public school district has never provided me with a rice notice regarding my employment status or the fact that they were discussing me in either a closed executive session or in a public meeting as an employee of the district i was legally denied the appropriate legal notification an opportunity to speak publicly on my behalf regarding my employment status before tonight's vote it was the district's legal responsibility and due diligence to inform me of my rights which are being adversely affected this evening i was denied the opportunity to request in writing that this matter be discussed at tonight's public board meeting i believe dr handerhan's decision to abolish my employment is based on both discrimination

230and retaliation as many of my colleagues know i have been working from home since march of 2020 due to an autoimmune disease this condition makes me highly susceptible to contracting cobit 19. therefore my doctor informed the district that certain health precautions and accommodations needed to be put in place for me to safely return to the office unfortunately the district did nothing to provide me with even one of the numerous recommendations and or accommodations my doctor expressly provided to them instead they began ignoring my follow-up emails regarding how i could safely return to work after weeks of being ignored i stopped following up and have continued working from home fortunately my job is able to be accomplished remotely as i update the content on the district and school websites manage the district's social media platforms answer

231help desk tickets among other tasks required as the board is aware i have successfully performed my job duties and responsibilities from home since march of 2020 had the district provided me with the 504 recommendations for accommodations my profession my physician provided to them i would have happily returned to the technology building in my opinion my position is being abolished eliminated tonight is not a coincidence i believe i am purposely being targeted because i am a financial liability to the district it is my belief that i am being discriminated against under the americans with disabilities act because of my medical condition my age and my gender i also believe that this is a blatant case of calculated retaliation for not returning to work in person in my seven plus years with the district i have never

232once received a poor performance report a performance review and i'm very well liked and respected by my colleagues for too many years i have watched my fellow colleagues be harassed retaliated against and discriminated against based on their sexual orientation among other conditions i too have also been in their shoes on multiple occasions and find myself here once again many of us have worked under toxic work conditions for years in the wall township public school district why because we fear if we speak up we will be fired harassed tormented and retaliated against unmercifully until the point we resign take a medical leave or retire early from the district for all of my colleagues who were forced out fired without just caused retired early and who are just too afraid to come forward and tell your story

233please speak your truth if you don't the toxic work environment in this district and the culture of wall town to public school district will never change i would like to end with a quote from erin brockovich if you follow your heart if you listen to your gut and if you extend your hand to help another not for any agenda but for the sake of humanity you are going to find the truth i implore the board to seek out the truth and stop sweeping the reports of discrimination harassment and retaliation among staff members by administrators in this district it's been too long it's been swept under the rug and it needs to stop these insidious practices are not only thank you granted in this district but they are promoted and celebrated by certain staff members this

234dismissal thank you mr carlo your time is up good evening my name is gail marr wall resident for 25 years wall teacher for 21 years and the proud wall township education association president for six please let me take this opportunity to explain to the board and to the community what the most significant item was that we lived through during the pandemic it wasn't the students attending attending only an abbreviated school day because of health and safety concerns it was an executive order 175 that required all to wear masks it wasn't the rhetoric of tax dollars being spent on summer curriculum learning experiences it was the loss of five of our members who passed away during the pandemic the families of the five lost would be grateful to see them leave in the morning and return

235only a few hours later by the way teachers have worked longer hours this year than ever before in preparing to teach the students in the district in this virtual world the families of the five lost would be blessed if wearing a mask would keep their mother or sister or daughter alive we are a public school and we follow rules placed upon us by the governor the department of health and the center for disease control we don't break rules and we believe that the community would want us to continue to teach that lesson to their children the families of the five lost aren't worried about the programs developed in the district to enhance this year's learning experiences because they lost a loved one if we don't come back together as a kind kind kind community that

236cares for each other this community is doomed to fail we lost rose krill last summer who worked for 11 years in the cafeteria she was fondly known as gypsy and missed by our school community her love for her school and her students was ever present whether it was an abbreviated schedule or a regular six hour shift we lost bernadette daily in september right before school started for the year she drove one of our buses and always worked the summer esy program she drove for us since 1995 and had the heartiest laugh of anyone i knew she would gladly come back and wear a mask to this day if she could we lost madeleine mcaver in october she was an 85 plus year paraprofessional at old middle school she loved working with the students we miss

237her and we wish we could still see her masked face picking up the students as they get ready for their snack break we lost rose joyce this winter a member of our cafeteria family when we were still living in a time where families could not come together and share their grief she worked in wall for 11 years and was known as rosie cakes and was also very well loved we lost tara carpenter this past spring a bus driver and wall for eight years and her smile could light up a room but no one will see her smile as she as the student stepped onto her bus she can't work the summer esy program or the summer night program and can no longer worry about her tax dollars these five and the mothers and fathers and

238sisters and brothers of our members that we have lost during the pandemic do not have the opportunity to work a job wear a mask or worry about their taxes but they would say one thing tonight to everybody concerned come together support the greater good for the community stop the hate and do everything you can to keep everyone and i mean everyone safe thank you is there anybody else for public comment seeing none close public comment um oh yes all right now you can start the clock joe is that okay thank you i'm here too thanks um i i can't i couldn't even figure out because i had my agenda back here when you're not voting on items you know what's helpful to everybody that's watching at home and sitting here tell us what you're not

239voting on that was ridiculous mr gartz to shout out no because you know why everybody sitting back here would have said i'm not voting on item a and it reads i don't know if you didn't vote on these poor families that are sitting here because i couldn't figure it out because i didn't have the agenda in front of me they deserve that we deserve it that was outrageous mr gortz you do it all the time i'm not sure why you're here and i don't know do you think it's funny you're here laughing i mean it is now almost eleven i really don't care i'll stay gentle that's been available to you online and there may be an actual reason why mr guards chose not to itemize what he was saying it's none of your business

240i chose not to say it you deal with it that's how it goes i'm not required to convene to your agenda in the in the flow on the floor say what you want miss cross you know how to find the items on the agenda i would like to send an email to the 13 000 federal bureaus that you have investigating us i'm sure they'll help you find the agenda wow that's unbelievable mr o'keefe on your june 11 2011 update you said we will provide a verbal report at the next board of ed meeting which is today to the extent we are able we will also answer questions could you give us an update on where you're at with the investigation the audit report this is not question and answer what he was just about to

241answer and you now you're not having him answer he wrote it in his report we paid him 93 000 the last six not seven months we're paying this ralph we're all paying these bills here he wrote it he needs to answer that's what that's what you should do ralph oh i don't i don't have to answer um but my name's not o'keefe my name is mckeever and um the board is planning to do a presentation uh later once we have a date set it up so later once you have a date set up okay can you contact myself and kathleen duran who you haven't reached out to yet who was here at all the meetings she actually said publicly that we did reach out to her i know we've interviewed you and interviewed again to

242interview again thank you i will be interviewed again or your and your investigation isn't going to be complete says you yeah right did you call ted hopkins did you call the architect i suggest you call him you took care of it so we're good could you all just go around the room and let us know why you approved mr smite's contract tonight why you gave him a raise and if he is now the highest paid superintendent and i'm going to direct them not to answer any questions regarding personnel i would just like to know what your feelings were and why you did it that's all well pd's on a hiring free i mean on a pay freeze and we're giving out money like it's monopoly here cutting programs giving out raises and giving out stipends

243i think the new hr person is making what 60 70 000 more than the last one that you were voting for i don't even know if i got approved because you wouldn't say the other one john hyam i don't even understand it there's no job descriptions of what people are doing i don't know what what miss rando does all day nobody knows nobody knows what tracy handrahan does all day nobody knows what you do all day mr adenizio all we know is nobody is replying to emails and the district is the only one in monmouth county right now within five miles it isn't open full time and going back and forth ridiculous with the masks it's ridiculous i don't need to go to the madison board of ed meetings you know why they got people

244up there know what they're doing they're just doing it they don't need the parents coming down here and telling them common sense items of what to do i see we're still paying michael gross attorney bills why are we paying another attorney your time is up thank you is there anybody else for public comment just do it again christine desarno truman court i think we just want transparency i know i was back there i didn't have an agenda i you know as a parent i want to know what's being voted on so without being disrespectful without being rude if you guys could really answer some of our questions i think that's what we're looking for um you know yeah i know some of us are shouting from the back and it's not the appropriate way but

245when we ask questions you say this is not a question and answer period so if we send emails and they don't get answered and we ask questions at board meetings and they don't get answered my question is when do the questions get answered because here we are sitting not just wasting our time because these are our kids this is our town that we care about i was born and raised here went to central school intermediate school and high school and i just want answers and i don't want to be treated like a child like other people have said to scream and say no when somebody wants an answer to a question you wouldn't want to be treated that way so why do you think it's okay to treat us that way i plan on being

246respectful i would hope that you guys would be respectful as well and we want transparency we want to work together for the betterment of our town for our school for our kids that it's as simple as that take that to your heart take that to your head and run with it because that's what we want thank you anybody else for public comment seeing none we will close public comment um mr hall do you have anything you'd like to add no i'm good tonight miss states it's 11 33 so i had plenty to say at the last meeting what i will say though is that it is appreciated when you come to a meeting and yes there were exchanges and i encourage people to come to the board what i don't encourage is running from chair

247to chair like it happened at the last meeting full-blown conversations at full volume going on cutting off the seniors who approached the podium to introduce a political candidate taking their turn that's disrespectful and this yelling now is the same thing it doesn't matter no patty i'm sorry patty you're wrong you're wrong mr president can recall order that's enough please enough that's enough that's enough yeah it is enough you're calling me out it's a disgrace you just embarrass yourself even more all right unbelievable please that's not this is not how a meeting runs she shouldn't have said that because that's not how it is okay again you're being rude rolling your eyes the entire meeting is rude all right okay all right we're done that's enough that's enough does anybody else have anything no dr hanoran

248did you no mr smith yes oh mr roger i just want to make a comment that we have to look at the nrotc program and and with the uh idea of expansion and modernizing it that's all i have to say i agree thank you mr smite did you have anything no i'm good thank you okay all right could i have a motion to adjourn i'll make that motion second second all in favor aye thank you thank you for coming out next time um you