04-25-23 Watchung Borough BOE Meeting

001A call to order a regular meeting of the watching Boro School District Board of Education on April 25th, 2023 at 700 p.m. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I alsy welcome to a meeting of the board of education of the burough waang. Please be advised that this and all meetings of the board are open to the public and media consistent with the open public meeting act and and that an advanced notice required therein has been provided. This is a regular meeting of the board of education of the bureau of waong at which formal action may be taken. This meeting is being livereamed on the district website where a recording of the meeting will also be posted. The public will have an opportunity to be heard as shown on the agenda at points in the

002meeting provided for the public to address the board. Recording or photographing other than private and personal use requires a consent of parents, guardians whose children may be included in the image. May I have a roll call, please? Mr. Bakarelli here. Mr. Fra here. Mr. Gonzalez. Mr. Mrs. Harvey here. Mr. Ingrassia here. Mrs. Juette here. Mr. Morales here. Mrs. Mured here. Mrs. O'Donnell here. We have a quorum. Today we have a special performance by Bayberry Glee Club. We have an incredible group who has performed at the Somerset Patriots Stadium last week and I'm honored to present to you the Bayberry Glee Club by Mrs. Riley uh and performance today especially for the board of education. Please give them a round of applause. God says. Thank you. Um this is about half of our group which we

003were so happy to bring back after COVID. Um we have uh 54 third and fourth graders who have rehearsed once a week. We actually have our last rehearsal coming up this week and uh as it was mentioned earlier, we were thrilled to sing on the field of the Somerset Patriots last week. It was a little chilly, but we had a great time and it was really thrilling. We're going to do one other song. This is actually their favorite song. It's a little swing piece called I can't stand still under those raindrops. It's happening. Thank you so much for that wonderful performance. performance. We're now going to move on to a presentation by our New Jersey School Boards Association representative, Mrs. Gwen Thornton. Good evening. Um, thank you for having me. I hope you all can

004hear me. The PowerPoint is behind you if you're sitting on the right hand side. Uh, my intent this evening is to talk about the superintendent's evaluation process. Um, for some of you, you've never participated in this process and I'm getting an echo when I stand too close to the to the computer. So, we're going to talk about the responsibility to evaluate what the tool looks like, um, what the process looks like, and then getting it done in the statutoily required timeline. Every board of education is responsible for annually evaluating the superintendent. Um, it must be completed in its totality by July the 1st. It is part of statute and code. The law outlines that you must do it annually. It must be written. Um, the board must meet as a full board of education, non-conlicted

005members only, to review the evaluation with the superintendent, and all of that must take place before July the 1st. Okay. In administrative code, it requires you identify areas of strength, areas needing improvement, if there are any, recommendations for professional growth for your chief school administrator, as well as indicators of student success. And typically those are standardized test scores which you will have this year as a result of the New Jersey student learning standards that you can attach to the evaluation. And that summary conference is held um must include a majority of the non-conlicted board of education members. It is also in addition to being in statute, it's also part of New Jersey CQAC, New Jersey quality single accountability continuum, the monitoring process that the state has for every school district and is part of the

006governance district performance review. Um it is worth six points on your score. So it's important that you do um complete it in the timeline required. Okay, it is a why is why do we do it? Why is it important? Well, you want to look back um at the year, see what kind of progress was made, see where you are on the district goals, see what's still in progress that may need additional attention for the following board year. Um and then um help the district to move forward and improve student achievement ultimately. So the the tools um it requires some documentation. There are ratings of performance expectations that go with all of it. Written comments are absolutely essential. It is designed to be a communications tool to ensure that the board and the superintendent remain on

007the same page. Um, and so it is important to make sure that when you're entering a rating, you provide evidence and/or documentation to support your perspective. Okay. There are two different parts to the evaluation. Progress toward district goals and then the leadership standards. All of this is outlined, of course, in statute in 18A17-20.3. Here is the first part of it. This is what the actual document will look like when you see it. Um, the first step in the process is your superintendent will go online, enter the district goal, and provide his or her assessment of progress toward or achievement of that goal, and then add any necessary comments. Once your superintendent has completed that part of the process, you will receive an automatically generated email from me to all of you letting you know that

008the evaluation is ready for you as individual board members to go in and enter your assessment of the of the goals. Okay? And you will have an opportunity to add those boxes just extend when you type on the computer. It's all done online. Um and you can just add your comments and it will expand. Okay. The standards come from the professional standards for school leader. They were originally known as the ISL standards. All school administrators across the state of New Jersey, including principles, supervisors, directors, assistant superintendent, all agree that these are the standards against which their performance is measured. Okay. Here are the six evaluation standards that you will be looking at. mission, vision, and core values. Governance, ethics, professional norms, operations management, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's the operation of the

009district, curriculum, instruction, assessment, and school improvement. That's all around the instructional program and the curriculum. Um, community care, equity, and family engagement. How we communicate with our communities, how we engage them and their students. And then professional capacity, community of school district personnel. That's the personnel piece. professional development for staff and so forth. Okay, each of the ratings has its own definition and a rubric. Um, and you can rate someone as being exemplary, proficient, area for growth, unsatisfactory, and not observed. I just want to take a moment to point out to you, um, this is an annual evaluation, so it runs from last July the 1st through this end of this school year. Some of you may not have had an opportunity, especially if you're new folks, to observe the superintendent's performance in every single

010area of their responsibility. As a result, we have included the category not observed. It's neither a positive or a negative. If you don't feel comfortable that you have enough experience or knowledge in a particular area, you can simply mark not observed. Okay? um so that you can be comfortable in participating it as fully as you can but at the same time recognizing you have some of you have not been on the board for the full board of education year. Okay, here's what a standardized assessment looks like. Excuse me. And you can see um that there's a rubric and a definition specific to each specific um standard and it's slightly different for every standard. So you need to read them carefully um before you rate them. And then there are indicators and those indicators build toward

011the accomplishment of the standard. And then it asks you in addition to rating those indicators to then give the standard an overall rating. And it makes it pretty simple because you'll be able to look at how you've rated the indicators to figure out how you want to rate the overall standard. Okay. So in terms of documentation um again what are you looking for? Um you may need to go back in your board minutes. You may need to look back on your board service to reflect depending upon what the board goals are um what you have that demonstrates that there is a portion on that evaluation that allows the superintendent to suggest you could look at a particular agenda. You could look at a particular document as to providing documentation. Um, we've also suggested in the

012evaluation some suggested things that you could look at for each standard. Okay. All right. We strongly suggest and recommend to boards that they create an evaluation calendar with deadlines so that you meet the July 1st date. It sounds as though it's far away, but trust me when I tell you it is but an eyelink and we're going to be in June. Um, you don't want to let this go because you want to do this thoughtfully and carefully. um and not in a rush. So um you can develop your own calendar. We have one that's available online. I'll talk about that in a minute. Okay. So again, assessing this, the NJSBA sends an email with the link. George has already had that. We sent that out in February to all the superintendent so they would be

013aware that it was available for them to go online and enter their goals. Um once that happens, you all will get that email from me and then you will fill it out. Um once I see that all board members have completed their evaluations, I can hit a button, it compiles. It's completely anonymous. Um I don't evaluate your superintendent. I don't read it. I'm not interested in that process. We're here to help you accomplish this process in the most efficient, effective way we can. I will then return it to the to the board president. um so that you can then continue on with the process. Okay, here's a sample of what the compilation looks like for a goal. Um the goal statement, member comments, and then the ratings. So, it was a nine member board. One

014board member rated it achieved, one said seven said satisfactory progress, and then one said little or no progress made. The written report that you're going to create from this compilation must reflect the majority perspective of the board. If you have a minority perspective or a different view as a board member, you have an opportunity to be heard when you meet with the full superintendent to review that final document. So, it's a majority document the same way that everything the board does is by majority, but the minority voice is protected because you have an opportunity when you sit with the superintendent to be heard. Here's a sample a sample of the compilation for a standard. And again, you can see all of the indicators for that standard and where board members fell out. And then you

015can see how they fell out overall in terms of the assessment. One rated exemplary, five proficient, two area for growth. So the majority clearly believed that the superintendent was proficient in this particular um standard. Okay. online. What you will see when you go onto our website, there is a member portal. You will use your username and password. If you don't have a username and password for our website, um you can set that up and we give you the link to be able to know where to go to set that up. Um and then you will be able to access it. Um it's on our front page and I'll show you what that looks like in a moment. Okay. The compilation that I send back to the board president is not the final report. It is

016simply amassing all of the information from all of the board members from that compilation. The board will write a narrative or a summary report. It will share it with all of the board members so that there's consensus that the report reflects the majority of the board. And once that happens, then it gets shared with the superintendent and you meet in close session to review it. Um, you must send a rights notice to the superintendent because that's the requirement for all personnel in the state of New Jersey. Um, and then you will have that conference. As with any certified employee in the state of New Jersey, any teacher, any supervisor, director, anyone with a certificate, any individual has 10 days in which to append to the evaluation that you write any kind of documentation, narrative, or

017other information that they would like to see attached that they believe amplifies, clarifies, or better um reflects their perspective on an evaluation. You don't get to say yes or no to that. No principal does. No superintendent does. If an employee wishes to do it, you should be aware that it's been done, been able to read it, but you cannot object to it. Okay. The annual report is generally written by the board president and vice president or a committee of the board or however the board would wishes to do that. There's no set rule. You may have something in your policy that lays it out. um if so you need to follow your policy and again you're going to meet an executive session to discuss the majority opinion. Okay. We've also developed a template um for

018writing that summary report in an effort to make it easier for boards of education to write that report. And so that's available to you online in a word format. You can download it and use that as a template if that's easier for your board. Okay. And so this is what the template looks like, but you'll be able to see this when you go online. It's available for you to look at. Um it's important to remember to have your business administrator send a rice notice to the superintendent um prior to the conference. We also suggest that you provide to the superintendent once the board has agreed that the evaluation, the summary report reflects their consensus to share that with the superintendent ahead of meeting with the superintendent so that you can have a fuller discussion um

019rather than giving it to someone five minutes before and expecting to have an informed dialogue. Okay. So, make sure you, you know, take enough time um to do a really quality evaluation. This is not something you can rush through and just do check marks with. Um, you need to be fair and equitable. You want to reflect on the big picture. Keep in mind this is an annual evaluation that spans an entire year. Okay? And you want to make sure that you're in compliance with the timelines, the requirements, and the deadline. um because you don't want to lose points on QAC needlessly um for not having it done in time. So just keeping in mind it's not a once a year event. It's ongoing. It really begins with the goal setting where you set those goals

020for the year and then when you as a board receive updates toward progress on those goals, that is all part of the evaluative process. Okay. Um you may want to as a board member um think about how you want to hang on to evidence through the year as a board member so that when it comes to evaluation time you can say yes I remember we covered this and here's what we did. Um I have trouble with a week ago or two weeks ago. So to remember back everything that you did from July all the way through the year is really sort of a herculean task for most folks. you have work lives, family lives, professional lives. Um so that is very helpful um to just sort of keep track of it for yourself. And then

021it's the responsibility of every board member who is eligible and I don't believe any of you are conflicted out to make sure that you complete it in a timely way. You don't want your board president to be chasing you around um trying to get you to finish so that you can meet the deadlines. So, please once you get notification, make sure that you take the time to do it. It's online. You can go in and do it if you have an hour or 20 minutes and go back out and then go back in and it'll bring you when you sign back in to exactly where you left off. So, it's very easy. You can you don't have to do it all in one sitting. Um, you can do it over time if that's easier. Okay.

022It's important that your district census be up tod date and that your email that we have on file reflects your current email district address. Okay, here's where you can find it. Um, on our front page, bottom right hand side, there's a link. If you go to field services, which is the department I'm with, you can find another link there, there's a link that comes in the email that I send you. So, there are numerous ways to get into the evaluation. Um, and you shouldn't have any difficulty. If you do have difficulty, if you just email call center njsba, if you can't remember your password or you need to reset it, you can just send an email to call center njsba.org and they will assist you. I don't have access because of federal law, nor do

023I want it to anybody's password. Um, I can try to help you, but it's faster to get help to email the folks that actually can help you in our IT department, right? Um, with getting that password kind of thing reset. All right. Um, I'd be happy to help, but I don't really have the ability to do that. Also, when you sign in, there are a number of documents that we have available online. There's an FAQ, frequently asked questions about the evaluation. Um there is a guide book that we have put together for board members that you can access so that you can go through it step by step by step by step. Um we have a PowerPoint presentation that is a little longer than this but it's very similar. We have a webinar that we've

024done on it um online again if you're new and you want to watch it um that's certainly something you can do as well. And then if you want to um actually print the evaluation before you do it because you want to read it in its totality, you can do that as well. So all of those things when you log in, you'll be able to see and any of it you can access at any time. Um it's, you know, online so you can read it 24 hours, seven days a week. Um it's there for you. So there are a lot of resources available for you. And if you have questions while you're doing it, not technical, I can't get in. I can't help you with that. But if you have questions or concerns while you're doing

025it, feel free to call me, email me. I will get back to you and try to assist you um in whatever way I can. I know you have a full agenda. I know I have talked really fast um this evening, but I know you have public waiting and a full agenda. Um so I thank you for your attention. Um, and if you have any questions right now, I'd be happy to answer them. Um, but thank you very much for your attention and your time. Okay. Right. Thank you, Gwen. At this time, we're going to move on to the presentation for the budget of 2023 and 2024. I think Eron Aaron just needs to change the slide slideshow. Okay. Two minutes. And and while Aaron is um getting that slideshow ready, uh just a brief contextual

026reminder, uh each year we present the tenative budget in the middle of March and we did that back at the March 14th board meeting. Uh we then submit the business administrator submits the tenative budget to the uh the county for approval. Uh we did that and had it approved and then we have the public hearing on the budget that needs to be done during a specific time window. Uh we're early in the window um but we aligned it with our board meeting this evening. Uh we will be submitting it to the once the board approves it, it will be submitted back to the um to the county for final approval with the Okay. All right. You know what? I'll just begin talking about this before the slideshow goes up. Uh we always begin our presentations

027with our vision statement. uh where we talk about the importance of exploration, inquiry and collaboration for our students and our staff. Um focus on creative problem solving uh and authentic learning. We believe in the importance of a culture of acceptance and inclusion. Uh and we also note how important reflection and ethical decisionmaking are to the learning process. were our budget objectives. We listed four of those. Uh first was to support teaching and learning in accordance with that district vision and seek to reduce class sizes based on feedback we've received throughout this year and with our experience with a couple of grade levels that have higher than normal um uh class sizes. this year. We have to stay within the 2% cap on the tax levy and we are committed to managing the budget efficiently and

028seek to reduce expenditures wherever we can. We also looked to find creative ways to generate surplus and build reserves and find different creative ways to finance um an expansion of our staff even though uh we are limited to that 2% cap. So uh let's see Aaron we will go to the fourth slide now to past budgetary accomplishments. So over the last three years, we've uh three and a half years, we've redesigned the preschool, improved special services, and stabilized special services costs. Uh we've restructured technology support services, restructured the music staff, uh reducing the number of FTEEs and part-time employees and creating full-time positions. Restructured the ESL uh and world language staff at Bayberry. Restructured the maintenance staff to save money. Uh we've also maintained all other staffing levels and hired state required um created a

029state required ESL position this past year. the current year's budgetary accomplishments. That means the 2022 23 last year's budget that we presented this time uh used federal grant funds to enhance academic and social and emotional support including additional counseling support at Bayberry School. We addressed the staffing shortage for our ELLL population. We maintained all other staffing levels and we collaborated uh with uh generous school community groups uh on grants. And of course along the way we've continued our focus on professional learning and collaboration. The next slide we have our key decisions for this year. Um we are committed to adding staff uh to reduce the class sizes. We've addressed the staffing shortage for our autism program uh anticipated for next year pursuant to uh the state code. We've maintained all other staffing levels and we've

030used federal grant money uh to enhance our academic and social and emotional support and that's uh some of the funds that we use for to uh augment our counseling services at Bayberry. We uh again used grants from school community groups and continued our focus on professional learning. When I presented this in March, we had said that there was one additional uh position in the budget for a general ed teacher at Bayberry. Uh and tonight we'll talk a little bit more about a way that we found to place another teacher in the budget. I'll let I'll let Beverly talk about that in a minute. Uh again, this is the budget timeline where it typically starts in the fall where we involve our district budget managers and staff. Uh we develop a tenative budget. Uh this of

031course this year was complicated with our transition in the business office when Mr. Pepe moved on uh in December. Uh we had the board of education vote on the tenative budget in March. Uh it was sent to the county office and now we are having our public hearing. uh we will be placing the userfriendly budget on the district website. Typically that's done within 48 hours of the approval of the budget, but we we need to have uh the county approval before we post that since we did make a change. Uh and so I'm going to turn it over to Beverly to talk a little bit about a couple of the minor changes that we made. You want me to do the Yeah, you got All right. Okay. So, this is the anticipated enrollment for the

032district and we use the U March numbers and then for 24 these are projected numbers. That's for the entire district. And for Bay as you see we have the March current and then the 24 projected on Valley View the same thing March 23 is is the most recent and then for 24 is the projected number. And some of the key factors in the budget development is for the revenue sources, the state aid money, which every year varies, preschool tuition, which is based on enrollment, our local taxes, which we go up to the 2% cap, and then if there's any excess surplus from the previous year for the appropriations, salaries, benefits, general ed, special ed, student, transportation, facilities, and other and for your fixed cost it's salaries and health benefits and student transportation for the general

033revenue projection the general revenue I think it's important to point out that for the fixed costs our salaries pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement are going up 2.9% we have a projected health benefits increase of 6% and student transportation we're still waiting to hear on but last year we we all know it went up significantly in the range of 30%. So these are all things that we have to uh account for when we have the 2% um cap on the tax levy. Okay. So we presented this at the March 14th meeting. However, we did make that change due to uh we found out dealing with our bond attorney and our auditor. They had mentioned to us that we could use a portion of the money from the bond proceed interest that we now have in

034a New Jersey ARM account that we could use some of that interest in our miscellaneous revenue. Um, so with that money, we plan to hire another teacher. So, as you can see in bold, that's where the extra 75,000 is coming in your revenue. So everything else will be staying the same. The grants and your debt service that amount that amount is staying the same. The only thing that would be changing is the interest money that we would be using for the bond interest. So the tax levy increase, the state aid, the budget excess surplus miscellaneous, those all those numbers were the same as the March 14th presentation. The only thing is the 75,000 for the miscellaneous revenue that is going to be coming from the referendum interest and some of this shared services. Uh the

035municipality assists us with snow removal which we didn't have any this year so that was a big savings. Uh the waste management service is purchased through joint purchasing with Wong Hills. Transportation service including fuel regular education transportation is purchased through joint purchasing agreement with Wong Hills and the fuel for district vehicles is supplied at cost by a m municipality. purch purchasing. We use um some cooperating purchasing systems, state contract vendors and educational service commission as much as possible to maximize cost savings. And then with insurance coverage and benefits with our property and casualty insurance, we purchase that through the do joint diploma joint insurance fund and the health insurance is provided through a shift and then the increased fixed operating costs, salary and benefits. the um as George stated previously salaries were 2.9% and the

036health benefits increased 6%. And in bold, that's where we are increasing an elementary teacher salary and then the additional health benefit for that teacher. And the rest of the numbers are staying the same as what we had presented in March. you know, the increased operating costs, we have utility costs, the custodial mainten costs, and um the pension cost for the Pers went went up about $20,000 in last year. and the tax impact on the general operating. On the bottom, you could see the what the ratables are, what the tax levy, the tax rate, and the average home assessment, and the estimated school tax. So, you could see what the impact is on that. Um and just keep in mind that this is an estimate and this is just for this this school has we don't

037include Wong Hills we don't include the municipal this is just elementary school and it's only an estimate there. I have a question. Um, and just thanks to everybody who worked on putting the budget together. Um, the 75,000 for the um, interest that we're adding for the teacher. I just wanted to understand because I know Mr. Alexis spoke about this in committees, but that is not sustainable. Correct. For about two years, it it it can be with the interest from that account. The the money that we would be making, we will be sustainable for about two years. And then after that, we'd have to eliminate that position. Or or you'd maybe if somebody retires, Right. Or there's another way for us to supplement that. Right. Right. Okay. So, we'd be able to have that additional teacher

038for about two years. Then if we can't about and then if we can't supplement that, then we'd have to eliminate the position, which then would probably put us back to larger class sizes. and and we've talked about also the fact that the state aid went up $229,000 this year. We don't know what that will be next year. Um so that also plays a role in this. So I have a more another question on that. Um obviously if a teacher left that wouldn't solve the problem. Uh don't we pay interest on the money we drew down? Yeah. Not until March. Yeah. had the debt service. Yeah. So, this is really not like what would the net interest income be for example? Maybe the operations committee chair knows this. I'll defer to our administration on this, Rich.

039Okay. Because obviously if you got money in the bank that you borrowed, you're paying interest on it, right? then you're getting interest income. Now, we might be losing money in that interest arbitrage. We might be gaining a little bit of money in that interest arbitrage, but the real answer is it's not really $75,000 extra, right? It's just moving it from one place to another. And if I remember last year's budget, Mr. Andrassi was on the committee and he abstained because he wanted to move money. first time we heard it actually from the operating budget which is the one that employs teachers to the capital budget to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars and that's why he objected to to the budget. Now it seems like because the referendum passed the alchemy here is

040we're taking money that the public asked us to borrow in order to do school improvements. taking the interest money we're making on that still paying interest on that but moving that over to operations as a kind of a band-aid right so it's kind of the opposite of what you wanted to do last year right incorrect okay it was the lack of information that I abstained on you did you did want to put money in the capital reserve I can go back and show you that part of the meeting yes I still think we should work to increase our capital reserve that's correct basically what doing is putting band-aids on an unsustainable financial structure because the referendum wasn't passed years ago because of of objections by certain board members. I just want to point that out.

041Any other questions? At this time, we're going to move on to board member comments. You have any president? I make mine at the end. What? I'll make mine at the end. Okay. I would like to um just make a comment. Um first of all, um I want to thank uh Mr. Lexus uh for uh being an advocate for smaller class size. um and for the uh finance operation committee for working very diligently so that we could get another teacher um or two. We're getting um I'm also an advocate for small class size since it allows the teacher um individual attention to students, less behavioral issues, and more creative educational lessons. Um coming off of the pandemic, uh smaller class size is essential to create a learning environment to allow students to recover and advance to

042levels of instruction to achieve success. Uh with that, we're trying to keep to the um classroom size policy also which we developed. Thank you. I have some comments. The red flags popped up immediately at the first meeting of this new board and its leadership. At what should have been a normal midschool year reorganization meeting, there were several stunning and unusual developments. The board did not vote to approve the architect that had just spent years working on the referendum that the public passed just weeks before. The board did not vote to approve the health curriculum which was adopted at the beginning of the school year. The board did not vote to reappoint our board attorney who had been with us for the last three years. The most shocking thing of all, the new board and its

043leadership took all of these actions against the recommendation of our chief scholastic officer, Superintendent George Alexis, substituting their judgment for his. Then came the committee assignments when the two most experienced board members were left off any committees. And the board member who has constantly and vigorously opposed the referendum the public had just voted for was actually made the chairman of the committee charged with implementing that same referendum. Yes, these were all red flags. But even as concerned as I was, I could not fathom the incalculable damage this leadership has wrought on this district in less than four months, including losing our excellent, accomplished, and highly respected superintendent. Let's start with the operations committee. Under Mr. Enger's leadership, we still don't have a contract with our architects. We have wasted four months These are four months

044that could have been spent doing critically needed security upgrades and designing and ordering desperately needed HBAC equipment. What is Mr. Ingrassia doing during this time? According to the board minutes, apparently he's supervising our chief custodian on painting, replacing ceiling tiles and carpeting, and seeking help on repairing cracked sidewalks. This is not what the parents who send their children to our schools want prioritized. They want their children to be safe and comfortable. And absolutely nothing has happened in four months on the projects to accomplish that. You can tell his continued opposition to the architect by the emails he sends. The day before the board finally, after months of wrangling, approved the architect, he sent an email saying wrongfully and mistakenly that that architect cost $350,000 more than the others that bid, which was absolute nonsense. Then

045when it was pointed out to him that that wasn't the case, we had the vote. Thankfully, we we did choose DRG. And the next day, he writes an email to the entire board saying, "Well, we picked DRG, but here's why we should have picked the other three architects." So, you can tell he's not moving on. He should resign or be removed from the committee. This is Mrs. Murad's. This is in Mrs. Murad's power. She's the one who appointed him in the first place. Now comes what is by far the most serious and disturbing aspect of this board, and it goes to the core of how it conducts its business. In the state of New Jersey, as in virtually every other state, official schoolboard business cannot be conducted in private or in secret, but must be

046conducted in public unless under certain circumstances it is conducted in an executive session. In any case, official business must be conducted in a meeting. Now, as both an attorney and an experienced board member, I am keenly aware that what happens in executive session meetings must be held confidential until the need for confidential confidentiality no longer applies, at which time the board has an obligation to release the minutes of those meetings. But what about what happens before the executive session privately and secretly outside of any meeting and based on some supposed consensus? And then the board has its attorney take action on its behalf based on that verbal consensus that must have been done by telephone or in separate little meetings, not in a meeting when all of the board members were present. Well, that's what

047happened here at that before that executive meeting before that action was taken. There was no meeting, no discussion involving the entire board. Mrs. Harvey and I were totally disenfranchised. We had no opportunity to talk to the entire board about something. It's absolutely wrong and not in accordance with the way school boards are supposed to conduct business under the Open Public Meetings Act. And it was no small matter, but on the contrary, one of the most important decisions a school board is charged with making. To this day, I don't know how it occurred or who was involved in these private discussions or even whether non-board members were involved. The first time Dory and I found out what happened was in the executive session after action had been taken by our attorney on behalf of the board.

048Everyone else in that session knew what was going on. When I raised my concerns to board counsel, he disputed that an action had occurred. This sounded ridiculous to me. So, I did some research and found a recent case from New Jersey exactly on point that clearly states that what was done in this case was an action on the part of the board. So, I'm going to make two motions during the administrative section of the meeting. one moving that the minutes of the executive session of February 21st, 23 and March 14th, 23 be made public so we can see just how wrong these actions were. So we can the public can understand how this board conducts its governance and its business. and two, terminating our engagement with current bond counsel and re-engaging the board council we've

049had for the prior three years as our superintendent recommended in the first place. This should never have been allowed to happen. The last point I want to make and you know I think this is a little bit uh a function of having new board members and I don't blame them in any malicious way but the the folks that ran accepted in kind donations from quote the committee to bring back excellence. Uh that group is not a registered political action committee. So we have no idea who is behind it. The registered address is a PO box in Sterling P. Box 81 Sterling, New Jersey 07980. They made two expenditures $917,000 no $91740 for signs and $2,7311 for mailers. total of $2,990.51. The limit for individuals and corporations and groups that are not tax is $2,600. So,

050not only is the donor being hidden, the identity of the donor is being hidden, it also violated the contribution limit. Now, I know you know Mr. Gonzalez in good faith and and Mr. freeze in good faith. You know, they didn't know this was going on. You know, this is only rhetorical, but you know, do any other board members know what why there was a campaign violation? You know, Mrs. Duet was the other uh party to that donation? I don't know if anybody else knows, Mr. Regrassi or maybe. I don't know. Well, I know you don't have your facts straight, Rich. I mean, I could go up and down your statement right now and really point out point maybe you can talk. Maybe I know I said it was rhetorical. You know what that means? And

051I say get your facts straight. Okay. Yeah. That that that wouldn't come under the for all your statements so far today. Thank you. Okay. When when did this town become about secrecy and its government and non-compliance with laws and election laws? I think we'd all appreciate a board that is open and correct about how it governs and members who have assured that they are compliance with election laws. Thank you. Sure. I have some board member comments. Um, good evening. Um, I apologize in advance for the length of my board member comments and for reading them. Uh, but I just wanted to be as accurate as possible. I plan on making comments on two topics tonight. Uh the first is committee assignments and the second is as the former president of the board of education, I

052plan on trying to summarize four years of Mr. Alexis's service to our district. Uh weeks ago, I had a good conversation with Mr. Gonzalez, the HR committee chair, who stated he would request me to be placed on the HR committee. I want to thank him for contacting Mrs. Mirage on my behalf. After speaking with Mrs. Mirage, she asked if I would like to join the curriculum and HR committee. I said yes, of course. And in in addition, I proposed that I join the policy committee. After weeks of waiting to hear something, I was told I would be appointed to the policy committee, not the HR curriculum committee. I was also told I wouldn't be appointed to the curriculum committee because the committee was unwilling to change the times of their meetings weekdays at 8:30 a.m.

053to accommodate my work schedule. Uh I was on spring break the week after the watch school district and the curriculum committee was meeting that week. Since I was home, I asked if I could join the committee meeting. I was sent uh an email with a statement from our attorney stating that it would create a quorum since five board members would be attending and that the board member who wasn't on the committee should never be allowed to attend because it would disrupt the consistency of the committee. I explained to Mrs. Morad that I was disappointed that that money was wasted getting a statement written by our attorney when I understood the quorum rules. One hour into this very meeting, Mr. Morales needed to drop off the meeting, so I was sent an 11th hour ask to

054join the meeting, which of course I was happy to do. I want to thank Mrs. Morad for inviting me to join, and I am thankful that my presence didn't disrupt the consistency of the committee. During the meeting, there was an agenda item, library book policy, that Mrs. Juet will report to the public tonight. During the committee reports, the committee uh listened to Mrs. Juette proposed a policy that stated if any student brought home any book that any parent had a concern with, that book would be prevented from going back into circulation. Thankfully, Mr. Alexis explained the district's process for dealing with such a situation and assured the committee we did not need a policy. This suggestion by Mrs. Juet disturbs me. Using her logic, Joey's parents may have a problem with a book about the

055US Constitution. At some point, that slope gets awfully slippery, and I, for one, trust her administration, led by Mr. Alexis, to work with parents when such issues arise. Another topic that was brought up during the new business part of the committee meeting, Mrs. O'Donnell proposed creating a theme each year to focus on the climate and culture in our schools. The Bay principal suggested during that conversation that a possible theme could be diversity, equity, and inclusion. Mrs. Juet, head of this committee, stated in front of the superintendent, the principles, the director of special services, Mrs. O'Donnell, and Mrs. Morad that our district had had enough of diversity inclusion. I wonder what kind of impression does such a comment made by a board member and a chair of a committee have on our administration. I thought to

056myself, how could someone who is supposed to be working for the greater good of all children be tired of diversity and inclusion? Why would someone so tired of diversity and inclusion recently vote to include Eden Dvali holidays into our calendar? Why would diversity not be part of bettering our school's climate and culture when multinational potlucks regularly occur around town for our adults? Isn't that diversity in action while improving the climate and culture of WA? This comment by Mrs. Juet rattled me but did not surprise me. Last November, Mrs. Juet and Mrs. O'Donnell wrote on social media during their campaign, quote, "The increased focus in recent years on diversity, equity, inclusion has not moved our children forward towards reaching academic excellence. I don't see conversations around diversity to be untied to academic excellence, rather very much

057tied together." And here's why. Let's say I'm a multi-racial student around the age of seven and I'm repeatedly called racially insensitive names by my classmates. Are you going to tell me that child will excel academically? How is that child expected to keep on track with their studies when worrying about what new taunts they will be subjected to? Who among us are going to say this student wouldn't benefit from social emotional learning? who among us will claim that the offending students wouldn't benefit from some diversity and inclusion lessons. Not a single committee member said anything to corre correct Mrs. Juet, not Mrs. O'Donnell, not Mrs. Morad. I admit I didn't say anything because I wanted to ensure that I didn't disrupt the consistency of the meeting since I was a guest. But hearing that Mrs. Shuette,

058the chair of the curriculum committee, feels that our district has had enough of promoting diversity inclusion, even though our district has just begun its journey on that subject. Maybe pause. Diversity inclusion are two words that can be defined in many, many ways. And as a community, we have an obligation to figure out what that definition is. Why would we look at diversity and inclusion through a lens of divisiveness rather than one of bringing us understanding and harmony? particularly in the classroom. I haven't heard of any radical side of diversity, inclusion going on in watch. Diversity, inclusion, and equity are not words to be scared of. After hearing these two conversations, I was determined to become part of the curriculum committee. I explained to the committee that if that meant I needed to make the meetings

059at 8:30 a.m., I was willing to do that. I did ask them to reconsider their meeting times. I then asked the curriculum committee members if any of them would give up their seat on the committee so that I may participate if appointed by the president. Mr. Morales was the only one willing to do so and I would like to thank you again for that Mr. Morales. After some time I recently uh I was recently informed that I would be allowed to participate on the curriculum committee and they would change the times to accommodate my work schedule. I thank the president and the curriculum committee for placing me on the committee and accommodating my work schedule. Since then, I have received emails from the committee members stating that they look forward to working constructively and respectfully

060with me. I agree and would like to include not hearing offensive and insensitive comments from board members during our committee meetings. The last item I would like to discuss is the recent resignation of Mr. Alexis, an announcement that quite saddens me but doesn't surprise me. First, I want to thank George for serving our community and congratulate him on his new journey. This is a significant loss to our district and community. As someone who is president of this board for three years, I know firsthand the commitment George has approached each and every day. I know I know the pride he took in coming back to where he was as a student and impacting the lives of the next generation. His departure leaves a massive hole. Um all of all of who and what George is is

061leaving Wong not to go to a bigger district or move to another state, but to go to another ascending district the same size as us. an experienced superintendent with a law degree and a general gen genuine love for ch your children is leaving us. There is a lot of speculation going on around town as to why George resigned. I am surprised that Mrs. Morad was quoted in the newspaper that quote surprised and saddened by Mr. Alexis's departure. If this board is really surprised by his resignation, I am truly concerned about the future of the board and how it will affect our district. I recently asked NJSBA if they had ever heard of a superintendent who worked for three years straight to get a desperately needed referendum passed and then resigned after it passed. They told

062me never. I don't believe George decided to resign because he didn't love his job anymore. After all the work he put into turning our district around, getting our district to begin to improve, creating stability and consistency for our children and staff, planning to revamp additional programs, and getting a referendum passed to start physically improving our school spaces. I think you know as well as I do that he would have retired with us. This child who walked the halls of Valley View now sitting with the superintendent title on his desk. No. Sometimes even the love of your job isn't enough. Like chocolate cake. You know it's so delicious, but at the same time it isn't healthy for you and you just have to put the fork down and say enough. I received a phone call from

063Mrs. Marad asking me if I were comfortable with the statement she would read on behalf of the board about George resigning and if I had any suggestions. I explained to her and would like to stress publicly that I wasn't comfortable with it. It wasn't an accurate depiction of why we are here today with George's resignation. She demanded I tell her what what I would say during this meeting. I actually didn't know at the time what I would be saying and frankly I didn't need to tell her even if I did. I don't believe I have to say much of anything because our community has witnessed what has happened here. I did realize though that I was probably one of only three people, the others being Jen Sharf, the former board vice president, and Rich Pepe,

064our former business administrator, who would be able to speak about George in a way that would give the community a better insight as to who this man is. Before Mr. Alexis was hired as the superintendent of Watching Schools, our district needed a permanent business administrator for many years. superintendent, principles, and director of special services. There was a lot of unrest and a need for more consistency in our district, which has taken us four years to rebuild. Because of George and his leadership, we finally see the improvements in our district. Sorry, I'm just talking a lot. My mouth's getting dry. I apologize. Um when we had to utilize uh superintendent interims, it took us over a year to find a permanent person. So the process can be quite lengthy and expensive. Interims are like substitute teachers.

065They don't necessarily create a vision or direction for our district. They focus on things other than the climate and culture of our schools or mental health services for our students. That's kind of what you get with an interim. um they make sure the day-to-day is happening, but they are not necessarily there to create a vision for the district to strive towards because they aren't permanent. As the former president of the board, I had the honor of working with Mr. Alexis since he was first offered the position of superintendent for the watching schools. Rich and I were part of the search committee as board members and we had the pleasure of interviewing him. So Rich and I understand the difficult and financially costly process this board and district are about to go through more than anyone

066else currently serving on this board. I've had my own experiences with administrators throughout my career, so I already had preconceived notions about them. George didn't know this, but he had a lot to prove. While interviewing him, I knew he had a law degree. He was the principal of the Watching Hills Regional High School, was a first-time superintendent, grew up here, and had a vested interest in giving back to his hometown, which played a part in who he is today. The first year I was president was rough for both of us. Getting to know each other and understanding my role as president and his as superintendent. The worst part was that George didn't know he had the deck stacked against him because at the end of that school year we entered into the pandemic. George didn't

067have a hill to climb. He had a mountain. George and I needed to learn how to trust each other during the this first year and that took time. And I would say George can be very conservative and keeps things close to the vest. So I'm sure he took some time to trust me as well. That year we also worked on the possibility of a referendum. At the beginning of the first year, uh he surprised me in many ways, but one in particular was when he was so excited to read to the kids in the elementary school. I'm a high school teacher and there's a special place in this world for all elementary school teachers. I don't know how they do it. Um, and to see the genuine excitement on his face as an administrator, it

068was refreshing to know that he really enjoyed en encouraging the joy and wonder of learning and exploration with our youngest students while he interacted with them. As year two started, we started to get into our flow. There were still bumps in the road because this was an entire year of school. We had to deal with the pandemic. I had to get board members to compromise with each other and get board members to compromise with George. I'm not the only one who comes onto the board and has certain expectations. George helped me through that, which I will always be grateful for. After going through the pandemic with him, I can now say that I trust George Alexis. He got us through it, especially the children. We had a referendum that didn't pass on our first try

069and George worked with all of us to try again because he stressed how much our district needed the projects in the referendum. Our faculty oh I'm sorry our facility sorry my my I apologize my our facility problems would inevitably need to be addressed sooner than later. When we entered our third year together, we were in sync. But don't get me wrong, we sometimes still disagreed, but we always agreed on one thing that we would always do right by the staff and the students of our district. Uh, since we were all getting used to our new normal post pandemic, George worked hard to bring back all of the educational experiences the students so desperately missed during the pandemic, including sports, uh, clubs, activities, assemblies, school dances, cultural events, and so much more. Next on George's list

070was revamping our athletics program, and visual and performing arts. He also success successfully passed our second attempt at the school referendum with the help and collaboration of our community. There's so much more to say about George. There was no way that any of you wanted to sit through over 30 minutes of me going through his accomplishments. Um, so I tried to keep it short. Um, but we uh I'm sorry, but I just scratched the surface. I have grown to know him and he is an honorable man. George might not know this, but Jen Sharp and I would always say that George is a boy scout, someone who will always do the right thing, even if it's not popular or easy. Um, it will be impossible to replace you, George. I'm going to miss you. Thank

071you, Dory. It's very kind of you and very generous. Really appreciate it. wanted to um read a statement that I did give uh to Echoes which was we all sat down and really talked about it and this is collectively I wanted everyone to be a part of it as much as I could. Um but I did send this and so I thought Dory would be the best person since she is the one one of the individuals that hired Mr. Alexis and and that's why I had called her. And the statement is that we were surprised uh and saddened to learn about Mr. Alexis's departure and we're thankful for the contributions that he has made to our school district over his tenure with us. In three and a half short years, um his leadership through the

072pandemic has left an indelible mark on our district and we will miss his leadership and guidance. As a board, we're grateful for all that Mr. Alexis has done to elevate our district and improve the educational experience for our students. We will miss his innovative ideas, dedication, and passion for education. And we wish Mr. Alexis all the best in his next chapter. We thank him for his service to our district. And um I received during this time I did receive a lot of questions on how we're going to move forward. Um we are I'm I'm going to create a superintendent search committee. Mr. Alexis has graciously uh said that he would help us and Mrs. threatened as well on our next steps and the superintendent search can take a while but right now we will look

073for an interm and that's the next step for now but thank you I know all of you are here because of Mr. Alexis and I really enjoy working with you in all of our chats. So, you're going to be missed. Thank you very much, Amber. And and yes, I'm I'm happy to help to ensure a smooth transition. Thank you. Um I would just like to also say that speaking for myself that I I thank Mr. Alexis for his leadership and contributions to the district over the past three and a half years and wish him nothing but the best on his new role. As we prepare for his departure, our responsibility as a board is to move the district forward in the most productive and positive way possible. Last month, on Mr. Alexis's recommendation, the board

074unanimously approved a new permanent business administrator, Patricia Rogers, and we're excited to welcome Miss Rogers to the district administrative team in May. The full board will need to work together to bring in an interimm superintendent to lead the district after George's departure in June into the 2023 24 school year. The public's goodwill and support for the district during this time will be crucial and I hope we can all agree that demonstrating goodwill, collaboration, and respect as a community will enable us to attract and retain the best leadership for our school district. Thank you. Any other comments? All right. At this time, I'd like to move to the superintendent remarks. Is it after? Sorry. Yes, I see that. I see. Okay. Sorry about that. At this time, I'd like to open uh the floor for co

075public comments. And give me one second. And I just need to find the disclaimer. We welcome input from the public. There are two times during the meeting when the public is invited to speak. The first opportunity to comment on the agenda items only is now. The second opportunity is for the public comment is towards the end of the meeting. Total time allotted for public comment is 30 minutes. Before you make your comment, please state your name, municipality of residence. In the event it appears the public comment portion of the meeting may exceed 30 minutes, the presiding officer may limit each statement made by a participant to three minutes duration. Our public forums are not structured as a question and answer session but rather are offered as an opportunity to share input with the board. In

076instances where the board feels a response is needed, the presiding officer of the or superintendent will address the comment. New Jersey statute does not permit the board to discuss personnel or hiring in public session. Names of students should not be used. Members of the public should consider their comments in light of legal rights of those affected and identified in their comments and be aware that they are personally legally responsible with potentially with potential liability for comments that that they make to the board. The board shall not be held liable for comments made by members of the public. Hello everyone. Ali Hartman Lustig watch. So I see we're just winging it without an attorney tonight. I don't know if that's going to go on indefinitely or if the attorneys just not available tonight, but I would

077like some clarification on where we're going to go with that. So we haven't heard the operations or any of the committee reports yet tonight. Um I am imploring you to update the referendum site on the burough page. The last messages uh from Mr. Alexis from March 15th and it discusses the bond sale um that we were able to lower to get a lower rate and that'll lower the annual average tax impact on each home in watching. Um we're a month out. Uh we have not heard uh anything about the actual approval of DRG. I noticed that the um agenda that was distributed in March has I think it's item number C9 uh was to approve DRG, but it's no longer on the agenda tonight. So, I'm wondering why that is. Um again, we haven't heard

078the committee report, but we heard uh brief comments from Mr. Andia that he is still considering parsing out projects just like he did before the referendum vote. I'd also like to address some comments that I've seen swirling around on the internet. Um you adults who don't have kids in Bayberry, stop calling our kids liars. There have been too there have been too many recent comments about the temperature conditions in the school being fabricated. Specifically the mothers who tell fairy tales about their children in connection with the temperatures at school. First, I can assure you I have better things to do than make up stories about temperatures in classrooms. Second, those fairy tales are supported by the referendum facility site assessment um specifically at Bay Area that was conducted by GRD DRG. Certainly DRG wasn't wasn't

079basing their professional opinions on some hysterical mothers. I'd point to page four of the site assessment regarding skylights. They're white, translucent, and original to the school and extremely energy inefficient. At times during the day or year, teachers need to move students and desks because of extreme brightness and heat. Page 11. Heating and cooling systems. Unit ventilators. There's no way to provide heating in one classroom while providing cooling in another. While some classrooms have a centralized exhaust system which has been disabled, uh these are just fans that are installed through the exterior walls and they are shut off due to noise and high humidity. As we've all heard, the rooftop units have reached the end of their useful life. Air handling is 12 years old and doesn't adequately cool and heat all the all-purpose room and

080has a history of service problems. Chillers, cooling towers, pumps, same thing. Exhaust uh in the toilet rooms is not operating in at all in the girls and boys toilets in the media room. Page 13 references no emergency generator. And if it's just a bunch of mothers making up stories, um it does not seem plausible that the estimate in the referendum projects list for HVAC alone was the largest line item group at $2,64,30. This shouldn't say to you this is where we need to cut things. It should send a very clear message to you that these are issues that need to be addressed. Mr. Ingarcia, I'm hoping we see those orange items. I might have forgotten the color. It's been so long at this point, but you still haven't highlighted which things you said you were

081going in and identifying and that you were going to still have try and parse out. During the March 14th, 2023 meeting, we were updated on the strategic plan and that the planning process was underway. I have not seen anything about that and I'm wondering if there's a timeline for that. Um, as far as book banning goes, um, there's been some talk coming from certain members of this board about the possibility of banning books. Um, New Jersey statute allows parents to opt their children out of material they consider objectionable, as we've talked about at many other meetings. However, it does not provide for one or several parents to force a book to be removed so that every parent in our school will not have the right to evaluate the book for themselves. I had a situation

082early this year with my kindergarter. I got a book home that was not really appropriate for the grade level. And so, I reached out to the administration and they took that under consideration and they said, "You know what? We're going to review the material because it might not be grade appropriate." It wasn't based on obscenity. wasn't based um I wasn't seeking for anybody else not to have that book for their child but you know it was a question we had a policy and the school dealt with it appropriately but I think this is more important and you have to think about book banning as a violation of not only parents rights but students first amendment rights which are retained when they are in school pursuant to Tinkerv de mo independent community school district a long

083long ago decision in 1969 the US Supreme Court held that students do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. 13 years later, board of education Island Trees Union Free School District BP Pico, the court noted that special characteristics of the school library, making it especially appropriate for the recognition of First Amendment rights of students, including the right to access of information and ideas. So, what does this mean for districts who might receive a request to reconsider a library book? Legal precedent and expert best practices demand that a committee member that a committee with members, principles, superintendent, and school boards act within the constitutional rights of students in mind and use established processes. The term obscenity holds a particular meaning in the legal sense. So obscene material is

084not protected under the first amendment and that finding of obscenity requires a specific test, a much more stringent one. I'd also implore everybody to remember that the board's own policy 2240 on controversial issues provides opportunities for the study of controversial issues and students must be guaranteed the right to a study any controversial issue which has political, economic or social significance and concerning which at his or her level he or she should begin to have an opinion. B have free access to all relevant information including the material that circulates freely in the community. C study under competent instruction and atmosphere free from bias and prejudice and D form and express his or her own opinions on commercial on controversial issues without thereby jeopardizing his or her relations with the teachers or the school. Thank you. Hello

085everyone. Danielleao, Washington Drive. Um, I'm so disappointed to lose George Alexis. He cared about our town, about our kids, and he's really great at what he does. He stabilized our schools. He hired an excellent team, and I believe he wanted to be here for the long haul. I can't blame him for leaving, but this is a huge loss for our children. And I want to beg our principles to stick out this instability because we all see the great work you're doing and we appreciate it and we really want to keep you. I'm disappointed that this board did not foresee this coming and did not understand that your job is to help the administration succeed rather than regularly obstruct their agenda without rationale or support from the parent community on the budget. I have similar concerns

086to those raised by Dorian Rich about using bond proceeds to hire another teacher, and I hope that someone can speak to this concern. Interest payments don't last, as Rich already explained. How will our schools support a new teacher long term so that we don't have to downsize again in two years? Teachers have families, too, and they don't deserve to be hired in this disingenuous way. This is a terrible way to fund a recurring expense and a cruel way to mess with an employee who is already woefully underpaid. I hope someone has a long-term plan and that this issue is addressed. Finally, I want to speak to two agenda items this evening. First, I want to encourage the board to pass the full curriculum, including the health component for the 2324 school year. Every data point

087we have across many long-term community studies show that better, smarter, and safer behaviors occur when a robust health curriculum is in place. There is an improvement in student health and a reduction in bullying. To oppose this curriculum is to oppose the well-being of all students. And with only 3% opting out, it should be clear what your families want. I also want to speak to the idea of banning books which I which we have all been told this evening was discussed in committee. I understand the desire to protect our children. I have that same instinct with my own child. Of course, despite that fact, banning books is the wrong way to go about it. Leave it to the administrators to evaluate what content belongs in our libraries, what will challenge our children to grow and what

088will expand their thinking. Banning books means we do not trust our children to think for themselves. And it means we don't trust our faculty to support their growth. And if we don't trust them, we will lose them as we have learned. Thank you everyone. Good evening, Lisa Crest, Craft High Tour Drive. Um, I'd like to first start off acknowledging the loss of our superintendent, Mr. Alexis. Your resignation has left many members of our community saddened and concerned for the future of our schools, myself included. Um, and I know what I'm about to say is the idealist in me speaking, but I'm going to say it anyway. If there's anything the community or the board of ed can do to retain you at this point, I will be happy to lead and support that charge. Your

089gregariousness, your genuine love of our students, our teachers, our schools is unparalleled and will be sorely missed. Tack on to that your education, your law degree, and your experience. It truly makes you one of a kind. and I thank you for your exceptional leadership and I'm very sad to see you go. Someone had commented on this earlier and I agree the room is full tonight and that's a testament to you, Mr. Alexis. It's a shame that it took your resignation to fill the room, but we're here united as a community and hoping, however slight, that the schools will continue to go and progress in the right direction. So, if there's anyone in the room who agrees with me and is saddened and concerned over Mr. Alexis's resignation. I ask that you stand up because Mr.

090Alexis deserves to see a visual of his supporters, his promoters, and his biggest fans. To the board members, you know, the community is here. We're watching. We're holding you accountable to your oath to do what is best for our children and letting Mr. Alexis go certainly not in the best interest of our children. I recently read the same article in the Echo Sentinel where Miss Morad is quoted as being quote surprised by a resignation. The board had an opportunity to auto renew a contract no later than February 28, 2023. I repeat, February 28th, 2023. It was not done. So to verbalize that anyone is surprised feels extremely insincere. So where do we go from here? We have no BA. We are losing our best superintendent. We have overcrowded classrooms and a stalled referendum. You win.

091What now? I can tell you this much. If we continue to operate in this capacity, it will slowly but surely jeopardize our schools, tank our property values, which puts the largest asset for the majority of folks in town in jeopardy. And all for what? The inability to act professionally, the inability to separate personal from professional, some vendetta. It makes no sense to me. Your job as board members is to put our children first. That is it. That's it. You don't need to like each other. You don't need to hang out. You don't need to go for drinks. You don't even need to talk to each other when you're outside of this room. But when you're here and when you're in committee and when you're acting in your capacity as a board member, start acting professionally.

092Put your personal feelings aside. Be a professional. You have an ethical duty to do that. I do believe now that I've been to board meetings since January that some of the new members on this board were very much misled in the beginning. They had the wool pull over their eyes to a certain extent. And I'm seeing that the wool is coming off. And I truly believe they're starting to see what is happening. And that is what gives me the continued hope that progress and change will come of it. And the reason I say that is because I've already witnessed it happening. Miss Morad, I commend you for putting Miss Harvey on the curriculum committee. Miss Shu and Miss O'Donnell, I commend you for rearranging the time so that Miss Harvey did not have to take

093PTO to participate in this community. This is the type of professionalism and progress that our town deserves, that our children deserve, and I really hope to see more of that moving forward. I'd also like to take this opportunity to reiterate what I asked at the March board meeting and what I put in writing to uh via a letter to the board of ed and to the superintendent. Um, Miss Morad, I respectfully reiterate my request to have Mr. Andcia removed from the operations committee and appoint Mr. Bookerelli as chair. While I have your no doubt that your initial intention to appoint him was good, his actions have clearly proven otherwise. To continue to believe that the man who so adamantly opposed the referendum to the point where he was divisive and misleading and is now stalling

094it can continue to chair this committee is simply unrealistic. The board approved DRG at the March meeting. There is still no contract. We are almost in May. There's been no movement on the most important infrastructure needs. And Mr. Andracia has continued to state that he wants to re-evaluate certain projects. There is no re-evaluation. The electorate has spoken. It's a binding referendum. It's time for enactment. Mr. Agassi can't do it. He needs to go. He's proven he's both unwilling and incapable of chairing this committee. And we all know he certainly does not have the best interest of our students at heart. Again, I respectfully request he be removed from the operations committee and that Mr. Bookerelli be appointed as chair of the operations committee. Thank you. I know you're all so happy to see me and

095I'm so happy to see all of you, too. And Mr. Alexis, I am so deeply saddened that you're leaving. I'm not going to address you, unfortunately, because I will become emotional because it is such an awful thing that's happened to our district. And I really don't think it's a time for you to smile, Mr. Ingaria, because Lisa's much kinder than I am by only calling for your resignation because I think about 80% of you should resign. It's disgraceful. It is beyond disgraceful. You don't have the children's interest at heart. You don't have the school's interest at heart. You don't give a about the school. So leave. Give up your chair for people who deserve it. You don't deserve to sit here. Don't take your notes. Don't smile. Don't smug. Amber, you weren't saddened and surprised.

096I'm so sorry for you. I wish someone was there to give you a tissue. I really do. There was no surprise. There was no shock. Mr. Alexis did this district exceptionally fine. How many times have I stood up here and I've told you he's at every single event a child is at with parents there standing in the back of the room not looking for recognition with a smile ear to ear with the pride of a grandfather. You have no idea how blessed we are. And he looks like he's getting emotional. You know why? because he grew up in this town and he was fully prepared to serve this town till he chose to resign and he would have happily had you allowed his contract to automatically renew February 28th. So for each of you who

097had a hand in that not happening, congratulations. You really left us in a fine mess. In the January, I think it was 24th board of ed meeting. Mr. Dr. Graassi kindly said to us many times, "It's only been 12 business days. Be patient. Give us a chance. It's only been 12 business days." Well, in three and a half months, we've lost our district. We've lost our board of ed. Excuse me. We've lost our superintendent. We've lost the BA. We've have p uh excuse me, teachers who are resigning. We have teachers who are in fear that they will not be made granted tenure. We have teachers in fear. They don't know what will happen next. And guess what happens when you rule through authoritarianism? It leads to disastrous results. I know you think it's fun to

098sit up here, or at least you did when you decided to sign on to the tickets that you signed on for. And whether you knew what was behind the tickets you signed for or not, shame on you. You should have knew when you got on the ticket. And if you didn't know then, you damn well know now. So stop trying to spin it because if you're spinning it, you're doing something wrong. When I'm in a grocery store and one of your spouses is like crawling up the aisles because you got to run in the other direction for fear of looking someone in the eyes, there's a problem. You're not doing something right. I could look at any single person in the eyes because I do everything with my heart. I do it at my office.

099I do it at my home. And I do it when I'm serving this district. And I do it happily. And we're throwing one hell of a Cinco deio party on May 5. Sorry, it's a plug. I have flyers. You have to come. It's going to be a great event. Thanks to Mr. Busy Nano giving us the venue. And Forest Lodge is donating the food kindly. It is going to be exceptional. Guess what? These people in Wong are going to be there and they're going to be happy and it's going to be a phenomenal event. You know why? Because that's what makes us watch. We like each other. I don't know where you people grew up, what families you were raised in. I really don't. I don't understand what morals you grew up with. You are

100not good people. I am sorry. I you know my uncle George Manny lifelong educator. He said when a someone a teacher administrator stops going to classrooms and don't want to see the kids they should be giving up their chair. They don't deserve it. They don't want to be part of the system. We have an attorney. An attorney. Mr. Alexis is an attorney. He could work anywhere he so chooses. And he grew up in Wong and he chose not to practice law. He ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch chose education and he came back to his hometown and if anyone paid attention to the March 17th email from Mr. Alexis where he commemorated Mr. Mobus and I read that and it's as

101if he's talking about himself a lifelong watch per lifelong watch resident who came here to serve us. Shame on all of you. Shame on you. I hope you're proud of yourselves because you've left the district in a mess. You're making these weird proclamations as if you are actually saddened and shocked. You're trying to spin it every which way possible. If you wanted it, own it. You got us here. So now say, "I got a plan." Cuz guess what? January 5, there were about eight chairs set up. Last meeting, we had over 50 people here. Tonight, we have every single chair filling the room. So now we got 50 chairs sitting in the audience and we got people standing behind them. And for anyone who wants to check it out, watch on Neighborhood Network. I just

102posted a picture so everyone can see who is here tonight cuz yes, we are here because we are saddened by Mr. Alexis. But we're here because we want answers. We want to understand why his contract wasn't automatically renewed. We want to know what your plan is. It's great, Amber, that you're going to develop a search committee. Guess what? In 2018, when we were left in that debacle with Dr. Resco leaving at least the president at that time had the decency to stand up and give her speech which said yes Dr. Resco leaves on this date we have a plan we already have an interim appointed and we have a search committee formed you have no plan you know why because you failed the district and you failed yourself I really think all of you as

103Mr. And Gracia likes to say should inflect on yourselves and you should really consider whether or not you deserve that share. Nobody wants you here. You need to go home. Frank Physics now normal watch on residents. I'll try to uh be brief. George, God bless you and good luck. You're a huge loss and uh I'm sorry you weren't treated right. Uh, and you know, everybody knows how good you are. I I am shocked, Amber, that you're saddened and surprised. I think the main reason I'm shocked is because you and some bunch of your colleagues here decided not to renew automatically the superintendent. Is that correct? Yes, it is. You all were a party to it. We heard it. We heard it. So that was a strategic maneuver probably led by a couple of you. Maybe

104the couple that voted no for the referendum twice. So we're not shocked and surprised. That was the strategy. Scorched earth strategy. And then we want to walk around town and say he applied in December. No, he resigned in April. Let's just be clear. He resigned in April. I don't want to be told at a middle school baseball game. I don't want to be told that he applied in December. I want to be told that you drove him out. He put a marker down to protect himself because he knew that the voted in incumbents would in fact do exactly everything they did. A smart, well-educated man took an option, but he was out here busting his butt every day. So the last referendum was 2001, I guess. You thought we should wait till 31 or 41,

105Anthony and Amber, when you kept saying no. I sat in this room with many people over the summer, the Juetses, Mr. Panza or whatever his name is, the HVAC expert that your friend Anthony couldn't find anything wrong. But you know, you had a shot at keeping them. But Amber was kind enough to tell me. She was kind enough to tell me when I said we should keep them, she was going to try to do that. And she was also kind enough to tell me that in the executive session, Anthony said he didn't want him. So, of course, I would leave and execute my option. That's what I was told. Now, I'm not done yet because I'm amazed. The one thing and I want you to write this down because you guys seem to like to

106write. I just never know what comes out the other side because there never seems to be any output. There's over a million dollars over a million dollars in the referendum for safety. Safety of our children to infrastructurally build a better safety. Did you care about it enough? No. You cared about blocking everything the superintendent wanted. I don't know what is wrong with you. as a group and I can't wait for Hans to come up and tell me come on up Hans tell me come on tell me why you are going to bring a better thing for this town it's not your time well why did you call me up because that's your style bully okay and bullies deserve to be stood up to and I'm going to stand up to you God bless you God

107bless Bless you. The children of Wong want you to block the referendum, right? No, not one thing's been done. Not one thing's been done. So, what do we have? We have some good men sitting there, I'm sure, and some good women sitting here who've been misled. Right. So, the truth is told. You drove the man out. And God bless you. I tell you, you're going to have lots more people. So, how you going to fix it? Cuz I didn't hear your comments talking about how you're going to fix it. Did you? Cuz you know why? You don't want to. Now, I asked you men and ladies to stand up and do the right thing. Cuz we know these two won't. Do you have it in you? Do you have it in you? The lawyer was

108here and said, "For the benefit of the children you serve, if you're not serving for that, resign. Resign." Mr. Ingrassia, your family's name is a fabulous name in this town. It's a fabulous name in this town. You're ruining it. Hi everyone. Hard to follow that. Uh my name is Paulina Miklash Valley Drive. Super new to this town. We moved in about a year and a half ago and my kids are just approaching becoming old enough to join Bayerry in a couple of years. They're three years old right now. And I have major concerns about everything that I've learned over the last, let's say, six months that I've started to pay attention. And I'm here today. I I hate to say it, not me necessarily because of Mr. Alexis because I don't know him that well,

109but everything I've heard so far has sounds amazing, but it's really about the issues that have been brought up. And um I just want to underscore everything that's already been said. I don't want to repeat the same things except for one thing. And every week we learn about children who are being senselessly gone down in this country. And uh we cannot live with ourselves to not have moved forward the referendum to fix that. Now like like was said, there's over a million dollars in the referendum to fix issues that currently couldn't save lives. So if you do not fasttrack this now, children could be hurt and that will be on this board of education. Specifically the people who are opposed to moving it forward fast. Uh Kayla Bryant Hillrest Road. Um due to a technology

110delay, I know Mr. Alexis didn't get to read the vision statement, but I think it's pretty appropriate to the two points that I wanted to bring up. So, just a reminder in case anyone didn't read it on their agenda or, you know, hasn't heard in a while. Uh, this is the vision statement. Uh, the Wong Burough School District is committed to inspiring learners to explore, inquire, and collaborate on their joyful journey toward discovery, independent thinking, and creative problem solving. Our culture of acceptance and inclusion provides the foundation for learning and social and emotional growth. Through reflection and ethical decision-making, we continue to learn and grow, embrace differences, and prepare for an increasingly complex, everchanging world. The two points that I wanted to bring up um one is an encouragement to approve the curriculum as is

111which includes a robust social emotional learning uh segment. Uh emotional intelligence is responsible for almost 60% of professional success. Uh, EQ is twice as important as cognitive abilities, IQ, in predicting success and happiness. And increasingly, corporations and businesses, both large and small, are putting an emphasis on emotional intelligence on their employees because they see the value in it. If our businesses see the value in it, then our schools should, too. Additionally, I just want to say that this just discussion about the book banning policy should be DOA dead on arrival. Parents are more than welcome to control and and decide what their children should and shouldn't be reading for their children. They should not be making that decision for other parents or other children. Joe Barello Wong. Um, so first and foremost, George, I wanted

112to congratulate you uh on the opportunity that you have. Uh, unfortunately, Wong's loss is another district's game. Um, as a former board member, it was truly a pleasure to work with you and you were a tremendous steward. um of the district, particularly during those terrible COVID Zoom meetings where we didn't know which end was up. Um it's truly a loss. Um I don't blame you. I understand. Um it's been very challenging with the with the board and the politics um and the lack of support by board leadership. Um I am concerned because this is a repeat movie. We started this four years ago. with um interim superintendent. It was a parade, interim BAS and then permanent BAS, another parade. Um different teachers, different principles. I'm afraid of that shoe to drop. Who knows what ripple

113effects there'll be. Um I understand that you never received the support um particularly with regard to the referendum. um given current board leadership um didn't want it, disagreed with it. Um constantly rejecting your guidance um so the writing was on the wall. Words didn't have to be stated. Uh Mr. Andia, Miss Morad, um in my opinion, frankly, wanted to move on. And it's a shame because we don't have a plan. We've lost a great person with integrity in you. Um and now we're going to be set back. We've gone through four months of no progress on the referendum. Um, wait till we start getting the interim superintendence. Might be six months. You you're not going to see any progress for months to come. This is just going to go in circles. And it's unfortunate. Um,

114and I can only say particularly with two disenfranchised board members that have most of the experience on this board, you should get your act together. And I didn't want to use the word act because this is becoming a dumpster fire. It's really really bad. Work together. Start getting things done for the benefit of the children. Really, that's the only reason you're here. It's not about anything else. So, most importantly, Mr. Alexis, congratulations and I wish you all the best. It was a pleasure working with you. Dennis Boss Wong. Um, I'd like to start by saying, um, thank you, Mr. Alexis, for your service to the community and, uh, the community that I know you love so much and especially, um, serving the kids, faculty, staff, parents, and everyone else in the district. your accompl accomplishments

115are extensive and varied and a particular gratitude needs to be expressed which has already been done for how you um were able to navigate us through the uh difficult period of the pandemic. Uh I was fortunate enough to meet you very early on and during the superintendent search process, we were encouraged by the company that we hired to look for a candidate who had number one vision and values, number two instructional leadership, number three community engagement, and number four strong management and operations capabilities. Uh those are the four items. In in my eyes, you exceeded all of those high expectations and you did much more. Uh you helped shape our vision statement and created a strong intellectual path towards student growth and achievement uh and a physical vision for the future that many were excited

116about. I wish you all the best with your future endeavor and thank you very much. Um, I also have some specific u comments about the agenda items on the budget. U number one um I got here a little late so I don't know if this is addressed but um are there any restrictions on the use of interest income on the school expenses? In other words, is it allowed for interest acred related to the notional of the bond to be spent on nonreferendum priorities? The reason why I asked this question is I I'm concerned uh about optically or really having some co-mingled funds and if that is permitted by law. So I don't know if that's been addressed. Apologies. I can follow up afterwards if it was but um that's one of the items I have.

117Uh number two on the budget, having the hiring have the hiring and search costs associated with a new superintendent um search been included or factored into the budget? Um the announcement from Mr. Alexis was last week. I don't know what the cycle of reporting with the county superintendent is, but um I know that those costs, I'm a little rusty on my my memory of what that was, but uh it was not a small number. I want to say it ranged somewhere between 15 to 30,000, but I don't recall exactly. Um number three, what rising transportation cost assumptions have gone into the budget? Uh again, perhaps I missed that that was addressed. Um, another point off the budget, but it's still on the agenda. Personnel, uh, I sent an email to the board last week, uh,

118and this was one of the subjects. Um, I have noticed this year that there's been some inconsistency related to the reference of employees as numbers or as names. Um, the that's an acceptable practice, of course. Um, but it's not as common in other district minutes that I've reviewed. Um, and the reason why I bring this up is because resignations, for example, this year to date, uh, there have been two resignations. Two were named, one was a number. Unpaid leave absences, one was a name, two were numbers. Uh, in today's agenda, all of them are numbers. Um, maternity leaves, one name, one number. I think you get the point. there's some inconsistency there and I don't I think that that could be meaningful and I'll tell you why because um these these resignations, retirements, everything else

119do uh impact this community. Uh and I know that I happen to like seeing the names because it helps me and my family prepare for um uh any changes that might be coming up in the future months or years. Okay, so that's personnel operations. Um, I was very glad to see uh the grant application uh that on there like C13. Um, so we're still hitting deadlines and bringing money into the schools. So I'm not sure who the grant writer is, but um, thank you for that effort. It's good to see that. And then I think my final comment relates to policy. I notice in policy there's an abolition of policy number 9100. Um, I recognize the word of that wording of that policy is clunky and a bit awkward and that perhaps some of the

120content may be referenced in other policies. Maybe I'm not sure about that. But the abolition of this particular policy in this public climate could be viewed as making a statement about how or if this is a priority to the board. So perhaps there's a very good explanation. And I certainly hope that there is a good explanation, but I would love for that to be addressed perhaps during the meeting. Thank you. That's all for now. Jen Sharf Wan George, it's been a gift to work with you as a community member, a gift to work with you as a board member and vice president for three years, and a gift to work with you as an educator. They broke the mold. You're a Boy Scout. You know, I have so many other thoughts in my head right

121now, but I'm editing myself. We love you, George. Country of Wang um Bangras Drive. Thank you so much, George. There is no word for us to thank you for working with my children. for last three and a half um years during the co difficult time. I have only one question from Amber and their team. Did you guys understand the word auto renewal means? I'm really surprised because this is board of education means it's full of educators. You guys are you should work in that way. We just climb like four steps up and then you guys are pulling down 10 steps down. That's not the way we work with the children or we work with adults. We should be the role model for our children. But in here we are fighting each other. So where is

122the role model? You guys are for our children and you are going to show the good path for them. Do you think mom and dad can fight at home and then the children are going to learn? The same thing is happening here. You guys are like like even like wor than dogs like fighting each other and then the children are learning from you. So I think we should stop this. Please take what is the necessary step that you can do by yourself to correct this. Thank you. Good evening everybody. Kevin McDonald uh Hillrest Road Watch. Um I wasn't going to speak tonight but uh how could I not? I just wanted to say thank you George. You know it was great working with you during my time on the board. I really appreciate uh all

123of our talks and um getting to know you better and I wish you the best of luck in your new endeavors. Thanks again. Adam Craft, Warren Township. Oh, George, to say I was sad to hear of your resignation is an understatement. You brought stability to our district when we needed it most. You brought dignity and compassion. You brought attention to detail and fiscal responsibility. You brought a tremendous work ethic, working countless hours. a willingness to collaborate and learn. You personified the vision statement that I so passionately believe in. And you did it with grace and honor. You were a constant presence in the community at school concerts and science fairs, food truck Fridays, off-site events, and anywhere else your students were. You truly were the educational leader of our community, just as we asked you

124to be. And all of this while taking over a district that had lost its way without having a full-time superintendent or BA for years prior to you coming on board. Oh, and then 5 months into your tenure, you had to navigate the district through an unprecedented global pandemic. I still believe you handled it as well as possible and gave our children the best experience and the most inschool days that we could have had considering what we were dealing with. While I am devastated that you're leaving us so soon, I only wish you the best in your new role. Long Hill is lucky to have you and I look forward to seeing them excel under your leadership. Lastly, I just want to say thank you. Watch owes you a debt of gratitude whether they realize it

125or not. Thank you for leaving the school district in a much better state than in which you found it. Thank you for your leadership through the pandemic. Thank you for the countless hours you put into the job and thank you for leading by example to show everyone what excellence on the hill truly looks like. You are leaving big shoes to fill and I and clearly many others will sorely miss you. Thank you. is Rita Sadwani Ridge Road. Um, I don't even know where to start. I've had the pleasure of having you um as an educator while my kids were growing up. I've had the pleasure of working with you as a board member and a member of the community. You truly excellence on the health. You will be missed. You will be sorely missed. I

126know we will not be the same without you. But I wish you the very best. Thank you. Are there any other comments? Moving on to superintendent remarks. Good evening everyone. I just want to highlight a few items on the agenda. Uh first we have the uh school calendar update. We have three giveback days. The Tuesday after Memorial Day, May 30th. Uh and the final two days on the original calendar in June, June 15th and 16th will not be in session. Uh we will have a half day on June 14th and that will be the day of the eighth grade commencement. I also want to thank our parent groups for their donations that are listed on the agenda. PTO is providing a muchneeded freezer for Bayberry. Uh CPAC has generously donated planners for our Valley View

127students and WE has contributed a sizable donation for bus transportation for field trips. All very much appreciated. Thank you again for your ongoing support these last three and a half years. Uh as for my next steps, I I do appreciate really the the kind sentiments. As uncomfortable as this has been for me, I don't like necessarily to be the center of attention like that, but I do very much appreciate and thank all of you. Uh, I don't have anything to add at this time to the letter I sent to the community last week, but I do want to just clarify that the decision to leave was mine, not the board's. Um, I just want everyone to understand that the board obviously cannot speak about personnel matters and we're not going to discuss that tonight, but

128I just want to clarify that for the community. As I said before, I remain focused on what's best for the WA young students and that means moving forward with the rest of the school year and planning for the future. The administration is working on certain referendum projects inhouse uh for this summer and that includes security enhancements. I can assure you. Next, we have the principal reports. Uh but before we invite our principles forward, I would like to ask Miss Dota to come forward. if she's still here. Did Oh, she's in the bathroom. Okay, let's go with the principal reports and then we'll have Nicole come up and just give a short special services update. Okay, good evening. Let's talk about some fun stuff. Uh Bay has had an exciting fun-filled month. uh the end of

129March brought us Latin dance workshops during physical education classes. Uh thank you to Mr. Gibney, a Bayberry parent, and the PTO for bringing us this engaging cultural arts program. Um our third and fourth Glee Club hit a home run at the TD ballpark, singing the national anthem before the Somerset Patriots game on April 18th. Although, as Mrs. Riley said it was a chilly night. It was a rewarding experience for us all. So, thank you to Mrs. Riley and Miss Pine for their hard work with the Glee Club this year. Um, it also was a really nice treat to have them here today. Um, they sounded great, but I have to say what I enjoy most is actually seeing their faces and how joyful they are when they sing. Um, third grade Early Act Club and

130Miss Laming have been hard at work serving their community. They wrapped up two fundraisers this month that we had a lot of help from our families. Um, the clothing drive raised over $300 that was donated to local veterans and Penny Wars, everyone's favorite thing, raised money to bring an Earth Dome assembly to Bayberry. The PTO continues to support us in enhancing our school climate and complementing our curriculum through fun assemblies. On April 19th, grades K through four played brainwash games, enjoying some fun competition with their classmates. However, the teacher round was actually the fan favorite, causing the students to erupt with excitement. In addition, our preschool students enjoyed a hands-on experience with farm animals with the local CFKA Farms petting zoo and pony rides on April 20th. Finally, parents were welcomed to Bayberry today for

131our kindness uh I'm sorry, color with kindness play uh with the kindergarters. It was an amazing performance with a message of inclusion and acceptance. Thank you to Mrs. Miller, Mrs. Siance, Mrs. Tomo, Mrs. Moleno, Miss VeZ, and Mrs. Riley for their hard work and dedication to our students. Uh, a quick reminder, kindergarten visitation will be on May 18th and your child must be registered for the 22 I'm sorry, we're going backwards. 2324 school year in order to attend. Please see our website for more information on how to register and additional information about kindergarten visitation will be sent out shortly to those that have already registered. Thank you everybody and have a great night. Good evening everyone. Uh during the month of April, students and staff celebrated autism acceptance month with spirit days and classroom activities.

132Um and adventure learning is back at the Valley View Gymnasium. Our enhanced program will use adventure experiences as an effective tool for improving the way students live, learn, and work together. Our high- five adventure course will be used to provide experiences that develop a sense of connection and excitement in a learning environment of discovery, challenge, and fun. Students will build their skills through a leveled approach. The goal is to climb and blay to the ceiling of the gymnasium on multiple highlevel elements. If you have any questions, please contact Coach Leslie or Mr. B. I do post some of the team building activities on our Twitter feed, so if you're interested in seeing the kids in action, you can look there. Um, Valley View Spring Picture Day was held on the 10th. Any family interested in

133purchasing the pictures are able to order them through Lifeouch. Believe it or not, marking period 4 began on April 3rd. Report cards for the third marking period were made available to parents via Genesis parent portal on Friday, April 14th. Anyone having difficulty viewing their child's report card is encouraged to contact the main office for assistance. On April 11th, Valley View students were treated to an interactive assembly, the Brainwash Game Show. Students and staff competed to answer questions about pop culture and school related topics. I was actually fascinated to see how into it all of the kids were, including our eighth graders, who usually don't show excitement about much anymore. So, thank you to our PTO for bringing this exciting experience to our school. The PTL also funded the fifth grade in-person planetarium experience on April

13419th where students extended their understanding of Earth and space. On April 21st, our community outreach club hosted our first spring senior lunchon. Our local seniors haven't had a chance to visit Valley View since before COVID, so we were thrilled to have them back. They enjoyed performances by some of our chorus and band students, played games, and completed a craft. CPAG is thinking of us and they're thinking ahead. They are ready to give our students new planners. I think Mr. Alexis mentioned that. Um, and thank you to CPAG for keeping us organized. I would also like to extend my appreciation to both WE and our PTO for funding our school field trips. Our first trip is scheduled for tomorrow. Our eighth graders will be visiting the 911 memorial and museum. The district science fair will also

135be held tomorrow in the Valley View Allpurpose Room. I'm excited to see the student projects and learn a little more about the world around us. Last year, I learned about the 5second rule. So, you all know it's not a real thing. Don't touch it. Don't eat it. Um, coding and robotics members participated in the tests of engineering, aptitude, mathematics, and science, also known as the team's competition at Valley View in February. Prior to the competition, the students had to write an essay and then at the competition, they worked with their classmates to complete a design challenge and take a multiple choice test. I am excited to announce that all five of our teams have been invited to the national competition in Louisville, Kentucky. Their combined overall state level score, yes, congratulations to our kids. Their

136combined overall state level score is among the top 20% nationally. One team comprising Ariana Patel, Amelia Liam, Seahage Dylan, and Nikita Jane placed second in the entire state. Miss Picos and Mrs. Landi are so proud of their students. They could not wait to, you know, tell them all about it. We called them to the principal's office as a surprise to announce them. Only the fifth graders thought they were in trouble. the rest of them knew that it's not a scary place to be, but we are super excited about the opportunity for them to complete at the national level. Congratulations to them and to their families, and I can't wait to see how well they do. Thank you and have a good night. We were going to move on to the enrollment report, but Mr. Alexis

137had to step out. I think this is a good opportunity to go back a little and uh can I have a motion to adopt the 2023 and 2024 budget? Motion. So moved. Second. Can I have a roll call, please? Any discussion? Can I have a roll call, please? Yeah. I I would like uh clarification on uh the $75,000 in interest um payments we're receiving and what the corresponding payment of interest is. Beverly. Um the only information I have right now is that um we talked to the bond attorney and to the auditor and they did state that we could use a portion of the interest that we are earning in that account and and put that in the miscellaneous revenue in the budget. That's the only information I have right now. Okay. So maybe if

138you could kindly find out for the next meeting, which you know is something probably the operations committee should know how this works. You know, how much interest are we paying on the money versus how much interest are we getting on the money? We're not going to pay anything until I think March. March of next year, right? So, in other words, we have drawn down funds and we're not paying interest on it, but we're getting interest payments on it. Is that correct? I'm sorry. Repeat that again. We've drawn down funds that we're earning interest on, but we're not paying interest on those funds at this moment. Yes. We get the money for free now. Okay. Well, the the interest that we're accumulating, I think it's uh monthly, right? Monthly. So, whatever it is, we're technically That's

139not the question. I know. I'm I'm I'm just clarifying another question that I had for Beverly. And what we're technically going to be using is two months of interest. It'll Yeah, it'll be about that. Okay. Thank you. Okay. But for next meeting, maybe you'll have the answer. Yeah. All right. May I have a roll call, please? Mr. Buckarelli. Yes. Mr. Frraise. Yes. Mr. Gonzalez. Yes. Mrs. Harvey. Yes. Mrs. Dwet. Yes. Mr. Morales? Yes. Mrs. O'Donnell? Yes. Mr. Ingracia? Yes. Mrs. Mured? Yes. Motion passes. And then can I have another motion? I'm sorry I didn't mention this is to authorize travel and related expenses reimbursement for the 2023 2024 school year. Can I get a motion, please? So moved. Can I have a second? Any discussion? Roll call, please. Mr. Buckarelli, yes. Mr. Fra, yes. Mr.

140Gonzalez, yes. Mrs. Harvey, yes. Mrs. Juette, yes. Mr. Morales, yes. Mrs. O'Donnell, yes. Mr. Ingrassia, yes. Mrs. Mirand, yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Um, Mr. Alexis, can you please give the enrollment report? Enrollment. Yes. Um, we are at uh 21 students above the number that we had in September. Uh, currently 683. Thank you. Moving on to committee reports. Mr. Gonzalez, can you give the human resource committee report? Yes. The personnel committee met virtually on April 19th at 4 p.m. and adjourned at 5:43. Miss O'Donnell and Mr. Fred, Miss Mured, Superintendent, Mr. Alexis, and I were present. The committee discussed observation of evaluation process for staff and discussed non-tenured and tenure staff list. Mr. Alexis explained that contracts remain the same with the exception of 2.9% in salary increase as negotiated last year. We discussed the

141budget and the options that we have to hire additional staff which would temporarily which were temporary but not necessary. The board will be approving resignation for Beverly as Patricia, our newb. Alicia will Alicia will stay on through June 20th to assist Patty with transition. The assistant business administrator's position will be abolished as of July 1st and it is no longer be necessary and is not included in next year's budget. Thank you. Moving on to operations, Mr. Gracia. Yes, thank you. The committee met on Monday, April 17th in person in the central office with Mr. Alexis Beverly and our interimm who's our interim BA and our facilities manager Ricky Boyd. Patrick Sewell and Frank Bulby from DRG Architects were also there for the first part of the meeting. Our meeting agenda and discussion included uh the

142final 2023 2024 budget revised from the tenative budget approved by the Somerset County Department of Education. We've had the presentation on that and uh happy to see that we were able to uh now have two additional uh general education classroom teachers to be hired. Um so two additional elementary and one uh also an autism class teacher. Then uh we we conducted uh with DRG there a a a detailed rundown of the facilities planning. Uh the details are included in the minutes which are quite lengthy. So I'm just going to recap on the HVAC DRG uh provided scheduling for replacing the HVAC equipment. So, um there's, you know, some, uh, different options there, but they're basically going to be going out to bid, uh, September or October of 2023 with a a good deal of that

143equipment. Um, some could be done sooner because, uh, we've we've done rooftop unit replacement and things like that already here that maybe we can move up the schedule on some items. Um, and so, uh, based on that schedule, we're looking at working with the equipment we have over the the coming year. And Mr. Boyd, uh, provided a review of the current performance of the HVAC systems in both schools and discussed potential strategies to optimize the performance to increase the comfort of the students, including service calls, filter replacement, and routine cleaning of coils. Uh just one note that we were concerned uh that there was concern in the community about the indoor air temperatures on around April 13th and 14th when the region saw u close to if not record setting high temperatures. So, just wanted

144to make note of what we discussed in the meeting that the district operates on the the boiler heater system until May 15th each year and then this the system is turned over for use of the chillers and the the air conditioning. So, it's not a a simple switch from to uh go back and forth quickly or regularly uh from the heat to the air conditioning and back again like you can with a a residential thermostat. That won't change with the current design of the new replaced equipment either. That's still going to be a a boiler based and chiller based uh heating and cooling system. So, um, there was no option for air conditioning to be on at that time in April and especially when the morning temperatures were back into the 40s in the days

145that followed. The um DRG contract was uh discussed also just to to note that there was uh feedback between DRG submitting a draft, our uh board attorney reviewing that draft and uh confirming that things were that things were uh in order. And so, um, we're we're basically following their their proposal plus the finalized AIA form, uh, document of the, uh, the contract, which we'll touch on later. But, uh, the security upgrades, the district, as Mr. Alexis reported aims to complete uh security related upgrades as quickly as possible and the committee discussed upgrades to both of the the building lobbies especially uh to be done this summer. There's also an update from DRG on the casework. They believe that they can complete all the casework through a state contract rather rather than a different form of

146of bidding process by this summer. And uh that is an I an option uh when maybe some would consider it parsing out. I'm not I'm not sure what you know some of that uh is referenced to. But we are definitely looking at each line item in the referendum project list to see what the uh quickest and efficient most efficient way to do the work would be. So, if there's something where one form of the bidding process would cause lengthy delays, maybe there's a state contract that can um afford a quicker process and at a good cost. And so, um those um are already being evaluated um by DRG architects. They're going to be getting back to us with some more ideas on that. And um there are some things that are already underway or nearing

147completion. For example, Mr. Boyd was able to achieve uh near total completion of the acoustical ceiling tile renovation and replacement project by ordering the materials and using his in-house team. This resulted in uh what promises to be a large cost savings to the district as well as a much quicker turnaround while still benefiting from the state debt uh 33% service aid. So the administration and Mr. Boyd should really be commended for their initiative and hard work on this project. and uh some of the other items were already discussed with the calendar um and uh those days uh changing the graduation date. There was a also discussion about a new service contract for elevators moving forward as recommended by the administration and the district is waiting for a transportation update from the high school regarding renewals

148and potent potential bidding needs for the transportation. Thank you. Thank you. Um, Mrs. Chuette, can you please give the curriculum report? Okay. Curriculum committee met on April 13th at 8:30 a.m. and concluded at 10:24 a.m. Board members, Mrs. O'Donnell, Mrs. Morad, and I were present along with Mr. Alexis, Principal Fner, and Mrs. Dottom. Mr. Morales had to leave during the meeting at which Mrs. Harvey was invited to join the meeting. Mr. Morales was there for the first part. The committee discussed the revised calendar and emergency closing days. The committee was in favor of the proposed revised calendar which includes giving back June 15th and 16th and ending the year on Wednesday, June 14th, which would be a half day. The calendar also would include giving back Tuesday, May 30th, the day after Memorial Day. The

149committee discussed basic skills and how assessments were used to measure progress and assist students performance on grade level and move out of and to move out of basic skills. We discussed budget and hiring of additional teachers and we discussed class sizes. The next item was the health curriculum and a potential survey that will be sent out at the end of the year as an opportunity to get feedback from parents and address their concerns or questions going into the 2324 school year. The administration is taking this under advisement and looking into it. Principal Kid shared that our middle school teams qualified for the next step for the national steam competition and our team came in second among New Jersey teams. One of our middle school students was accepted into the Naval Academy summer program and we

150have great things to look forward to. The committee discussed looking into artificial intelligence which would allow AI tutoring and assistance. We discussed adding Wong's history to the curriculum. The admin administration is in favor but suggested that it will take time to implement it and create a lesson plan. The committee discussed the sore program and the administration informed the committee that they're planning to update the website this summer so parents and the community can have more information. Thank you. And I wanted to add um since the library comment was made about just the policy, Mrs. Shouet had a question because the parent asked her um regarding what is the policy. So that's all it was her asking what is the planning and what is the procedure and I think Mrs. O'Donnell can confirm that that's exactly

151what the conversation was and I'm sorry you missed the first half of that conversation. Um so I have some questions about the report. Sure. Did I hear did I hear you say that we're going to do a health education survey? No, not a health education. Yes, from the parents because they've been through the program for a year now and we'd like to see how they feel about it and what they think about it and if they need anything to add. We're not letting this one go. Huh. So, my my survey would be less than 3% of the people opted out and more than 97% opted in. Is that a good enough survey for you? No, it's actually just asking I guess that was the question that we had of Mr. Alexis and the principles and

152the question was we understand that there are some parents have been emailing them back and forth for their concerns and they address them but moving forward is there anything that needs to be added or is there anything that needs to be excluded I don't know um that just gives them a marker uh to see if there is concern or not and if there isn't then there isn't going into January as we write any curriculum mer start the new year in September. So that's not information for us. That's for them to go back to the administration. That's it. And let me just clarify, it's not about changing the health curriculum. As I understood, I thought the request was to find out from the parents whether or not they've had enough information, enough notice about, you know,

153their their ability to opt out and about the process. Right? That's what um you know we we told the committee we would consider as an administration, right? Not not to change the standards, change the curriculum. Are you in favor of that? Uh we're considering it. We're looking into it. Thank you. And uh Mr. Morales, can you please give the policy report? Sure. The policy committee met on Wednesday, April 19th at 5:00 pm until 5:24. myself, Miss Harvey, Miss Juwed, Miss Morad, and Mr. Alexis were all present. The the policies and regulations that are referenced in the agenda were discussed and approved for first reading. The committee discussed the revisions as required by New Jersey statutes and the recommendation of Strauss estimate to revise dup duplicative policy language and abolish unnecessary policy. And this brings us

154to Mr. Beos's question with regard to policy 9100. Uh policy 9100 is recommended to be abolished because it would be duplicative with policy 9120 and 9120 is mandated and already has a public relations provision that is in compliance with the New Jersey administrative code. So that makes policy 9100 unnecessary and that's that's all that is. Uh the committee also considered and approved the administration's revision of policy 3160 to authorize the health services coordinator to review employees physical exams. The committee was in favor of the revised calendar just as the curriculum committee was. Uh the committee was also in favor inviting the watch historical society to the May meeting to discuss the mural. The the expectation is to listen is for the committee to listen to the update but to not vote at that particular meeting.

155Uh Mr. Alexis also explained uh the plan to revise the budget to include uh referendum interest monies to possibly fund another teacher. Uh Miss Beverly is working on the process for state approval and uh Mr. Alexis also offered his services to assist the board if we required it to find an interim superintendent. I would like to invite the PTO uh for their report backwards. Hello. I forgot that I was doing this. Um but and but the principles basically have said um both and during their reports what we've done um through the month of March. We did we had a pretty busy month with the mobile planetariums coming in. Um the brainwash I was really really excited about. There's um a parent here who is a teacher at a school at Elizabeth and I stole their

156idea essentially. Um but it was great. The kids really liked it. It was really fun. We were able to bring it in. Um we broke it into two sessions. So, fifth and sixth grade together, seventh and eighth grade together, K1 and two together, three and four together. Um, and then to do the petting zoo for um the preschool was really, really great. And they even got to do pony rides with the petting zoo. So, we were really excited about that. We also have another um another assembly coming up for the preschool that I can't remember the name of it, but it's with puppets and music. So, we're really excited about that. Um right now, we're getting ready for this coming Saturday. We're having our Bayberry dance. Um, we're really, really excited. We're having it at

157the school. I don't think we've had a dance since pre- pandemic for the Bayberry students. So, we're really excited about it. Um, and then we also had our when the Glee Club went to the Patriots game, we also had a watch on night and we had um families come out and support the Glee Club. It was a really great night. It was a little chilly, but we had quite a bit of people there. I think we had almost two sections full, so it was great. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for your donations as well. Um, at this time I'd like to invite web for their update. I want to make two announcements on behalf of W. First, we are having a dining to donate on May 23rd at Water and Wine. So, I

158encourage everyone to go out. Um, if you're going out for lunch or dinner, uh, Water and Wine is incredibly generous to WE and always gives us a very kind donation as a result of this and definitely not one that we earn, but we like to obviously support their business and encourage folks to come out as much as possible because they are such a dear friend of W. And obviously, you heard me say earlier May 5, Cinco de Mayo, hottest ticket in town. I really hope you guys are coming. So many fabulous things are happening. We have incredible raffle items. Everything from Giants tickets to John Hardy earrings. Um, Frank Bzignnano generously donated his space for us to have the um the party there and Forest Lodge is very kindly uh donating the the food and

159it is an incredible menu and we're having everything from frozen margaritas to tequila high nooons that was not on the school version of the flyer but anybody who needs it the alcohol friendly flyer is here. Uh I encourage everybody to come. It's really going to be a phenomenal event and you know WE loves hosting these events largely because it's just friends coming together to have fun and have a drink together. So, hope everyone can make it. Thanks. Thank you. And now I'd like to invite CPEG. Is there anybody from CPEG tonight? Okay. Uh before we move on to action items, I'd like to go back a little bit to board the Aison reports. Um do Mr. Fra, do you have any? No. Thank you. There are no updates for legislative um for there there's nothing

160for Somerset Educational Services Commission either and the school board school associations meeting on May 18th. So that is their next uh meeting that I will be attending. I'd like to move on to action items. For administrative items, can I have a motion to move administrative items? Mr. Morales, I move administrative items A1 through A9. May I like to make an amendment? Yes. I'd like to move that we uh we uh terminate the engagement with existing board counsel and reinstate the engagement with board counsel from last year. Second. Any comments? Have a roll call, please. No, let's talk about it. Nobody has comments. Well, I do. Okay. Sure. You just want to just get it all over there, huh? Let's listen. This is a chance for you guys to do the right thing. We bounced the

161great attorney and we went shopping clear across the state to an attorney who's in Cherry Hill who isn't here today because it's a long ways away. And uh and we got advice apparently without me knowing that a lot of people could talk about a lot of things in private and then ask him to do it because the board president said there was a consensus when the whole board didn't get together to discuss that very important issue. It's against the open public meetings act. Okay, it's bad advice. It's a bad way to run a board. Our old attorney would have never let us happen this way. So, why did we go attorney shopping? Was this the reason? And why don't we just hire somebody that we have, you know, a lot more confidence in? because the

162whatever happened before the executive session, which was a really important matter, didn't happen in accordance with the proper way to govern a board. And Dory and I didn't get a chance to talk to anybody about it. There are a lot of misconceptions. A lot of people didn't know the law. An action was taken. The attorney denied that it was action under the law. It clearly was action under the law. So, I think we need a new attorney. Any other comments? Can I have a roll call, please? Mr. Buckarelli? Yes. Mr. Fra? State. Mr. Gonzalez? Yes. Mrs. Harvey? Yes. Mrs. Juet? No. Mr. Morales? No. Mrs. O'Donnell. Yes. Mr. Engracia. No. And Mrs. Mirand? No. Okay. Motion doesn't pass. Can we go back to the original motion and have a roll call, please? Okay. Mr. Buckarelli.

163Yes. Mr. Frraise, yes. Mr. Gonzalez, yes. Mrs. Harvey, yes. Mrs. Juette, yes. Mr. Morales, yes. Mrs. O'Donnell, yes. Mr. Unra, yes. On administrative items, Mrs. Mured, yes. Motion passes. May I have a motion to pass personnel items, Mr. Fage? uh make a motion to pass items B1 through one second B8. Excuse me. Can I ask the uh uh the the business administrator to give the vote count for the for for the amendment I suggested? Uh I an abstension does not count as a vote either for or or or against. So I have four nos and one abstain. And you have four yeses. Yes. You know, abstension means you were conflicted out or you don't want to make a decision. Uh I um honestly I just I do not feel confident enough in the uh like

164understanding law in terms of what you were discussing to make a decision at this time. I was just going to research it. Okay. I think at this time we've moved to personnel. Um are there any is there any discussion for personnel items? Um, I just need to make a amendment to B1. Okay. I have uh where it says Erica Seal, that name should be Donna Seal. Can I have Do I need to make a motion for that? You just have to say with the correction. Can I have a roll call with the correction of or B1, please? You could say the whole thing. B1. I'm sorry. What's her name? Oh, it's it's supposed to be Donna. Donna uh for the appointment of 2022 extended school year coordinator. Donna being the appointee. May I have a

165motion? You could do the whole thing. You could you could do the whole thing, right? B1 through through B8. B8. I think he made that motion earlier. Yeah. So, we need Second. Second. Can I any discussion? Yeah, my discussion would be that um for there's members of the public here, they don't you know like B1 through B8, why don't we just at least if we're not going to say what just say what they are appointment accept resignation, you know, let's not be lazy. Let's let the public know what's going on. That's good board practice. B1 through B8. Let's tell them what the what the items are. Okay. Can you please read the items? Make a motion to move B1, appoint 2023 extended school year coordinator uh with correction. Uh B2, appoint district substitutes. Uh B3,

166appoint Bayberry co-curricular. B4, accept the regation. B5, approve unpaid leave of absence. B6, approve unpaid leave of absence. B7, approve medical leave. NB8 abolish assistant business administrator/board secretary secretary position. May I have a second this time again? I second. Thank you. Any discussion? Have a roll call, please. Mr. Buckarelli? Yes. Mr. Fra? Yes. Mr. Gonzalez? Yes. Mrs. Harvey? Yes. Mrs. Juet? Yes. Mr. Morales? Yes. Mrs. O'Donnell, yes. Mr. Engracia, yes. Mrs. Mirez, yes. Motion passes. Mr. Engia, may I have a motion to move operation items? Yes, I move C1, approve payment of bills. C2, approve transfer of funds, 2022 2023. C3, accept financial reports. C4, approve contract with Health Source Group. C5, approve agreement with Union County Educational Services Commission. C6, accept donation with gratitude from the PTO. C7, accept grant with gratitude from PTO.

167C8, accept with gratitude a donation from CPAC. C9 approved with gratitude grants from the watch educational foundation. C10 approved contract with action elevator. C11 approved service providers. C12 appoint school health insurance fund the shift fund commissioner. C13 accept the 23 school climate change pilot grant. C14, approve Valley View official umpire rate retroactively. C15, appoint temporary district purchasing agent. C16, approve professional travel and related expenses. I second. Thank you. At this point, uh I would also like to have a motion to add um DRG's contract for approval. on that. I second. Can I Thank you. Can I have a motion to approve it? Someone just needs to say so. Thank you. Can I have a second? Second. Thank you. Um and then Okay, so just a little bit of background. Um thank you, Mr. Alexis. Uh

168the reason it's not on the agenda today, it's because we were negotiating the contract and um they have graciously started working on some projects already uh during these negotiations and uh our attorney just got back to us uh because on Friday I believe DRG gave their opinions and then today they were able to finalize it and as we were coming to the meeting, we were given the green light to move ahead that a fair compromise has been made between the two parties and uh that is typically what the contracts are like and we are moving forward. We haven't seen it, but um the attorneys have and whatever we had requested and they requested, we were able to come to an agreement to of that and that is why we're approving it tonight uh and adding

169it on current at this point. um we've seen the rough draft and we've seen the proposal language that was submitted at the time of during the selection process. And so unless there's a unanticipated clash where somehow those uh our attorney's comments didn't mesh with the revision of the draft that was submitted by DRG that they generated the first draft of the of the contract. um or if something varied from the proposal that we had all seen at the time of uh during the selection process. I I don't see where there would be a problem then. But um it is a late um notice from the attorney that they received the comments back from DRG and that the uh all the comments uh on contract language were able to be uh revised into the the final

170draft of the contract. So that's the information that we have to go on right now. Yes. and and not just tall because that is before I made this motion and before the meeting began I actually seek the advice of Mr. Alexis and he's comfortable I think I'm comfortable with it. Yes. So we got those comments on I think May uh April 14th. Correct me if I'm wrong. None of them were material. They should have taken about 45 minutes to work out. I don't know why. Again, it took so long. Whether we got all of our comments or whether we got none of them, it doesn't matter because none of them were material and it said so right at the beginning of the attorney letter. So, I have no problem approving approving that contract without seeing

171it. Thank you. Any other comments? May I have a roll call with the amendment? Mr. Buckarelli? Yes. Mr. Frra, yes. Mr. Gonzalez, yes. Mrs. Harvey, yes. Mrs. Juet, yes. Mr. Morales, yes. Mrs. O'Donnell, yes. Mr. Andracia, yes. Mrs. Murd, yes. Motion passes. Miss Stewart, may I have a motion to move curriculum items? Curriculum items. Uh D1 adopt curriculum for the 20 23 2024 school year and that's it on curriculum going to policy. No just curriculum. Okay. Thank you. May I have a second? Second. Can any discussion? May I have a roll call, please? Mr. Buckarelli? Yes. Mrs. Mr. Fra? Yes. Mr. Gonzalez? Yes. Mrs. Harvey? Yes. Mrs. Juet? Yes, Mr. Morales. Yes, Mrs. O'Donnell. Yes, Mr. Engracia. Yes, Mrs. Mured. Yes. Motion passes. Mr. Morales, may I please have a motion to move policy items?

172I move uh E1, which is approve policies and regulations for first reading, and E2, which is abolish pol policy and regulation. Can I have a second? Second. Any discussion? Roll call, please. Mr. Buckarelli? Yes. Mr. Frraas? Yes. Mr. Gonzalez? Yes. Mrs. Harvey? Yes. Mrs. Jet? Yes. Mr. Morales? Yes. Mrs. O'Donnell? Yes. Mr. Engia? Yes. Mrs. Mured? Yes. Motion passes. This time, I'd like to move to board business. Any board business? Okay. Um, and I'd like to now move to comments from the public at it's going to be the same. Same rules apply as preboard. Hello again, Adam Craft, Warren Township. Uh, just regarding the mural, it was commissioned by Sears to make residents feel like Sears had ties to the community rather than being a national company with no ties to the community. The mural

173is not based on actual historical events. It is it represents a play that whitewashes history. And I would implore you to include the Lape tribe in the presentation because without their support, this mural doesn't belong anywhere, especially somewhere impressional impressionable young minds are every day. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Hi. Um I'm here basically to thank George Again, we've heard much of it tonight. I wanted to wait till the end here. Um George and I both I was appointed uh I'm here as a resident, a homeowner, a taxpayer, and a father, right? Not here as mayor. Okay. Um but I I was fortunate enough to be appointed around the same time you came on. Um maybe people who weren't directly involved don't know the pressure we were under. Uh George formed the committee. I think

174there was about 31 of us. Rich, we were on it as well, right? We had our Georgia leadership during a a time that this is where true leaders are formed, right? When things are going well, it's easy to be a leader. When there's a time of crisis and potential disarray, that's when real leaders step up. And I was proud to be on appointed by that committee with George work on health matters. And I think the phenomenal job I what do we have like two or three weeks to pull together the whole lesson plan. So your leadership got us into through that. I was fortunate enough that we were principal at the high school when my sons were there and and when my daughter was here. So, you will be sorely sorely missed. I don't know

175what we'll do to replace you. And just general comments to you guys because again what we hear and see here. Listen, come together just as I said George came together in a time of crisis. This is a time of crisis to this burrow. We are losing our superintendent. you what do you tell the my my daughter's in a high school now, right? But what do you tell the parents? We heard about a three-year-old uh parent like what's the school going to be like? Use this crisis to come together as a team. Prove all these people wrong who just chastise you. Say no, we're better than that. We're bigger than that. We are going to come together as the elected body independent of any partisanship for the betterment of the people. be transparent, too. Let keep

176everybody involved and do that for this. The referendum is a separate matter, but I'd give you the same advice of that. Put a Gant chart together. Have a project manager. Come here each time. There's many moving parts. When people aren't informed, they're concerned. And when they're not informed, they get angry. Okay? We see it all the time and everywhere in our life. So, George, you'll be missed. You guys, you'll have my support, right? but work together as a team. This is a Ron Juban resident taxpayer who wants my home values to stay high and the excellence on the hill. I'll leave you with the metaphor many people know I say. The rock is always easier to roll up the hill when you're all on the same side. That's your key to get back to excellence

177on the hill. Maintain it by working together as a team. Thank you, George, and thank you everybody for your time. Gina Pontero Wang. Um I'm not sure the proper course of action to take because we don't have a board of attorney present tonight. I don't know if that was an intentional decision or not. Um but I do want to leave in your fine hands something that I think many people are takenback by. It was indicated earlier by Mr. Visano that there was information disclosed by our board president Amber Morad that Anthony and Gracia did not want to renew Mr. Alexis's contract and that was information that I understand was disclosed during an executive committee session. Um and I want to understand whether or not and how and who each of you are in favor of

178an investigation as to why that happened and if it is in fact true why Miss Amber Morad thought it was appropriate to disclose that. If information is supposed to be maintained during executive session, then that has to be true of everyone. Otherwise, then anyone could say whatever they'd like to say about executive session because it seems like Mr. Buckley and Miss Harvey really were trying to tell the the um community about some of their concerns and they felt constrained that they should not make those statements because of some obligations they have to keep that information sacred. Yet, Miss Morad does not have that same obligation. So if uh Miss Morad if you think that that does not apply to you I just like to understand why it's not a question and answer session as you

179know Gina I'll just say that we can't give you answers to your questions at this meeting as you know it's very convenient since we're actually discussing how you did not want to renew Mr. Lexus's contract. Thank you for the clarification. I appreciate that. Um, on a separate note for Cinco de Mayo, just to end on a friendly note, I I forgot to mention earlier. Yes, Cinco de Mayo May 5. I know you all want to be there. Um, we we have made the decision that we're going to um extend discounted pricing for our teachers so that they can attend at $50 instead of the $100 so that everyone can come out to enjoy. And we obviously appreciate their service. And one of our W members has very graciously agreed to cover the cost, Mr. Alexis,

180for you to attend in your honor and also the principal. So, we hope that you can make it that night. Hans JW at Elseno Drive in Wong. Um I think saying this is very appropriate right now. Um I don't see how we're looking to move the ball forward. Um, I don't see why on a day like today where we should be celebrating that Mr. Alexis is going to have a new opportunity, uh, he's done a nice job here in Wong, that he should have to be party to the circus that we've just witnessed for a few hours. We seem to have a couple of uh board members who just thrive in in trying to throw a fire, gasoline onto a fire and and not really try to do anything positive, but to to try to

181shed negative light onto uh onto the matter. Um the the referendum is moving ahead. There's a contract going on, but Mr. Buckarelli still claims over and over again that people hate the referendum uh and uh they they're against it and they they don't want anything to benefit the schools. Uh I remember Mr. Buckarelli clearly stating in ad hoc meetings that I was in that it's going to cost watch $10 million for this referendum. We we should we shouldn't leave $5 million on the table. Um it was interesting tonight uh where Mr. uh Buckarelli uh did not seem to understand what debt service is. And if he had looked at the debt service tables, he would have seen that there is no debt service that Watch is paying on that $15 million this year, but the

182debt service starts next year. So that just makes me believe he probably really doesn't understand that service, but I I I don't want to say that. Um the in addition to the to the $5 million that we're going to save it's going to cost the district $10 million. The the actual amount and this is in the debt service. That's why this is so surprising the discussion came up. The debt service for the $15 million we're going to borrow and it's on the website is $20 million. So we're borrowing $15 million and it's going to cost us $20 million not $10 million. The board still has not come up and told the people in Wong that they're going to be paying $20 million for the $15 million that they're borrowing. I I think it's time, Amber,

183that that be brought out to the public. I know I sent you a letter in in that regard. Um what was really disturbing is the mob mentality that we're witnessing at the at these board meetings uh that we have to uh denigrate the the board uh that we have to ask for their resignation. Uh this board has been in for about two and a half months and all of the ills of children freezing in classrooms is being blamed on people who've been in in in office for two and a half months when for three years nothing was done and everything was put into obeyance that we're going to have this referendum that's going to solve all our problems. I really don't understand how anybody would stand up here and and and know that this has

184been going on for three years and there's really been nothing done on the on the HVAC side over that period of time. But yet then to say that we're d or the feet are being dragged on its referendum to to take care of problem this problem. I couldn't agree more with the mayor. I think it's I time to move forward. I think it's time to uh stop plowing over the fields. I would make a suggestion, Mr. Graci, that you put out a schedule as to when things are going to be done, a schedule which the architect should put together, post it on the website. Everybody can then see exactly when items are being done. And the nice thing about it, it holds the DRG's fee to the fire and the contractor's fee to the fire,

185but they never finish a project on time. You're in the business, you know that. But this would would be a tremendous help. And I think it would stop this bickering. I really think it's time to grow up and I think it's time to start bickering. I think it's time to start giving out this information like it's going to cost me as a taxpayer uh five $10 million for this referendum when in fact it's going to cost $20 million. I really think you ought to make amends for that too. Thank you very much. Are there any other comments from the public? Jen Sharf Wong, you know what I do find disturbing that the president of the board is talking to members in the community about what goes on in executive session. You know that I know

186that you should never do that and you sit here shaking your head no like no that didn't happen. Obviously it happened. What's also disturbing is that Mr. Andracia is in charge of this referendum. Everyone listen up. He's going to want to be in charge of the whole thing. He voted no for it. And you think you run this town. You don't. I agree with Mr. Bisignano. You're dragging your own name through the mud. Dennis Bos watch home. Um Mr. Morales, thank you for the clarification earlier on the policy. Appreciate that. Uh recently I filled out an online survey um for the district. I don't know when the results are going to be um known uh or discussed in public, but I'd still be interested to hear uh what those consolidated results are going to be.

187Uh but given our new circumstances, um surely those survey results will lack the context of our new leadership void. So, um I know many of the parents um filled this survey out whenever it was about a month and a half ago. Um, but I'm just kind of uh curious when um those results will be uh available to the public. Um, also on the referendum subject, um, there are surely there have already been delays. Obviously, we've talked extensively about it. Uh, and when I say referendum, I say the referendum of what we all knew the referendum to be in 2022. Um I'm not sure what that looks like right now, but um the superintendent search is going to be three to six months and we don't need to look any further than the article about the

188long hill search that started in October and they made their announcement in April. So that's a six-month de delay, no leadership uh or limited leadership or transitional leadership. Um the other thing I wanted to point out the I was over at the high school and um over spring break they had replaced it was actually quite impressive. I think it was about six or eight um rooftop units over there and um they were delivered at spring break. They were installed at spring break. Um I asked when they were ordered it was over a year ago. Okay. just another delay to that we need to keep in mind about uh the implementation of whatever the version of the referendum is going to be. Um I guess finally what is our vision? Um four months into the year

189uh we know what the majority of the board is against but I still don't know what the board is for. Um, what does the referendum product end product look like? I had an idea in my head of what that was going to look like when I voted in December. Um, with everything happening this year in the board meetings, I have no idea what that image that the board members here uh have for what the referendum is going to look like. based on the evidence of the board meetings, it seems that the referendum product probably looks different from what we all thought it was going to be. If that's the case, then um can you please let the public know? It would be great to know what this is going to look like. Will there be

190um an outdoor learning commons? Uh will there be a revision of the art room that was talked about last year? Um will there be, you know, um rooftop units, HVAC? how many um all of these things are people things that people want to know and I think that's a source of frustration because there's a lack of transparency. I don't know what's going to be happening here. I knew what the old board's vision was. Did I agree with all of it? No. But I looked through the things that I didn't and I actually voted for that referendum and I knew what it was. I knew what it looked like. Nobody here knows what that looks like. Um, I heard before the referendum vote that people who were against it say, um, well, we could do it

191cheaper. Um, fine, do it cheaper. Okay. But tell us what you're going to do cheaper because none of us know. I know the majority of the board voted against the referendum in December. Um, and now you're in a distasteful position of implementing something that you were against. Unfortunately, you have a responsibility to do it. So, tweak it however you need to tweak it. Communicate it to the public however you're going to communicate it to the public. But otherwise, I think you're going to have to, like most of us have to do in life, hold your nose and get it done in some way. Okay. Um, I think we need to call truce, too. Um, there's a lot of differences here at the table and in the public. Um, and I think we just need a

192little bit more transparency. We can find ways to get together and and work together. Um, quick story. Four, five years ago, whenever it was, um, I was working on the board with Rich Buckarelli. We didn't agree on everything, but we got on the phone, we talked about it. I respected him. I think he respected me. Um, and we worked it out. Let's get together, talk on the phone, figure this stuff out, and let's get it done. This community deserves it. We can do it. Come on. Thank you. me again. Uh, so this is in response to what Mr. Jet said, but I think it's important for everyone to hear. So he mentioned that the debt service doesn't start getting paid until next year. Well, it was relevant to bring it up during the discussion of

193next year's budget if I'm not mistaken. Okay. So, it made sense to discuss it then. As to your point, why didn't this start three years ago? Well, four years ago, we had an interim superintendent. And as we've discussed tonight, we know that interim superintendent are basically just trying to keep the lights on. They don't put a vision in place, and they're not going to champion a superintendent. However, three and a half years ago when George came on board, that was basically the first thing he did was champion the referendum. It was a very lengthy process, one which I was a part of. We spent a lot of time evaluating the projects and recommendations and making sure it had just what we needed and wanted. And then the first time we went to vote, it got

194shot down. It got voted down. It didn't pass. So then we did it again and it passed. So it's not for lack of trying. We wanted to do it. Then you say, why wasn't the HVAC replaced sooner? Can anyone show me where in the budget we have $8 million in our capital reserve? Oh, okay. Got it. Promise I'll be brief. Just two things. Okay. The temperatures in the classroom, guys. No one's talking about two days in April. We're talking about every single day. I I'm shamelessly gonna admit this. I asked my six-year-old, "Are you comfortable coming and speaking to a group of adults about what you've told mommy about the classroom?" And he looked at me and said, "No, I'm not." So, I would never drag him here to do that. I'm not making this

195stuff up. And it's not limited to two days in April. I send my kids to clo I scan my kid who goes to Bayberry in multiple layers of clothing all the time because this is what I hear when I come home. Not I had a great day, but it was weird in the classroom. My kid, my younger one who goes to private preschool because he's not yet of age to go to baby. I sit him in a t-shirt and a jacket and he take the jacket off and he's comfortable during the day and he puts the jacket on when he goes outside. It's not what's going on here. Second, I deal with negotiations all day. It is disingenuous for you to sit up here and say, you know, it's all the lawyers and it's just

196negotiation back and forth and it takes forever. And that's just what happens because you are the client and you have the right to say to your attorney, hey, this contract is of utmost importance to us. We need to move this along. And guess what? If that attorney can't get it done for you, then you get another attorney. That's how it works in the real world. If I can't get done some something fast enough or efficient enough for my client, you find somebody else who can. So find somebody else who can help you guys. Uh Tanisha Sims, uh WAN U. Mr. Alexis, man, I was so sad and so shaken when I saw that you're um leaving us. You have been a joy to be around, to work with. I mean, I seen you at the

197kids games. I see you at the baseball fields. I see you everywhere. You're always supporting these g these kids. And that's what's most important. These kids in this community, the kids, the teachers. Come on, guys. Come on. President, 10 toes down. Let's stand for something. Let's stand for these kids. As Mr. Alexis has shown and has proven time after time. I am so I don't even know if we can get somebody like him again because he checked all the boxes. He checked every single box for watch. Why are we allowed? Why is he here? Why are we leave? Why is he leaving? It is it is very mind-blowing when you have something as golden as that to not protect it. And it's on your shoulders, president. It's on your shoulders. And this mural I I

198is this the mural from Sears with the um Indian tribe I believe that projects a female on the ground like washing feet. I can't even I I just vaguely remember the picture. If this is the mirror we're talking about, it does not belong in this school. It does not belong in this town. I'm sorry. We should take a vote. If you want to send out uh some type of survey, send that survey out. But that does not belong in this school building. Again, everything else that's going on in this board, it is very shameful. When we talk about temperatures, I had to buy my eighth grader's underarm pads. Why? Because she was sweating under her underarm. Can we talk about adolescence and what she's going through as impuberty? First of all, she's sweating under her

199underarms because the temperature is too hot. Then she'll get dinged for not being participating in class. Why? Because she don't want to raise her hand. Why? Because she has underarm sweat. because it's hot in these classrooms. But you won't know unless you're here. I'm here volunteering all the time. Come by. I'm here on Thursdays. Piece of day. Come by. We can walk through these classrooms. If you really want to know how these kids is going through stuff, come check on them. Come see them because it's about the kids. I volunteer day in and day out for these kids. I just came from basketball practice to be at this meeting, which I shouldn't have to be. I shouldn't have to be at these meetings. I should trust that our leaders are going to do what's best

200for these children. And right now, I don't see it. I do not see it. I feel like there's hidden agendas. And I don't know. I don't know any of you really that well. I'm just here as a resident. I'm here as a parent. I do what's best for these kids. And that's what every single person at this table should be about. the children in this school district, the staff in this school district, the betterment of everybody in this school district. That is your job and that should be leading you. Period. And if you're not led by that, then you shouldn't be here. Thank you. Are there any other comments? Can I have a motion to move into executive session? Move it. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. Any oppose?

201Uh Beverly, can you please read the reason for going into executive session? Whereas the open public meetings act NJSA104-11 permits the board of education to meet in close session to discuss certain matters. Now therefore be it resolved the board of education adjourns to close session to discuss a All right. Um, can I have a motion to come out of executive session? So moved. Can I get a second? I second. All in favor say I. I. Can I have a motion to adjurnn? Can I get a second? I second. All in favor say I. Any oppose? This meeting has been adjourned.