001that was the fall play a couple years ago right oh was that with the characters and i have to say i came on a thursday night and i was like oh this will be so nice i can come and just watch the play and relax and i was sitting there i'm like i feel like i really need to focus because i need to figure out what this is about i was like wait this is not what i expected [Laughter] on that note all right we are um uh we're back from executive session uh and before we uh move on with our agenda this evening um i would like to ask for a moment of silence for the victims and and all of the tragedy that's going on in ukraine as well as all the families
002there as well as the families of our students that have uh relatives in russia as well our thoughts and prayers go out to all of them and we certainly hope for a peaceful resolution and so if we could have a moment of silence for all those folks thank you and word correspondence we do not have any great and we'll move into reports and presentations we'll start with the superintendent's company okay and welcome carly so i really it's really i don't know if i would have recognized you both if i hadn't actually seen you here with your name please in front of you so it's very nice to have you um so i did actually just want to speak a little bit about um how we have been addressing some of the questions you know that
003have arisen and concerns from our students regarding the war in ukraine so we've been dialoguing with families and students um regarding this and we're certainly appalled by the the geopolitical events that have been unfolding around us and we're also trying to pursue a balanced approach that's respectful of all of our families diverse backgrounds and their evolving needs as the crisis escalates and hopefully concludes more quickly than the experts think it will some of the activities that were that we have been doing and that um were have been proposed include a group counseling sessions with our sacs to help students process the impact the war is having on them and their extended families we've contacted families who have registered with us as um speaking uh ukrainian or russian at home uh so that we can see
004if there's any assistance that we're able to provide them uh at the suggestion of one of our families that has been impacted the co-curricular advisor and the old school council advisor have been communicated communicating with the ukrainian church in newark um and we have communicated the community service through the warrior weekly students have been donating non-perishable food clothing footwear blankets bedding first aid kits diapers and candles um and you might have even seen the bins located when you they're around the school marked with the ukrainian flag to drop off supplies and so we're coordinating with the church to bundle them to be able to send them out this week or next week we also have a senior student um that uh i think i believe has both ukrainian and russian family and he is putting
005some uh information together to share with us that we may share with our social studies teachers to share with their classes and we have been our social studies supervisor has been working with them on how to address this in the curriculum and then we're looking at a couple other potential service activities related to this and we're also meeting with the diversity council advisors to see if perhaps this is something that may be an appropriate topic for one of their march meetings and also um perhaps soliciting some other ideas from our relationship with the cane diversity council so those are some of the things we have been doing with regard to that on a more positive note i just want to remind everyone that our school musical mary poppins is this weekend so i encourage everyone
006to see it we have a tremendous group of students a tremendous staff that puts together the shows and there will be flying so it's going to be a great show and that's all i have right thank you question here so there may be some students from russian background i hope you know they are okay no people are not teaching them or that's what i had mentioned in my comments that were we're being very and our students are actually being very cognizant and aware of that as well because they realize it's impacting um students you know who have families from both countries so thank you dr chan great thank you dr jewett um and i just for my comments i just want to uh congratulate the uh the administration for getting our our building operational in
007our new environment um since last we meet we've gone to mask optional for our students and everything all the reports are that the students are certainly enjoyed coming back to school dr jewett said is the first time that she'd seen students so happy to be in school on a monday the first monday without the masks and additionally i think it's important to recognize that the students are also cognizant of the choices of other students those that for whatever reasons uh are choosing to um keep their masks on they're being respected we're not having any uh bullying issues or things of that nature so i think that it's been you know a successful transition back so i wanted to thank everyone for their support getting us to this point i want to thank the board for
008the past two years of helping to manage us through this process as well and also to remind our community that while we are thankful to be in this particular position and hopeful that it will maintain itself in this position we are monitoring the situation and we will continue to monitor the metrics that are available to us and if the our on unfortunate circumstances come back to uh the point where additional mitigation is required once again we are prepared to take those steps hopefully that will not be the case um but we just have to remind ourselves that we're not in control of this that the virus remains in charge and we will have to just respond to it accordingly but thankfully we're in a very good place right now and fingers crossed that we get
009to the end of the school year in this environment so that this senior class can enjoy all of the things that come with having a uh an in-person fully robust uh series of activities to celebrate uh their graduation so we certainly look forward to all of that for uh for them uh the last comment that i'm gonna make and it'll just be brief i do wanna you'll hear a little bit about this in the presentation from uh the operations committee and also from mr stize uh i do wanna congratulate mr bernberg and also the operations committee as well as mr size for their great work on pulling together this particular budget this year there's some very additional positive information from the last budget presentation that we did in our last session that is will be
010favorable to our taxpayers favorable to our community and underlines i think the the the very fiscally responsible way in which this administration manages this district uh we're fortunate to to have such capabilities in such a well-managed district uh and the fact that we're able to have as low a tax impact as we are this year and at the same time plan for a no tax impact referendum i think is a testament to the quality of the work that's being done by both the committee as well as mr sty's and his team so with that i'm going to turn it over to mr steize thank you mr president and uh just uh an update on transportation just so you folks are aware um we are kind of stabilizing the two from daily transportation with the help
011of wachonbarro uh they've had trouble with attendance and wachonboro has given us their person which has kind of filled in admirally so we really appreciate that they've been using our bus that's been great um the one negative or tough thing coming up is spring sports is going to be a challenge working with the athletic director he's done as much as he can in terms of creative scheduling to help which is very appreciated by my office and also uh some of the bus rides might be a little more snug for the kids but that's okay it's a good thing maybe camaraderie will work there so um yeah so it's it's it's going to be a challenge because that time of the day is the hardest period of time to find available bus drivers we put out
012a bid and that we it came in today and it was not favorable so in other words i had one bitter and the bid was not really valid uh so that that was for a coach bus and that i'm just really struggling to find any of these companies that are willing to do it during that time but we you know we mix and match and we do the best we can creative solutions by our athletic department um we'll get through it as best we can i'm just kind of letting you know in advance it's going to be a challenge spring is tough because you got big teams you got track you got lacrosse baseball softball volleyball i mean it's volleyball it's a lot so it's going to be a challenge we'll do the best we
013can great thank you mr sties and now we will go to our student representative comments and thankfully we get to see the faces of miss carly al gore and ms ryan fabio so report please yeah just checking this on uh there are 14 wachong hills regional high school model un students who participated in the philadelphia model united nations conference on february 25th through 27th and collectively won the outstanding delegation award in addition to the school award the following students won individual awards mohutu reddy won the honorable mention in the al jazeera newsroom devon suteria won best position paper in the 1952 egyptian revolution command council valeria kavtan won the best delegate in the world health organization jay galeski won best delegate in un environmental program sure that karthik honor provision in the un development program
014madeleine barrows best delegate and the un international children's fund ryan reyna most improved in u.n development program congratulations to michael giuliano a senior who has been chosen to receive the rochester institute of technology presidential scholarship the scholarship is rit's most prestigious merit-based award provided to a limited number of exceptional students michael has been named as a recipient by the rit scholarship selection committee based on a review of his superior academic record involvement in school and community and personal recommendations we're happy to share that two of our 11th graders emma emma learn and madison moran have advanced the finalist round for the 2022 and jay scholars program each new jersey public high school counseling and guidance department can nominate up to two 11th grade students ultimately only 39 students statewide were selected to attend the five-week
015summer program congratulations to the math team and coach five out of six math league competitions were ranked number one in somerset county and number two statewide also anton livonian a sophomore and benjamin liu a junior plays first and second respectively in the amtnj association of mathematics t-shirts of new jersey high school math contests on february 25th to 27th members of the neuroscience club participate in the brain b competition hosted by rutgers university congratulations to lila marchese for qualifying for the regional competition congratulations to animal batia for winning first place at newark new jersey regional brain b and maul will now move to the national competition being held in april congratulations to junior students angelina huang and isabella wong the app they created vax vault won second place for this year's new jersey 7 congressional app
016challenge vax vault is an ios app used to create and use to capture and store cover 19 vaccination information as well as vaccination statistics for the school community the congressional app challenge is an opportunity to recognize student engagement in stem by encouraging them to hone their coding and computer science skills the most prestigious prizes this is the most prestigious prize in computer science we are also pleased to share that ryan reyna a sophomore is a third place winner in the congressional app challenge for his app quick estimate which allows users to scan tag and catalog everyday household items and estimate the price katarina sicard a sophomore was in colorado springs from march 2nd to march 6th for the 2022 u.s synchronized skating championships katie and her team had best skate of the season and won
017the silver national medal in the novice division congratulations to sophomore lillian palmer palmer's painting was selected to be featured on the april may cover of the connection magazine the winter sports season has officially ended and the spring season is just beginning congratulations to our winter teams for enduring a very challenging season both on and off their playing field thank you to our buildings and grounds department our nurses our transportation coordinator for their support and care during this past season boys basketball who is 21 and 7 will celebrate their 20 plus wins for the season they won a state game before eventually losing to the state champion elizabeth at a buzzer beater congratulations to elijah lewis who scored his 1000 career points for girls basketball congratulations to bella murray for topping her a thousandth career point
018for bowling rachel rieger was our standout bowler this season setting two school records with a high game of 227 and a high series of 628. rachel was also nominated to represent waltrong hill hills as our 2022 national association of girls and women in sport athlete for swimming this team enjoyed a successful season as 13 swimmers advanced to the meet of champions held at gloucester county institute of technology wrestling after a challenging start to the season three warrior wrestlers advanced to the state tournament in atlantic city they were 16 and 11. under track jordan hartley finished 13th overall at the moc in the high jump event measuring 6 feet for fencing at state weapons final our women's ep team took third place women's foil team took 16th and men's saber finished in fourth place for ice
019hockey the team qualified for the state tournament for the first time since 2016 and the 2017 season they also received the eighth seed their second highest seed in the program's history please check the schedule on the school website to find out where and when to cheer on your favorite warrior team thank you for supporting our watchers hills regionals teams go warriors and thank you very much and seeing how we are about to move into the preliminary budget presentation uh you are welcome to uh uh leave if you have other things that you need to attend to this evening so i know it's a riveting presentation but you're welcome to uh i just wanted to add one point here yes you have a question for the students no question a comment this morning i read that
020robotic club stood second place in bridgewater companies yes that probably didn't make it into the student update um it'll probably be in the next one okay uh but yes they earned second place in the tournament in bridgewater which was fantastic how many teams were there and uh what does it mean i want to say there was about 40 teams i want to say 38 is the number that i um so they'll they're moving on their next um they have their next competition is montgomery and that's what will help them qualify for the tournament in lehigh which then helps them to qualify for the national tournament which is that texas this year i think it's on the board agenda tonight so yeah it's yeah it's in texas so they're doing great yeah their robot is really
021cool they're they're doing a really nice job this year and our math league i actually just got breaking news on that as well they the last test um of the last competition which is the test occurred and they are first in the county and second in the state the official results aren't in yet but that looks like what it's going to be for them so they had a great year excellent so lots of good stuff all right we will now move into the preliminary budget presentation uh dr jewett and mr sties thank you so much ryan and carly have a great night thank you for coming um thank you to the board to the public last meeting we had our preliminary budget presentation and today we're just going over the information we got the new
022information from the state that allowed us to finish the budget and then calculate the tax impact so it's only about eight or nine slides so it's not too long but thanks to the board and all of the committees the operations committee of course but also the personnel committee and education committee are integral in what we do because we we budget basically the whole year so that's what i always kind of very thankful to the board and their guidance because all year long we're working and planning on budgets that's the way it works and we need input from each of those committees because everything that we do in every one of these committees has a cost so it's it's very appreciated and very helpful so our state aid figures came in 2122 we were just shy
023of two million dollars this is categorical state aid and the calculation brought us 261 000 more and we if you remember our assumption was flat so that's a pleasant surprise to have 261 thousand dollars more i was trying to get too much uh look too much into how they calculate the different categories it'll drive you nuts because from time to time they'll tweak and change things so um i always felt that you know whatever works for them and fits into the numbers they want to give you it's like how it kind of works out there is a formula but it's not always crystal clear on how they do it but in any event we're up about uh 260 000 which is fantastic for us i'll take it um regardless of the state aid and that's
024the first thing you saw we we decided to take that extra state aid and use it to reduce the tax levy um mainly because we we know and we understand that the community is we're all facing very difficult inflation gas prices you've heard about all the time so something we all talked about we thought it was very important to at least show the message we're we're gonna do the best we can to help the community um we also when we were going through our um our student counts and our staffing we came up with a reduction of headcount of 1.4 positions and the 4.4 is actually two sections of a class so we're down about a hundred thousand dollars there and we added the state aid um we did have to revise the box truck
025we had it down for 50 but it's really quite expensive it's 90 thousand dollars we had to raise that and one thing that you don't see in the operating budget is the debt service aid and we our assumption was that was going to be flat and was a little bit more a little bit a couple thousand dollars more but i'm very thankful that we didn't lose any debt service aid that helps us uh that helps the taxpayer the cap calculation the change there is and this is kind of how it works the the cap is based on the tax levy which is part of our revenue it is not based on the the spending budget so uh we start out with about 32.7 million there's an allowable 2.2 budget edition and then you got something
026called bank cap and what bank cap is is if in years past if we didn't go up to the cap then you can take that amount that you didn't go up to the cap and bank it and use it later of course if you use that it does raise the tax levy beyond two percent but legally and without voter approval you can use those numbers so our total cap is 33 667 849 of which our tax levy we're using is there's a little bit over 33 million therefore we are under capped by 646 thousand dollars and that brings us to our total operating budget total numbers and the only changes here from last time obviously the state aid that has changed and the tax levy actually went down where i think we were at two
027percent last presentation now we're just a hair under one percent and our total operating budget and that's the spending part is uh almost flat it's about it's down less than one percent which is pretty good in this day and age to be honest with you and our operating expenditures budget um the change is there the salary and benefit line is down to 2.3 because we cut the positions of 1.4 positions and then overall we are at the 0.61 and how this works to residents so the tricky thing with us in terms of taxes we have to apportion or allocate those taxes to three constituent towns remember greenbrook as they send received so they pay tuition so the three towns warren wachong and long hail it's almost like a pie they split that pie in three
028different portions and it changes every year based on two factors the percentage of elementary kids versus high school kids and then the change in total valuation and the column to the far right shows you where it's going this particular year so warren's elementary numbers went up slightly that means their high school went down but their valuations went up and almost consistent with the other two so they're just a hair down where they were from last year watch young actually their elementary enrollment went down their percentage went down as the high school went up and their evaluation went up so they're up and long hill their elementary enrollment percentage went up meaning their so their high school percentage went down and the valuation went up higher than the other two so they get the benefit of
029a lower tax allocation and that's kind of how this formula works every year take in account the number of students that are coming to the high school versus elementary and then the valuations that the municipals do on their side so that that's why it'll change every single year when you see the tax impact you'll say how come that you're all not paying the same increase or decrease well it's because of these factors that change every year and that is a state formula they give us to they give that to us we don't calculate that they do so with that the tax impact uh and i'm gonna give it on two separate numbers because it can get confusing so i give you the average home value now those average home values are different from the prior
030year these all went up as a matter of fact i think warren went up about five percent watch on about four and a half and long hill went up about 10 so so those values so the so the bottom number the dollar increase for the average home so i'll take warren for example average home is 782 000. the dollar increase for and this is for the year for that average home is nine dollars okay that's average home to average home so last year's average home was different it was about um in fact i got the number here so the average home for warren for last year was 748 000. this year at 782. so that's why the tax increase when you look at that middle number dollar decrease per one hundred thousand thousand dollars of
031home value meaning if that if if the value of the home didn't change you would see a decrease for every one hundred thousand dollars of four dollars so that means the rate the actual rate is dropping okay but typically in a town when your values go up you'll see the rate drop like that that's not unusual um a lot of times that rate will usually the the evaluation will go up uh beyond that point of four dollars and ten cents so you might see an increase i just want to be very very clear on that because the home value it does have a an impact i won't say it has an impact on your taxes but that's how the formula is driven you multiply the tax rate times the home value so if your home
032value stays the same you're going to actually have a tax decrease at all three of these towns if your home value goes up it depends on you've got to do the whole calculation actually i have it online if you want to do it and keep in mind also this is just us you got kate aid schools you got the township and you got the county so average home in warren 782 000 dollar increase on the average home nine dollars watch young boro average home six seven sixty uh dollar increase for that average home for about forty four dollars and for long hill average home five sixty dollar increase on the average home sixteen dollars and you can see that middle column there that you can see decreases in every one of those cards that's per
033100 000 meaning the rate went down and that is it short and sweet so if there's any questions any questions for mr stice mr dr chand a question just clarification now you know when you have the cap two percent cap is there any correlation of the cap with the enrollment if the annulment goes up significantly enrollment goes down does the cap also change with that or cap and enrollment has no relationship no relationship okay other questions actually there's there is one piece if there is a waiver for an enrollment increase so the district can apply for a waiver if you have a significant increase not a decrease uh mr helen yeah tim i i just want to make the point towards the end of your presentation you did talk about the fact that it's the
034state that has the formula for the allocation among the towns but the beginning of your presentation you said then we allocate it to the towns and i just you know want the public to be clear that all that we do is set the tax levy beyond that all the all the calculations that tim has demonstrated for us here today are based on the state formula and not based on anything we as a district do you know we we normally we've got quite a bit of bank cap now but we normally go into the budget process not planning to use any of our bank caps we look at we can go up two percent in the tax levy this year we're going up just a hair under one percent and that's again trying to be fiscally
035conservative and that's the board working with the administration to try and make the best budget we can and still educate the kids yeah i've been here for 14 years we've gone over the two percent cap once and i still hear about it so any other questions all right seeing none thank you mr size thank you excellent presentation we will now move into committee reports and we have an operation committee report mr bernberg thank you mr president everyone has basically stolen my thunder uh but i'll just uh i just want to reiterate a few things um again it's just important to note and it's been mentioned thank you bless you and you can't mention enough but almost everything that we do is formula driven so again as peter had mentioned him everyone else mentioned the allocation
036is all formula driven they're all available online and you can see how it's calculated again one of the key things that we got when we got our state aid was the special ed increase just want to explain to the public what that is and what that means just to clarify we are in effect responsible for the first 40 000 of expense with respect to a special ed child anything above that we have the right to request from the state reimbursement and that's the number the state is not obligated even though the law seems to indicate that they're obligated to give us every dollar over the 40 000 they don't seem to have the money and they don't always give us every dollar uh so again mr stein's budgets accordingly and based on what he's seen
037and expect and received in the past and this year our preliminary budget had one number and then we saw that uh we got a couple hundred thousand dollars more than expected which uh again it's not the full amount that we requested but it was pretty close to that and it's certainly significant that certainly helps the budgeting process so as mentioned in our tax levy is about one percent increase and it's allocated among the three towns sometimes one pound may go up another time another town you know one year one town goes up one time goes down another year could be reversed again it's all formally driven based on the number of students and the value of the houses again one of the things that is helping us and this has been explained at the prior
038budget meetings is we have had a slight drop in enrollment and we've had some drop in staffing and again all the departments have been very cognizant and they work very closely with administration and making sure that we certainly have enough staffing because again job one is providing from the students but that we do it in a fiscally responsible way and that's and we as a board have seen that whether it's my committee the personnel committee education committee and certainly appreciative of all that and again so we've gone over the budget you know we're very satisfied with it we're happy with the one percent again as peter mentioned and this has been discussed before it's certainly not our goal to go to the full two percent especially with a slightly decreasing enrollment and just to address
039one other question with regard to decreasing enrollment it's not a linear so if if if the student enrollment dropped by three percent we would not have a linear savings of three percent because if we had a classroom that had 24 kids and even if we lost it was if the enrollment went down by four or three which would be 10 drop you'd still have to have a classroom so you would need to have you know it reduces by a step so to speak you know we do see those in certain classes but we don't see that everywhere so you know for me i look at like the last five or ten years and that's where we've seen the reduction in uh uh in teachers so that's all happening great any questions any questions all right
040seeing none this will be the first opportunity for public comment the first public comment period will be limited to agenda items for this meeting only second public comment period will be open to any topic all comments are limited to five minutes anyone making a public comment must state their first and last name and the town in which they reside i will reiterate the first opportunity for public comment is for agenda items only any public comment for agenda items we are going back to regular order so anything that is not an agenda item will have to wait for the second public comment we are operating under regular order which is a regular order i'm this is not a q a regular order regular order means the first opportunity for public comment is for agenda items second
041opportunity for public comment is for any other item that needs to be discussed so is there any one for and that wants to comment on an agenda item seeing none we'll move on to board discussion any items for board discussion i had d17 uh that's uh right hang on any items for board discussion not agenda items oh i see okay just board discussion and seeing none then we will move on to a discussion for addendum items uh dr chand yeah item number d70 so optimum light path 57 000 for 36 months and then say potential annual e-rate funding what is e-rate funding so you rate e-rate is a federal program we participate in we run the bids through an e-write consultant not i mean they don't do as much we we actually do most of
042the work and because we qualify for this program we get up to about 40 of that that product so we're going to two gig from optimum and we get a reimbursement of 21 000 so in a sense the cost of that service is the 57 minus the 21 000. i see yeah so it's a good it's a good program for us so our bandwidth is 2 gigabit per second yes but the price for 2 gigabit seconds seems to be very high because at my home i could get 5 or like 80 90 for one gigabit per month so i do not know whether we get a a bid from fios also yeah yeah it's fine it's this is a public bid for anybody it's hard because as you know the cable companies tend to have
043quite a monopoly on areas like they do no fios is here verizon and they have the opportunity to bid it they did not oh i see yeah so if they did that's fine but they did not i see but is this fifty seven thousand i mean it streams to be too much because for a residential purpose for one gigabit they charge you know less than hundred dollars a month yeah listen i can tell you this is a lot bigger than a residential uh but you are talking about two gigabit that's what i'm trying to say that you're only one connection two gigabit right yeah it's this is a large this is literally a 40 million dollar business if you want to look at it that way correct but they're bringing your fiber here all the
044way here or the correctional cable coming here or yeah you're getting into too many things that i'm not going to be able to answer in the wretch but i mean i think that's something we can explore in operations if you want okay but yeah uh any other discussion for uh addendum items seeing none we will move on to action items mr president i'd like to move resolutions a1 through a8 uh i'll move a1 through a9 [Laughter] uh any discussion on items a1 through a9 seeing non-roll call mr size ms brown yes mr barnberg dr chan yes mr fallon abstain a1 and a2 yes on the rest is lee yeah sober rasa mr morrison yes mr president i'd like to move resolutions c1 through c15 any discussion on the sea items seeing none roll call please
045mrs barone mr burnberg dr chan yes mr fallon yes lee yes yes rasa and mr mars yes mr president i'd like to move resolutions d1 through d27 any discussion seeing none roll call please miss verone mr burnberg dr chand yes mr fallon tim i'm going to abstain on d8 through d13 yes on the rest okay miss lee yes miss over yes rasa mr morrison yes excellent that brings us to our second opportunity for public comment which is open to any item the public wishes to speak on again when you come to the podium please provide your first name last name and the community in which you reside um i am danny curran he's ryan curran and she is norakran and we live in wacho and before i speak um i'm pretty sure you guys have
046two meetings one for business and then there's like this one which is like shorter and it has a public comment one can the public speaking come first please because like every minute that i like i stay here i'm i lose sleep and i just it affects my academic schedule for like tomorrow so i just like to address that please all right i'll start the coalition is excited to share yet another letter of endorsement from our community this time it's from a church in warren we are now going to read that letter that the reverend wrote to us dear wachong hills board of education growing up in a port city city in italy i was exposed early to the beautiful diversity offered by many traditions coming together to trade and share space resources and experiences upon
047coming to the us and becoming a minister and a christian denomination however it also exposed me to sad divisions in bickering about the role and value of each of our traditions that is why i am thrilled by the work of the muslim hindu and jewish coalition coming together to seek and expand recognized celebrations of faith goes beyond a simple recognition and respect of faith of others but it reflects who we should be as a country of immigrants honoring the holy days of our tradition is a way of fostering dialogue promoting mutual understanding towards unity of purpose as a community and the promotion of the rich tapestry that constitutes our shared identity please accept this letter as an endorsement of increasing our recognized celebrations so that every culture represented within our school district feels seen and
048valued no matter how long so and no longer have to feel excluded in their own community we will all be richer for the celebration with gratitude for your time and consideration sincerely the reverend dr roberta roberto voice thank you thank you other public comments it's been over one year when the coalition approached superintendent jewett and the board of education for no test no homework on eden diwali as a start until school holiday could be recognized and approved what should have taken a few days to approve with an executive decision from the superintendent to have no homework and no tests on these days instead took an arduous eight months however the community and the students have all along pleaded for equitable treatment and meaningful inclusion instead what happened was we had a survey done and it's
049quite interesting because tonight you talked about a budget that budget is provided by all the residents of the districts not only the ones that have kids that are coming to these schools your survey did not include those taxpayers and without them we wouldn't have this fantastic budget what what do you have to say to them we already have demographics there's no mystery there so to the coalition and we made this very clear it felt like a hashem which is why we boycotted it you know the numbers the numbers between the jewish muslim hindu population is quite comparable and in fact those demographics will be shifting in the next couple of years what will you say then inclusion and diversity is about protecting the minorities we know we are a minority so what are we doing
050over a year later because history will not look kindly upon this board because you are in the minority every meeting we come with one more endorsement and they're not from people that are within that minority community tonight we heard from the reverend of trinity church so proud to live in a district where inclusion and diversity matters but it doesn't seem to matter to this board because here we are a year later and kids will still be attending school on their holiday no tests and no homework is nice and we were willing to accept that a year ago because the time window was short but it's been over a year why have we not been able to accomplish this when it is part of your four strategic goals if this is a priority and it takes
051over a year i'm afraid to see how much everything else takes it's clearly not a priority and us coming to you every month students and community members it's shameful i'm sorry to say it is shameful this should have been accomplished the net net was one day one day to the calendar is that so hard is it really so hard and you don't have to be a member of this community to see the value and we saw that from reverend fosse's it's as if he read your strategic plan why we need inclusion and diversity and he doesn't have to my knowledge a kid in the district yet he sees the value i don't know board of ed i i i don't know what to say i feel like i've run out of words because you either
052have it in your heart that students are a priority and i'm sorry to see that we had to wait for the second public comment i feel that's disrespectful we've talked about kids having priority in school let them go first we let the the students that were here leave early why they have to wait i'm not i mean i can wait but they can't it's not fair to them if they are our priority but let's get back to the holidays what's it going to take you we have almost a thousand signatories to the petition you have your employees saying we support this you have national organizations you have community members churches what is it going to take and i would like to hear from you guys because we come every meeting and it's a one-way dialogue
053and boy i've been to other board meetings i went to paramus and there was a back and forth and you know what i heard the board members say you should be so proud of your kids for having the diligence diligence the the the resiliency to come and ask and stand here because it's daunting and they've been doing it for over a year so what's it gonna take because i'm a tax paper payer those thousand signatories have families that are taxpayers churches those reverends they represent communities who are taxpayers and they don't want to belong to a community that's known as not inclusive your inaction your intransigence reflects poorly on our community so what's it going to take i'd like to hear because we'll keep coming but we want to know what's what's the magic formula
054what's it going to take this is public comment not question and answer your reputation at stake too because what you've done or what you haven't done has alienated a large and growing community thank you any other public comments seeing none i will close the second opportunity for public comment but i do have something to add for months there's been a lot of factually incorrect statements that have been made in public comment about the topic of additional holidays some individuals going so far as to question this board's commitment to diversity equity and inclusion so tonight i'm going to use the prerogative of the president to set the record straight the entire conversation started not a year ago not several years ago it started on may of 2021 with an email dated may 3rd from mrs q
055tub to the board of education in her email she does not ask for additional holidays what she asks for is the following and i quote as you may or may not know many students and families in watchon hills district are celebrating the holiday of ramadan it is a month marked by daily fasting acts of charity and commitment to do good unto others it isn't it is in nine days that ramadan will conclude with the culmination of eid holiday it is a festive occasion for which many of our students at our school and teachers will be absent it is in the spirit of equity and inclusivity that i and many in the wachong hills community request the following for eid holidays that the two eid holidays be placed on all school calendars and that no events
056musicals sports etc field trips tests quizzes or homeworks be scheduled the day of the holiday no quizzes tests scheduled the day after unquote this was then followed two weeks later by a request to have eden diwali added to the calendar as actual holidays now during several presentations by mrs q tub and others it was mentioned how these holidays are celebrated by billions of people around the world and we understand that and peaked by this assertion the education committee was assigned the role of looking at this issue and the education committee recommended to the board that we should conduct a survey of the school community to determine how many wachong hills families observe these holidays recognizing that this may be a larger issue we wanted to conduct a more comprehensive survey so that we understood the
057various religious holidays that our community members celebrated that were not currently recognized by our calendar additionally we asked the community for feedback on what would be most helpful to them to ensure their students celebrate their holidays we engaged rutgers university to assist with the survey development to ensure there was no bias in the questioning and kept it simple and short to improve the chances of participation ms qtub and her group objected to this idea which was puzzling since she and her group claimed that the size of the population observing these holidays recognizing that that it would only make sense to want to understand how many in our community actually celebrate them they went further to state that they would boycott the survey certainly their prerogative fortunately we had an excellent response rate by survey standards
058that provided us with invaluable information in order to form the strategy for addressing holidays moving forward based on that survey feedback the administration developed the homework free zones for the religious holidays when school remains open to allow students to celebrate with their families the board is supportive of this policy because it allows any of our students regardless of their religious beliefs or cultural backgrounds to celebrate with their families without fear of missing out on something significant at school this is very much in keeping with our commitment to diversity equity and inclusion as part of our strategic plan this is the very thing mrs q tub requested in her first email quote in the security of equity and inclusivity we have recently heard from mrs qtub and her group that fairfax county virginia just added these
059holidays fairfax county virginia with 180 000 students speaking 200 languages demographically very different from where we are and one of the largest employers in virginia with 25 000 full-time employees i know a little bit about this because my wife used to be a teacher in fairfax county virginia miss q-tub also talked about paramus schools paramus just adopted this which it makes total sense and congratulations to them they have 700 families celebrate the holidays and questions and to change their calendar will ultimately have the school year end on june 27th there are not too many people in our community that would want school and graduation to go nearly to the end of june of course we could start earlier in august as an option but i'm not sure how the teachers union would react to that
060suggestion and you know what many of these communities did to determine what they wanted to do they surveyed their communities now wachong hills is nothing like fairfax county or paramus or edison all these communities are different what we have to take into account is in our wachong hills community's interest while also balancing the needs of everybody and just like businesses do not close for every celebrated religious holiday the same is true for all school districts across this country that's because during the periods schools are open there are 133 days with religious holidays that allow for pupil absences 133 days we cannot be closed for all of them which is why districts make judgments based on the needs and the religious and cultural makeup of each individual community lastly wachong hills is not a self-contained unified
061school district we're actually a collection of five school districts each has their own calendars their own priorities and when it comes to scheduling we try to be sensitive so that we're not interfering with breaks for the benefit of families as well as need to address coordinated transportation issues across our communities we do our very best to have our coordina our calendars aligned for the benefit of all of our families i and others on this board have asked mrs qtub and her group to reach out to the other districts to get their feedback on the request for extra holidays as well to date we have not received any information and it's unclear if there's actually been any conversations with our related districts which raises the question why all the attention at watchung hills board meetings and
062no effort to get the other schools in the home communities to be supportive of this effort if this truly is a community-wide effort then you need to engage with all of the communities now after we made it clear in january that our homework free zone policy was in place a speaker last month stated this this is a struggle for the right to celebrate my identity without punishment celebrate my identity without punishment really creating a homework free zone is punishment our policy makes someone struggle to celebrate their identity this is the very policy that the majority of the survey respondents asked for the very policy that mrs q tub had asked for quote in the spirit of equity and inclusivity we have not heard from others that our policy is punishment our policy is acknowledgment of
063the right to celebrate any individual's cultural or religious beliefs this is part of our commitment to embracing diversity equity and inclusion for every student this board has accepted this policy from this administration the calendar for the 2022-2023 school year has been adopted and the homework-free zones have been identified now to be clear this is not to say that at some point in time in the future these holidays could never be added they certainly can be a future board and administration may find a way to make the calendar work collaboration between the districts may uncover a solution that will work for everyone maybe schools will begin earlier august and allow the addition of not only eid and diwali but lunar new year and greek orthodox easter and other holidays that our community celebrates but that is
064for another day for now this policy is in place the calendar is set and it is unlikely that this current board will revisit this topic again now lastly it was stated that equity and diversity and inclusion doesn't matter to this board i strongly and vociferously object to that statement that is completely not true and is not supported by the facts as demonstrated by the investment that this district makes in addressing those issues any further commentary of that i would strongly suggest you make sure that you are using your choosing your words wisely when addressing the board based on making accusations on what they do and do not support that concludes my remarks i will move to other business microphones are we going to do the retreat did we have a date yet for that uh
065we do not have the good news is that i think all of the documents have been completed by the board members uh so we just need to work with gwen thornton on getting the date set okay oh for the this is on the board selfie value yes selfie value yeah yeah all right any other items no seeing none motion to adjourn thank you so are we doing i didn't realize that i guess whatever