##VIDEO ID:tb_HpyaV738## e e e e call to order meeting notice statement adequate notice of this meeting of the Berkeley Heights Board of Education was given as required by the open public meetings act as follows on Jan January 4th 2024 notice of the Board of Education meeting schedule was sent to the Star Ledger and The Courier News and was also provided to all schools PTO presidents the bhaa president and posted at the administration building a copy was also provided to the public library and filed with the municipal clerk please rise for the flag salute I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible and justice for all thank you Mr secretary can we have a roll call please M here here here adjourn to Executive session whereas the Berkeley Heights Board of Education seeks to adjourn to Executive session in full compliance with the open public meetings Act njsa 10 col 4-6 and whereas the open public meetings act provides that a public body May exclude the public from that portion of the meeting at which it discusses matters related to those identified below matters rendered confidential by federal law state law or Court law individual privacy collective bargaining agreements purchase or lease of real property if public interest could be adversely affected investment of public funds if public interest could be adversely affected tactics or techniques utilized in protecting Public Safety and property pending or anticipated litigation attorney client privilege Personnel employment matters affecting specific perspective or current employees be it resolved that the Burkley Heights Board of Education adjourns to Executive session to discuss matters related to legal and personnel and be it further resolved that the minutes of the discussion of any of these items will be disclosed to the public when matters have been determined and confidentiality is no no longer applicable may I have a motion to enter into executive session thank you Dr forer second please thank you Mrs Conor uh Voice vote okay and the time is 6:34 p.m. we will return to public session following executive session thank you yeah e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e uh may I have a motion to return to public session thank you Mr Heyman and a second thank you V huffnagel and a Voice vote okay the time is 8:08 p.m. please stand for the flag salute pledge Ali to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all first thing on our agenda is the report of our student representatives and we are very happy to welcome back Olivia and thank you so much and we're very pleased to welcome pppa Ry mackers as our new representative from my high school so if we could gather your report please good evening the 2024 to 2025 School Year is off to a great start for GL students the GL Community is excited for its new school spirit initiative that will promote class Unity through the sales of t-shirts and next week's spirit days some of the themes include pajama day as well as the annual country versus Country Club day in addition clubs and activities have started up again with interact National Art Honor Society and glissando holding interest meetings for the new school year GL students can expect many more interest meetings in the coming weeks for school organizations like the women and stem club and The Italian Club GL seniors have also been enjoying the beginning of their final year of high school before the school year began seniors participated in car painting and next Monday glhf seniors will hold the much anticipated senior Sunrise as a symbolic representation of the beginning of the new school year thank you hi everyone as Olivia just said the new school year has started so so has the sports atmosphere everyone inl who is a part of sports is excited for the new season to begin as seniors have graduated new leaders are coming into position um myself and annia ferk are captains of the tennis team and we're working on creating a more um team sports atmosphere with more Spirit tonight we had our senior night where we celebrated our seniors hard work over the past four years along with that field hockey Junior Captain Karen Morrison says her steam team is starting off strong with everyone working hard and communicating extremely well um on and off the field she says being a captain has been extremely rewarding there's also impressive athletes that are emerging early into the year with Tyler Weissman from Governor Livingston finishing first at 1631 in the St Dominic in Invitational at Lincoln Park New Jersey he was nominated as a candidate for New Jersey athlete of the week where voting has ended since yesterday um I've yet to see the results the girls varsity volley has a 3-1 record girls soccer with a 2-1 and the boys so far with a record of 01 04 sorry um and that's the sports so far thank you thank you um report of the Acting Superintendent all right thank you uh so the first item in the superintendent's report report for this evening is the presentation of our district goals for the 2425 school year um going back to the end of last school year and over the summer uh along with you know various members of the administrative team we began working on some of the concepts and some of the ideas that we were going to be focusing on as we moved into this school year um you know to try and improve various aspects of our programming um beginning with some individual meetings at the end of last school year and some collaborative group meetings over the course of the summer uh together with our administrative team we've developed five goals to present to you this evening um our first goal is a student achievement goal focused on the six through 12 grade level um and what we're looking to do in this goal is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the 6 through 12 math program to support the continued development of math programming um our uh curriculum committee had the opportunity to meet uh and hear a little bit about some of the details and some of the analysis that we've already begun to do as we've worked through this uh this specific goal here um some of the action items that we've already began working on that we'll be working on over the course of the school year um is going to be analyzing the sequences of courses uh in grades 6 through 12 for math programming to determine the best path um for all of our students in the area of mathematics um within that we're going to be conduct conducting research on uh the best practices and math instruction um that goes along with supporting um those uh those the various sequencing uh of course what we want to be able to do as well is make sure that we work together with our teaching staff members uh administrators uh on various levels and and analyze some of the data that we have available to us in order to try and make the best decision to support our students uh along with some of these changes are going to come revisions to curriculum uh that we're going to have to engage in over the course of the year um we're also be working to align departmental policies and and provide professional development for our staff members so that they're moving forward with uh with this plan as we uh as we move forward so along with establishing this multi-year action plan uh is what our one of our goals is going to be um one of the main tangible goals we're going to want to see for next school year is the implementation of math 8 uh for the for the 25 26 school year at Columbia M Middle School um also one of our measur success is going to be we expect to have an alignment uh of departmental expect ations for best instructional practices and Grading and then we want to identify what our Baseline student performance metric is going to be so this way as we move forward uh with the implementation of this plan we can give some specific database feedback about how we believe the plan is working uh along the lines of um student achievement goals we have a student achievement goal for the K through 5 level which also happens to be uh related to math uh we're going to look to work to address specific areas of the math curriculum that students did not perform as well in during analysis of student assessment scores um specifically the scores we're going to be taking a look at are the I ready and the njsla math scores um and we're going to be looking at some of the curriculum subgroup categories numbers and operations algebra and algebraic thinking measurement statistics and geometry to kind of determine where the areas of weakness are we've already begun to do some of this work and one of the things that was really really interesting to us across the board Dr forer cover your ears across the board in every one of our four elementary schools geometry uh we found to be by a fairly decent margin one of the um lower achieving measures in in RK through 5 math programming um and we began asking this is the way we arrived at this as one of our goals was we began by asking each other well why is that is it because of the sequence is it one of the last things we cover as we move through the year therefore if we move too slowly do we maybe not get to it so in order to try and address some of these issues and concerns um we're going to be engaging our staff and examining the the curriculum and scope of the sequence in order to make sure that our assessments are aligned to give us an accurate look at is this an actual issue or is it something in terms of uh process and timing um we also want to help to support teachers helping to help prove their familiarity with assessment format structure approach the vocabulary all of those different aspects then ultimately by focusing on two specific areas I mentioned geometry but the other um if you if you tiered the four areas that we were looking at right there along with measurement and statistics and then geometry uh really trying complet an analysis on those two areas of focus and see if we can get a good understanding for why those two areas consistently score lower than the others um we want to work on making sure that we of course support our teachers through the implementation of this goal and and and create the professional development opportunities to support their uh portion of this action plan um and then really look at specific things that will help us address what we identified as possible areas of weakness um consider particular uh potential curricular changes uh possibly adjust timelines and and maybe modify our approach instructional approach in specific subject areas our third goal is going to be our continuing work with our Dei metrics uh as you heard in our presentation at the end of last school year when we gave the update on District goals uh really the first phase of what we've began working on was the identifi the identification of certain areas of Dei metrics depending on levels um and really what we're going to be looking to do over the course of this year um is have building principles engage in the next phase of what that Dei plan is G uh planning is going to be um by implementing and monitoring some of the items that we identified um that we outlined last spring uh in particular on the cadth 2 level um inter gender in relation to intervention and and specifically speaking here one of the um observations that have been made on the K through2 level is that female students have not responded as well to intervention in the area of mathematics and why is it what is it about the way we approach intervention at the K through2 level that perhaps we're seeing that when we get to um Advanced levels timer in high school that is not a trend that we see so really trying to dive into what is going on with particular interventions at that grade level um and seeing what are some of the solutions we can identify um to help reverse that Trend uh in grades three through eight School engagement uh is going to be the focus so you know we're going to Target identified uh groups of student populations with really the idea is to try and see that we can get all members of our our school Community engaged in school activities um make sure that we have offerings that support that interest in engaging engagement across the board and then at the 9 through 12 level uh as we said we know we've we've identified certain gaps in areas of advanced programming whether it be honors or AP cours work and then I you know working to move through what some of our next phases are going to be um so in other words getting down into the middle school level maybe see about tracking maybe see um you know what are some of the experiences students that may be transfer to our school District have that might be different than from students that have been tracked through our school district all the way along and and how can we make sure that we have proper access for all students in advanced coursework then by the end of the year we're going to want to have our completed action plans um we're going to have the evaluation of the extent of the success of some of the interventions that have occurred and then identify what our next steps are going to be in terms of this continued action plan like last year we're going to have we have a communication goal uh as well this year um and and again we're looking to engage the community in more robust forms of communication um you know we talked about website enhancements social media platforms uh district and school-based Communications that are focused on transparency and relationship building um one of the real important ones that that that I felt that um we have a need in as a district is trying to get stakeholder information to help guide planning and to help guide decision-making uh so instead of asking for feedback from a reactionary standpoint uh I use the budget as an example we shared a budget survey uh last year you know once the budget had been presented and and shared which gave us some really interesting feedback and feedback that I think helped us make decisions as we completed our budget and finalized it um how valuable would that information be if we got some of that information in advance of creating the budget as we built the budget making sure that we build a budget that um you know takes the priorities of teachers and our community members um you know into consideration and really I think there's opportunities to do that uh across the board on a lot of levels some of the examples we share for example we talked about Transportation a lot at the end of last school year what kind of information and feedback can we get from our families about Transportation uh we're talking about trying to identify certain ideas for a referendum what are their priorities what are things that our community wants to see in our schools as we work to develop a referendum and then you know we we're always having conversations about School climate what does what does our community feel about the school climate what do our students feel about school climate what does our staff feel in regards to school climate and and you know making sure we get some of that information so that we can um you know utilize that in advance will be helpful for us and then we are also uh working to transition away from school messenger utilizing thrillshare to really try and make some more efficient uh communication uh with our with our uh parents and community members so our measurement of success will be that we will have successfully created and established these surveys um and we'll have you know this this not not only have the information available for us this year but hopefully uh learn evaluate and then make modifications as we move forward so hopefully we can standardize an annual timeline where we can have expectations of getting specific feedback year in and year out um I think that'd have a lot of value for us um and then we'll also have completed uh the the transition from school Messenger to thrillshare um and have trained all of our staff that need to utilize uh that resource and then finally uh our last goal is is our curriculum goal um where we're looking to review and modify the curriculum writing process you know we we talked about this at a couple different meetings you know curriculum writing has been taking place through the duration of my time in the district but even prior to that as something that happens during the school day whether uh you know at at the high school level for example during a professional period at the elementary level through committee meetings um trying to find ways where we can uh support more effective curriculum writing outside of the school day um and really work on streamlining the responsibilities that you know belong to the teacher the supervisor and the directors uh as as we move through some of those things uh so we'll be researching and identifying the best practices for curriculum writing um we're going to make sure that we are working directly together with the BHA to make sure that you know we we have a unified plan and interest moving forward um we're going to be you know reviewing and revising our five-year curriculum plans you see that it's on our agenda this evening um one of the things that is going to be a component of trying to do curriculum writing a different way is that there will be a budgetary component to it as well so a big part of the analysis that we're going to have to move through is determine what will be the cost to the district uh in in order to to change this plan and is that something that we think um that that that we can do we're hopeful that that's going to be the case um and then ultimately communicate out these different processes and and and plans to all the different staff members that will be involved um make sure that we understand you know where where the curriculum committee is involved in the process here as well and then you know differentiate the process uh the process difference between compliance updates new writing and what are revisions and and what are what will be our procedures for doing that then ultimately uh our measurements of success will be an updated curriculum writing procedures uh that is consistent across the entire District uh standard operating procedure uh for SEL Ing and assigning staff to curriculum writing and then uh the completed revision of the 5-year plan as well with that do we have any questions from the Board of Education regarding the fiveyear I'm sorry our uh our district goals Mr Ziri thank you Mr Nixon um I just have I think two or three questions maybe so the first one was on the surveys um especially the budget survey uh it was great to receive a budget survey for the first time this year and I think one of the suggestion made was um the budget is basically for the entire Community not and I think the survey was sent just to the parents of students who are enrolled in the district so we were I was hoping that the finance and Facilities committee and the administration will make an Outreach to to survey the community so maybe put this questionnaire at the seniors Center like you know circulated through the local newspaper so people who do have a computer who don't have a computer I think it was a Google survey also there were some um like how are we ensuring that people are not answering the survey dual like you know double like is it like with a students parent you knew that it was just one person so I thought the response was these are great ideas and U we will incorporate them so the bu buet process is just starting so the budget cycle I mean for next year so what are your plans on making sure that a budget survey goes to the entire Community oh we don't necessarily have the plan yet but these are all things that we will be discussing as part of our plan I think our plan is to begin starting to get you know we're starting to develop some of the questions and starting to get some of the feedback um I think we're hopeful that we can at some point maybe in the very early part of October be able to have a survey that's ready to go and a plan for how to reach as many people as appropriately as possible it doesn't so I think I know the cycle is basically the first the building principles and the supervisors give you their asks and then so sometime in the fall I'm I'm I'm I'm not even sure that that's first you know I think these are all pieces of feedback we're going to want to get and consider um you know and I think what's going to be important is making sure any feedback that we get we're able to get it into the hands of our you know various administrators who you know contribute to the budget and make sure that they are able to you know understand what the feedback is prior to them you know making some of the asks in the suggestions it doesn't to me it doesn't make sense to ask them you know to submit something and only to come back with okay well it doesn't necessarily align with what we're hearing you know we want to make sure they have that data so they can make informed decisions as well yeah just uh you know mainly I would I would like to know maybe later on on how are we ensuring it's not double entered or you know we have some sort of a checks and balance is on this is coming from this particular like a ask J how to do that at some point yeah yeah the other um the other question was we've done a whole bunch of surveys like on Dei School climate um and I know one of our goal is communication so if anybody if any parent like me as a parent I want to go and look at these survey results are they easily available on our district website I don't know that they're easily available on our website right now okay so is there like if communication and making this available to community and this is all for the betterment of the students are you making any plans to make it easily available it'll definitely be something we discuss yeah thank you Jordan I thought I saw you had to hand up yes I'm sorry Mrs Bradford I'm supposed to let you do that all good uh thanks Rob um great present great presentation I'm wondering on go three um the Dei specifically the 9 to 12 academic plans can you maybe just double click there a little bit um as to like the maybe the the timeline of it and and like how big of an impact we think we're having here and and if that's an impossible answer that's totally fine but just curious because it I love it I think it's great to try to to try to let's let's figure out like the different paths and and who uh how many students we can put on a on a track I'm I'm just curious like are how realistic we're thinking and and is this like year one of a of a multi-year sort of thing absolutely year one of a multi-year thing I I I think the easiest thing to do you when you get access to some data and look at some data is see what the data tells you and one of the two things that we saw was that you know our our Black and Hispanic population represents about 10% of our student population but it only represented between four and 5% of our honors and AP students why is that what's the why and once we determine the why how can we support change or or or access um you know and so really working on trying to determine you know once you see the data that's the easy part figuring out the why and and and I think it has to go back many years because oftentimes when you talk about access to an honors or AP course sometimes that has to do with tracking you know what grade level do they get involved with certain advanced classes um and then and then what are the areas and the opportunities for growth through those advanced classes what what are we communicating about what some of the data tells us you know one of the things we talk about often is is AP potential it's only one tool but it's it's a very interesting tool because when you uh you know when students take the PSAT and we look at uh AP potential students that are identified as having AP potential in a given course we find they pass the AP test at a 97% rate that's not insignificant you know so so um when when we take a look at that type of data is it that students aren't being encouraged to take those courses um or is the data telling us that now they're certain students are aren't actually showing you know the aptitude to be prepared for those and and if that's the case that's potentially a different solution so so there's there's a lot of there's a lot of layers to unpack and and a lot of lot of um lot of things we're going to have to dive into to take a look at that so it's a good question it's it's complicated complicated answer yeah um and it's going to take some time and hopefully you know some of that feedback is going to be what we what we uncover it almost feels like like an always on to a degree because you can you can come up with ideas but it feel feels like you sort of need your eyes are always open for opportunities here and it seems like a a great you know forever goal to a degree right yeah totally agree Mrs Conor thank you for the presentation um I have a question on goal number one um if you don't mind which page you want to be on uh the measurements of success for goal number one m so we say it's implementation of math 8 at CMS for the next school year basically yeah so my understanding is that the way it works today is there there are two paths right uh path number one is you go to sixth grade math 7eventh grade math and then I think you go and do algebra one or you could come in through the accelerated path you would do pre-algebra Algebra 1 GE geometry that's sort of these are kind of the two swim Lanes if you will of of what students can do can you talk more about where does math8 fit into this or is there a third pathway now for students with the implementation of math 8 sure uh to answer the last thing you said this ends up being a third pathway one of the things we're trying to do and I'm I'm actually glad you ask that question because I I I want to make sure that this clarification is clear we're not looking to slow students down hold students back or or remove opportunities from students we want to make sure we still have Pathways available that will support the students that can very effectively get through geometry in eth grade and have success beyond that uh students that can get through algebra one in eth grade and have success with that um but the students that we found that aren't having as much success with you know uh Algebra 1 and eth grade but perhaps even the bigger issue is the students that don't have as much success or limited success in Algebra 1 as grade how does that impact their success in nth grade 10th grade and 11th grade and that's that's really where our biggest concern came into play when you take a look at you know the different levels of math that you could have in middle school math six Math seven math eight pre-algebra Algebra 1 geometry uh for for a student that is taking geometry that's essentially six different you know uh levels of math that that get compressed into three years some students handle it and handle it very well and have a great deal of success we began asking ourselves what students aren't you know absorbing it as well what students are maybe just getting by you know when you take a look at somebody that maybe demonstrates proficiency would they have been capable of getting a much higher level of proficiency perhaps and then having a greater level of success in math moving forward um so so we we we're not so to kind of su we're not looking to remove opportunities for students what we want to do is have the students in the right space so those that can still handle geometry um will have that opportunity uh the ones that you know can can find success in Algebra 1 we're going to make sure they have that opportunity too we're looking for math 8th to math 8 to be that additional pathway hopefully allow students to explore a greater depth of Concepts Through Math in their middle school one of the other things we're going to be looking to do as well is is trying to increase teacher contact time at the middle school level which we think is going to be very important uh when you take a look at our current parent schedule and the number of minutes that students have with their math teacher um we want to try and find ways to increase the amount of time that they have the two two follow-ups to that um once somebody goes down the path of math 8 peris say they will get that course in eth grade does that mean they come into the high school and then they get the opportunity to do Algebra 1 or geometry is that like you would have another pathway for them in ninth grade compared to what we have today is it work if you take if you take math 8 in eth grade um Algebra 1 would be your freshman your course then geometry then Algebra 2 um if students if students are thriving and excelling there's you know we talked about Pathways for students to advance then as well um very similar you'll see students sometimes in high school will double up on Sciences there'll be opportunities to perhaps double up on math um you know there's you know you see students oftentimes as well will sometimes take a um a summer course for advancement in math as well um but it it it should be about you know there's a couple components here you want students to reach the level they're capable of but you want to make sure that they're appropriately learning what you plan for them to learn while they get there got it so as this gets implemented in Middle School um are we going to revisit the idea of the drop schedule or are we going to revisit the idea of um study hall and EP and sort of replace those blocks with more math classes or like more touch points for these students to get with a math teacher for them to kind of have the opportunity and as you said double up in the high school the question that comes to mind is if you find that students are actually uh doing better in middle school would they then also double up so to speak in some way in Middle school to you know go down the accelerated path they didn't say they didn't come in to pre-algebra they came into sixth grade math but you know with some intervention of their own or with you know what the school might do would they be able to sort of move from the the sixth grade math to kind of the geometry pathway which is doesn't exist today as far as I can tell yeah so you talked about a couple different things there the last portion there um we haven't gotten into accelerating on the Middle School level yet um it's a discussion we can certainly have um I think far less traditional or far less um uh common to see acceleration on the Middle School level I think one of the earliest times we tend to see acceleration sometimes is when a student completes eighth grade the summer between 8th grade and freshman year we often see that students want to try and take a course for advancement there so they can get on a different track for freshman year that is probably the best option but you know we can certainly talk about those things um and then the other compon component you asked was about the specific schedule at the middle I mean it's the same question I asked I recent over the course of the summer had several opportunities to talk with you know Mr Kisa and and Dr Curtis and and these are some of the the essential questions we're asking now too what's on the table do we have the right current schedule should we be thinking about a different schedule if this is the right schedule well then how can we possibly find more minutes in in the schedule to uh to support our students thank you you're welcome Mrs huegel you hear me yeah to to that end with the that being basically three paths um can you tell me right now and I don't expect you to have exact numbers but the majority of the students take Algebra 1 in eth grade currently yes right and then there's a small cohort of that that takes it in the seventh grade with the Third option which of the three options do you think will have the most you know the majority of the students you think it'll be the students taking grade8 math and algebra one and nth grade or do you think it'll still be algebra one and eth grade I think what we would see is the majority of students in in math 8 what we what we what we're talking about is similar to we have the identification process coming out of fifth grade that puts the students into the advanc track in sixth grade that that pre-algebra track right there having a similar assessment at the end of the sixth grade year to see do they get then you know who can handle that next track for seventh grade so um you know we we we wondered with until you see the data we we don't want to we're not going to say that we are saying this is our hard stop number here and this is a hard stop number here and this what we want we want the students who are uh appropriately placed in that level to be in that level so um so we're not sure we're not sure could it be could it be something we currently see typically about 20 to 25 students in that advanced section so in other words geometry at 8th grade um you know which leaves you know if you have a class of 180 students it's maybe another 150 to 160 um you know that are in our algebra one level right now could we expect to see one or maybe two sections of Algebra 1 you know so maybe another 50 students are there and then maybe another 100 students we don't know it's we're going to we're going to look and see what the data tells us and then and then um again we want students to be where supposed to be thank you Mrs Ziri just a follow up on um the goals um will we be getting quarterly updates or midyear updates on these schools and um when you mentioned Middle School we looking at you know the sequencing and the rotate and do schedule so I've been hearing about changes being made to the schedule since since for the last 2 years this is the third year and um the reasoning being given to us and I'm coming from a special ed perspective um especially when after the schools reopened after pre pandemic I was asking are we going to put more rigor on U the core subjects like English math science because we dropped them on one day and I was told it doesn't happen so easily in a public school system it takes couple of years this is the third year and I was I'm happy to see that you might be implementing math 8 and there is a sequencing element to it so when will we know or when will the community community know for a fact that there that we are adding let's say 20 more minutes to math in grade 6 to 8 will it be January will it be February or and are we are definitively making a change to the sequence and the rotate and drop schedule know what I don't mean to say I don't know casually I mean like it's it's it's I'm hesitant to give you an exact date because it's something that we're going to be working on and something that we'll we'll share once once we're there obviously we have to do it in enough time in order to um make sure that we communicate it out appropriately um we have to take in in mind you know when we need to have decisions made to support scheduling um there's there's going to be components if you make if you make a change to your master schedule well you have to consider the teacher contract as well I mean there there's a lot of different components that have to go into this so it certainly can't be rushed I mean that's why in some ways some people were like it's going to take us two years to do this and I said well I really want us to push to do it for one year so can can I say when we're going to I I I don't know that I can say but will we should we be able to give updates as to what our progress is and where we are over the course of the Year sure so I I'm sorry I didn't mean to put you on a spot but I have been hearing this change to rotate and drop schedule for the last two years and this is a third year so I didn't necessarily say we were going to change that schedule I I said you know keeping that schedule could be one thing that's on the table but we might try and identify away to put more time in so I just want to be clear we're not necessarily saying that we're we're going to work on taking a look at it yeah and some of our neighboring districts don't have the study hall in middle school so maybe that's where your addition extra we've done a lot of work we've done a lot of work and looked at what a lot of other districts do we know the amount of student contact time uh that that you know that some other districts have we know what some of the sequencing uh that are using and we're using all of that data to compare with ourselves and and try and inform some of the decisions that we're making moving forward okay thank you thanks Mrs Stanley so I just wanted to comment on the study hall I know um the middle school has been working really hard to uh change out and and remove students from study hall unless it was actually needed but I think right it was mostly based on electives and how people right change schedules um I do think that this this goal number one is aggressive um and I I think it's uh yeah it's exciting it's exciting to see is this part of uh the multi-year plan that we have with Mrs ctis yes okay absolutely and so and then when we're looking at this I think that most parents understand that Foundation of math is extremely important so I think that most people will be on board with in these classes to Middle School to make sure that we get that Foundation I think where the concern starts to come in is can they then achieve those Higher Goals right like once they get that foundation in eighth grade then how do they move in ninth grade to get to an AP Calculus class right because that's what everyone's concerned right can they ever get there and so I'm really excited to see that we're we're moving towards this so we can help our students in Middle School um but then I want to make sure that we really do find a way to to change that in um the high school can can I can I respond to that just a little bit Yeah because I I think yes what you're saying is exactly right and I think I think an important part of any initiative is is communicating out why and and and and the reason why you think this is successful you know we hear often times uh comparisons to other districts and you know how do other people do things this you know and and one of the things we've done when we took a look through this is we've looked at how a lot of other places do things places that achieve higher than us places that don't achieve as high as us and and we we're trying to find you know what are some of those things that contribute to success and and really when it comes to math we believe a a stronger foundation for math is is one of the things we're seeing and That's essential um when we talk about you know when you often hear some of the common comparative districts that we look at that that you know you know where our our student achievement is compared to we take a look at those districts and every single one of those ones that we're looking at they all have a a path that the majority of their students are in math 8 um and and you know I I I think you know we we know why we got where we are and and now I think we did our due diligence we we collected a lot of data and you know we we we even have charts that we shared um where we took a look at you know how do those students in those comparative districts okay so what the ones that have math 8 how do they do in algebra one in nth grade how do they do and then what do their AP scores look like too how many of their students get to the AP level and and we find that in in districts that offer this pathway that have a great deal of success there's no drop off in the number of students that you know are able to make it to the AP level the path way that it takes you to get there might be a little bit different um but but this is not something that we developed in theory this is something that we developed with an awful lot of research and uh and a great depth of analysis of what those numbers told us yeah no and I I think right like when you're looking at these middle schoolers right like some of them are really on the young side right of the when of the school year math 8 might be perfect for them it doesn't mean that they are not good at math it just means that they're right educationally needed that extra time so I I think that most parents see that and like that I want to see how we can show parents there is a path right there is a path so my question is is do we currently offer a summer course for a child that would want to uh accelerate over the summer between 8th and 9th take it elsewhere yeah there's there's several local um I say some local semilocal I guess maybe it's a better term uh where where some where summer courses are offered but what they do is once they take that summer course um they they at the end of the summer they come back and they take an assessment with us in order to determine you know advancement and placement Perfect all right um my next question was on the uh surveys so I know you brought up um thrillshare can you tell me a little bit more about why we would want to move away from school messenger and use the thrillshare yeah Jeremy could say it much better than I could but um thrillshare is um the service that our website is through and in terms of how hey it's it's a lot more user friendly um it it it allows for uh for for better Communications but also Jeremy if I'm not mistaken it also does more to um interfaces with power school more effectively so we have more accurate data in our so it pulls from Power School more effectively so when we say we need to email all seventh grade parents quickly they can do so and it allows for greater use of accessing different user groups right so if I need seventh grade history students or something like that it's easier to pull is that am I understanding correctly I don't know about that specifically yeah I just want to make sure people online can hear what we're saying not not quite to that degree okay um like we we can create the list um however like we want to um but there is some setup involved in that and so uh right now now it's like each grade level we have we can Target the parents in a specific grade level or um all parents at a specific School much easier to create those lists to share them um with the PTO for example so that they can uh use those lists as well and it's also just included in what we um uh like we use thr throw share for the website so it's included with that great so it reduces the need to like purchase something else great thank you Mrs Dolly um explain what you mean more by the directory that that we used to have that's usually the yeah usually the PTO runs those there was a time when we'd get a PDF from the p I haven't seen that in many years so I know what you mean and every time we do like the the start of the Year sign up and you do a little check box that says yes I want to put my name in the directory every time you say yes I assume that I'll get something back but I don't think we get anything back so usefuls and I think and I think I would say that's definitely something we can bring up with our pto's at our next at our next meeting see I I do have a followup on the thrill will share and um this goes back to when you have a student in three different schools in the district you usually get an email from Principal one principal 2 principal 3 and you will also get an email from the superintendent uh some of it is the same some of it is unique to the schools I don't know if we've figured out a way for parents to get some of this information in a more Consolidated manner so I don't have to look for school number one school number two School number three or four depending on how many you have in the district and make it just easier for parents um I mean one of the one of the things that parents like to do sometimes is just search somebody tells you there was an email about X and you you just don't know where to go and search for it because there's probably four different emails uh and the school messenger was not a very friendly format in terms of searching things so I don't know if thrill share makes it easier for parents to search and just consolidate it you know in a manageable form sorry okay good um let me just in my interrupt I'd like to address our student representatives to you may leave if you would like to leave or you are welcome to stay um we do have like a couple of comments actually oh so um when I was in ninth grade I did double up on the maths if anybody has any questions about that um and I was able to still take physics then my sophomore year and now I'm in physics C my senior year so you can still kind of take a different Pathway to end up getting to the same place so I'm happy to answer any questions about taking geometry and algebra at the same time and then as for the summer programs I do know some of my friends and peers who have taken them and it can be a little bit in congruous with the GL programs as well so I know that it's a little bit more difficult to try to take that so yeah and I just thought like the math8 like kind of path was a little bit interesting um because kind of in elementary school I feel like we really started with learning there was visual learning or there was like the mathematical learning and I feel like I heard about that kind of being a topic of discussion and I feel like as you get older like maybe yes you need less guidance but I feel like that kind of was lost a little bit and I was in Algebra 1 in eth grade and I've never considered myself pretty bad at math at all but I thought it was a good path for me to be on and I did not take pre-algebra and I'm still taking a bunch of different AP classes now and there's like a bunch of different availability and I feel like it could be a good option for students to show that like because for me I remember being very upset I did not get into prealgebra um like super upset and I didn't really understand that kind of in the long run it wouldn't matter matter as much so I feel like I know you're talking a bit about communication that that might kind of matter because also with the pre-algebra test it's supposed to be like testing your ability on how well you can adapt to certain things based off what you've learned already and that adaptation is lost because if people know about it if you study for it it's not like the same thing in my opinion um so I feel like maybe there could be other ways of testing that or you mentioned briefly where you said something about retesting like seeing where their path might go later on I feel like that could also be important to do like checkpoints to just make sure that people are learning properly and not like getting lost and just trying to push ahead to the next math class because sometimes I even find myself forgetting basic algebra one things and it's like not a good thing but I think that's what we want to say no and there's definitely a lot of pressure on fifth graders I know when my daughter was in fifth grade I think she came home crying the night before the test cuz she was like what if I don't get in I'm like that's probably good then because then you can actually learn what you need to know so but it it was a lot of pressure right because he was like all the other kids are going to get in and I'm not so I do think right having these other paths and making sure people and parents know this is good right this is a good thing for your kid and that we have other ways to make sure they still can continue their their education sorry dip we kind of went off your question but thank you ladies I really appreciate you chiming in on this Dr forer yeah I have a couple comments uh on the survey uh of course when the board on survey on the budget when the board deals with the budget we Face a a problem of allocating resources under a constraint we have a budget constraint so I'd like if the survey could reflect that you know you can't just ask for the world you can you can ask for things what would you like to have you know but it should be that maybe we we assign like ,000 to the to the respondent and you say how would you allocate your $1 thousand among these items so we get a little bit of a uh you know what sort of priority does the respondent assign to a particular item and it's a little more realistic because that's what we have to do uh the other thing is geomet R my favorite subject really in high school and that's probably why I went into math because I liked it um what I've always been disappointed though is what's happened to the subject uh we no longer seem to emphasize doing proofs especially proofs with the syn uh synthetic geometry where you work with a set of axioms um geometry used to be a 10th grade subject that's when I took it the kids were older is probably more brain development maybe they could handle more difficult groups it might be that we should be looking at uh putting geometry after algebra 2 I don't think it has to come uh between Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 and maybe students be a little loer may get we could introduce more synthetic geometry more difficult proofs um that's all than uh Mrs Dolly yeah just a quick comment um I I think Dr ctis has all that data in terms of you know all the different um especially from the different districts because some do do it as as you describe um you know they do it after in the middle um and all the different Pathways so I think she shared that data with us so I think they're you guys are on it right yeah oh and one other thing um yes you have all this data from other districts and I'm wondering if you have some sort of quantitative model you know can you tell me you know how a little more time on this subject in this grade helps me later on uh in terms of test scores I mean it would be more of a statistical analysis do you do that sort of thing or is that available we don't have that yet and I know that's something that you emailed me about that we talked about we don't have that now interesting to see though yeah you may have to work with you know form like a Consortium of districts that are interested in the same thing perhaps yeah right okay thank you Mr n is there anything else to add to your super Acting Superintendent report just a couple things I got to get back to home based though got thank you okay just uh just two other things wanted to give a a quick Transportation update I know uh we mentioned it before it's it's a topic that we we talked a lot about at the end of the school year last year uh we know we've uh transitioned transitioned our transportation coordinators um over the course of the past couple weeks um and and and generally speaking um the report that I'm hearing is that um you know things things are going well uh we have a you know a couple routes that there were some questions or or we need to make some adjustments to based upon the timing of some drop offs um we we took the opportunity to to meet with an prenovost um you know M Mr Phillips and Mr jtz and I we we've had an opportunity to kind of brainstorm you know what what are some of the ways we might be able to you know help support some of these uh some of these changes that we need to make I know today was day one of implementing a couple of the the changes that might help to improve some of the routes a little bit um so in general the the feedback that she has given me is that um you know we continue to progress we continue to try and problem solve and work through problems uh you know the routes at this time are accommodating um all of the students that did request subscription busing um and that's where we are right now in terms of Transportation uh and then finally uh I know the board got a chance to meet him in public s um sorry an executive session before um but I just wanted to say that we're excited uh we have a candidate on our agenda this evening uh to be our new director of Athletics and supervisor of health and physical education for grades 6 through 12 um he's with us this evening and uh just want to welcome uh CJ Hendricks for being with us um and you know we look forward to uh hopefully having good luck later on in the meeting that's my uh that's my report can I can I ask a quick question sure um Mr Nixon I know we've asked I think we've been going through the like driver shortage uh I just want to understand and if you can clarify or you can get back to me are we fully staffed in terms of having drivers for all our routes yes and um did we get one new bus or two new buses last year one right um and we might be getting an electric one correct I think we're we're talking we're exploring the opportunity of two electric buses okay but as of now we got one new bus this year and we are fully staffed correct to handle the amount of students that have signed up for subscription and mandated busing correct um I think one of the things we spoke about is now trying to increase um or even develop a pool of substitute drivers for when needed so that's the next portion that we're looking for you know thank you thank you thank you Mr Nixon we're moving on to committee and liaison reports first I'll give the president's update on board goals board goals are established uh at the time of the reorganization meeting in the beginning of the year we're goal number one the Board of Education will improve planning and the committee structure we continue to refine this and to standardize committee minutes number two the Board of Education will work to improve communication internally externally the board is continuing to Pilot and remote participation at tonight's Bo meeting with Visual and audio participation uh the Board of Education will evaluate the CSA in a timely matter that has been completed the Board of Education will promote all district goals by providing the support and resources necessary to achieve the goals the district goals were just presented at tonight's meeting and the Board of Education will develop and Implement a plan for continuous board development with ongoing board training the Berkeley Heights Board of Education members will be attending the New Jersey Schoolboard association annual Workshop conference uh the third week of October in terms of committee reports I have a notes on the Veterans Affairs committee liaison the Veterans Affairs committee liaison is actually meeting tonight to discuss the Veterans Day ceremony the committee has requested the possibility of one to two students attending the ceremony at Memorial Field on Monday November 11th in the morning and I'll be talking with the Acting Superintendent about that and also the veterans committee will be asking local veterans about reading books in the schools like we did for Memorial Day and the school principls will be contacted about teachers who would like to be involved and inviting local veterans to come into the classrooms it was a very successful program during uh Memorial Day the Town Council liaison the Berkeley Heights Town Council met on Tuesday September 10th and there was a discussion on the shared lease agreement with the Berkeley Heights Board of Education for vehicle maintenance uh the lease agreement was tabled so that further discussion could take place on the wording of all Mutual con uh contracts do we have any other committee or liaison reports Mrs Stanley so first I have policy um the policy draft that came to us uh I don't know if you say we had three of them so the last one is the correct version um so our policy committee was on Thursday August 29th um we started the meeting with Mr Nixon sharing his discussion with st Esme which provides us um support in our policies he had about a 45 minute conversation with the owner who's also an attorney they serve over two uh 525 districts um they offer they allow us to have ask questions and their resources are all included in their service which is really great because whenever we have a question they said please send them the policies um and they can answer for us the alerts give us details on why we have a policy and why it's changing we get alerts approximately four times a year this is for policies and regulations but policy and regulations are very different regulations do not need board approval superintendent has the right to add them if any material changes are made after a first read it should go back to a first read again minor changes can continue to Second read our policy changes can be sent to stress at May for review uh we discussed policy 6421 it is not on tonight's um agenda we still cannot agree on the language um stress s may suggest leaving a percentage as the State numbers will continue to change um then we have regulation 8600 which is is student transportation this is the regulation not the policy this is new to our district um we have not been able to to pass this before however after speaking with shuss Esme they uh recommended that we can remove the part that says hazardous routes so that way since we don't have a hazardous routes in our policy right now we can align this regulation to that um so we're going to remove the Hazardous routes paragraph until the district would need it and then we could re um re-enter it we did talk about revising policy 8600 to remove the current language um of any uh hazardous routes but we looked at the language and we feel that it's not in conflict because we currently are under it and we don't feel like it pressures us to have hazardous routes it just discussed that we could have them um that so again that's not on tonight's agenda then we have policy 2411 which is guidance counseling um we looked at this because we there were some questions around uh the legal guardian language we talked to shess Esme and Sh Esme says that legal guardian um is is covered under parent that parent is interchangeable with um legal guardian with grandparents with whoever has control of the student um so they that's why they recommended to remove it then we looked at policy 3211 code of ethics um this policy um is the for the teachers and it had a section in there that had the nea's policy stated in there some cons concerns were brought up when it was brought to the board the first time about whether or not the district could still take action against um an educator and uh stress mme did assure us that um we could however during policy we thought maybe could we add a sentence in I want to thank Mr Nixon because I bugged him for a whole two weeks about this but stress asme did return to respond to us and they said that the sentence that we added is perfectly fine and it does not conflict so that sentence is in there to help us all feel comfortable that we could still um do that but it's back on first read for tonight um there are three policies P 5750 policy 5842 policy 9323 these we already passed at first read they are on for second read it's just because they have not come back on the uh on the agenda because we didn't have a chance to talk about the other policies that didn't pass then we have bylaw 167 public particip ation in board meetings so this was revised because we were going to add um remote participation we did have stress Esme look through it and they said that they are okay with um number three and number seven um in the in the policy um they did add a couple just uh language tweaks um and you'll see it if you if you looked at the uh draft there's just a couple language tweaks but nothing major but either way it's back on for first read um so if you could look at that um and then we had uh a quick discussion on policy and regulation 2430 that was brought to us by other members of the board um this was to be discussed about procedures for clubs and how we uh add clubs to our um policies and the board's role in that um Mr Nixon uh after reading the regulation it has a lot of steps that a district would take some of them we already do some of them I'm not sure we do so we as a policy said that we will look further into this but we want to make sure that the district has time to know if they can uh handle all the um things in there then we looked at the CMS phone procedures we looked at policy 5516 I believe um I just got an email from struss Esme saying that we should also look at 5517 if I'm correct 5770 all all right don't worry um but either way we're going to look at this um again and see how we can tighten up right because there is um a general policy that talks about uh when we need to confiscate something and search right and that that policy covers that stress smme said that they wouldn't add specific language for cell phones just to prevent us from uh tying our hands um but we did look at our current policy and we don't believe that um the CMS email that went out to parents um was in Conflict but we did talk about the word review and how it sounded more intrusive than what actually happens when a cell phone is confiscated um if you do want uh more information on that please reach out to one of the three of us in the policy committee because we did have a really good discussion on what happens um when a cell phone is confiscated but basically right that if a phone is found out and confiscated um the teachers do not engage in um any kind of looking at the phone or anything they bring it straight to an admin and then the admin would um talk to the student and you know if there's reasonable suspicion that they were taking a picture of somebody at lunchtime or whatnot um they would ask them you know can I see the photo can we delete the photo stuff like that people can say no the student can say no I don't want to show you I don't want to delete it and then it would just progress from there if that happened then they would call the parents and then have a discussion on what kind of consequences would happen if that picture ended up on social media or whatnot this is really more about protecting the victims um than any kind of form of punishment for the child taking the photo but more to make sure that you know when the students are in the building they're not you know um being made fun of in demeaned um social media um we are going to bring these policy back to committee so we will update you on our progress 5770 is what we are going to look at after stress SM May uh recommended it um we also had a discussion on the bylaw for board remote participation um so we asked dress Esme for theirs and they offered um 155.0 one so it doesn't quite correlate with our bylaws um but this is for board member remote participation right so if we did want to have board members come and participate in a meeting to actually vote right they have um a policy that addresses that they did send out two memos saying that there is some issues that you want to address um on how you deal with this right um but one of them is a quorum right how do you how do you make sure that you have a quorum um and you know stuff like that one of them is that you can only do this if you have a medical thing like you can't drive right you you need to stay home or whatnot and you would need to give prior notice and board approval um in order to do so um the other one was um let's say you're traveling for work right so you're not going to be in the state right and they made that clear that you are not in the state right that you couldn't drive back um and then you again with prior notice board approval you could join the meeting remotely so again the policy committee is going to look at that much deeper um and come up with a plan on how we would want to move forward with that that is for policy hopefully we covered all the policies on tonight's we do have a bunch of second reads that were approved at the August meeting um and those should be fine because we haven't received any questions on them next is Personnel um Pamela can we ask you some questions on the policy committee minute Mrs Ziri do you have a question yeah so on um regulation 2430 um we do have a policy on how to create committees so what's the final decision I kind of didn't you you got something back from stuss me so this one this one we talked about the regulation has a lot in it right and we didn't have time as a board to go over it and make sure that the district is currently following all that so we're going to continue to look at it but we need the district to really see if this is something that they currently do um and how much change that would be needed to follow this regulation um in order to make sure that we don't just Implement something that is not possible at this time right is there any other things that needed to support to make this happen so what's the timeline like will we see this back the next policy meeting we will bring it to the policy commit okay now but again I don't know what the policy committee is going to decide because we need to wait for the district to tell us how they want to do that so it'll be on the next policy committee agenda yes okay the other question that I have is a followup on the cell phone policy or the memo that was sent to the Middle School parents um it's great that anybody has any questions they can reach out to the three policy committee members but the memo was sent to the entire student population's parents so why why can't we as a district or we as a board list whatever you just said basically the the if at all somebody confiscates this the teacher is not going to be reviewing and searching the phone or the teacher is not going to be deleting it so whatever you described I believe needs to be sent as a followup because the last time we raised these concerns or questions I think the response from Mr Nixon and from the district was the policies committee going is going to review it and there might be like some sort of a followup or basic um FYI on this is what will happen that that Clarity is not there so I mean I I don't know for sure but I don't think that there have been many questions by the public on this one um but that would be up to Mr kabisa if he wanted to put something like that in the handbook itself that wouldn't be policy I think also the guidance that we got through policy is that we have policy in place that gives everybody the answers for this I think if anybody has concerns or questions reach out to their building level administrator and have a conversation yeah and like I said I don't right like if if if there wanted to be a procedure on this but again right like this is what currently happens but that doesn't mean it won't change and that's why we have policy that kind of covers this but as far as whether it ends up on the website or how the principal communicates like that would not be policy committee all right next we have um Personnel that was on September 5th um we did talk about the director of Athletics and he joined our meeting to answer some of the Personnel uh committee's questions um we had two we have two on the agenda tonight for the business office we have two positions the payroll specialist and the assistant to the business administrator they both are on there with their contracts and then we had an update on the high school interim assistant principal which is also on the agenda we had um previously had uh I think we approved it right we already approved it so we're sending it tonight uh the previous yeah so we already had uh given offered a position but we found um they found another job a full-time job somewhere else and so we found a new candidate that seems to be a great fit and that's on tonight's agenda um and then we followed up on Personnel issues and then we did talk about the shooting in Georgia and how we are going to support our community um and especially our teachers after stuff like this and what the district did to make sure that our staff feels um safe and welcome that is my committee reports thank you any other committee reports okay uh Tom I'm sorry Dr forer can you report I think I just need to she um mentioned that the uh regulations don't need board approval but there is some regulations that actually do require board approval thank you that's from St Esme not from me okay but you you passed it on so I thought we should be clear there are some that we have to approve Mrs Conor um I have two I have two updates um there was a Union County Ed Services Commission meeting last week uh part of their superintendent report was they presented their nonpublic services department um which is basically uh they offer services in 13 towns and Union County um to 42 non-public schools uh they're supporting um about 1,600 odd students essentially the type of services that they provide are evaluations uh for learning for speech uh psychological and social assessments uh again this this is for nonpublic schools so uh they work with the town they they work with the individual towns and offer these services to uh to the non-public schools the second uh item that I have is the finance committee meeting uh minutes the finance committee met um I guess it was Friday uh Friday the 6th of September covered a lot of topics some things are on the agenda for today um I'll start with uh there is uh there is an agenda item for maintenance withdrawals uh there are a list there's a list of projects that uh uh identified for maintenance around the district uh basically includes removal of dead trees pruning you know maintenance of shrubs uh painting of the gym walls and maybe you might cover some of this in your report perhaps uh the GL Red Gym uh floor is getting refreshed uh installation of volleyball sleeves in the GL blue gym uh so we have a resolution that is moving funds for these projects the work is expected to be completed sometime between November 2024 and April 2025 and any remaining funds are expected to be returned to the maintenance Reserve um another item on the agenda today is um it's a software for visitor management system for all of our schools uh the district did a security assessment uh in the last school year and one of the recommendations was a visitor management system to be installed as an additional layer of security in the district schools uh all schools have a security vestibule that's in place already um the district has procured um a software uh through the co-op uh sometime in July 2024 the software is expected to create uh a log of the visitors time in and time out it's going to print visitor passes uh now the roll out of the software is expected to be sometime in the November 2024 time frame uh what we heard was the software uses driver's licenses as a means to validate the identity of visitors to the schools uh when we discussed this in committee there was uh there are questions around what does this mean from a data privacy standpoint people having to come into the schools now and have to show a driver's license um we don't really do that today so this is going to require messaging this is going to require working with the PT to make sure that uh people are aware of changes that are going to happen uh with the way our our school district is is receiving visitors in um in our buildings um one of the things that came through the conversation was this has not really gone through a technology committee conversation which is kind of what I would have expected in the normal course of business so um I don't know when the next one is scheduled uh but it's something okay it can be but it isn't so it's we need to make sure that you know as we go through this or other things in the district the general uh process is is this goes through a committee there is a conversation about you know what are the other options that the district uh has considered and just in general having a little bit more board member involvement in getting to this stage where we are right now it's on the agenda uh we talked about another project uh which is the GL lights project uh and we just heard today that yes this project is going to require changes to the long range facilities plan and uh an approval from the doe uh we can't hear you to no can't hear me we're talking about lights at at the field or inside uh lights outside at the field at the field okay yeah so I think uh and AJ you might have more updates in your report when you talk about this unless you want to go now they they ran whatever they they check that we have boxes but they need to run the wiring for for the lights but there is some prior work or approval that's required changes to the long range facilities Plan before this project can happen that's the way I understand it yeah that's what we heard this morning when I followed up with that question that you had uh asked from Finance so I'm not sure what that means in terms of the timing uh for when this project can happen well we still have to look if it's over a certain amount or if we go through a co-op Co-op would probably a little bit done sooner or if we had to go out to bid you know we can formulate that together with what we need to do but we need the funds to do so so you know that that would all have to be a discussion okay uh we talked about electric buses uh looks like we are expected to receive two electric buses they will require a charging station that's not something that we have today uh the approximate cost for the buses is about $84,000 the district is expecting to receive a grant for about $540,000 for the bus and $40,000 for the charging station uh the plan is to use these electric buses for the sports teams for games that are closed by until the district can assess uh the performance of these buses over long distances and the point earlier about building the substitute driver list uh sort of goes goes hand in hand I think the one the one thing that that we need to discuss in the next committee meeting is just get a better understanding of the capacity that we have the bus capacity that we have the drivers that we need and how many more if we were to build a list of substitute drivers what is the process what does that look like and then eventually you know the what do we have in the budget in terms of uh a spot for them do we have them now or what needs to be done the the other question that I had just out of that conversation was what does it take to maintain these electric buses and we follow a certain you know uh we follow a certain process we have something in place for the existing buses but when it comes to the electric buses you know do we need to get more vendors involved and and just how does the long-term maintenance work and what does it cost and I some of the stuff that I had sent back today some of that's more electricity maintenance on on on just on the batteries air brakes is what it is that's in there right now uh it's basically some of the same maintenance of what we're doing right now except we're we're changing out not using gas we're not using the uh Oil we're just using uh the electricity um that's what I got back from that uh vendor of from the bus company question so maybe after you guys are done so on the on the new software the requirement for parents to give the driving license does the software like do they just verify it or do they scan it in I would have to ask that question of I don't know if Jeremy if you have a point of you on that you know how does this software work I I know that Mr we I know there was a lot of questions that came up during the finance committee meeting I presented them to uh Mr Marks Mr Marx is is asking the company and he's getting those answers together so just a small piece just to answer that question they collect from the license the name the date of birth and the last four digits of the LI license number um Additionally the camera image captured will be stored for printing and then if two or more visitors have the same first name last name and date of birth then they refer to the four digits of of the uh license number to be able to differentiate between them so the reason I asked is because I work in healthc care and I'm aware of HIPPA and certain Privacy Law requirements so right now New Jersey state law and we can go to Mr dler to conf this so when you go to get a proed done at any hospital or anything they have to verify your ID but they don't have to necessarily scan it in the reason being there have been multiple in the last decade or so systems have been hacked and when somebody hacks your system and if it we are scanning we are liable at the end of the day so that's personal information and driver's license has unique identifiers which so major Hospital chains across us have basically stopped asking for to store it so as long as you show your ID that's enough but if we are buying a software and we are going to install it on our in our schools which is going to require that we are going we're going to require a parent scan the DL driving license I think that's not like a parent can refuse to do so and also sometimes you have babysitter sometimes you have a grandparent who might not have this like I have that I have had that in my situation my my my father was traveling he doesn't have a driver's license for America he has other forms of ID so will that parent like in the policy that you just said a guardian can be a grandparent anybody so why would we be asking them for their license to be scanned so I think this came up in the committee conversation and one thing is about the data privacy where does the data sit how long is it going to be stored who has access to it and you know if there's a data hack I I I haven't seen the contract so I don't know are we on the hook or is it the company that's on the hook the other point is just about what you said which is I might not have my driver's license on me maybe I'm just rushing to my you know to my kids school at that point are we not going to allow the parent unless they go and get a driver's license somebody's new in the country doesn't have a driver's license um other forms of ID so this is going to require a level of change management this is going to require perhaps even a look at what we have in the policy if if you know if we roll this out without the supporting um scenarios of what if somebody doesn't have that then what do you do that that's something that that needs to be thought through go ahead Mr Phillips yes Mr Phillips so I have some experience with this in my old District we had a a system in place probably for the last six or seven years um and it's very common that districts do have um a visitor pass system in place um so I I if the license isn't the only thing that would be acceptable oh um and if you don't have a form of ID um those who are working the main office area can manually put in the information and and uh that then record the visit in that matter um as far as information that being stored as Jeremy mentioned it is just um the first name last name um and time of visit um we actually have more data in our database on the on the parent than what is being stored on that visit um the main there's really two main purposes for the visitor or three um you want to log your visitors in and out of the building in case there's an emergency um you know who's in the building um second uh we're looking at situations um um that that of student safety and Welfare a lot of times there's custody issues there's um there's issues with um other relatives that we don't want that child being picked up you can enter all that information into that system so when if those uh individuals try to attempt to pick up that child it Flags it in the system and and you know that um that individual is not allowed to pick up that child um the third is it does run um um those names through um a child abuse uh Center um so again it's it's a a safety issue so they're they making sure that anyone who may uh pose a threat to that child that uh we're not releasing that child to those individuals um there is um like I said most districts have this in place so there's going to be a change um in the process um and anytime there's uh something new you work out those Kinks but um you know as I mentioned my past district has had it for about six or seven years and it works very effectively and efficiently currently thank you Mrs Gana oh are you finished I think no I'm not done yet I think Pamela had something Sor and then Natasha had something Mrs Stanley so I was just going to say that um what we went over like some of these questions we did bring up in committee um and basically we said that some of these situations already arise right we already have people that come that don't have identification and whatnot um and we do have custody things and people right and that this will help simplify it by everyone knowing that when you go to the school you need some form of identification right like where now you know parents kind of go oh I'm gonna have so and so go and then so and so goes and whatnot so this will kind of everyone has to have identification it has you have to have a reason to be there um and like that it's we're kind of behind right we're kind of behind on this when it comes to people coming in the building who's in the building class parents who's in that building when we have to do an evacuation or when there's a a a situation a security situation um so I I'm all in support of this because of the safety um I do like that it's a scan you get a tag I think your right like the picture is supposed to be on the tag so that way they know like you you didn't steal this from someone else it has your photo um so I do think that this is where we need to head um I know there is going to be a lot of questions and definitely as we implement it um which is why we talked about trying to get the PTO to understand the the program and the process so they can help us uh get it out to the public um so that's all I was going to say is that a lot of these issues already occur this is just going to help us kind of streamline this especially for the staff it it will it will help no doubt but I think we do need something in our policy and and based on what you know that I think we might have to think of some exceptions if if you put in a hard requirement and you know it's it's viewed as discriminatory for whatever reasons we could have an issue so I think we need some policy coverage to implement something like this def Mrs Jolly would you let Mr Nixon speak first before first it was just a quick question as we were looking at the agenda so we've already contracted for this that we already have this that that is a question for it just because it also said for the 24 for the 2324 school year so I I I was just confused by what I saw in the agenda and you know understand what we discussed in committee is that this is already purchased so you know it's and and this is going to be and the idea is to implement this when what are the time frames so the the next apps are for I'm working with them right now just on the uh data implementation so um getting like the roster sync and everything like that um so I'm going through that then uh my team will work through the hardware that um is involved with it and just testing it out doing all that then I think it would be wise for at the um for the uh for us to discuss these policies at the admin level um basically what happens like what's that uh workflow going to look like um when a when somebody comes into uh each school and that that could be apparent it could also be like um we have plenty of contractors coming in um so when when when when they're coming into the building um and then what happens if something does get flagged uh what the person who's checking the person in going to do then and then communicating information out to the families and then I think once all of that is done then we would look to implement it so first first thing just I know again we use the word policy and proced Mr Marx is referring to the procedures we're going to put in place to do some of those things and discuss administratively um you know I I think one thing I want to mention that we are behind the times on this technology and when we talk a lot about these things we always I feel like our discussions tend to go to the route of why is it an inconvenience for a parent why you know what liability we which are all valid questions and valid things but I just want to remind everybody the things that we're talking about here are more important for the safety of our staff and students if you remember back to the end of our last school year I want to say maybe it was May perhaps it was April in an exec session we had a presentation of a security audit with a lot of things that were recommendations that our district needed to do to try and um try and make our buildings more secure to try and do uh different things that we need to this this was one of the recommendations from the security audit that we received in order to try and make our building safer so again I I I think when we have to work out what the procedures are going to be and the way we're going to communicate the why to our families that's the part we have to work on and figure out and put out which most of I don't say most a lot of other schools do we can do that part I think this is a very important step in order for helping to protect our staff and students so m this is aury we all want our students to be safe and secure we all want our staff to be safe and secure but what I'm trying to say or concern is not about are we behind times or are we ahead of times or or other districts doing it by law you you cannot require anybody even a hospital when you go to get a cardiac surgery done or have a baby a hospital cannot demand the patient to Scan they they just need to verify so all I'm saying is and I have had a very bad case of identity theft and every time I go to a hospital I do not give I just ask them to verify it I don't let them scan it in so all I'm trying to say is if we have not defined that what is the software trying to do making sure that this person is actually the parent that they say so you just need to check the ID there is no need for us to retain it scan it in print their picture and to Mr Dirk Phillips um response that our schools already have all this information yes you have my information but you do not have my picture in your database but what we are trying to do right now is you're scanning every single visitor to a school and retaining it do we know how long are we going to retain it no and is it mandatory by law no so basically tomorrow if I want to go pick up my daughter I can give my ID let them verify it but I can say like how I say to a hospital please verify but I don't want you to scan it in and the when the hospital's fine I think the school should also be fine with it so yes I know so my here's my recommendation because I I I hear your questions and I think they're important for us to understand what are we really implementing my thought is can we ask the technology committee to just double check what does the software do you know through the contract and at least have some idea of what are we doing what are we what information are we retaining where is it going so that we can just be better informed as a board as to you know what this software is going to do for us because we all understand the safety aspect of it but we need to understand sort of you know what else is is associated with that service yeah and happy to coordinator we can we can pick a time to set up I I would love just I don't know if there's any legal opinion on on what was just said cuz it sounds like board member had an opinion on what is legally possible in in this state but I don't know if if you're hearing anything that you so I'm happy oh it is on everyone can hear me I mean I'm happy to look into it there are some that's the first time everyone anyone's ever said the microphone's too tall for or too short for me um so there are some consumer protection laws so there's Hippa that impacts healthcare industry there's a consumer protection law that impacts the retail industry I am not certain as it relates to school district to be honest I've not seen that uh I've not been asked that there are I I am aware that other districts do this I don't know if does yours do background checks as well this do is this one do background checks yes that's what he said they will check it with like a child abuse that's database that's the yeah that's what the software does that's the standard that's being installed now districts because you know there's the Megan's Law on the like so well and I think that's right the big security part of this is that it it's one thing when you're talking about parents but you you know we're a small District so I I understand that like most of us know this you know the secretaries and stuff like that but then there are people coming into our district that we have no idea who they are because they don't work for us they don't have background checks for us right and we've even talked about you know how sometimes our volunteers kind of pass without having background checks and where where to where how far do we go on who needs a background check so I think right this is just one step in trying to make sure that we um protect like that our buildings our staff and we already do so much to try to keep every door shut you know um and so you know this is just one way of making sure that we can control who's in the building so the okay so if the question is do we do background checks on our parents today I don't think I I I don't I don't think we do because I don't know how we would do that but what this software is going to introduce now is a level of check for a parent that's going to come in through you know scanning the driver's license that I think is new we don't do that to yes and I should be clear I don't think it's a background check I think it matches the license against certain public databases right yeah I think that's going to be much different than like a comprehensive background check that the police might be performing and the only reason I brought that up is not to the point whether it's lawful not lawful I know some laws with scanning I don't know all of them only reason I brought it up is the question hasn't been asked but I know districts have already implemented this and I'm not aware of any of them that ran into issues as of data for refusals so my question is we can implement it but if a parent says I want you to verify it I don't want you to scan my license what are we going to say are we going to enforce it in this procedure that no you have to scan it in if you want to so I have to attend IEP meetings twice a year so if I go in to my child's School am I going to be forced to scan my ID or they'll verify that this is saav akiri this is a DL and will they give me a pass I think as a parent I have a right to say verify my ID but I don't want you to scan it in and that's the question I'm asking Mr Phillips the system has the ability uh as I mentioned earlier with the individual working uh the front desk they they can manually put in your information they do not have to scan your license um it's more work obviously for the person working that but they can put that information and then again part of the the reason um for that is um if there's a potential red flag that red flag would come up in the system so who's ever working that front desk they may they may not know custody issues or anything else that red flag will come up and they will be informed so so not that you have to scan your license so even inputting my so when you do when you have go to file your taxes or something or when you're doing certain federal regulatory stuff the things that they ask for even for voter registration is your DMV driver license number your date of birth and your name so if a person doesn't want this information so I don't think the school currently has my driver license number they have me they have my address I don't think anybody has my driver's license number and I think a parent has a right to say I do not want you to enter my driver's license number manually to be retained on your database that's my concern here and just because and I want my daughter attends the school and I'm part of this community and I want all of us to be safe and secure everybody that works here everybody that enters here but that doesn't mean we're going to go and Implement something just because we've already purchased it a question for Dy is is it the recommendation of the finance facilities committee to approve what's on the agenda tonight and then continue with technology committee and and further discussion in terms of the implementation that that was my my understanding is that we've already paid for it is that fair AJ since I heard that we've already we've already paid for it so this right now what's on the agenda is just process right it's we should have this should have we should have had this conversation before this purchase was made which is my point about they should have gone through a technology committee this conversation should have happened before the purchase was made but it's done now right what on the bridge I mean my suggestion is we can approve it because it doesn't truly mean anything because we've already purchased it my suggestion is we need to have a broader conversation deeper conversation to understand the what the software does and I think we need as a board to figure out what is the policy language or what is what is it that we want to introduce in conjunction with the capabilities of the software as a process of how parents grandparents Guardians whoever comes into our schools and says I would like to get my child you know I'd like to sign them out or whatever so just because we purchased this can be return it that's one question the other thing is just because we purchased it shouldn't be a reason that we have to implement it I don't know what the cost of this is how much did we 16,000 so even if we don't return it but there there had to have had some procedures that we talk about policies procedures this is public funds that we're talking about so some decision making happened but we haven't it's like we are rein like you know we are going in reverse order that we've already bought it and it's on the agenda so we have to rubber stamp it and then then the technology committee is going to meet and come up with procedures so that's my concern here for the record I I think it's terrific that we've added an additional layer of security and I'm sure there are other things to come I mean uh so I mean let's get it right and we we'll set time to to get a technology committee going but um Ian I'm glad we didn't wait for the board to make necessarily determination if this is I mean we we at some point in the game there's got to be some trust to the people who have done the work and our experts we hope in making determinations about making our school safer Mrs KH are you done with your report on finance and Facilities I realiz time um you know what um the other item that we talked about in finance was um around the outstanding checks but we can we can talk about that when we are in the agenda Tom your final point on this topic yeah uh actually I have two points when these things about safety come up uh people always say well we'll be safer if you ask them are you safe now they'll always say yes you're safe safe now and then they'll say okay I want you to be safer but they never really explain how are you going to be safer this is all part of you know the growing uh surveillance state in this in this country um but anyway let me go back to something simpler than this uh security issue uh you mentioned uh one of the expenditures here is for something called volleyball sleeves and uh I didn't I wasn't familiar with that term I had to look it up volleyball sleeves there's something the player wears on there yes it is I looked it up you you lo you look you wear it on your arm okay Mr uh hon would you like to address the volleyballs it's not what is meant uh that that could be one definition of it but in the context here it is the holes in the PT that hold the poles that hold the net are you sure yes okay Mrs Ka have you completed your report I think I have concluded my report so Jordan sorry so just the follow-up questions I have don't have to be answered now for the electric buses like to understand um you know we know the net cost because it's the cost plus the grant we'd like to understand like what is the cost of a regular bus right I I have no idea just to just to compare and I think it was a good question to understand maintenance costs as well you know while I think electric is probably you know better for the environment and all that we still just want to make sure that it's right what I don't know is how much of a spike are we going to have with our electricity cost as a result of the charging station right right and uh that's the tradeoff that that is the tradeoff and you know how do you secure the the charging station how do you make sure other people don't just charge their things well I'm guessing it might different I don't know if it is I don't know if it is universal right so a bunch of things so we we just we we'll get to that are there any other committee reports uh I'm huning buses though I did a little research on this this really needs a lot more data uh I mean you're you're spending uh like four times the cost of a regular bus okay so what you do on that kind of situation is you have to do an economic analysis over the life cycle of the bus all right and I haven't seen that I don't think we should just be you know throwing out uh hundreds of thousands of dollars well a regular bus uh probably is about 110 but I'll defer to AJ on that uh and you're you're talking about spending four times that um well now the money is coming from somewhere a taxpayer ultimately whether it's Grant or taxes but even so I mean it's an expensive item and it's not obvious that this is a good thing to do you can claim it's good for the environment but that needs proof every state but needs proof and I don't see any proof yet so this has to be studied I think before we spend that kind of money so if if I can my my takeaway from that electric bu bus conversation I think as a committee what we need to do is if we are I don't know the time frame it's it's not like the bus is showing up tomorrow it's not going to happen it'll take time but when we get the bus I think we need to evaluate the capacity that we have does that mean we don't don't need to get you know two buses from a vendor right I think what we need to do is evaluate like look at our entire Transportation capacity in totality and then figure out how do we use these buses can you just go over the numbers one more time I wrote down 804k as a total cost for two buses for two buses total um less the less the grant the grant is 540k so I'm not a math guy UNL Tom but my my math says that's about 20 260k of cost how much how for two buses so 130k a pop how much is a regular bus 135 140 it's not 4X sounds about sounds about how much is a how much do a tank of gas seems like a good deal right out of the gate environment to the side seems like can we throw in it I think we're at least it sounded to me like we were debating it like we had a vote on it tonight it was it was a topic of discussion for an opportunity for our district in a committee meeting it's we're not asking you to vote on it tonight no we get it so I think the total cost of two buses is 800 and something 84k yes but it's it's 840,000 so that means I don't remember the number I've looked at every other number besides that bus number so two buses at 840,000 is almost 400 so that's four times the cost but then we it's subsidized or there's a grant that's paying for it it could be a state Grant Federal grant our point point is there are some districts that have like in Virginia and I think nationally that have procured them under this Federal Grant and then they realized that the manufacturer recalled them then there were battery issues so my question is if we haven't and I'm happy for the clarification Mr Nixon that we haven't yet it's not up for vote I would like to know what is the make and the model and maybe that somebody needs to look at have there been any issues with this particular I think the finance committee needs to spend a little bit more time on this I'm done with mine okay thank you are there any other committee reports I I had Athletics I'll go I'll go super quick because I we've covered most of this stuff um we just met this week September 10th um we spent some time meeting the um the um interim ad uh um acting ad Mr Shriner it was the ad in Rosell Park uh and assistant principal and he was here as as an interim assistant principal uh last year he retired in in August 22 and he had overlap with an so that was nice just to hear some of the some of the carryover there um we talked about some of the um uh softball and baseball spring training trip proposals I don't think Mr Nixon stepped out baseball is off the is not on the agenda tonight I think the softball trip remains um CJ already got some love he's still here but um we did talk about hey CJ the new athletic director I'm coming in from South Brunswick so um super excited to have him uh on the agenda tonight and to hear some of his ideas which sound terrific sounds like we had a lot of candidates 30 some OD candidates so um congrats CJ almost um and then yeah we covered some of the same projects that have been touched on volleyball sleeves um field lights I guess we'll get to that Press Box I don't know AJ if you want to touch on that when you speak later but obviously there's there's some short-term questions about current state of the Press Box uh here and then there's sort of the long-term uh questions we talked about U mobile lockers potentially uh which has come up before for girl Sports outside um a quick hit on on personnel part of the transition uh good to know that there's an expectation that every coach will have an eval at the end of each season uh and then we passed on on covering Lower Columbia field use because we were going to cover it tonight in exec that's all I got thank you um Mr secretary board Communications um I have several here uh first was Dan McGovern in support of Mr Robert Nixon next was uh Nicholas O Sullivan letter regarding superintendent search Lara mendenhal letter in support for Robert Nixon as superintendent Pam Pomo in support for Robert Nixon for superintendent Lisa ketcher Rob Nixon Lisa Moore letter for letter to the board re superintendent Kathleen uh mahasi superintendent Nicole man janelli and excuse me if I don't pronounce some of these names properly support of Robert Nixon for superintendent Ashley col personal recommend recommendation regarding superintendent of of school a school hire and lastly Peter alurn uh Berkeley Heights Board of Education uh that concludes the uh board correspondents thank you would you like to give your report now yes I'll make those brief um I'd like to thank all the custodial staff team members maintenance team groundskeepers custodial and maintenance supervisors I'm proud of the work that they have done this summer it was amazing to see the work unfold and come together and the staff form as one unit to reach the Finish Line schools look beautiful and they were done ahead of the opening of school um I was going to get into all the uh different things and some of the things that I have said before um districtwide there was just uh boilet cleaning and inspections done we just had a a new alarm company that'll be coming in to do inspection and monitoring new sprinkler and susp uh excuse me susp supression company coming in to do our servicing fire extinguisher compan is coming in to do their inspection um let's see we're going to need and replace exit keys and cores in the district um and what else do we have here and we're also going to be doing some uh extensive details rather removing some dead trees in the district and that concludes my report thank you Mr secretary it's now time for comments from the public on agenda items during this portion of the meeting District residents and staff are invited to address the board of education on agenda action items only the board requests that individuals State their name in town of residence or School of attendance for the record all comments should be directed to the board president and depending upon the nature and complexity of the question it may or may not be answered during the meeting by the administration if so the response would occur after this public portion of the meeting has ended although the board may not respond to all items raised during the public forum all public comments will be considered the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding Personnel matters are discouraged and cannot be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by the members of the public please note that if any member of the public becomes disruptive during the meeting the board president May terminate the participant statement continued disruptions may result in removal from or adjournment of the meeting each speaker statement will be limited to three minutes in duration we'll take those in person first and then we will go to the participants online is there anyone in person who would like to address the board thank you okay are there any participants online will you promote and I can't see the people on our computer here if you could uh promote the next person is that Mr McGee yes yes thank you hi good evening everybody um I'm a little frustrated uh with everybody uh look sec I I don't we're spending how much on security now we're spending money on card scans I'd like to know what we're doing about math I'd like to know what we're doing about science if you want to keep Kids Safe increase resources for counselors uh you know there's ways to kids Keep Kids Safe that don't turn our schools into prisons and I guess it's funny I mean you could smile and laugh I saw Mr Heyman laughing about uh Dr forger statement around the surveillance state but I guess he could laugh at the ACLU the New York you you you don't know what I'm sorry you don't you can't inate that I'm laughing you got to watch yourself you're in a public meeting man M listen to presid Mr M you'll please present it and do not he talking to members he's talking to me I'm glad okay I'm just I'm getting tired of the amount of money we're spending on police I'm getting tired of the amount of money that we're spending on these programs that have nothing to do with the well-being of our children they just fill the pockets of Consultants companies I mean you you think we're living in a war zone given how much we talk about security and and that our biggest problem is safety we live in a really safe neighborhood our biggest issue right now is how much we're spending on administrators what's happening with math and science and yeah I agree children's safety is important but it that children's safety has to do with self-esteem steam confidence education and competing in the global economy uh secondly I'm sorry if I sorry Jordan I shouldn't have come at you like that I I apologize um secondly on goals um I'm just really frustrated about the whole security theater and how much you're spending on this uh in terms of goals I I would like to see objectives like so I get these are all tasks that are going to be done it would be helpful to see what material results are going to are going to come out maybe it's in another document I know last year it was presented and maybe those tie into that but I would like to see numbers um connected to sort of improvements in the subject areas that are that are mentioned in there uh and that's it thank you very much have a good night thank you is there anyone else who would like to be promoted to speak I see no other individuals so at this time we will move on uh we're going to go to resolution minutes resolutions a all board members a approval of board meeting minutes and I'm looking for a motion to promote resolution a all board members thank you Mrs huffnagle second thank you Mrs Conor a discussion roll call vote Mrs huffnagel Mrs Connor yes Mr Kiri yes Dr forer yes Mr Hyman yes Miss Jolly yes Miss Stanley Miss Bradford yes motion passes moving on to Administration resolution resolutions a through F all board members may I have a motion to promote resolutions oops a through F all board members thank you Mrs Stanley second thank you Mr Heyman okay uh any discussion so Mrs akiri on um the policies for first reading first question is uh on our the regulation 86 600 it it is listed as new but I thought I heard we already have this policy so so why is this um so if so we didn't have we had a policy but we didn't have a regulation Mrs Stanley could you answer that yes so we we have um the policy 8600 when we try to uh redo our policy in the beginning of this calendar year uh we realized that we didn't have the regulation and so we were adding the regulation in um but there was questions and it wasn't approved the first time um now it's going back to first read because we did remove that um uh hazardous routes in that the paragraph of hazardous routes from this policy because we don't currently have hazardous routes in I'm sorry in this regulation because we don't currently have hazardous routes in our policy thank you any other discussion um on policy c 0167 um are we still going to require um a speaker or a public to give their address in this new policy I thought I saw the redlined version it still had that requirement or I don't know which version I saw yeah so it says or but I mean we right we put a bunch of things in there mostly just to identify yourselves to us so that way we know um one of the biggest things I think we think when we're dealing with online is that want to make sure these are Berkeley Heights local people and this is just one way that they can identify themselves but they can also say School building they can give their organization that they're a part of um it does say or and uh we did send this to stress Esme and they uh did not just they did not say you needed to remove this so my question is to Mr dler here so for a public participant who actually attends the Board of Ed meeting here they don't have to give their address correct I mean most districts I'll be frank most public entities do require an address do I think there's any legal requirement to do so I do not I think according to the state law and the open public meetings act or something you just have to say where you're like your name I don't think it's mandatory to give your street address and that is why I think some of the parents who do come here have stopped giving their address so my concern is can we have a separate um rule uh so somebody who attends this p in person we don't expect them to give their address but then somebody who ex who attends via Zoom or remote we are asking them to give their address I think irrespective of it's an r or whatever it kind of is still there no it's actually for both it's for both it says or it's the same language for both whether you're online or in person but we've never enforced it um and again right some people give it because they're used to going to Town Council meetings where they used to require it um but again I don't think that this should stop us from uh continuing with this policy especially since we're already um have remote participation so if we don't enforce it and it's not required why have it as a way to identify themselves is they would like to identify themselves that way or they can say what organization they're from or what school building or whatnot okay any other discussion yes yes Dr forer I think since we don't actually re we can't actually require it uh there was actually a federal court uh decision on that we can't actually require an address and I don't and we don't seem to even need it so I don't think we should be even asking for it the reason is uh Sometimes women are you know kind of like to hide out from former boyfriends or they like to disappear and not give their address so I think it's actually not a good idea to require anybody to give their address so we've done a lot of I was going to ask are are we requiring it here or are we giving the person who comes up to the podium or is introduced the option of how to give us the context of where their comments are coming from I read multiple commas here to to to help give context to the board as to what your affiliation is I don't I don't see a requirement to give us an address or anything specific just options is I read this maybe I'm wrong though that's that's a question depend no and one of them I think says municipality right so it's it it it's this is just an option to identify yourself so we know who you are and where you're coming from but again I think that we're missing the big picture right the big picture is that we need people to be able to identify themselves so we don't have people coming from out of state on Zoom now that we have opened this up and that was the whole point of looking at this policy again is to make sure that we have parameters set for everybody I've heard a lot like we spent a lot of time of Whata ifs tonight and we can have these conversations but some of this was already done in committee that's why when we send out minutes right we should really get these kind of questions there and then some of these have been answered right so stress smma says that this is a legit policy and this is how they recommend going forward thank you if there are no other discussions I'd like to I'd like to amend it to just strike the word address from the from the policy so you're making a motion to strike address from the policy right yep I jump in please so this is a first reading right so I guess the motion would then be for the second reading this would not be included in there is that correct right okay I if we can get this out we can easily move it to a second reading next time is everyone comfortable that a non-material change and then it could go second reading well I'll make that we can make that determination depending the vot do the vote first but I just want to make clear so that's it is to amend it therefore obviously this is just the first reading and then it'll be placed on for the next agenda if monitized second reading next time yeah okay so we have a motion on the table and it's been seconded uh is there any discussion okay to clarify we're leaving everything else in the motion was to strike the words what street address and municipality and municipality yeah that's that wasn't the motion sorry that's a different motion you you seconded already so we need to vote on the first one right okay that was the motion I think just the street address actually I'm not thrilled about even municipality but uh the motion is really just to strike anything having to do with address what policy is that this is policy uh bylaw 167 so it's policy 0167 so again right I think this is something that's unnecessary like I've said a couple times now but on top of this right we have law firms looking at this right we pay STW smme money to spend time on the legal jargon of how to make sure this is accurate and so when we go to them with questions and they come back saying No this is this is how it this is how we recommend doing it right like yes we can change this word but why why are we spending time and effort on this when we just heard heard a constituent say they want us spending time on our students and this is not going to make a major change in any way right you can offer many different ways to identify yourself this is just one of them so that is my opinion on this I think we should take a vote okay so just to respond I think the last time it was up we we raised the same concerns it went back to the policy committee if they used it and if it's not required it's not mandated by law maybe we shouldn't be wasting the time and energy of the board or the resources thank you right so it already went to committee the committee looked at it they checked with stress ese they did their job so we have already spent months on this um so again I I I think that the committee disagreed and we made the decision and um you're made a motion and we're going to vote on it Mr secretary can we have a vote on the motion to uh retract the word address from the second reading of P bylaw 67 Dr for you from the first reading to the second reading right yes Mr Kiri yes uh we have here uh Miss Bradford no Miss huffnagel no Mr Heyman no Miss Jolly no uh Miss Conor yes and Miss Stanley no motion fails okay moving on to resolution wait wa now now we have to vote for the whole entire now moving on to the resolution a through F which has already been um Mo put forward by Mrs Stanley and seconded by Mr Heyman we've had a discussion and now we need a roll call vote on resolutions a through F Mr secretary M Mrs Stanley yes to all Mr Heyman yes to all Mr Ki um I'm abstaining from uh the first read policy of 0167 and yes to all Dr forer I'm going to say no on 0167 and obain on policy 3211 and regulation 8600 and yes to the other you're abstaining on 03 what was that I'm sorry on I'm sorry 321 3211 is abstained and 3211 yeah6 and 8600 is OB stained also no 167 and [Music] then through for yes yes thank you very much Miss huffnagel yes to all Miss Jolly yes to all Miss Connor yes to all Miss Bradford yes to all motion passes moving on to education res resolutions a through G all board members may I have a motion to put it forward so moved thank you Mrs Dolly second second thank you Mrs cona discussion um just sorry Mrs Jolly sorry just a comment um on item E I think it is I'm getting it right sorry on item F on item f um for challenge day I think it's a great um day I hope that um you know I you know when my son participated in it loved it but I think last year I don't know um it seemed maybe there was not as much participation so I hope that um you know this is well advertised and that um there's you know a lot of Buzz about it because I do think it's a really great Activity thank you any other discussion yeah I'll just second that I me I think I'm glad we're doing it early in the year again I think I've heard positive things from from kids in in ggl and uh yeah I hopefully we hopefully max out the 100 um and I think this is a great thing for for um for all facets of of the student population mental health included seems important thank you um I just K yeah it's a great um initiative I just want to know is it for the entire day it's an entire day and then how many sophomore students do we have so a little over 200 so this will allow half of them to come in and then they basically it's on a school day okay thank you I see no other discussion um Mr secretary roll call vote Mrs Jolly yes to all Mrs Conor yes to all Mr Kiri yes to all Dr forer yes to all Miss huffnagel yes to all Mr Hyman yes Miss Stanley yes Miss Bradford yes motion passes moving on to Personnel resolutions a through S all board members and then resolutions T through AF Berkeley Heights only may I have a motion to put this Personnel resolution forward so move okay thank you I'll second it okay Mrs thank you Mrs huffnagel and thank you Mr Heyman uh discussion on Personnel yes Mrs huffnagle uh on item AE about the National Junior Honor Society which I think is great I just have a couple quick questions um one does um admittance into it at CMS become an automatic enrollment at Columbia no or got the back words that CMS to GL okay and second question how are the teachers that are um the selectors of the students how are the teachers selected um just like just like any other advisor position it'll be an opportunity that's offered people can express their interest in it and administration in the building will make a recommendation great thank you any other discussion I see no other oh Mrs akiri and um I think you um this is the te music teacher for mkm and Woodruff I just have a question so is this a shared resource between these two schools and um it says something about pending employment authorization number but then the certification is standard so is this something that we have we still waiting on yes so employment authorization is what we're waiting on and it is a shared resource okay I see no other discussion Mr secretary roll call oh oh I'm sorry Mrs Stanley sorry so I just wanted to officially welcome welcome Mr Phillips I know you've already participated a lot so I really appreciate you being here and I appreciate you coming to some of the committee meetings and then I'm also going to say that we're really happy about being able to find a new athletic director um and we are approving you hopefully in a few moments finally okay and no other discussion now thank you Mr secretary roll call vote Miss hup Nagel yes to all Mr Hyman yes on a through S A to S you saying yes S as in Sam thank you uh Mr Kiri yes to all Dr forer yes to all Miss Jolly yes to all Miss Connor yes to all Miss Stanley yes Miss Bradford yes motion passes congratulations CJ welcome moving on to business resolutions a through I all board memb members may I have a motion to put resolution a through I forward thank you Mrs kaana second second thank you Mrs Jolly discussion Mrs Jolly yes so um wanted to talk about the Hot Topic in the community which were the disputed bills and the uh tap into article that was published um some well it's a because it's it's the business isn't it for the um oh it's Finance sorry business finance we'll save it for finance okay thank you any other discussion items I see none just Mrs secui so this is the one that we have the approved technology purchase and programs given that it's already purchased and we're basically voting yes on it but I just want to document it in the minutes um from the business administrator and the and the superintendent that before we Implement I think the board as a whole needs to look at we we are authorizing it because it's needed and this decision has been made but before we implement it and roll it out I think we owe it to the public and owe it to ourselves to come up with clear procedures and policies on how we're going to roll this out and what are the what if somebody doesn't want to like they want to validate their ID but they don't want you to store that information that's the KE question so from what I hear from Jordan looks like we are going to discuss this in technology committee but after the technology committee I don't know who's going to document those policies and procedures so can we document that in the minutes that the board is approving this but this will not be implemented into the system into our district until we finalize and we review and okay those procedures and policies we can certainly document you be I want to be clear on what you said there Administration will work to develop procedures and and a roll out plan for how it will go that will then be presented to the technology committee to vet and ask questions about and from there it'll be communicated out and everything will be um uh solidified prior to anything being put in place yes and we wouldn't do it any other way yeah also given that this is a huge roll out and you did say that this has to be communicated to the public and one of our goals is communication so I I think we should put it on our district website that hey we are rolling this out these are the policies and procedures and if there is any if we are not legally Bing them if we don't require to store that information we shouldn't that that is a factor that I want to look at maybe we'll talk about those things yes thank you Dr borer um my understand is we've already purchased this right we paid out 16,000 in July for this right so but this has a 15,552 cost to it is that another on top of the 16,000 or what what is this what was that again I'm sorry what what is are we authorizing 15,552 [Music] Mrs Dolly said before it was paid for right was already purchased or maybe maybe the term proper term that was used before purch it's already been purchased there's been a there's been a purchase order issued it hasn't been paid for yet because we haven't received all the items yet and until we do we have to sign off on it and then pay it and then you'll see it on the bills list so and and just to clarify the number that we discussed in the committee was 16,000 but it's actually more like 15,000 155 is that the right thing yes this is this is not on top of 16,000 that has already been spent that's the question I believe that this is the right number that's here on this agenda okay so right it is not $31,000 it's yeah that that was my clarification okay okay so this is actually the authorization to purchase the software and to go ahead with this before we have any policies or procedures governing this all this stuff we talked about we haven't done any of that and yet we're going ahead purchasing this Mrs huffnagel will there be an ongoing cost every year like a licensing fee or something with it that maybe is a question for Jeremy so I saw this so Mr Nixon don't get this in a wrong way but this is Aur do we have a question and answer yet to Mrs Huff nagles yeah do we have that the exact amount I'm thinking is there a uh on fee yes there is thank you so this was added today around 4:00 to the agenda correct this yeah this was in the revised agenda if I'm not mistaken was was it Monday yes the it came in this afternoon if I'm not mistaken because I took my notes on how I'm going to vote and it was n on there and I can just verify what time it came through on a second revised board agenda this came at 303 p.m. and one of the items was business I so this came in at 303 and it said new on the business and there was no contract attached for this so for us like I tried to look through but there was not enough time for me during my work day to see if there is any ongoing cost so if we haven't yet purchased it because what we originally thought was we've already purchased it can we we purchased it we didn't pay for it there is no contract in the so we don't know what the ongoing cost is I don't know off the top of my head no it's about maybe $2,500 possibly it's there's license fees that goes with it and we haven't received it you're saying you're still waiting on receiving we got most of it I don't have all the I'd have to ask Mr what what are we missing we missing some pieces to it or something didn't come through or do we have everything I I maybe I got that mixed up with something else okay then I got I got it mixed up with something else I think I heard it came in six stages but all the parts are here does that sound does that sound right stages okay came in stages but it's all and I got it mixed up with something else that that we was waiting for parts for so therefore we're being asked to approve it because we have all the hardware and software ready to roll and pay for it and then we can then we can figure out how we're going to implement it so if that is the that was my initial request if it's already here we'll approve it but you will not implement it or roll it out until we all as a board look at the procedures and the policies and what can be the waivers thank you okay if there's no other discussions Mr secretary roll call vote on business Mrs Conor yes to all Mrs Jolly yes to all Miss Kiri yes to all Dr forger yes to all Miss huffnagle yes to all Mr Hyman yes Miss Stanley yes Miss Bradford yes motion passes moving on to finance resolution a through D all board members may I have a motion to move resolutions a through D so move okay Mrs Stanley and I'm sorry was it I'll second thank you Mrs Jolly discussion oh so I paid the bills okay I looked them over I spent lots of time in the office um I got one of the free seats so people thought I worked there for a few hours um but yes it was um uh the bills are done and thank you thank you Mrs dolly all right so this is what I wanted to say before um regarding the tap into article about the disputed bills um uh there were obviously some in incorrect U uh information in that article I published an LTE with the correct numbers and just for yeah Ju Just for the broader audience well what was disputed like there was it wasn't 80,000 that was disputed so there was a June bill for the sleo that we had never seen before so we couldn't have disputed it there was the CMS graduation and one of the Cleary bills they were on the August 15th agenda they weren't disputed but the business administrator had canceled them I actually didn't realize it was canceled but you know and we voted yes for all the bill so those were the discrepancies um that were in the bill that what was deemed as disputed because they were not disputed like I said the sleo so the sleo bill was never on the agenda to be approved couldn't have been disputed and the other two were just essentially Net Zero Sum in the agenda I personally voted yes for everything but I didn't realize they were also cancelled I knew the disputed checks were canceled but this was the first time that the 1440 for the CMS bill and the um the 5,000 Plus for the clear bills were on the agenda so just wanted to clarify that for the record that's all thank you and we sent something to the uh tap into uh it said this concern regarding outstanding bills is an ongoing discussion within the Berkeley Heights Board of Education I understand that there were errors in the shared information as the Board of Education Works to clarify specific details we will withhold any additional comments on this issue at this time any other discussion so uh Mrs Bradford respectfully if the 80,000 number is inaccurate right that we we have you have clarified to us that to us in an email we have gone and looked at what was the total number of Bills first of all there wasn't there W these bills on August 15 that total to 80,000 so what is stopping the board and if our district goal and board goal is to be more transparent work on our communication what is stopping us as a board to clarify that the 880,000 number is wrong we are in the middle of a superintendent search we have to hire an assistant super inent the news article is still up there with the number of $80,000 and if I'm not correct if I'm not mistaken it was you who communicated those numbers to tap into so why are why why aren't you clarifying clearly that 880,000 is not the number what is the total number there were number of errors in that information so it is best that we not do this in public through a news paper but to decide within ourselves within the board and when we have clarification we will print the numbers so I think Natasha checked with Mr Nixon the what is on tap into right now is a double count of $25,000 for bhpd and that is wrong so correct you agree one of those numbers is wrong correct yes so what is preventing you from replying or communicating to the local newspaper so that 880,000 number doesn't appear on the article we are going to discuss this within the board and when we have a definite decision then we will communicate it I thought we discussed it in exx so my question is when will you be communicating maybe I should ask the question differently at this time we will issue no additional comments at this issue on this issue so so just sorry just a point of clarification in that sentence itself that statement that's appearing on tap into was not put out on behalf of the board just to be very clear we as board members were not consulted were not contacted were not asked before that statement with the incorrect numbers was published to be very clear so in this case what you're saying is you're making the decision to hold off on sending a correction knowing that the number on the tap into article that has gone through multiple conversations in the community is flat out wrong you are making the decision to hold off on sending the correct information so that some of the noise in the community can actually go down you don't want to do that you want to hold off until we have a further discussion within the board about these unpaid bills there were a number of Errors not just that one then we will make a statement right I mean you will want to make a statement there is no V because there is no on behalf of the board to be very clear correct Mrs Jolly oh I'm sorry who had their hand up first no Mrs Stanley so the board president is the one that can communicate um that's that's that's always how it's been um for our district right the board president is that one um njsba goes by that as well um so even you know I I disagree with people writing their own um articles because it's it's really not what the board is supposed to be doing um but I I think right here we're we're into some complicated stuff right because we're not just talking right we're talking multiple bills that we still owe but weren't maybe voted down in public right so it's not just okay right like that 80,000 was wrong but then we're just going to say okay this is the new number because it's much more complicated than that um which is why I was surprised that in the finance minutes you didn't talk about what was said on the checks because that's what this conversation is I know but in finance we we did have things that we talked about that right we do need to explain to not only the fellow board members but the community as well um so one of the things is that we did uh have to split the bills for the um the township when it comes to the SLO officers right so we took out the sick pay and we are going to uh move forward with paying the regular bill but the sick pay is being pulled out we are going to look at doing contract um talking contracts with them so that way we can move forward um and make a plan for the future on how we're going to handle sick pay um then we have uh clear and jacobe right again there was um you know again it's it's just normal stuff that happens with bills right like their their person said this is our new rate for the year but we never approved that new rate so they probably just put it on we found that there was a rate wrong and that's usually when the person doing the bills goes to the staff but instead right it got voted down in public we still have those attorney bills outstanding and we had to get new numbers for those but in the meantime right all those checks had to be voided which causes right the the district to have to do a lot of work Anthony's staff is the business office is down two members uh the superintendent's office was down multiple members with you know new members coming in uh we have an Acting Superintendent right so we have talked about these and I was just surprised that like we didn't talk about them because that is part of providing the info Mrs Dolly so it's really not that complicated there were bills that were voted down they're in public session you could pull the video they add out to a certain amount then there were other bills that were not voted down that were not disputed and all I'm saying is they were not disput they were were never brought to a vote you cannot vote something down without having that done in a public session so they were they were cancelled they were put on the bills list and then they were cancelled so I'm saying that it's really straightforward it's in the public M sessions you can go to the video you can see the exact amount of the checks that were disputed and you know and there was one check the biggest check for 25,000 that was never on the agenda for us to even review so what we do with it subsequent all I'm saying is that the actual number of disputed checks was 48,000 and change not 880,000 and and I I will say out of the courtesy during the time M could you microphone sorry out of the courtesy during the time I have the advisement to pay the July bills um I did invite two board members in they reviewed the bills I had the discussion for that June bill and the discussion was that that June bill should not be paid due to the fact of the May Bill having the problems that it did with the sick sick time that was included in there and that discussion was specifically had with Dr forer and he said you should not be bringing that bill because of the May bill now I did not bring it there now I know you're going to say that I didn't I shouldn't have that discussion due to the fact that we didn't have a May uh July meeting and that was one of the reasons the second reason for not having the 1,440 brought was that there was another reason of him not having had an issue with that bill as well and I didn't bring that either it was because of that so AJ it's fine you were doing what you needed to do all I'm saying is that on public record the actual dollar amount of the bills disputed was not 80,000 well and and I agree with that and the one one item that was on there was double count was my fault because the 25 I got interrupted because I did cut and paste it I was supposed to put seven the the actual amount and that's where it got double counted so if you take the the difference between the two that is what the the amount should be so and and the other thing is that I voted for the two checks that were cancelled not un realizing that they were canceled and the whole dispute was attributed to you know certain board members and that's also not ACC so you know we have tap into sitting right here I've published my LTE I've seen the edits that they've put into the um you know into the article but knowing Mrs Bradford's statement that even you know without an actual number and we may disagree on what that number was that that 8,000 was wrong I would ask tap to maybe take it down or you know correct it because you know what you have up there is not a correct number Mrs Stanley well then I would ask the two lits uh L tees or whatever letter to the editors come down as well because they had inaccu inaccuracies um but again right all of this right we we're we're we're trying to say that a third party got multiple information and there was a number wrong it was wrong but right there was disputed checks and there was unpaid checks because the checks before that never passed right so why would the staff go through putting these checks through right the work of doing that when they know they're going to have to cancel them and that's work right so again right you're trying to make these two separate situations but they're really not this is still we need to be paying our bills when there is an issue with the bills you bring it to like that's why we have board members doing bills and then you bring it to the staff and say Hey listen I'm thinking that this one is the numbers are wrong or incorrect right we don't usually vote down bills so much so that the staff had never had to go through this before and they actually had to talk to the auditor about how to remove these checks so as soon as a check is denied and overturned they have to avoid it right we can't vote on it again so it's work for the staff so um one board member's concern has never in the past prevented you know checks from coming onto the register so um I would say that true true and but that was in the absence of not having a meeting and they wanted to come in and review them before I had the ability to send to send them out which I had the authorization to do right so um and in terms of you know if I don't mind if my you know because that $80,000 that 80,000 number and the article itself created a lot of churn if the article comes down I don't mind my LTE coming down as well so if I can just clarify when Dr forer and me went to review the bills we met with uh the business administrator and the question asked was how do I move forward and before Dr forager responded I said it is not our role to advise you how to do your job and if your concern is if it is if it is that's the B that is what njsba says that to us this is our role we don't we don't instruct staff that is nothing Personnel this is exactly what I said if he's going to clarify and say Dr forer asked me to withhold I'm just clarifying because I was there there and the first response from me was it's not for us to tell you how to do your job second is basically I said this is Mrs Bradford please continue I think you should enforce the rules equally okay so this so the second comment that I'm trying to take make here is the we basically when the advice asked from us and the guidance that Dr forer gave was because these bills will get passed without the Sig and honestly that is what a our public contract says and what we as the board members are trying to do is be true to the fiduciary responsibility and role that we have if our contract is not clear and we have never done that this is what we told them and never has it been in the history of this District that but based on one board member statement they have taken an action and what is really of concern is Mr the board administrator and you are accepting that 880,000 number is wrong if it is wrong what is stopping us from correcting it what is stopping you from sending an email because you communicated to a news agency on behalf of the board without checking with us and we have heard a clarification that there was a mistake so rectify the mistake thank you for your just one one point I mean so someone could request a a change of a mistake but technically the the news Outlet whether it's a New York Times or tap into has to make the change just just pointing that out ultimately from natas so from our role I think I would like to actually move can't get into their CMS that's my point like she can't go make a change she can request a change same way she could say want to write an LTE if she wants to which all I'm saying is I I think we have asked her nicely I think multiple you know we have had multiple opportunities to the board president to rectify this to resend an email saying that there is a mistake in this number and that has not happened and now we are asking you publicly because our efforts to do this as a board not in public have not been fruitful now you're still refusing to rectify the mistake and fix the number it's up to that happen to yes I I totally get it but as a board we communicated a number that was not accurate so maybe I'm going to actually move a motion to issue a correct number to the local point of order that's not a motion right why we are voting on the bills and I'm asking for a rectified number on we already have a motion on the table Mr dler do you want to say anything um I know that came out funny I did not mean it that way um in all in all serious which part you like as for the point of order technically speaking if you're going to make a motion I would probably we're currently inside a motion right so that the more the scenario likely would be new business yeah there is it is under new business I'll move it there thank you um no so that would going to be my second point so I don't think the board can direct the board president it could though direct the bo board secretary if it so desires to issue something what that would be I don't think you can direct the board president to do so you might be able direct the board secretary so maybe my clarification on that is so a board president can unilaterally issue a statement on behalf of the board without checking with the board or getting our approval but we as a board cannot request the board president to issue a statement is that correct so two parts yes so technically speaking right the board president across the state traditionally have the authority to speak to borders the media and the like that's kind of an inherent Authority given to them by vote of the board as the board president I don't think I've never seen a vote where you specifically direct a board member to take such action um again if you're asking me specifically what I my recommendation would be it's what I just mentioned right you have a board secretary that is a board employee for the most part the board has two of them uh the board secretary and superintendent and so I think you have if you're going to make a motion that would be my recommendation thank you any other discussion Mrs Stanley in any debating way during a board meeting so right so can we talk about Personnel in any demeaning way about their job or responsibility especially when it's not a board employee so I don't want to get into the ethics issues right there's a separate governing body if the board had the board obviously goes through ethics training if the board has specific questions for me I don't think it's appropriate just I I don't feel comfortable taking those in public obviously if we want to discuss an executive session but because there's another governing body charges could theoretically be filed and what is said here can potentially be used against the board I don't I don't feel comfortable giving legal advice on that certainly generally speaking obviously Personnel is protected under Personnel exception whether that did or didn't take place in the example that you're giving I I'm not going to comment on any other oh sorry previously right one of the reasons why we've had an attorney at the board meeting is so to kind of protect the board from people talking about Personnel um so in the past they've actually just stepped in and say you know please refrain from discussing this because it's Personnel is that something that you would normally do if there is a line crossed or I think the liability of the board in the district right so there's a difference between an Ethics complaint which is not a board liability P per se and where I think that the board itself could be liable right for example a board member cross the line where I thought they could jeopardize the Safety and Security of the school where I think there could be a liability risk I might jump in and say look that's a security issue that's something that should be taken into executive session okay thank you no problem any other discussion on finance I just so we didn't get to the conversation of the outstanding checks when we talked about Finance before so I just want to round out um we talked about we talked about the bhpd bills we covered that uh there are two other things two other checks that are actually not on the agenda but they were part of the voided checks one was the transportation Consultants um check uh again through the committee we had we agreed to disagree on how does uh how does a consultant get engaged and what is the procedure to have uh the consultant engaged and then pay them I think that bill was it's still on the outstanding checks list the other one was uh the town planner meeting uh Gil you informed us that that meeting did indeed take place and Angela did attend that meeting uh we discussed a protocol that we need to establish with the Township in order to engage with meetings of that nature in the future and for the district to be aware if any charges would be essentially the the district District getting build for attending such a meeting I don't think there is any protocol in place today it looks like we were sent a a bill of $200 for a meeting that um that apparently happened in November 2023 one of the board members said this has happened in the past uh part of the discussion was we need some we need some protocols on uh are we are we going to be build we need the clarity beforehand uh especially if the conversation is about um student enrollment or anything that impacts the schools I think Tom you had a point about in in relation to that that particular outstanding check I don't know if you have if you want to uh bring that up I saw the uh explanation of the invoice and it was uh we were giving enrollment data to the town uh that may be disputed as to what actually happened here I don't know why we would be doing that or why they'd care um but I think you know if the town held a meeting with one of our people or board president uh and didn't tell us in advance there was going to be a charge I mean I don't see why we have to pay this uh there was no there's no contract in place and everything we pay is per contract so I would just say we don't know it I think the other thing that's unclear is is that the only charge for that meeting meaning is that the total charge for that meeting is that the district's share of the charge for the meeting um it's unclear from the from the supporting information that was provided for that $200 bill from 2023 was I think there was a discussion about all the over like you know the development that's happening and how students are coming in but I can understand anybody charging us if they provided the data to us but here when you look through the chain of emails it's the district providing the data to them so we gave them data saying hey these are the number of students that are coming in from so-called new development some have not so I don't understand where and how the in those supporting information that came from the bill there was nothing in there that said we need to charge you for this amount I know it's a very small amount a lot of people have said you have a lot of funds you have a surplus yes we have a lot of funds you have a lot of surplus but small amounts like these add up and we need to make sure that this was we are contractually obligated we are told ahead of time that hey you attend this meeting with your data and you're going to be sent a bill that's my point okay and that was done um by our previous superintendent and our previous um board president so uh the concern regarding these outstanding bills is still an ongoing discussion at this time so we should continue this as a board to continue this let's move ahead with the motion if there any other discussion Mr secretary we're looking for a roll call vote Mrs Stanley Mrs Jolly yes to all Mr Ki yes to all Dr for orer yes to all miss huffnagel Mr Hyman yes Miss Conor yes to all Miss Bradford yes motion passes moving on to comments from the public on any topic uh I will not repeat this uh but we will have a statement of three minutes in duration we will take our in-person participants first and then we will move to our online good evening oh it works now okay H Debbie Terrero 170 Len of helane um I was actually asked to ask this question to you guys um apparently on October 5th the SATs at Governor Livingston was cancelled and and for some of the students that were registered I guess it apparently caused a lot of chaos and so I was asked specifically if you had any reason as to why that happened um I know there's quite a few parents that are really upset in the district um was it cancelled for monetary issues technical issues like Wi-Fi Proctor space any information I'm just being asked to ask the question forya thank you yeah yeah yeah it was C any other comments from the public in person Mr Hendrick we welcome you and thank you again for staying for our meeting absolutely longest board meeting I've been to but well worth it so uh uh I just want to uh thank the uh the board um uh here in Berkeley Heights uh to Mr Robert Nixon and the rest of the um staff and people who I got to meet and and got to interact with throughout the interview process um I'm really excited about this opportunity to come here and work in such a great Community um you know one of the biggest parts of of being uh someone in my position is that you really get the opportunity to to show how great the place that you are is and I think that uh once I get here and get to know the community get to know the people get to meet the coaches the teachers the staff um Everybody across the board I think it's going to be great a great marriage for us and uh I'm really excited to bring some of the great ideas that I've had in my prior District I'm really excited to to meet the kids and meet the people around and uh you know it's going to be tough to trade in uh my current school colors but I'm really excited to get that Navy and red on uh once I step in the door soon so I just want to thank everybody um and I just want to get the opportunity to welcome myself to the Berkeley Heights and Mountainside communities um I'm really excited for this opportunity and uh thank you so much go Highlanders thank you thank you so much we are very excited to have you on board as we highly value our student programs and our athletes and thank you Mr Nixon do you have a comment on the SAT so I hadn't received any I hadn't received any information about SATs being canceled they did take a look at our calendar um October 5th is list as an SAT date but they're they look like they were never scheduled to be at G here on on our calendar it says sat away which is our code that it's an SAT day but it's offsite uh not not at GL uments got last week so um I think uh yeah we did as well we don't need to take it in October so it was neither here nor there but we were registered to take it at G and then um my husband said he he got an email that it was canceled yeah I mean I'll look into it um a lot of yeah thank you I appreciate that I'll look into it thank you hopefully watch Young Hills had space right if they're a testing center for that date um I see we have someone online I can't read the name um Tim would you please promote yeah I don't see it yet okay thank you I I see um Jean Ringwood thank you can you hear us can you ask your pro ask your state your comment Miss Rin you may be on mute Tim can you give us any help Miss Ringwood could you unmute for us please one they got right cannot some else cannot miss Ringwood if you would like to make a comment would you please unmute okay face Miss Ringin can you unmute yourself we cannot hear you Miss Ringwood we we cannot hear you again miss Ringwood can you hear us can you nod can you hear us miss Ringwood we're we're just trying to work out some technical difficulties okay we cannot hear you no it doesn't look like she can hear us that has to be done chat has to be done over there no she can Miss Rand we are looking for uh technical difficulties I think you cannot hear us we cannot hear you but we can see you maybe phone number yes I have her phone number but I don't have a phone I didn't bring my cell phone how did you I'm trying to we have we haven't started yet should I do that at least call yoube somebody a personal phone call I don't think that's in I don't think that's in our policy yeah okay Miss Ringwood what we're going to do is we're going to go on to new business and then uh we will allow you to come back if you can at the end but we're going to move on to new business and we apologize for the technical difficulties on on either end okay so moving on to new business number one uh who brought that forward yes Mrs Stanley okay so as um You probably can understand we we as a finance committee had a difficult time coming to consensus um so right now we have clear and jacobe attorney bills we have the ray cooner the transportation consultants and the Phillips price who's the developer consultant these um these three vendors we have not paid um this is you know the one that we approved tonight was to the township for the SOS uh minus the sick pay the sick pay and the contract we will look at um separately but these three vendors we still owe money and so the staff asked the finance department can they issue these checks for the October meeting for the board's approval so the question is is can we take a straw poll on whether or not we can ask um the staff to issue those checks because they again don't want to issue the checks and then have to keep uh taking them off and so that is the question tonight can we take a quick straw poll of whether we would like to see the staff put these bills or any of these bills on the October meeting I'm not going to make a motion because I'm not going to force write this but I do think that they just need direction right and that's how were we moving forward right and as a finance committee we could not come to uh a consensus and so this is our opportunity to try to work together and uh give the staff Direction on how to move forward a discussion and I think Mrs Jolly made the suggestion earlier what did you say about with the with the um uh clear pills um looking look look at review them over right so um look I my concern with the with the clear bills um was the it's just it's not clear at this point if that particular dollar amount includes or does not include some of the um you know overages right that were documented so what I had asked Mr jesis to do was to confirm what the actual amount needs to be because while I see it in invo it's like very hard for me to follow from the invoice to the handwritten notes like what is the actual dollar amount obviously if that's been corrected for we will you know approve the bill that was the that was the issue right and there was potentially and I don't know there was also potential in back in the March Bill something that looked potentially like a double count but um from from March that double count was when when they discussed it and that was all brought forward now that happened to be with the ethics was all and then was all separated out so if if all that information is there and it's all been accounted for and it kind of can be presented to us as opposed to you know like 10 different pieces of paper then I'm fine with paying the bill as long as it's accurate I mean that's what it all comes down to right if the bill is accurate so I I thought the latest one that they showed us actually had like the hour percentage times 165 well I think the one that was in the in the that we had approved was for July right so these are we're talking about the disputed bills so going back like to March and that and when things were overcharged so I don't know what the correct those correct amounts are but didn't we share that with the board I thought I like we right we had those lists it's just there were invoices and there were handwritten amounts of what the overages were but like the amount of the check that we actually need to pay is not clear to me I don't think it's the amount that was disputed that's what I'm trying to say so I'm totally fine with you know paying as long as the numbers are accurate and I just need to see evidence that the number is accurate so what evidence would you like to see like do you want them to like write each one on a piece of paper do you want a computer print out I I think what she's saying is that if if I if I look back at all those pages and it says on like I'm going to give you one that sticks out in my head on one of the pages says 109 all right so if I look at and add all those pages up am I going to see all those as credits on one of the bills that it comes up I think that's what she's referring to right I just want to make sure we're all on the same page of what we need so that way we don't end up making these checks and then having to void them again this well this is what I need so I'm not speaking for the board I know I'm I'm saying right like I would like to know exactly what you're looking for because I right he might be able to list them but right in in other conversations right there's been like well we want certified you know things so I'm just asking what what are you thinking so if I if there was a bill that was disputed in March it had overages on it I would like to see an amended check amount with the amount that was taken out for the overage and and the ones from March and I know that when Miss Kiri and um Dr foro were looking at the bills what was brought up back then and it all stems from that ethics cases they were all put together and we thought they were being double triple charged those charges were all broken out um separately and that's not they weren't triple or double or triple charge they were just brought out separately for those particular three cases those are the cases would be reimbursed by insurance company for those so just so there's no there's no errors on those so just recapping what we talked about in in finance committee is it's hard for us to just look at that attachment and without kind of having the full summary of this is what it was before this is what it is now because you know the rate was incorrect for when the bill was first presented so what we are looking for is just a very clear summary of this is what it was this is the actual real correct amount and then this is what was reduced or you know accounted for and this is hard for us because we don't we not into the details of so the point about the certification we not into the details of each of these bills and doing the math so the the point that we discussed in the finance committee is I'm looking for some sort of assurance some sort of certification from the business office that they've actually gone through the detail done the math and and saying if you know if the last bill was you know $1,000 it should have been $900 that math right I can do that you guys have the details that's that's that was the conversation if that's if that's what everybody's looking for if that's fine so we can receive that in an email right the original the amount of hours were subtracting or the amount of dollars per hour We're subtracting and then the final amount in an email but that but that's only on the overages that no March as as what was determined back then with those charges as I just discussed that we all thought was you know being tripled or or double double or triple charged wasn't it was the three charges separated out for the ethics cases and that's when I went back and researched it and asked them for that and as as we've all seen as we've come closer with this case and brought it brought it Forward going from March all the way to now I think we've all established that that's what's been going on because we've had many of discussion about it okay so okay so can we take a quick straw poll can we well there's other no I I don't I first of all I I really don't like the way this is being done uh we operate in a according to parliamentary rules and there's no such thing as a straw pole so there really has to be if you want something done you have to have a formal motion specifying what you want done I don't think you can because we're not voting on The a minute I'm speaking you can have your you'll have a chance after I'm done all right as you always do all right so all we need to do we we're going to need a formal motion and then we're going to have to vote on it now what I suggest is that there certainly going to have to a recertification and I don't think the business office can do this the certification is by the vendor they have to sign a statement that whatever is being submitted for payment is accurate and uh that's what we're going to need to see and I would prefer that the business office just summarize the whole thing in a spreadsheet and be done with it so can I I think I had my hand okay yes did U so Mrs Airi my advice and this is just my personal opinion like I can't speak for the board this is a Professional Services contract with a vendor who understands Professional Services and if you look at their bills for the last two years or two and a half years every Bill even if it's for $40 $20,000 $80,000 the last page has a certification from the partner who Ser there's a stamp there's a signature there's a seal that says all services rendered in these line items are accurate and this is the hourly rate so we have multiple line items so what we what we discovered was sometime in March that starting from January according to the Professional Services contract that we have with this vendor it's supposed to be charging us $165 per hour we were seeing an overcharge of $175 per hour and there are different rates for attorneys there are different rates for paralegals what we were seeing is there were also being the rate that was being charged I think that's what we pointed out to the business office hoping that the business administrator would or the business office will deal with this Professional Services vendor and say can you correct it so what we are looking for is a summary of from the month of January to March or from the month of January to I don't know when we originally found it and then when they stopped or they realized it and then they stopped it there needs to be a sumary saying these is this is the total number of hours charged at $175 $75 per hour now we are changing it to $165 as per the contract so this is the difference and that certification has to come from them so if we want to summarize this and say this is what it is and then okay that's fine by me thank you Mrs Stanley so as we've talked in the finance committee um we're no longer really using this attorney and um we haven't paid them so it's very hard to get them to do things for us when you have not paid them um and they are no longer being used by US so um we have an issue too where we have not been reimbursed for certain things from the insurance company because we haven't received certification that we've paid certain bills right because again we haven't paid them in months um so I think that we have to come to a realization that like if we look at the math right and we know there's a certain amount of hours listed and we know we were overcharged by $10 right because their fee changed from 165 to 175 except we don't have a new contract with them so it was a mistake right we can just subtract the amount of hours times 10 right and that should be the new bill price right so again right we can we can demand certification but that's work on them and we still haven't you know paid them 18 3,500 5,000 and then I think there's another bill that hasn't come to the board for what it is I'm gonna ask him and I think I don't think there's going to be an issue with it for for the amount of money that they'll get I'll have a conversation with them I'm sure the person in the billing department Sue afano or whatever her name is um I can I'll talk to them and and I'll get that process started so that that takes care of one but then we have the two others to discuss and if the other one for the 200 if that's not going to be done or what okay that's fine and we're down to one and I don't know what we want to do with the the transportation consult Mrs huffle you had your hand up yeah just real quick on this one I mean it would behoove them to make it correct for their own auditing purposes not that we can force them to do that obviously but as well is if we need to get reimbursed from the insurance company we need a proper documented invoice not just something that we've put together okay you know but I didn't have proper communication with some of this stuff to begin with I didn't take a quick summary like everybody has said would be way I think where the difference is is right like demanding that they give us the summary versus if we actually look at it and make our own summary that's where I think we need clarification because like I said I don't want to instruct or not instruct ask or give give uh instruction right to the staff on on how to move forward because they don't know how to move forward we have all these checks that were canceled and they don't know how to move forward we have to give them some kind of advice on how to move forward if they go and put this on the October Bill and then we say well we didn't get this and we didn't get that and that we didn't get that so I want to give them really good instruction on how they can move forward and if they receive this and we received this that they can go ahead and put this on the bill so that way we don't have any more of this back and forth of like oh no I didn't get what I wanted and I didn't get what I wanted right because that's kind of where we've been right and and it's causing a lot of unnecessary work um and time um so again I can make a motion that is put on there but I would like us to kind of just neg you know negotiate and work together and you know we've all kind of set our piece now if we have I exception at labeling something as unnecessary work you might not value it but a lot of us do so just it's you don't need to label it as unnecessary so should this go back to our finance and Facilities committee After we receive something from Mr jtz yeah I'll get I'll talk to them and get get them working on before October but can we just kind of get an idea is everybody on the same page that we can move forward with the clear and jacobe as long as we move forward in a way that so we know as long as the numbers are accurate right and that summary we show obviously we're not going to pay a bill if it's not accurate but there's right a way to do it that helps and supports the staff and it's only the difference between the contracted rates there's there's no other issues with anything else as as we stated before that that what what I talked about with that other thing with March that's already been what that we already know what what the issue was with that and that's the three ethics cases and that's been separated and that's been fine and we've been getting reimbursed for those are are there and I don't know if my memory is failing but were there others that were um that where some of the charges were attributable to uh where like a certain Oprah was it Oprah like related charges were not attributable to the right counterparty if you will not that I'm not that I'm aware was there something like that I didn't have anything else what we'll do what we'll do is we'll take we have the check numbers we can go back and look at the invoices um for and you know because I I I if that was the only issue then it's a straightforward math and it's fine because that's the only two things that I recall was was the triple was the triple charging because of that and the and the other things with the contract that's the only two issues that I I recall so miss kanana as the chair of the finance committee do you feel confident to move forward because one of the questions was that you felt that the whole board needed to talk about this it's predicated on us getting the summary that we just discussed and when we get it I don't see any problem with us moving forward so I'm not sure well because the finance committee would now need to tell the staff to put this on right to instruct them that yes we believe we are going to move forward with thise focus on the October I'm not sure if that's that's what the job of the finance committee is we make recommendations all the time that's what we do we just discussed this as a board it's not up to a committee to do anything well we has a board but a committee makes recommendations to the board that's how everything gets on the agenda so again we just talked about it let's get the information if that information is clear as we have discussed multiple times now I don't see an issue with why we would say no well so I'm questioning the word clear because that we've had this same discussion and then we gave stuff and then it wasn't clear so I want to be clear with what we need so we can move forward I think we've beaten that horse to death now on what we need I wish I wish it was dead but it's still act let me let me be very clear it looks like AJ has what he needs let him do the job what he needs to do to put this information together so that we are not wasting anybody's time here right this minute talking about it over and over again I know but in the finance committee you did not feel comfortable without the full board discussing it and now we've had a full board discussion so now do you feel comfortable I don't know I have no idea where this is going so I'm just did you get enough information here that you feel comfortable in the finance committee I don't have any information yet so I will say yes when I see the information I mean this is a circular conversation at this point in time not sure why we having it anymore AJ are you comfortable with next steps on your end that's for clar so we got two two two two more left to discuss yeah yes that's just for C clear okay all right the next one on the list is the transportation consultant right for $ 1, uh $50 I believe uh there was um information provided to the attorneys on this one um so we would like to move forward with this so we don't continue to accept uh get more fees basically I think we just discussed it in exec and we so I don't understand the point of this is we I think we spent close to 30 20 minutes in exact on this very thing and we got guidance from Mr dler and I think that's the end of it so I don't understand why we need to discuss this now so we can't discuss certain things in public but we can decide are we going to put this bill on the October list of bills because that's what the district is asking can they put this bill and do we have the board understanding that we owe this company and we decided that in exec and you were we did not make a decision and exact and one you can't make a decision AJ are you clear on this one I'm gonna say probably yes and I'm gonna probably say the next one is too so but so is that a a no right you're clear that it's a no right that it's not going to go on the October yeah but again I I I we're already getting fees for this I you know know and I think that um at least for me some questions in exact were not answered I'm still not clear as to the engagement model for the district with the um with Consultants did you reach out to the ngspa um I did not so I was hoping to get a Clarity um in exec by asking U Mr just okay I mean I suggest that would be the first step right is the njsb a because while he you know Mr dler can give us um the attorney look right when it comes to board members roles in what our staff does that's really more of the ngba right because they they deal with board members in particular I don't know if this is on right but I'm acting in my capacity as a board member in reviewing the bills so I'm not telling anyone how not telling the district how to behave I just am confused by the fact that we had a contract previously but then we also reached out to them without a contract and I would like to understand for for Consultants of that nature again how that is meant to work all right so that one it looks like a no um can we talk about the developer consultant um again this is a $200 bill uh the the finance committee discussed this um we are as we move forward we asked Mrs Bradford as board president that she would make sure when we uh talk to the township that we are clear on what is owed um right what the cost is going to be before the discussion not after the discussion um but I do want to say that if anybody heard what uh Mrs Bradford said during her liaison reports that they um put a pause on all um the township put a pause on all contracts with us sh lease agreement shared lease agreements um I'm not even sure what that affects does that affect just our maintenance of buses and the maintenance of our um our vehicles all of our vehicles how many vehicles um is this also for gas gasoline or is this just maintenance of those Vehicles is this going to affect any of our sleo agreements in contracts right like I'm not sure where this lies and I'm not sure what point do we say this is hurting a relationship not just dollars so can I I heard that in the leoon report and it wasn't very clear what that meant uh in terms of the township not wanting to I I couldn't tell if it's they're discontinuing it unilaterally because nobody has reached out from what I can tell I mean there wasn't any information provided so to your point about the relationship it sounds very much like a one-way Street right now whereas there is a lot of expectation on the board just saying yes to things but it's unclear that the township you know is doing a reach out to say this is how we should be working going forward and you know case in point this this developer outstanding bill it's it's there is no communication from what I can tell my understanding is that I'm I'm going to be receiving a communication uh via letter tomorrow morning I don't have it in my possession yet I understand that I'm going to be receiving something tomorrow as a result of that resolution that was passed at Town Council this week last week the resolution was introduced as a yearly resolution these are introduced our contracts our shared lease agreements with the Town Council are renewed every year so it came up for Renewal and because of other circum ances the uh motion was tabled so there is no contract now for shared resources for the vehicles and the comment was that they wanted to review the language of all the shared agreements to make sure everything was cleared so that there wouldn't be any uh discrepancy in bill paying okay and but that's not necessarily a bad thing right because it's kind of what we had wanted to do I think I think as long as when things are clear there's less friction so I I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing honestly I think we are all elected representatives and as must have said it multiple times we all have a fiduciary responsibility we are handling public funds and if one government entity wants to relook at their contracts more closely I don't take it as that that's good and I don't want to assume and make any assumptions until we actually hear something um I think we can also similarly as I've said previously we can also make assumptions because we have never heard basic uh you know courtesy that hey we're going to put a referendum on the ballot with a biased question so it goes both ways I want to reserve judgment on whether it's a bad thing to see what the contents of that email or letter would be because if it starts to affect the day-to-day uh of our district including uh anything related to the student experience sounds like a bad thing so depending how long it goes right like I don't really understand a lot of the goal of tonight's conversation around this in particular because we can just say oh we're mad at the township they should have done this or that but at some point we also have to build that relationship right that responsibility is also on us right so I don't I don't understand that part of it because we do have a pretty good relation relationship with the township maybe not as a board as a whole but the district does and we need to consider that in our actions right because the district does work very closely with the township and we want to keep that relationship strong um so that's that's my comment on that um but we do need to make a a decision on how to move forward with this check right that's really what this question is on the new business is how are we going to move forward with this particular check Mrs Stanley so would the board give authorization for me to reach out to the Town Council to see which contracts they would like to tighten up and to then move those contracts to our finance and Facilities meeting and to work with those on that would that be the board find out that sounds great all right so I will reach out to the Town Council and I will ask them what specifically after Mr Nixon receives the letter which contracts would they want to do and we'll bring them to the finance and Facilities can we can we make a decision on this checks without that necessarily it doesn't sound like it yeah okay number two who brought this up oh head custodian negotiations let just sorry Pam um but things I mean I don't know the process of like cutting checks right but you know it's kind of hard to say because maybe once we understand and maybe that contract under which this particular bill would fall into would be something that's I don't believe this would be under any contract I I mean I it like $200 isn't but a big deal but it's like the principle of it so if I would so if we can establish clear guidelines right with the Township in terms of you know when when how why we would be charged for attending a meeting what are the parameters of a meeting that and that's what the finance committee did ask the board president to do um so that way we are aware prior to ever meeting with the district's um okay Consultants we're going to move on now for the head cust in um negotiations Dr forer you are chair where are we I'm happy to report that we're going to have a meeting with the custodians next Thursday thank you um this is this the first meeting this this the first meeting Dr forer this is our first meeting with the head custodians so this contract this ended July 1st correct correct that's not correct no when does it end expired June 30th okay it looks like we have Miss Ringwood back if you could Pro uh promote her please Tim oh and I think Mrs Bradford you'll have to read that if your reopening The public's comment you need to read the statement comments from the public on any topic during this portion of the meeting District residents and staff are invited to address the board of education on any item the board requests that individuals State their name town or residence or school attendance for the record all comments should be directed to the board president depending upon the nature and complexity of the question it may or may not be answered during the meeting by the administration if so the response would occur after this public portion of the meeting has concluded although the board may not respond to all items raised during the public forum all public comments will be considered the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specific regarding Personnel matters are discouraged and cannot be responded to by the board students and employees have spe specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will be liable for any comments made by members of the public please note if any member of the public becomes disruptive during the meeting the board president May terminate the participant statement continued disruptions may result in removal from or adjournment of the meeting each speaker will have three minutes we are promoting you Mrs Ringwood can you hear us I can hear you can you hear me yes thank you yippe okay um I have two issues hello everyone sorry for this late night um I have two two issues to discuss regarding the superintendent appointment um it it has been decided by the by you as the board uh that Mr Dixon will not be moving forward um to be considered as a finalist and potentially our to be our superintendent uh much disappointment uh on many of our parts but but that's not what I'm here to say right now okay M that is Personnel information so we're going to ask you not to comment on that this is going to address the board not that I've just I've questioned Mr Nixon on one of the things that I was to get clarification on May I proceed or no do you have a comment or a question I have a comment this news was shared with me by an employee um on the morning of Wednesday the 28th at our breakfast before opening remarks were made um I was quite taken back didn't say anything to anyone um and as it turned out over the course of uh that long weekend other people had been approached with that same statement uh that was we were told came from a very reliable source not a parent uh someone who information was given privy to the only people I'm sorry I did ask our Acting Superintendent the following week when was he notified and I was told it was after the morning of the 28th now that means that someone on the board did not uh resp respect the office they hold uh and did not follow the the practice of Ethics where confidential information was shared out before it was shared with the person involved and that is not acceptable um the only people who have who are privy to this information are board members and we look to you as um as I I am I'm sorry I am Jean Ringwood I am a resident I am a Community member we look to you to trust you to make the right decisions to do the right things by people because we make all those decisions to do right by the students of our our our school district and we have to have confidence in you and knowing that there's someone who may have violated that ethic and not maintain confidentiality and ultimately disrespected our Acting Superintendent it's just not acceptable it's just not acude your comments yes one more thing the bo of Education as a whole is only as strong as its weakest link if you are not choosing Mr Nixon and you are considering other people please do your due diligence please look at the districts they're coming from why they are coming like are they are they not being renewed are are they uh being voted against at their board meetings look at them thank you look at the paper thank you thank you he