think all right good evening how's everybody doing tonight let's try that again how's everybody doing tonight all right good all right welcome to tonight's Board of Education meeting let's all stand for the pledge of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands na under God indivisible withy and justice for all let's remain standing for a moment of silence please thank you you may be seing in accordance with the open public meeting act adequate notice for this meeting was advertised in the record posted at the board office and filed with the city clerk I hereby called to order the uh special public meeting on December 4th in the Haack Media Center at 616 6:16 p.m. will you do a roll call please miss yes Mr Carol is absent Mr Coleman present Miss Ciro Alton present Miss Jennifer Harris present Mr Mian present Mr Powell present Miss Somerville present Mr Rodriguez present Mr James vicory present we do have a quorum thank you all right so we'll go straight to public comments All participants uh please sign in when it's your turn please State the following your name your municipality any group affiliation that you might uh that might be important for us to know about each person has a limit of three minutes uh when the buzzer goes off uh I please ask that you stop um please direct all comments to me as the presiding officer and responses will be held to the end of the public uh participation first up uh Anthony Ziza hackin sack uh good evening I'm Anthony Ziza and I'm here tonight as a parent a Community member and an alumnus I would firstly like to congratulate Dr McBride on this appointment and extend my hope that he has a long and successful tenure as her superintendent his successes are our children and Community successes and is my Earnest hope he's able to move our district forward and improve it for the sake of our students tonight we should be joining simply to celebrate the historic appointment of our District's first African-American superintendent a landmark in a community where so many of our children can now see themselves in the person leading our district but unfortunately the process followed in this appointment requires comment this decision should have been made with more transparency and Community involvement but lack both one survey on Google Classroom three months ago is not Community engagement particularly on such a consequential decision the superintendent search is a declaration of the principles of the future of the district and more extensive Outreach should have been done to bring our community and its stakeholders into this conversation Forum should have been held at our schools and input should have been more clearly solicited from our community adding Dr McBride's initial contract approval to the agenda in October in October's minutes before it is not transparency calling a special meeting on less than a week's notice with no Fanfare is not seeking Community engagement cutting stakeholders out of the process is not what an organization dedicated to representing its Community does if we want our community engage in its schools we need to provide real opportunities for that which were not given this District faces many significant challenges and decisions over the next few years not the least of which is the dire need for a new school building and upgrading facilities as of January new members will be joining this board and I hope they help Steward The District in a direction of building that Community consensus Neary to tackle the needs of our future thank you there hi I had no intention to talking my name is Tanya Feliz Patron a happy Teacher here at hackensac I um reside in Boda New Jersey uh welcome to everyone uh I kind of dropped the ball last month I get a little nervous sorry um and not reminding you or promoting to you guys that the robotics team is doing an amazing job our students are amazing I love Hack and Sack for the diversity and everything it stands for I'm nervous it might have been the coffee I had before it came um I'm very proud to be here in a position where I teach engineering I teach um metal shop I teach wood shop and in all this aspects I have amazing students that are going into indust or going into high level Princeton High Level physics and all these varieties of different subject matters I think it's important that every once in a while we remember the students we remember the people that we are involving I think the parents need to be a little bit more involved we're looking to partner with uh variety of outside sources to make sure the parents are aware of what their children are POS are able to do um I'm here here also to represent my uh Union haa just for the sake of just showing you that there is Unity there is nervousness in my voice but I am excited um that as a community we tend to support each other so at the robotics first ever uh competition hosted here there was a variety of different people that came to support there were 23 different schools and teams that came to the district and saw our facilities and was exposed to the idea of what we have here in hackensac and I'm very very proud of that for the kids who worked about three years in it just to be able to host such a uh an opportunity and I think that um the IT department the maintenance department all the teachers I had three teachers volunteer an entire eight hour day just to referee the competition I'm very grateful for that Mr matano came and gave a little nice welcome um and I appreciate the support so just giving a positive just so whoever needs to hear it hackin is a great place to teach hackin Tech has great students there could be so many things in the background but we don't we don't need to always complain I I support the idea that it should be transparent and support the idea that we are here to make sure that we do the best for our future uh leaders which are the students so thank you you is there anybody online anybody else in the room since there are no comments after the meeting I wanted to just personally welcome Dr McBride and tell you that I look forward to working with you as the assistant superintendent thank you he hasn't worked with us yet okay transparency just for that I'm gonna tell you my name is Andrea parchment and um Liv in Tac no um in all seriousness my name is Donna West I am the hacky Education Association president it is a pleasure to welcome you to hackin sack um with all of her hiccups and all of her uh things that we are trying to achieve I know that it is a great place um we have been talking and working and trying to get relationships um that work for the betterment of our children um because at the at the end of the day that's really what it's all about um so um you will hear me here at at meetings um um we will call you on the carpet and um and pull your coattails if we have to um but we are happy to have you here representing um a population that uh can finally see someone in leadership that looks like them because we do have a huge huge diverse population um we are looking for uh male leadership that you know that look like you and um just really really excited to begin working with you um I've researched you a little bit um looking up some of the things that you um are about or you know in some of your podcasts and one of the things um like the relationships um which we are definitely trying to um build and strengthen strengthen between the staff and the admin and the board of it um I really do want to see us work more collectively I really want to see more more transparency I do want to see more accountability and I do want you to hold us accountable as well if my people are not doing what they're supposed to do we want to know that but we also want to know that um you have our back when we are uh working to do what we can for the better betterment of our children and welcome to hackin SEC again I am Andrea Parchman I live thank you so much online all right we have somebody online go ahead good evening everybody uh my name is Tony Jackson um hackin sack resident hackin sack uh Schools parent and also uh teacher at hackin sack um I wanted to speak to you regarding a couple of things first I had uh a message from uh my daughter who's a hacken sack student her name is Jillian Jackson she said it was okay if I paraphrased but I have her handwritten a card she wanted to speak about uh the appointment of Dr McBride she said um I'm paraphrasing here she said I believe that we need a woman superintendent no offense but all these years it's been men women should have a chance uh yet I hope you are a good role model for all my years at hackin saac um and so we also Echo that hope Dr McBride um welcome um I also speak for uh other young folks I speak for my students uh I told them that I would definitely come before the board and make it known that they are uh experiencing testing fatigue they are exhausted in the classroom having constant assessment one after the other um I'm just looking at a couple here with Scholastic we have the SRM reading records comprehension quizzes a reading survey literacy Pro we have the SRI the SMI we have the the new maap the math growth assessment we have the link at tests we have test and reveal um and one of the things that I looked up is that I know that linkit some districts use that and they use it for multiple content areas so if we could try to get to a point where we have less redundancy and we could actually just be doing something with enough data that would be fantastic and make it meaningful for those students um and then finally uh some excitement came to me when I was looking up Dr McBride I saw the term Equity uh connected to your name and your title and I feel that in this District we recognize the importance of that um but at a time when you know the spotlight is starting to dim on a lot of equity work uh you know once it was hot and now people are starting to see it Trail off uh I hope that you will hold us and um this community uh to the true meaning of what it means to be Equitable um and we we hope to see that from you so that we have some real action um and not just things that are put out there to look good um so welcome this is an amazing district and Community um and we expect great things from you thank you very much evening proud teacher of Fanny Meyer Hillary School the academy on the hill where all of our students are stars um first and foremost welcome to pinac what an amazing place to be it is a great district and you will find um that there is still a lot of work to be done um yes we did research you because it doesn't make sense to have someone come here and we not at least find out who's coming and so grateful for the things that we were able to see and to learn about you as Tony said Equity is extremely important and it does seem to fade in dwindle it seems to be a buzzword when it sounds like it's a good box to check off on our list of things we need to do but we want it to become a more regular thing and not just a box to check off on the list of things to do as for all of the assessments that our children have been taking over the last couple of weeks it is disheartening um to see my colleagues who have been teaching for a number of years now feel as if they don't want to do this because constantly we've been throwing some things to do one after the other we're given a new curriculum in math and then we have another one that's being thrown in our direction we're testing kids in grade levels who' never tested standardized testing even though we call it something else who have NE never tested this way before I kind of felt like my kids got set up to fail taking a test that was ranged from second to fifth grade they were only in the second grade they had no idea about some of the things that appeared on that test and so they automat automatically were not going to be successful because those are things that we do not teach at my grade level and so it has been a very difficult couple of weeks we had one day of professional development and then we were expected to administer a test when we were not told how to troubleshoot and so some of us ended up doing a great deal of Technology things way above my pay grade because that's not what I was hired to do if you didn't teach me how to do it and so um it has been difficult and we need the central office to really take a look at what we're doing I understand that that there are some things that cack and some other people may have said that we need to do but more does not always mean better and so we have to find a way where we invite some people to the table come to our classroom and find out what it looks like you gave us when now it's mtss but now you're telling us how to teach that and so if you're telling us how to teach that at least come into the classroom so that you can see that some of us actually paid attention to what we taught in our lessons and are using those periods to spiral lessons to improve the skills of our students come to the table come to our classrooms don't make decisions in central office come to our classrooms and find out what it is where trying to accomplish then maybe we won't spend as much money in areas where it doesn't need to be spent thank you good evening my name is Marcela monoa I've been in this district for 23 years I want to welcome Dr McBride I look forward to you taking us to the next level in our journey um I want to take 15 seconds to thank Mr Sanchez for his work ethic I think you could be everything to all people but if you're not putting in the hours that you expect us to put in and modeling that leadership then it falls flat and it is demoralizing so personally I want to thank you for walking the walk for working almost 24 hours and um thank you hi cine gains hackin saac um Donna and Anthony spoke and so they they peer pressured me to get up to the microphone as well um so I am one of the vice presidents of the haa I wanted to welcome you as well um we really are optimistic that um there will be great positive interactions with not only the staff but also our community our families and our students um one of the things that I think has been lost a little bit since my time here as a student is um casual walkthroughs by people in Upper Administration asking kids how their day is going how are you I saw you at Target I saw you at shoppr right and um having that sort of familial atmosphere I think is important it's important um to a community it's important to a school system um and it's something that makes people feel like they're not just workers but like when where a family is evoked it's not being evoked as a a weapon it's being evoked as something that is true and sincere um I do wish that the community had more of an opportunity to get to know you I do want to Echo Mr Zea's sentiments on that front um I understand that there was a time crunch and I understand there's a retirement um but I think you want people to feel good about the decision that was made and that comes with information and with knowledge so if people don't know people start to wonder why don't we know why is it on the agenda at the last minute why is there a emergency meeting or a uh I don't know what the word emergency wasn't used but special special meeting special um but I think um confidence goes both ways everyone sitting up here at some point in time has voiced um wanting the confidence of the community and I think that that goes both ways the community needs to have confidence in the decisions that you're making and that comes with communication um so I do hope that once um you are installed formally you have an opportunity to have some of those meetings that perhaps should have happened a couple of weeks ago but where you just invite the community to come and meet you ask questions share their concerns um and get to know the people of hack andac I've lived here my entire life went to school here and um we are we are great people here everyone in this room including everyone on this side um we all care we may not always see everything the same but we care so come and meet us thank you so much thank you good evening everyone good evening Dr McBride my name is Nicole Adams I'm one of the assistant principles here at the high school welcome I'm also the president of hassa um the administrator and supervisors Association so we look forward to working with you we look forward to partnering with you and the rest of central office on District initiatives and we are excited about your start here we will also like to extend our gratitude to Mr Sanchez for working with us for always having an open door and always engaging in sometimes spirited conversations but um always having a mind towards resolving conflict and um that went a long way so thank you so much anybody else good evening everyone my name is Bridget Hack and Sack um the reason I'm standing here is because I put it in Oprah back in September and I have not fully received the complete Oprah that is 90 days I had extensions on top of the extensions and I'm just trying to understand why that Oprah was not completed um I had a conversation this morning uh it was given that the lawyer I think I reached out to the lawyer I did not get a return phone call so I have like a problem here with not getting an Oprah in the amount of time that is under the legal law which is seven days an extension of another seven days which would make it 14 days so I don't have the complete Oprah that I should have I'll be happy to have a conversation with you actually my other attorneys are here too happy to have a conversation with you offline and explain to you kind of the reasons why we asked for the extensions because the voluminous nature of the emails that were being searched but I'll I'll be happy to talk with you okay no problem anyone else before we close out on anybody online all right so that closes out our public comments thank you all so moving on to our Personnel um I'll let you do the honors Mr President I move for a resolution appointing Dr Thomas McBride Jr as the superintendent of schools effective J January 1st 2024 through January 30th 2027 the annual salary of $263,000 contract approved by the executive County Superintendent thank you we have a motion from Mr Coleman Mr Powell seconded that can we do a roll call please yes uh Mr Coleman yes Miss Ciro alen yes Miss Jennifer Harris yes Mr Mian yes Mr Powell yes Miss Somerville yes Mr Rodriguez yes Mr James Vickery yes motion passes would you like to say a few words Mr MCB Dr McBride excuse me good evening everyone good evening members of the board superintendent Sanchez our union leaders our families teachers staff members principles I am humbled to be here and the reason I say I'm humbled is because I'm not supposed to be here uh I come from very humble beginnings I grew up uh people were asking they don't know a little know a lot about me so I'm going to give you a brief synopsis I grew up in 12 e Pioneer homes in Elizabeth New Jersey where there were about 14 16 of us living in about three bedroom for most of my life where I grew up no one went to college no one talked about education no one was more than the drug dealers or the uh homeless people that we saw going going to school every single day but I had parents and teachers who believed in me who always told me I was smart who always told me I was great and so my mom who was here she was at every event that I went to never missed she she was a bus driver and she would get off the bus and she would come to make sure out every presentation every choir rehearsal every honors award she was there because they valued education it transformed my life it allowed me to get a full rods morehous college and learn about who I am as a strong black male leader who have the power to change the world and I left there thinking I was going to become an attorney and I told the board uh uh I got I got invited to a uh information session by this organization called Teach for America and they said uh we want you to come become a teacher and I looked at them M said do they not know what I just came from teachers don't make any money I'm gonna be a rich lawyer and so they gave us the spiel about I believe the cheat the children of the future teach them well and let them lead the way and I didn't want none of it and it wasn't until he said do you know that there are little black boys that look just like you that don't know that morous exists and more importantly they don't have anyone telling them that they can get there and I realized I had all those amazing people behind me who gave me the opportunities and I knew that education was the only reason I made it out and so I have dedicated my life for the past 23 years ensuring that students no matter who you are where you come from know that you have a gift that you are valuable that there are people who are supporting and loving on you and it is our responsibility to make sure that you have access to those opportunities so Dr McBride didn't get here by himself he had a village as a principal as a superintendent in New York City and in Norwalk I'm very clear one person cannot not do this so if you all are expecting Dr McBride to come and change and be the change then we have some more more more in-depth conversation because it's going to take the collaborative work of everybody in this space in this community to really do the work to transform our educational experiences for our Scholars I asked uh our honorable superintendent Sanchez a second ago what's the culture of hackin saac and he said it's emerging which is good I want it defined when I leave here it should be one of Excellence it should be one of collaboration and more specifically it should be one of family and I heard people talk you know I'm P I'm G pull you to the carpet and that's fine because you know family we have our ups and downs we're supposed to argue and fight uh but we all come together at the opportune time to do to get the work done and that is our responsibility as Educators here now I'll be always I'm very transparent I know that's the word that people kind of shy away from or use it too much um I tell people all the time sometimes my mouth gets me in trouble but I'm authentically true to who I am who I've been raised to be my expectations are very high they say how you present yourself to this world is what you get out this world people see me all the time they say oh he's very well-dressed it's my mother's fault one but two it represents the pride that I have it repres present who I am and who our kids and our Scholars need us to be for them every single day so yes Excellence will be the standard it will be the expectation you will be held accountable I will be held accountable because as I said earlier our interaction with our students are going to determine where they go in this world and that is a heavy charge to bear I was watching on the plane back yesterday uh Tyler Perry's uh documentary called Maxine's baby and then I saw something about Beyonce number one uh show and there was a common theme that they both had they said greatness takes hard work they also said no one can outwork them and that is the reason why they able to achieve at such high levels so I want to prepare people that this Excellence that we're talking about now is going to require some hard work some difficult conversations some challenging times but Excellence is the expectation so the idea I heard someone also say about the the the buzz word of equity um I've thankfully have had the opportunity to make sure that Equity is not a buzzword that they are tangible actionable structure to facilitate equity in practice and Equity is not defined to race it's defined to a variety of different things to gender to socio economic status to dis uh special dis students disabilities they variety of measures our goal is to make sure that every child no matter who you are has the opportunity and access to receive the highest quality education and that is my respon responsibility that is our responsibilities I stand also today uh representing my organization the men of alpha alpha Fraternity Incorporated today is our Founders Day and one of the ideals that we talk about is Servants of all I am here to serve and I am privileged to be a part of this new hackin community and I look forward to meeting you all at those Town Hall meetings and having those difficult conversations which I love to have and I welcome meeting and greeting all of our teachers I am a person who is in the schools all the time in the classrooms in the meetings giving the feedback because I know it's going to make us better and provide the best education for our Scholars so thank you all for your confidence in me and I look forward to get started in January all right thank you just remember this meeting um someone asked for it um has to be in the classrooms so here we go um I'm excited um to see um our next part of the journey as Miss monoa said um now it's time for board comments and then um we will adjourn to um a reception uh so let's start with Mr me um that was a very powerful speech um it conjures up images of personal struggle something that I didn't get to listen to uh during your interview so my apologies um that kind of struggle builds resilience in a person the ability to bounce back overcome challenges so because hearing that I know for a fact that you're going to be the best qualified to serve hackin saac school district and I have a message for everyone here tonight he's new he's going to need time to settle in and try to be very positive about things let him observe for 90 days and then hit them hard with all of the complaints and things that you have don't hit them all at once because we want Dr McBride to be here for at least 20 more years so welcome to the community and godp speed thank you um Miss Harris good evening everyone I just wanted to welcome again Dr McBride um and looking forward to working with you that's it m Cordo good evening everyone uh thank you for everyone who is in attendance today uh for this Special Assembly um Dr McBride I would like to tell you that straight up you'll hear it from me I don't want it to be the rumor mill because it's not a rumor it's real um you were not my first choice you were not my second choice you did make my top four okay uh part of the reason is because hackin sack is a pretty amazing Community as it stands with comets that are born and bred here and come home and have been in our district for decades so I'm very excited that you're here um I also look forward to you being here for a long time because consistency is also something that we desperately need I think that as a community everybody here agrees that we need those same faces with our teachers with our administrators with the board and most especially and importantly with our students I love the idea that you're going to be in the rooms and Walking The Halls and getting to know our students when I was in high school I didn't know anybody knew me and then I cut my hair I cut it off short I was the next Hollyberry and my principal who I had no idea knew my name came up to me and like called me by my name and was like Wow and that just blew my mind for weeks that he knew who I was so I know that it's going to be really important that you get into those classrooms with our students put them on point make sure they know you're in the hallway so that they can be different and be better they're already good kids but we need them to want to be better when they get out second thing I wanted to address is the community members that in regards to transparency um I love the word transparency I love the idea until you actually put it in motion then nobody wants to be transparent so for those of you who didn't appreciate the process I honestly couldn't even participate in the process because it is a board it is a group decision timing that needed to take place and unfortunately it was also the holidays so we needed to get this done so although I couldn't be in your interviews I did allow and respect my board members that were there that had the opportunity to interview with you and I trusted them and I want to make sure that everybody knows that we are a group it is a majority it is not a me mine or hers it's in ours so I appreciate the comments and I agree with you but we are absolutely trying the best that we can at every turn I do want to make sure that you're aware of that I know that I am with regards to testing I appreciate that y'all have brought that up today I am not familiar with why certain tests get done and why others don't but I will absolutely now be doing my research so that I can best understand your Grievances and how we can better serve our students and allow you to do more than just test unfortunately so many in our society think that a piece of paper or a test determines a child's intelligence a child's ability to understand a lot of the time it's the interactions that you're having with that student and not necessarily how you're teaching them or what you're teaching them I know that and I feel like a lot of the teachers here also know that I want to make sure you know that we understand that as well thank you so much congratulations thank you for picking us thank you for coming interviewing and wowing tonight you said absolutely everything I would have expected to hear from you in the interview and I really do hope that you're here for a long time and that we have an amazing collaborative relationship with our administrators our teachers our students and the board thank you so much Coleman thank you I hope hope everyone uh sees just how impressive this man is he absolutely wowed US during the interview process and I'm very happy that you apply very happy that you I don't even know if it was your aame when you came to the interviews but it was incredibly impressive and you were smart enough not to wear an alpha pen to the interview but nonetheless you would you would have won me over nonetheless and uh you know it it your story is incredibly compelling and uh what you intend to bring to the table here is something that everyone will be able to benefit from and we look forward to everything that you're going to do uh I I said this before I love the trajectory that we've been working on uh when we first joined the board we first announced that we were going to run was right when covid struck and we've dealt with a lot of adversity we had a really good leader that led us through that uh we've seen tremendous amount of Capital Improvements academic improvements here and I'm confident that you can continue uh with that trajectory uh also I actually stayed in Graves hall for one year I could not hack it I wanted to come home but uh you know the the the credentials is really impressive and uh I I unfortunately won't be able to serve with you but as I said I have uh well I guess next year I'll have two kids in the school system right now I have three and um reiterating what Tony Jackson's daughter said you know we we really look forward to having you here and and seeing you walk the halls and you know maybe you'll recognize my kids and and there's nothing more powerful you know I know Mama you have to tell your kids you're smart and you're handsome but it means so much more when people that don't know you or barely know you tell you that it it it gives you this confidence that gives you the belief that you go and do anything and you got that experience you got that some people that believed in you and told you that you could do anything and you never look back from that so uh once again welcome and I hope to see you uh I guess around town around the schools it probably won't be in any board meetings unless I come here uh as an angry parent pointing fingers at you and everybody else but other than that welcome yeah my mic is acting up sorry uh good evening everyone first I want to say uh thank you all for coming out you're always here to support us and the community and uh I just want to say Dr mbde I was part of the interview process like Mr Coleman said and you were awesome great candidates you were awesome and uh you left a positive impression on me during first second interview tonight your speech was beyond awesome I just want to say on behalf of our school board on behalf of hackin sack Community all the stakeholders everyone in our lovely city of ainet it's important that I say to you not just congratulations but it's a great honor that you chose to come to akinc I'll say it again it's a great honor that you chose to work for our school district our team here in hackin saac comprises incredible people when I say incredible people entire staff who are always looking for ways to do a better job and are proud of the team's efforts we are a team I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time working here it's a great District Welcome to our company also we hope you stay will be long rewarding we need stability we need longevity it's very important and like Mr miem said you're new coming in you need some time any job we go to no matter what position it is the person coming in needs some time so I would I expect you have your time to evaluate observe work with everyone get a chance to speak to everyone and come up with your strategies and we just have to realize that new leadership brings an excellent opportunity to bring a community together and reinforce the district strength and I I'm quite sure that your family's proud of you and we all are very excited to have you on board it's a great District it's a very diverse District we love our Educators here they love our kids and I'm sure you going to have a wonderful time working in hackin sack and we're here to support you and I'm sure you will learn from them they'll also learn from you but once again thank you for choosing our lovely school district and as you move us forward we're looking forward to great things from you but it takes a village to raise a child so together together we will do this together and I'm sure hackin Community will continue to rise and we'll build on what's there and continue to evolve and I'm sure good things will come from this once again thank you and thank you family for being here thank you thank you Mama oh my Marlene I'm sorry forgive me it's okay I thought you were saving the best Phil last I'm sorry but you're not the last rodrig he was gonna tell Rodriguez sorry go ahead it's okay you thought I started vacation already right yes I did yes please go ahead Fray hi everyone good evening so uh Mr bride good to see you again welcome congratulations when you did your interview right you used three words you said collaborate cooperate commitment now a lot of times people use those words especially collaborate and cooperate interchangeably but they mean two totally different things right collaborate meaning group working with a group in order for you to effectuate change so my expectation is that us as a group as the board the teachers as a group The haa the administration as group parents support staff all of those groups are going to work with you to effectuate a change as organized by yourself the district the teachers with input right cooperation cooperation is a group helping an individual to effectuate change so my expectation is that the board and everybody else as an individual will work with you to effectuate what your goals are for the district you say Excellence Equity inclusion so we all will work with you on a one to one to make sure those get you know executed and commitment you said you have a commitment to Excellence well hackin sack is an excellent place to be my husband's grandparents great-grandparents his mom everybody was born and raised in hackin saac I unfortunately was not I am a transplant right to hackin saac but I spent all my formative years here I moved here when I was seven years old and spent my whole entire time here so ask castac is a place of Excellence we have excellent people we have excellent service our students are excellent magnificent we do have times and we have challenges right but at the end of the day right we all expect to be held accountable to that standard the standard of Excellence so I am happy and appreciative that that is your Target that is your goal because I think it is something that needs reinforcement and you know we need it so from all of us here to you congratulations we're happy to have you representation matters it is important so we had Mr Sanchez prior we're moving in the right direction we now have you and like you know Mr Jackson said I'm you know I don't mean to kick you out early I'm sure you'll do your time but the next time I won't be here but hopefully for the next you know cumulative group if we have the opportunity it'll be a woman right so again welcome congratulations thank you president vickory um welcome and congratulations Dr McBride uh you know to the public here present it was uh it was although you know he's a phenomenal candidate it wasn't an Easy Choice he wasn't even in Mr M M out's top three um so the candidates were all you know very impressive but he stood out you know and and it it wasn't easy now we put through the ring guys there was several rounds of interviews where he had to fly back in you know and uh but I'm confident you know that we tried our best during the process and that we made the um proper uh Choice with with this candidate um you know he not only is he well spoken you know his resume uh speaks for itself but I'm happy that that that trustees Echo that you chose us I'm glad that we able to bring you back home to Jersey um and I think that this is where you belong our kids need stability um they need a long-term plan and I'm confident you're gonna be the the person that's gonna guide us into that that direction um so I'm gonna keep it brief welcome and congratulations thank you so um I will get to you in just a moment sir good sir um I want to just quickly address the process so that everybody is kind of clear on um the transparency uh there's always going to be you know no one's ever completely happy with how things are handled in any um process we do our best the way we handled it was we did and someone mentioned it we we had a survey that was meant to be to what was it that you wanted to see what was it that you wanted to um what were the characteristics and qualities that you wanted in the next person that was to lead this district and those answers when we had 600 and some odd answers and there were some open space uh answers to and we poured over those and and to be able to like genuinely you know work at those and form our questions around those so that we could do um make sure we were capturing what what we believed that that our community was wanting we also made sure that we were in many as many ways as we could getting people to respond to that um survey um we received I think 23 applications we worked to whittle that down to 15 that we worked from and we we had a process to whittle it down um we interviewed the first round scheduling that type of thing is very complicated um when you're trying to schedule um candidates and U board members after that um for the second round we talked back and forth about what is it how how do we now engage the community in the the the next round of interviews um we went back and forth we're given ideas out on how we would do that um what is different in this time than what happened in the last round or last uh when Mr Sanchez came on board we now have a community relations committee that we believe that that's part of what what we want to utilize them for and so the way we tried to um gear that is we um wanted to have a um a parent that um had we asked different categories of parents let's say um and then we asked a person that was not spec was a stakeholder that would have been let's say um that did not necessarily have students in the school district that would have been a taxpayer um and then we asked our um student board member um to to play a part in that um interview they were all asked um one of them I know is here tonight um three of those accepted uh to be able to come one did not show up on the day of and so um the two that were there did a phenomenal job job in in in uh we did not guide any questions for them they chose to you know what was important to them to ask um and they did a great job and then um we had a selection time so what I will tell you is in the interview Dr McBride was the one person that got this board energized now to get this group of folks energized sometimes is a challenge and when when he walked out of the room everybody had an energy that I don't know that I've ever seen and I knew at that even and I'm talking about the first time I knew that there's something there and so I'll tell you the energy that he had that day the second day and that you saw a glimpse of tonight that is the energy that we expect you to hold throughout your tenure here because that is what our children first and foremost and our families deserve that is the Excellence we want from you I believe that this is the right decision we are thankful as Mr Powell said that you chose us and we are thankful that um as Miss monoa said that that you're the next part of our journey um I believe that we will absolutely do uh good work together collaboration is absolutely something that matters we will do good work together and so um with gratitude I say um let's start to um preparing for that journey and in January we will hit the ground run may I have a motion I can't even get the words out hi second all those hi and I ask everyone to stay and please meet Dr McBride his beautiful family and um over here to the uh my left your right we will gather