Al here Mr dasta presid M Gomez here miss coffinger here Mr Lombardi here Mr lunam here the flag salute 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 in accordance with the provisions of the New Jersey over public meetings law the New Milford board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof in the record the New Milford Public Library the New Milford viral Hall and the main offices of all new Milford Public Schools the board announces that under its long-standing policy it will not discuss in public any comments made by members of the public concerning individual staff members at this time please be advised that all cell phones and electronic devices are to be turned off meetings of the board are open to the public and all members of the community should feel free to participate before coming to the board the chain of command should be followed there are two portions of the meeting reserved for comments from the public the first at the beginning of the meeting for agenda items only and the second at the end of the meeting for other items issues raised by the public may or may not be responded to by the board but all comments will be considered the board requests that all members of the public be mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking due to confidentiality and legal rights afforded by the state of New Jersey members of the public are asked not to speak negatively or in a derogatory manner about any employee of the board or any student the results of the annual School district election held on November 7th there are three seats for a threee term Miss Nicole Dunn Miss paage Ryan and Mr Anthony Alo so would the three of you please join me where back comfortable you want to I'll EAS I please say your name do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of of the state of New Jersey I swe that I will support the Constitution of the United States and theit of the state of New Jersey and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and to the governments established in the United States and this state under the authority of the people so help me God and true faith and Al to the government in the United States St under the authority of people I please State your own names do Solly swear that I possess the qualifications prescribed by law for the office of member of Board of Education and that I will faithfully and partially and justly perform all the duties of that office according to the best of my ability so help me God I swear that I possess the qualification by La the office of M of a board of education and that I will Faithfully perform all the duties of that office according to the best of my ability so help me furthermore I decare that I am not disqualified as a as a voter pursuant to rs19 4-1 so help further iirm and declare that I not disqualified as a voter Pur to [Music] rs9 congratulations in purple want I'm a you may now take your seats now the Roll Call of the new board Mr Alro pres Miss C here Mr dasta present Miss D present Miss Gomez here miss coffinger here Mr Lombardi here Mr Luna yes Miss Ryan here now we have a presentation by uh our board attorney on hicker I believe it's right here yeah this is fine see okay thank you very much can can everybody in the back hear me good great so um I get to give this presentation to a number of school districts and to parents who reside in those school districts presenting them on Hib probably since the introduction of the anti-bullying Bill of Rights Act uh about 11 or 12 years ago and so what we're going to do tonight is just do an overview the definition of Hib what administrator's Duties are um what the um investigations uh process is like the consequences and the appeal process and then kind of overview of some hip decisions so this way you know um the way that the courts have interpreted the anti-bullying Bill of Rights act so the first thing that we kind of talk about is the uh definition of it but also the purpose the reason why the anti-bullying Bill of Rights Act was enacted about 12 13 years ago was in response to a number of um issues throughout the state uh one of which which had to do with a student in Tom's River who was bullied for years in the elementary and middle schools then went to the high school they didn't transfer the records up the the high school didn't even know that this kid was bullied and so that school district was dealing with it in a very peace meal basis but never did anything to really address the bullying and um ultimately was was found liable uh the student went to another's private school they had to pay for that they had to pay damages to the parents so forth and so on um because it was doing things in a very different way it was uh handling them on a peac meal basis but wasn't doing enough so the reason the anti-bullying Bill of Rights Act was passed was to make sure that all school districts in New Jersey have a model and have a template that they're going to follow in terms of what they're doing basically adopting all of the best practices so the purpose is to make sure that we are trying to as much as we can change the environment uh we're never going to eliminate all bullying so long as human beings exist but we can do whatever we can do to try to minimize that um and to serve as a a model for students that they need to treat other students with Civility and respect so the goal is to kind of change the Outlook which I think over the course of 12 13 years has happened um so now we look at the statutary statutary definition of hi this is uh I think like a 100 or 102 words that's how you know a lawyer wrote it um it's a very simple Concept in a way but it's very detailed and what I usually try to do is break all of that down um into little chunks so it's a little bit easier to follow um so when we look at um the the criteria for hip there's a few things that have to happen number one there has to be an act and we'll get into the details of each one of these things later the location has to be on school property or on a school bus or a school sponsored event or function could be off school grounds but that's limited we'll talk about that um it has to be the ACT has to be some kind of verbal act or physical act or could be written or electronic communication and then it has to be reasonably perceived as being motivated by an actual or perceived characteristic of the victim or some other distinguishing characteristic of the victim we'll get more into those details uh and it has to substantially disrupt or interfere either with the orderly operation of the school or the rights of other students that's a piece that I think often gets lost especially in the beginning um when we first have the anti-bullying Bill of Rights Act but that has to happen as well so so all of those things have to be met and one of the next three um which is that it has to have some type of effect which is either a a reasonable person uh knows that it would physically or emotionally harm a student or does physically or emotionally harm a student or damage a student's property etc etc um or that it insults or demeans a student almost always but not always met um or create some type of hostile educational environment that interferes with the students's ability to learn so one of those three things have to be met but all of the prior um prongs must be met so in terms of the ACT what are we talking about here that's the probably the easiest one but you know verbal acts physical acts those are very obvious and apparent things that are a little bit more nebulous um but could be an act involve spreading rumors um you know purposely excluding students from activities um breaking up friendships I mean those are all probably in some form of verbal or electronic communication but those are things that could happen um they probably fall within uh the other categories as well and then electronic communications self-explanatory but anything that uses an electronic device could be a telephone could be email could be social media messages could be text messages all of those things um those can all uh qualify as an act um now the other piece that comes up here is um what's the motivation um what is the reason why the student who is alleged to have committed an act of Hib um did what he or she did so the the cases are pretty clear that it has to be reasonably perceived as being motivated by some distinguishing characteristic it's not that it's actually motivated by and there's a couple of reasons for that number one is if you ask a student well why did you do this did you do it because of the students race or religion or whatever they're going to say no right and we can never know what's in their actual head how did everybody else feel did everyone think well yeah he clearly did that because of this student's race based upon the things he said before he punched him or whatever the case may be um how did the how did as a reasonable person look at that and say well do we think it was motivated by that kid's race or religion or what have you if so uh then yes so the question is you know is that reasonable um when we look at the motivation you know what is it motivated by this came out a little bit weird than this but um so there's actual perceived characteristics those are all characteristics that are set forth in the new jourey law against discrimination race color religion ancestry national origin gender sexual orientation uh unfortunately the bottom the cut off but gender identity or expression or some mental physical or sensory disability New Jersey's law against discrimination um protects students against discrimination or harassment based upon those specific categories um that case involving Tom's River was brought prior to the anti-bullying Bill of Rights act under the New Jersey law against discrimination um what you don't see there is age which is a deliberate Omission that the um that the anti bulying Bill of Rights Act U did and why they did that I can't really say but it could be a scenario in which kids are being bullied because of age I mean theoretically if you had a bunch of seniors who were bullying a bunch of freshman because they were freshman or something like that yeah that could qualify but that would fall under some other distinguishing characteristic usually we look at that as um something that makes that student distinct or different in some way uh could it be you know hair color or piercings or things like that sure like some kind of physical appearance yes um other things that it could be but are a little bit harder to prove um you know grade level it could be political beliefs when I first started giving this presentation years ago I would say say that's kind of silly who's going to get bullied for being in like the young Democrats club or the young Republicans club now uh maybe that's very possible um social standing hard to prove but could be socioeconomic status that could happen as well um what we have on the bottom there probably not is something that is comparative in nature right and the example that I typically give there is someone says well you know this bully is a lot bigger than the other student okay but he's not bullying the student than necessarily because that student is small right if I said the biggest kid in the school was shaking this kid down for his lunch money you would say oh well you know maybe he's bullying him because the other kid is small what if the kid who's being bullied is the second biggest kid in the school you can't objectively say the kid's being bullied because he's small he's the second biggest kid in the school so it's not about comparative it's about somebody that's relatively objective um that is the basis for the bullying um if there was a kid who was objectively you know one of the shortest kids in the school and they were saying things to that kid about you know his height or whatever yeah well then that could certainly be but not on a comparative level um when we talk about substantial disruption or interference right that's one of the components that has to be met it's again the concept is it's that it's substantial that there something happens that is either substantially disrupting this kid's rights to attend school or interfering with the orderly operation of the school what do we look at when we look for those things you know did it affect the child attendance did the child say I don't want to come to school anymore and stopped coming to school for days um does the child need to be moved to a different class that could and again these are things that are not necessarily outcome determinative but they can be factors in determining yes there was a substantial disruption um you know does a child act differently do they have physical manifestations um did it somehow disrupt the learning environment um you know something that sets aside instruction for 5 to 10 minutes is not going to qualify um that's not a substantial disruption to the learning environment if if but you know if it kind of disrupts the entire School in several classes throughout the school during the whole day yeah that could be a substantial disruption to the orderly operation of the schools so uh to give two examples and this this case here from Bridgewater Ron was the first case that really in 2014 now this was like three or four years after the law was passed that really delved into this issue of substantial disruption interference this was a case where eighth grade student eighth grade boy was um infatuated with and harassing a seventh grade girl on the bus um propositioning her to engage in various sexual activities um asked her to strip over video chat all these harassing things so originally that board didn't necessarily find that it was hi if I recall correctly but that was ultimately found no that was hi and why um because this was type of lewd indecent offensive conduct that I mean it clearly was being done based upon the kids' gender so forth and so on um and the the judge found that and the commissioner agreed that the student had the right to be secure and let alone um and that was interfering with this and again it wasn't sometimes you have single incident cases it could be a single incident but uh this was not a single incident case and that's one of the that's what we usually look at as something that is more of a classic harassment intimidation or bullying it happens over time it happens frequently the law is clear that it could be a single incident but I think the standard is a little bit higher when it comes to that um another example This was um case in Franken lakes also from 2014 um it was a a black student who um other kids were yelling Kool-Aid at and um the uh the victim uh was very upset by it um he left a sporting event early without giving any explanation he um didn't want to go to school wasn't fully available for Learning and um and he I think the student as I recall was biracial his mother was black he told his mom not to come to the school concert because of this bullying that was going on um by the other kids so that was an example of something that was substantially interfering with this kid's rights um and it interfered his ability to learn that was with the fact brought out there so um again we kind of talked about this a little bit earlier but in terms of the effect one of these things has to happen so the first is a reasonable person should know that it will either physically or emotionally harm the student or damage a student's property or put the kid in fear of that those are pretty straightforward um that's often but not always meant number two is it insulting or demeaning any student or a group of students almost always met I will say there is I think there might be a case in here where that technically wasn't met but could happen um and then three did the ACT create a hostile educational environment for the student by interfering with the student's education you know in a significant way or severely or pervasively harming the student um sometimes met but usually one of the first two is met and that's kind of where those decisions are made in terms of location as we discussed um straightforward easy on school Brown on a school bus that's the same as school grounds School sponsor function once again the same um off school grounds a little bit harder and the reason that's a little bit harder is because there is a statutory or there's actually a statute is regulation that talk about when you can discipline students for conduct that happens off school grounds um and that's when it's reasonably necessary for the students physical emotional safety security and well-being or for for other staff or school property and when the conduct that is the subject of the consequence materially and substantially interferes with the requirements of the appropriate discipline in the operation of the school so it has to be something significant and it has to be tied into what's happening in the school you know it has to have some type of Nexus to use another word um so outside of the context of hi but just to give you an example of what does count what doesn't count a student who's arrested for possession of uh control dangerous substance off school grounds not going to come that's not going to be a basis for us to discipline uh a kid in school a kid who is dealing control dangerous substances off school grounds yes because we know that his clients if you will are probably going to be his or her um are probably going to be in the um in the school district and it would materially substantially interfere with discipline in the operation of the school if we didn't discipline a kid for that so that's the type of um has to be pretty significant to dis discipline for off school grounds conduct um all criteria need to be met this is a weird case but an interesting case uh it was um a student who got a haircut he dyed his hair blonde some of his one of his classmates said oh you look like Donald Trump and I guess he found that to be insulting um and they said that it was a hip okay so there was an investigation they said well it's not a Hib because even though it satisfied most of the elements we had a verbal act it was perceived as being motivated by his um by his hair color or whatever it was they found that it was insulting or demeaning to the student which is kind of an interesting conclusion but whatever it was um but they said there was no evidence that the comment substantially disrupted or interfere with the kids' rights or the operation of the school um there was testimony that came out at the hearing before the commissioner that he had shaved his head and was reluctant to return to school but there was no documentation to support that so the commissioner said it's not in the hi report there was no there was no documentation prior to this hearing about that so they kicked it back and said this is not a hit um so every every piece has to be met now also important and there are a couple of uh cases that deal with this um not every code of conduct violation is going to be a Hib and that's an important distinction because there are certain circumstances where kids engage in inap apprpriate conduct you know peer conflict but it's not necessarily because of some type of distinguishing characteristic right um and there are cases that deal with that uh there was one case that dealt with kid a kid who was allegedly being called names and there were verbal Jabs because all of the home rooms had a contest to see who was going to get a pizza party whoever had the best attendance and this kid was out a lot so the other kids were getting on his case for being out a lot he felt it was a Hib it was appealed they said well you know the fact that his attendance was poor was not a distinguishing characteristic it wasn't a Hib it wasn't appropriate conduct by the other kids they got disciplined for it um but it wasn't hi um also this West Morris case um you know this to me is like the ultimate New Jersey case there were two kids who were arguing about who was the better fencing team member uh or a better fencer and um and one of the one of the kids said it was Hib and they said no not every um not every dispute is hi and and the fact that one kid thought they were better than the other is not a distinguishing characteristic so again importantly just because it's not hi doesn't mean the other student gets away with it right um and sometimes um sometimes parents don't know that there's been discipline imposed on the other kids because of course we're Bound by confidentiality rules we can't tell you um you know what would happen uh to another kid what kind of discipline they would receive just just like uh if your student was uh your child was involved in something and the other parents want to know well what would you do to that we can't say we never can um so that's one of the issues that comes up there but um you know code of conduct violations school districts will always handle um those code of conduct violations even if it's not a hit now in terms of Administrators um and what they have to do there is a form available through the website it's called the hi 338 form I don't know the department of that gave us that number I have no idea what this significances um but that's the form that's going to be used for um not only school districts staff but also parent and Guardians um when they are making a written report to the principal um the principal does have the discretion to decide which we'll talk about a little bit whether or not to even conduct an investigation depending upon the facts um that are you know given in the beginning but regardless of whether that discretion is exercised or not you still have to fill out that form um it has to be kept on file at the school school it only goes into another kid's record if there is some discipline involved and if parents are requesting a hearing and then they ask for you know the copy then we share the redacted copy of the form that removes all the student um information except for their child's information um the form was revised this summer now it has a timestamp box it has a signature page families can report anonymously if they want to do that there's a provision there that allows um that allows them to list Witnesses so they could you could put your own name as a witness um uh so that you can still contribute to the investigation but you can make the report anonymously if you are a parent or a student um staff members have to sign the form and felt the form and they have an obligation if they see bullying they have to report it so um and there's some guidance about this uh preliminary determination that the principal can make so in terms of the preliminary determination the principal's allowed to do that if you know based upon the facts that come up right from the beginning it's it's pretty clear it's not going to be a hit and what is the best example of that the example that I typically use is you know someone says Hey I want you to investigate you know Johnny for this uh for hit because he punched my you know child in the face okay well what happened well my child said that Johnny was a jerk and spit on him and then this other kid punched my child in the face okay anything else no that's it okay well that's a code of conduct violation like Johnny's going to get in trouble there's no question about it he can't punch kids um but it's also not a hip it wasn't based upon some kind of distinguishing characteristic they had a dispute about you know whatever a social conflict um so that's one where the principal would say I don't need to investigate this we're going to discipline it and handle it the way it needs to be handled now when that happens that gets reported to the superintendent can the superintendent look at that and say he you know what I want you to do an investigation anyway yes that can happen um and then when the superintendent gives her annual report to the board about um his that uh there's also going to be a determination or a discussion about how many times principles made those determinations not to investigate so there's it goes all into the reporting and parents can appeal that if there's um if there's a decision made not to investigate um that can be appealed so the standard is basically if all the facts that that were reported to me as the principle are true can it be a hi let's assume all of those facts are true is it a hi if no then you don't need to investigate there could be other facts you know there are times when you don't have all the information that's when we typically investigate but if it's pretty clear from the beginning that um it's not going to be a h then there's no need to go through that process again we talked about this already the superintendent could disagree could send it back to the principle to do the investigation um and the parents can appeal that determination to the board so those are two two of the times when that preliminary determination could be overturned in terms of reporting timelines if someone witnesses an active Hib they're require especially staff members they're required to report it to the school principal verbally on the same day and then in writing within two days and we're going to use the Hib 338 form to do that um this applies to um you know School Employees it applies to contracted service providers technically it applies to volunteers who were in the schools as well whatever you witness or receive reliable information that a student has been subjected to an active hi those are the timelines that have to be followed so when we talk about investigations consequences appeal so forth and so on what happens well when the principal determines that an investigation needs to happen it gets sent to the anti-bullying specialist um and the principal could appoint other people to insist with that investigation as needed but usually the anti-bullying specialist does it if it's about a staff member and it's in the same unit as the anti-bulling specialist in that case typically it's done by the administrator um and not by someone in the same Union uh but normally the anti- building specialist does all of these has to be completed within 10 school days from the day of the written report um so if it happens the written report is filed two days later within 10 school days has to be completed um if there's an issue usually that I mean it can almost always be completed within 10 school days there are some times when it's a little bit difficult you know perfect example which happened you know in the past couple of years we go to investigate as soon as we receive the report um it turns out that the kid who was the victim or who was the aggressor has Co is out of school for two weeks okay that makes it more difficult but you know a we have zoom so we can still do that um B if there is an issue and there still needs to be additional investigation you file the report and you can always amend the report but and that's what the statute says so it has to be done within 10 days then it goes to the superintendent who reviews it once the investigation is done it gets sent to the superintendent within two school days after it's completed uh the superintendent can decide to do a number of things to provide additional discipline to provide intervention services like counseling um they can superintendent could do training programs to reduce the number of instances of hi that you know maybe there's something specific to a grade or to a classroom or what have you um so forth and so on so that that's now the superintendent's purview once it gets to the superintendent next it goes to the board of ed so it gets reported to the board and the board gets information about you know what actions were taken um and details after it gets reported to the board then within five school days the superintendent shares that in shares information with the parents saying well this was the nature of the investigation whether Hib was found or whether Hib was not found and whether there was any discipline imposed or Services provided to address that act of hi can't get into the specifics of discipline but whether discipline was imposed you can talk about that um and if parents make a request they can get copies of the invest instigation materials again has to be redacted but that happens you know within the first report so then after that if parents want they can request a hearing that hearing can be requested within 60 calendar days um the board has to have it within 10 um working days I believe it is or school days of the request um it's done in an executive session it's not done in public to protect the Privacy rights of everybody involved um the board can hear from the anti- building specialist about recommendations um um but um but there's not a requirement to do that um and then after um after that is done at the next board meeting following receive the investigation results or after the hearing the board issues a written decision to affirm reject or modify uh the hit determination um now I think this may come up later but I'll bring it up now it's not an adversarial uh process I mean there are cases that that talk about that there's no right to cross-examination there's no right to hearing testimony it's an opportunity for the parents to to present their explanation as to why they think the decision that was reached was incorrect and why it should be different so um you know that's typically the way that that is done um if there's dissatisfaction after the parents get uh the written decision from the board they could appeal to the commissioner of Education within 90 days of issuance of the board's decision or if it's specifically about which I we do not see this a lot candidly I mean you know the last 12 13 years I don't know if I've seen this once or twice um but you can file a complaint with a division on civil rights within 180 days if there's an allegation that this somehow violated the law against discrimination so if a kid was being bullied because of their race or their religion or something or gender identity or expression yeah those are bases for going to the division on civil rights I mean we represent about 50 or 60 school districts in any given time you know I candidly cannot remember that happening um since the passage of the law prior to the anti-bullying Bill of Rights Act that's where you went um in terms of sharing information with parents parents you know uh you have to get contacted by the principle uh about the incident the day of the incident to talk about you know what's going on on a high level you're not going to get a lot of information because one of the things that we don't want to do is um kind of give too much information so that this way you know kid goes home parents say what happened in school today did you do this did you and now the kid starts before we have an opportunity to question the kid um starts getting anxious sometimes sometimes you might be surprised that kids don't tell their parents the truth about what happened um but that does happen sometimes um and you know there's a whole host of issues so you get high level of information that you get additional details later as the investigation goes on um again once it's complete and we talked about this already this a little bit duplicative but the parents get information about the nature of the investigation what the result was whether there was discipline um and then if they want copies of the materials they can ask for those um but they have to be redacted so in terms of consequences um this is uh relatively new I think about two three years ago the uh the department of Ed specified that for the first and second act of Hib if a student is found to have violated the anti-bulling Bill of Rights Act the district May provide counseling or behavior intervention services or discipline or both that's all you know fair game as determined by the principal if there's a third act the principal has to develop an individual student intervention plan which has to be approved by the superintendent and there can be a number of remedial actions that happen there you know basically to put it in layman's terms we have a kid who doesn't get it yet and now we're going to have this individual plan so that they do get it um and one of the things that you can do is you can require the student accompanied by his or her parent or Guardian to complete a class or training program to reduce Hib behavior um and the investigation reports if there's a finding do go into the kids Student Records I know there's a lot of parents that get anxious about it um this is not going to be the reason your kid doesn't get into Harvard there may be other reasons why your kid doesn't get into Harvard but this is not going to be the reason and um and also like colleges only care about discipline at the secondary level anyway so if you're talking about something that happened in fourth grade or seventh grade that's never going to make its way up to any colleges or post-secondary institutions um in terms of uh Consulting with law enforcement that happens pretty rarely but we are required to do that when the behavior might constitute a violation of the New Jersey Code of Criminal Justice doesn't happen a lot but you know on the occasion that does happen we have to make that referral um there is the possibility for um when it comes to cyber harassment there could be scenarios in which parents um could be fined um this is kind of a little bit it's related to him but it's a little it's nothing that we get involved in but if you um if your kid engages in certain conduct and you go to a municipal court and the Municipal Court says hey you you know you know willfully or wanly disregard the exercise of supervision and control over your child and allow them to do this you could be fine up to $100 for the first offense and $500 for each subsequent offense um How likely that is I don't know but it could happen um and then finally we'll just kind of review a couple of uh decisions decisions where you're going to see a fair amount of poor Behavior here I apologize for what you're about to hear but um you know so number one this is an important thing The credibility Witnesses is important um and we always tell the you know the anti-b building Specialists always focus on that make sure that that's clear um there was a scenario in which a kid air dropped a picture of another kid who was I don't know flexing for the camera and and I guess he thought this was funny and sent it to all these uh kids in the in the cafeteria so the kid whose picture was being distributed was really upset and said oh I think this is a hi so they when they're doing the investigation they were like why did you do this why did you share this you know picture and and he said well he called me a fat nword during cooking class that's why I did it and so they said oh I think we're going to open up another hip investigation and this one's going to be about the the kid who filed it um so after doing the investigation you know first he said I didn't say it then he said I've said it in the past but not this time and then he eventually kind of admitted to it um and there was a lot of there were a lot of arguments that were being made here the mom said that the confession was coerced out of him so forth and so on but the administrative law judge reviewed it and said look the anti-bullying specialist judged The credibility of the witnesses she found the other people who said that he said it were credible um she didn't rely specifically on his confession even though she could have but she also relied upon um other kids uh testimony and so ultimately it was upheld right I mean the standard for overturning a hi decision is whether or not the board acted arbitrary capriciously or unreasonably and making the determination um they're not typically going to go in and and and judged credibility determinations made by the people who did the investigation um actual motivation and intent is not required again it's hard to prove so in this case where a kid made a statement to one of um her peers that she hates black people um that was reported to the victim um she her defense was an un neutral defense it was that well I wasn't trying to insult her but I don't like the Aftercare Personnel um who yelled at me and who happened to be black kind of a weird defense I wouldn't use that um and it wasn't successful for her um they said it was Hib it was motivated by race the fact that the kid said it wasn't motivated by race was immaterial did everybody else think it was motivated by race yeah they did um the victim didn't want to go to school felt unsafe at recess and lunch had all these issues that made it seem like there was a or or that confirmed that there was a substantial interference or dis ruption um so that was ultimately the finding the commissioner affirmed it and said look it's not actual intent cuz you never going to know actual intent but how did everybody perceive it how do it reasonably perceive this was reasonably perceived being motivated by um that students um race uh we kind of talked about this one already this is the one where the kid was uh the kids attendance was poor and that's why they didn't get to go they didn't get to Pizza Party or whatever it is um there's some other miscellaneous comments that were back and forth unkind words but there was no targeting because of the characteristic they weren't making fun of him or doing whatever they were doing because of was specific distinguishing characteristic of this kid said and I think it was important um what the administrative law judge and the commissioner basically said here which was that um you know the mom was looking to protect her child from what she believed was bullying totally fine but not all disputes between students are subject to the hip statute sometimes there's just peer conf conflict and kids that are not being nice to each other and that doesn't mean that they don't get disciplined as we've said but it may not be in terms of uh procedural deficiencies I mean you know for I mean this is really more for the um I guess the school district but I guess as far as parents are concerned just know this that sometimes um not withstanding the best intentions sometimes school districts forget to do one step or another um so in this case we had a transgender male sophomore who was using the by the boy's bathroom people made comments about it you know saying oh girls shouldn't be allowed to use the boy's bathroom there was uh the kid was upset there were there were issues there were some procedural deficiencies here with this particular um District when they did uh furnish the investigation report it didn't it didn't indicate whether or not the superintendent ever reported it to the board um the notice following the investigation was very vague and didn't maybe comply with the statute um the written notice just said that the hit findings would be affirmed it didn't say that they might be you know modified or potentially reversed so um it wasn't a great look for that particular District but that didn't amount to a violation of due process right I mean they were the student was given an opportunity to have a hearing the student was allowed to provide testimony in his favor it was represented by Council so that was fine interestingly enough the um the parent raised other procedural issues but those were just dismissed the parents said well you didn't interview the victim well in that case they didn't need to interview the victim the statute doesn't require it all of the other ancillary information corroborated what the what the victim had reported on the form and um the parents made a discovery request or whatever it was and there was information that they were looking for uh they wanted to be more like a trial they specifically said um hit procedures are not meant to mirror trial like adversarial proceedings so um that case and a number of other cases kind of confirmed that if the parents want to appeal it they get to have an appearance before the board um in terms of things that my constitute head or don't constitute head wait in appearance I mean absolutely it's going to be a distinguishing characteristic um this kid called this said to this other kid your shoes are as big as sailboats I don't know that's kind of a weird thing to say but um but the impact was significant because this kid was taking medication for some disability and that medication caused the kid to gain weight and after the bullying the kid stopped taking the medication because he wanted to lose weight so that's a pretty substantial interference um with that kid's rights and it's a substantial effect he didn't want to go to school because he was afraid they were going to keep making fun of him so ultimately um it was found to be hi one of the defenses that sometimes kids do is they say well you know he was saying things to me and it was just Mutual trash talk you know what maybe the other kid was guilty of a hit too it doesn't mean that you weren't you know if a kid says something nasty to you it doesn't allow you to go go and you know commit a hip against him um and the um and and the claim that well I was just joking that defense never works um and it didn't work here either so um that's an important one there in contrast here this was just a conflict there was a student than there was a student who had stolen this other kid's Chromebook several times and then turned it in saying she found it she was messing with this other kid he figured it out he grabbed her arm and wouldn't let her go was you know it was inappropriate um she didn't come to school for 3 days she was afraid she was uncomfortable this kid made her really upset okay that's fine that kid deserves discipline you can't just grab people and threaten them um even if they were doing things that were inappropriate but this was just conflict between students there was no actual perceived characteristic he wasn't doing it because she was a a female he wasn't doing it because of her race or her religion so um and in that case the school did also me like a no contact order I mean they took various actions to make sure that um that that the matter had been addressed again code of conduct violation not AE um in this particular case another kind of a strange one but it was racially motivated there were a number of things that that this one kid said um that was constantly bringing up the fact that the victim was black and um and and making a number of ref ref es to it the victim was upset tried to play it off and said oh it wasn't that bad but there was one cl there was one class where she had to be removed from her class because she was so upset and she couldn't focus on the class and so did she continue to go to school yes did her grade suffer no but still you know like having to be removed from a class was sufficient enough for the purposes of the hip statute um once again the other defense was well she used to call me a cracker or whatever that doesn't matter that's not going to be a successful defense um so um you know that's another example when there is a substantial disruption it could be something um I don't want to say as as minor as but it could be something that where student just can't get it together to go to the next class and that might in of itself be enough of a substantial disruption or a substantial interference to that kids rights and then I think this might be the last or second to last case um there's a few more but one was um so just bad behavior but bad behavior targeting a kid who had a known nut allergy and the kid was off you know the kid was a bully or was offering the kid a cashew and the kid was like No don't touch me with that cashew and then started touching his lunchbox and started touching his um his water bottle without washing his hands after he just been handling these tree nuts so that wasn't appropriate it was everyone believed it was motivated by the kids allergy um students defense was oh yeah I knew he was allergic to peanuts but I forgot in the moment nobody believed that and nobody will believe that so um now interestingly enough the administrative law judge said well this is not a pattern it was just a one-time event and that seems like a severe you know like that that seems like an extreme thing I'm not going to find that it's a hi and the commissioner said no even a single event could be a hi not always but it could be a hi and in this particular case it placed the victim to fear of physical harm um and so yeah it was found to be again not every hi results in significant disciplinary consequences but um statut toally it was a hit um kids being inappropriate um in school a text message sending the PCT a picture of Stewie Griffin from Family Guy and then a picture of the victim next to it saying hey what do you call someone with a big head and posting something on Tik Tok and just you know like these are are almost by the way these are almost all middle school students that's where 90% of this stuff happens um so you know in appropriate it was targeting this kid based upon her physical appearance she was upset she missed several days of school uh you know that was a significant impact so um that can happen um and and in this particular case even though the parents appealed it um there wasn't even a hearing it was just done on summary decision on the papers because um ultimately they never really argued or articulated why the board's decision was arbitrary Caprices are unreasonable and the commissioner said well that's that's that if you don't argue that you're never going to never going to Prevail um the last two cases here or the last case here this one was not a Hib uh because there was no distinguishing characteristic the kid who said it was a Hib um was um so there was a student where there was a situ situation where student pushed a pier and called him a racist during kickball practice when he uh the victim uh told the the kid who was the alleged bully that he was in the wrong line and then the parent reported this and said you know three days after the incident the peer had commented on the victim's size calling him small well the conduct in the Kickball line was not based upon a distinguishing characteristic it was just a dispute between students um the fact that 3 days later there was this comment about the kid being small didn't tie it in and the The anti-bulling Specialist also said the kid is average height he's not he's not big or tall he's not small so um there just wasn't anything there to tie into hi bad bad behavior by the kid sure um you know you're not supposed to push kids on the Kickball line but um was it a hi no not in this case so that's the part that you know when we kind of navigate this law um and we've been doing this for now 12 13 years there's a lot of cases that involved bad behavior um on the part of students that almost always is going to I would say always results in discipline um parents might not know what the discipline is but it it does result in discipline or the appropriate discipling consequences um and um and not every incident is a hi however there are cases where there there are hi we have seen that and when that happens um then the reporting gets done parents don't like to decision whether it's the parents of the victim or the offender they can always appeal it um but in the end the important thing is that these are often dealt with you know on the very first day um because usually there's an obvious code of conduct violation right from the beginning and that's typically where the discipline comes in um often times whether or not it constitutes Hib or not is kind of like a I don't want to say it's an ancillary decision but it's additional information that may result if we we see something happening that's part of a pattern if we see that there's a specific student that has committed a number of Acts of hip or if we see there specific student who's the victim from other kids that may lead to other types of um other types of ways of addressing it more than just disciplinary consequences or some type of educational consequences um it might be training program might be an assembly or things like that um but anyway I'm sorry for being so long-winded I tried to do it as fast as possible but that is the uh overview on the anti-bullying Bill of Rights Act thank you are there any questions or comments from any board members question um when you mention the code of conduct once something is determined not to be hit what's the process for it to go through code of is it already going through code of usually it already goes through it right so what typically happens is um let's say there's a student there's a sit situation where there's a I don't even say a fight there's an assault right one kid hits another kid um we you know we saw it happen we have reports we know we're going to impose discipline for that that's fine there's also now an allegation that well the reason this happened is because you know he said um this about the kids's race or about the kids's religion whatever it was and that was the motivating factor you know and he said something the day before like I hate you blank word whatever um so that May then result in this separate hip investigation as to whether or not also constitute a hip there could be additional discipline as a result but I would say 99% of the time the discipline will already be imposed for the code of conduct violation because we already know there was a violation of the code of conduct it might also be a hit in addition to that that's typically what happens and then so while the investigation for HIIT is going on there there is something that's already been in place to reflect the code of conduct yeah violation yeah almost all the time I mean there may be other circumstan s too where we're not sure if something happened so the investigation needs to take place but even during that point in time we might also offer Counseling Services um we might need to do the investigation over the course of days to find out whether or not this actually happened um so there might not be discipline in the beginning but it could be at at the conclusion we might say all right will we determine this happen now we're going to post discipline um but my experience you know over the last whatever it is 12 13 years since we've been doing this is that 95 9% of the time we know right away there's a Code of contract violation it's just a question of is it also a hit um this is like more of a procedural thing so earlier in the presentation it said that uh if it was appealed to the board the board has 10 days to hear um that we have to we have to offer the uh the hearing within uh 10 working days I think I or I think it says 10 working or 10 uh school days it's not calendar days they confirm that so in the event that there is a board meeting that is in scheduled for another 20 days is is does the district have to hold a special meeting to accommodate that or like is it statute that's a good question can can they both parties agree that yes they'll do it at the next meeting Etc that's that's what happens 99% of the time you know we say to the parents all right you know I don't know if we're going to be able to get a special meeting we do have a meeting 13 days after you know is that okay my experience has been I mean like never had a parent really complain about what's a consequence to the district if they don't meet that so hypothetical situation parent says we want to invoke our right to have a hearing in 10 days right and the superintendent gets back to the parent and says listen we can't get a quarum together next 10 days which can't do it you know the earliest we can do it is this what what is the repercussion of so what I would what would probably happen is because I've seen this happen in some of these cases right where there's a procedural violation um it usually will not be a significant issue so long as the party eventually gets that due process okay um there was a case where there's we talk about one case but there's have been other cases where districts for whatever reason somehow bungled let's say the uh the timelines or whatever it is or they didn't do something right but they ultimately got it right in the end um and so yeah know what typically happens is there's a decision by if it gets appealed there's a decision by administrative law judge where the commissioner saying the district did it wrong that's never good um but may find but the district made the right decision in the end and it and you know they were right it wasn't a hi or it was a hi um so yeah we always try to do it I mean to the maximum extent possible we want to comply with the statute in terms of the 10 days can parents agree to do it outside the 10 days absolutely happens all the time because you know parents can't always come to every board meeting that we might have either so um and they have up to 60 days to make their request um so sometimes they might make the request you know well after the hibs already been decided and everything else yeah I mean usually there's not what the the reason it's not typically so time sensitive is because usually whatever services or programs are going to be you know put together or whatever disin going to be imposed has already been done right it's typically a determination of was the district's determination right or wrong it's not we're waiting to have this hearing for the district to now do something about it right usually something's already been done 99% of the time is what happens so that's why it's a little bit less time sensitive but yeah we always try to do it within 10 days and that's that's what the law says absent agreement we have to deal with them can you explain why um districts are required to report out on hibs as opposed to code of conduct violations it's a great question um and I would say the answer to that is this because not only our districts not required to report well we do report report out annually the violence and vandalism report so there is some information about that but you know like if a kid gets a five or a 7day suspension for an assault there's no right to appeal to the board there's no you know like immediate right to appeal to chis all that stuff that's um specifically part of the anti-bullying Bill of Rights Act and I think it was done that way because frankly you know 15 20 years ago and before these weren't treated as seriously you know as you fighting other code of conduct violations so um it has had the unfortunate effect of kind of amping up all these decisions right you have the right you get a letter say you have the right to appeal so forth and so on um which makes it seem to some degree much more consequential especially if you're the parent and your child's the the victim and now you're like oh my God there's this Scarlet three letters HIV on my kids's record right um but it isn't necessarily more significant than you know something someone who gets uh a 10day or more suspension for dealing drugs or for an assault or whatever the case may be so it's just kind of the vagaries of the legislature right they determined that um we need to report out on the number of cases of hi every year and I think the other reason too is We compare those and my guess is could be wrong about this my guess is if we look at the numbers that existed 10 12 years ago and we look at the numbers now they probably have gone down and the reason for that is because kids are much more aware right like you know you might have kids who say oh you know Johnny was engaging in a Hib against Sarah or whatever it is you know like 15 years ago that never was said and you know like I mean they might have mentioned that they thought someone was bullying but you know like they didn't know the idea of like being an upstander instead of a bystander any of those things all those hip training programs that we have are designed to change the climate and to some degree by having this procedure and by having it be like kind of so rigorous um and having all these you know bureaucratic requirements um I think it it makes District focus on Hib aot um make sure that we're giving those kids those training programs and the whole idea is by calling as much attention to it it's going to hopefully eradicate the problem eradicate might be a little bit polyana but um it should minimize it and it should reduce it it's never going to take it away as long as we have human beings who come to schools I I just want to interrupt say apolog I have another voluntary commitment to attend to so please forgive me um okay I have a couple questions um just something uh based on what you said in the um presentation about the perceived uh perceived by the victim Andor Witnesses right is it Andor or and no it's Andor yeah I mean it has again it has to be like reasonably perceived right sometimes there we' had cases where victims think oh they're doing it because of this and nobody else person right exactly um which are hard to find when you have situations where your kids being bullied sometimes yes um so I guess my question is is one is there a weight it's hard to say so you're saying it's not required to have a witness like what if it's like a he said she said like what do you do in that situation yeah that happens a lot so in those circumstances what I tell the anti-bulling specialist says look you've got to do the best that you can do in judging those kids' credibility right um there may be a situation where there were no WTS it was just the two kids and we've got to do whatever we can to try to determine well who do I think is telling the truth um sometimes it is just you you cannot make a decision you know there's just not enough facts to support you know the allegations and in those cases then we might find that there's not enough information there um in other cases there might be reasons to believe well when I interviewed the victim um their story never changed even though I asked different times they were were really upset but they were clear about it when I interviewed the offender he told me one thing in the beginning but then when I asked him later he gave me another story and then he wasn't making eye contact or whatever there's a whole number there's a whole number of reasons why you might make a credibility determination those aren't necessarily you know they're not all going to always be appropriate or applicable but um yeah that's what the anti-bulling Specialists have to do so who has the burden right like who has a burden to prove or disprove something or is there one in these cases I know we talked about how things it's not necessarily like a trial but I mean like in the investigation who has a burden like you know where where's the weight put as far as yeah I would so because it's not like because it's not like an adversarial thing there's not necessarily a bur but it's just the investigator has to figure out like is it more likely than not that this happened is it more likely than not that that if there are I would say 99% of well maybe 90% of the time the facts are not really in dispute like we almost always have the facts sometimes you know like there's an altercation in the hallway we've got it on the video right um it's not typically that it's almost always what was the intention what did a reasonable person believe was the was the motivation behind it and was there a substantial impact right I mean those are the pieces that are um what the investigation has to get into and that's also why sometimes the investigation takes time right because we may not know what that substantial impact is but if it turns out that it was reported to us on Monday the kid doesn't come to school for 5 days because they're so upset about what happened well okay then after the 10-day period we determined yeah that there was a substantial impact but yeah there's not specifically a burden it's just that the anti-bullying specialist has to make that determination you know do I think that all of the elements were met um and this is I don't I don't know if this is for you but probably more for Danielle is there a difference in the degrees of discipline for a code of conduct violation versus something that would be that qualifies a hip like are they essentially are you getting punished in the same way potentially generally yes you're being punished for whatever the behavior was um and therefore there wouldn't necessarily be more discipline to follow up unless something additional evolved as part of the investigation that we didn't know on the onset um but like Vic said usually this fight happens there's a suspension you're handling that at that point then other things come out and you may discipline those things a lader time if something comes out but no because it's a hi there is not well it was a hi so now you have to have this um in the event that a student is um alleged to have been the aggressor in multiple hibs there are some um supports that internally we will um exercise just because if somebody's being identified as an aggressor multiple times then the discipline that we were giving maybe isn't enough and we will follow up with other supports so for purposes of the difference between a code of conduct violation versus a Hib can we can we generalize and say that all code of conduct violations have the potential to be a Hib but not in the inverse like when you're talking about like when you're talking about a situation where someone could potentially be bullied or someone gets called a name you're getting punished for the code of conduct and then you're trying to figure out if there's like an escalator right like a like something that um makes it more punishable is there or are they not necessar two different categories completely but you might have had a situation where there was a physical altercation and then throughout the investigation you realized that maybe there is a a technology component that there were text messages that there were these other things that were happening that you only addressed the altercation in the hallway thus far we didn't address all of this oh this needs to be reported to the police that's a separate so if something comes up that is unknown at that moment but the code of conduct whether this situation happened is uh determined to meet the definition of Hib or is a standalone fight in the hallway you're still treating it like a fight in the hallway discipline wise if other things come out during the investigation you would address those other things separately but they could come out and still not be a hi but you're still going to address them as code of conduct violations yeah and it could be the services too right it could be Services things could come out and you could say they need services like a fight in the hallway might be okay we're going to discipline the kids they're going to get the consequences that are appropriate if it turns out that the reason for the fight was because of some racial component or whatever it is well now we might be looking at okay well how are we going to address that not only with the students who are involved but maybe if this is a common thing that's happening in this particular classroom or this grade level maybe we've got to do an assembly or something like that those are things that we think about than so I just I just have one thing and it kind of wraps up a lot of the other questions too and it it keeps coming to the same thing so I'll just say this um before HIV right there may have been uh incidents that occurred in the elementary or the middle or the high school and you know it was called bullying that's just you know people would say there's really bullying everywhere but there wasn't an identifier but there would be code of conduct and there might be discipline or things that had to be taken care of but the HIV right so now this is here and this is a statute and the the state is telling us to report on it and parents are getting notifications um and now it's almost it it almost gets perceived as if if that says no then that means my kid wasn't wasn't harassed or that this thing didn't happen to my child and I don't think that's what this is and I just I just want to kind of like say definitively what I'm getting from what you're saying is that when something happens whether it is harassment whether it is physical whether it is emotional whatever it may be there is an investigation into that regardless of whether it gets determined to be HIV there is a consequence to those behaviors whether it's separating students or whether it's you know some services or whether it's some discipline that's you know whatever it can be it doesn't have to be a fight it doesn't have to be anything but one does not mean that something doesn't happen correctly but I think it's kind of raised it to that level and I I appreciate this presentation because I I think that for a lot of parents especially who've only had children in school since this has in a law um might think that if you don't get HIV that means nothing happening and that's I think the two are different right and I don't know what I would bring this up as a district I don't know what we can do other than we have this this education here which I think is great but you know other ways because we can't violate privacy um I wouldn't want my child's VI privacy violated so you know I may not like it that I don't know wouldn't like it um but uh I think there that there's something there and having this I think is great um and you know just listening to people even though they're not saying they needed it I think I think we need to continue to reach out in that way and let people know when this occurs just to be clear this says this but that does not mean okay now nobody thinks anything happened and I think that that's really important and the follow-up letter that goes to parents does say that yeah you know discipline and or interventions you know will right occurring right just want follow I tried to say everything she needed to say one one other question um so it doesn't have to be a protected class correct right for it to qualify as a hip distinguishing it can be distinguishing characteristics such as color of their you know other but I mean but I I know we talked a little bit about comparatively like calling someone small like if you call someone short is that different that's a physical characteristic as opposed to so yeah but like and again it have to be something like if if you had someone who was like objectively shorter than everybody else I think so you know I mean you know the tallest kid in school everybody's short to him yeah right her whoever um so it's it's not based upon those comparisons it's B on something that is as objective as possible right I mean if someone is saying they're making fun of someone because of their physical characteristics I mean that's pretty easy um straightforward but you know in cases where you know you're there are cases where there's just what I would call harassment intimidation and bullying with a lowercase h lower case I lower case b right they're that's not based upon a distinguishing characteristic it's just kids being mean and inappropriate and those are codon violations and we handle those that way um So yeah thank you um open to the public for items on the agenda only as outlined in the Milford Board of Education bylaw 0167 each statement made by a participant shall be limited to 3 minutes can I have a motion please motion John a second Jo are there any questions from the public there's none can I I seek a motion to close to the public page second Stephanie all in favor I now I would need a nomination for board president can is there anyone willing to nominate Nicole I would like to nominate Heather bz to continue as the board president can I have a second please Paige Cheryl Miss Cal sorry roll call to she forgot to say roll call roll yes sorry Miss Calder yes Mr dasta yes Miss dun yes Miss Gomez yes Miss coffinger yes Mr Lombardi yes Mr lunam yes Miss Ryan Yes okay here you go she's so happy the rest of this meeting over quickly okay so I seek a motion to appoint a vice president any a motion Stephanie Coffer need a second heyan you had to nominate somebody oh mess this up every time discuss it who do you want to nominate I'd like to nominate U Nicole D to continue as vice president okay second and by Page all in favor call sorry I'm here I have to say it yes Mr dasta yes Miss dun yes uh president Gomez yes Miss coffinger yes Mr Lombardi yes Mr Luna yes Miss Ryan yes that's official all in favor [Music] uh it's the roll call ones that trip around yes it's motion for all okay I seek a motion for BA 23-24 39 40 41 42 4344 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 and 52 me a second I have a question oh sure um we have to can you make a motion first and then you can ask question that's a motion motion second second hey Johan question my question okay so my question and I discussed this kind of briefly with you um was the I didn't get a chance to ask this I I sort of did but I have to bring it up now um the conduct of public meetings does that include the time limit of uh public um time limit that they can speak I don't know like the you know what's what's definitive in whether or not that is captured by one of these procedures it is cu it's under the so my thought on it and I again spoke about this earlier was um keep if if you want to keep it at the three minutes or whatever it is right if there's an ability for the board or some member to make a motion to ask for like an extension of like 2 minutes if you want to hear more information if that's something we might want to consider given that you know sometimes some people they only get 3 minutes sometimes you want more you know you want them to talk more they could have a couple more but again that's just uh you know something that I'm suggesting not some you know that's up to so I guess it has to be reviewed in the bylaw committee first has to be reviewed in and the only thing I would tell you is that what I see in different school districts is they often make a motion to extend the length of time like if you set aside 30 minutes from public comment they often to extend that time but what I would say is if you extend it for one person you're going to have to extend it for everybody at that meeting because what we can't do is that we extend it for one person give them five minutes and then someone comes up and they're saying things we don't like and we say you still have 3 minutes we can't do that yeah it's it's got to be uniform right yeah and that's that's fine I just you know sometimes I mean there's barely everybody ever here so it's not like we're having these long meetings where people are talking for 10 minutes but if there are ones where there might be you know a little bit more um just to be able to have that option is just something that I would want to think about I think that would defin be interviewed mhm yeah so the bylaw committee would have to meet and discuss it and decide and then present to the board yeah so then how do I go here so just saying that you agree with us going going on and then we're going to have to discuss it later okay as a and we'll do a followup about when the next meeting will be so that you're aware of it okay yeah that's fine okay was that all so there wasn't nobody yet you didn't do the favor yet all in favor posst okay open to the public I seek a motion as outlined in New Milford Board of Education by law 0167 each statement made by a participant shall be limited through minutes need a second Stephanie Center all in favor I oppos any comments from the public please state your name in town Barb hon good evening all um there's a statement made by the board in every meeting before coming to the board the change Man follow my turns every time this is right into the record and makes my skin C heing this words thinking of where teachers and parents and most importantly students on everyone's in their voice should say what if the chain of command isn't working that's why most likely why folks are coming to meeting case in point why here today speaking recently and I know we've had H the the presentation for the h but there's obviously been several board meetings where there was a lot concerning allegations made regarding improperly handling hi investigations um I will tell you my own person experience the district has been making procedural which was highlighted during this presentation okay um and left parents like myself in the dark on October 22nd 2023 there was a 3384 file with my daughter's behalf investigation was begun November 1st we received a letter from the district on November 14th I spoke to the principal Gibs who advised me that the H was unfounded and the district was working with the student and their family I was advised that this would be presented to the board but we would receive the letter as parents what the investigation Val as of December 6th 2023 we didn't receive anything I reached out directly to the superintendent following the J commit I received an email back from the superintendent advising me that she would apologize for us not receiving any letters and she' get back to me she would look into the incident approximately an hour later I received a call from the principal um advising me she was unsure why we didn't receive a letter everything was sent to the superintendent's office it needed to be signed off and we would get those I have nothing but positive things to say about the principle it gives the communication has been nothing but outstanding any emails phone calls have all gone answer to myself and my husband what as of today 50 days later we still have not received notice from the district about the the foundings from the head investigation nothing has been we didn't provide we didn't get whether the district found evidence to him as find in the AV whether just plan was inclosed Services provided to address to him and it kind of some question why haven't we receiv received this heard we've heard the presentation today we were supposed to receive this is this to delay any possible appeal that myself and my husband could make um out of all people trust me I fully understand a change command in my job it is very important however a chain of commands especially in the school district implies a strict hierarchy and aric way of doing things in my opinion you can take your organizational chart flip it on its head so students are at the top and everyone else is support instead of a chain command we have an inverted pamed support okay my purpose for coming here talking you to say is tell you that the failure personally I believe has been from the chain command from the top um I really do challenge the before to bed and inquiring why this failure has happened and why this procedural error has happened because I don't believe we are the only family that this is affected um and perhaps the Board of Ed should strongly consider possibly taking any tele work away from the superintendent and ensuring that the district is Led appropriately I thank everyone for their time thank you anyone else from the public I seek a motion to close to the public page seconded by Joan lunam all in favor I oppos okay close session it is hereby moved that the Board of Education adjourn into executive session in accordance with the provisions of Section 8 of the open public meetings act chapter 231 PL for the purpose of discussion and consideration of matters pertaining to the following subject student matter the minutes of the executive session will be made available to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists I need to I need a motion to recess to close session respond to her just general oh like a report I just want the superintendent rep yeah we we didn't have it have it on here because we have meeting okay so we'll hold off on can can I just I just want to read this before we go to close I apologize um I hope everybody had a wonderful holiday break and happy New Year to you all um I have the o just two things tonight I had the opportunity to speak with the mayor today who is taking um the uh council is going to be taking the ad hoc flood committee and turning it into an official um Town committee burrow committee at the committee at the burrow level and they are looking for a representative from the Board of Education to sit on their committee um so if anybody on the board or anybody who works for the school district is interested in representing the school district on this newly formed flood committee um they will be holding a spot for us they will likely be meeting once a month probably in the evening so if you are interested please let Dr cuchar uh know about your interest and just one other thing I wanted to touch on um tonight is that I you know it's it's with great sadness that New Milford has lost one of its finest uh community members this past week unfortunately Peggy saslo died on December 26th at 100 years old um in 2021 the board recognized her with a dedication of the tennis courts at the high school and I had the opportunity to speak directly to her um to tell her just how amazing she was and I'm very grateful that I had that opportunity to celebrate an incredible woman and um offer this special honor and recognition befitting of Peggy Sasa um as a woman in a position of leadership I often look at the women who have come before me Paving a pathway uh for other women and one of these special people that I've met in my career and in life and whom I have adored for many many reasons with Peggy um she was an icon but she didn't know it and she touched so many people because she was distinguished in all that she did she was a distinguished educator she um was a re hred teacher from this very building she was a distinguished New Milford Board of Education trustee and New Jersey School Board member of the year um she was a distinguished mentor and colleague to other board members she was a supporter of public education advocate for necessary changes in educational legislation at the state and National levels a distinguished supporter of our Holocaust study tour program supporter for meeting the needs of students with dis disabilities a DieHard fan of our theater and arts programs a proponent of good nutrition and healthy Behavior an advocate for fitness and clearly a distinguished role model for our Young tennis players because Peggy was evidence that a combination of good nutrition and exercise will allow you to play tennis well into your 90s and although I used to tease her that maybe she wouldn't need so many sweaters and blankets if she just ate a good greasy cheeseburger once in a while but Peggy was recognized formerly also by uh the New Milford Education Foundation as as um uh one of their honores and as well as other Civic and religious groups have recognized her but Peggy remained shocked stunned even and humbled every single time someone or some group wanted to recognize her for just being her on a more personal level I had the pleasure of meeting Peggy in 2010 which is much later than maybe many of you um met her so many years ago but I learned very quickly that she was the kind of woman who would tell it like it is and wasn't afraid to set you straight and I always found that so refreshing in her she set the tone for truth telling and we all knew we needed to rise to the occasion Peggy was a voracious reader who shared articles and resources with the Board of Education with all of us we receive a newspaper clipping with notes from Peggy she was a true leader a role model and a servant to the new mil public school system and Beyond utilizing her cell phone and her emails for advocacy from the Comforts of her own home even at 99 years old she was a model for lifelong learning for Community involvement and when she was a leader to all of us most importantly I think that anybody who ever spent any time with Peggy would know that she was a proud mother grandmother great-grandmother a proud Simmons graduate proud of her Bostonian roots in total denial of the fact that she still had an accent after all these years but most importantly she knew how to make people feel special and how to bring you in as a friend and I'm so grateful for all that she has done and for just being her true self with me and with all of us New Milford would not and will not be the same without her we adored her and we will miss her thank you that so now we take a motion Stephanie second and by Nicole dun all in favor close Okay will we take any action after we come back no so after we go to close we not go back public yeah more Comfort I can um the family okay