the order Mr Al pres Mr C Miss Calderon Mr dasta pres miss coffinger Mr Lombardy pres Mr luno Miss Ryan here vice president dun here president Gomez here pledge allegiance alance flag of the United States America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice board statements in accordance with the provisions of the New Jersey open public meetings law the New Milford board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the day time in place there are posted in the burrow Hall and the New Milford Public Library notices have been sent to the record in the Twin burrow news the board announces that under its longstanding policy 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 to not speak negatively or in a derogatory manner about any employee of the board or any student we're going to start off with a presentation with Mrs biner uh European culinary arts trip for fall 2024 thank you for giving me this opportunity to come and present this um so Mrs Westerman and okay and I are proposing to take a group of students next year in conjunction with teachers convention and election day that time frame in November so the students won't miss as much school it's an trip um so it's called The Taste of France it's to provide the students of the milfor with the language and culture experience of France the students will primarily stay in Paris but go to the surrounding areas um they will be doing some French cooking and as well as some French speaking with French class so it's basically French classes and my culinary arts and my International Foods students so we set out to give the students some real life language experiences um to develop an understanding of the different cultures um this is not my first trip I've taken with the student Su Wilford um in 2017 I took a group of students to Italy where they participated in a global Summit about the future of foods um and then in 2018 I took a group to China with the Mandarin students um and basically what I've learned through all this traveling is that although we may be different and live in a different country we're very similar like even when we went to China there was a lot of similarities and when we went to visit the high schools the kids were on to the same thing and the kids were like wow so kind of brings this big big world kind of a little bit smaller to us so that's one of the reasons why I like um they will be doing a culinary that's with culinary they will be going to a cooking lesson they'll also be tasting chocolates which I'm sure we'll separate um they will learn how to get around a new environments aren okay traveling with you guys with as parents they rely on you but then when they step out of their comfort zone and travel it with a school they're responsible to remember where the plane tickets are back in the back you know making sure everything gets on the bus you know there's nobody there to remind them so it is a growth experience I'm not going to click on this because it's actually the brochure that I about okay so the dates projected are November 4th through the 13th of 2024 and again I believe that will coincide with teach so we will travel and you have the itinerary there as well um so that's the purpose of the trip prior to coming to you guys I did kind of survey the students to see how many students would be interested in actually doing this trip and presently we have about 15 16 students who are really interested in the in in coming so we are scheduled to have our first parent meeting in next Tuesday um if the board approves the trip the meeting um and then we do have a variety fundraisers planned like we're going to do here in school we're going to have like a c sale um bake sale just to kind of get a little money and then we're going to do a bigger fundraiser of Brent showing a movie um in the aitor and then perhaps even doing a crack sh to help differ them the cost questions I whole really come short um the company this is a newer company that I haven't used before but it's works the same way as the other one that I've used they do offer travel protection they have people around the world in case there is an issue that arises that we need to be to deal with they're there for us um there is like each student does have the option of taking travel insurance so if by it's any chance something does happen that they personally can't go on the trip they will get their money back is it open to all students or certain grades um so presently we are because SRE teaches in the middle school so it's her eighth graders which will be next year's freshman then this your present freshman and then the Juniors and I'm sorry sophomores and the Juniors not the seniors obviously because they have graduated um so they're either her students or your students not just open to anyone that's what I want you okay but I would be I would throw it out to the Academy students too if they didn't have you her to interest question are there any other adult shs staff going well presently it would just been myself and Sandra but if we have enough students like that we thought we needed an extra person then we would ask maybe our technical person would come um so yes so presly just the two of us and that would be roughly what's the six six students to one sh six one ratio so if you go over 12 if we go over 12 then we would invite another she students have suggested presently there's 6 15 15 so you know we haven't had the general sign the sign up yet right so you know kids may say yay and parents say no um so but I did like when I gave the kids the information the price is on there so the parents do come to the meeting knowing how much it's going to cost and it's about 3700 for the trip 48 days um includes airfare includes the hotels includes lunch or breakfast and dinner lunch we would be on our own for which again we would probably use some of the hopefully fundraising money that's what I did when I went to Italy we used the fundraising money to subsidize so the kids didn't have to by the came out with a question because of the other trips that you've been on and the ones that have been presented first of all by the way thank you this is seems like it's very interesting um there's a lot of times there's uh certain deadlines to these trips where you know the initial deposit and then all that so what is the first deadline for so the so when we have our meeting at for appr they meeting next Tuesday then they have until December 20 like a month to to put their first deposit down which is really just $50 to hold their spot um and then this company breaks it down they can have an option of paying every month a certain amount come out they also offered the students to have a fund a fundraising page that the students could send out to whoever they wanted to and maybe get like grandparents ants and uncles again that it's coming close to the holiday times maybe they would say okay so getting any X get me donation for this so then it is broken down payments okay so um it looks like they would students would miss three days of school the Monday and Wednesday before teacher convention and then the the Monday after so really not not a lot of school um missed I would I'm going to ask you to when your students sign up and let you know with that initial payment to find out whether or not they have any medical needs because you nurse you need to secure a nurse early in advance we had an issue with another trip where a student had nursing needs and we couldn't secure the nurse then the insurance okay company it was a problem so that's really important to make sure if you if you need a nurse um and I highly encourage all the families to take the insurance you know you can't require them to but it's got to really be an emphasis in your parent conversation but that's super super important yeah does explor um have nurses have people have staff that are going I know they have support systems I don't know if they have an actual you know that a question does anyone else have any questions thank you thank you your okay superintendent of schools report Daniel Shanley hi everybody okay so tonight I have my okay so we'll start with um suspension report for the month of October at the high school we had two um days of in school suspension for one each for two infractions at the middle school oh those middle schoolers uh we have one two three four seven seven days seven individual days of in school suspension for seven individual isolated incidents and one day of out of school suspension for one incident at Berkeley we had two days of in school suspension for one incident and one day of in school suspension for another incident and that gives no suspensions for October okay and this is the [Applause] HIV okay at the high school we had two claims brought to the principal both of those claims were forwarded for a full investigation um one of them was confirmed as meeting the definition of HIV and one is UNF it Middle School six incidents brought to the principal for review five were forwarded to the HIV specialist for full investigation one was not forwarded following the principal's preliminary determination out of those five two were confirmed as meeting the definition of HIV and three were not they were dealt with as code of conduct again October for Berkeley uh four were brought to the principal for review four were forwarded for a full investigation and four were unfounded as bullying and for October Gibbs one was brought to the principal for review it was forwarded for full investigation and it was unfounded and tomorrow I will have um full report with good news Okay in assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction report laureno doep hi good evening everyone um I have just a few updates to share with you tonight I would like to start with um some information regarding recent assessments these are assessments that I've spoken about before um but recently the score reports for the interview assessment were mailed home to our elementary parents as a reminder the inw assessment do you remember oh just like it just blew everybody's head off this piece of paper came home scores and stuff like what do I do with this so I'm hoping that I could shed shed some more light on um this for you and and clarify some of those questions so the interview is a standardized assessment that is used to measure students cognitive abilities including verbal and quantitative reasoning um this is an assessment that has been administered for several years and was in placed when I came into the district back in 2013 so in Spring of 20120 we suspended the administration of this assessment because of obvious reason reasons and resumed this fall and made up for some of those um cohorts of students which we missed during the suspension of the assessment okay so we stopped it in the spring because of coid a few cohorts of students missed the assessment and then this spring we tested students in grades 1 through four okay or believe it was 2 23 five um the inw helps us evaluate students individual strengths and areas of weakness but most importantly we use it for programmatic decision making especially in regards to are gifted and talented so I often talk about this scrapbook and getting this comprehensive profile of each child the inw is just another one of those measures most of the measures that we have in place all of the other measures measure academic achievement students Mastery towards expectations set forth by the New Jersey student learning standards in view is different it G it's giving us um a profile of students cognitive abilities in those areas of reasoning so there's a lot of information included in the score report that came home but I wanted to um help understand what what it is that you're reading so when you're reading your child's inw score higher scores suggest stronger cognitive abilities the scores reflect your child's performance compared to what we call a normative group so performance compared to a normative group means how well your child's cognitive abilities align with or deviate from the average performance of a representative group of students for example when you bring your child to the pediatrician for height and weight check they are um plotting your child's height and weight on a growth chart and a child who is in the 75th percentile for height is taller than 75% of students or children who are in the same age group so it's not a score we're looking at it as simple yeah percentile yeah okay um so for some parents you see something that says like 66% percentile and you would think 66 my child has never scored that low on anything FL it's it's not an achievement score it's a percentile score so if if you plotted your child on the growth chart at the 66% you would say he's slightly taller than most kids his age not not a bad thing but it's different than the other types of ass assessments that we see and that could have been the reason that some people were maybe surprised by what they saw the numbers um it was an assessment that was administered to all of our students particularly because we do use it for identification in our gifted and talented program um it differs from the IQ score that students with special um parents with students who have unique abilities or special education students um that is part of their um formal evaluation and this is completely separate and different so it has no no reflection of um an IEP or a student with in special education the information actually is pretty helpful on the score report there is a general interpretation which explains the um normative group and how a student is being compared to um students in their age group and then on the second page there's detailed information it's very brief but it explains each of the five subtests which were administered sequences analogies quantitative reasoning verbal reasoning words and verbal reasoning context it even provides some examples of what questions might look like in each of those categories um a simple Google search will turn up some sample questions but I'm happy to provide those if anybody is interested just Reach Out um so I did feel like maybe there were some questions about that and I wanted to help you better understand that this evening uh also following under assessment I had um previously spoken about the njpa we administered that this fall for our um students who have not yet met graduation Prof proficiency we preliminary scores from the fall Administration which took place the week of October 10th were made available uh this week through our state assessment platform um the performance reports will not be shared with you until those scores are published and that is expected to be by December 6th um we're also waiting for PS scores which should be available by November 16th so they were not available today we're hoping by the end of this week to have them um as a reminder there are multiple Pathways for meeting the requirements for graduation first pathway being proficiency on the NJ GPA in ela and math second is by uh meeting proficiency on one of the identified alternate assessments PSAT being one of them and and the third pathway is by portfolio appeal which lets us gather artifacts in order to demonstrate students um having met requirements uh hopefully at the December meeting I will be able to share what is the date of our December the 5th the 5th Tuesday the 5th okay if they're published by the 5th I'll have that information that evening if not in January I'll share out the scores um that being said internally we are already using that information and um taking appropriate next steps so that we're moving our students along the high impact tutoring Grant uh njd we's high impact tutoring Grant is a competitive funding initiative aimed at supporting schools in implementing effective and targeted tutoring programs it is competitive um I I did share that districts had to submit an application in order to receive funding I am happy to report that our district application was submitted on November 6th and last week we received notification that our application was evaluated by a panel of reviewers and has been determined to be eligible for award EXC um we are now in the pre-award process so we really can't begin spending that money until um the award is finalized but we are we're found eligible for a total amount of $4,990 nice just $10 short of 115,000 yes can you remind them who the target group is according to the state yes so we're um we are prioritizing it's really um the the guidelines with that fall under behind impact tutoring grant that priority is given to um students in third and fourth grade who may have experienced disruptions in their learning during co uh that being said there are some you know we have to kind of start there and then we can expand um we're exploring options all options really are on the table at this point as far as providing in services for students we're looking at Staffing internally we're also looking at partnering with one of the um NJ due approved vendors who provide um these services for students more information will be shared with you as it becomes available um and it's that time of year again so I'm now in the process of meeting with teams across all grade levels to engage in program planning meetings for the 24 25 school year um last last week we met with high school um teams Thursday we're meeting with the middle school and later in the month we are meeting at the elementary level during this time we look closely at existing programming um course offerings we identify what our next steps may be we look at potential new courses how we can grow um what's already in place look at new materials um we will be looking closely at the areas of English language arts and math as we continue revising curriculum to align to the newly adopted standards and uh this work is already happening and ongoing up until the budget is presented to you later in the spring um and that concludes my report for this evening any questions I just I have a quick one so on the high impact tutoring Grant I know like the Esser you know you have spending period right that you had to suspend that yeah I'm sure you can we can F this up but is there one for this too there is and the the actual project period I think opened something like September 1st but districts obviously yeah we were um they're told that we cannot spend which makes perfect sense until the award is finalized so even though the project period started in September no districts have um didn't even apply you didn't even know apply yeah um and then it runs through either the end of August or the end of September in 2024 so it's for one year the project period is one year okay so once is it's something you're going to be able to do and maybe do through the summer even if it's a possibility but whatever it is it's not going to go into September maybe it may be through the end of September okay they may have been a little more realistic any other questions question yeah um the inw is that a state or District what is it and is that you just choose to use it in this District or does everybody have to take it and then then some districts either use it or they don't so that's a local decision but districts do use an assessment it may not be in might have um coat that's what I was say cat tests yeah they different you might have taken California achievement test when you were K I took that it's the same type of a test it's a it's basically a cognitive abilities CH do we have anywhere on our website um that has like a like a summary or a rundown or a list of the testing that the students take yes um yeah so just maybe remind um great question so actually each year we are required to notify parents um there's a required parental notification of Assessments that will be administered during the school year that is posted on the website in a very neat chart and it includes a wealth of information I encourage you to look at it if you haven't seen it um including the name of the assessment the grade levels in that we'll be testing the duration of the assessment a link or resources for parents and um any scoring information resources that may be available this is also blasted out to everybody in the district um all of our parents via School messenger before October October 1 that's the requ so there's multiple there are multiple ways that the information goes out it's not just they're getting it you know at the doorstep there information so and then before every testing situation that we have the building principal or guidance counselor will then communicate or the classroom teacher communicate to the parents what the students will be just a reminder next week is whatever on um earlier I think it was well was before testing obviously a letter did go out from the elementary schools notifying parents of this assessment I think in the past because we were doing it year after year maybe you know a neighbor in the par in the parking lot or someone that they were was familiar with the assessment because we've had a few years now that we haven't administered it I don't think our elementary parent base is as familiar with it um but the notification did go out and parents that have questions about the assessment like do they reach out to the teacher or the building principal or you know I mean how do they if they want to speak to a person about you know trying to understand the test a little bit more in detail who would they who would they contact I'm guessing some of those conversations happened during conferences last week um but I know that the letters are coming from the building principles so either the principal or the vice principal who's also versed in the assessments and has an understanding would be happy to address those I'm also answering questions as they come in as the district testing coordinator any other questions no okay thank you business administrative reports good evening um so it's a busy time of the year in the business office with the uh reports that are due at this time of the year so tomorrow we have the drrs which is um the transportation the report of District resident students that are transported um we also have the midyear budget review that is due tomorrow uh the Assa is due December 1st which is the funding the application for um school aid that is due on December 1st that will fund our 2425 budget um so we're we're a bit busy um we finally received our new salt truck that was purchased last year um due to the chip and the car industry issues um we purchased it over a year ago and so fortunately it was delivered before uh any snow or salt or whatever our needs are ice um we were fortunate last year that there was very little and the town was able to help help us um when we needed to be salted for any ice um we continue to have some high balances with our food services and so we've sent out letters um I try to send them out twice a month to families um who have high balances because um we don't want those to get too out of control so please be mindful of your student lunch balances um on tomorrow night's agenda f234 uh 45 I just want to bring to your attention because that was approved earlier in the year um and I especially want to call your attention to the Bergen's historically um I would say probably at least the last 10 years Bergenfield had been transporting our Bergen Academy students um and it was costing the district quite a bit of money for them to transport there and so this year were fortunate enough to have one of our own buses transporting and picking up um so that that's a big savings and then we were formerly transporting a student from creskill um and we are no longer transporting them so that's the other change to um that resolution we are also on the agenda for tomorrow night is an approval for Solutions architect it's f23 24115 um and that's for their help um to assist in the rod grants um so we did receive our initial approval for the rod grants which would be to complete the district the district's Roofing needs um so this past summer we did the Berkeley roof and we hope to get funding for the high school and the Gibbs roof which then all of our district roofs will be updated and Deo was done not that long ago and is still within its useful life um we did do small Renovations there to keep up with it um and then also as part of the rod gr is the high school HB which is original to the building um so it's a two compressor unit and one compressor is currently not working um they don't make the parts anymore and so if that goes down we're in trouble so hopefully um we'll be able to get that unfortunately the lead times on mechanical are quite large that that is likely not to happen next summer even with this approval and would happen sometime during the school year um so like this year with our lighting project that's going on we had to shut down the auditorium briefly um but we tried to do it in the least disruptive Manner and so that would likely be the plan for the high school ageback but as we get more information I will keep you updated and finally um we successfully opened our Berkeley preschool program at the end of October um and we were able to add the route into our daily trans Transportation schedule and so all is well at our Berkeley preschool great that includes my report any questions thank you any correspondence none this evening agenda items for discussion review of tenative agenda for the regular meeting to be held on November 15th any questions regarding the review of board action any questions for review of educational programs in curriculum any questions for review of personnel recommendations Tony um I have questions concerning um the high school Title One program that we're looking to put together this year um perhaps maybe in our in our folders for tomorrow's vote um my questions concerned uh job description for the instructional coordinator and I observed that the rates have increased from last year and I was wondering whether that was contractual um um I think the freshman the grade n idea is wonderful um perhaps maybe just a little synopsis of what we're looking to do with that program thank you anyone else any questions for review of finance and Facilities any questions for review of policy okay any old business any new business open to the public as outlined in the in New Milford Board of Education by law 0167 each statement made by a participant shall be limited to three minutes a motion Ni Call done seconded by Tony Al all in favor oppose what was the motion I'm sorry do you have the public open yeah do you do you want to say anything gotcha yes how you doing thank you just say your name and town name and town yeah name and Dan so um obviously we're uh active parents here very into our DA's education I I can't thank you guys enough I know this is generally a voluntary crew and the fact that you put so much effort in time into not only your own maybe your own child I don't know but everyone's child I just wanted to State thank you so much um we we have a lot of concerns on how things are being handled in the school system uh from a safety perspective from a uh Communications perspective and from a lot of perspectives frankly uh last time I've come to or meting was approximately year and a half ago I want to say at that time uh the discussion was more about uh people's concerns about the curriculum that could generally be viewed as political so to speak um and the takeway from that I I was given some follow-up steps uh speak to the curriculum expert and do this I will say I've set emails to almost everyone in bed I have over seven calls this is a year and a half later uh four voicemails and not one answer um so just so you know how things are being handled on the uh actually on the uh paid side of things which is concerning very concerning uh I took a look before I came here the I've been I bought my home in the mford about 23 years ago uh I my average tax has been over 24,000 we're about 27,000 now of which I calculated I spent over $350,000 towards the school system and my daughter's in four years now in school so I think that you know I have a right to be concerned I I've invested in this also you know want to see the children flourish and and uh it's just very concerning so that's that's just one example I don't need any answers on that anymore we've gotten them you know through other means but unfortunately I couldn't get them through the official appropriate channels um in addition to that we now have as we heard um h u yeah there's been multiple HIV reports filed uh the way they're handled is we're not looking for transparency we understand that there's privacy with children but there can be explanations of steps or or ways they go about it and it's been very standoffish I've sent you uh Miss Shenley is that right I'm sorry okay I don't want to um I don't know 20 plus emails at this point you sent to me or you copied me on you were copied and called out in for and zero response um in addition to in uh HIV reports which I have statements from people and you know my daughter was told she was going to be thrown in bed and raped she was told then okay but we can't we can't talk about children I can talk about my child we're not disclosing yeah we're not saying anything about my child she was told she after that she was well first sorry I apologize first she was told she was going to put he thrown him in bed and had you know he was going to have sex with her next she was thrown on the floor and raped uh the statement was that this boy wanted to rape your child and the last statement was most recently the statement was he was going to kill her pet in front of her and then kill her so all of this apparently now this is we filed two HIV reports I'm aware in the last two months there's four HIV reports filed um apparently we're hearing they all unfounded which is you know a very big concern because we happen to know the individual who was accused actually admitted to doing it so I'm not sure what the unfounded part is and I'm not looking to bust anyone but I cannot I need a safe environment for my child I also need the board of educ not the board whatever it's called I need the members who run this to follow the state laws um we have spoken to the state commissioner these file reports were not filed appropriately with the state at this point um and this is preliminary so we need to dig further my issue is if it's not resolved I don't know what my recourse is we have spoken to lawyers and the problem is everything I do will hurt the school and that's the last thing I want to do um not worried about offending anyone tonight my daughter is the most important thing I don't mean any offense but I need appropriate action I don't need anything to happen I need to be responded to I need to be uh just let in on it the the fact of no answers which is exactly what happened the last time uh with with the um political movement or whatever it was just leads to more suspicion it doesn't solve a problem and this this is the problem right so no answer is you're not addressing it in perception wise and if it's not reality you can tell me that but no one can tell me that so we are very concerned uh I now had to get my daughter extra counseling because of this incident out of my own pocket she's struggling her teachers are saying she has not been the scene now she has a tail in school and she has a conscience because of this this is this is insane and it this has to be addressed so if the board's not aware of what's actually going on in that office over there they really need to be this this is inappropriate and and it's it's I'm not going to go away until I get an answer I know I'm probably annoying to everyone but we do have a three minute you did go over and I didn't want to stop you but I just didn't I don't know if you want to add add something because it's three minutes you know so my concern is so as a parent I've been told I can go to the website and file an HIV report I've done that this website also states that you know it'll take approximately 10 days I've done that I've sat around I've waited I've emailed and I've gotten the response while we're still looking into it so here we are a month and a half later I still don't have an answer in terms of what is actually happening you know towards disciplining this child or helping because obviously there's an in my opinion after making the same child attacking my daughter there's obviously a mental health issue that needs to be addressed long story short that no answer business doesn't work especially as a concerned parent and the lack of communication and then when you try to get an answer you have this very diplomatic response it's not very um reassuring as a parent that things are being looked at if your daughter was told in the face that she that she wanted that she was going to get raped and then your do daughter was in the bathroom crying in a little ball because she was upset and offended and embarrassed if this happened what would your response be it's certainly not going to be to sit around and wait for you know um a response from the principal or from the superintendent in addition to that my daughter was put in that situation and the child was led in the school the next the very next day so now I've been humiliated because this was told to my daughter in the lunchroom that so and so wanted to rape her and then my daughter has to go back to school the next day only to see the P person that did that to her in the same in a classroom Behind Closed wall I don't care if it was in school suspension so my question is what are the grounds to suspend a child what do they have to do is a death threat not good enough is a I'm going to um rape you not good enough what's my answer are we waiting for another Coline are we waiting for another Act of of Madness to happen because this child needs mental health so what are the grounds for a suspension does anybody have an answer cuz I'm open cuz death threat and rap are the two situations here repeated by the same person and he's been harassing my child since third grade by the way from other families other families not ours so this is not a unique situation to us okay the communication needs to improve in terms of as a parent when you open a report because now I just heard in the school of Berkeley there were four incidents reported in October which have been dismissed unfounded based on what grounds who communicated that to the parents no one I have a friend also in Berkeley they she opened a report September 24th I believe guess what zero answers okay so where do we stand thank you you know we hear you um I'm am going to close to the public and then either we'll give a response or we will get back to you at a separate time okay so I need a motion to close Tony Al seconded by Nicole dun all in favor oppos would you like me to respond to any of the process sure I think we should discuss the process and about U process I can't speak it's not a Q&A so I can't respond to you at this time personally but I can talk about process sir so um we have an HIV policy that mimics the code uh in process and there are timelines for reporting for investigating reporting out and then determination is reported to the board and after the board takes action to accept the report the parents receive a follow-up letter with the determination in the letter and in that letter it says if you are not satisfied with this this is your next step the next recourse that you have that's what we do um we review this every single year I read and review every HIV I talk to my principles about every HIV how they're handled what the discipline or services are that we provide to Children um no answer or a vague answer probably means that we cannot tell you it's all we can say is that we have addressed the situation with the child and the child's family that's all I'm at Liberty to share I realize that's frustrating um but that's all we are at Liberty to to share um there is a chain of command so if I am and as you can imagine I am copied on emails very often if I am one of four people who are copied on an email and the principle is responding to the email I don't respond if it's directed at me I'm assuming you're not copying seven other people and you're going to name me in your email so if I'm just copied on an email respectfully I'm not responding unless the principal can't respond is looking for support and how to respond it's not so I do respond to emails from parents I am unaware of any emails that you've sent me directly to me for me to respond that I haven't responded to I have not received any phone calls from you since I came here I am unaware if you've left me any messages is I answer my messages um was your this well but you guys can talk saying yeah um as far as understanding HIV it's very frustrating okay the New Jersey State Department of Education has very clearly identified Hib to um it must meet a thre prong definition the first prong is that it has to be um a protected class or a perceived or real um identifying something I'm at the loss for a word right now that that's number one there has to be a a person has to be a target for a reason then um it has to have an at school or have a Nexus to the school and it has to dramatically imp impacts the students um education in some way if we can't identify a real or perceived characteristic or um a protected class and or no Nexus to the school and or no um impact to a child's education it doesn't meet the full definition and therefore because something comes up as inconclusive or not meeting the definition of HIV doesn't mean that it is not a serious offense a child could bring a weapon to school that is a very serious offense does not meet the definition of HIV could threaten somebody with the weapon it's not HIV so I'm just I realize that that is frustrating because you're struggling with something and you're filling out the form and you're not hearing what we did to the aggressor for example I realized that is frustrating um but because it doesn't meet the definition of HIV does not mean that it was treated um without severity or that it was not treated or not handled as far as what is the um definition or what is worthy of a suspension that depends on the situation depends on the SU students age their maturity level depends on whether or not they have the intellectual capacity to understand what they did if they have an IEP or 504 or something that prohibits them from maybe having the reasoning that their peers have all of these things play into how we discipline uh reprimand or re-educate or counsel a child so it's very gray because we're talking about young children I'm very sorry that you are frustrated um I can only promise you that we do follow the law and the policy and that you will receive documentation as per the law and the policy that was an excellent explanation thank you because we haven't gotten that to the to before now um and if I can make a suggestion if something doesn't need an HIV but everyone's guiding me to the HIV and it's still a disciplinar like why wouldn't the person you're dealing with say that it would have been over this is the problem the communication I'll tell you why yeah because we're following the law and the law says I can't tell you what it is until the board agrees with my recommendation so I present present the cases to the board the board can overturn like you will see in tomorrow's meeting I'm asking them to accept the cases as presented so they have access to some information if they vote to overturn those decisions then what I told you before the board meeting isn't true so until the board votes to affirm or deny or affirm or overturn the decisions that we make I don't have an answer for you and then the day after tomorrow's board meeting on Thursday my assistant has an letters prepared that are going out to parents now that's for October's incidents not November's incident that would happen after the December 5th meeting so the other parent who filed one in September has still not seen anything I don't know if correct because those are being voted on oh September I don't know I don't I don't know the specific case that parent needs to follow follow up and find out I I don't know the I don't know the parent I don't know the situation I don't think the Situation's changed I again I appreciate it I think I think you without we could talk outside of here I would that it never happens she okay board member requests for additional information 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 Personnel the minutes of the executive session will be made available to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exist I need a motion to recess to close py seconded by Nicole Dunn all in favor I oppose okay so thank you at this point we do need to meet privately though so we can't stay for this meeting and we're not taking action afterwards so no there's nothing else that