good evening good evening good evening just a moment oh there we go good evening everyone welcome to the Wednesday February 28th uh special meeting of the Wall Township Board of Education at this time please join me and our wall High School nncc Cadets in saluting the flag of the United States of America to the rep for it stands nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all car cut right Face Forward Mar cut C guard dismiss thank you as always we really appreciate our nncc cadetes for coming out and we'd also like to thank colonel Jack who's come out this evening uh working with our Cadets and doing a beautiful job of really um getting nncc moving in an outstanding and excellent uh position so we're really proud of them and and all the progress that is being made there um now Mr SMI our board secretary would you please read our Sunshine announcement and perform roll call yes this is the wallt Board of Education meeting for which adequate notice under the open public meeting Act was provided by a notice to the co co-star Asbury Park Press Township clerk's office all Wall Township Public Schools and in the board Administration office on January 25th 2024 take a roll call Mr anisio here M barbier here Mr Buffa here M djovani here Mr malof here Mr Nasser here miss shimko here Mr wandra here miss stes here thank you so much at this time I'm going to be opening the floor for public comment on school related issues uh if you have any public comment please come up to the podium hi my name is Betsy cross I live in Wall Township ship and I just wanted to go over a few things I just gave a copy to Tim tan he works for the njsba he's your new representative so I wanted to him to have copies of what I was going over um might all have to do with pretty much opah request outstanding late things that just you know the the nonsense that goes on and on um I had gotten back some bank statements from from Mr SMI and I'm I'm not following this whole catel payment and the subcontract of precision so um we really need an explanation on this and we need you to just give it to us I shouldn't have to keep oing and oing it oing it and Adam Nasser chair of fnf didn't even know who the person was he documented his minutes wrong said it was two Union reps that brought it up when no it was Kathleen Duran and myself um if you can't get your minutes right you're not going to get anything right Mr Nasser you got to do better or or just I don't even think you should be the Mrs cross please direct you should be the oh okay can you follow Mr Nasser on that his minutes are wrong he needs to fix them okay thank you um I also ask for Adam nasser's text message emails Facebook screenshots that contain the name Betsy cross Michael Shelton dority or attorney from 1211 to 1221 2023 and from 11 25 2022 to 125 never got it back the nonsense I'm getting back from Mr SMI it's absurd he just keep saying do you need this do you need that no just give me everything that I'm asking for I've also asked for Christine SES Ralph fonio Kristen haa Thomas Buffett James Mal and Kathleen D Giovanni I'm waiting for that um boy oh boy I can't believe the amount of redactions in minutes so hopefully you can get them on the screen um we got lawsuit after lawsuit I can tell who you're talking about you're talking about me you're talking about Jenny De Carlo you're talking about the child injured in the trailers um you just redact everything that you can uh you need to do better before you get sued so you need to go through them again and you need to unreact what you have to unreact you can't just keep hiding this invoices gave that gentleman 10,000 for my last lawsuit that went to the GIF to pay you had to cut a check to the GIF and 41,000 on my last one um it gets very expensive you're getting bad legal advice and you have a bad business administrator it's a deadly combination you need to do better you need to turn these documents over before you get sued again because every time I do it now you lose um so please go over uh catel and precision tonight please let me know that you're going to follow up M as president to get me these documents do we have anyone else for a public comment this evening seeing n we'll close the floor for public comment all right at this time I'm going to turn the floor over to Dr handerhan for um a introduction of our speaker this evening um and uh for a little explanation of what it is that we're doing here this evening as a board of education thank you Miss ties uh this evening it's my pleasure to um inform our public that we are um we are conducting the 2024 ethics training for the Board of Education and uh we are we have um a very distinguished guest with us this evening to provide our training and that is Dr Timothy Tian he is a field representative our new field representative for uh New Jersey school boards and we are incredibly excited to have him join us and meet him this evening in person um I enjoyed our phone calls before before um this evening in um planning our very important ethics training um I on behalf of the Board of Education I welcome you and uh we look forward to um your presentation so thank Youk you oh there you go hello well I've never been called distinguish so I'm proud of that my name is Tim te I am from New Jersey school boards and I'm here I replaced uh Maryann Friedman as the field service rep for MTH County uh Marana and I are still working on together on a lot of um lot of superintendent searches and um the strategic planning that's going on in Mammoth County as well as other counties so we've been very busy so you just have me tonight though so tonight we're going to be doing ethics and um after the presentation's over tonight I'll email you the presentation and anything else if anything else comes up I'll send that along too um and then this way you can go out to the whole board afterwards the nice thing about the presentation when it's sent out in PDF there's hyperlinks in it and I'll point that out during it that will bring you to a lot of the cases that we're going to talk about so just a disclaimer I am not an attorney I don't play one on TV I never pretend to be one though I do enjoy the law and it is frustrating sometimes um but I do not give out legal advice I only give out Legal Information the only person you can get legal advice from and you should get legal advice from is your board attorney that's the person who represents you so um School New Jersey school boards does have an attorney of the day that any board member can call you can ask questions but once again that'll just be legal information but it's always nice to have a couple different resources available to you so all of you are school officials and you're in these highly paid and respected positions um and every day is an easy day for board members across the state of New Jersey um but as part of that you do serve the public and because you're all in these positions the public has voted you in and as part of that um the New Jersey the school ethics act has actually establish minimum standards that board members are expected to uphold in the you know in your duty as a board member so because of that respect and confidence you as a board member have to avoid conduct or even the impression of conduct that violates one or more of the uh code of ethic tenants so the school ethics Act was actually established in 1991 and as a result of that they formed the school ethics commission also known as the secc and it does not deal in any stocks or bonds it's strictly the school ethics commission but they in education they love acronym So that's its acronym even though it was used by somebody else um they also established prohibited acts the mandatory retra mandatory trainings that board members have to go through the disclosure statements personal relative financial statements um but that is not just so everyone knows in the public too it's not asking you how much money you make it's just asking you where the sources of your income comes from um and then the code of ethics the 10 tenants were actually established nine years later in 20 01 so who is accountable to these code of ethics well anyone that works in the public school with an administrator CT which means a superintendent the ba any uh any other principal or uh assistant principal they would all be accountable to that anyone that works at New Jersey school boards is accountable to it uh all of you as board members are accountable and anyone that works in a charter school as a as a similar position as a board member would also be accountable to these so as a result of that you have conflicts of interest and disclosure statements that apply to all of us however because you guys are board members and you're so special you get two more you also have the code of ethics that you have to abide by as well as the mandatory training and Schoolboard members are the only person persons that have to engage in mandatory training which is interesting because we were just talking about that today at the office that the legislature is the one that actually determines this yet they don't have to go through mandatory training so they're telling you you do but they don't so I just think that's interesting so the school ethics commission is actually made up of nine it's supposed to be made up of nine individuals two come from school administrators five are non-school officials and two are school board members and these are appointed by the um Governor however at this current point in time there's only six members that are currently sitting on the SEC and that is important because when we talk about advisor opinions that comes into play so the SEC can do two things has two jobs the first one is advisory opinions and the second one is our ethics complaints advisory opinions are think of them as being proactive it's us a school official are possibly going to engage in something and you want to make sure before you do it that it's okay for you to do it so you as a school official can request an advisory opinion from the SEC and simply writing a a letter to them and giving all the details of your situation you send it in and then they make the um determination and they give that advisory opinion for it if they think it's something that's just very specific to you here in this District they'll tell you and give that to you and that will be only for you however if they think the item that you've uh put forth has a more much more far-reaching impact meaning other school district in New Jersey might be s um struggling with the same question then they can vote to make that advisory opinion public in order to make it public they need six positive votes there's only six members now sitting on the board which means it has to be unanimous now at this point in time for it to become a public advisory opinion they'll still issue The Advisory opinion it just might not be public um and then ethics complaints are after you have potentially done something wrong meaning you've potentially broken one of the tenants of the code of ethics that's where anybody in really anywhere can uh file a code of ethics complaint against you now it's easy to say they're going to be able to file it against you however it's not as simply as just saying I think so and so broke tenant a they actually have to provide the factual evidence along with their submission so it's a lot more involved than just making a claim so mandatory training as board members if you're new then you've been going through the new board member orientation which is governance one and that gives you your basic knowledge as a new board member you actually have 90 days to complete that from the time that you're sworn in this is not from New Jersey school boards this is actually from the legislature so don't blame us that you have to go get um training by the end of year two then you have to take governance two and that is focused on finance and labor end of year three you have to focus on uh student achievement that's in governance three and then every year you're reelected you have to take governance 4 so that's legal updates and that's important because the law does change all the time there's new legal cases every day um so that's a way for you to keep updated on what's going on and what's what's impacting education all of these trainings all four of them are actually provided in person live virtual and self-paced online for governance one they also offer a new board member orientation weekend long event the second one just happened so that's where you go for a weekend and you're with other brand new board members and it's an intensive uh basically three days so as I said before the disclosure statements it's not going to ask you how much money you make um they used to do it by paper now it's mostly digital your ba will send out a um email to you that will say fill out your financial disclosure statement you do it it's just saying where your source of income is coming from if you do something wrong after you hit submit it actually does not go to the state it actually goes to the ba first who reviews it and they might kick it back to you so don't be surprised I've had them kick back to me too so um as a new board member you have 30 days to do that but every other board member you actually have until April 30th this is important to make sure you hit the deadlines because this is a qack issue okay so if if one or more board members don't meet those deadlines then you will you lose points on your qac evaluation and for those who don't know what qac is it's every 3 years the state comes in the doe comes in and with their team and they monitor for compliance not for Quality they monitor for compliance so if you do something wrong what are the things that can happen to you as a board member there's four different things the first one is a reprimand think of that as a slap on the wrist so they will say to you you did you violated tenant a bad bad bad don't do it again and that's it censure is more more serious that's more public so what happens with a censure is that not only will they tell you bad bad bad you violated it a b c d whatever the board is actually required to pass a resolution naming you as the person what tenants you violated and say that you broke the the code of ethics so it's much more public much more out there so you really don't want to hit the centure part you really don't want to hit any of them but definitely not that um then you go to the next one which is suspension so they can make the determination that the violations that you caused were serious in nature and therefore suspend you from the Board of Ed so that could be for whatever amount of time they determine it could be a month three months a year it's up to them and then the last one is a removal so they could say you were so bad in in the decisions that you made and that was so serious therefore you're no longer allowed to be a board member now when something is submitted at an Ethics complaint it actually goes to the SEC first and they make their initial determination then it goes to the commissioner of Education who makes the final determination and when we start to look at some of the cases you're going to see recommended um it might say recommended uh reprimand or it might just say reprimand when it says recommend it reprimand that means that it's only gone through the SEC and it's currently with the commission of Education to make that final decision if you just see the word reprimand it means it's gone through both and that is the final decision so we're going to go through the 10 tenants and I I I do not read them to you just so you know but I think it's important to understand that the these are actually in statute and code so the top part that you see in that lime green that actually comes from statute 18a and the bottom part is from code Administrative Code 6A so when you look at the top part that's telling you what you're expected to do the bottom part is for if you break that and somebody claims that you break that then that that's the factual evidence that they have to provide in submitting any kind of a ethics complaint claim to the school ethics commission so you can kind of see it's it's going to have some details there so every single one of these has that so like that's when I said before about how it's not as simple as just filing a complaint and saying so and so violated a they've actually have to have the the evidence to prove that if they don't submit that with their claim the SEC will not look at it any further than that they'll kick it out okay so just so you know it's not a simple process for people but the first one is uphold and enforce all laws rules and regulations you have to follow the law you don't have a choice you might not agree with the law the regulation or the rule it doesn't make a difference you have to follow it there's other avenues to challenge laws and all that but you still have to follow the laws and regulations and the rules that are out there the second one is that you have to make decisions in the best educational welfare of children all children not just the ones you like not just the ones you want to advocate for it's for all children and when appropriate you're going to um meet with the IND sorry wrong one um so yeah maintain public schools that meet the individual needs of all children next one's that one so confine your board Mak action to policym planning and and Appraisal those are the three things that board members do when appropriate then you're going to consult with um individual stakeholders to get their input so in other words if you have a policy that's going to impact let's say the administrators in the district you would consult with them now that doesn't mean that you're going to do whatever they say You're simply letting them know that this is a policy that you're putting out there and they might give you some feedback on it where does that happen it can happen at aard meting that's totally appropriate the next one day is not to administer the schools but see that they are well-run most Boards of Education struggle with this one you sit in a position you you have a lot of information and everyone has an opinion okay but your job as a board is not to run the district your job is to just oversee it and make sure that it's well run I use the word what and how those two words you're the what as the board when you are presented with something and you look at it and you saywell what do I want to happen here that's okay that means that's within the purview of the board the minute you say well we want this to happen and this is how we want it to happen now you've moved into the how because you're saying this is the steps we want to go through that means you've overstepped and you're now trying to run the district that would be a violation of this code so always ask is very simple what how every time you're going to do something say is this a what or is this a how and don't get confused the next one is that understand that the authority rests with you as a board of education meaning you as an individual have zero power it's only as a complete board when you're sitting at an legally advertised meeting where you have an agenda with resolutions on it that you can take action and that's where your power comes in it's in the majority of the board when you have a quorum of the board okay so you can't make private promises or uh Hey I'm going to do this for you that's that's not your that's not appropriate at all okay it's what the board decides is the best action so even though you're an independent person and individual and you have your own opinions you have to make sure that you do not give in to public pressure for um from especially political groups which really have made their way into uh public schools and you cannot do anything for the personal gain of family friends neighbors colleagues uh co-workers like you really are here for one reason one reason only the students and if you always keep that as your central Focus you will make the right decisions to me this is the most important one confidential as a board member you are privy to information that the public is not and that's purposeful that's why you have executive session in executive session those items that you meet in there for are supposed to be private and that always has to do with student issues staff issues because you're dealing with names there legal issues school safety certain things within school safety um legal issues I always forget all of them but uh that's where a ba comes in they always make sure like no that's an executive item so uh all the executive items definitely are confidential items but you're also getting Communications from your superintendent about different things that are going on in the district once again it's it's confidential information it's to inform you so that you can make the best decisions as you move forward and then appoint the best qualified Personnel available understand that on your board agenda it'll always say for personnel you know by recommendation of the superintendent of schools it's not your job to do the interviews it's not your job to select the person or persons that you want on that agenda that's the superintendent job that's why it says recommendation superintendent however you also have to understand that even if you don't like that candidate that that position might have been very difficult to fill and there might have only been one candidate for it so even though it might not be the best it might be the only and I had that I had where I had a um a very very difficult to fill position I had one person apply for it and I had my principal come into to me and she said um you're going to be meeting with the candidate and I said okay you've never come in to tell me I'm meeting with the candidate she goes she has a pulse I said oh that's that's not good okay so understand that that does happen sometimes in education especially now where there's a shortage of Staff members and with the doe with the change the constant changes in certifications you're having sometimes for certain positions less and less individuals that are able and qualified to work in those positions and support and protect School Personnel that's your job you cannot undermine the school staff in the district and we're going to talk about one case where it's a it's a great example of where a board member undermined the staff member and the staff member can be an administrator can be a teacher can be a custodian can be a secretary can be anyone that works in the school district refer all complaints to your superintendent of schools now what that means is it's a it's a chain of command and I'm going to get into the chain of command in a second but understand that when you get a complaint the first thing that you should do is redirect that person to the chain of command but then also Loop in your superintendent let her know what the complaint was not that she's going to act on it because that she might that might she might determine that that's not appropriate that based upon the situation that's presented and she might allow it then to do what it should be doing which is going up the chain of command so why is the chain of command important even though the public thinks that they're going to go right to you as a board member and you're going to go right to the superintendent and you're going to get that problem fixed so I'm I'm temp in and I go to board member a and I say my child's teacher I don't like them they're doing X Y and Z go tell the superintendent to fix it okay so the board member decides not to redirect me to the chain of command which would be back to the teacher that's you generally in that case that would be the level the lowest level on the chain of command instead board member a decides to go to the superintendent share that and say you got to go fix it so let's say the superintendent decides all right I'm going to go fix it her next step will be to go to the principal of the building and say I was this was brought to my attention this parent you know temp he said this the principal then has to go down to the teacher because the principal and the superintendent are not in every class every minute of every day you wouldn't want them to be that's why the teacher there so then the teacher says okay no here's my response to that goes to the principal which then goes to the superintendent superintendent then reaches out to the parent and what do you think the parent says yeah but that's not the whole thing and so they say the next part of it and it has to go back down the chain and then back up the chain which means it takes forever so in order to come up with a quick solution follow the chain of command so when somebody comes to you with concern or complaint say I hear what you're saying don't say I agree with you just say I hear what you're saying go to the teacher which is generally where it starts or go to the principal if that's depending on what the concern is follow the chain of command and it will make its way the only time it will come to you is if it's gone through the full chain you guys are the last link in that chain when it comes to you then by all means you can hear the case and you can talk about what would be the best resolution to it do not solicit means do not go out and look for good and bad going on in the district so in other words let's say you have a new math program new math resource if you're going to a teacher and saying hey how's that math resource working that's soliciting you're asking for feedback on something you can't do that that's the job of the administrative team in in the district that's what they're supposed to be doing that's the the how you guys remember the what so lowest level and always always always notify the superintendent so she's in the loop staying in your lane that's so important and I I use this as a as a reason so let's say we're driving on and I there was an accident or something out here before because there was a lot of ambulances and maybe this isn't a good example right now but let's say we're driving right and you're driving as a board member next to me and I'm the superintendent and we're going in the same direction that's great right both going in the same direction because I'm a really good driver and you're not you come over the line a little bit right so what are you going to end up doing you're going to end up hitting me right we're going to get into a little bit of a fender bender but at least we were going going in the same direction but you didn't stay in your lane and that's what caused that minor accident but let's say you're going the opposite way as I am we're going in two totally different directions and once again I'm a good driver and you're not you come over the line we're going to have a major accident right so it's important that you not only stay in your lane but you're all focused on the exact same thing you're all going in the same direction you know what's the most important thing which obviously are the students of the district so this is like a nice summary of the board and superintendent roles this is the what and the how so when you look at roles and responsibility the board works on vision mission goals and policy that's what the superintendent decides what are the objectives what are the procedures what are the action plans and what are the regulations board does policy Administration does regulations in a lot of districts the boards will approve regulations but however you don't write regulations that's the job of the superintendent administ ministrative team that's the the how of how they're going to carry out whatever that Associated policy is the focus is the end results the what what are you what are you trying to accomplish why are you trying to accomplish this and how much do you want to accomplish the how is the superintendent how will I do this when will I do this where will I do this who will help me do this the action is voting and evaluating you evaluate one person in the school district and that's a superintendent voting you do every board meeting when you have an agenda and you have those resolutions and you say yay or nay that's a vote okay the superintendent recommends that's why on the agenda it says recommended by the superintendent of schools but she also implements so when whatever plans are there that whatever the decision is for a plan they're the ones that actually she's the one that will actually implement it so these are a bunch of cases and as I said to you guys this these will be all um linked so when you see on the left hand side where it's blue yeah it's blue um those are hyperlinks so this is a short summary of each one of these cases if you're a a legal nerd like me and you like to read these cases then by all means click on these most lawyers and no offense to anyone if you're a lawyer but most lawyers do not say something simple in one or two words it's a lot of words so a lot of times these cases are usually three to 11 plus pages long um but when you read them you will get a lot more insight into the thinking that was going on and why they came up with the decision that they came up with so just looking at and this is where you see in the green that's the example where I was telling you about if it made it through the SEC versus the SEC and the commissioner of Education the first one was a recommended reprimand second one was a reprimand that means the second one went through both so in the first case the board member copied and pasted information from a board email and that information was considered confidential can't do it okay those emails that you're getting you can't copy and send out to somebody else it's confidential information second one using board email can give the impression statements were made on behalf of the board board email board business personal email personal business always keep them separate because if you're using your personal email for board business somebody can Oprah your personal email accounts then as a result of that that's why you use a board email account uh next one is member contacted vendors and districts for prices business administrators love this not they don't okay there's so many rules and regulations with purchases that is not your job as a board member to go figure out what's the best product or the best price that's his job it's okay though if you go to say like workshop for New Jersey school boards and you see vendors there and you see a product and you think it's a really good product by all means you can grab a business card and you can hand that business card to either the ba or the superintendent say hey you might want to check this out this looked really interesting that's okay that's appropriate turning to the vendor and saying hey can you come on Thursday at 11 o'clock for demo please that's not appropriate okay because that's now doing something okay so uh never do that the next one board email to Express Personal views personal views personal email board views board email these are another this is another one the first one I think is interesting because it's the member accused the superintendent of changing the graduation day because of a personal conflict and then at that same board member uh went when there was a music director um course director they wanted them to play at some event the course director couldn't do it for whatever reason and the board member was annoyed so they actually went right to the course director and said why can't you do it I want you to do this do you remember I said about protecting staff members that's the example of it you cannot go directly to that staff member that's the superintendent's job or the principal's job to do that next one meeting with members of the public to discuss a highly divisive board action to change a holiday name it's not your job to meet with individuals in the community to discuss board business okay board business stays here at the board table the this one I think is the best one the board president lost the election they directed the board attorney to conduct research on another board member who actually campaigned against them and obviously won why is this wrong well I think that's pretty obvious and you would think the a lot of these things are common sense like you would think why what were they thinking but that individual was using District funds for a personal Vendetta so you can't do that so these are a list of prohibited acts so if you fall into one of these you would have to recuse yourself and we're going to talk about recusing but you would have to recuse yourself in a vote if they fall within any of these so what is a recusal a lot of boards don't know what a recusal is it's it's um something that's being talked about just recently most board meetings when you don't want to vote on something because you don't have enough information or you're conflicted people have abstained from the vote an abstention should only used when you don't have enough information perfect example I wasn't at the last board meeting this board meeting you're approving the board minutes from the last board meeting you weren't there that's a very appropriate time to abstain from that vote if you're if you're legally conflicted meaning even though you might want to vote on something but you're not permitted to vote on something that's when you should recuse yourself that sends a different message to the community it's not saying that you're afraid to vote it's not saying that you don't want to take on that vote it's saying you can't vote as even though you might want to you can't vote for it because you're legally not allowed to and this is important because if you were supposed to recuse yourself and you didn't and you vote it let's say that agenda item was a really close vote it just passed by one vote or missed by one vote okay failed by a vote if you vote it and you weren't supposed to that vote becomes null and void so let's say you hire somebody and somebody discovers later that you shouldn't have been voting on it that person that thought they just took the job and all the ramifications of doing that now all of a sudden finds out no I really didn't get the job so it can have major ramifications so if you're conflicted please recuse yourself do not vote on something so these are relationship definitions and when you look at this media family memb is what you would expect and relative is a nice long list these are all the different relationships that could potentially be create a conflict for you within the school district as a board member if you know about the new um sick leave law that came out recently they used this as their definition and then they added one nice little caveat to it they said that staff members can actually take sick days for all these different individuals Plus if somebody is not really a relative but they're just like a relative they feel like their family you can take a sick day too so that has not made its way into this relationship definition yet so be on the lookout for that because when you tend to see something happen in one area it sometimes rolls over into another area so even though you know if you're if you're working in the district and you might take off because your neighbor sick and they're just like a family member that won't necessarily affect you as a board member at this point in time so you can still take off when it's a sick neighbor and you can still vote on things but um so these are all the relationships in the paper the three pages that I gave you uh the third page in that is this this is a nice handy chart uh this came out of an advisory opinion because every school district struggles every board struggles with trying to determine whether they're conflicted or not this is a nice little handy truck however even though it's a nice handy chart and you should reference it to try to make preliminary determinations what you might be if somebody creates a conflict for you you only should be sharing your full details with your board attorney to make that determination because your board attorney will tell you what you can and can't vote on what committees you can and can't be on what um um different things that you can't be involved in whether it's a superintendent evaluation if there was a superintendent search if there's a a contract all those things they'll tell you whether you can or can't be involved in those and that's based upon your conflicts but this is a nice little handy chart so as a board member you might have family members that currently work in the district and that's okay however that does create conflicts for you and also when you become a board member you cannot hire any more of your family members and you have policy for that but you're not allowed to do that there is one little exception to that and and that is if there's a really really really difficult position to fill it's posted and the only person that applied for it was your family member the superintendent can reach out to the executive county superintendent and ask for a waiver and explain the situation generally the executive County Superintendent will instructor to please post it again see if he gets somebody else chances are you're not going to and then they can approve that waiver and say yes you can hire that board member's family member however once that board member has that family member in the district you're now conflicted and you can't vote in anything in those areas or be involved in things in those areas which once again will go back to the board of attorney to get direction on what you can and can't be involved in so this is a a nice chart and it gives you some of the I think a really good idea of the complexities and why you go to the board attorney but collective bargaining is one area that you could potentially be conflicted within based upon uh relationships and if you just use spouse as an example if you look at the first row spouse that's your spouse as a board member they work in the district as a teacher or in whatever role okay but let's say they're a teacher that would mean that you were conflicted and you could not participate in negotiations nor could you vote to ratify the contract however if your spouse Works outside of the district you might not be able to participate in negotiations but you can vote to ratify the contract cont but notice there's a little Aster there that changes if that family member that works outside the district holds a position of power within the union meaning they're are president vice president treasur Chief negotiator building rep something along those lines that might cause you not to be able to vote to ratify the contract and that's why it's so important to share all the specific details of your situation with your board attorney so they can help make that determination of what you can and can't be involved in this is just other conflicts and then the the in the orange section that advisory opinion is an interesting one as a board member sometimes you're endorsed by different groups when you're running for the board um if you're endorsed by a local Education Association um years ago that would knock you out of negotiations so here's what what what was happening and this is why this advisory opin opinion came out board member a runs on the platform of we want to give 0% raise to all the teachers so do you think any of the teachers and the teachers union wants that board member on the board no so what do they do they endorse them that knocks them out of negotiations pretty smart right so what happened was somebody wrote for an advisory opinion yes it had a far-reaching impact so this was a published one and so what they changed in was that not only can do you have to be endorsed but they have to actually give you Financial contributions so now that took away that power for the union to be able to say I endorse you to knock you out of negotiations they actually have to say I endorse you and then give you money and you have to accept the money as um you know for your for your campaign so that's like an interesting one that came out so I'm not going to go through all these cases but these are prohibited acts and these are a combination of uh conflict cases as well as advisory opinions and that's why on the column on the right it says advice and outcome advice is the advice from The Advisory opinion outcome is the outcome from the ethics complaint you'll know if it's an Ethics complaint if it has an a a a c and if it's an advisory opinion it starts off with an A so that's the um hyperlinks on the left hand side this um case is an interesting one because it it was a recent one in 2022 and this was in the same district where the board president had a uh child that was an instructional assistant in the district so remember it's the board president so as a result of that that knocked the board president out of being able to be on any of the Committees that are related to Personnel negotiations instructional which means curriculum in instruction and the finance committees that's a lot to get knocked out of on top of that one of the roles of the board president president is to appoint board members to the different committees they weren't allowed to do that either so that was all because they had a conflict because their child worked in the district in that same district at the same board meeting same year there was another board member who's whose spouse was the 10-month technology department employee as a result of that that person was not allowed to be involved in any of the Committees related to Personnel negotiations Andor Finance I would also argue they probably shouldn't have been involved in curriculum instruction because technology and curriculum instruction are so interwoven but I'm not an attorney I don't wrate advisory opinions I can just read them so um that that's what they had determined so understand that that a conflict can also impact your ability to be on or even appoint to committees exe executive session these are just two cases where executive session these are once again these are ones where I say duh what were you thinking the first one is the member attended the executive session discussion on a candidates to fill vacant board seat the husband applied so as a board member their husband was applying for the vacant seat do you think they're conflicted yes you don't even need a board attorney to tell you that instead they sat in on the interviews with the board and then the discussion that happened in executive session the second case the board president attended multiple discussions on matter involving their spouse who happens to work in the district and the other members of the board were unaware that that was the case that it was their spouse why because in a lot of districts not all staff um appointments or staff issues are usually using staff numbers same thing is with students to protect their identity but not in all districts and District I worked in we didn't do that unless it was a really sensitive thing then we did do use numbers so the other board members didn't know that's who the person was the board member did they knew it was their spouse so when it came time for the discussion you know in both these cases they actually consulted with the board attorney and the board attorney told them yes you can be involved and You' say well then that should be okay right no it was determined that even though the board attorney gave them that advice common sense says you shouldn't have been involved so you as board members are required to use something called common sense so use that as well volunteering in school as a board member a lot of times you get become and get on the board because you know you want to be actively involved in the school and a lot of times you've been volunteering in some way shape or form it's okay to be a volunteer and a board member however you have to watch two things the degree of involvement meaning how often you're in the buildings so if you're in there once a week that's fine if you're in there three times a week that's probably a problem why because that gives the impression that you're running the building or running people in the building and that's the degree of authority so depending on what your volunteer position is if you're in a position where you're overseeing staff members and giving them directions you probably shouldn't be in that now this has come up where people have asked about what if can you be involved in the PTO yes you can be that's totally fine can you even be a president or a vice president of a PTO you can however it depends on your PTO some pto's are very I would say basic they don't do a heck of a lot they might do like class parties and things like that but they're not that involved in that case yes you're totally fine if you have a very very active PTO where you're running a lot of different things you probably should not be the president or vice president because you're now in a position where you're giving directions regardless of what volunteering you do do not touch money which is a good thing because now when you're volunteering for something and and you know everyone always wants somebody else to handle the money and they say can you handle the money you can say no I can't I'm a board member you know I'm not supposed to handle money don't handle it okay it has been asked what if you're working like at a sports thing and you're in the food  and and you know know is that okay to take $2 for a hot dog yes it is but don't be the person that's going to count up the money at the end of the night or deposit the money or do anything with the money be beyond that okay so for voting once again as board members you are required to vote according to the law so you can vote yes or no on any agenda item however you can't have an agenda item that you're voting on that actually violates the law social media social media social media has become the bane of everyone's existence I always say you know people that sometimes write behind the keyboard you know behind the screen they are some people will say keyboard Cowboys because they'll say things um behind the screen that they would never say to somebody in person so it's important that as a board member you're holding holding yourself up to a different level and you have to be careful of the content of your speech so as a board member if you're commenting on anything to do with social with so on social media for anything that has to be related in any way shape or form to board business you shouldn't be doing that there's only one person who's a spokesperson for the board and that's the board president so if anyone's going to comment on how the board feels on a particular item on social media or anywhere else that should only be the board president and it should be based upon what the board has determined as being the majority view of it so your personal uh accounts do not comment on board business can you still be on social media absolutely can you still like things and that's on the next page but can you do all that stuff that you normally do can you post things yes you can do that so for example let's say it's snowing thank God that's over we hope right though tonight is going to get really cold but let's say it snows can you comment about the snow and how much there is and and all that stuff by all means yes you can however can you comment and say oh that stupid superintendent gave us a snow day it wasn't that bad no you can't that's po business okay so think before you write take a moment to think before you write and then before you post so content of the speech will have a huge um play in whether what you're saying is a violation or not on social media this is just an example where somebody wrote about that they're speaking on behalf of a being a private citizen however they actually spoke even though they were saying they were a private citizen and they were really a board member they actually spoke about board business you can't do that you're board members everyone knows your board members so you cannot do that when you do Post you should be using a disclaimer and this is a sample disclaimer this is is the one that the SEC recommends and the reason why they recommend this and even though you're not required to post using this they recommend this because they've looked at the language they've developed the language and they feel it captures what they want it to cap capture can you change it which is on this slide yeah you could change it but the reality is when we change things we sometimes miss the essence of what it was supposed to be saying so if you're going to use the disclaimer use it but make sure you kind of use the same verbiage so this is just like Q&A if you if you use a disclaimer does that automatically make you okay no why content is the most important part the same thing is if I don't use a disclaimer am I automatically wrong no you're not you're your if your content is good it didn't matter whether you had the disclaimer or not can um so content and perception matter perception is another part of it so even though you might not have the intent to say something in a certain way if the public can have the impression that that's what you were thinking or that's the way you were seeing it then that could become a problem for you so once again think before you write and post so if you're a board member that ran under a platform and you used social media when you were running do not use that social media page anymore because all your posts from the previous are still there so anything you post moving forward now that you're a board member all those previous thoughts that you had can be considered from the community as being the position of the board where it's obviously not it was your own at that time um can you still like and share things yes you can once again you can like the weather you can like the fact that the sports team won a State title you can do all that you can even comment on that stuff but if it has to do with board business stay away from it even if somebody else writes something nasty about the district or people in the district or the actions of the district do not not like it or repost it or even comment on it let it go the last part I think is the most important which is refrain from inappropriate Communications we expect for our students to hold themselves up to a level of talking nicely to each other and behaving nicely to each other we expect our staff to be the role models for them you're no different than the staff you are a role model and you're in a very public position so you once again have to think about not just the content of what you're posting but also whether what you're saying is appropriate or inappropriate are you using foul language don't do it because students will see that and that that gives a very negative um impression of the whole board so communication public comment and every District does their public comment differently you guys have a nice uh which I'm glad GL you did not start it at 3 minutes because I would have been in trouble um but you have a nice little uh timer there every District does it differently some do two minutes you know so they they change it I've seen some districts where they have multiple like things they have some right on the on the thing some don't have anything um but public comments the public needs to understand and as a board you need to understand that as a board You are conducting board business in public in public not with the public it's different kind of meeting than maybe a a count a a local meeting like not you know a county meeting this is in public so that means that even though the community has an opportunity to speak it's called public comment it's not called B public dialogue it's not called public either um it's not called public dialogue so as a board member your job should be to listen and I always suggest that you are going to listen and you're not going to say I agree or I disagree because now you're giv an opinion you just listen and be respectful and they do their three minutes and then they sit down that doesn't mean that you disregarded what they said some people and I'm one of those I would take notes while um public comment was going on I wouldn't make a comment during the board meeting and the reason why is because when you make a comment In the Heat of the Moment especially if it's somebody attack in you you are you might say the wrong thing and the wrong thing meaning that you're speaking from your heart from your emotions and you haven't thought about your response and that's never good for anybody so I always recommend that when you're in a board meeting listen remember what you did tonight the board president is the spokesperson for the board okay always redirect your your public back to that that it's if they they addressing another board member as a board member you guys all have to remember too that your board president is your spokesperson so as much as you might want to respond don't let your board president that's her wonderful high-paying job that she's doing that's her job to do okay I always say say thank you for your public comment and and really mean it like we really do appreciate when the public has comments it gives us different perspective on whatever is going on doesn't matter whether we agree with it or not it gives us a different perspective close your public comment if for some reason at that point you want to um make a comment back or answer something because it's real easy that's okay to do but public comment is now closed so as a board you can now respond and no one can respond back to I personally unless it's a really easy question that you can answer like if they're say can you tell us when the next school dance is okay close your public comment and if you know when the next school dances by all means go ahead and say that how however I always say wait till the next board meeting before you respond why because that gives you time to think about it it gives you time to digest what has been shared with you and actually look into it and at the next board meeting you may decide to respond you may decide not to and that's okay too but that's how I recommend you handle public comic because once again it's a board meeting in public not with the public as a board member your job is to communicate with the community and when I say that you are a representative of the local community you're in the community you know what's going on everyone in the community comes to you with their concerns whether they like something dislike something doesn't make a difference it's okay once again to listen to that and say thank you thank you for sharing that I will let the superintendent know that's it but you're also ambassadors to the community which means there are great things going on in your District every district has problems and every district has great things put it out there how do you do it as a board invite your kids here you guys did it tonight that was awesome showcase what the kids are doing that's the best way to be an ambassador to the community you guys are live streaming you are or at least recording I don't know if it's live stream or not but um you're recording and live streaming the board meetings your community could be watching that's a great time to showcase the great things going on in your District you could have you know administrators come you could have teachers come and present what's going on in the buildings those are great ways for you as a board to allow yourselves to be the ambassadors to the community points to consider New Jersey school boards does recommend that you develop a list of board members and administrators who have a conflict of interest and review it regularly because although I might not have a conflict today my daughter might graduate from school be a teacher and all of a sudden now I might be conflicted so as your situation changes I recommend that you reach out to your board attorney let them know what your situation is how it's changed and then let them guide you accordingly consult with your board attorney on any ethics issues and to identify conflicted members and administrators and then for New Jersey school boards we do offer School Board notes and that is um really good resource for seeing what's going on what's what are some of the trends that are going on in the legislature to see what laws are going are happening or being considered um so reading that and keeping up to date on that will really keep you well informed and just as a reminder in closing board members may not deliberately disregard and ignore the ethical standards that they are required by law to uphold and enforce when board members do so it not only threatens the Integrity of the board it also unnecessarily compromises District personnel and subverts the Very purpose for which board members are elected namely to serve the needs of the school district and to me the only reason why you're here is the students that's who you're here to serve not the teachers not the administrators not yourselves not the community you're here for the students so keep that as your central focus and you guys will be perfect those are just some links to some resources uh when I sent out the email to to you I'll also include because like I said I'm a little bit of a nerd when it comes to uh cases I'll give you besides all the the PDF will have all those links in it but all advisory and uh conflict of interest cases I'll send you two links for that as well okay so you'll have all that any questions yep uh two points or actually four but has this uh presentation ever been improved for continuing legal ethics credits um what do you mean for legal ethics crit I'm an attorney I have to get ethics credits and this really looks like it would fit the bill I don't know I can actually check with our legal team because this is actually developed by our legal team this is one hour I every two years well as you're bored you actually get one hour of credit how's that but I will check into that because if you send me the PowerPoint I could submit it myself and see if it'll been approved it's already been approved somewhere else that might be helpful to me and any other lawyers may have serve on the board yeah um and so you took offense to my comment about the uh the attorneys being wordy huh um I did have a question about when you were talking about the how and the what mhm there are are some instances where I can see us in the policy making uh making you know drafting the policy here where some of those policies do dictate the how do you see any potential um issues there it really shouldn't it should be for example like let's say it's um attendance I'll just use that as an example okay I I don't know what policy I'm thinking of but let's say it's in tenants policy and it the what will be that uh the school district uh mandates that students will be in school as often as possible and that there will be some kind of procedure in place to notify parents when a student is you know increasing the number of absences that's the What the how would be how are they going to do it that's the regulation that's when they would sit there and say okay first step will be we're going to send a letter at three days absent then we're going to send a second one at 5 days and eight days then we're going to start to visit the house we're going to take them to court whatever the case may be that's that's the how of how they're going to do it yours is more of the what so even when you read your and I would recommend this too when you write a policy because you don't always have to take the policies that are written by whoever your policy adviser is whether it's you know stra smme or School boards or somebody else um you can actually create your own policies however your policies have to be in accordance with the law so if you decide to write your own policy make sure you submit it first run it by your attorney your board attorney and then submit it to whoever your policy provider is to review it because if you put something in your policy that's against the law your policy doesn't mean anything because it has to be in accordance with the law and if you look at any of your policies at the bottom of them they always like do the uh references to all the different laws and advisory opinions and other cases that may be impacted by it that did not answer my question so I'm going to try this again the answer is for the most part yes okay you are still saying what the how is those specifics of what they're going to do that would still be a what though with you saying we want an absentee policy that's fine and I just wanted to say thank you because I thought this presentation was an excellent education for not just us but for the public as to what we can and cannot do as a board as far as commenting during um public comment or commenting on social media or commenting in general so I think that's a really great remind ER for the entire community and I say thank you you're welcome oh I want to chime in next thank you sir um this was an excellent um presentation I enjoy sitting through this last time and for the first time seeing your presentation because it was a little different flavor um I I I like the staying in your lane but I do take I I do take a little offense to how it it's coined and it says we are no different from any other citizen except when we're in a quorum mhm that's incorrect we actually have less rights than a citizen if we were in regardless of the Quorum we have less rights because we're not able to comment on anything having to do with the school community and I I would ask if could you go back a few slides to there's the one on social media that had to do with uh uh advisory opinion a222 there it is this is an excellent case MH do you know why I know that because this was my advisory opinion oh really so I'm glad that I made the list things not to doist I did not know that I asked for that advisory opinion because this was during covid and as a private citizen and not only a board member but a professional in another District I'm not allowed to give any information on anything I can't even to your example um about giving a date on something for if I were to go on social media the sec's decision was the public is too stupid for them to recognize that you're speaking in a capacity even if you're just passing on a link to a resource that's public available someplace else the way that the state and SEC has handled this has been very conservative I understand why we have attorneys involved but again I will stress we have less rights than the average citizen does when it comes to being able to comment on any policy including trying to guide members of our public to even just informational resources on benign things right so I I you know I like how you guys framed I understand what everything is there I'm glad to see that I made the the big leagues and I'm happy to send you a copy of this opinion if you'd like to read what the circumstan they click the link and they they might even see your your name when when I it's funny cuz when I when it first went out I asked if it was public and they said no and I guess it has to go through a process this must be this must be new your famous I I am I'm going to go look this up now but yeah this this was the context of this was during Co and putting together a line of communication between um the Boe and parents because there was a lot of information that was coming out fast from the state that it you know to try to redirect that to people that had a lot of questions of what was going on they're showing up to our board meetings sure trying to get that information out in real time was difficult so you know after some some back and forth there were you know differing opinions and I reached out in order to figure that out and honestly the response from the SEC was disturbing it was that your public is not able to handle the truth and they're not able to discern whether or not you're trying to help them or speak on behalf of the board it it it's absolutely insane how far the pendulum was swung to one side with us being able to respond to just anything right and so this is is my that was my five minutes and but thank you for coming out I appreciate this every year it's a it's a great thing oh and I will say uh for disclosure statements the best time to do that for the new folks right after you do your taxes it just it goes like hand inand I think they did that on purpose the April 30th because you can do your taxes you can get all the information for your disclosure statement put it in and you're good to go just make sure you get it in by the April 30th deadline yeah yeah and make sure you get your taxes in on time too no but is it last year or the year before they changed the date yeah so thank you anyone else Dr Tan thank you so much oh who do we have Ken oh sorry Mr wandra go right ahead so there there's two issues that are floating around and I'm wondering how the school boards are looking at this one is about the libraries mhm and content and the other one is about changing the age of consent from from 16 to 14 for students who feel that they have a mental or emotional problem without informing the parents both of those are currently going through governmental relations so if you were to contact our governmental relations people John Jonathan pushman is one of them um they can tell you where their current position is but they're still looking into it um there there's a lot of misinformation about the mental health one the policy that itself that that legislation didn't change it only changed the age from 16 to 14 but I actually was just talking with him today about that so I don't know all the details of it in you know per se because it's that's something that he heads but um he would be one that you could actually email and ask him you know where what is NJ school board's Uh current position on both these topics but they're they're hot button topics right now yep now I guess you're good okay so Dr Tian I was hoping and maybe we should have done this earlier this is a great presentation could you just give us just like a 60c background on um how it is that you came to New Jersey school boards in terms of what your um previous experiences I think it's very important to understand who is delivering this information to us because I know you have a wealth of experience and I would just like to get that in there well I think the most important thing is I said you know kids are the biggest thing of what we do in education and I have six of them and um I'm a lot older than you think I actually have three grandkids and two more on the way so um I believe in public education I believe in in creating great schools for our kids because they are our future and hopefully they will be the ones supporting us in the future so and if not hopefully they're not putting me in a nursing home somewhere um but you never know um in terms of my experience I've been in education for over a little over 25 years um I have served in all sorts of capacities I've been a teacher I've been um I've been a building administrator as a principal I was actually called a building administrator it's another long story I wasn't a principal or assistant principal I was just I was a vice principal and a building administrator um I've been a superintendent I've been um a a u it's called academic achievement office officer which was a a district level position so I've I've had all those different hats um on the teaching side of it I was actually very involved in the association I was Chief negotiator for contracts so I've seen that aspect of it um so I would say I'm well-rounded in all those areas um I also have a lot of experience outside of Education I I've never been an attorney um but I have worked very closely with attorneys I have a very good relationships with attorneys um but I've owned my own business so I can see it from a a taxpayer side business person um I've managed amusement park I've I've um I've pretty much done as as people that know me say you've done everything and I have I've done I've had many different jobs I've worked in the hospital as a respiratory therapist um so you name it I probably have done it and most of the time I don't have just one job I have multiple jobs um I do I'm an adjunct at two universities um though ever since Co hit we've kind of they've kind of moved that to uh regular the regular staff when Co hit so um I took that as an opportunity to back off a little bit I also Mentor new administrators and through New Jersey uh leader to leer um so yeah I'm just very involved and so when this opportunity I decided to retire and so like where I said I'm a little older than you think and um I retired for about a month and a half and then this opportunity I saw pop up and so I applied for it I didn't know if I would get it and here I am so it's it's been different it's definitely different um I one of the things I say is you know being in the district you're in the midst of all the chaos that happens within the district so for me I get to go now from District to district and see both the good things and the chaos that's going on but I get to go home so that's a good thing um so it is nice to talk to board members and as a superintendent I was a non-voting board member your superintendent is a non-voting board member and they have intimate knowledge of everything that goes on with the board and uh with a school district so that's that's pretty much it anything else on that thank you so much for sharing that um well-rounded is an understatement and um again it's another whole unique perspective that you have so we look forward to continuing a relationship with you um Miss fredman was fantastic with us and really uh pointed Us in the direction uh that I think has been favorable for us um I am pleased to to let you know that in terms of student showcasing and staff showcasing that is something that we absolutely work on and we've absolutely been working um and Miss fredman was instrumental in helping us create and kind of put our policy regarding public comment into into uh oh good action last year and and I I think it's been I think it's been personally I think it's been positive um for our community so we look forward to partnering with you um and I hope you're excited to partner with us because I'll be calling I'm sure um but I appreciate everything that that you've um shared with us this evening and we look forward to receiving the presentation bya email we'll make sure that that gets out to all of our board members does anyone have anything else for this evening do do we need to sign this and give it to Mr yeah um what I was going to say to you before in the beginning the first page is the um the 10 tenants so it's a nice little cheat sheet that you can always keep with you everywhere you go so you don't violate any of the ethics tenants the second page is just a sign off and you can sign those and give those to the ba he can hold those and it just means that you've received your ethics training so that when qac comes around and they ask that question he can say yep look I have all the evidence even though it is on your board agenda and you have that as evidence this is a nice little backup as well so if the doe gives you any hard time you have that and third one's just the one I said was thank you you're welcome all right thank you at this time may I have a motion to adjourn motion thank you second Mr Nasser thank you very much all in favor all right have a great evening everyone thanks for all your hard work this week