call to order uh the board president will call this meeting to order at 6:30 p.m. meeting notice statement adequate notice of this meeting of the Berkeley Heights Board of Education was given as required by the open public meetings act as follows notice of this special Board of Education meeting was sent to the Star Ledger and The Courier news on May 15 2024 and was provided to all schools PTO presidents the bhea president and posted at the administration building a copy was also provided to the public library and filed with the municipal clerk please rise for the flag salute I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you Mr secretary roll call please Mr Ki Bradford present Dr forer present Mr Heyman here M Jolly here M Connor here Stanley here at this point in their meeting we did have a little change in our schedule we uh sorry of our agenda we are going to have the nsgb uh ba superintendent search discussion first followed by new business and then comments from the public we will then adjourn to Executive session where no action will be taken we return to public session at the end uh just for adjournment and we did that because we did not want the public to wait until after the executive session to um come back and have their comments so at this time I'd like to welcome uh Miss Patty Reese Miss Jean clear and they are our superintendent search firm Representatives here to discuss our superintendent search firm process thank you very much for coming you're very welcome thank you for having us and thank you for asking us to uh do your search um do I need the microphone closer um uh we handed out a packet of information uh that we'll use for tonight um that that we'll start with um there's an agenda of what we're going to do um but before get there I just want to make a few comments about the process from here on in that um I want to just um remind you that this is a forward thinking process it's as we go through and determining when you determine what the credentials and criteria you are seeking for your next superintendent you want to look for um look at that with eyes towards the future who will what credentials and criteria do you believe your District needs to move uh the schools forward and so um and then just as we go through that just want you to to remind you to um again forward thinking but confine any comments to the Future um re I recommend not to make any comparative comments about what was what or wasn't done in the past either here or in any other District because that could open the board to some liability and we really do want to prevent that uh for you um and so uh this process once we get through this this is kind of standard stuff um setting the credentials and criteria uh the setting the calendar for the future uh and um from here on in though once we do that and uh everything um confidentiality is of the utmost importance and and I do have that in your packet but just some comments on that just to remind you that uh some that candidates that are applying may not have told their existing District that they're seeking a position um and so if that information were to get out uh it it could be detrimental to their current employment but it could also cause you uh lack of confidentiality could cause you to lose candidates because we've seen some um just withdraw applications if if that becomes forward uh and then just in in that one sheet talks about um don't share the information with anybody don't reach out to any contacts uh that you may have that may you think may know the candidate we generally uh for the reference check when we get to that point when you've made your selection we ask the candidate the finalist to provide us with at least one or two references for every board member we strongly encourage that you call at least one of those reference checks and that all be different um and we generally give the candidate about 4 to8 hours once you're ready to go to reference checks for them to contact them um and and um so the first order of business um is really uh to look at the credentials and criteria that you may want that you have a sheet in your in your packet that talks about this and I think uh that it was sent out ahead of time yes it was sent out okay the the just before we start through this um the only thing required by law of uh of your superintendent is that they have a standard administrator certificate or they have a Certificate of Eligibility everything else is is not required at as we go through here um and so that becomes the difference between required and preferred if um if you put something say you want somebody that's a sitting superintendent and you make that a requirement any candidate who does not have that position currently cannot apply well they can apply but you can't interview them uh based on what you list as required preferred so if there's something Beyond um beyond the the the certificates it it's recommended that you do preferred I mean if you want them to have teaching experience again and you say that you want amount of years teaching experience if a candidate presents that does not have that uh you can't interview them you'll see them because their information will be there but the only way you could see somebody that's um listed that doesn't meet your requirements would be to close a search and reopen it which Del go ahead so a general ad is better than a more specific ad uh yes or and when we start when the candidates start coming in on this sheet um we will like we'll classify those that meet all of your requirements or your preferred requirement or your your what do you what are preferred um credentials will'll get an A we we rate them ABC a being they meet all of your uh required and preferred um credentials and criteria B meaning they meet most of them minimally they have to have the certificate and see means they there's some crucial ones they don't meet and so though this to see candidates you will see them because you will see when when you get access to the site with all the applicants you will see them but you you you you can see their their their paperwork but you you can't interview them simply because they don't meet your the requirements that you set so if we go through this um if you look at this if you want to I don't know if you want to if you've marked it up and we want to go through it one by one or Dale you want to just accumulate the data and send it to us it's it's really up to what the board board's PRS okay so for uh certification and education yes Mrs Airi looks like the documents we got in our packet are different like I have a different version than what Tom is looking at on in terms of the certification I can show it to Mr Nixon the versions are different if you'll show it to miss Reese please is the difference between the one that was emailed and the one that you received what items it could be just the way right um yeah this is this was in the package no this was all this was in Tom's package this was in my um did you print yours out ahead of time the one that that was sent out that could be what the difference is yes it should have the same stuff we should use what's in the packet sounds good yeah just just to move it along yeah it's it's it's just out of it it's it's the same stuff it's just not in the same order if I could just suggest that we just use the one that's in the packet tonight the content on the sheets should be the same just formatted differently so we apologize for any you know change to that if anyone sees a field that they aren't seeing on the form we can address that but at least we can move it along good okay thank you for number one Roman num one C certification education discussion on this yeah so I would like to see us putting in uh earn doctorate as preferred um our when we've done our search for assistant superintendent that we've our last two ones that we've hired have had doctorates um and you know many of our staff as a directors have doctorates so I do think it would be preferred um so I would like to see that added I don't know if anybody else feels the same way so preferred document is not required I don't doctorate No I don't want want that I don't want the earn doctorate why uh it's not necessary it's it's not a real doctorate it's just a it's just a like a term paper you might write that in one semester it doesn't add any value so I don't think we need that so Mrs Reese um I should take notes on yes and no is that correct on the form right I mean it it process is a consensus driven process so you have one that would like to have the earned doctorate as a preferred requirement and one who feels a board member who feels it isn't necessary so if everybody else would write it weigh in again it would be a consensus of of of what okay did I have a question yes Mrs uh Mrs Khan so can you help understand if we rate it as preferred would that mean that it would impact the candidates that would go sort of in the a pool versus the B pool versus the C pool if you list it as preferred um it would put them the those that have it or or close to it because there are candidates that are in their dissertation process that apply that would go into the a column and if they didn't have one it will go into the B column but you could choose amongst the A and B candidates who you want you can interview any of those you can select any of those it's just the C candidates that you can't so so if you put it as preferred um you could if they had it you could interview them and if they didn't you could interview them yeah and if you see right now online right I went on your website today and list looked at the um superintendent search ads that were currently open a lot of them do have that they um earn doctorate Prof um again right like we can interview people that are not doctorate but it was just showing that that's what we're looking for right okay so if I may uh Mrs Ziri think if you want the pool to be open to internal candidates as well as be broad I know there are multiple districts around us who are currently looking for superintendence uh Milbourne is looking I think new Pro Ence just closed so I prefer not having this requirement that way we can open it up to additional candidates um it doesn't prevent somebody with an earned doctorate from applying for this position correct it's just an ad right so saying PR preferred or just not listing and and if it's not listed you know if they have it they have it if they don't they don't um it doesn't really impact who you can interview and this is not a PhD it's like a it's whatever it's an earned doctorate PhD Ed Ed most in the education industry there are some phds there are actually some people out there who have um an Ed and a doctor and a um a legal degree a Juris Prudence degree what is after that what is after the Ed Ed and Ed PhD uhhuh um or I I've seen several candidates in the state that also have a Juris Juris prudence stuck it okay so I mean it doesn't having it preferred just says that's what you you would prefer does it mean that's only what you will accept Mrs Dolly your opinion um I I take the point about um potentially internal candidates and maybe that was a question I had as well is there um can we if there are internal candidates that we might be interested in is the criteria then the same different can we kind of you know delineate in that respect the criteria will be the same for every candidate whether they're internal or external if they're internal they need to go through the same exact process as every other candidate uh being do the application get mixed into the pool and then you can select from your list of candidates when we when we deliver the pool candidates you can select from whoever they are um but but for for for internal candidates and for you I mean selecting a superintendent is the biggest job that you have right it's the most important thing that you do because they will lead the district so you you want with internal candidates and exal you want to do your full due diligence and you so you want to have them go through the same exact process and then if you have an internal candidate uh and they rise to the top then that really sets both of both the board and the internal candidate up for Success because they can go you can go to the community and say we've gone through this process we've interviewed how many different candidates and this person uh Rose to the top and they again then can go to the the public and say I I didn't get any special considerations I've got what everybody else did and it just really helped helps set both entities up for success with your community if that's the way that it goes Mrs Jolly your opinion regarding oh um I guess if it's not going to um you know if it's not going to disqualify somebody if it's a preference not a requirement um if somebody feels strongly um I don't have an objection to it being listed so you would go with prefer Mr Hyman yep I feel the same I don't think it impacts our pool either way uh so I think uh yes Mrs kaana I I wouldn't put it as a preferred qualification I would put it as a preferred so it would be preferred then okay um do we have to do anything under School administration certificate because those are both required so we don't need to well yeah the the school administrator is requireed ired um the New Jersey school principal certificate they don't need necessarily need to have that um and that we just ask if they have it or if they're eligible for it so we would want to uh put possess in that is that correct it put it preferred or leave it okay so I have a question on this one this Airi yeah so the question is if we are looking at Nationwide pool of candidates some of them might not be having this certification they might be eligible for getting it so are we automatically eliminating somebody who is who wants to apply and who wants to get this certification how when you put that the and really it's they have to have the certification or the Certificate of Eligibility so they they may not have the full certificate because they've simply not sat in in the seat um and if you have somebody who has a Certificate of Eligibility by by making it required it's going to say certificate of uh standard certificate or Certificate of Eligibility that's what's required because that's what's required by law if they do not have the standard certificate meaning they have not been sat in a superintendent seat um but they have the certification uh you would have to then have um you would have to pay for a mentor um which is set in in um in statute for that person yeah so my question is can somebody from Pennsylvania apply if we make this a required a New Jersey school administrator certification someone who's a superintendent in Pennsylvania for a k212 district or Delaware can they apply or not um if you want and this comes up in this you know north northern part of the state and the southern Port uh by law in New Jersey they have to have the the standard or the Certificate of Eligibility they could be in Pennsylvania and still have a New Jersey certificate if they if it it depends on where they want to where they got their you know they got their degree um if they're going to work in New Jersey by law they have to um and if they don't have the cert a New Jersey certificate they have to apply for it uh and before they can start they also and and it's not the reciprocity is not as easy in other state New Jersey doesn't accept if you have a Pennsylvania certificate but no New Jersey there's a process that they would have to go through to apply for the uh New Jersey certificate it's not a given that if you have a certificate of a superintendent or administrative certificate in another state that New Jersey just accepted there's a process they have to go through but they also um would have to move to New Jersey within six months my question is for teachers and I I saw this during pandemic and after pandemic New Jersey had said if you are you can get it in the next 12 months or you know we do hire some of these teachers so you're saying if we REM if we don't make this a requirement then we can have applicants from other states with experience but they might not have the certificate they'll have to get a mentor they'll have to mute to New Jersey of course if they're applying for this position they have to physically be here and they will have to get the certificate until they get the certificate we have to get them a mentor is that right it it depends on if they if New Jersey gives them the standard certificate or the Certificate of Eligibility but the only time you have to provide a mentor is for the Certificate of Eligibility whether they're in state or out of state okay now um a quick process question do we have to finalize these requirements today at this meeting or can we give you feedback later um there's two answers to that um we were um it it it doesn't necessarily have to be tonight to start off with but we were asked to provide two um dates of start date and so if you want to and maybe that's the discussion next um that then if if you want a January 1 2025 start date then we need to do this today we need to get the ad posted by the beginning of January I'm sorry the beginning of July uh and then you will be doing your candidate interviews uh in August um because as you go through the calendar um it it's more yeah if if you pick up the go in your pack and we gave the two list calendars the January 1 start date how we how we arrive at the dates initially is if you want and we start at the back end we start at the bottom so if you want them to start January 1st 2025 um then your your most contracts in New Jersey most superintendent contracts have a 60-day clause meaning they give notice and for for 60 days some districts may let them out of that Clause some don't there are a few out there that may be 90 or 120 but the bulk are 60 days so that means you have to at a public meeting by November first appoint that person um then uh we back you need to get the contract approved by your county superintendent they at this time are requesting a 30-day turnaround period so that brings you to October 1st um we estimate about two weeks for negotiations between your board attorney and the finalists attorney for contract negotiations so that brings you to September 16th if you want to do a third round interview we're now in the early September um and then we back into um second round interviews in um late August and first round interviews in um Mid August that's if the ad goes up for June 1st for about five to six weeks um and then we we we bring the pool to you um we do a pool delivery what we call it go ahead so I'm looking at both these attachments in the packet of them says superintendent start date January 1st 2025 the other one say superintendent July 1st 2025 start date both these calendars start with May 20th as the first date to ref that's tonight that's tonight so and then the second date on the calendar is May 30th they're both the same so irrespective of if we want a superintendent to start on January 1st or July 1st the 1 2 and third set of dates on this calendar no actually six set of dates on this calendar are exactly same how is that um well the 20th is because that's what we're doing tonight yeah the 30th um either way um because we want to get the ad out in June and July because that's when a lot of people are looking they're not necessarily once the school year starts um they're not necessarily looking now if you do a July 1st uh 2025 start date then then that first date when they ad appears you can extend that you don't have to have to do that on May 30th you could have that date start August 1 or whenever you would like it to start so This falls back to my earlier question do we have to finalize the criteria on your checklist tonight or can we ask you questions have discussion and then provide our input back we all have this in a soft copy format I suggest that we try to get through this tonight and that's the goal right the goal is to finish this tonight so that way we can continue to move forward because as you can see even the timelines are very tough and it's in the middle of the Summer where most of us are busy and it's hard to get together and uh make decisions so I do think that trying to do that tonight would be the goal right that's why we have them here tonight to walk us through and answer questions as we do this but also so for this the school administrator certification I noticed in your draft right I had but I have the floor interrupted me no I didn't you finished your question newy St has the floor Mr SEC Certificate of Eligibility required right so it's it's in your draft that you sent us it says and NJ School administrator or Certificate of Eligibility required so does that right that kind of gives us that eligible for right area is what we're requiring right that you don't already have to have it but you were you were eligible to get it and that you could either have it or you're eligible to get it right right so we don't have to put that you must possess it currently but that you're eligible to try to right that's that's that first bullet point that that's why it's it's so my suggestion would be putting under that first one putting eligible for as required right because we know that right State Statute says that they have to have it so we're going to say eligible for and that way we don't have to limit our candidates by saying You must already process it right do anybody agree you had something else Mrs Bradford I would like to clarify certain ground rules before we proceed I asked a question from Patty Reese and the other representative at the I understand please ask your question now can you read my mind I didn't finish my question the question was to the njsba representatives it was answered by Mrs Stanley so if we're going to continue this and have a productive evening I think we all need to accept to some ground rules if the question from a board member is to njpa I would like them to answer and not a board member or the board president Mrs Ziri please ask your question yes and not so going back to my question if we are choosing to go with the July 1st 2025 date do we have to decide on the requirements for every single requirement we have to try for today but we do do we have time to discuss ask you questions discuss and then get back to you on what our requirement is for a July 1st 2025 start date yes you do have and if it's a January 1st 2025 start date do we at least get 24 hours or no uh um you you you could have 24 hours um and then I you know however your board president wants to manage that the goal is to get the ad up May 30th I I may May 30 is the Friday or June 1st um the Saturday as they said we go up for between four and six weeks that is usually see the only concern here is this is a volunteer role we all have our day jobs and whatever we do this is the most critical higher that we do for the district so I don't want us to be hurried into making a decision right now by a vote of you know are you are you decided or not if we have questions on a particular requirement we'll ask you but do not if the ad is going up on May 30th then I think 48 hours prior to that if we all got back to you we could we should at least get like three to four days to get your input and get back to you it shouldn't be that we are discussing with you you you give us your input we can go research we can go look at how nsba has handled other superintendent searches just happened in the neighboring town so we sh we do have time the answer is we have time to get back to you if you if you select the July first 2025 you definitely have time you have less time much less if you if you want the start date to be January 1 okay thank you Mr Heyman oh yes Mrs clear um Ju Just one point though to remember is that even though July is further out there are times of the year like cyclically where we see superintendant that are looking right so they don't want to make a commitment in can make a commitment to a district and then Midway change so some of the dates that we set up were to to gather the most you know increase the likelihood that you're going to get a good pool of responses because this is when people are looking for it so January 1 is tight so putting any decisions off can impact you know impact that but even with the July being further out there are things upfront that that you do better with because even superintendents go way first Summers and they kind of already have plans set of where they're going to be in the following year so it is impacted so just to keep that in mind Mr Heyman yeah that's sort of the spirit of what I wanted to to say I do think our clock's been ticking on this since I don't know about New Year's dayish maybe Christmas so I I mean maybe we want to Pivot to a discussion as to which of these timelines we want to be on just to get consensus on that because yeah I mean in my head I think we should move and Endeavor to try to get some consensus on on at least the attributes here tonight if we need 24 hours to maybe finalize some things and clean it up totally fine um but I'm of the mindset that uh yeah the talent pool is going to is going to open up um I think we've selected njsba for a lot of reasons including the fact that a lot of great talent is in this state and surrounding states and so uh I'd like to take their advice and try to try to get this thing moving uh just a reminder to the board that uh our acting superintendent's contract expires May 30th it has not been extended so we are under timeline so can I have a show of hands for the July 1st uh Bradford can I CL yeah so this news that it is not extended this is new this is the first time I'm hearing it so where is this news coming from The Last Action was to extend and we can continue to extend the Acting Superintendent correct we could extend it to June 30th but that is the limit from Mr um paner is it in writing we do not have an interim at this time and um we have not been able to choose an interim superintendent no my question is did the county superintendent Mr palmier say that we cannot extend an Acting Superintendent beyond June 30th he wants us to take some action was that in writing it was not in writing but we could ask him for that so how did you find this information I spoke with him and this is the first time you felt it was appropriate to share with the board Mrs Ziri this is the first time we've met since I spoke with Mr Pomer okay so can we move on with this I have a follow-up question on this yes on Mrs what is the thought process in if the July 21st 2025 is the start date the ad is both the timelines on both the calendars the timelines the first six actions are exactly the same so if we do go with the 2025 or God forbid we go with the January 1st 2025 and we are not we we cannot meet or we we're not happy with the pool of candidates that we get the first round so is there another ad that's going to go out if if you're not um if the board consensuses there they they don't like the pool of candidates or you don't feel you have enough candidates yes we would close the ad and then reopen it would with the recommendation of perhaps changing and that that wouldn't affect your contract for for one time it would not um but maybe revisiting the um credentials and criteria that you're requiring so in this calendar do we have when do you close that I know you you open the ad on May 30th when do you close for both these dates um in in in both we listed the um um deadline um for applications as um July 12th so that's when the ad comes down the ad comes yes the ad comes down and um the pool of candidates is what the pool of is logged in right and so if you look the next date July 29th is when we uh propose um to present the poll of candidates and give you access to the website but but backtracking to your question the reason the dates are the same in the beginning is as Jean said we want to get you the most candidates and more are looking um in July and August once they start the school year um many uh people are res reluctant to leave their District midyear um the also what played into this is my understanding of the input sessions with your community staff and and and community and staff um has already been worked out for June 4th 5ifth and 6th um so it would be helpful if we had the ads out for for them um so that they know what they're looking for no I I'm fine with the understanding of you know there is July and we want everybody who wants to apply and who's interested to come in but my concern here is I think for the July 1st 2025th a deadline for a superintendent to search um the final round of interviews end on March 3rd of 2025 whereas for the January 1st the final round is finished by September 9th so at what where does the board get to give you feedback that hey we we are not happy with this pool that you gave us we would if you look on the dates where we we give you the pool delivery what that means is on that date we'll come together and that's done in executive session because it's it's it's all the candidates we talk about the next steps of the process and we we give you access to the website to um for for um a week or so to review all the applicants every piece of documentation that you you have at the pool delivery we also tell you who the a b and c candidates are so you give us the pool delivery on July 29th and we have until August August 2nd August 7th 2nd 2nd for both in both these cases on both days yeah one I just s WR it on the second no I think for the 2025th it's a little longer I guess right no I have it yeah I think for the 2025th it's a little board reviews and selects the candidates for interview by Jan 2025 correct I'm sorry am I reading it this correct so if we are going with the start date of January 1st 2025 we get the pool delivery of candidates July 29th and the board gets technically 3 days to review and select candidates for interview not a week is that a correct assumption so so the pool delivery just to to clarify something when we turn it over the pool delivery is now giving you access to go into the system and see all of the applicants and all of the things that they've submitted yeah that can't stay open um forever that that's a limited process because you're dealing with very confidential information um so you have a select period of time that you get to review it and then then come back together but in the in the January 1st 2025 you have from July 29th to August 2nd right considering the time frame that you'd be on um and on the the July 1st 2025 for superintendent to start you're looking at January 13th to 17th so again about four days that you would have that so it's the same process several days it's just located in a different spot depending on when the start date for the superintendent would be Mr Heyman had a question Mrs Jolly sorry so then looking at the July 1 um calendar of 2025 there's obviously quite a bit of Gap right between when um the pool is delivered and then we have the days to review um so and and in the interim it's not like we're um advertising for any additional candidates right it's just the pool that happened to come in in the same and the the July 29th date is the same on both calendars so it feels like a little bit of wasted time um if you will so and maybe folks will number one you know may have found other jobs and the pool would have been reduced quite a bit so this this time frame doesn't make sense to me a little bit because again it's it's quite a big we wait and we're likely to lose quite a few candidates while we wait Mr Heyman you want to follow yeah I mean we're we're spending precious time talking about two different scenarios I'm not trying to rush us along but I'd be nice if we could have some consensus on one of the calendars so that the rest of the conversation could maybe be grounded in that I don't know I know we're not voting on anything but is it out of line for us to straw poll it and get some sense that's my that's my question my question straw pole on uh July sorry January 25 or J July 2025 reminder of course that without a fulltime superintendent there are a number of positions that are not going to be able to be filled that need to be filled um Mrs akiri your opinion so before I vote I just want to clarify if we're going with the January 1st 2025 date we get the pool delivery on the 29th closer business I guess and we have to select the candidates U between 30th to August 2nd so how much time does the board get are we going to they're not starting to interview until August 12th so why why do we have to select within 3 days we I mean we can we can extend that to a week um but it's because it's highly confidential information uh and we generally give a boards like you know a c day days to a week or 10 days at most to review them so what's the average so it's five days no my question is if the pool is let's say 12 to 15 candidates it's just not feasible with our day jobs or whatever we're doing to get back to you and finalize the select give you a list of selected candidates for interview if the interviews are not starting until August 12th and this is all summer given that assuming we are all here can we not get can we not extend the time here why is it three days to look at 15 resumés we can C certainly do um five five days five days the challenge is once you give us your list of candidates we then need to contact them to schedule all their interviews so we need at least a week to 10 days to do that especially during the summer so that's partially why that um time is built into the July the July 1st and how does that process of selected candidates work does the board need to meet look at so we we we will read the resumés that we receive I I guess right so the seven of us will or the eight of us will basically rate the resumés that we received in those five days it's not even five business days so I'm just asking can we get at least a week five business days to give you feedback if the resume what is the average number of resumés that you deliver to a district our size depending on the district we've been getting they are business days right so Mrs Ziri January 2025 or July 2025 my birthday is a Sunday it's the 4th of August Mrs Ziri do you have your again I think we we've spent like half an hour now trying to figure out ways to delay this Pro like trying to figure out why we need to delay it or ways that we want to delay it or could we delay it or if we want to delay it so again I we really just have to focus on what we need to do tonight um and again I would love to see us do it by January 1 2025 that would be my goal I don't know if this board can do that right that stru what would you say well if the rate we're going it's going to be more like January 1 2027 but I agree uh I'd like to get this done um so I'll go for it looks to me like you should really view the the July 1 as kind of a fallback position if you if if somehow you don't like what what happened in the initial try January 1 so you're shooting for January I would say try for January one but you know I view this other one as more like if if you didn't get anybody you liked for January 1 then you're basically going to secur I'll come back to you so I'm going to say January 1 so I also want to get this done sooner but there is a basically a saying back home just because you want to get somewhere you don't get on the first ride that stops for you you know I grew up in a village so you want to get to the city you don't just jump on no January or July I Mrs Bradford you don't interrupt somebody any the board member when they give their opinion and I'm just giving you my I'm trying to move this meeting along which is my role as president January or July so just like you allowed one minute for Other Board member to say I'm just saying in the spirit of us getting to January 1st I don't want to pick anything I want to clarify some questions on how many days does the board get so you're asking us in summer for January 1 we get the pool at the close of business on J July 29th and then we have five days to get back so basically the board has to meet I assume that's a clarification I still want to ask before I decide because I do have some plan travel and I have did I did communicate this to you about summer so without clarifying do you want to just jump on like this old saying from my Village you want to get to the the first ride that comes along is a bullet card do you want me to get on that or do you want to wait for a bus that gets me there sooner thank you Mrs cona January or July I'm on the same page as Tom I think we should try for January July is a a bit of a fallback but I want to make sure that the number of days for all of these steps that are on the January schedule makes sense I have concerns the same that she has in terms of the time that that we have to review the pool of candidates you know deliberate and and come back to you with here is a short list of here's the people that we want to interview now the the one thing that the one thing that isn't very clear to me maybe you can help me is for the other searches that you have been involved in have you seen this timeline being successful uh for a district our size or you can you have a field for Berkeley Heights have you seen this timeline being successful I think I I I have um it's aggressive uh and it require and and it requires um commitment from from the board for the the different uh meetings I have seen it um you know as I said as long as the board is committed to that that process uh that um of of all the the interviews in mid August I will say that if we move the um I mean we're getting in the ju January 1 five days to review the applications if you go beyond that we may we need time to contact the people for interviews that gives us a week um to contact everybody to get the interview schedule going um we we may need to move those interviews out so beyond so so sorry so is this something when we contemplate the ad as as it's sent out to candidates is that something that you would put in the ad in terms of giving them some idea of the timing of the interviews yes well we would we would put in the ad when the ad closes and when the projected start date is so they would know that they're applying for a position where the board is expecting them to start January 1st so given that they would expect that the interviews would be in August uh or early September right so what I'm going with is people make plans for the summer right so they might be applying now but they might have a vacation planned already right or in the process of so I'm trying to understand if we put the ad now would we also in the ad include that you know there will be interviews starting I don't know 12th of August or 15th of August is that included are we that specific um we don't generally put that in the ad um part of the uh contract that that you have is that we um all you're a we we pre-interview all your candidates um before um you sort your interview and those are questions we would ask you know basic we don't we ask very basic questions not not anything that takes it out of the the the decision out of the board the board right but but things like are you available for interviews in August are you you know are you making sure that they understand that the start date if that's what you select is January 1 those kinds of information why are they leaving where they are why why do they want to come to Berkeley Heights so on this the the point about you know how long do we have if we get the pool delivery end of business on July 29th I believe that's the Monday that's my birthday is it end of business or or is it maybe I'm sorry is it end of business I I I didn't hear you guys say that I heard a board member say that but when when in the 29 do we get it um it really it it depends it can be the end of the business day it can also be at 11 you know midnight um the preceding night but the previous so on Sunday night or are we talking Monday night because that's a whole day gone so the the concern is we seem to be making a very critical decision on who do we want to interview and bring into the next round in I don't know three business days it seems like so my question is so my question is uh sorry Jordan did you say it's five days I mean I I still I'm not unless there's clarification on the exact time when it's open if it's open at for five days we could do it at midnight but then um your president would just need to relay that list to us as soon as possible so that we can start um getting the interviews because if you go through um if you go through the um like midnight on Friday uh we would really need it first thing Monday morning so that we could start reaching out to the candidates that you want to interview uh and to make sure that you know to to get them time to come in and interview I'm not can you say that one more time when do we get it do we get it on the Monday night and we have 29th yes we will come in I think I think asking like oh what what time will you get on the TW yes we need to meet with you and present it so whatever time you you schedule your meeting for will go through the basic precepts we ask that you bring whatever device you're going to view them on with you to that meeting and before you leave we we want you all to log in to make sure that you get access that night um and if there's any glitches that we have time to work that out so so that night whatever time so what we saying is there is a board meeting on July 29th correct the delivery would the pool delivery is an in-person activity it is not we will send you an email and we click it okay that wasn't clear to me so sorry so we have a meeting on the 29th and then we have three days Tuesday Wednesday Thursday and by Friday four days so Friday end of day is when the schedule says we have to get back to you with the list of C you know short-listed candidates right is that right that's that's correct so if you want I mean when you look at the calendar we have the first round interviews on the 12th 13th and 14th okay and if we as a board need more time for that deliberation we might not have access to the pool given the information in it but could we still take a few more days in the next week to have the deliberation have the conversation and get back to you with our short list is there Flex in the schedule for that um that would only be able to happen if we did not if you did not have the first round interviews on the 12th 13th and 14th if you pushed it back to the 19th 20th and 21st that would also push back because we need about a week between to contact to have enough time to contact the applicants so that would push back the the second rant and if you have a third round it would also push push that back um and um it just you you if you went back to the next week you you would have it would also impact how much time the attorneys have if you select if you select the finalist how much time the attorneys have to um negotiate the contract I mean so that right now we're giving you two weeks but if everything pushed back a week you may have less than a week for that contract negotiations because you have to get it to Mr palmy by October 1 so so it can be done so my feedback is January is a good goal to have but this timeline is a tad unrealistic and Mr he January or July uh without a doubt J January um agree it's it is aggressive but that I I think the community I would hope at this point would want us to be aggressive Mrs Jolly um just a a quick question around the uh because I I guess I didn't realize that July 29th had to be a meeting um is there if if I have travel plans is there a way that um prior to uh maybe the 29th or remote that I test whatever access I need because I could still look at candidates um while away because um I just again it wasn't clear that this had to be a meeting until just now so it's possible to um test my access I mean your access would still be that night I don't know what is your board policy for uh board members attending remotely we do not have a policy for board members to attend remotely so it wasn't so much to attend remotely but not to be to have the access without having been at the meeting if I can't make it to the meeting the challenge is that we at that meeting we provide other information like um the not only um the the potential interview well we provide we ask you to select the questions that you're going to um provide that you like to ask all the candidates on the first round so there's other information so you you would you would you would get that that night I mean we wouldn't open it couldn't open it earlier um you just might you know might not have opportunity to have your questions asked and answer okay um but since the meetings are recorded I mean granted like I will be missing out executive session because it's you're looking at candidates um confidential information so it would be an executive session um and so would not be so I have a follow-up question excuse me I just need Mrs jolly for January is that correct so I yes I am also in favor of a January start date but um understanding that I will be able to get access to the candidates even if I'm not able to attend the meeting I also agree with the January so that's uh unanimous Mrs you have a question well I didn't vote and I have two questions on on these two calendars which are a hard for which of these tasks do you need board meetings that's not listed here okay so the my the other concern here is with the July 29th we get four business days to get back to you technically so we get it on Monday it has it has to be a board and in exec we're going to get some information so if there are board members that are going to that are unable to be here and I have plans to travel internationally and if we cannot attend exec or a board meeting in person then that's a no-o but I don't know about the others but how does the next step how does the Board review applicants and select candidates for interview does that need to be a board meeting no that's on your own time know how do when we deliver the pool we're training you to have login access into the system and then you read them independently the selecting of the action here on July between 29th and the August 2nd in four business days we have to review the pool and the action is the board selects candidates for interview how does the board select board reviews applicants and select candidates for interview for board these states so how does a board as a whole select the candidates for interview a and generally What's Done um is that um we provide you with like a grid um that you select each individual board member selects who they'd like to interview uh and then you provide that information to your board president who then goes through the list and by consensus um or whatever consensus is so if the board decides that any candidate that gets two board members want to want to interview and they want to interview that's fine or if the board decision is that it must have four a majority of board members that want to interview that that that is up to the board um so you would pres you would go through the candidates and you would identify who you individually would like to interview all board members do that uh individually and send it to the board president who would then collate that information and based on the desires of the board as I said do do want to interview candidates that two board members want or do you want three or more board members to agree you can interview um however many the board chooses to interview Miss ree can that pool be open through the weekend um we can if you can coordinate if but we we we would need the week really to get um the interview schedules going so I need we'd need the information of the board's candidates by um like 900 am Monday morning if you can do that we can do that but I I will say I will need to ask our legal if um board members who are not at the meeting that are traveling if we can if they can have access but you know I'll do that and I'll get that inform you know I'll ask that question tomorrow and I will get that information back to you thank you so it looks like we're going to go with the aggressive schedule for January 2025 we'll move on to the number two agenda oh Mrs Conor as we go through this process does njsba have a portal a tool how like what is the mechanism for us to give this input whatever we provide even to the president is that just an Excel sheet do you guys have a website where we go and actually put in information can you specify that right it's not a website it's um a essentially either spreadsheet or or Word document that I email to your board president um we would actually I could email it for the electronic copy but at that meeting on the 29th I would bring hard copies for each board member to um to to sort through um as they go through the candidates so that that so I had question you had a question I had two questions on this calendar on both these calendars which are the tasks that you need a board meeting for if if you can get me that because this is the first time we are all hearing that we have to be here on July 29th and that is I don't even know if that's doable at this time given what we have planned for and we were not informed that we have to meet in person in exact to get some additional information also I feel that the board the task here says board reviews applicants and cand selects candidates for review I think if we are coming up to a consensus or a decision we cannot be doing that whilea email or in an exact session so we review the candidates and it has to be if it's if a board is taking action or decision on whom to interview it has to be in a public session I guess on who because it's confidential we're still in the confidential stage yeah so what what meetings do we need to be in person so we can get that answer the question yeah okay Mrs Reese would you give us those dates yes the dates that would require um a board meeting and from here on in it would be um executive session would be July 29th the interview dates of August 12 13 and 14th August 26 27 and September 9 those would have to those would require meetings executive session meetings um and the interviews and we would get into that more um at the pool delivery there's a process on how that's organized as well I just thought um that's just a lot of information for for for tonight and and the reason you didn't know this ahead of time is that's the purpose of this meeting is to go over dates and to go over process Mr Heyman just one question to to SI point and Natasha's point if we walk out of here tonight aligned on January 1 but as a board we've done this for some other dates come back and say might we pick move by one day or another any of these dates to allow for full attendance is that still okay we have that flexibility I assume yes by a day or two we would have that certainly more so in in in the summer months um and and I we selected the interview schedule based on week nights um if the board will prefer to bang them all out in a Saturday that's fine as well um you just need to let us to let us know when that is because a big part of this also is making sure that our calendars are available for that um and and so if you prefer to do a full day of interviews and and then we um identify what happens in the first round interview in the first round interview they are 45 minutes in length every candidate is asked the same question you want to compare apples to apples you can start to differentiate your questions in round two and three uh there's 15 minutes between each candidate so that the board can um either generally don't talk about it but you can but it gives you the opportunity if you if you have use the restroom or whatever it is um we also um expect that it because it's a highly confidential um process that the candidates enter in one door um and then when their interview is done they don't leave through the same door in case the next candidate's there so that's part of that process but it can certainly be um tweaked a day or two um day or two there that with keeping in mind the end result is you've got to get to the you got to get through the process by October 1st to give the contract to Mr palmier because he and it's all County soups they're asking for 30 days to review the contract and then by November 1st you would have to add a public meeting appoint the um this the superintendent whoever your finalist might be thank you um M can you give us some ex um Mrs Ziri there is a task here that says virtual and legal Bo meets for superintendent contract training that also requires a board meeting or uh no that well that would be with our legal department and our Labor Relations to just kind of give you steps you know on how to negotiate the contract keeping in mine it traditionally is done by your board attorney with the finalist board attorney but that is available to you um and it would probably um I'd have to ask our legal department they do it virtually uh is it no so basically are you saying we don't need a date like we can attend so I can say I'll attend on August 3rd and Natasha is like I'll attend on August 28th no you when you got to that point um with the finalist then uh we would work um with our legal department and your availability and come up with the date so we could do it all in one Saturday too well the interviews could be on Saturday if you so choose just if that's what you want let us know um and um you know how long you want to go I I would recommend though if if um maybe keeping one or two at least for the first round of the week nights available just in case you have a lot of candidates and you can't get me because if you're doing like nine to five interviews um and you take a break for lunch that's intense and that really you know that's that's a lot of hard work on the board so um if you have more candidates that can fit in that time I would just as a backup keep one of the week night dates or move to the next s you know again it's an aggressive timeline to start on January one it is definitely doable but it's aggressive okay Mrs Ziri I have one followup this particular training that you're talking about the way it's listed on the calendar right now virtual and legal board meets with the supernet meets for supernet and contract training looks like this happens before the interviews or or the way it's listed is it before the interviews the purpose of that is actually as as Miss ree was saying is the board the board attorney and the candidates attorney at some point when there's you're going ahead with a selected candidate will meet into do the negotiations the purpose of the virtual training that New Jersey school boards provides virtually to you is to give you a better understanding of what goes into that so it's really a training um so that you have more information and knowledge available to you to understand what you're agreeing to so but does that happen before we start the interviews or after the way it's listed here it it it could be either yeah it it's really based upon we don't have the calendar for our legal department so we have to give a span of time so that we try to work with them so that they can be available and then work with the date that works for the for the board as well so basically we need five board meeting dates based on what you what you just said July 29th has to be the pool delivery is a board meeting the virtual legal training for on contracts is a board meeting that's number two then the interviews as of now we have three week nights it could be one week night or a week or a weekend so that's the third board meeting or if we count if we say 925 is not doable then we have to go with one two three meetings for three interviews that's six seven and eight eight board meetings required is that a correct assumption we we we recommend that you schedule for that I mean there are I will say there's a fair amount of districts who by the end of the second round of interviews know who their finalist is and don't do a third round but we like to schedule the date in case you want to do a third round you want to make sure that that option is available so that the dates are booked for that so at least seven to eight meetings is a correct assumption y okay I mean and that that would be the same even for the July 1 2025 it just wouldn't be as compressed as it is for the for the January one Dr that out more yeah I just have a couple questions here um July 29th is a something called a report on a congruent criteria what are congruent criteria yeah that that is we we in in addition that evening we bring the results um whatever happened at the input sessions and we do input s we do them both in person which are currently scheduled for the 4th fifth and sixth of June and we also have an online survey that is available to your community so all of that's that's the congruent criteria and what comes out of that uh may be issues that you might want to ask um your candidates questions that you might want to ask your candidates or issues you might want to address with your candidates okay and what is the when you say you this is on July 29th also consultant delivers weighted pool to the board what are the weights could you say that louder please Dr what are the weights for this pool weights Wei g h t e e d weighted pool yeah the weighted what are you what are you waiting and what are the weights yeah no so the weighted pool is the pool reflective of the criteria that you have proceeded with so so the the weighted pool is as Jean said reflected of the criteria an A A B and C candidates a means they meet every single one of your criteria B is they meet most of them and C is there's some crucial ones they don't meet uh such as they may not have even orer ific of Eligibility okay so it's actually there's not actually like a number that's assigned it's more like a petition of the candidates into three sets is that right okay we we provide you yes a candidate is either an a candidate or a B candidate or a c candidate that's what you're going to tell us that's the weighted pool you can interview any in the A and the b list and this uh board approves interview schedule and questions uh why would the board approving questions they might be knocking out a question I want asked is that right for the for at that meeting we we bring a a list of questions way more than you can ask generally um so that that gives you as a board the opportunity to um choose questions by consensus and I don't need the we don't need the answers your your selections that night of the questions because we uh the list may have 40 or 50 questions and in 45 minutes you can't get through that um but it gives you the option the opportunity to select what kinds of questions you want to ask in that interview okay Mr Heyman you had your hand up okay okay Mrs Ziri so these are questions for njsba to ask the candidates before you schedule them for interviews or are these the questions that the board is going to you give us a list of questions that we have to finalize as a board and those will be the questions we ask them when we meet them in person yes in the first round interviews yes and what happens in the second round interviews there's another list of questions and then um then that's when you can start as a as a board if if to ask individual questions first round you want every body to answer you want to compare apples to apples everybody answer second the second round interviews if you have a follow-up question to a candidate or you want to personalize it or you want to look at the information that came from your input sessions and and style a question specifically to an issue that came up or something in that that's what happens in the in the um second round and what we would do is at the end of the first round interviews we would give you that in those lists of questions for the next round you would not need to give that to us um immediately we would just need to have that uh a couple of days before the SEC the second round interviews your selection of questions so that we can format it we will provide for each candidate on each board member um a formatted list of questions that has the question and the opport space for you to write your for each candidate so if you're bringing in five candidates for the first round interviews or six candidates whatever the number may be and there's seven of you interviewing we will provide each board member with if it's five candidates five sheets with the questions that that give you the opportunity to write the answer on for that individual candidate um is this how njsba have you been doing have you done this in other districts so because when I looked at your contract it just said that tonight we have to finalize the input criteria and forgive me for asking this because I didn't get to review the contract before it was signed so what if I we do not want to like are they have they been districts that have said we do not want to finalize the first round of questions what if we want it to be when in the first round you're meeting the candidate you can give us suggestions on suggested questions to ask but we could ask a question based on their resume based on their experience and and the process that that we use that that's worked for many years is that in the first round everybody has asked the same questions and then in the second round is when you bring the candidates any of those candidates back that's when you can ask questions specific to their resume or their experience uh um at you know at the at the second round but but our process H and that's been fairly successful is that the first round interviews all have the candidates are all asked the same question because how do you compare one candidate but everybody has a unique resume with unique experience and has any District been able to say we want to move away from this and will you allow that flexibility if I may interject here I I think that what we need to establish is that you've chosen New Jersey school boards to you selected us and our process to use and this is the process that we use so while I understand that you may feel differently the process we use is is the one we do and we highly recommend it so we're trying to walk you through it so that everyone is on on the same page about the steps and what to expect in it but I think that um as Patty said the third round interview for instance is really a choice by the board to decide if you feel you need to do that some boards find their candidate in the second the important thing to understand about round one as opposed to round two is that round one you're you're bringing everyone in everyone is being asked the same questions just to see where they where you are on the basics of their answers and then on the second round now is where you can differentiate between candidates and that could be because you heard something come back from the community it could be other thoughts that you have and then that's that allows you for that that opportunity to differentiate with those candidates and those questions thank you so second round you don't give us any list of questions second round we basically we do we do but but you choose we give you questions a bunch of a list an exhaustive list of questions way more than you could ask um and you select the board selects the kinds of questions or um if if there's a particular issue that came up in in your input sessions and you would like a question to um to address that you'd like to ask them um the other thing with our questions is all of our questions have been vetted by our legal department so we know that they're they're um that they're legal for you to ask and they don't present a liability to the board okay thank you Mrs zurri you have one more question we need to move on to the credentials and criteria I have I have a couple of questions so basically both rounds I just want to clarify you're going to give us the list of questions and if you want to add something can we add them or no in in round two so round one everyone answers the same questions in round two we'll provide the questions and you get to select from an exhaustive list in agreement with what you want to ask and in round two you also get to bring in other questions that may present themselves from the from the feedback you get from your what they don't present themselves from the input or the feedbacks questions can they add add a question that that's an opportunity to add ask a question as a board though right this is a board decision not an individual member DEC correct so that's why we present the questions for both rounds one and two and we ask the board to give us the feedback of what you've come to as a majority opinion about which is the right if I want to and if you want to add a question that's not in that exhaustive list we need enough time to run that through our legal department first and it can be added if it is not a consensus by the board is this written somewhere in your contract because I didn't see this yeah it's not there in your contract that says you you are going to give us the questions we can't ask any questions this is the first time I'm hearing it mrsi this is the firm we hired and this is their process Mrs kanana you have the floor so my question is about evaluation for all the first and the second and the third round is there something that you would provide to all board members in a way that we would provide the evaluation in a cons consistent manner like is there a scale or can you talk through I might write three words she might write 10 words so how do we normalize some of that feedback that's coming out of the evaluation in the first round of the interview uh for the interviews well you would take your notes um however you is however you do you would have a discussion um well it could go two one you know several ways you could have we could have a discussion at the end of the first round interviews to just like where people are where different board members are feeling based on the interview um you could take uh you know 24 48 hours then to decide um who you'd like to bring back for second interview it doesn't have to be decided that night um but uh it really is um it comes down to a consensus of the board as to who you would like to bring back for your for the second round and then if you want to do a third round for your reference the second round interviews are an hour in length um with again 15 minutes in between um so and the the thought is that you may have 10 candidates for first round you may have five or four or whatever for the second round and then if you go for third round Maybe between one and three but what I'm trying to understand is how do we get that down select from round one to round two is there like a sheet that says scoring candidate you know on a certain criteria that's five points two points one point and then is that just adding up points or is there a different way for for the candidate to be evaluated and then move to the next round it um you can assign a number when you to each question for each candidate like they they answered your question maybe a four they kind of answered it mostly answer a three down many times it comes to a discussion amongst board members on what they would who they would like to see and for their reasons why Mrs Dolly you had a question yes um just uh coming back to the list of questions um how early can we have a preview of what the questions are because if there a standard set of questions um because obviously this might take some time to agree to can we have the list of questions for round one at least um generally we we give it out on the pool delivery u but I don't really see any reason why we could not email them ahead of time also there is nothing in your contract that says that this is the process that you are going to give us questions for this is the first time I'm hearing it there is nothing your contract that says we have to abide I know we chose this firm and I don't need to be reminded of that and I'm respectful of that but I would like to understand under what Clause are you going to enforce that we have to take these set of questions and only ask them because there's nothing in your contract what what what what you what you hire us for was um our in our process part of that experience is we want to make sure that every question and every step of this process is legally defensible and doesn't give put the board in a liability so if you're going to ask questions that are not on those those L those exhaustive lists that um have already been screened by our legal department we would need to time to run those questions through um our legal department because that is what we stand by We Stand by having a legally defensible uh confidential process so you agree that I I'm fine with the first round every candidate getting the same set of questions but this is a higher this is the most critical hire that this district will do for say three years five years I I hope it's longer because I don't want us to go back to this how is it okay that and then each individual candidate comes with their own unique set of skills and experience if it is somebody if it's an internal candidate great we know their capabilities we know what are their you know pluses and negatives or strengths and weaknesses but if we are expected to hire somebody whom we have no idea about but there there is something on the resume that stands out exceptionally versus there is something else on somebody's resume or based on you know the feedback that we get from you how is it okay that you will not allow us to add any questions and and it's not even written in your pro in your contract the the the ability to add um specific questions um comes in the second and third rounds is if you're going to ask a specific question in the first round you need to ask that our process is that the first round everybody gets asked the same questions because you're trying to filter down to who your ideal C your best candidates are from that pool the second and third round is where you can um add in questions that are that may be specific to a candidate we just need to know what you're going to ask so we can run it by our legal ahead of time so Bradford so how long can how long do we have what is a timeline when do we have to give you after the first round after the first I mean I don't know what our legal um calendar looks like so I would say we would probably need um a week to run it through legal because I don't know what their calendar is I can't but we can add questions we have to give them to you to wet them but we cannot ask any questions that have not been vetted even though it's not in your contract I'm going to ask this part of the discussion to move on clarification yeah I just let her answer so I just want to know we cannot add any questions to even in the second round or the third round to a candidate without having being blessed by njsba even though you don't say any there is no such language in your contract yes that that is the process we we want to ensure that you have a legally defensible search and that when you get to your finalist that that there are no uh legal um quagmires that you've gone through so would you mind amending your contract re um we have a contract that is signed it is not going to be amended at this point because it is a signed contract between the two of us I'm going to ask respectfully that the board move on to the credentials and criteria because we don't even have an ad yet and these questions are going on Mrs Miss ree could you please tell us about professional experience chairman uh I really have to object to uh what's going on here the entire agreement is stated paragraph 13 this agreement contains the entire agreement between the parties with respect to the transaction contemplated by this agreement and supersedes all prior agreements and understandings between the parties with respect to such transaction so I don't believe that you are entitled to impose anything beyond this contract and you're imposing something new that we never heard of before so I think I just don't agree that what you're trying to do here is proper well thank you for your opinion but we have a signed contract we do yes and that says this is the entire agreement and yet she's now coming in here saying there's other things we never told you about that is part of the process why we hired but then if that was part of the what she wanted to do and they always do this apparently then that should have been stated in the agreement how we treat people and speak during this meeting will affect our superintendent search EXC how we treat people when we use words like blessed by njsba when we say they didn't have this in the contract Stanley I'm G to ask I have the floor I don't think you can amend the contract at the meeting as you're trying to do that's all Mr dler do you have an opinion on us for this I I'll just do a freestyle I guess this so I would have to take a look at the contract right again I think the more specific point again is take a look so just to be clear though this is how brookley Heights Public Schools does their interviews is that they right we have a list of questions for every single candidate that comes before us we go through and we all have a question that we read to every candidate so that they are all the same and we can look at them exactly the same this is not something new so what I will add is I've I've done a decent number of superintendent searches through school boards and through others this the process they are laying out um not everyone vets it through their attorney per se but typically the first round is a set number of questions what again I would add is like again this is school board's process you've chosen School boards of course right your this is your interview process uh so a lot of these will be board type decisions if the board chooses in a way that look they're not comfortable with school board's process right that can be a discussion you can have as a full board with school boards and then school boards can obviously say no we're moving forward or we don't feel comfortable I think that's a fair assessment um but I think again it's your superintendent search if you don't agree with this process as a full board I think you would have to go back to school boards and school boards of course may say this is our process We Stand by it and then we have to make a determination what as a board and what school boards how you want to proceed Mr Heyman can can I can we table the question conversation until we see the actual exhaustive list of questions to see if maybe all our questions are already in there and at that point I think I heard we can add other questions they'll be vetted I mean there's no one saying no at this point it sounds like any question at this point is possible and we we'll cross that bridge when we get there we've got some other Bridges across tonight let's work on our ad right now can we get back to the agenda that jsba gave us were on number three develop criteria and credentials correct Miss Reese you go over professional experience for us you are I I just want to put this on the record that this contract was signed by you without sharing or seeking input from the seven member board that is correct yes so if that is correct and there is no language and we we are abiding by it but what's the concern what is the concern as we sit that we won't get to ask a question what is the concern yeah if I may speak is we're waiting for it you're going like this to get to the point make the point round and round it's we're here 90 minutes Mrs Ziri can you ask a question or we're going to move on Mr hman there is no need for you we can we can do this respectfully I have you have been trying you've been trying it's middle of May let's go yeah the reason it's middle of May is because meetings were moved from February and it is not because by me if if it is the meeting didn't happen in February that's on Mrs Bradford and if we are having this conversation right now if Mrs Bradford had taken her duties of board president seriously thought input insulting people to their face which is which is gonna stop this conversation now point of order not respectful of each other we are going to move on from our what's on the agenda thank you yes all I'm saying is how can this is Airi you don't have the floor why I still have to have a question Mrs thei we going to ask you to stop and we're going to move on no how can Mrs Reese come here with s certain claes and say we have to abide by them when they're not there in the contract if she's going to enforce them then she needs to amend the contract she cannot say this is my process when it is not even written in the contct thank you Mrs Stanley please stop Mrs Mrs ree could you go on to the professional experience part of the ad and just explain explain it to us so we can choose so so um this speaks to what professional experience you would like your C your candidates to um to hold to be interviewed okay again we recommend that that you put preferred and not required but that's certainly final decision is require if you want somebody to have a principal certificate or to have five years teaching in a in a classroom as required that is certainly your prerogative just if it's required and a candidate doesn't have it you will by you you can't interview them got it so for CSA or assistant CSA preferred or required Mrs Jolly since we're being General um yeah let's go down from CSA assistant CSA central office principal classroom teacher or other if you could go through all those what you would prefer I guess my preferences would be CSA principal um K through 12 I guess suburban and similar District thank you Mr uh Mr Heyman yeah I'll just said uh preferred for CSA preferred principal uh and uh preferred classroom teacher or or teaching experience I don't have an opinion on number of years but some some inclass teaching experience and K to 12 would be the other the other piece no other opinions specifically Mrs cona I would go with uh preferred CSA or assistant CSA or principal uh for the I guess it's a type of District I would go for K to 12 similar District um think the other ones don't matter in terms of your of experience I would say you know minimum uh five years of experience either as a principle or uh as as a CSA assistant CSA thank you uh Mrs Stanley um I would put classroom teacher required um I would put preferred CSA or assistant CSA preferred principal preferred K through 12 I think the similar district and Bourbon and stuff it gets a little bit complicated as and in New Jersey I don't know if that's relevant but I do think that K through 12 is preferred Dr porer uh I rewrote the ad I I wasn't happy with uh a lot of it so we're just talking on uh two on the checklist professional experience yeah I'm I'm just G to I'm just going to give you what I think the ad should look like okay okay that we're not at that point we're just working on our checklist could you go through that please uh your checklist just a minute on Roman numeral 2 uh I'm sorry oh I know yeah but in the end you're G in the end you're trying to come out with an ad right so I just wrote the ad for you I think that'll short circuit all this stuff so if you I'll just give you the criteria first of all uh qualifications you want a new the administrator certificate or Certificate of Eligibility required everybody every ad I've seen for these positions has that same language I would prefer experience as a superintendent not required I would I would require three plus years of administrative experience or previous role as a superintendent and I would have building level experience as a plus and experience in a similar Cas prek to 12 District would be preferred so those those are my qualification those are the qualifications I think we should ask for thank you Mrs akiri for Roman numeral 2 professional experience is the principal um for any level is it Elementary Middle School or what what does principal mean any level any level okay so I would want somebody with CSA and assistant CSA as preferred K22 is a required um we have seen experiences of not having that and a similar district and a building level principle and minimum years of experience is five for principal CSA and um classroom experience would be preferred it it would be a plus but it's not required njsba did go over things that we should not discuss during this um I think that we are are hitting some of those so again we need to be careful with our words thank you um going on to areas of expertise could you just uh go over that for us Mrs Reese um sure this is just we recommend but it's not required that you choose the four most important areas of expertise you would like your candidates to have some experience in whether that's curriculum Finance uh whether you want curriculum development all the curriculum items some of them in finance um what you might want um some of them or all of them or is there another um area of expertise that is specific to um Berkeley Heights that you might want um them to have some experience in whether that's building construction or um whatever it might be that's you know it that's an issue in Berkeley Heights that that you want them to have some knowledge of or some experienceing thank you Mrs Airi we'll start adjuring of the table your top four please for areas of expertise Roman numeral 3 what is the point we are just going to get the questions right so Dr forer your top four please for areas of experience um actually I I'm going to give it to you but I really don't think this is a good way to go about this um I'm sorry we're doing it uh I would like to to me the superintendent is actually responsible for everything uh and they carry out their priorities or the board priorities through their through the budget development so Finance I think is a critical element I don't think you can have a super inant that just is a sort of a hands off on that um personnel management I think is very important especially the evaluation skills uh Communications to the board and the parents and the community and the staff I think is very important and legal this is a heavily regulated industry you have to know all this stuff I think it takes years to learn it maybe not but if you're a quick learner but I think legal is very important so my my were Finance personnel management Communications and legal thank you Mrs Stanley excuse me I'm not done actually I I don't know why we're limiting it to four uh all of these are quite important they are we're just looking for your top four yeah Mrs Stanley I had down curriculum personnel management Communications and planning as these are areas that we we are currently looking to improve on thank you Mrs Conor can you maybe explain we are choosing the top four and the ones that get left behind so to speak would they not feature in the ad is that what it is they they um no they would not be featured because they would not be featured in the ad but if it's something that people want to ask a question about in the second third round that's that's an option that's available because I mean they're all important um I agree with everything that's been said so far on the other side of the page you know gifted and talented special education we have a lot of focus in our district so I'm a little torn in terms of how you would evaluate whatever input is is uh given here um in terms of the the top four so there's an example of the ad in the folder if you would like to look at it what I'm trying to understand is the ad is is it going to then have sort of four sections and sort of the areas that are expected um if I might say um I think the goal of this right is I agree with you all of them are important right so you're putting an ad out out there to attract talent to you and you probably all individually have a sense of what particular items rise to the top that your District would benefit from so that's why the ad is geared towards attracting the people who would have what is um the top what are the top four as a group right but then the interview process would allow you that space in the second and third round to kind of address and flesh out those other areas right but but you start somewhere and you start somewhere with just the focus of that that's what we recommend okay so we are not limited by by not putting a particular area it's not like we can ask questions right we will be able to ask questions through the interview process this is for the purposes of kind of highlighting what's important draw drawing the the candidates you most like to draw to you okay so I'm going to go with curriculum Finance Communications and personnel management no but isn't there ask to come up with four that are going onir you don't have the floor M Mr Heyman your top four sure my four are Communications curriculum Finance uh and personnel management and just a quick comment it um I liked the way that the the I know it's it's just a a placeholder but the way it's written right now actually feels like it encompasses more like five or six if we're being creative so I'm I'm taking some solace in the fact that I think we're I think we're being broad enough and also I think the candidates are going to get it thank you Mrs Jolly um with respect to planning I actually think that one should I'm not putting that on the list um just to comment that it would I think be applicable to almost all of the other ones because there is short-term planning and strateg long and strategic long range planning associated with budget with the you know uh labor Personnel op te operations Etc so I'm going to leave that one out because I think it's implicit in um the other categories so I'm going to go with curriculum Finance personnel and Communications can we add something here that say others to be Mrs Zira you don't have the floor um my choices are curriculum Communications operations and Technology Mrs Ziri do we want to come back to you now for your top four so or so my concern here is we are a send we do receive um students from mountain side and are is there anything that you're going to put specifically to that in terms of an ad because I looked at the the sample ad that you created and why are we limiting ourselves to only four it because those four are going to be listed on the ad and if you're doing this for Berkeley Heights again and this is the first and the only opportunity for the board the way Mrs Bradford explained this to us is this meeting can be as long as we need because of the contract terms it has to be today so we can ask questions if it's 90 minutes or 180 minutes or whatever and we have to agree as a board so if this ad is going to be specific why can't we list something in terms of what's unique to our district because we are a send we do receive students can we can we add that as yes in the ad four chooses yes they can add that and can we do more than four on the criteria you can in the ad do as as many as you like um it's just making the ad more I explain more um readable if the ads too long will people read through the end and but but you know that could be what your intention is you want people that read a long ad and go to the end but that's excuse me Mr dler has a comment I think this will help so I again I've done a number of these what this section's important I think is what's important to your District so I've had districts I work with where their number one issue is HR right and so they wanted just emphasize that because they wanted candidates who would have an HR background right their director HR things like that I've had other districts where they thought their curriculum was an issue right it was a k through2 district and they thought we have no we have no issue you know going through our curriculum we really want someone with a curriculum background so I think this section is for the board to say to the candidate pool look here is what we are looking for so some candidates may think look I'm perfect for this role because I used to be a director of curriculum I used to be a principal I'm really interested in it so I think again I think it's certainly again I don't want to speak qu I think we can make it unique to you but you certainly want to make it also unique to you to tell candidates look this is what we're looking for if you have this come apply here because that's what's important to this board okay it's going to be budget development legal operations and special education thank you we're moving on to section four leadership qualities we started at that end uh did you want to amend your choices Dr forer can I just do a little bit of a oh sorry on that do I have the floor did you want to amend your choices um what I want to say is this I looked at the ad for uh I have collected a lot of these ads uh and one of them was Mountain Lakes Mountain Lakes is a K through 12 they actually have a deaf and heart of hearing program and they mention that I think that should be mentioned in our ad and they're a send receive relationship um and they list their qualifications which are pretty similar to what we want and they don't actually list anything under this business about uh successful candidate will demonstrate expertise in all these things that we have so that could actually be left out and and you can see what you get thank you leadership qualities going on to number four uh we started at this end and these don't don't necessarily show up in the ad exact exactly they do show up in what the kind of person you're looking for what is important to you Mrs Jolly um everything so since I'm not being asked to number them I say all okay Mr Mr Heyman I agree and and the the five that I put ours next to in no particular order were ability to work with the board obviously encourages parental involvement obviously Innovative strong leadership skills and organizational skills Mrs Conor I think my choices are going to be similar to Jordan's um definitely the ability to work with the board um conflict resolution skills um encourages parental involvement Innovation uh able to function under stress uh and definitely strong leadership thank you Mrs Stanley I have engaging public speaker I have encourages parental involvement Innovative assertive and decisive able to have off crisises and organizational skills thank you Dr porer okay we're just doing leadership here or doing personal quality characteristic so it's number four all right so ability to work with the board exceptional writing skills engaging public speaker conflict resolution skills and strong leadership skills um Mrs uh akiri I'll go with ability to work with the board conflict resolution skills encourages parental involvement strong leadership skills and ability to head off crisises and ability to function under stress I would say ability to work with the board uh encourage parental involvement strong leadership skills and organizational skills we'll move on to personal characteristics again these are not part of the ad is that correct Mrs ree these are just our personal Mrs akiri would you go first please so these don't do we have to only give four Mrs Bradford no no but after you went around the table you just said four of them so why are we limiting them to four they can be they're they're not limited you just summarize them to be as four based on board feedback would you like to add more to your yeah in in leadership I think many of us gave more than four so why Mrs Jolly gave all of them and Mrs Mr Jordan gave all of them okay yes got it okay would you like to move on to Roman numeral five personal characteristics and starting with you Mrs Airi yes the first one would be honest second is ethical and having a nurturing and characteristic involved in the community accessible child centered and a good listener Dr forer I'll make it easy go in in order ethical organized empathetic good listener honest but actually you want all of these of of course yes Mrs Stanley I have visible good listener child- centered and involved in the community Mrs cona um I would recommend ethical nurturing organized empathetic sense of humor positive attitude a good listener honest and accessible Mr Heyman uh a lot of overlap I have ethical organized visible good listener accessible and involved in the community Mrs Jolly I have ethical organized empathetic visible a positive attitude good listener child- centered honest accessible I have visible positive attitude uh accessible involved in the community okay any other additional qualifications or comments before we close this portion yes Mr Heyman I'll just agree with Tom in the sample ad we we do list s receive and I I think that's important yes Mrs Ziri Dr forer yeah uh on the sample sample ad uh it say says the district is supported by a staff of 281 can't read it oh 281 I would just take that out because I I don't think that's the right number um and the operating budget is is indeed uh 59.4 and I think you should mention our district our our governor Livingston high school support step and heart of hearing Learners I'm sorry M BR it's very our our district supports at Governor livings in the heart of hearing program def in heart of hearing heart of hearing yes but I I don't I I don't believe that 281 is correct there's far more than that uh and of course I can't tell really what you mean by that I mean there's certainly if you're looking about total employees that's much more than 281 if you're just talking about certified teachers that's not the right number either so you don't really need that number the the ads I've seen don't no the the the numbers that are in like the Staffing numbers we simply go to the Department of Ed website those those numbers um for those numbers for Staffing um they're reflective of on the department of Ed website the 2021 2022 if you have different numbers um that that that's not written in stone but that was just to get as a sense the budget number I did take from your last budget presentation uh for that but if the Staffing is is more or less than that um and the student count is more or less than that um which is entirely possible because the department of Ed website is a couple of years old it's the most updated it is but all of that um can be changed to to be more accurate uh and reflect actually what's there um this is just on the ad um you can take a couple of days to work Smith it it wasn't in the intent to have it tonight but um we would work on with the with the um areas of expertise that came out tonight um the consensus um I have curriculum Finance personnel management and Communications as having received the best the the most um support amongst the board members and then we would look um at adding that in um specifically to your ad uh and I can email that out to Mrs Bradford to email out uh to the board I I am under the um understanding and this is not unusual that board members would like to um have a go at it to to word Smith it and to make it more um reflective as as you see it for your District the the the goal with the ad is to just um have the ad up by either um May 30th um or um June 1st um but now I'm thinking I still need the information by May um by May 31 um when you say a staff of 281 what what kind of staff are you talking about well it could be certificated staff or other staff so on the website on the Y okay current count of teachers uh Anthony can probably correct me but I I got 278 uh so the 281 I don't think is right for this for the coming year uh but more importantly I don't think you actually need to put that number in there uh so we wouldn't have to worry about it thank you so um you're taking our feedback you'll get back to us with an ad I will send it to the rest of the board they have until May 31st to do any wordsmithing and get it back to you can we I think there's one more section here right section six Roman numerical any other qualifications or comments I asked that already yeah that's the one that Tom was speaking and then yes so yes he answered yes so can I you have something else yes Mrs secur so whatever we give here in these are they going to show up on the ad or that any additional qualifications or comments what what is the purpose of that of the uh the leadership that they show no section six is there um you know I I heard that um that you have a deaf and heart of hearing yes um program is that something you would like in the ad yes somebody with that kind and that's where that falls it Deen heart of hearing and then the send receive I think you're going to add that can we had um a consistent history of being transparent and being accountable to District goals whatever the district goals are um by QC and by law the superintendent is held accountable that's what you do their superintendent evaluation on or progress towards your District goals so you don't necessarily need to have that in the ad because that's inherent in their position so have you seen any ads where they've mentioned that based on SEC requirements for a superintendent no okay thank you we're going to move on now well it it's my turn right sorry comment on on other qualifications so um it looks like um our special education department didn't get um added in the section three area so I was wondering if we could maybe add that specifically that we have a a very inclusive special education department that's of the board sure I'm not understanding the the uh what you're asking for that's my suggestion I agree with the defin heart of healing and the send receive I think that those are two um great programs that we do offer here and it would be good for the superintendent to understand that that's the situation they're walking into Mrs Conor do you have any other comments Less on Section six more on we had inputs for the leadership qualities and the personal characteristics would you modify the ad taking the inputs that all of us just provided to incorporate some of those aspects in the ad I'm assuming this is sort of boilerplate with you know specific like numbers that are relevant to Berkle hides and then um the qualifications will get modified but I'm curious the some of the aspects that we highlighted from the leadership or the personel would that get updated in the ad and generally those um qualities and characteristics are reflected more during the interview process so you're not thinking that you would go and modify any of like the the introduction to the ad to kind of there there's a lot of support for many any of those qualities and characteristics uh that that as I was tallying as you went through them um I I think also um the goal of the ad is to bring the candidates in right so I we certainly that that's the you're putting your mark on it by having the conversations about what you all are seeing as what you want your candidate your final candidate to really exhibit but you don't want to get ahead of yourself when you place the ad that you're being so specific that people may not apply to it so you want the right that sweet spot of the right amount of applications and then the interview process is designed for you to kind of call that out um through that process does that me does that seem right okay I was hoping that it would be a little bit more personalized so to speak well well also we will put something together but but now the board members can if you think that there's something you'd like to specifically put in there and words Smith it we can try to work with that and then see as as you work together if that's something that you all agree that it should be included kind of like under Port six right I mean and as jeene said the goal is to cast as wide a net to get um as many candidates that I mean it's going to be specific to Berkeley Heights but you want to have you want to have a nice pools so that you can do your due diligence you can interview them and narrow down as you go and as I said a lot of these characteristics and qualities um could show up during questioning um during the interview process uh Mr Heyman did you have anything to add for Section six it it it's nuanced but I mean we we talk about personnel management I I mean in my head the words recruiting and retention uh I mean it's here again creating a district that that where people feel inspired etc etc but Ian that feels important versus just management um for the for the future of the district and Mrs Jolly I don't have anything else to add thank you so you will work on the ad get it back to us and we will get it back to you by May 31st uh staff and Community input session sessions these were already negotiated these are not for board members the dates are not for board members and and can I just yes comment on that the reason they're not for board members is we we don't ask for people's names and even the online survey we ask for for qualification whether they're a parent a Community member um but we want their feedback and so we're we don't know your community and if there's if there's board members there it may it may it may not it may inhibit their discussion or comments that they may want to make and and our experience is that you want as many comments um to help you uh get a pulse on the community uh to get the the candidate that best reflects the Berkeley Heights community and will move um your District forward uh and um although we we just recommend that you not um have board members there if you do want to attend please let the board president know that can only be three people there excuse me three board members there and let me know first come first serve so here are the dates yes can you talk through the process for how would you send a survey out is it sending an email to the the parents in power school is it putting it on the website who can access it can you talk a little bit about that sure um we we have some um like for the online survey and on the um in-person survey and right now I know you definitely want to do the in-person surveys um the online survey is um I would send a QR code that that or link and or link because it's one same and it could be posted on your website you could send it out to all your parents you could see if the municipality would post it on their website however you choose to advertise it to reach the most amount of people is is how that would go um and we we the the in-person sessions um that that we do we start with a small presentation to explain the process and the dating to your community and then we have a series of questions that we ask that are the same on the online um on the online survey so when it comes to the community sessions is it something that you ad so is it something that is advertised on the district website or is that a web page that you would create for the Berkeley height search and can people do do they have to sign up or can they just show up they can just show up we don't really require um a sign up um as he said we don't really the the it's it's supposed to be or as Anonymous as possible so that they feel that they're not being judged or whatever they can really Express whatever opinion they may have and whatever thoughts they may have on who to hire for the next superintendent okay thank you thank you so Mrs zurri you have a question so the question is on the survey it's just a QR code and it's on on line what about um anybody wants to do the survey like if we have a senior community in the town and they want to have a say do we even collect any hard copies have we factored someone who doesn't have a computer and wants to do it non electronically um I've not had that question asked before but certainly um we can we can we can send a hard copy somebody at the district would just have to coate it and and get the information to us um yeah and and they can certainly come in person they can come yeah of course they can come you know those are not recorded meetings we will be taking between the two of us taking notes on on what the comments are it's a standard um set of questions like s like what's the most significant strengths and achievements of brookley heights things along those lines so basically there will be a QR code and an email link for the survey and we can work with the town ship or the seniors or the rec or anywhere and then say can you please circulate this because we're looking for feedback on the most yeah right and the the the inperson um inset person input sessions are set with um your staff and your community but if there's a request to go meet with the senior citizens if we can work it into our schedule certainly we can do that okay thank you so our dates are June 4th uh the bhea will be meeting at Columbia Middle School in the vocal music room from 3:30 to 5:30 the public meeting will be at the same place Columbia Middle School vocal music room 7 to 900 p.m. and I can pass these to you Miss Miss Reese on June 5th the bhea will be meeting here at Governor Livingston high school the location in the building is to be determined from 3:30 to 5:30 and then the PTO will be meeting at Governor Livingston high school from 7 till 900 p.m. on June 6th the bhaa will be meeting at Columbia Middle School the vocal music room from 3:30 to 5:30 and the public meeting will be at Columbia Middle School vocal music room 7 to 900 p.m. so we have those dates um set aside and it has been uh approved by our field Representatives by the BH uh EA the BH um AA and also our PTO let's move on now I think we've interviewed the oh Dr forger yeah I just had a question about the online survey how do you uh ensure that uh there's a uh at most one response per user sorry how do you ensure that there's only one response per user um we we we don't really we allow them the survey is set up it it's um set up through Microsoft to um they can go back and amend and change their if they feel like they have more to add they can certainly go back in and change and add to whatever um information they first provided so so so a given person if they were so inclined could put it in 10 times they they they could that that's that's true all right thank you it it is a tradeoff just to for the um to keep it Anonymous it's a tradeoffs so that we're not tracking you can you can issue a unique identifier like where every person who clicks it gets a unique identifier and that's what tracks it that's what also tracks duplicates right we don't we don't ask the um survey to track it I know that you can if you're a computer wiiz you can certainly go in and find the IP addresses that's just simply not something that we do because so it's on us to look at for duplicates but the survey will not have a unique identifier no that that's the that's um one of the purposes of the survey so that it can be anonymous but we do ask them to identify if they're um a a parent or Guardian a staff member a Community member or or student there is no so anybody can write anything there's nothing to verify yeah so quick question Mrs Bradford on the date for the community input how did we arrive at it like we haven't advertised it so we are going to decide on that date today that those were the dates that our field Representatives could attend and and if you don't have a quorum you don't need to advertise it as a board meeting it does need to advertised so you get the most um response that you can so looking at number six the interview process I think we have discussed that enough is there any other comments on the interview process from board members I I do have one other thing um in your packet um is a page that starts with building a leadership profile for your I'm not missing it sorry there is one that that talks about um this is it the list of administrative and educational leadership experiences um these are we ask that you select up to three questions they don't have to be selected tonight but these will be additional essay questions on the application um they will all be asked um a a um a you know to to describe um their most effective working relationship between the board and the superintendent and then these other things would be additional essay questions that they would have to respond to when you ask them to provide specific information like if they if it's if it's like um data informed decision making is what you select as one of your options we ask them to be very specific on what that means to them and what what they've done toward that and when would you like this back from us when when the when when we're done works when you're done work smithing the ad because once the ad goes up um at the same time the um the ad the ad goes up on the website at the same time um that that everything's done and so we want to make sure that the S the um application on the website has those questions that you've selected Ed that essay questions you would like this back to you we'll we'll collect it at the May 30th meeting and then pass them on to you so board members if you'll have this completed by the May 30th meeting to hand to the president and we will pass them on to our field Representatives Mrs Jolly so um all of these are um you know uh again very important but I almost think that so so I understand it we need a consensus on three that we would pass along to you and this would be part of the application process some of these and and I know this isn't preclude us from asking questions about any of these topics at some future point but I depend it's almost like depending on the resume I see I may want someone to expand or write an essay on something like this because if they demonstrated via their resume for example like closing of the achievement Gap I mean not want to necessarily hear that from that candidate but I might want to hear that from some other candidate so it's it's it's a lot just to limit to three from candidates that might have you know demonstrate this experience through their resume and you know yeah they can write about it but I'd rather hear from someone who maybe you know is not as strong and like maybe get some additional information so well I mean when once you get to the um third round interview an essay question question or a a presentation and you could do um an interview questions you could ask them to submit a writing sample at that time and or you can have them do a presentation on a topic of your choosing so you can address that through the interview process this is just as much to help you narrow down your field of candidates thank you you Mrs Stanley I'm sorry so um I know this is what we did for our um other interim candidates as well right we asked them to answer a few questions I think right now one of the questions is technology um for most of our candidates so so I'm just just to make sure I look through this right it is hard to pick this but it's going to be consensus of seven people um if we look at like just Communications number one I would pick either a or b or c right I would just pick one of the am I I think it's yeah the building leadership one I'm sorry it's actually the list of administr list ad it's just this page then yes one page by May 30th thank you I'm sorry I I misspoke okay so I do apologize I can I ask my question yes yes Mrs Conor can you talk through a little bit on the application process and sort of the deliverables that we can expect come through at various stages so this essay topic it's not for everybody who's coming in for the first round of the interview is that right no this the essay question the essay topic will be on the application and they must um they must complete the essay or if they don't that speaks something as well but it's part of the application process of every candidate that applies okay so the first round and it's the all candidates complete this essay so that's question number one and then there will be an additional essay depending or additional three essays you can select up to three additional essay topics in addition to the one so they'd have four essays and when you get access to the online um application you will see all of that so we will so we will see their application letter we will see the resume we will see up to four essays depending on what we choose here in that round of the process is there the opportunity for them to like give some sort of a video introduction of themselves or is that all limited to kind of the formats that you have defined up until this point right now and and you're are you asking if there they can submit a video I'm I'm trying to figure out when is the first time that we will hear the candidate is that is that to hear the them spoken work right right as opposed to is when is during the interview it is the interview okay and there is no flexibility for anybody to submit something additional if they chose to there there they there is the opportunity to upload um additional information additional records add additional information into the um the process I'm not sure if if there's if the system has the ability to um accept video that that's that's something I it's not something that you usually we've not had that before okay one of the things if I could just speak to that is that there are I'm not an attorney so you have your attorney sit next to you but there might be some concerns about having that included in terms of who get selected to come in based upon a submitted video so you may want to consult with your attorney okay thank you um um Mrs Mrs Ziri yeah so all the communication that njsba does um do you when you're sending information to thect District or communicating can you send it to the entire board sorry can you can you communicate like all your emails whatever you're sending starting from now till we finalize can those emails go to the entire board I generally we send it to the board president and it's their what they choose they they can certainly choose to include the entire board so what is the SLA on if they receive so for example we thought we said we had four business days maybe we'll wait until Monday morning so once the email comes to the president it's on the one person the president to immediately circulate it is that the expectation or if that's the expectation so can you include the president and the vice president that way we have a contingency on WE generally we generally send it to the to the president and that's kind of speaks more to an internal process that we don't insert ourselves is is there a concern in sending it to the entire board we we you've asked the question and my answer is we don't do that we generally send it to the president is there a legal concern or I I'm not an attorney I'm telling you that you've asked the question and I've said that generally send it to you okay so and the expectation is once we receive it we my only concern is maybe between now and the 31st when you expect something back from us on this calendar I think we as a board need to discuss and get back on those board meeting requirements because this is the very first time we're hearing about them and these are all in summer so we have to check on our availability and give you back feedback so if some of these dates don't work for us what's the flexibility how what's the process we have to go through the president to you and then go to the president and then we will see if we can adapt our schedule but but we may may not be able to but we will not have interactions with individual board members we'll deal with president and president will bring that information to yeah um we I was not asking for a back and like two-sided communication I was just saying in the essence of time and the timeline being so aggressive why can't the entire board we do get emails from njsba they come to the entire board so and this is a very aggressive schedule so do can we get that and the answer is no we can't get it and we still have to and we have to get back to you so how much time do we have to get back to you because the next time we meet as a board is on the 30th so if some of these dates that are listed here from starting July 29th just an FYI will not work for me I might not be here personally and if it's an exec session we can't attend remotely so it's that's I'm just laying it out and some of the other dates that are there I might not be here physically in United States so we have to go and check on our availability to commit to this timeline so if the dates don't work then we have to communicate them to you by what May 30th yeah May 30th okay yes but we also don't need a majority the whole board we just need a majority of the board that's correct that that's correct right okay we're going to close this portion thank you Miss ree thank you Miss Clary for this uh we are going to move on to new business now and the first thing we're going to talk about is social media policy who brought that up and who would like to discuss that under new business Mrs Bradford can I ask for a five minute re we're gonna move on so please go ahead if you need to the restroom yeah we're not going to take a break okay that's amazing yeah so would someone who brought up social media want I brought it up and um the reason for it I think you've received multiple emails from board members Mr Nixon has received the emails I think early this year we got a memo from the attorney and I just want Clarity we have a social media policy which is very detailed which is um I do have a print out of it I just want to understand what is the purpose of having a social media policy specifically listing certain criteria and the concerns we raised with you because I haven't received any responses back from Mrs Bradford or you Mr Nixon Mr nion would you like to address that sure and I think i' I'd like uh Mr dler to weigh in on this as well we had spoken about social media policy and we spoke about social media policy and our policy committee as well um regarding what's what's the purpose of having a social media policy and how does it to follow and and ultimately I've asked what are the um options for a board president a board member or a superintendent in a situation where a board member brings up a concern about another board member possibly uh violating social media policy so if you could speak to um for us some of the um things you shared with me regarding sure so I'll I'll try to address kind of the star question then if anyone has any other questions for me feel free so social media uses by a board member is usually governed by the school ethics act right so some districts have a social media policy some rely in the ACT typically the boards that have such a policy do so because similar a lot of your policies right the law controls you want a policy to kind of outline what that means for you as a district right and so it's very clear when there's an issue should we do something should we not you have a policy that very clearly outlines it again are you required to have this policy you are not it's just a matter of does the board want said policy so again it can give board members guidance on how to proceed now what is the Avenue for violing that policy it's not as if someone can call the superintendent and say this board memb is violing that policy you know kick them off Facebook right that's not permitted there's no act that your superintendent can take against an individual board member they can't call the board attorney and say this board memb is acting unethically do something about it I promise you I will not show up your house and say please stop doing that again I can give guidance but that's not my role it's not your superintendent's role really that's what the school ethics commission does so why do you have a policy in place it provides a little extra guidance it sets kind of your values as a board um and it usually a policy kind of goes into a little more detail in the school ethics act to try to explain to board members look this is what we think the ACT says and this is what governs our conduct does that generally answer the question does anyone have more questions I would like to ask I would ask not speci specifics because that would be more of an executive session topic but broadly speaking I'm happy to kind of talk about it and we have asked njba they talked about it during the ethics training social media we've asked them to return to give us more in-depth training on social media Mrs Tana I have a question just to essentially understand when anything is posted on social media as a board member what is the responsibility or what is the limitation in terms of posting information that calls out impact on students as an example okay so I'm gonna get this this is off the top of my head so typically speaking there are four requirements when you post something on social media number one you have to put a disclaimer right um the school oh School boards isn't here but um school boards sorry the school ethics Commission will tell you that there is no specific language but they also approve language in a footnote of a case so if any board member has a question of uh what language would be good for me to put I'm happy to share the footnote from that case at an example because at least that we know is the school ethics commission has approved as appropriate language so that's number one you have to have that disclaimer number two uh it's required to be accurate information um number three it can't in any way I think there's some provision like to the effect of harm staff members and there is a fourth that I'm going blank on but I'm happy to share with the board via an email or the like but that's typically our kind of the four when you're posting again we talk about social media a lot of this language I'll be honest comes from op-eds because it predates social media but that's the general parameters when the board is discussing School related matters the idea behind it is they want to be very clear that you as a board member don't lose your rights as under the First Amendment but then of course they then curb your rights under the First Amendment I'll be honest they say that like in every case oh you have a board member you have every right but then again here are the reasons that you can't say x y and z um but the most important I think is to be very clear to the public that I'm not doing this as a board member right because there's that confusion that could exist and certainly as an individual you don't want to make sure you want to be clear that you're not making this view representing the board because no individual can do so as an individual board member albe it's some exceptions here and there but for the most part specifically on social media those are kind of the big hits I'm happy to email the board as well further Guidance with the footnote and the like y so the disclaimer though right so we've had some discussion on this the disclaimer doesn't really protect you if you violate the ethics right like that's really right so right even our social media policy specifically talks about right like reinforcing the code of ethics right that commenting on anything that the board is currently doing right is unethical and that all knowledge needs to be public knowledge when discussed in public right it should not be something that board members know right as board members but something that has been discussed in a public meeting and the whole public has access to it sorry so I think what you're saying is if for example you put the disclaimer of leak confident uh reveal confidential information confidential information or you discuss a topic that is currently before the board right even even if you put the disclaimer that doesn't really protect you right the disclaimer is just to allow the public the inside knowledge that you are a board member correct so you have to meet all four prongs so again I think you might you might hit the fourth one no confidential information again disclaimer uh it can't compromise the board and it can't um accurate does accurate and go against staff members right how does this also apply rep to emails right because we've also seen right like I might not post something on social media but if I respond to a member of the public right I I've seen that some of us have started to put like disclaimers on our emails but if our emails break any of the code of ethics right like supporting board members uh supporting staff right any of that kind of stuff or not accurate or truthful right like all of that the email like we don't have a policy on email but it's still the same ethics yeah again I I don't want to speak too broadly right like for example a board member emails a spouse complaining about a staff member I don't think that would fall under the ethics but if they're emailing you know a large a group of members of the public certainly it's possible right again School ethics commission is just that it's a group of individuals similar to this board and it tends to be very fact specific I'll be honest with you so not it's hard for me to answer all these questions in vacuum could I see a situation where an email is found to be violation of the ACT sure can I see a situation where do I think that every board member needs to put the disclaimer on all of their emails I do not right that's I think that's one step too far but certainly right you know I don't think that just because an email can't be similar to social media if you're ulating in a list serve per se right um again I think we're going a drift here from the social media policy um it sounds like you have school boards coming in for ethics training I would encourage you to have the questions and possibly email me those in advance because um that's typically helpful but certainly also I'm here to help guide um it's better to be proactive in these things so if anyone has any questions in advance I assume your policy probably says send this to the board president or superintendent they can share just to help you get guidance because it is um there are a lot of landmines out there I'll put it it's not easy navigating this I continue to remind people uh both behind the scenes and in public that you guys are all volunteers um and it's not an easy job and the school ethics Commission in many times does not make your job any easier uh so we're here to help in any way we can yeah so like let's say right I the calendar gets approved by the board right and I want to post the calendar has been approved by the board here's the link right I don't need to put a disclaimer on that right because that's public information that I'm sharing as a public so I don't want to go that so that example is fine I think the next examples get tougher uh so I don't want to do in like yes you can just do that uh because then we get into situations where people put like little comments like go to here things like that so in I guess in a nutshell if you're just posting a link you're probably fine but then if you add a little but it's very fact sensitive and I do want to encourage um I want to avoid the very specific questions right that's what your for your ethics training is and I have found that when we do those sometimes it can lead down a road that I don't think we want to go here tonight unon so we'll go for more um training from njsba on our social media oh I'm sorry Dr porer you had a question uh sort of I think you were going down a list of four things and you couldn't remember the fourth one but I think in the course of the discussion it came out it was the no disclosure of confidential information I think that might be right again I'm going off the top of my head here from my last ethics training that I did um but I'm happy to email out kind of the list we put together of like here's how to safely do it yeah and uh I just remember going to one of the sessions down at Atlantic City school board's convention and this whole social media area is a landmine you got to be very careful even putting a disclaimer I think sometimes they said well that wasn't really good enough and then I said to myself man just stay off for this thing thank you Mrs Bradford I have yeah so when you say the posts have to be accurate and they cannot disclose confidential information that the public is not aware of we have seen clear examples where the the post some of the posts were like pay the teachers or uh giving specific number of students that were going to be impacted by some of the policy decisions this let's not go into specific because as Mr dler just said he cannot do that so let's just wait for the training and then we'll move on from there put it back to the policy committee so please don't mention anything that is specific to something that has been posted it's already out can I finish my question Mrs Bradford be careful yeah it's it's already out there it's be careful what you are saying now in public in repeating something yeah and that wasn't posted by me so I I get your warning and if I don't get interrupted I just want to say Four Points there have been multiple instances this year with information that was only pred to the Pu to the board on and some of the information that was posted on there with the 10,000 plus forum and Natasha can speak to it we have given you specific examples with screenshots saying these many hundred students are getting impacted on what basis where is the accuracy to that statement there was no disclaimer put on the social media post there was a vote that happened publicly may your second point then please Mrs secury I don't want you to get into specific emails that have been posted I'm not talking about emails these are specific posts that posts yeah so they they're out there you have seen the do not want you to repeat it why not because I do not want anyone on this board to violate anything in ethics we're going to have the training and then we will work you've all been trained and I have I'm warning you a second time yes and I am fully aware uh with experience on ethics and ethics complaints to speak about it because this very board has used attorneys to even research on probable ethics complaints without any screenshots so all I'm asking is we have Mr dler here who said There are four points confidential information and accurate statements and a disclaimer is not necessary but it has to be stated so there are specific examples with screenshots of impact on students how did this particular board member get the specific information on how many students are impacted we're going to end this conversation because I'm afraid we're getting into areas that might be an ethical violation I'm asking Mr dler for a clarification can we post or can any board member post without a disclaimer without any specific accuracy on how they're getting this information this information was only privy to the board run that by me sorry run that by me one more time so it should be accurate um one of the posts that she's discussing is my post on social media the FL was Mr all right we are stopping this now we are not going to continue this on social media we're moving on it is closed we are moving on now to increasing Mrs Bradford you cannot point of order Mrs we are getting into accusations among board members and I am not going to allow it I was just clarifying question no there's no need to clarify how can you decide that on what basis we are ruled by Rules of Order corre you need to tell we are stopping this conversation is new businesss we are stopping this because it is you do not have that power Mrs Bradford all I do we're moving the business along dip as vice president I want you to excuse me we're moving on to new business number two no no listen he Mr dler who's a board paid ATT correct and he cannot comment on something that was posted by one board member to another yeah I'm asking he asked me to clarify my question and I'm clarifying my question you cannot shut a board member down this is on the record you've done this discrimination react every single time I open my mouth to speak that's not true and we are not going to go ahead with when I go to when I go to the State Department of fed with the documented evidence you can defend yourself Mrs Bradford going to clarify my question we are moving on number two can this be shut down can this discussion be shut down but if she is talking about accusations Mrs Stanley St it has to be accurate information that he's actually being able to give to right and that is not accurate information it's a it's accusation which is why we can't discuss it in public of that accur accurate information right this minute let her it's my PO I think I should be able to speak bring it up we were just instructed We're not gonna do that I'm not gonna we're choosing which board member gets to speak we're gonna ask for Mr derk's opinion so I'm just may may I ask for just a five minute recess no no um so I want I'm about a 10 minute recess no can I wait no let me no why Mr disler has the floor I just want to be clear that I'm not I can't I ethically I don't think it's appropriate for me to delve into specifics right so if you want to bring up the post I can't it's not this is an appropriate form right now I'm not the appropriate Arbiter of that I do want to clarify though I do have my list here if that's can I can I least talk about so I have I can share the disclaimer so the four issues that I brought up because I was going off the top of my head but it's so you need to again identify yourself as a board member uh indicate that the post is not authorized by or in on behalf of the board so that's the very clear disclaimer um provide accurate information is not confidential and then ensure that your action does not compromise the board I should in these are when these issues are concerning the board you do have every right to comment and whatever goes on and treaten even if it's related to schools as a whole this is just again issues that might become before you as a board I don't want to again I don't want to get into specifics but if you have questions that won't touch upon that that won't get me in trouble I'm happy to unfortunately you already went into specifics in your last uh discussion Mrs Pana you have something to add I think let Tom go first and then I have a followup yeah I've seen this phrase compromise the board and I've always wondered uh what does it what exactly does that mean that mean to compromise the board that that is a great question uh I would love to give you some I can give you again we can go through cases that's more for what your training is uh it's very and I don't want to dodge this question because I think it is a fair one and this is why this area is a landmine for board members right because yeah you're sitting here you're trying to Give opinions at everything and then you get again that question it's that's just not for me that's more again you can there the best way to answer there are great examples and cases out there that you'll go through during your ethics training um could I give you a specific definition I cannot because the school ethics commission has not given us any one it's similar to them they take it as fact-based which I wish again I can give you something clearer but I can so number two thank you increasing opma compliment sorry I had one I had one hopefully the last followup here what is the advice on somebody going on social media and commenting on a board vote with with no disclaimers with putting words their own words around the board vote but again that is not accurate or clear information you are asking for at this point I have already said we have stopped this conversation so I'm not going to allow this to move on we've had an opinion from the attorney we will wait for the training from the njsba on this then we will move it to the policy committee new business number two so only Mr so I want to askt Bight Public Schools committee meeting minutes documentation who brought this up and who would like to discuss it to have a 5 minute recess right now no can I get a second no we are moving on we have the public here waiting and it is 9:15 so number two increasing who brought this up I will second the motion who brought this up there is a motion on the floor Mrs not your motion because you never have the floor we are not recognizing the motion we are moving on to new business at this time we have the public here so so basically as board members we are humans right and we have come here at 6:30 we're asking for a recess nicely if you need to take a break Mrs zakira you are free to leave at this time I would like Mr dler to know I would like to know from Mr dler two points can a board member request for a recess to be put on vote the number two can a board president unilaterally and dictatorially shutdown conversation and limit conversation I want Mr dler to respond thank you it is a timely the board president is to move the meeting along in a timely fashion we are now in new business we have exhausted what we've talked about for social media policy we're moving on to number two Gail point of order I'm still waiting for an answer to my question what was your question it was inaccurate information question so listen if Stan Stanley stany your this is me that's the point this is what we have to avoid we are not being respectful and I am again for the third time saying we have stopped this conversation on number one social media we are moving on to number two who brought up number two okay I asked Mr dler to answer can you do that can you shut down conversation unilaterally can a Bo does the board president have the ability to do that so um I think there are two questions out there that I will I guess try to address so I think the board president does have the right to continue to move the meeting forward right if discussion is kind of moving moving and not appro I think the board member does have the right board president does have the right to move forward uh but I'll ask you your second question I do think there's a motion on the table for a five minute recess and seconded so I do think that has to be voted on so of those even though it was during yeah even though it was during discussion like it during business yeah like we're in new business we haven't even got to public comment and she's just allowed to announce right like when she doesn't even have the floor that she wants to I think she would have to get recognized I agree with that but I do think but she was never recognized right she was just talking again you're asking me do I think a board member again can ask to be recognized to make a motion for a short refest she wasn't recognized sure was time I was talking when I was speaking again I don't want to I don't want get B you're just if you're asking my two opinions on it I think a board president again in reasonable fashion can move me forward but I do think a motion for a short recess can be second in a reasonable fashion meaning when we asked a specific question she allowed some board members questions to you to be answered by you and the moment some other board members ask she shuts it down that is discriminatory okay your question okay we are moving on on the flooor there's a motion on the floor Mrs Bradford and this is it what is it called when it's a a depilatory what is that called the dilatory Motion in what respect sorry not pertinent so again you again a nonrelevant if you're asking me I if you're asking my recommendation I think we you can move on to new business I think number one is closed move on to number two and then if a motion again is made for a short recess there was a motion on the floor Mr dler when I had a chance when you interrupt so then again I think the speaker can be recognized make a short motion for a recess if that is second and voted on then you move forward I would like to request to be recognized no moving on increasing opar compliance with Berkeley Heights Public School NJ committee meeting meetings documentation who brought this up and who would like to discuss it so I would like to be recognized I bought this up I make a I move a motion for a five minute recess can I get a second okay roll call roll call vote Mr Ki yes Dr forer yes Mr Heyman no Miss Jolly yes Miss Connor yes Miss Stanley no Miss Bradford no pass five minute recess to 9:25 apologies to the public so moved second second vote i i i good moving on to new business number two increasing o om compliance with Berkeley HIDs public schools New Jersey committee meeting minutes documentation who brought this up I did and the background to it is um the district had some history with on open public meetings act we've had reached out to the County prosecutor on open public meetings act violation and I think the last one that I read was a direct and a resolution of a claim that about exec session minutes this is all public information it's it was it's on there and that to the previous ba about making sure we had detailed minutes in exec for for exec session minutes so recently at a techn I think a committee meeting I heard that there was some guidance given on keeping the minutes very high level and ironically or surprisingly just two months prior I think everybody was praising uh the chair for technology committee for writing very detailed minutes and at the last meeting Mr gardano was also praising Mr himman for giving a detailed record of the minutes so my concern here is I couldn't there was a glitch in the Google meeting link I couldn't join but it's it was told to me that um the guidance I don't know who gave the guidance I would like to understand and know who gave the guidance that we should only do high level minutes and given the history of this District I was hopeful that we would do detailed committee meeting minutes because we're discussing important issues be it about policy Transportation Finance or technology improvements and public has every right to know detail in detail what was discussed it doesn't have to be verbatim it doesn't have to be attributed to a person but it they can be bare like you know they can be very high level where public is basically scratching their head on what was discussed so given this history my first question is where is this guidance of documenting high level minutes coming from and then I'll ask my second question Roberts Rules of Order second question no who gave the guidance to the technology Mr Hyman if I can ask you who gave the guid yeah I'm happy to respond to this so uh first of all the words high level were mine so they're not they're not they shouldn't be taken out of context they were in reference specifically to security or related any items related to security that would be included in the minutes so I think that's important to note that high level did not mean not detailed in fact I would stand behind the detail of the most recent technology committs minutes which were only shorter because of criticism from some board members about the previous technology committee minutes that were too long I thought they were both pretty good um they are detailed um they they'll be public if they're not public already so public can weigh in on that I do think it's important to note too that U the one part of the push back as committee chair is that minutes are not meant to be verbatim number one they're meant to be uh summarize the the uh the essence of the conversation and miss and hit all the the key points that's number one two uh and this came up after for the last technology committee two meetings ago uh no comment should be added after the fact in terms of like editorializing so I think I've been pretty fair as committee chair I'm not trying to add any you know opinion to it the only sensitivity was especially when talking technology that we steer clear of anything that would Veer into and frankly I made the mistake myself uh initially uh and and thankfully to Mr Nixon caught a couple things that that we pulled back out of those minutes so that nothing would be shared that that compromised the security of the district so that that was the reference those are my words and and that that's where high level came from so you didn't you said you got high level guid like guidance to put them high guidance was to yeah to avoid anything related to security specifically it came from the District administration it was it was discussed at the start of the call okay as it relates to any security related items yes okay but in so just to clarify if there is nothing security related whatever was discussed and I am I document minutes for the last 20 years so and I don't believe in putting them verbatim but what the topic that was discussed the discussion and the follow-up action item will be there on these minutes I think they're in the latest version of no not the technology I'm saying we do you agree the reason for putting this on the new business is we have a lot of committees that do meet in closed door sessions y the expectation is um the the expect for having these three member committee meeting minutes which are not open to public is we the minutes will document the topics that were discussed yes the discussion on those specific topics and what is the follow-up action item or the outcome of whatever was discussed yeah absolutely sure so the guidance is specifically in terms of security related items we will not be the Mee but again if the if we do discuss something that is security related that can be redacted and then which is what happened in the latest technology committee minutes I saw right that's right and that was discussed too um historically if need be we have that ability although I think speaking personally would like to try to avoid the need for reduction for more work for someone else to have to do if we can get away with it so I'm I'm all for it so that was the whole purpose of this and glad that it got clarified that we are going to do detailed minutes including the topics and thank you number three separate just a quick comment that um I I do agree with Mr hman I think his minutes are a good example I think the finance and facility commit committee minutes are also a good example of what the minutes um should look like for actually they're actually live on the on the website now some of our committee minutes so I'm really glad thank you number three separate conference session board meetings for student teacher and staff recognition events who brought this up um I did and hold on a minute so basically I move that for 2024 2025 school year and thereafter all staff and student recognition events be held only at special meetings dedicated for such events May I get a second no this is not time to motions on this the the idea of having the students recognized at board meetings is to encourage their parents to come to see them and for us to honor them if we had a separate one maybe not all board members would attend and we would not have board members attending the fact that we have our students we are here for the students so we should recognize our student athletes during our board meetings and before our board meetings and during the superintendent report uh just to allow the discussion to continue I'm going to second the motion so just a comment I think the idea here was not to not recognize our students because I think our students should be recognized I think it was more to make it actually more special about them and not be comingled with a regular meeting that then extends the time of the regular meeting when there's a lot of agenda items so it was I think the the idea here is to just be a little bit more efficient while still honoring you know our teachers our retirees our students um in a in a special meeting where I think you know all board members do tend to attend special meetings and if we can plan ahead of time whether it be you know two two meetings uh by annual thing that means two meetings to for the year to recognize um the students um or maybe you know and likewise like we have a special meeting to recognize the um teachers of the year and retirees that that's the idea behind it it's not it's to actually maybe even give more Focus to them than just being part of a board president's report Mrs Stanley so I I hear what everyone's saying which is one of the reasons why we added that extra meeting for the teacher appreciation right we're still going to have an agenda for that meeting it's just that we made sure that we don't have an exact session we don't have big items on that meeting but that's why we have a second meeting right later in the month um it's also why we have the May 30th meeting right before right so we can keep that seventh meeting a little bit less right because we have run into trouble in the past but I think having our students here right they don't take a lot of time but it's really important that we remember the great things that are going on in our district and celebrate with those students and I don't feel like it's taking up so much time but what would take up a lot of time is our time right like having special meetings for every fall sport winter sport Spring sport anytime the band we want to recognize the band or one of them you know we had in December we had the the music group come right like those things are part of our district they're part of why we're here and I think they're really important and while I understand that you know the idea that we move them separately they'll get more special attention but I think that that's not what our time is right our time is here right like trying to get meetings done and making the students a part of it is actually the exciting part right I I love when the students come it makes us remember all the wonderful things and why we're doing all this hard work right I'll just gonna add quickly that part part of the spirit of this uh I think too we've talked a little bit about this during Athletics committee is is trying to trying to go to to the moment when when those student athletes specifically are being honored so for example we've talked about maybe sampling this at some point in the fall keep me honest Mr Nixon which would be uh maybe we send a couple of board members uh to uh fall awards for example fall Varsity Awards uh I in my own head it'd be nice to sort of have that as an and meaning meaning we do that so that we have because when we when we do have the fall Sports uh athletes Champions come here tend to not have great turnout and uh unfortunately sometimes I think we get beat to the punch a little bit maybe at a at a town level so it'd be nice to maybe do both have a have a quick abbreviated uh embedded element um to maybe hand out the plaques again or whatever it is um at least so that we can get maybe the captains or something if that's where we wind up and then also let's go to where there's critical mass where the full team's there parents are there full Auditorium so we're we're sort of doing both I know that's more work for maybe some committee members as we go but I agree with Pam in that instance it's it'd be be disappointing to lose outside of two students who have to sit and listen to us when they're here lose all student participation in these meetings maybe the issue is the length of our board meetings if we shorten the length of our board meetings we would have more opportunity to recognize students um at the beginning can I can I answer Mrs con yeah so that goes to having an agenda that's not as packed and more meetings right essentially it it comes down to time that we have in the meeting on that day where we want to recognize our students the achievements that they have take the time and and make it a little bit more festive than perhaps what is happening right now which is you know it's it's an agenda item it's great we have photo ops but that's the end of it and and then it's you know back to our long meeting I think that's the spirit of I agree with what Natasha is saying is if we really want to make it a visible recognition of our students athletes and teachers it's worthwhile to actually plan a a celebration and not add it as an agenda item for an already packed agenda meeting so if I may add I wanted I wanted to say this in after I mov the motion because of the way this I get to I get allowed to speak so I have seen multiple board meetings in this district from 2015 and there are multiple parents who were reaching out based on how much adver how much uh time on social media or Instagram our district spends on Sports but when it comes comes to actually recognizing these very athletes the parents and the students get maybe 20 minutes it's during a superintendent report or a board president's report and the quality of certificates that are given and I've said as I I was trained to say please reach out to the building principal please reach out to the the specific Department that you have concerns with all the motion all that I'm requesting based on the history of this district is we've done better we can definitely organize an event to recognize these students and the timing of it can be decided by by us it's for next school year so when we do come up with a meeting calendar we can decide do we want a quarterly student recognition event student achievement could be in arts can be in music can be in robotics Can Be You Name It Sports we can have specific meetings on the calendar that say starting in January April May like every quarter we are going to recognize student achievement we can have separate meetings for teacher appreciation and teacher retirement it could be teacher staff it could be the custodial staff who actually help prepare us for these events I went to these amazing concerts and Middle School Musical I would love to recognize the staff that made it possible but to put it into an already packed board agenda under superintendence report is not sending the right message to the community we can definitely take time away we can plan for it we can be proactive and not be reactive and then put this on the agenda and I don't understand who will be I'm all for celebrating students I'm all for celebrating the achievements and for teachers and we can definitely do better than inviting them to a board meeting asking them to sit and then take couple of pictures and then post them on social media that's all the interaction we're doing we can't even go go and speak to teachers or parents and say great job or the way you scored a goal was amazing because we have a packed agenda to come back to that's all Mrs Stanley I just want to comment that the way the motion was made I'm not actually sure we can vote upon it because it's technically under the superintendent report what they decide they want to do right like that's we can't say you can't have a student recognition during your superintendent report so I'm not sure that this motion is actually appropriate I get that we could maybe say we want to add additional meetings but I'm not sure we can say that the superintendent can't recognize students during a meeting just just for saying we could table this motion until our when we decide on our new school year get input from the public get input from our athletes get input from the staff and um take another look at it when we establish our meeting dates Mrs Bradford I can reread my motion it had nothing to do with superintendence report that was part of the discussion the motion is I move for that for 2024 2025 school year and thereafter all staff and student recognition events be held only at special meetings dedicated to such events and I had a second Mr dler did you I have to ask I guess we did you approve your meeting schedule for the upcoming school year your board meeting schedule the reor meeting the re so I I take this motion and correct me if I'm wrong is almost an amendment to that motion in that what you're asking for is to add on special meetings specifically to uh add you know student teacher and staff recognition that's kind of if I'm trying to think generally how this would play out it seems like it's you're going to add special meetings which again you even though it's a special meeting if the board's present it's going to be board business you'll still have to have public comment but you're adding special meetings for the specific purpose of having these recognition events which certainly the board can do that's certainly uh the world of the sport but I think I want to I do agree obviously I think if it's in the superintend I don't maybe you do want to limit what can your superintendent report can say you can do that but I assume if your superintendent wants to recognize a student here and there that's fine I'm just saying this motion did not have anything about a superintendent's report my motion did not mention the superintendent yeah so it was very specific for next calendar year when we start planning right now we plan our events I'm saying I move that for 2024 2025 school year and thereafter all staff and student recognition events be held only at special meetings dedicated to such events that's why that's why I'm thinking the way I'm visioning it correct me I'm wrong is that you would be amending your board meeting calendar to add special meetings or to change certain meetings to special meetings where they would be just for those student event it's not for this year Mr dler it's for next year 202 yeah next school year yes yeah but am I understanding that correctly I think that's what the motion would hit on right Miss Bradford uh Mr Nixon I think I would just like to suggest before we vote on this why don't we collect some feedback from the students and their families and the people that run these programs and find out what's more valuable and more meaningful to them as opposed to trying to make a decision you know when we first bring up new business together and making a decision tonight also Mrs Stanley yes so also the the problem is is the motion says that we only do it during these meetings but again that's trying to put a a cap around the superintendence report and I don't think that right is what we want to do because the superintendent should be able to do right what they want with their superintendent report in order to right let us know what's going on in the district so I think again it would be to amend the schedule right the motion should be to amend the schedule to add special board meetings for these things but not to say we can only have these at these meetings again special board meetings are very difficult for this board to determine Mrs Jolly so I think Mr dler brought up a point um that you know because we approved the calendar the beginning of the year I guess the new board coming in in January for the second half of the school year would need to approve its own so I don't even know if we can do it for January 1st you know um and Beyond so given the history of this board policies were amended new policies were created between October and December which impacted the incoming board I am not making I'm not asking for an unreasonable request this is coming based on parent feedback I can give specific examples I wished that some of the parents who reached out to me had reached out to the building principles with their concerns and I have seen myself having special recognition events for teachers and I think when Mrs Bradford retired there was a special event that was held and last year when we recognized the retiring teachers it was last when you were when you retired and the recognition happened Mrs Bradford it was at the library with a ton of snacks and coffee and it was time to mingle whereas last time there was a table set up here there was an exec session and last year people did write to the board about this all I'm saying is we have every ability to make these events special and celebrate the staff be it teachers custodial staff support staff that actually make this District what it is and the students for their achievements be it in arts music or Sports instead of having them as ad hoc events we can plan and be do a better job and this would be a decision of a new board at the reorg meeting when we set our meeting dates I think it's presumptive of us to do it now Mrs Conor can I suggest that we table it for today but work with the administration work with Mr Nixon to figure out what does that look like I think we we've already had our our um winter celebration right from a sports standpoint um I'm not sure what more is coming up but could we work with you to figure out what does that look like for you know the second half of the Year okay can we do that see I'm asking we we do need multiple special meetings for superintendent search and I'm just saying between now and he we I'm definitely willing to work with anybody I'm just saying I do not want them added on a regular meeting agenda which has been happening till date right so can we can we table this for the moment but take the action to work with Mr Nixon to plan ahead so you are amending the motion yeah to no I think what she's doing is um what she wants I think is a motion to table yes motion to table till we actually have a conversation with Mr Nixon and the administration and come back is your motion to table to a future meeting or to later in this meeting to a future meeting okay that takes a two-thirds vote okay you V do we need a second on that table it's a motion to table and since it's false second motion that moot the motion to table goes first I'll second the motion to table any other discussion roll call vote so the motion is to table Miss Conor yes Mr hman yes Mr Kiri no Dr forer No Miss Charley yes Miss Stanley Miss Bradford yes motion passes the motion is tabled that ends our new business comments from the public on any topic during this portion of the meeting District residents and staff are invited to address the board of educ education on any topic the board requests that individuals State their name and town of residence or School of attendance for the record in specific action items they are commenting on and ask that all remarks be directed to the board president or designate not to individual members or staff the board ask that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of others other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding Personnel matters are discouraged and cannot be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by the members of the public if a matter concerns concerning a District staff member is of Interest or a concern to a resident that matter should be referred to the responsible building principal superintendent of schools or the Board of Education either by telephone letter or email all the board may not respond to items raised during the public forum all public comments will be considered please note that if any member of the public becomes disruptive during the meeting the board president May terminate the participants statements continued disruptions may result in removal from the meeting or adjournment of the meeting each speaker's statement will be limited to three minutes in duration is there anyone coming forward uh Jean Kingsley nine dear paath Berkeley Heights um I've put four children through the school district my oldest is third 30 my youngest is a high school senior so I have been through three superintendents at least multiple superintendent searches multiple principal searches um and I just want to remind the board that your job is policy setting as elected officials it is your job to govern and that means making sure that there is an adequate budget so that the administration can do their job and it's picking the key administrators so that they can then govern do their job and it's the rest of those people's jobs to dictate the day-to-day curriculum and managing of the staff and all of that and sitting here for almost three and a half hours tonight it's disheartening that there was no conversation from this board about bettering the education of these kids improving student performance or making it better for our teachers or what resources do they need those are the questions that you should all be talking about at this table finger pointing each other and talking about social media it's embarrassing and we are now going down a public search for a superintendent and if they're watching these meetings they're not hearing any conversation about how to improve the district how to support these teachers and how to turn our kids into rock stars so I think you all really need to go home and think about why did you run because other people ran against you you won you're taking up a seat the number one job you have is to hire a superintendent I was on I was on the council for 12 years we had to do some critical things I had to give up my time to be prepared to do the job the conversation shouldn't be about I can't make that meeting or I didn't have enough time as a board member it is your job to sit at this deis and be prepared and show up and do the work so I would just ask that you all really think about why he's sitting here because anybody watching this is not going to even want to take an interview and that's embarrassing I've been fortunate enough to put my kids through an incredible District you guys need to love this school you need to love these kids and you need to respect respect all the taxpayers to put you in the seat it is a gift and you should relish it and treat it with a little more concern for everybody else and not just yourselves on another note you talked about not having a policy on um zoom on the council we allowed exec session to be uh in person and with members on Zoom seems like there's going to be some difficult scheduling this summer I would highly encourage you to come up with the policy and do that um I'm sure you can talk to um the council side and the administrator how we did it but we were able to modify so that um all of the members could be there if necessary so that the business could keep going on as usual thanks thank you uh good evening Debbie Terrero 170 Len Lan first off uh I want to thank you all for uh being accommodating and setting up all those meetings for your stakeholders um for hiring the superintendent so thank you for doing that um I'd like to ask a further clarification on six I hibs that were dismissed by the board of education on May 7th I'm assuming that these HIV cases have already been investigated by the individual School anti-bullying Specialists and were deemed as founded um before they were presented to you on May 7th if this is the case I have real concerns about the messaging that it's sending to our children and our community um it takes a lot of Courage for the victims and their families to speak up when their rights have been violated and um by the board of education at uh rejecting a determination made by the anti-bullying speci Specialists um the board of education has set Berkeley IES up for a potential issue with the Department of Education and could tarnish the community's reputation so I have two questions for you my understanding is the hibs that have been founded um have to be reported to the state of New Jersey um were the six hibs that were rejected reported to the state of New Jersey um or were they slept under swept under the rug because they should have been reported to the state regardless of the board of education's decision and my second question is if any of the hibs involved specific biased characterizations have these been reported to the local authorities as this is how the law works thank you aen pharoh 258 Diamond Hill Road Berkeley Heights I also took issue last week with the six hibs that were rejected based on the boe's rejection of the 6 hibs presented in the Acting Superintendent report on May 7th I'm inclined to believe just based on my 20 years of experience here in Berkeley Heights that some of those hivs may have been related to race or sexual orientation with that being said it is disheartening to know that those six were rejected because of the message that it sends the fact that anyone's board would reject an HIV with any of those bias issues would be an issue in and of itself because those are clear HIV violations My Hope Is that that didn't happen but my experience in this town is that it probably was you sat and re Ed something that was already substantiated by the building principal the superintendent and the team of investigators which means that the only recourse you leave the victims is to ask that the state get involved I think Common Sense prevails when I say that will get Messy as a board member you are not an HIV investigator your purpose is to ensure that the proper steps were followed correctly in an HIV investigation you went against the approval of your now Acting Superintendent along with any of your building principles when you rejected it because those things have to escalate by doing this you leave parents no recourse but to appeal to the commissioner of Education the drawback from that kind of Investigation is more damaging than the B OE just accepting the HIV the reason that you have this anti-bullying law is to try and remediate a child's Behavior towards other people when you don't do that you end up with children that become adults who don't take accountability for any harm they inflict on someone else how much further damage are you causing the victims and how much more are you enabling perpetrators an Hib should be used as a teachable moment not sweeping something under the rug and acting like nothing ever occurred thank you Mrs pharoh thank you Toya FY 440 Timber Drive um I just want to say that I sat in that audience and I was embarrassed to see what happened here um the level of disrespect to our search um firm here um I'm ashamed as a taxpayer as a parent as a stakeholder I am ashamed that the board of education is behaving this way I did want to just kind of give a few reminders because people need to understand what Robert's Rules actually means um Mrs Bradford Prides over this meeting if she doesn't recognize you oh please don't talk about individual board members I'm not okay if she doesn't recognize you it cannot you can't just speak out a turn the other thing is the vice president is there for the absence of the president not using n just using general rules or roles um so I think it's really important to understand that the president Prides over the meeting their role is to move the meeting along efficiently and you have to be recognized you have to be recognized to make a motion you have to be recognized to speak so that's just a little bit on Robert's rules that everyone has to remember because it really helps meetings go by really efficiently and make sure that there is process the other thing that I just wanted to make sure it's on public record because that's what I like to do um is there's a c group called The Berkeley Heights Community Watchdog group um on their social media they outlined that courtesy busing was a campaign promise made um and a win um and two members um in October of 2023 where but courtesy busing was actually discussed indicated that they would eliminate courtesy busing um which now courtesy busing no longer exists in Berkeley Heights um this group was started and actually endorsed some of the Board of Education members and frequently publishes extremely negative articles about administrators as well as the district overall um one thing of concern for me as a stakeholder is that there has been some promotion of this group on social media they have since changed their name to another name coincidentally this probably happened over the last five days um and so just as a reminder I think for the Board of Ed is that you are beholden to all stakeholders that includes taxpayers parents and most importantly you are in those seats for the children and the kids in this District and you are also Guided by the New Jersey school ACT code of ethics for Board of Ed members and we all need to remember that we should not be endorsing anything there should be no affiliations with any groups at all and it is concerning to me that there was a discussion in October of 2023 about courtesy busing and now it is eliminated thank you thank you Mrs spy okay I'll try and make this quick it's late um Louisa grman 1994 Princeton Avenue Berkeley Heights um switch gears a little bit um I work with children uh in our district uh Mountainside Berkeley Heights um I work with children in the districts around us um I work with students in New York in North Carolina you name it um so um from my perspective I'm just wondering if um we've just finished a whole a cycle of of students getting into colleges applying and being accepted and and whatnot and um I'm just curious what can is there any way that maybe Mr Nixon or our super whoever our next superintendent is hopefully before then so it would be Mr Nixon could could give us some sort of guidance presentation um because I am seeing certain things from my perspective that um while uh happening in our guidance Department while might have been fine five years ago or 10 years ago are really not fine today um very concerning and and and while if anyone if you are not have you not kept up with the way of the way things have happened in terms of of applying to colleges getting into colleges the competitiveness of college admissions it is just gone through the roof it's skyrocketed and um there are uh while and and so it is very different today than it was even two years ago or three years ago and I just would like to see a presentation from our guidance to show how they have evolved along with the evolving nature of you know of of College admissions because I am not seeing it in many regards with my students specifically here in our district um I'm seeing it a little bit more in other districts I work with but I really think we have a great District every and I work with students just for the record who are incredibly gifted and I work with special ed students so I work with the Spectrum I don't just work with the kids with the you know lots of APs incredible gpas and and and you know SATs and acts through the roof I do work with some of them but I also work with every student of all different skills so um we just I just think that um um I'm not I just want to make sure our guidance Department because I'm not seeing it clearly that we have evolved along with um with the with the the selectivity process with the change in how admissions is going on thank you thank you Mrs gon Debbie Varner and 20 wle AV she trying to put and sitting too long my pants are all rled um I'm going to make the same suggestion that I made to uh the Berkeley Heights Town Council uh probably we're going back May maybe three or 4 years um you limit the amount of time that residents can get up here and talk and how many questions they can ask in order to move the meetings on a little quicker you might want to implement a policy doing the same to board members um I will say that for the most part um Miss Jolly Miss Hyman name oh I can't say names I'm so sorry for the most part the majority of everybody here was very respectful and asked pointed questions and it and it moved along but there's others that I think are just struggling a little bit with getting their points across and maybe with uh limiting how much time they have they'll they'll be able to get a little bit better at it okay thanks thank you Miss Farrow you've been up already is there anyone else that would like to go ahead of you yeah okay okay so miss Farrow you've already had your opportunity someone who hasn't been up no no Miss far you've had your opportunity so we need someone new hi Janice mlan uh 48 clein Place South brookley Heights um do you have the numbers for the subscription numbers for the courtesy busing yet that would be my question thank you thank you any other public comments okay uh going back Mrs Kingsley thank you for your comments on the executive session Zoom we are just piloting our Zoom at our May 30th meeting so we will have to adjust our policy also and looking at that um in terms of HIV Mr Nixon can you answer anything on that and along with uh Miss faroh's questions also I mean I certainly could I would I would ask Mr dler first though what's what's appropriate for me to answer the two questions that were asked is were those hivs reported to the state and um if they were in fact biased Acts were they reported to the Berkeley Heights Police Department I would say this we comply with whatever the state requires that we comply with that's what I was going to indicate okay so we can't talk about obviously the specifics as it relates to individual hibs I think if you want to talk about the information that is provided to the state so there's under the law right there's a biannual report to the board and to the state which encapsulates a large amount information I know if you want to comment that or secretary if I can I think either is fine either okay yeah do I'll turn I'll let you if you want to talk about that more generally speaking and then obviously I I'll just add one more thing we have a memorandum agreement with the police I think that's what was being referenced that talks about bias related reports the police that's been recently updated I think as Mr Nixon mentioned I think the board's policy is obviously it is complied with its requirements not all hibs obviously fall under that category but some May and then obviously that's up to the district then to file the mo yeah just to build upon that there is a process and procedure for which these things are reported and and yes we are compliant with all the things that we're required to do um in answering um Miss vy's questions yes we are working with um ngba on our social media to get more training on that to avoid negative posts Mrs Gman thank you we will refer your suggestion for more um a guidance presentation update for College admission thank you and Mrs varnerin I am going to work more quick uh diligent ly on the time management thank you and for Mrs mlan subscription busing I mean the the process is still ongoing uh with with that but numbers are coming in that we are monitoring and sharing with the board and um probably have more information that we can share on that once the process is complete I believe the deadline is this Thursday 23rd so so it's it's they're still coming in I think if I may ask Mrs faroh you want to know what the current numbers are as of today yes we have can can they get an update it's it's parents are so no no I I understand it but I mean I haven't been at my computer looking at those numbers all day so I don't know exactly what they are if you want like I can speak as a resident and not as a board member I think her concern was as an impacted parent who whose kids used to get courtesy busing we have now eliminated it she I think everybody in the community wants to know what the exact number of subscription busing signups are and we do have the data at this data point and I don't think it's a state secret we could no it's it's not a big Z I'm saying I I don't have exact numbers I believe the last I saw for um subscription signups was at 188 2011 well you've probably seen it more recently than me than I morning this morning I it's on the Google Sheets link and I just refreshed it I'm just saying I haven't reviewed I don't review that sheet can I get them out like based on what I had as of this afternoon um I don't think that's appropriate Mrs Airi as a board member to respond I mean I I can't speak I mean it's an ongoing process is there value or concern with sharing details from an ongoing process so if there's I I don't know if there's right so parents are signing up like they have dropped checks and parents are sign if it's subscription busing numbers parents have taken a Google survey the data is with the district and data is being monitored it gets updated on a Google feet yeah so I'm just asking the administration if they can just we're not disclosing anybody's personal identifiers just numbers on how many people have signed up and by which school and it's up to you yeah I think it's up to obviously if you have the information off hand you can SE just be careful because some of these are not single writers right so again right they might be one from GL one from CMS and we also are getting very close to some of our numbers in CMS right so we might have to turn down people so that these numbers are going to change right so just giving them out blankly is why we wouldn't be doing that but I think giving an update at the next meeting after he after the numbers are supposed to be in by I think what the 24th we said so right at the 30th right he can have time to talk to Mrs shean and make sure that we actually give accurate information I think that's different than just looking at a spreadsheet and reading a bunch of numbers that doesn't give accurate information yeah and and I think another concern is simply sharing what the numbers are um is different each route is going to have different seats available so I might give somebody a number tonight and I might say oh we heard 350 they said 188 they said 2011 as of this morning I should be good it might not mean that that there's a seat available so um I mean I would rather give a better answer than than maybe share some information that might make people think that you know the current seating is different than it is but at the same time um I don't know Mr I'm concerned about the message that that Mr you can defin I think the message that the community this is a big change that has impacted the district and all we are asking is every parent is aware of that caveat that if there is more than expected student signing up for subscription on a specific route then the district is going to make some sort of a decision that is not all they are asking for and this is not the information that you're giving right now is not inaccurate to answer some of the statements this is coming from a parent subscribing and saying I would like a seat and that's all that the parent asked for if you you can save it with a K the art and say it you know this doesn't guarantee a seat on this route we are keeping the existing routes and these are the numbers it's up to you remember Mrs akiri that you have access to that information as a board member okay if there's no other uh discussion uh we're going to adjourn to Executive session thank the public for being here no action will be taken following the executive session whereas the Berkeley Height's Board of Education seeks to adjourn to Executive session in full compliance with the open public meeting Act njsa 10 colon 4-6 and whereas the open public meeting act provides that a public body May exclude the public from that portion of the meeting at which it discusses matters related to those identified below matters rendered confidential by federal law state law or Court rule individual privacy collective bargaining agreements purchase or lease of real property if public interest could be adversely affected investment of public funds if public interest could be adversely affected tactics or techniques utilized in protecting Public Safety and property pending or anticipated litigation attorney client privilege Personnel employment matters affecting specific uh perspective or current employees be it resolved that the Berkeley Heights Board of Education adjourns to Executive session to discuss matters related to attorney client privilege and be it further resolved that the minutes of the discussion of any of these items will be disclosed cl to the public when matters have been determined and confidentiality is no longer applicable do we have a motion to enter into executive session second vote I okay we are going to move to Executive session motion so moved second