##VIDEO ID:EUzrrUvvMFo## e the vegucation meeting tonight um Mr secretary could we have a roll call please here Orel here mrman here jly here M Conor here family Mr secretary do we have a quorum good adequate notice of this meeting of the Berkeley Heights Board of Education was given as required by the open public meetings act as follows on January 4th to 2024 notice of the Board of Education meeting scheduled was sent to the Star Ledger and The Courier News and was also 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 um Madam vice president would you read whereas the P the B the Berkeley Heights Board of Education seeks to adjourn to Executive session in full compliance with the open public meetings Act njsa 10 4-6 and whereas the open public meetings 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 prospective or current employees be resolved that the Berkeley Heights Board of Education adjourns to Executive session to discuss matters related related to students Personnel legal matters and contract negotiations and be it further resolved that the minutes of the discussion of any of these items will be disclosed to the public when matters have been determined and confidentiality is no longer applicable motion to enter into executive session all in favor I I uh the time is uh 6:34 we'll go to Executive session sounds good e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e session so moved thank you Mrs Conor is that Mrs uh hle thank you uh vote I we are returning to public session at 8:10 our apologies to our audience who have some things that we needed to discuss okay please rise for FL United States ofer stands indivisible andice for all thank you report of our student Representatives hi everyone the winter sports season has now begun in full swing hockey swim baseball and fencing have both begun scrimmages and meets the varsity hockey team had their first game on December 6th against Livingston and their second against Bridgewater Rison tying 2-2 the varsity girls basketball team had their first scrimmage on December 11th against Kent Place and they have another one tomorrow against South Playfield so good luck to them the varsity swim team had their first meet tonight against Summit in a tough tough competition it was one of the closest meets we've had with them so far the girls the girls lost 8882 and the guys lost 9080 fencing also had their first scrimmage against chadam yesterday night and unfortunately lost but they have a very bright season ahead of them the real competition starts at the meets anyway make sure to get out there and support all the teams early season Spirits need to be high thank you thank you and Pippa you were on the swim team comp it earlier today thank you for being here good evening although winter break is a week away jail students are busy at work with academics clubs and service activities the National Art Honor Society and Art Club have been collecting stuffed animals for cas's teddy bear project Casa is an organization that supports children who have been neglected and are now under Port supervision this project ensures that these children will get a new gift this holiday season on Friday December 6th jail graduate and Miss New Jersey us USA javil kandula visited the high school to discuss her journalism and Aviation career members of the Highlander newspaper club and the women and stem Club attended this event over the past few weeks the environmental Club has been accepting donations of older clothing and jewelry in order to create a thrift jop that combats the negative impacts of fast fashion tomorrow December 13th there will be a schoolwide winter Culture Festival in the blue gym during lunch many clubs will be participating in order to highlight holiday Traditions from cultures around the world also tomorrow the class of 2025 and the Yearbook Club are sponsoring a cookie walk in the jail cafeteria from 7: to 10: p.m. this event is open to the public so get here early before the cookies run out on January 9th 2025 the governor Livingston band will hold its concert in the auditorium at 7 pm. thank you thank you very much report from the Acting Superintendent good evening everybody uh tonight's report is is fun we get to celebrate some of the great things that are happening in our district um and the first one of our recognitions this evening is we would like to recognize our governor Livingston yearbook staff the staff of the Claymore uh tonight we're going to be honoring uh the yearbook staff for winning the all new jersey Diamond award uh 2024 Claymore yearbook uh this award is given by the Garden State Scholastic press Association uh this award is the highest honor that a yearbook can receive uh this award was given at the Garden State Scholastic press Association for press day on October 28th and this marks the ninth consecutive year that the Claymore has received an award Mr poric is in her 10th year as the yearbook adviser here at GL which means I'm lucky enough to say that she's been the adviser each of my years as principal at GL uh we've always been fortunate to have an have excellent advisers uh for this challenging and pressure filled position uh since taking over this role missor has done incredible things advancing our yearbook we're truly lucky to have her as the adviser and to share more about our yearbook and the recent Awards please welcome Mr pork the students on the yearbook staff can attest that no one works harder than a yearbook staff that is up against a final deadline in April the glhs journalism publication the Claymore yearbook and the Highlander newspaper are members of both the Garden State Scholastic press Association as Mr Nixon said and the Columbia Scholastic press Association students in these Publications have opportunities to attend workshops and conferences at Ruckers University Columbia University and at the journalism Education Association a national Scholastic press Association conference in Boston last year since 2016 the Claymore yearbook has received the following awards from the Garden State Scholastic press Association one third place bronze one first place gold uh um for all New Jersey Platinum one and sorry four all New Jersey platinum and three all New Jersey Diamond three of which they got in the two of which they got in the last three years sorry um the top award that is the top award uh we won it last for the 2024 yearbook last year and that's the staff that is here tonight books are evaluated on design thematic Concepts photography journalistic writing and coverage of the events of the Year 17 schools in New Jersey submitted yearbooks only one other school was awarded the top honor and that was Hillsboro High School uh we are also both Hillsboro High School and Governor Livingston are also customers of Varsity yearbooks um and so um and we have the same rep uh Cara sterer and she's fantastic for our staff um the 2024 contest was the first time the association recognized staff members for their individual work that contributed to the publication tonight we present certificates to those students as well as the 2023 2024 staff as a whole those certificates will be presented to Ryan Torres the editor and chief so as I call your name uh for the uh awards that um you were individ visually recognized for um you're you will come up um excellence in infographics to Ava Kik for her story just save me a slice for excellence and infographics to that's just music to my ears for her coverage of the 2023 Spotify rap Pippa rycker excellence in profile writing for her story we are first Maddie Murphy who graduated last year excellence in student life coverage to the staff of the Claymore for their coverage of last summer for excellence in sidebar mods which are the smaller stories for those of you do not know mods in yearbook um are that goes to the entire Claymore staff excellence in clubs and organization coverage to the whole Claymore staff the rest of them will come up here in a second they're still sitting out in the crowd uh excellence in yearbook theme for last year's theme and that's just who we are to the entire Claymore staff excellence in sports coverage to two of our graduates for their coverage of softball last year Maddie Murphy and Gian basil uh excellence in profile writing for their story we are involved Ava Kik and kashika Sinha excellence in academic coverage to Now isn't that Innovative by graduate Gianna basil and Khloe Silverman and that concludes all of the uh individual Awards but I would like to invite up the rest of the staff um for them to come up and also be recognized because without every one of them the job of creating the yearbook last year would not have happened it's Aaron Jolly Colleen Shen Kaylee Carlos Banna goo Leah marcino that's Ryan Torres Ava kek Pippa rycker kashika Sinha there's Aaron Jolly khen she and Brianna g at the end right thank you very much Mr pork and thank you and congratulations to our yearbook staff uh always always very proud of and always very impressed by your work thank you our next recognition um is that we would like to recognize um what was done in recognition of our 2024 girls varsity volleyball team um as many of us know they had an amazing season this year uh the Highlander girls volleyball team won the Central Jersey group 2 state championship for the third year in a row uh they made it all the way to both the Union County finals and the group two State finals this season uh they truly had an amazing year finishing 24 and six uh many of our players have and will continue to receive conference County and state level recognition for their amazing play uh in particular I'd like to highlight coach Steve Hess who was named the Union County Coach of the Year this year uh he's done an incredible job with this program and should be commended for his great work um so this so this year we changed up our uh procedure for how we recognize some of our teams a little bit um in order to kind of um be able to go to the students as opposed to bringing the students to us uh board members Natasha jolly and Pamela Stanley attended the fall athletic awards ceremony on December 3rd and presented the team with the proclamation on behalf of the board um I would like to read that Proclamation for everybody publicly uh so that they can hear about our team whereas the varsity girls volleyball team of Governor Livingston High School located in Berkeley Heights New Jersey consists of players Sarah Alves Brianna G quero Katherine Huggins Sierra isberian Maya Joseph Nia Joseph Abby Kim Anna karuk Gia naek Kate pipper Lucia pillo Julia ronaldi avaa Santi Liv Steins and whereas the team is coached by head coach Steve hes assistant assistant coach Emily Montgomery volunteer assistant coaches Michael Brooks and Eric Anderson and whereas the varsity girls volleyball team of Governor Livingston high school earned the title of 2024 njsiaa State sectional Central group two Champion by defeating Wall Township High School by the score of 2513 2517 on November 12th 2024 at Governor Livingston high school whereas the team defeated their sectional opponents without losing a set and route to the championship whereas the Highlanders completed the 2024 season with a record of 24 wins six losses and whereas the 2024 in 2024 the volleyball team won its third straight sectional championship and the team saw each of its members contribute individually to the team during its Championship run and whereas the Berkeley Heights and Mountainside communities are very proud of the accomplishments of this team and its coaches and now therefore be it resolved that the Berkeley Heights Board of Education members applaud the 2024 girls volleyball team and congratulate the student athletes and coaching staff on their outstanding Championship season and be it resolved that a signed and sealed copy of this resolution be framed and kept on display at Governor Livingston high school signed and sealed the third day of December of 2024 congratulations Sor girls Vol one of the things we wanted to be able to share with everybody as well uh Mr Hendrick our new athletic director uh shared with us um a short video but it's really cool to see a video taken kind of highlighting the state sectional uh championship match that we hosted here at Governor Livingston against wall uh and here it is enjoy [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I let my life [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] champion but thank you to Mr Hendrick for sharing that and congratulations to our volleyball team yes one comment from the board that was a great video quick question how that was a drone that got us that footage that was beautiful it cool right thank you is is that our drone or it's a good question I don't know we'll have to ask Mr I think he's he's using like a third party that that does these sorts of sizzles yeah I don't know exactly who yeah I think that's who did it I just wanted to say that the the fallest a letic um night was really wonderful and we have so many amazing teams and so many great students I know this team right the volleyball team uh Nia Joseph this was her first year playing even though she was a senior and she got you know a ton of blocks that she got awarded in Union counties most you know so this team really was fun to watch and they worked so well together and Coach hes does a really really great job with them um and can we say that they have the blue gym next next year well we we definitely have the blue gym will be baskets get fixed but we anticipate that we have enough time to get that done because we've been trying for like three years so I want to tell them they have it in the fall do they have it in the fall the lines are in place the the the connections are in the floor so all right we're we're almost there we have half a year to get there perfect so we're working on those baskets now you should be ready for the all that's the plan okay great um Mrs Conor would you would you join me up here please so the next part of our recognition this evening is that we're going to be recognizing two of our board members um who tonight happens to be their last board meeting with us um so joining me is m Mrs kanana who will um present to Mrs Kelly huffnagle Mrs huffnagel has been on the board with us for seven months so a short duration but wow we covered a lot of ground and and we we accomplished and you did a lot of great work uh through a really important time of transition with the Board of Education uh we appreciate that and in particular uh all the hard work you put into assisting the board with hiring the new superintendent of schools um so thank you for all your great work if you would please come up uh and join us at the podium uh and Mrs will be presenting you with a proclamation on behalf of the board of education do get your free time back so I'm going to read the resolution now uh whereas Kelly huffnagle is a resident of Berkeley Heights New Jersey and whereas Miss huffnagle has served as a member of the Berkeley Heights Board of Education from junee 10th 2024 through December 1st 2024 and whereas Miss H nigle has been a member of the Berkeley Heights Board of Education dedicating herself to providing for the educational needs of the students in the Berkeley Heights Public Schools and now therefore be it resolved that the Berkeley Heights Board of Education hereby recognizes Kelly ha Nagel for her contributions to the students of the Berkeley Heights Public Schools and thanks her for the service to the communities of mountain side and Berkeley Heights and be it further resolved that the Berkeley Heights Board of Education wishes Miss hopnel continued success and happiness in all of her future endeavors signed and sealed this the 12th day of December of the Year 2024 congratulations thank you I just want to say thank you really to the other board members for kind of onboarding me quickly for such the short process I did some math the other day I think it was like 18 meetings in six months um and over 70 hours so it's sort of a part-time job and uh I'm looking forward to getting back to crocheting but I've learned a lot and thank you everybody stanle Jo for our next joining me for our next resolution will be Mrs Pamela Stanley who will be Pres presenting the resolution to Mr Heyman Jordan would you would join us up here we appreciate it Jordan's been with us on the board since 2021 as the Mountainside representative and has always been extremely supportive and involved I'm actually impressed and amazed knowing how much in time and effort goes into being a board member uh that he's done it for two different boards over the course of three years uh truly something that we think is incredible and uh to be commended so uh This Time Mrs Stanley would you please uh present Mr so I'm just going to say a few words on Jordan's behalf um I've had the privilege of working with him for the last three years and I I have to say first to the berklyn height resident you are so lucky to have had him these three years um I don't think people realize that he's been on two boards right he's on the mountain side board and the Berkeley Heights Board for the last three years that's double the meetings um and it's a lot of work and a lot of time just like Kelly said um we really needed him this year when we were hiring a new superintendent um he was the only one that had done it before uh for Mountainside so his his his leadership his knowledge um it's just so valuable to this board and I personally want to thank him for helping me through um when I was a new board member and giving me advice and um always putting the students first I I if you ever get to know Jordan he cares so much about the students not just Mountainside students but Berkeley Heights he has stood up for the Berkeley height students because it was the right thing to do even though he didn't have to right he's here at the Mountainside representative but he's always stood up for every student and I am just so thankful for the time and I appreciate all the times when I wanted to cry and he made me laugh instead and uh I just I truly really appreciate it and you are going to be missed um just so everybody knows Jordan did get reelected to the Mountainside Board of Ed um every he yes he walk he did walk onto that board but but it's because he does a great job and he cares about the kids and so he will continue with Mountainside but every year Mountainside picks a board member it had been Jordan for the last three years next year they are going the last four years correct um and so next year there will be a different Mountainside board member but he will continue on mountainsides board um but yes I I truly am so grateful this board is so grateful and the Berkeley Heist resident should really be grateful for all the time that he's given and I want to thank Jordan's family because I know right how hard it is on our families and when you double that right when you double that and have to take multiple nights away from your family but it's all because of the kids and he's always made sure that the kids were first so I'm going to read the resolution whereas Jordan Heyman is a resident of Mountainside New Jersey and whereas Mr Heyman has served as a member of the Mountainside Board of Education since 2019 and whereas Mr Heyman is a chair of the Mountainside strategic planning committee a member of the Personnel negotiations committee and has served as the Mountainside representative to the Berkeley Heights Board of Education with distinction from January 2021 through December 2024 and whereas Mr Heyman has been a member of the berkly Heights Board of Education dedicating himself to providing for the educational needs of the students in the Berkeley Heights Public Schools and whereas Mr Heyman is a valued contributor to the Berkeley Heights Board of Education and has held the role of chair for the following committees Athletics co-curricular strategic planning and technology and Communications and now therefore be it resolved that the Berkeley Heights Board of Education hereby recognizes Jordan Heyman for his commitment to the students of the Berkeley Heights Public Schools and Mountainside public schools and wherewith expresses its sincere gratitude for the invaluable contributions he has made to both communities and be it for the resolve that the Berkeley Heights Board of Education wishes Mr Heyman continued success and good wishes sign and seal this the 12th day of December of the year of 2024 congratulations Jordan enjoy your free time the little that you're getting back I got a couple of quick comments I I'll make uh although disappointed not to get a Sizzle reel like the volleyball team I I think be it'd be a long Jeremy we could talk about that maybe as a you know Parting Gift uh well I wanted to well thank you Pam it was it was really nice uh and right back at you uh it's been uh the three years with you I've learned a lot and I really wanted to thank um all all of the board members here and certainly in Mountainside and you guys know this this is a a thankless role uh we say that a lot I feel like that's the most said word when we when we reflect on our time uh and you all deserve a lot of credit for your your dedication and the time that you put in um feel bad that our student Representatives left I was going to thank them too uh and those who have sat in their seats before just for their maturity and and the commitment to to us and to their classmates and for keeping us in the not I wanted to thank uh Jim Ruban and Vivian poopo in Mountainside that's that's our former and current uh board presidents just for for putting their trust in me to to Pam's point it's it's while it's a joke it is it we laugh about it it's it is an annual appointment it's a liaison roll uh and something that we that we um you know we we we have to choose every year um and they put their trust in me to represent Mountainside and our high schoolers these last four years and I also wanted to thank the administration here Rob and and AJ uh and all of your teams uh Jeremy and and many who are not here tonight uh who just put up with so much behind the scenes and our questions to to keep lights on and buses buses moving and bills paid Etc uh so thank you for for your patience with me and with us um I just wanted to say if you're in this room or you're on Zoom um we we've certainly had our fair share of challenges these last four years seen it up up close and personal the last three uh and some of it for sure is self-inflict icted think we'd be lying we said otherwise uh some of it I think is the byproduct of of turnover turnover of the board uh of of the administration of District levels uh and I'd be lying if I said that I agree with all the decisions that we've made necessarily but that's really life I think is a board of ed member of we listen we learn we ask we debate uh and then we press on um and as I was thinking about this just as we press on into 2025 and and I'm excited to continue to work with with this board as a member of little mountain side down the hill um I just think that there's there's sort of three wishes that I had and and they're for what it's worth civility optimism and trust and I think with civility that it's great to debate and we've had some great debates as a board and it's healthy uh and having an opinion is is as American right as they come but I just would want to guide those who who sit here and and Bill Dylan who will sit in my seat you guys are going to like him a lot uh it's good opinion Strong building buildings and grounds background so you'll like that um but just just to um to have grace and patience and consideration for each other uh and and listen to those impact and just just think about again the the why we're here um and and and the reason and and who we're impacting the decisions that we make and and who that impacts the most um optimism just you know we we we throw a lot of facts and updates here and and over four years there's things that I thought is that is that right is that not right and I think let's just as a board just not be fooled by some of the negativity that can be out there I I still see this as a and I have one student here and intend to send one more and had one who graduated and I still see this as a vibrant thriving High achieving District uh it it probably can always be better all districts can and I actually believe it is getting better so I I would just hope don't let perception and those who tend to speak loudest sometimes distort that reality know let's defend real fact B fact-based success and seek more of it and then last just trust um I think we have tremend I know we have tremendously professional leaders in this district one standing back here uh and we have exceptional teachers one who just left who leads the yearbook and there's just waves of people who who wake up every day to make sure our kids are challenged and safe uh and improving their skills and their minds and they know best they see it every day and I'm really eager to watch this board uh now hopefully follow the lead of its newly hired superintendent and her team and I hope as a board we'll trust that process and direction I just know our District staff wants what what we all want for our children which is inspiration that ignites a lifetime of learning and high achievement so let's support them in making that happen because our kids deserve it so thank you thanks for thanks for everything and and for that flaque okay so once again uh congratulations to Mr Heyman Mrs Huff Nagel thank you for all of your service to our school district and all of your support of all the all the things that we've tried to do uh your time your effort your care is greatly appreciated uh and with that that concludes my superintendent report this evening thank you thank you Mr Nixon we're gon to move on to our um committee and leaon reports at this time I'll start with a Town Council liaison the Berkeley Heights Town Council met on Tuesday December 3rd 2024 the mayor's Wellness committee continues to promote mental health through a variety of activities the Berkeley Heights annual Winter Walk was held on Saturday December 7th the town Christmas tree was lit and many of our students participated in the festivities this Saturday December 14th be on the lookout for the Grinch roaming around town beginning at 9:30 a.m. the Berkeley Heights Police Department will surely apprehend this holiday spoiler listen for the police sirens to announce the Grinch's capture the Veterans Affair committee met and to review the town's activities surrounding Veterans Day in November local veterans and residents read grade level appropriate books to the students at William Woodruff and Mountain Park schools about Veterans Day the event was organized by teacher Andrea masy with support of the principes John Moro and Brenda Marley the PTO area Council leaon met on Wednesday December 4th the PTO area Council was updated by the administration on the district calendar the budget process new courses and the district assessment calendar there was also an update on the new superintendent the PTO leaon met this morning with Dr cadero and Mr Phillips provided updates on the curriculum at the elementary middle school and high school levels Mr Phillips also shared the presentation on the njsla scores with the committee uh the Union County Educational Services Commission met on Wednesday to September 4th the educational services council is in the process of expansion by purchasing the building next door on their Cardinal Drive campus in Westfield uh our board goals have been updated and it will be shared in January uh we now have a job of uh creating new board goals there are some suggestions from Dr felt which we will pass on to the board members um thank you other committee reports Dr forger negotiations and curriculum nothing at this time okay Mrs akiri no I just have a quick question on the board goals um you said they have been updated who reviewed them and when did we update them we are going to review them in January they will be sent out after this meeting and they were uh discussed with Dr phry now you said they were already updated so you updated the board goals and the the current goals that we had yes were updated yes by whom uh I will read them to you no no no I my question is not what the updated goals are who was involved in updating the board goals I was in I was involved in updating the board goals with the administration you did it on your own not new goals not not new goals oh okay the way you read the report it meant it said you the board goals were updated so no I'm sorry okay no thank you um all right uh let's see moving on Mrs Stanley I'm sorry oh okay I was going the okay is Stanley policy and Personnel in bhf so we did not have a Personnel committee meeting um between these two we had a policy meeting because we have uh three first reads for today we have policy 6421 policy 0155 and policy 0132 uh the purchase is budgeted um we we discussed it to try to um make sure that the wording was um thorough and not repetitive um however it was felt that the the it had been voted on the previous meeting um so it would go on as a first read as is um however for uh policy 0155 board committees um we did um add in addition to the language at the last Boe meeting we updated the ladies on positions to what we currently have um and we did have a discussion on how we want to move forward with committees in the future so I think next year the board in January will kind of have to discuss on whether or not we want to keep the same um committees or not because right now we have nine and we've always been told that nine is too many um but you know how we want to restructure that I think Dr phry might have some ideas on that as well um so we did have a discussion on that so you're aware um and then we had policy 0132 um again the admin committee uh asked to change the language to give the board notice of the policies but but not to require a board vote on regulations that um need to be put in place um we believe this will delay the important regulations um that need to be put in place by law um and you know it takes time to get them to the committee through the the board process and two readings um so we will address that tonight when they come up and then we did talk about policy 9270 which is homeschooling and equivalent education outside of the schools um we are looking to add language um that would allow um homeschooled students to take AP exams um we will um we did add some language to this but we will look at this again in January with Dr phry um we also looked at policy 2431 athletic competition for the same reasons and we looked at policy 9150 which is School V visitors we looked at this to add language to address the new technology will that we'll be putting in our school buildings that require ID scanning um we want this language in policy to protect the staff and their roles but we will not give specifics as to what you need to present because that might change over time um but it will be posted as we discussed with um Mr Nixon at all buildings to let you know what kind of forms of identification you should be bringing into the school buildings um we know that visitors will need time to get used to this new system and that is understandable and our staff is willing to work with all um and then yeah that's it for policy and then I did not attend the bhef meeting because I was at the athletic uh the fall athletic awards but I do want to say that you should be looking for the student grants I know those will be coming up very soon um and as you can see they can make a big difference because we do have a whole uh El um elective class class coming to CMS because of one of those student um grants so if you if you have any ideas uh start thinking about them and you should be looking for email soon Mr Heyman oh I'm sorry Mrs con forgive me no problem um I have updates from two finance and Facilities committee meetings the first one was on November 20th um there were a number of architect up updates in that meeting uh we talked about the Press Box the architect fir has provided three budget estimates for three different scenarios for that project um a standard replacement on a new structure um containers with a storage base as an option and uh the containers with the storage base had multiple other um vendors that that had given us um that had given us uh a pricing estimate for both the options with the containers there will be some site work and electrical work required that will require a public process so far the um the quotes that have been received have been a part of co-ops uh so there's some more work and more decision making to be done on what is a path forward for the Press Box uh the district has access to a $60,000 grant that can be applied towards the project once we know what we are doing uh there was a convers on locker room space uh again the uh architect team has been working with the vendor to provide a budget estimate for two locker room trailer options uh we are waiting to hear back on on what those uh estimates are uh there were three options that were discussed as a part of the locker room space uh we talked about field lighting uh again uh some options on the field lighting this is for the field at GL uh a vendor has provided layout and the material cost and the architect engineer is evaluating the design and then they will determine the size and the cost of the required electrical service uh upgrade for powering those lights uh they were looking at two options one was the field uh lighting only and then the second one was both track and feed light uh again the electrical up going on and off uh the second part of the architect updates was around the roofing projects uh the roof areas have been field surveyed and construction documents um they have started working on that this project is scheduled to go out to bid before the end of the year and um it covers Colombia and it covers Woodruff the timing for the projects is expected in the summer time frame we talked about electrical upgrades the electrical panels that require replacement have been identified by the engineers the architect firm has engaged um uh a co-op to provide pricing for the replacement of these panels and the contractors finalizing their proposal this is primarily for Hughes and andl uh the timing of this project also is expected to be summer 2025 the architect firm has made a number of recommendations on upgrades to the main distribution panel for the high school given that the current panels are quite dated this might become a capital project or it might become a part of the projects for the referendum so more to come on that um there was conversation on the CMS Courtyard about the significant erosion um of the of the grading in the courtyard where um there there are some exposed tree roots that are posing uh a hazard uh the architect firm has a number of recommendations um that the district is working with uh the last project on the list was the toilets at uh Woodruff School uh again the the document um uh process is on and the project is scheduled to go out to bid before the end of the year we had a conversation on the Bond referendum and the next steps and what is required to get the referendum process started uh so there was a little bit of a history lesson for those of us who did not know this on on the referendum um the referendum conversation was um I think was initiated two and a half years prior to covid and initial referendum was created that included full day kindergarten media centers eventually the full day Garten and the associated projects were removed because they were implemented uh the referendum reboot was initiated in 2021 and then it was stalled again the initial referendum was sized at about 16 to 17 million when the scope went down with the full day kindergarten um going away uh the scope came down to about 9 million uh again there's more work to be done uh on understanding what are the projects that would go into the referendum when when that does happen uh the architect firm uh essentially is recommending that the district facilities audit be conducted so that we have a better idea of what are the projects that are completed and the projects that are pending or required along with meeting with stakeholders to discuss that the timeline recommended that the board come to a decision and plan for a referendum by March of 2026 before the district debt rolls off so there's a little bit of a timing that we need to discuss as a board uh as a part of the referendum there is an expectation of a demographic study uh as well as a full facilities audit uh there was conversation on purchase of ground equipment uh the district has purchased ground equipment through a co-op a leac which will basically make it a lot more efficient to Blow The Leaf leaves from from the uh school property right now it it takes about 3 hours I think uh the new equipment is is expected to make that a lot more efficient uh we talked about electrical School Bus Grant uh the district had applied for for electric school buses uh but looking at the cost of the charging station and some other considerations at this point uh the district recommendation is we do not U go ahead with that electric bus um option at this point in time questions thank you U Mr Heyman well there's one more oh I'm sorry so that was just the first meeting we had another we had another facilities finance and Facilities meeting on December 5th um continued conversation with the architect on the locker rooms there evaluating the options on how they could potentially update the current space that we have versus creating a new space it's more to come on that um there was a a conversation on a shared service agreement with the with the township I'm not going to go into the details of a lot given that it is still uh conversation in progress with the township uh there was a another agenda item discussed about purchasing of used or new golf carts so today the district spends about $2,000 renting golf carts for the primarily the the graduation event uh at GL uh the district is exploring the possibility of purchasing used cards instead of renting them every year and essentially it'll be in a few years we'll basically make up uh for that instead of renting it every year and we will have them at um the district will have them at the disposal for using them you know more than once a year um same idea there was that is the district is exploring the possibility of purchasing chairs that we use for the graduation we generally rent about uh 1,500 chairs for about two days for the graduation events for GL and CMS uh the district is exploring the possibility of purchasing them and and and figuring out if that is a more cost-effective option over a period of time uh we spent about $4,000 for those chairs um continued conversation on the referendum um we have a timeline for the referendum that has been shared by the um architect team and all board members should have a copy of that uh there was a conversation on the Transportation uh the district is planning to seek feedback on Transportation by mid January so parents can expect a survey to go out uh not expecting uh to significantly change the bus routes for the next school year but I imagine that some of that is is going to be finalized as we go through the budget process and as we hear the feedback from uh from the parents on on how the transportation is is going this year the budget survey is expected to go out sometime in the second week of December and expected to run till the end end of the month the survey will go out to families registered in power school basically one um entry per email address that's about it so with regard to the uh I think you call the electrical panel upgrades at GL and at Hughes uh is there any connection between the upgrades at Hughes and the potential for putting in um uh the field lights or track lights is there any is that like a precondition to do the lighting for the field my understanding is the the lighting is here for GL it's not for Hughes right well you did mention Hughes I'm sorry I'm no you no you mentioned the electrical panel upgrades at both schools that's right so I'm asking about at at GL is that a precondition for doing field lighting good question I don't know if you know it's going to be an uh it's going to be an option in in the bid for it so the electrical bid that RFP that's going out you're going to include the upgrade it's going to be H it's going an option it's going to be included in the bid or those lights so if we do or do not move ahead with the lights there will be an option for it so we'll still get the electrical panel upgraded yes okay yeah those are I don't think those are they're unrelated it sounds like except for being in the same bid I don't know at this point in time if we're going to move ahead with the lights or not move ahead with the right right I don't know where we're gonna go Tom's saying that the projects are his question is related to the projects being so what I'm gonna do things is I told the um I've told our Architects if we're going to do a bid for the lighting updates for the electrical panels and there's going to be a need to uh put an update for electric to supply electricity to the lights for the field put it in as an option so now when those numbers do come back and if we decide to do that the number's there don't think the the panel has a dependency if that's what you were asking I think the answer is no yeah yeah yeah I don't think that there's a dependency when would the uh board need to decide on accepting the bid uh first I got to get to the bid first uh once I have the bid and it goes on all goes on here onto the agenda um then we go from there what when The Architects get when we cross that bridge then we can get there okay so but is there like a 30-day limit on acceptance or re action of a bid Mr dler what I I think you have what 60 or 90 days so you have 60 days you can hold the bid FL but you can ask for an extension thereafter so for example if the Board needs more time you can request an extension to get back they can reject it after that so have to thank um my question is on the surveys and thanks for the detailed report um so the budget survey I saw the calendar survey go up out and I was just wondering like previously the timing was a little later and I think we gave more time to the public to respond on the calendar option survey on so there are two surveys that are planned to go out one is on the budget and last um I think this year when the survey results came out the suggestion was made and it was accepted that we should just not be surveying the parents of students that are registered in power school the budget bu for the our district comes from everybody and the idea that we gave was we should explore opportunities into sending this to every registered property owner or somebody who rents in here and it was commended as a great idea but looks like we are not um we were going to advertise at the rec senior centers and everything but are we not sending it to the taxpayers or we just we have discussed ways to different ways to make it available to not only parents so there will it will be open to the everybody that's what we've discussed yes and how are we going to so you said one U for power school users it's one entry per um parent right for per registered student how are we going we don't have that detail yet we don't have that detail so but so will we will the board get to see how you're going to exit executed and what are the controls in place because for multiple entries or not uh possibly that probably slows down the process significantly is is that something the Board needs the Board needs to see the mechanisms through which we're going to collect all that information before we do it because otherwise where is the data Integrity because if you're sending a survey out there multiple people can access it and my other point on the surveys was some of the surveys have these questions and for a for an actual survey to be considered you need to give both like the person who's taking the survey should be able to give a negative answer or put some comments in that's not what we are seeing on the calendar survey or anything else so my concern here is if we are sending it as a just want to clarify your statement that's not accurate there was um open-ended question where people could give any feedback that they wanted to on the calendar survey there was 992 total responses from uh different families with over over 600 free response answers that we tallied and considered so all my my concern here is are we is the board going to look at the survey questions and how are we collecting the data that's all I I want to know because we do present this data as authentic and this is the factual data that we've received so there have to be some controls in place on how we are controlling it one of them for power school users was one entry per and so are we going to lock it in how are we getting it from you know based on a property ID what is what are the controls in place uh and in terms of feedback so far um through a couple different committees it's been shared with the board to send any uh survey feedback that to date I don't have any survey feedback from board members about specific things they would like to see asked in the survey so I would encourage any board members if you have specific budget questions that you would like us to explore please send them to me you know that's been about it's been over a month you know since since that was requested I don't have anything yet but feel free to share that um in terms of other mechanisms as you know if if you want to have more review and all ask questions it's G to take some time so I just want to know so there is not a time frame if that's what you would like to say yeah I just want to know we the budget is not due until March and uh we haven't seen a first cut of what is in there like other districts do so and there is holidays coming up so I just want to make sure if we are enforcing for registered users to have only one entry then we need to ensure that taxpayers also get the same like only one per house or what how how are you going to do it okay thank you can one quick comment uh and and quick question um on the golf cart thing I know it's small but I will I will say that outside of graduation uh the trainers I me on that thing a lot so if we did decide to to buy one or however many we're thinking there's there's definite use cases across the year even just had one for that trainer or whomever the trainer is for home games to be able to move across campus so that was it on the on the big ticket athletic items I know we've talked about some of these for some time came up in the Athletics committee as well you probably can't answer this but I'll ask it anyway can we which of those of those big three you got the locker room which I know CJ had some good ideas around so that's kind of path one you got the lighting which we just just talked about and then you've got Press Box um the answer is probably we're just waiting on bids but um C can we afford any of them pre a potential referendum or they all one two or all three would ultimately based on what you know right now or would guess right now are going to require a big bigger ticket than than what we can currently stomach in this or next budget if that makes sense well I'm going to say two of the three and I'm only going to say two of the three because microphone please I can't seem to get my microphone to work for some unknown reason I'm I'm going to say two of the three are probably going to lend itself because the Press Box has more of a a need at this point uh it can't go another season without it being replaced uh The Architects have deemed that it's not going to go past this year without it being deemed a hazard at this point um and going to say that it' probably come out of cap Reserve secondly the locker room space I know we discussed many options uh the options that we met with the Architects deemed probably better use utilizing the space in the building uh there are some I areas that we discussed when we met um that would probably be better to utilize the space that we have here um they have to look Architects have to put some drawings together and present that to us so that's where we are at this point um lighting I don't know that has to be discussed um we have members of the public that seek differently uh they would like to have a sit down with myself at some point to discuss that um I've had invited the gentleman who wanted to have that discussion I responded back to him I haven't heard back so it depends on what the board may want to do with that and how they want to proceed so at that point I don't know where we go but two of the three yes at on just on the budget survey Mr Nixon in terms of the timing I'm assuming it's easier for you to roll out the survey for those people that are in power school because you have more control on how many and the certainty of of who you're sending out to like in terms of the number of email addresses is it fair to say that what the the plan for now the survey that's that's likely going to go out I guess end of this week trying okay if that goes out are you prioritizing the the parents or speak whose email addresses are in the system but you are continuing to see how you could roll out a survey to the broader Town residence either through on the website or some other mechanism once you fig F out the technical solution to making sure that you don't have the duplicates or the same people responding right the most simplistic format we have right now is to create a survey using a Google form require um an email address uh for for submission and and record that um part of the challenge that comes along with that is people like the ability to submit uh survey feedback anonymously um um certainly easier with the tools that we have to share that with um with parent emails from our district but you know these they can be created into QR codes and advertised on on um you know different flyers and postings at different spots whether it be digitally or you know a hard copy at select locations where somebody could scan the QR code and then submit survey feedback so there's there's different options that we can do but with the tools that we have locking being real specific about being able to lock lock down and prevent multiple L but I I also don't this is It's not like this is a vote we're not this is an election we're we're collecting feedback for consideration so how Uber critical it is to make sure it's locked down that tight I I I don't know how how critical that really is I I have a quick question do staff and teachers also have the opportunity to fill out the survey I mean they're the ones affect a lot so that's what we did with the uh the calendar survey as well okay we had we had one survey that we sent to staff had another one we sent with the community we tend to do that with um most of our surveys that Impact Staff as well okay thank you question um so where are we though with the the budget like are we on track like has there been um an update in terms of like the actual place we're in like are we on target to hit the March meeting Finance they said in all the all the meetings that we discussed part of that so I'll leave it to you we haven't if your question is if if you if the committee has seen the budget the answer is no but they're working through that and uh we budget timeline was given a budget timeline was given so we haven't seen it yet um we are perfectly on track with where we've been in previous years and in fact I've seen um I think a due date just came up um I'm seeing the budget sheets from the individual schools are being submitted uh to AJ now I know that the um the The Early Childhood centers and elementary schools were the first ones that were due uh the next set that's going to be due coming in is going to be CMS and GL I think January right so all of the submissions then Dy says end of January yeah yes Dr for I have a I have a question about this Press Box what actually happens in the Press Box what do you do there I don't know been in the Press Box the Press Box is where um I'll pick a sport for an example pick a high school football game there's one of the officials is inside the Press Box with the control panel they operate the scoreboard and they keep the official time in there uh our announcer is in there a statistician is in there and then you have two to three Representatives typically from each coaching staff that watch the game with headsets on communicate to their Sidelines from the Press Box and also you have U video Crews uh can be up there recording the game as well music PA system right music's up there too for all like pre games so fre yeah all all so some of some of these people need an elevated position to do their job but it didn't sound like everybody needs to be elevated is that right does everybody need to I don't know anybody needs anything is it best if everybody is yes absolutely what I'm thinking is I mean there's a huge expense for this thing so let's think outside the box um come on you did that on purpose what so I'm I'm sorry I'm asking a question and if you don't want if you don't want to hear it you don't have to listen now what if we just had a drone how many people could just make use of a drone could we do it that way you still need a I don't think an official can fly in a Zone and keep the clock I mean that that person has to be up there from an elevated position in order to see uh the official on the the onfield the onfield officials signals are what give them the direction they need in order to properly operate the clock I don't but it's necessary I don't know for sure it might even be an njsia requirement well maybe they never thought of it I'm just wondering if you can get away with a drone it's a lot cheaper yeah I don't believe so no Mr Jolly I saw your hand go up during public comments would you step up to the microphone and share thank you Mr Heyman yep um I'll try to go as quickly as possible so we I've got two I've got a technology we met December 3rd um we had two core agenda items we covered uh uh the uh fishing breach review that Mr Marks walked us through um and just what the district is doing initiative wise to avoid future incidents uh so we talked about enrollment in a cloud cloud flare project cyber safe schools um which is free currently for districts under 2500 2 200 students which we are we had a Google admin console audit performed by Amplified it comp Tia security and training and certification uh and approved digital tools and process were implemented then separately we talked about which um there've been some additional material shared about the Raptor visitor management update um Mr Stanley mentioned earlier as well uh so Mr Marx just reviewed the onboarding timeline um walked through the the district implementation elements that have been done so far the timeline as discussed in committee um included uh February 3rd through 7th training of building admins and assistants there would be some Communications home to to families which Mr Nixon talked about and that was still being developed um with a with a goal at that point toward February 18th implementation districtwide um we did talk a lot um and fellow board members asked questions about uh some of the elements around data storage uh there was a request made to Mr dler just about some of the legalities I think we got some responses back on that as it relates to what we can capture and and storage of that um and there was a note handed to the the policy committee to just assess um whether we need to address that that from a policy perspective going forward which sounds like has happened uh and then um and Mr Marks has shared some other elements he did share uh Raptor data security FAQs at that point I think we're going to talk some more about this tonight perhaps even new business and then separately Athletics committee hit on some of the big things here that was November 27th is Mr Hendrick's first official uh committee Athletics committe meeting with us which was nice to get an official meet and greet with him um we talked about some of the homeschooled hes school student uh updates as it relates to requests that we've received as a district to have families participate in athletics and clubs um we uh and that some of that also went into policy committee to discuss uh we talked about some of the facility elements uh which I won't rehash for now I will I will credit Mr Hendricks with some creative thinking I would say um in terms of of the where and the what to try to free up space that is currently essentially The Vault Storage where for example I I drop a kid to put a hockey bag and that could maybe be a space that gets freed up for for additional more Equitable and perhaps not as expensive space that we might be able to leverage um we hit on the fact that both gyms have been painted and work is completed um talked about new gym banners new varsity team banners that have been ordered to celebrate divisional sectional and group titles uh the red gym floor keep me honest here AJ will be redone December 18th through Jan 6th the blue gym was done in 2020 2023 uh we hit on fantastic friday Super Saturday which is coming up Jan 10 and 11 uh we talked about um Mr Hendrick talked about fall Sports night which was December 3rd uh the we hit on the lighting and the Press Box conversations and some of the background there a little bit on Lower Columbia uh and updated Mr Hendrick there U to bring him up to the president and just share some of the materials that the board has seen prior we hit on the Mountainside wrestling contract um digital ticketing um for sporting events uh as a conversation Mr Hendricks had some thoughts there and Mr Nixon shared some of what we've done before in the district for like the school play um so some some interesting thoughts there and good thoughts there uh Mr Hendrick talked about creation of a GL Varsity website and digital app we've all probably seen some of the things he's done from from a social perspective so far um and then uh yeah just the with which was referenced before the the Boe recognition and just rethinking which is something we've talked about in the past I think nice to finally see that happen to basically embed the proclamation part of this and embed that in fall or winter and spring Sports Science like we talked about that two years ago initially so nice to see it all kind of coalescent we probably get better turnout well we know we did better turnout at that night so and that was it for athletics Mrs kir so on the Raptor um list system we are not imp implementing the pilot or the implementation in February until the policy updates are made correct based on the responses we got from Mr dler um there needs to be language in our policies to State why we are going to require parents to give their ID and we don't have any uh after I saw the responses from him the other question was on we don't have any language on data retention policies what is our liability if we you just spoke about a fishing attack on the school district what if a similar thing happens and we're storing parent information so I just want a confirmation from the administration because during the committee we were given a timeline I didn't know if it was a draft if it was a final are you going ahead with implementing this um I went to pick my daughter last week I did see some parents being asked for an ID so I want to I want a clarification are you currently asking parents for some sort of a state ID if you want to pull like if you want to pick your child up are you retaining any information and what's the what's the status on implementing and a pilot do my best to try and remember uh each each of the questions um I didn't necessarily read everything the same way that prevents us from moving forward with a pilot prior to policy language being updated we currently do have a policy that it says in the policy that um I forget the exact wording but it does require people to verify their identity register or whatever verify the ident we need to verify that that is a um the policy committee will be working on updating our language um we looked at a couple of different samples and and I would say Mr Stanley jump in and correct me if I'm wrong the the updates in the policy are minor they're not um yeah the the updates to the policy um we we looked at this and we are just adding language to let people know that they will be requested um that ID will be requested um in the buildings mostly just to back up the staff so the staff can say this is in policy but we are not putting in why and how and any of that because it will change over time and that's really not where policy usually lies um so we we are going to do more of a general like we will require ID um but Mr Kisa since my daughter is also at the middle school um did did put out information that he is requiring um ID for a student pickup um and I've been doing that for months now I think it was even last year um because we we've had some issues in the past and we need to protect our students and that that seems reasonable I think um in this day and age and we know that other districts have been doing this at even much younger ages because there are there are issues and there are students in in you know um diverse families that you know are different living situations and we need to make sure that we verify who they're being picked up by um and that that is an allowed an allowed person to pick them up and I think that's reasonable and then additionally my interpretation of the feedback that Mr dler gave us did not lead me to believe that we are not able to move forward with doing the things that we want to do our intention is to move forward with the pilot we think a very important part of piloting it in one of our buildings is to get some of the feedback that we want to get about um how to appropriately set forward all of the procedures what specific parts of a policy we need to have in place um so so Our intention right now is to move forward with the policy um sorry is to move forward with the pilot so maybe my question is to Mr dler can we can a publicly funded School District require parents to give their government issued photo ID and retain their information that's on their ID without a policy backing us right now in our language we say verify the ID so that means in my interpretation that is I take my ID I show that this is me this is my information we don't have anything in our policy that says you're going to be allowing you got to hand your ID over they'll copy it they'll take some information off it your date of birth your name and then last four digits of your license so can we do that without a language in our policy no sorry uh in the board policy yes so we no I don't think your mic is on sorry I thought I wasn't on okay I I'm just very loud that's the problem so the answer is yes so we looked at two different so there's New Jersey Law and then we looked at federal court cases so there's not a lot of cases on this but know Raptor system kind of used throughout the country so I think without getting into attorney plan privilege I know we talked about a Texas case that looked into this issue and what that Cas and when New Jersey law says as along the lines of combining those two is you can do this it's legally permissible to do so again whether you want to or not that's a board decision it's a district decision but you can do it legally uh when it comes to retaining information what the federal Force case said was so long as you are retaining just the minimum amount ofation you need right so you shouldn't go above what you need just the information you need to verify the security purposes then that okay and it passes constitutional muster the policy purpose really was to the why right what the district should be doing is analyzing what data it has and making sure that it actually needs all of that information and that's more of a when we said policy I more meant like procedure of the administration I don't think you need a board policy that does that of course you as a board are free to amend your policy right because you have the ability to say we're only going to retain x amount of information and that's fine but I think for moving forward with the program it's more and maybe I used a Mis I shouldn't have used the word policy to me that's more like a your Administration needs to do that analysis no what you said to require this information the Board needs to come up with why we need this and that needs to be documented if it's currently we do not have this documented so my question is yes it's leg Al permissible but we don't have anything if somebody tomorrow says I do not want to give it what is the backup so are we not going to allow them to go into a meeting are we not going to allow them to pick up a child we do not have anything in our bylaws or our policies that clearly your response was yes this is legally permissible as long as the district specifies the need for it and we do not have that need documented I I agree should we documented I don't know if the Board needs to document that but I do think your Administration should be yeah if it's not documented where where will they yeah so how can you roll out a pilot without documenting why we are requiring this and where should it be documented then in our bylaws so again I think your Administration should be going through this analysis and documenting again this is the information we're collecting this is why we need it and then have that information again and then obviously procedures for what takes place in different types of circumstances I think is important but I assume that's probably part of why it's being piloted to kind of figure out all of these different situations no but the pilot includes asking people to give their ID out and we don't have anything in place we haven't even checked with our insurance carrier so right now if people are being asked to give their ID and we don't have the Raptor dipin system or whatever so they're scanning them where are we keeping them we just spoke about a fishing attack are we opening ourselves to more risk without documenting it how are you retaining the document data how long are you going to retain that and then I think but just addressing I don't want to go into my recommendations in public but I think obviously on one of the points you write I have a recommendation regarding obviously insurance and the like okay Mrs Jolly you had a comment um so for the pilot is it um do we is it the like a true pilot in the sense that all the equipment that we would typically use that we had purchased is being set up in this one school and where is it being done at Woodruff okay so being set up and it will be as you know okay so we're gonna so what if somebody um I guess refu like I know it's a pilot but what if somebody doesn't want to have their ID scanned right is that does that during the pilot phase does that mean they can't yeah no it doesn't mean they can't there's we spoke about this extensively um in our meeting and this is all part of the um communication that we're working on uh developing and procedures that we're working on developing as well um there will be multiple layers of of how we handle and there's there's different types of individuals that may be visitors at our building uh it might be a parent that has business at the meeting that uh at the building that has to conduct say an IEP meeting or something like that um which will have a set of procedures if somebody doesn't have their driver's license or isn't comfortable presenting their driver's license we'll have a set of procedures we're not going to deny the parent the ability to come in and attend a meeting that they need to come in for their child but when we're talking about other individuals maybe such as vendors repair people whatever that might be um there's going to be you know processes and procedures that we have in place that communicates with all of our vendors in advance and has certain expectations um you know once they arrive at our buildings so are the procedures going to be in place excuse me are the procedures going to be in place during the pilot like are those procedures already been developed those those procedures have been developed by our team they're going to be in place at the pilot they're going to be communicated uh prior to the start date of the pilot um but part of the purpose of doing the pilot is to make sure that they work the way that we want them to work so that we can modify them and adjust them before we run this process out to the entire district and is the communication of these um procedures only going out to I guess the Woodruff parents or is it going out to the entire Community for now for now it'll be when we do the pilot it'll be to the Woodruff parents um so that we can collect all feedback from that pilot before rolling out the information to the full district is the board can the board be to those procedures when you roll when you send them out to Woodruff can we see what sure I don't see any reason why not I just just a comment on this I mean it just seems like we sort of did things backwards right because like the board sets policy and should like in some cases there should yes there was an audit and yes it was like an open item but that audit had lots of you know open items and we um entered into a contract that the board didn't have a chance to review and right now now we are in this contract that requires um it's Auto renewed right um it requires at a minimum 5% increase in fees right where our you know budget cap is 2% um and I and it feels like you know and and son I'm not saying that I'm like necessarily against this I agree for vendors it's absolutely you know a good thing to have for for those coming into the building but it just seems that um we sort of you know why didn't we address some of the other uh audit like audit items right just we bought this equipment and now we're kind of retrofitting procedures and policies right and the and the need articulating the why after the fact any other comments one other point Sor me mine's a quick one just how long is the pilot for and what how do how is Success going to be defined before it's fully rolled out weeks um it's going to go for it's go for start on January 13 R through the rest of January um be feedback from everybody that utilizes it Mrs one thing that came out of when we talked about this in the in the technology committee I was listening in it seemed like the Raptor system needs the direction on how long to retain the data where to retain it and who's responsible for it up until now I don't think the district ever asks the parents for their date of birth for their driver's license and kind there's a lot of student information that sits in power school and I'm assuming power school has the level of you know data protection and security procedures that go with it it looks like Raptor needs the the user in this case the district to Define how is the data stored where is it stored how long is it stored for is that determination going to happen before the pilot or or how like if you can maybe take a minute to just talk through that component of it as it relates to the pilot yeah we don't necessarily have those specifics of of what we're going to do with that just yeah this part of some of the legal feedback that we've been working on on Gathering but also taking a look and analyzing what are some of the other uh requirement that we have an awful lot of data systems that are um you know online so to speak um that contain a lot of you know um private information as well in it so kind of taking a look at how all of those things work together and and you know trying to make the best decision for for what that should be right I mean my concern is I get the the requirement of why you want to roll out the pilot I'm just highlighting the fact that there are some decisions I think that have to be made if you are going to do a full roll out of the pilot for one particular school because you know you will actually be taking in people's data I might argue sorry that it should be kind of because as part of the pilot you are taking in actual data so I think you almost need to make those decisions prior to implementing the pilot and as I said in Berkeley Heights the township lost a lot of people's personal data during tax payment purposes it was just stored they didn't have and everybody like I think spent over a week or something reopening their bank accounts reopening everything and the information that we are looking to gather from raptor is take their take parents picture their date of birth last four digits of social this is exactly the information that is required no last four digits of the license number yeah these are the exact numbers information that is needed if you have a query with an IRS G so without a fall back to Natasha's point in Pilot if you're taking actual parents personal information and God forbid we have an attack what are we offering are we offering them 30 days of credit monitoring or are we offering to you know can I can I just one one quick comment or two quick comments one is that just to CL the fishing attack was not like a cyber breach that was like uh it was sent to an individual right and so it was it was a mistake in that inst so just so it wasn't like like our our data was hacked or that kind of it's worth clarifying two as as a a parent I'll take off the board member hat for a second parent with a kid here I'll give you last four and a bunch more if you're telling me as a district you're going to raise the level of security for this school and every other school so there's got to be let's let's just like for half a second commend Mr Marks and Mr Nixon and anyone working on this for at least pushing this agenda I there's more to figure out but um in today's day and age and if you read Mr D's responses the reasons are pretty clear as to why we're doing this we I I totally understand the safety and the security aspect of it I just want the right processes and our response we can be reactive if we are going to roll out a pilot and start collecting people's personal information and God forbid we get hacked everybody gets hacked no there is no uh you know this thing that nobody same about the DMV they got yourself too so but that that yes and they what are we so when we get hacked there are some follow-ups they they do offer you some Services what are we going to offer we haven't even figured that out so without figuring out the processes or so yes security is a great thing but not everybody will be willing to give it and have we even sent a survey we we love doing surveys so why don't we send a survey to all the parents and say are you okay with this Mrs aeri thank you for your comments thank you for the comments of everybody on the board we're moving on to the liaison Mrs golly you have a yeah the educator of the year right um Mrs Bradford and I met um with u Mr Costa and Miss Bartlett to discuss educator of the year for next year in terms of um the information that we're going to be requesting from you know people submitting nominations um it's more in line with the state rubric and standards and certain fields are going to be required and this will give more information to the Committees like when they're evaluating and summing everything up to determine who to put forward um I think we also discussed um you know uh recognizing more staff and um Mr Costa Miss bartett shared like some of the some of the ceremonies some of the events that they do to do that so that was um nice to hear thank you we're moving on to board Communications Mr Nixon could I ask you to join me at the podium Mr Nixon is heartfelt gratitude and admiration that we thank you tonight for everything that you have done for our district during this time of transition we have appreciated your dedication your answering of our phone calls our email emails and I know for a fact that you have gotten thousands of emails that you take care of and hundreds each day so we thank you for everything that you have done for us and with that we'd like to have a resolution from the Board of Education J G to read whereas Mr Robert Nixon has worked in the field of Education in the state of New Jersey for 26 years more than 18 of the of these years as an administrator and whereas during the last 26 years Mr Nixon has held the position of teacher of physical education assistant principal principal supervisor of physical education and health director of Athletics assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction and Acting Superintendent of Schools and whereas Mr Nixon has been president of the board of the Berkeley Heights Administration Association treasurer of ucpa President of UC sspa council member of the njpsa a member of the njpsa nominating committee and has been employed as an athletic trainer football coach and basketball coach and whereas Mr Nixon has served as principal of Governor Livingston high school for the Berkeley Heights Board of Education with distinction from July 1st 2015 through March 18 2024 whereas Mr Nixon has steadily led the Berkeley Heights Public School District as Acting Superintendent of Schools from March 19th 202 4 through December 31st 2024 and whereas Mr Nixon Mr Nixon's many career achievements include implementation of the collaborative consulta model for special education development of a student wellness center support social emotional and well-being spearheading a district diversity initiative and leveraging data to promote student achievement and now therefore be it resolved that the Berkeley Heights Board of Education hereby recognizes Robert Nixon for his valued contrib contribution and dedication to providing for the educational needs of the students of Mountainside and Berkeley Heights and be it further resolve that the Berkeley Heights Board of Education thanks Mr Nixon for his many years of dedicated service and wishes him continued success signed and sealed this 12th day of December of the Year 2024 Mr Nixon thank you so much thank you Mrs Bradford and uh thank you members of the Board of Education um just briefly I just I just wanted to extend my thanks uh to the board of education for uh trusting me to be your Acting Superintendent since March uh it's been an incredible experience for me I've learned a great deal uh and I'm really honored to have been given this opportunity so thank you um very proud of the work that we accomplished in this short time early on WE Dove right in we tackled a lot of issu issues such as hazardous routes that impact Transportation completed the budget had it approved by the county we made some difficult Personnel decisions and I think we hired uh some incredible new members to our team uh we successfully administered State Testing and successfully held many wonderful graduation and promotional ceremonies I'm excited about the great work that's been done to improve student achievement perhaps most of all particularly as it relates to the math sequencing at the middle school level I look forward to seeing the results of that in a couple years while there's still a lot of work to be done I believe our programs here in Berkeley Heights are an excellent position for success in the future uh I wanted to also extend my appreciation to the staff of our district we have incredible professionals here in Berkeley Heights uh who offered amazing help and support for me on a daily basis uh I want to offer a special thank you to the administrative team for their assistance and I'd also like to recognize in particular Mrs Bartlett uh who's done amazing job as the acting principal at Governor Livingston high school um while I filled this role and finally I'd like to extend my appreciation to the staff and the superintendent's office Diane aalon youth cadava Trina Conley Ross who all went out of their way to make sure that our district did not skip a beat through a time of great transition um they are incredible assets to our district um so once again I just want to say thank you very much for the opportunity I hope I did well and I look forward to working with everybody in the future thank you continue we have uh two board correspondents first is a followup to comments from prior board meeting on tutoring from John migz second is congratulations on second place on marching Bang group a New Jersey state championship and that is from Congressman Tom Kane Jr those are our two correspondences thank you Mr secretary um I believe they're missing one there was a request from a homeschooling parent to attend clubs and activities that was sent to the entire board there was there was a request from a parent um who homes yeah oh maybe they didn't copy you but I thought they did I'll forward it to you yeah there was a request um from a homeschooling parent whose children were they wanted to do the AP tests and I think we allowed that then there was a followup asking if her middle school children can attend um clubs and activities can I just ask a clarifying question when we say it's a board communication doesn't doesn't that have to include you then ter in order to make it on your report if just send it to the whole board I guess whether it's a communication or whether it's a request you know there's there's two types of different things so you know no I'm just I'm just I'm just trying to alert the public that if they wanted to show up on that they need to probably send you a copy to them yes that is correct okay I'll forward it to you thank you uh Mr secretary uh report of the business administration administrator please yes uh is we have some items that we have that have been going on and repaired buildings and grounds uh we have our snow equipment that has been serviced and it's uh ready to go in case we get snow but we don't like that PO letter word uh Governor Livingston we had some tree pring that's been done there's a lighting project down in the lower hallway from exit one all the way down to room eight installed a total of 107 lights uh um is 97 9600 watts compared to new LED 3600 Watts which saves about 6,000 kilowatts at Columbia Middle School there was a repair and repave of back path by lower garage uh at Mary K McMillan we had installed a new air compressor for the boilers at Thomas P's all the tree work had been completed um and there's been various other repairs that have been done there at Mountain Park there were repairs of two sections of roof with mesh roof tape and  uh at William W Woodruff we had a repair uh classroom 106 leaking pipe under the floor demo the floor and we rebuilt uh rebuilt it there was a major repair and it was all done in house and that completes uh my report thank you Mr secretary comments from the public on agenda items uh during this portion of the meeting District residents and staff are invited to address the board of education on agenda action items only the board requests that individuals State their name and town of residence or School of attendance for the record all comments should be directed to the board president and depending upon the nature and complexity of the question it may or may not be answered during the meeting by the administration if so the response would occur after this public portion of the meeting has concluded although the board may not respond to all items raised during the public forum all public comments will be considered the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of 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 members of the public please note that if any member of the public becomes disruptive during the meeting the board president May terminate the participant statement continued disruptions may result in removal from or adjournment of the meeting each speaker statement will be limited to 3 minutes in duration and we'll take public comments first and then we see we have some comments online okay Mr Jolly uh Aaron Jolly senior at Governor Livingston high school uh first I want to start by saying thank you to uh Mr Nixon um for uh stepping in as the Acting Superintendent I know that's not an easy role I've seen uh a lot of these meetings and I know that it's a very stressful role uh I've had nothing but Pleasant experiences with you as my principal uh including seeing you or bumping into you playing golf uh that one time which was very interesting you probably heard some words you should have heard but that's okay not great uh anyway um also to the board members who are stepping down I want to thank you for your efforts and time uh to make the district a better place for both uh students and staff uh I also want to thank my yearbook adviser Mr pork uh as you saw earlier um our staff from last year was honored um and not would not be possible without her um yes she gets mad at us but uh we did get the job done in the end um in regards to the pr box um per the njsiaa 2021 Rec U recommendations uh the njsiaa would recommend the use of Press Box facilities whenever possible rather than onfield coverage uh in regards for journalism uh and the New Jersey super football or North Jersey super Football Conference regulations for this year say that both teams will H or quote will have access to the price box for coaches uh and cameramen and that is a a quantity of two coaches which is per team uh minimum capacity and one cameraman for uh State regulated film um which all teams have access to and study before playing games um I personally uh do a lot of Photography um in the fall a lot of football stuff and I've been to a ton of schools um I was just uh I've seen more schools um with two press boxes than I have with none um so I definitely think that the Press Box would be uh is something that needs to be redone um and also as a member of the ghsv crew um and a commentator for them I would uh request the expansion of the Press Box to not only allow for another camera to fit in there but also uh to allow commentators to be up there uh for the broadcast as that has not been an option um commentating has taken place on the bleachers which gets you know when it's windy papers fly everywhere Etc um and then you guys also touched on um when the video was shown for volleyball I want to touch on Mr Hendricks I'm very happy with your hire um I've had a couple conversations with him he's very enthusiastic and involved um and I've definitely seen a lot of positive changes regarding that uh regarding the athletic department um in terms of the gyms uh you guys brought those up as well um the blue gym floor uh is currently damaged I'm not sure if anyone's aware of that uh right on the far side of the Court from the main bleachers there is a crack in the uh one of the letters that spells Highlanders um and I'll wrap this up quickly um I as a student I find a lot of the gym teachers are not enthusiastic about their job many have spoke uh said I've overheard um you know I don't want to be here and stuff like that uh which I think there's no place for that um even if that's how they feel they shouldn't be expressing it to students and um that's to the exception of Chris rof who um by far has shown his enthusiasm um whether he means it or not uh appr a great class together for um the students and uh I've had a lot of fun in his class so thank you and have a great rest of your night thank you Mr jolly good evening Debbie Terrero um I don't know about you guys I'm freezing in here um so first of all I wanted to um couple shout outs um for Mr Heyman and Miss H Nagel thank you for your dedication and many hours of service that you've given to the district your time has been invaluable so thank you um for Mr Nixon thank you for stepping in and doing an amazing job steering the ship um it hasn't been an easy transition and you've accomplished a tremendous amount in quite a short period of time so congratulations and then congratulations to the yearb book staff and the girls volleyball team um your community is very proud of you um as far as agenda items a couple of things so I had a couple questions regarding first reads on policies and these are just kind of questions so for the board attorney the question I have for you is having a first read on a policy allowable is sorry is having a first read on a policy allowable either within the bylaws of the district according to Robert's rules during the month of December does having first reads on policies um not put the new board in a position where in January um we would then be doing another First Rate on these policies and if so what's the point other than just having a discussion about it for board members looking to have a first read on policies when you just unanimous ly voted to hire a new superintendent who starts in January doesn't exactly get the relationship started on the right foot by voting on this now you haven't G given the new superintendent an opportunity to provide input on policies that could have a tremendous impact on how she might look to run the district um it also could send an unintentional message of mistrust or distrust I should say as far as the one individual policy um for the committee that I know you had presented um being that I'll be serving on the board in January I'm interested in hearing the feedback from the board members opposed to having the president appoint members to various committees what Alterna Alternatives might you suggest um how do you address the situation where more board members want to serve on committees than there are available seats so food for thought thanks anyone else from the public uh Mr Marx could you promote uh we have one person on U on Zoom hi this is Ramia castori um I live in Berkeley Heights and I have with me Nicole moriello hello Nicole morelo here um so we're both together we both live in Berkeley Heights um and I'll go first we just wanted to extend you know our heartfelt thank you to Mr Heyman for his service over the past four years um to me you've been a rock on this board you've you're logical you're rational you're calm you're one of the few board members that has never had a Personal Agenda you're just uh an amazing board member but beyond that you know getting to know you personally you're just an outstanding human being in every way possible um I I couldn't attend all board meetings but I would always rest easy knowing that you would make the right decision and the right calls for our students so um thank you for that and I'll just end you know my little piece About You by saying I really do feel like the best evidence of someone's character um is or are their children and you have phenomenal children they're smart they're honest they're caring they're hardworking and all of that is a reflection of their dad so thank you so much for your service you're so appreciated and you will be missed um and just very quickly I want to thank Mr Nixon also for stepping in and guiding us along the right path I know it was difficult um your efforts are very much appreciated as well I'll turn it over to Nicole hi uh my name is Nicole Morello my daughter's graduated in uh May of 2024 so the reason I'm here is specifically to thank Jordan or Mr Heyman um we've known each other for the past 12 13 years where our daughters played um soccer together so we've sort of grown together um and Jordan you've been an exceptional board member your vision as a member never faulted you were 100% focused on what was best for the students for the families and for the education of our community and um just you are a tremendous role model for our young people especially our young men um so for that we I am forever thankful and um thank you Mr Nixon you did an exceptional job as well thank you very much thank you good night thank you um um answer uh talked about M Mr Jolly uh thank you for your need for the Press Box and your perspective as a cameraman there and thank you for your other comments Mrs Terrero thank you um for your comments on the policy uh we are looking at streamlining the policy and at the beginning of each year a survey goes out to all board members with their top three choices and decisions are are made that way so we're we're talking about streamlining that from nine committees to fewer um and thanks again to the two individuals who thanked our teams here um we're going to move on now from our public comments I see no one else on on the remote so moving on to the minutes resolution a all board members approval of meeting minutes may I have a motion so move thank you Mrs thank you Mrs Jolly discussion I see no discussion um Mr secretary a vote roll call vote Mrs Conor I'm going to abstain on October 17th because uh I was not in the meeting yes to minutes uh regular meeting minutes and exact meeting minutes November 14th yes to all abstain on October 17th I wasn't here uh yes to the the November 14th meetings obain on uh October 17th that wasn't here yes to both meetings from November 14th M mrman yes to all Stanley yes Bradford yes yes to all motion passes moving on to Administration resolutions a through K all board members may I have a motion so moved thank you Mr Mr Heyman a second second thank you Mrs Stanley Mrs Bradford yes I would like to make a motion to um excuse me abolish policy 131 and as per Robert's Rules adopt new policy 6421 revise policy 132 and revise policy 155 as for the first read versions of those policies I'll second that I'm sorry I don't even understand could you please explain sure so as per um Pol do you want me to repeat the motion okay yes please so I move to abolish policy 131 and as per Robert's Rules adopt new policy 6421 revise policy 132 revised policy 155 as for the first read versions of those policies I heard there was a second it was me I seconded that so let me understand Mrs Jaa you want to abolish policy 131 okay I don't even I don't see that on our yes it it relates to the First Rate policies of um that are on the agenda and then policy 6421 you want to revise no so the the point the explanation just so what's happening um as per policy 31 131 um policies bylaws regulations may be abolished in any meeting of the board without proposed abolishing of that proposed bylaw policy regulation being approved by the board at a previous meeting of the board so with abolishing policy 131 I'm then relying on Robert's rules to adopt as new policy 6421 because we currently don't have it in our policy book and revise policy 132 and revise policy 155 as per the versions that are in the attachments as first reads so you're trying to eliminate that second read that is correct I think that that shows your intent right there um I think right so so tonight right I could have gone to the uh County superintendent to say what we were doing in a lame duck session was wrong um I didn't do that because I thought we had kind of worked together um to come to this agreement here but you you seem to want to push forward even though you know that this is wrong right you know it goes against our policy you know that a lame duck session is not appropriate right you know that EXC excuse me Dr I have to object I think the remarks the remarks cannot she cannot make personal remarks you please wait the remarks have to be directed to dis shared and they cannot Stanley has the floor so again right I think this shows that we know that this is not the appropriate way to get things done right you specifically came to uh a meeting last year after you had been elected in November when we had our first read and said that you were very upset because you had just been elected and you were not able to be a part of this decision and now we have two new people coming in January a brand new superintendent when we hired that superintendent one of my things was you have to support this person you chose this person you now have to show them support this is not showing them support not only by doing this in a December meeting but also in these exact policies I beg the board to behave better than this to do better than this to treat our fellow board members that are coming in in January with more respect to treat our new superintendent with more respect than to do this tonight if I may respond so with respect to policy 6421 tried to follow the proper uh procedure I was denied in terms of bringing it forth to um into the agenda I think the direct quote was Mr Nixon and I have discussed it and we're not going to proceed the reason for I feel that is absolutely necessary to make changes to policy 155 is because of you know the one single person appointing um appointing the committee chairs resulted and Mrs Bradford being on eight committees and sharing none when compared to Prior terms of Mr Dilla um where he was on three committees and Mrs Penna who was also on three committees and right now after that change was made and one person decides committee structure we have Mrs Bradford on eight committees and Mrs huffnagel on none so that's the importance for one uh for 155 and for 132 um you know I we're using the stress as me language and and um I think Dr Fel is aware of these changes that are going to be coming Mr Heyman point of order Mr I think if I understand the motion correctly you're moving to abolish policy 0131 and and then secondary then move the three policies you brought forth on a first reading yeah it is yeah one motion I I it may as my recommendation just because it's the who were Reliant it may make sense to just start with the abolishment of 0131 if that passes and then vote on the policies I think it's a little like understanding this correctly because the idea is that's the only thing because you're Bing a policy right and then if that passes then you vote on the mo then you vote on the policies themselves to move forward I think that's the because you're changing the abolishment I think has to be done separately because those are two different point of orders but I think the purpose is the same how was it different then when you have this on the agenda that's an agenda so this would just then move all policies forward my understanding correctly is by abolishing point1 0 one through one then all future policies would just need one reading is that the purpose or it's just the one reading for those that's what I'm trying to so I think the intention is just Mrs dolly is speaking sorry no I yell Mrs M secur so we have seen um other boards use abolish 131 I believe the intention when I when the way I understood it when I seconded her was we are abolishing 131 just to adopt these three policies that are on the agenda and are in the attachment at first reading so then that would be a supension of the policy that's the only that's why I'm trying to flesh out here's what that says from a precedent perspective what would preclude us from just pushing forward any first read as a final going forward after this would be set as precedent so again that that's for the board to decide what I'm trying to determine is the motion to suspend the policy just for these three or fully abolished no the motion is actually to abolish the policy that's her motion that's what I'm trying to it's it's a motion to abolish the policy okay so it's it would apply it's violated so it would apply then for all uh moving forward all policy would just need one reading okay that's what and that's what I wanted to make clear so right I mean the ultimate intent is for these three policies I think we will need to bring policy 131 back in January and they it'll automatically at the reor we adopt we reopt all the policies and so it'll come back at the next meeting and at the reor we adopt all policies at reor so not not if you abish Shish it you need two read it would not come back at the reorg meeting that's why again that's why I'm trying to flush this out just because again I want to make sure we're all on the same page so there's two ways to do it right so if you you fully abolish the policy and then if you want to bring it back you need first read second reading um or you can choose not to bring it back right you can just do it via one reading but that's why I said it would almost be a separate motion to just abolish the policy the other way is you can temporarily suspend it but you can only do so under specific emergent circumstances under the policy no we not so we're going to abolish okay so that's why I said it may make sense to separate it out just the abolishment and then on the agenda you already have all the other policies which would then if the abolishment passes everything else would pass on a first reading just and that's why I want to make sure we're all on the same page does everyone understand motion would be um so what my recommendation is so civility trust was trust was the last one but that's so just so we are all on the same page and I again the motion is as the motion is I my recommendation is slightly revising because I want to make sure we all know what we are voting on so what I described is there's two types of way to go about there's you can abolish a policy and you could do so tonight and according to your policy 0131 ironically of course it's the policy you're abolishing but it's still in existence that policy is you can do that tonight you don't need a first read second reading to abolish the policy you can do that tonight there is also something called and that if you do that that policy is gone all policies will passed on run one reading moving forward unless you reintroduce it but that would take a first reading separ option two is you can suspend a policy but you can only do so under emergent circumstances according to your policy policy and have to fit into those criteria which the board would vote on that that's for the board inside uh in speaking with Miss JY she indicated that her intent here is to abolish this policy tonight and because of that my recommendation would be to separate that motion out to avoid confusion and then you can vote on the rest of your agenda items as is but they would all pass on first reading because they no longer need a second reading you may obviously amend the agenda slightly to say they all would pass in some respect but I want to make it you know clear on what's being voted on okay fine okay so if the first if policy 131 is abolished tonight we do we need to have the emergency reasons for it no so you can according to your policy you can abolish any policies at any time at any meeting at any meeting of the board without the proposed abolishing uh being approved at a previous meeting that is separate and apart uh from suspension of your policy which requires emergency circumstances suspension requires suspension requires so if you want to Temporary suspend a policy that requires an emerging circumstances Mr Nixon I'm we're just looking through policy 131 to kind of absorb what's being abolished if all of the language in 131 is abolished can we even move forward with approving any other policies at this meeting so at that point I I believe you can right the board has to be able to pass policies now what is the proper ability to do that then is kind of lost because you don't have a policy that dictates that but I think the board has again then you're technically speaking go to Robert's Rules but Robert's Rules again let you to asish and like into second reading I think technically speaking the board has to have ability to make motions and pass motions it becomes you're not wrong in bringing up the point it becomes what for lack of better term the little bit of the Wild West because you no longer have a policy dictating that but I think the the intent here is obviously to remove guard I think the intent of the resolutions known by the board uh and known by everyone voting on it and so I think the board technically speaking according to this policy would have the ability to do so again maybe not the recommendation for the reason you brought up that there is then no guard rails I think the board if it does a this should think on what how it wants to proceed moving forward with again maybe you don't want second readings moving forward and that's the intent but you should certainly have a policy that dictates how you pass policies would this abolish the policy committee then no your policy committee the committee structure is separate apart from this policy um is this allowed during the month of December um so there are restrictions on what a lame duck can and can't do traditionally speaking that's typically been applied to contract extensions whether a court would look differently on this I don't know it hasn't this something like this in a lame duck hasn't been tested again the case law has been primarily contract extensions but there are limitations during L up theod does this violate Robert's Rules of Order at all so Robert Rules of Order do require a first and second reading but your policy is always dictate over Robert's Rules that's technically speaking again I think the the int is I'm sorry it's not correct I've researched this the re the re point a order against Pam for laughing at Dr disrespectful all right look I researched it um you can definitely once we abolish this then the creation of new policies is governed by Robert's Rules of Order and there's no restriction in Robert's Rules of Order about having first and second readings so we can just do this all in one night and I have seen this policy being abolished to adopt Emer like you know policies at one reading in some districts and this was actually recommended by their board attorney when they wanted to adopt something at one reading so Mr D do you have a feel for how many districts New Jersey ballpark or at least those that you've worked with push through policy on one reading are you aware of many out there percentage wise is is it common are we seeing a trend in this direction so or would it be the loan that you're wearing if you're asking what I have seen yeah traditionally speaking again your board can act as so you desire right and I the board's vote tonight is the board's vote and the board's will if you're asking what I have traditionally seen obviously you know stra SM is in control and almost all is second readings um but there have been times where I've seen for the most part boards suspend it when they need to get through a policy for specific reasons again what isn't is an emergency is within the entire will of the board so traditionally again that's when a pal needs to be passed they will suspend but again there's nothing that would prevent you know your policy says what it says and it does allow for the policy to be abolished at with one meeting notice so this appears to be a hostile takeover of our of our policies well it has been done before in lame duck just last year when they were they removed in 2022 and 23 in in in lame duck in laming in lame duck where the board moved to give the removed language where for committee appointments we needed the the Committees exist for the board and Board needs to review and approve those appointments that language was removed in Lam duck so I don't see the irony of you know why we are doing this in lamd Duck it has been done before and we're just trying to revert back to previous things there factual information out there look at the date that it was please wait so if you can you can look at the date of adoption on some of these policies that we are trying to amend we're just going back to the previous language we are a board with eight members and we are asking committee appointments be approved by board members so that's the Democratic way you can call what it's it's a free country you want to call it a hostile takeover you want to call it ironic but it was just un last year while you were on the board Mrs Bradford respectfully there's no doubt that our committee procedures need to be streamlined so at this point if we have nine committees and we want to streamline those as part of our policy can we do that in January sorry I said we have nine committees on our um committee procedures now we'd like to streamline those to less can we still do that in January with the policy yes yeah with the the excuse me Mr secur so you can if again the hypothetic was if this policy is abolished so the answer would be I guess under this scenario the policy abolish it would just be you could do so by introducing a motion at the meeting it no longer requires two readings and the will the bo if a board votes to do so it can just make the modification so no that the only I'm sorry the only change to policy 155 and I we're getting off topic so I've but 155 only requires it doesn't change the committee structure you could change the committee structure if you want the change to 155 just requires board approval for committee assignments that's could you please explain board committee approval board approval for committees right as it was done before is that a vote yeah is that a vote on each individual committee or is it a vote on all appointments it's whatever was done previously do the consent of the majority of the bo basically would mean that we would follow and this is me sort of you know extrapolating what this would mean like two years back when I when it was my first year on the board we gave our preferences um at that point Angela was a president so she kind of took everybody's preferences into consideration there was a motion a formal motion on the agenda that we all voted on that says you know dpy gets X committee Tom gets y committee so it's just going back to that structure I don't know if there was a motion was just an approval I do one one comment on this which is that there's got to be someone ultimately who break you can't get everything you want otherwise I mean this board likes to be here till 2 in the morning that is going to I I won't be here for I might watch on that so even without the language over the last four years we've had a board president who ultimately said look I asked all of your takes here's my suggestion are you okay okay with this you're okay with this then and then you get there so I like I I understand the spirit of the consent of the majority I think what it's going to then yield is a free-for-all to then say that's not fair I didn't get to be on this or I was on that last year it is what it is and I won't be report that is where you're headed as with other things it's going to be a test of how we work together all the the point of 155 in and what's being proposed is to come to a more democratic process of getting to the Committees like it's it's you know the suggestion is not to do something outlandish it's going back to what it was and my recommendation there's a floor on the motion we should vote why couldn't we wait until second grate in January like nothing has said why you can't wait until second grate in January because we're already pushing it by having a first read in December say that again let's vote the motion is on the floor I I heard you but I still have questions right so I think asking questions right like everybody had their time to ask questions this is mine just wait Dr B I'm asking a question about why can't we have two readings right like that that's normal right how we work as a board right so I know these were being brought up saying that you know the policy committee wouldn't bring these now one of the reasons why we didn't bring purchases budget is because the district felt that they have like they have a voice right the superintendent is a board member they are non- voting board member they had a voice and there was four people in that meeting and out of the four right only one person wanted to move forward so that did not get put but the other policies really never went to committee right so you already are going around committee which you're allowed to do right but then we said first read for this December meeting which again should not really happen so why can't we have a second read in January what's the reasoning what's the what's the urgency Mrs Jolly is that question is directed to you Mrs Bradford because all questions under Robert's rules are directed to the president thank you and I'm asking Mrs jolly because she put forward the motion and how long are we allowing the discussion just for time check because I just want to go back to past president how long will you allow this discussion because on the floor thank you Mrs Airi Mrs Jolly so I will just say the my my I've already stated my rationale with 155 in particular we set committees early on in the process we I don't want to see another situation when one board member is on eight committees because she gets to decide would you revise your motion then according to what Mr dler said recation but I'll leave it to you it's your motion well if it gets us to the same place yes the same place I think it's clear can I amend my motion to abolish policy 131 that's just clean I'll second it any other discussion Mr secretary vote Mrs Jolly yes mrir yes Dr forer yes Sagel yes Mr hman no Mrs Conor yes Mr Stanley no Mrs Bradford no motion passes Where Do We Go From Here U Mr dler with the regard to the other policies so with that policy abolished I believe there's no longer a first and second reading so I think the policy should just be to the Motions sorry I'll pull your agenda up page five so technically speaking on A and B you no longer need the words in a um for study and first reading it would just say that one recog acting approves the following District bylaws regulation policy regulations and then for B you would not need for the words for second reading so it would just say my recommendation would be a would be resolved a would read uh District BOS policy regul regulations remove study in first reading resolve that the Berkeley Heights Board of Education upon the recommendation of the active superintendent approves the following District bylaws policy and regulations for adoption and then B would read District bylaws policy regulations resolve the burit Board of Education upon the recommendation of the Acting Superintendent the following District bylaws policy and regulations for adoption is everyone following that would be my recommendation to modify a and b sorry this is resolutions A and B so why do we need to vote on B if it's second read now you don't you're asking aren't those just like we're good so technically speaking not the policy wasn't abolished at the time so they weren't approved we have to grandfather in the second reading of so it's almost an since that they they've never been approved for so because your policy abolished now you still need to approve the policy to pass because the board only approved them as a first reading when the policy existed but they never formally adopted them so the way I would amend them and just for your business ministrators because I know this I'm throwing a lot at them what I'm doing is I'm removing the words in a resolution resolution a it's going to be read AS stand but I'm going to remove the words my recommendation and I'm sure someone can make a motion if they agree in the first one the word get rid of the word study and first reading in both the heading and the resolution seeing there in a David should we also remove the words I mean upon the recommendation of the Acting Superintendent this now takes it away from the recommendation we created on our agenda this is it's not my recommendation the board took something that we previously recommended and went a different direction what the that's fine that's I think that's that's fair if it's no longer on that recommendation that those can be removed as well but I'll leave that obviously and I also I also want to stay for the record that the reason why this is being done is because of Elections because this is a going to be a five3 vote which you just saw and they're going to lose one of those um votes in January and they know that and so this is being done specifically because they're afraid that they won't be able to convince other board members that these are a good idea and that they're losing that vote because of an election that happened in November point of order can we get to the vote so that we stop works let me having a discussion I still need someone have to make a motion this but before we make that I want to make sure again your board secretary gets it so the first one again study first study and first read both the a in the heading and in there and change in the in a instead instead of for studying first reading it would just say for adoption DNA so it says for studying first reading change that to adoption and then in B you can get rid of and you're also teing about the you're also about the taking out the part about upon the recommendation the ACT superintendent okay that would be that'll be the next so in B you can get rid of the word second reading and in both the heading and in the resolution M Jord one more question sorry and then in both A and B you can get rid of on the words upon the recommendation of the Acting Superintendent so that would be someone asked a motion that but if you're asking my recommendation on how you would amend A and B uh that would be my recommendation just a question so this might be policy committee or maybe for you Mr D I'm looking at the current second reading for tonight there's a lot of changes in here red lines that I don't know if these came specifically from policy committee tress May don't know my question is what happens in a future state where there's not any window between first and second which I I guess we're past that point but what what happens to when someone says oh actually there are further changes it's firearms and weapons it's not just weapons so when and where if ever did those additional requested edits get put in front of the board how does that happen so again this is why I described the reasons I recommend having a policy right it becomes a little bit of the wild wild west but but if you're asking me what the current process would be if you don't have a policy correct uh I believe that any policy could be brought before the board at any time some someone can motion it make revisions and the board would vote on it because there's no right now again your policy provides guard rails right it limits what the board can and can't do when it comes to policy revisions you've removed those guard rails which again the board has every right to do um but I think without those right any at the next meeting if someone wants to make a revision to any they can do so and they can then if again someone doesn't like that at the board mean they can further revise that resolution to amend it and it's also removing transparency right like because that's one of the reasons why you have second read right is so that way the public sees it during the first read they have time to email absorb it and then it goes to Second read but again can I make a motion to affect the changes that you just recommended or both um A and B well excuse me just one second here these are on the recommendation of the Acting Superintendent so are we taking that out for all future policies that we're not going to have the superintendent recommend so you would still need the recommendation of the superintendent to for to be placed on your agenda if it's not going to have that verbiage then it would have to be a motion that's brought at the board meeting or emailed to the board to make its new business so all policies with would then have to be new business unless it's recommended right so in order to get onto your agenda recommendation of the Acting Superintendent obviously you have a policy for new business so likely it would be added to new business when it's not on the recommendation of super Acting Superintendent so is this hampering our new superintendent as she's coming in to um work with us on policies so I'm going to highly recommend that your policy committee at least put again look at 0131 and figure out you should have some guidance on what should be done um when it comes to your policies cly was just abolish but also right like I think there should be a if you're going to get rid of this policy I recommend that you do put in a in its place a policy that one that's kind of what I know but the problem with that is is that the policy 0155 they they're making a kind of an assumption here that if that passes um right we can we could they can fight the board president's um choices for committees which means that we could be four four for a very long time right so let's say that's true right we're a 4 four and there's no committees and there's no board president and there's no right committee chairs then I just got to make a motion at a meeting to bring in a 0131 without any transparency right because that was the whole reason why we brought first reads to the December meeting is because our policy said that like the intention of that policy was to have transparency right so people had time to absorb it and comment on it um but now we're getting rid of that so we're basically also getting rid of the transparent part right because now I'm just going to have to come in January and say I would like to make a motion to make 0131 and I'm just going to have to read out whatever I want in that policy right because I wouldn't have any other way to disseminate it yeah either that or a recommendation from your superintendent on what the policy would be but I would have to right like I would personally have to convince the superintendent to put something on the agenda where we really don't do that right like all agenda items are usually with board support right it goes to a committee commit not all but yes right like most almost all of these items go to some kind of committee and then get put on the agenda right so we're all aware of it right but now we're removing that whole thing right until we might have a committee it's interesting that the the reason we had to do this is because Natasha tried to go through the committee followed the process requested the superintendent that these be put on the agenda and the Monopoly or like the structure that was created respectfully no I I I didn't interrupt you I would really appreciate so the reason we are being forced to do this is because when we followed the process and we respectfully requested M the superintendent and the committee to put these policies on the agenda it was rejected and it's not like it's really rich to hear all these commentary about lame duck December and all that when the very thing was done in two lame duck sessions so because of the reason the very reason about the elections the results of elections so if Mr Robert CH Chuli and you and the rest of the board could do it I don't understand and we are not trying to and we did try to follow the process this year we asked Mr Nixon to put these on the agenda through the committee Mrs Jolly so okay so just to clarify I had asked for 6421 to be discussed in committee on a separate note I had asked for um 132 to be used for the other alternates St sesme version which is this and this was said as a no regardless um Mr dler is there a mechanism for us to bring back 131 or a version of it at the next meeting if it gets on the agenda with the superintend if the superintendent puts it on the agenda so your your policy committee still should be in place so again I would recommend your policy committee discuss it it no longer requires a first reading so the recommendation can come through the superintendent right but in a reorg you have no one on a committee so effective genan one you may have the committee but there's no one on it Jan one but till that time you have a policy Committee in place so between and Jen Jen first is I don't about it I don't know if Merry Christmas so um and then I believe um con had a motion to amend yes I think that's just a moment we still have discussion no we still have a discussion Mr Nixon just there's just two points one um I think B still exists to be voted on tonight right so that's that can still be the recommendation of the Acting Superintendent been waiting to get that one in for a second and also just to clear and accurate information because it I does bother me a little bit when things are not accurate because public hears and there was nothing asked for and the superintendent rejected it you have a superintendent who takes an Acting Superintendent who takes part in committees and the the superintendent I didn't create the Committees and you can feel how you want to feel about the Committees I go by the recommendations of the Committees and that's what I put on the agenda so I think it's inaccurate to share with the public that you requested some that I put something on the agenda and I and I rejected it that's that's not an it's not an accurate statement the public should hear accurate statements that's all I want to say no if you are taking offense to upon the recommendation of the superintendent previously upon the recommendation of the superintendent other policies did not make the cut it wasn't intended at you personally but there are multiple agenda items and which we will talk about in new business which we requested you as the Acting Superintendent which sometimes we get a response we don't get a response but I'll get to it in your business okay I think that's a right violation can waxon it's it's not we though the full board doesn't come to the Acting Superintendent or the superintendent and requests that things go on for a committee when the committee does work and then the committee leaves a committee meeting with the decision of something that's going to move forward that's what goes on there so it's not we came with something different and it would I just want to make sure everybody's clear I'm not I didn't I'm not saying Mr Nixon re anything and all my communications were with the policy chair so we're taking um we're taking the we're taking the ability for our superintendent to recommend policies now not at all no I don't think that's happening to be very clear I don't see where that is happening where we are taking away the ability from the Acting Superintendent or the superintendent to make any recommendations we what's on the floor right now is a motion to make changes to point number a as recommended by Mr dler where we remove the words study and forc reading and essentially the last part of it instead of saying study and force reading it's basically adoption we are striking out upon the recommendation of the Acting Superintendent that's all happening in item a in Item B I I think we are not striking out the upon recommendation of the Acting Superintendent because I believe those are still being recommended right in Item B the one strikeout that's happening in Item B is essentially we removing the words second reading and instead of and we just leave the word adoption in it that's the only thing that's happening in my understanding what's what's happening we are not taking away the ability of the superintendent to make a recommendations to the policy to the point made about you know come Jan 202 5 I think we should be well within our rights to come back with policy 131 so Mr dler we're now make having a recommendation on the floor for an amendment of the wording for A and B that's correct that's what's on the floor right now I don't was there a second it was right I can second it I think somebody seconded it you okay that's secretary a vote on the amended wording for A and B Mrs Conor yes Mr Ki yes Dr forer yes Mrs H Nagel yes Mr Hyman nope Charlie yes Stanley abstain for legal reasons M Brad no motion passes so where are we now with our motions um so I think you I believe you need a Resolute did anyone move a and K or there's a motion first it was moved there was a motion to motion on the floor and that's Mr and Mr St can I can I ask a quick question Mr dler yes as it regards policy committee um so there's questions about bringing 131 back just procedur wise come January uh reorg there was not a policy committee until that um reorg happens correct and and committee members are named I mean again it's technically the one board dissolves and the new one comes in technically speaking again there's then there is no policy committee so it's probably not going to be and just frankly probably not going to be on the recommendation of the superintendent of that meeting that doesn't prevent I don't know how you advertised your reorg meeting if you indicate that action won't be taken or not or if you allow action to be taken if you allow action to be taken technically speaking someone could make a floor motion but again just based on but I'd have to like read out every word because I would have no way to disperse that transparen like I mean I I presumably I guess you'd have to bring copies um most likely to hand them out no you can you can need to agree on a president to be able to do that at that meeting you can send them to the to the board secretary to be published under agenda you can send them to the superintendent right now we have a motion on the floor and then the discussion should be after that I believe we already had the motion on the vote we're discussing yeah so there is nothing preventing a board member for any policy nobody has to read them verb them they can submit them to the superintendent and the board secretary and say this is what we propos to build move or discuss at the board meeting and that can be and the superintendent and the board secretary can discuss and we can copy the entire board and they can it can get on the agenda and on the attachments for everybody to see yeah figure out because the board hasn't configured yet though can I make a just to share a thought here right we all have email addresses that will still work come first genan 20 25 um if there is somebody who wants to come up with policy 131 I think the email is still going to work and attachment to all board members would I think do the job oh I'm sorry I was talking about transparency and that's to the public which is something I think all four people ran on so it's the public that I'm concerned about I'm not concerned about board members thus the attachment the documents can all be still hosted on our website last I check so I think that's doable but we would be conducting business on email Mr Heyman you had a comment no I was I was going to say the same thing I I don't think you conduct board business re you're not you're not a board yet just officially just like we share the attachments to any agenda share it but like how are you going to align on comments or that happens in the meeting then we don't have to have uh you know an email conversation about it if the intent is for somebody to come up with policy 131 uh without you know without going through too many Hoops send an email come to the meeting let's have a discussion and if there is enough agreement on the on the board to go ahead and pass that version of 131 there will be votes for it I think it's clear that right like this one was discussed so that means opma was already violated but then also also excuse meing Stanley is talking making an allegation that op was violated without any proof without any evidence is not okay Mrs Stanley finish then Dr forer let me see but I also right what I I was trying to say is that right like it's clear that even you guys are struggling to know what the implications of this are right like you didn't really think this through other than you wanted to get what you wanted pass and I think that shows intent of what was trying to be done here but again I think that you have to start thinking bigger right like this is about the district and instead you're making it about you know what you want to do and what you want said but you're not even listening to the district right they're they're sitting here telling you their concerns and we're still just ignoring that and I I'm just really disappointed and I I think that it brings us up into legal um I know Mr dler your job is to protect the board but I do feel that we could be sued for doing this after an election I do feel that this puts us in ethic violation and I think that we're really I think that there's no real good reason for this and I'm really just disappointed Dr forer yeah let me let me suggest something that make life a lot simpler and I think should make everybody happy um would you all right um for the upcoming reorg meeting we could just mail our ideas for agenda items to AJ and he can with consultation with the superintendent or whatever or Gail put together the an agenda that includes all those items and the first item on the agenda should be to approve the agenda and that would be the opportunity for the board to remove any items from the agenda that they don't want to consider at that meeting so if you want to make a policy change you want to introduce uh policy revised or the same 131 um you can mail that in with the copy of the policy that'll show up in the published agenda so that satisfies the transparent a lot of boards actually ADC Mrs Dr for is speaking just that's what a lot of boards do and then we have an immediate vote to approve the agenda and there's an opportunity to amend the agenda to get rid of any it it s we don't want to consider at that meeting that's so you're saying that the board has to approve every item on the agenda and you apprend Philips do you have something to say you approve the agenda and if you if somebody on the board says no I don't want to consider that then we have an amendment to the approval to strike that item from the agenda and if the if the majority the board doesn't want to consider that item then it goes away that's the way a deliberative assembly works check that's what we were told at one of our training sessions by school boards first year I was on the boards I don't there has there should be an approval of your agenda at each meeting that should be your first item a lot of boards EXC me excuse me Mr Phillips did you have a comment okay Mrs Airi yeah so I can I can actually send you a list of districts in New Jersey that do adopt their agenda at the beginning of the board meeting if you want you know if you it this was train this was the training that was given to us by New Jersey school boards Association anyways I think we have a motion on the floor yeah we have one more comment just just to the point of of lame duck which is which is um and and and I guess Equity you'll only have six members sworn in as members of this board come gen one so but the other two if you care um they would not have the ability I don't think they have email addresses they certainly don't know how to access them so they would not have an opportunity to contribute to this this set agenda just sh that for what it's wor I can't cure world hunger but I can try to make things better that's all Mr Stanley one more comment that has nothing to do with all of this um but I just don't want it to be missed we are approving in this um section um the school calendar and we have Dali uh off for the first time ever and I really want to thank the staff for working really hard to make that happen um I know this is something that Dr barley and I had talked about so many times and it's so hard to get that um through and I really thank you for pushing that through this year and I really thank the community for choosing that calendar in the in the survey and filling it out right you said we had like 900 that's amazing feedback for the survey so I really really appreciate that and I'm excited for um what the future will hold for our calendar can I can I P you back just to thank Mr Nixon just to note that um historically the communication between our districts on calendar alignment was not necessarily there it happened this time and so thank you for that and the alignment that came from it I just have a quick followup to that so we are approving the school calendar is this the one that has one less snow day built-in can you clarify that for everybody and I'm I'm really I was glad to see the for diali um being acknowledged on the calendar yeah it was so it was really interesting to take a look at the feedback as there were subtle differences but the differences were significant um so it wasn't even so Ma so much um you know which calendar preference there was but you know using a lot of the uh tools available um we were able to get really great summaries of the free response feedback and the things that ended up being priorities um were're not starting school for students in August but starting school for students in um in September um ending as early in June as appropriate because once June hits a lot of people are ready to be done um wow a lot of people were interested in the entire election and teachers convention week off it's hard that if you're not going to come in in August and you don't want to end really late in June so we we ended up not moving with that and a lot of the feedback wanted to see us recognize thewall as well so um you know we tried to get creative to make all of those things happen you know once you start laying out a calendar and you have to count up to 183 or 184 days there's very little flexibility you know you know ideas like I think um I think January 1 is on a Thursday in this calendar so one of the things we had to consider is do we come back on Friday January 2nd for one day and then have another weekend no one's going to want to do that so so we we we looked at a lot of those type things we looked at the feedback and ultimately this calendar uh we start in September for students uh we have dwali off uh the professional development day is not a full day off it's two half days a half day in September a half day in February uh we we end on June 17th which allows us to have the 18th still as a rain date um should we need to make adjustments with graduation due to inclement weather um and it aligned us with mountain side uh and having um spring break prior uh the week prior to Easter so um it accomplished a lot of those things that were shared with us as being important as Community being important so I think that that's that's really helpful yeah with with three snow days right the the only I guess downside if you will is if we have more than three snow days will this eat into the spring break yeah I mean there's there's a listing of days I think it starts with the Monday the Tuesday then the Wednesday okay of of spring break in order but you know we also took a look back at historically what has happened the past 10 years or so and I probably just Jinx I'm not even gonna say it but you know what I'm gonna say coming and Mr Nixon I know you and I had an exchange about um the week of election week and stuff like that right and you had provided me some information which I think might be useful because I'm always wondering like why does the school have to be used and why couldn't we have elections elsewhere so the schools can stay open yeah and and so so there there were a lot of discussions and and it's it's been a challenging history as the principal of Governor Livingston the last school in our district that is um an election site a a voting site um I've I've protested having elections in our building during a school day uh for some time but one of the things that we've always been able to do is is have police presence on site for protection uh to allow both school and voting to happen concurrently uh as soon as voter intimidation laws came about and police officers are not able to be on site to offer us protection that's when we began to have to have that day off um I've had conversations our executive County Superintendent put me in in touch with the person that kind of controls those things and because of law there's we have no flexibility with moving it off site there's still not I I personally agree with all of this uh early voting opportunities and different things like that um certainly should be the opportunity to revise the law about distances for voting sites and different things like that I mean I voted this year in a completely different town than the town that I live in there's a lot of new ways that you can do things and I think it's time that that law gets revised hopefully somebody listening has some pulling can help with that um but at this time we weren't able to uh Dr forer asked a good follow-up question to that uh that we exchanged about a little bit today what's the difference with primary elections in June then we we're in school on that date and the difference is it's a much smaller operation and we're able to host that one in the vestibule so really it blocks off any any participants in voting from the rest of the school whereas for the general election which is much larger um we need to provide the area that's outside of the the media center so that just doesn't work Mrs is up Nigel um did you get any feedback on the survey about half days in general I know as a parent they have historic frustrated me particularly when you're in the child carriers and you're trying to deal with that um just wonder if you got any feedback on the survey you didn't get for me because I didn't fill it out school next year no and when I say no I was I I didn't read all 600 something lines um we used a tool that allows us to take all of that feedback put it into a generator and really produce a summary for us and it really came up with like the top six or so um themes that came up more than others and that wasn't one of them that came up more than others um I I know some staff members wanted to see particularly I think at the high school level wanted to see more half days because certain days like when you give PSATs and stuff like that it kind of throws off your schedule and then you know students have had it by the time they've been testing for three or three and a half hours uh but that that also has a full District imp ucation opportunity that's how it feels to me like the days shorten so my perception true or not but my perception is it's kind of a less education day for the teachers sure and and they're not they're not randomly thrown in there days that we have them are because we're trying to meet um contractual obligations like staff development um uh or or contractual obligations days before breaks like you know the um upcoming Friday December 20th is a half day that's contractually that's contractually driven yeah so there's a lot of those factors that we have to keep in mind when creating the calendar as well thanks waiting for recognition from the all right um so Dr forer yeah I uh on this summer programs I noticed we don't get any enrollment reports for the summer I asked about this and they said uh we don't prepare them uh but when school is in session for more than four hours or four hours at least uh they're supposed to be you're supposed to keep track of enrollment so I think we should be getting enrollment reports so are we going to get any I can say okay I when I ask about historically historically my next question historically it hasn't been provided um they exist I mean I saw them I see them really um yeah but but historically haven't hasn't been something that's been provided to the board but again I start sounding like David when I said if that's something that the board requested I'm sure that's something that you could yeah I asked for it uh that you could ask for and see I was told it doesn't exist but all right so we'll get who told you it didn't exist I don't know just I don't want to get anybody TR so uh approv summer program so we'll get we'll get some sort of basically enrollment reports on that right I'm saying we have them uh we have attendance we have we have roles we have attendance uh a report could be generated and calculated if if that's something that the board whatever you do each month I thought I'm just looking for you know what we get September through June keep keep the process going that's all okay okay um Mr secretary we're going to vote on resolutions a through K all board members see uh I'm a to a uh abstain on B yes C uh abstaining on the two CMS uh sorry not the two standing on all of the CMS uh under D so just yes to the the to GL and then yes to everything else under D yes yes everything correct St a no to a and yes to everything else is yes to everything except on um The Hip I'm an abstain on all CMS and um yes to everything yes to all to all Miss Jolly yes to all Conor already voted on A and B so yes to item C through k no to A and B yes to C through the K moving on to education resolutions a through G all board members may have a motion so moved thank you Mr Heyman second second thank you Mrs JY uh discussion just reiterate that the The Jump Start program we talked about this last meeting great to see it on here and highly recommend for anyone with a high school junior I Echo that I just want to make sure that everybody knows how to find the Jump Start program so it's going to be a part of the minutes but is that also going to be posted on the website for uh parents and students to be able to sign up I think there's a deadline that goes with that as well yeah our school counseling department does a great job advertising that and pushing that out through various various sources I have a question on number B was that brought to curriculum committee the change to the guide on Asian study on American studies I don't think we saw this no so the curriculum committee didn't meet this month uh curriculum meets uh next week yeah there was sh there was a curriculum meeting this month yeah no last month well between so between the November to December so I have not seen minutes from that meeting and I there's now two leason reports that I have not heard for curriculum um again we just talked about committees and changing them but right like me and Jordan are the only ones that gave committee reports today that the minutes had been given prior to the meeting right so and dipy well no Dip's minutes weren't given prior to the meeting um so again right were the the second group the second meeting everybody had the minutes from the November 20th meeting the December 5ifth meeting the committee has the minutes and they will go out as soon as I get home right but that's right the whole point of the committee is let's be very clear and very specific of what we are saying especially when you're making comments about what other people have and have not done so if you are if your question is you would like to see the curriculum committee minutes let's just stick to that question and on the point of committee minutes sorry Mrs zir yes on the comment of uh if the comment is about committee Mrs Stanley finish your comment I thought you said no you please wait Mrs Ziri oh Mrs Stanley so right that that makes it very hard to vote on an agenda and I think that's why you see so many questions and it's 11:00 and we're just getting to the second agenda um section is because we when we have committees the whole point is to go in depth then the minutes go out then you have a chance to ask questions of that committee then go to the district if you didn't get enough answers and then come to the meeting prepared and I I want to say right like that is a big part of the work right that's the work right the this meeting is not really supposed to be the work it's supposed to be the transparency part um so I I don't know anything about this and that's very frustrating um I do look forward to seeing the minutes um but I'm I guess I'm approving it blind unless Mr um forger wants to give us more information on this so if I may speak um if we are talking about committee meeting minutes being distributed for transparency the very chair for policy committee has been sending us minutes with Google doc link links the moment we click on them it says you have no access and it says do you want to request access we request access it's been over 48 hours and we don't get an access then you send an email to the board Administration there is the Acting Superintendent copied on them and say hey please share do please ensure when you say Google Docs ensure that every board member has access we get nothing then you have to request a Committee Member to get the minutes or the ATT Ms so if we're talking about transparency I think you have to look at both sides of the coin just don't hurl something when you have not followed the same protocol the request on a Google Document to Grant access goes immediately I don't understand why for the policies that are for first read and second read There were couple of board members who couldn't even click and open those documents we're off topic Dr forger did you have a response I don't to read the committee Mee minutes from that I don't call receiving this curriculum guide uh and I certainly Mr Phillips can you can you speak to I think this has to do with the um the Civics requirement at the state level correct um the state a couple years I'm sorry were you still speaking Tom I think it would be best if uh Mr Phillips just explains what's going on here yeah um I don't think I saw a detailed change I think there was some discussion about why we had to change it because there was a group that said you're not following the state law on Civics um and uh but I don't think we ever saw the guide until went to the whole board but I I do have some anyway let's Mr Phillips can talk about why we're changing it and then I'll and then we can have a discussion about whether we like these changes or not and it's it's not a matter of like in my opinion um there is a state mandate that um in the middle school years grades six through eight that the students must have two consecutive semesters of civics in their social studies class um currently in our curriculum we have one marking period in eth grade um in order to meet that requirement we are add um for our current seventh and eighth graders we are adding um uh this uh third and marking period in eth grade so the eighth graders will have two uh consecutive um marking periods as required by the state Mandate of civics um this law went into place a couple years ago um so the uh the eighth graders uh in order to fulfill that requirement must have two consecutive SE semesters um same so we wanted the seventh graders to fulfill that requirement also in the meantime we are looking to um uh with the current sixth graders um adjust their experience so that that they're not missing a a half a semester in one course they're going to get um uh a semester at the end of sixth grade and a semester beginning of seventh grade um so they're only going to be missing uh not a semester I'm I'm sorry a marking period at the end of sixth grade and a marking period in the beginning of seventh grade which by the state of definition State's definition is Con marking periods um so it'll be only missing one marking period uh in those courses as compared to two marking periods in uh the eighth grade class so we we we're making two adjustments uh one to meet the requirements for current seventh and eighth graders um before they leave Colombia and the second um adjustment will be for the current sixth graders and and the future uh uh students that will come through Columbia so this so the only adjustment that's on tonight's agenda is the eth grade curriculum for us to meet um the requirement so this is not necessarily A rewrite of the curriculum this is more a restructure how it's how it's represented um and what happened uh speaking a little bit with with um the administration and and and the director um of the department uh Columbia at one point also had an elect well I'm going to call it a cycle class they called an elective class of civics plus they had a civics class uh in uh in in the uh as part of their eighth grade social studies um that Civic cycle class in the last year got dropped for whatever reason for other electives um so they no long and it wasn't consecutive so they weren't meeting the requirements so this now change will make sure that they're meeting the state requirements understood thank Mrs the date on this says August of 2024 does that mean that it's already in or it's S as approved for December is it already in place for the current eighth graders it was um it it is now the revision happened it was never um approved it was written I guess and was never brought in front of uh um the board and I guess this is part of what happened during you know change of of but it's essentially like you know it's going to happen in the third I think you said the third Mar the third marking period the eighth graders will have I don't know February or so so soon is they hit it correct thank you yes so are we taking away 16 weeks of US history in favor of civics with this recommendation we are meeting the state requirement yes no are we take but we to meet the state requirement on Civics we're taking away 16 weeks of History yeah well it was really eight weeks because we already had eight weeks of eightth grade the eth grade social studies class was already Civics so now we're adding another eight weeks of civics and can we find out what happened to that elective civics class that got dropped you said it got dropped for whatever reason so if somebody is making a decision at a building level or I don't know which level was that made to drop an elective which basically put us out of sync or in it it wasn't fulfilling the requirement because uh it was a cycle class and the majority of the students were not having consecutive marking periods so it wasn't meeting the state requirement the students not enrolling in consecutive classes was leading us to be in out of sync with the state requirement or was it not being when you have a cycle class that students will cycle throughout that course throughout the year so student who had at the beginning of the year and then had the eighth grade uh cycle uh material at in the fourth marking period they weren't meeting the state requirement that required consecutive marking periods thank you I think I think my concern is you had eight weeks of uh US History uh in this course and it's being displaced in favor of eight weeks of civics okay that's fine Civics I like that that but what happened to the eight weeks of History where did that go or is that history now this is this is the problem when the state continues to add mandates and and there's a give and take and that's always going to happen um so this is what's going to happen two years and and and in year three that eight weeks will be back in in the eighth grade uh curriculum but then you're going to be looking at the sixth grade curriculum and saying what happened those eight weeks there in the seventh grade curriculum what happened in eight weeks of that course this is the give and take of of State mandates okay po minut Mr Phillips and Dr forg I just want to point out it is almost 1110 we have a lot to go through right we do have a motion for Education a through G at this time Mr secretary can we take a vote Mr hman yes to all yes Jo sec it's a yes to everything yes until yes right a to s g no it's a to G oh a to G yes um a to s g I'm sorry a to G oh that's right um all right I I will say yes on most of a um there are some field trips that to me don't look educational so no on those and uh yes to the rest of it so you're voting no on some of the field trips uh like I don't understand what Campa keba is what we why that would be ucation and um I don't understand why going to a baseball game would be educational so are you voting no on a some of a uh let's say the Campa keba and the baseball trip what grade is that it doesn't matter grade no it does because I I'll give you the reason why we're not even in discussion anymore so I don't know why but Fifth Fifth Grade goes to the baseball game because they have a stem day MH a Steam and stem day at the baseball fields so it's it's educational sounds educational yeah I I went on it with the fifth graders I was the chapon it was lots of fun um they have different science departments there um so it is educational just so you're aware that right like that that's why they go okay well the term education is has different meanings to different people are you done voting Dr forer yeah okay Mr secretary Jo is a a yes or is it a no uh I'm going to say no on the baseball trip in the uh Campa in Pennsylvania and I'm sorry I did not in the discussion period I meant to bring this up because I don't I didn't see the educational value of some of these but you can all vot yes if you like it there's [Music] one yes to all yes to all Miss Stanley yes Miss Bradford yes to all moving on passes moving on to Personnel resolutions a through H all board members resolutions I through S brookley Heights only may I have a motion so moved thank you Mr Stanley thank you Mrs huffnagel U any discussion roll call vote Stanley was the motion Miss H was a second yes yes Stanley yes hle yes mrir yes Dr forer yes yes on items a through H scy yes all yes Bradford yes passes moving on to business resolutions a through I all board members resolution J Berkeley Heights only may I have a motion thank you Mrs huffnagel second second thank you Mrs Stanley discussion increased $50 from last year overall for the whole year okay thank you roll call vote uh I have a quick question on I um approved service agreement with fifth asset DBA debt book it says Auto renewal is is something that we already have um I approv service agreement with a company named fifth asset Inc DBA debt book one no it is this is brand new this is brand new yes and what is this for this is for we have a gby 87 and a gby 96 it happens to do with final reporting for our audit I get it the gas Beast answered me that's fine I'm good and this will get Auto renewed every year until well we're going to need to do it for our reporting purposes because the way it's got to be evaluated on our audit report it's almost like um antiz about it okay roll call vote Miss huel yes to all Miss Stanley yes mrir yes Dr porer yes mrman yes on items a through I charie yes to all Conor yes M Bradford yes motion passes moving on to finance resolutions a through D all board members may I have a motion yes I second Mr Ziri second second thank you Mr Heyman discussion roll call vote Mr cury uh yes to everything except oh actually I want to abstain on c and d and um yes on everything except two Bill numbers 211 322 standing on Bill numbers you said no abstaining on c and d and no on two bills okay one is 211 322 and the other one is 21148 Dr for uh on a no on Bill 211 322 and no on 21148 yes to the other bills and yes to b c and d b c and d yeah and what about a a is yes to all but those two bills okay Missle yes to all except bill number 21138 is abstain that's the company I work for and 21148 is a no yes to everything else that was 211 for the for the um I'm sorry for the Nay 21148 and 21308 was itain correct and yes and everything else correct yes yes to all yes to everything except check number 21148 right Stanley does anybody want to tell me what the problem with 21148 is because I feel like right if you if you think there's a problem it should have been brought to the board I'm voting yes yes everything passes except for check number 2148 one two three four so I have four not Mrs Kaa will you read please we're moving on to comments from the public on any topic during this portion of the meeting District residents and staff are invited to address the board of education on any item the board requests that individuals State their name and town of residence or School of attendance for the record all comments should be directed to the board president and depending upon the nature and complexity of the question it may or may not be answered during the meeting by the administration if so the response would occur after this public portion of the meeting has concluded although the board may not respond to all items raised during the public forum all public comments will be considered the board asks that the members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of 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 members of the public please note that if any member of the public becomes disruptive during the meeting the board president May terminate the participant statement continued disruptions may result in removal from or adjournment of the meeting each speaker statement will be limited to 3 minutes in duration we'll take public comments first and then online can you hear me yes all right I want to start off by saying I am personally offended that all of you disrespected myself as well as the replacement representative for Jordan I ran on an an a opposed race and the voters spoke and you just denied them the ability to have their representative vote for them you have no right to do what you did I came in as a neutral person wanting to work with all of you to bridge the problems and you just slapped me in the face I cannot tell you how pissed off I am furthermore I'd like to address the attorney because you didn't ask you didn't answer my question last time I would like to know by them doing this does that now leave the board open to potential lawsuit and furthermore I would also like to know would the people that made the motion to remove or abolish 131 and also move forward with these changes of one reads of policy does now does that now leave them open to an ethics violation um I see no one else in public um Mr Marx could you promote please that looks like Mr mcky uh can you guys hear me yes uh John mcz Berkeley Heights New Jersey uh it was curious to me to hear how Miss Stanley felt how the new board was going to vote like I don't know how she understood that they were going to lose a vote when we just heard the candidate who won say she was going to be a neutral party that was pretty interesting I mean there was no evidence to support that this vote would have gone one way or the other with a new board right the board candidate who just got elected didn't have any conversations with current board members on this I'm assuming um but I do want to kind of go into a little bit of a history lesson and talking about slaps in the faces uh a lot of these policies as Mr Kiri indicated were passed during lame duck session and resulted in a board president controlling committees she's on eight of them at this point you had board members talking about how they tried to put this policy through committee and were blocked we heard that tonight and so if we're going to talk about trust and civility let's let's be open about really what happened here this does not affect transparency uh any board member could put out what they'd like to the public uh on an email you know that could go on the agenda you guys have set this up right from the beginning before this new board started to sabotage undermine and block and it's been con constant and so what we did here or what they did here what the district did here was correct what's so funny Pam yeah I'm part of the district we right please go ahead uh well it's kind of annoying when you have a board member who takes up 40 minutes going on and on with nonsense that doesn't make any any difference and then you complain about late meetings and then she block obstructs everything Mr MZ please continue with your comments yeah this is my comment do not address IND I'm addressing you I'm addressing you it's annoying that you have somebody just go on and on for 40 minutes laughs during meetings makes up stories can't think through how oh my God how are we going to let the public know about transparency well there's something called the internet in any event I'm glad that the board passed this it finally rests control from one person it was a good decision wasn't a slap in the face a slap in the face happened last year have a good night I see no other comments um Mr dler would you like to comment so what I'll say when it comes to I'm not on so uh when it comes to obviously risks to the board liability that's something that I traditionally would address an executive session I'm happy to answer any of the board's questions but that's that's not something I traditionally can answer publicly again my job is to protect the board and answer the board's questions but liability R and the like that's something more more address an executive session of the board's questions okay thank you uh new business number one who brought that I would like to make a motion to adjourn the meeting it's after 11 and it's I mean you can look at the District employees and and they are they're frustrated they're tired and uh I think I would like to make a mo motion do I have a second do we have a second m uple a vote on the motion can we have discussion just real quick um Mrs jly thank you so for the items that are on new business right do they um if we adjourn the meeting now and they're not discussed can they carry over to the next meeting like so at the next reorg meeting we can move these as new business items on the agenda advertised traditionally yes it's your reorg meeting where traditionally it's usually a shorter meeting I don't know if it's advertised or action may be taken or not um but traditionally beyond your reor meeting certainly and I don't know what your I don't have your schedule in front of you but any board member put on new business in accordance with your policy a reorg meeting is by law a regular meeting so it certainly can take and we're certainly going to take action on a lot of things that I again some reorgs they advertise as no action will be taken I don't know if that's yours or not that's that's my only hesitancy I don't have your advertisement in front of you obviously if you advertise that action may be taken board members could add items to new business as they normally would I mean my specific items are discussion like more question answer for you know so I I don't I don't need any action so if I may from what I remember in my first reorg meeting I think we adopt the policy so there like action is taken we do we do go yeah so we what I know we do have motions and and the board does vote on them is actually so long as you have a president approved at that meeting no we we actually have a policy that dictat so that's the first action of the meeting excuse me excuse me we actually have a policy that dictates certain things that must happen at the reor meeting again if if you advertise the meeting as action may take place the new business then you you would add new business as you would any other meeting see also the reason why the meetings are running so long is I've been trying since 2022 to add more meetings if we had a regular more board meeting and a conference session which Berkeley Heights district used to have for many years until 2021 when we drastically reduced the number of meetings we won't be sitting here for like eight hours or nine hours and the reason for the lengthy meetings and packed agendas is forcing the board to have only one meeting a month and then scrambling when you absolutely need meetings to you know when is when do we have Quorum so it's not on the the new business items that is causing lengthy meetings it's also the amount of time that is disproportionately given to certain members and maybe if we want to reduce the length of the meetings we should follow the cue from the Town Council and give our committee and liazon reports at at the end of the meeting thank you Kelly can you reconfirm uh how many meetings you said we've had in the time you've been on this board thank you that is because this year superintendent search and we tried we have on the floor all of which went pretty late yes in January at the rork we asked for additional meetings to be added for superint we you asked there were multiple board members who were going to the superintendent search on the day that we got snowed in so Mrs Ziri please finish up your so I yeah if you want to more I would like to discuss my new business items I followed the policy I gave 48 hour advance notice which was a policy require we have a motion in a second to I think think we so we should we have a motion a second tojn yes and I'm discussing that that I am so motion to adjourn is new business and I'm saying I do not want to dis adjourn because the very board member who's complaining about this had moved a motion in the lame duck session to put a 48 hour requirement and I followed it and this is why my agenda items are here thank you thank you roll call vote Mr secretary I'd like I think I'd like to know if it's a two-thirds vote because basically uh when you adjourn you're terminating discussion and any sort of termination of discussion usually takes a two-thirds vote so I think the motion is to adjourn yeah just to adjourn discussion place no I mean uh to adjourn the meeting so doesn't that's an ending of discussion I think that normally any ending of discussion limitation of debate usually takes a two thirds vote but I I don't have time to look it up but I'd like to think that terminating uh the discussion this way is not a nice thing to do we did not terminate the discussion I think you Tom you meant terminating the agenda terminating the agenda yes termining the meeting we're moving the agenda new business items to our next agenda this is a nasty thing to do I don't think it should be done so so I just I wasn't clear is Mr just did did we confirm that these can be pushed to the new to the meeting on the reor meeting assuming it's advertised how I believe it is I believe yes you would just move as you would any other normal meeting notify your board secretary within the appropriate time and request that be add this new business okay okay roll call vote Mr secretary a Voice vote okay yes I okay hi um Voice vote was I call for division recording individual votes individual votes then please we have any names no okay no names okay uh meeting is adjourned at 11:30 ask do we have any notes