call to order um welcome to the meeting of the bransburg Board of Education um please be advised that this and all meetings of the board are open to the public and media consistent with the open public meetings act and that advanced notice uh required has been provided this is a meeting of the Board of Education of Branchburg at which formal action may be taken the public will have an opportunity to be heard as shown on the agenda please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance FL of the United States of America to the rep stand na at the annual school election the following three members were elected for three-year terms Mr Vincent Carpentier received 2312 votes Mr Mr Robert Mater received 2,469 votes Mr Charles Tuma received 2,699 votes um we will now begin uh the swear in um you have the uh Here Comes Miss [Music] hello so uh we'll begin the swear swearing please state your name and uh resite the saring in we're all going to do it simultaneously that's yeah I support the of the United States and the New Jersey and true faith and aliance to the same and to government estblished in the United United States St under the authority of people swear iations prescri byw for the office of M ofif purs R1 impartially and justly perform all duties of that office according to the best of my ability so help me thank you we'll now have a roll call vote Mr saai here Mr dgan here M britzy here Mr Mater here miss notto miss notto is absent Miss Shaw here Mr Tuma here miss Joyce here Mr Carpenter here we will now recite the uh code of ethics we'll go around the room we'll start with Mr Mater and uh everyone will will ums number one I will uphold and enforce all laws rules and regulations of the State Board of Education and court orders pertaining to schools desired changes shall be brought about only through legal and ethical procedures number two I will make decisions in terms of the educational welfare of children and will seek to develop and maintain Public Schools that meet the individual needs of all children regardless of their ability race Creed sex or social standing number three I will confine my board action to policymaking planning and appraisal and I will help to frame policies and plans only after the board has consulted those who will be affected by them I will carry out my responsibility not to administer the schools but together with my fellow board members to see that they are well-run I will recognize that Authority rests with the Board of Education and will make no personal promises nor take any private action that may compromise the board I will refuse to surrender my independent judgment to special interest or partisan political groups or to use the schools for personal gain or for the gain of friends I will hold confidential all matters pertaining to the schools which if disclosed would need needlessly injure individuals or the schools in all other matters I will provide accurate information and in concert with my fellow board members in interpret to the staff the aspirations of the community for its school I will vote to appoint the best qualified Personnel available after consideration of the recommendation of the chief administrative officer I will support and protect School Personnel in proper performance of their duties I will refer all complaints to the chief Administration officer and will act on the complaints at public meetings only after failure of an administrative solution right job thank you um now we will proceed to electing the president of the board um do I have a motion to nominee motion who are you nominating oh sorry Noor who would you like to nominate no I'm good okay motion to nominate Vincent carpent here yes second any other nominations okay thank you congratulations apprciate President Carpenter you get the gap on um can I have a motion to nominate a vice president motion to nominate Terry Joyce second all in favor candidates good yeah can I have a motion to nominate um a summable board of education member I nominate Christ fazi second okay any other nominations all in favor I okay so then we move on to uh uh B I guess we're done with that right yeah okay so next is item number one the official newspaper item number two depository of funds item number three Investments item number four designated signatories item number five annual meeting dates and item number six personnel and I have a motion to move these items motion second any questions comments has everybody had the opportunity to look at the meeting dates concerns right now can I have a roll call please s Mr yes Mr yes m f yes Mr Mater yes Miss sha yes Mr T yes M Joyce yes here yes Mo pass thank you next up is item C annual read adoptions can I have a motion to move this item motion second um any questions concerns can I have Ral call please yes Mr Jen yes Mr Bry yes Mr Mater yes M sha yes Mr T yes M Joyce yes Mr carer yes motion's passed okay we will move on to the superintendent report report and just keep in mind that we will have an executive session after this meeting thank you Mr Carpenter first and foremost I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year uh today we had school resume very smoothly and we were delighted to welcome our new acting interim principal Miss Christina stefer to her role um Miss Miss St and I were in communication over the break and she was actually on site preparing her office and today I had the opportunity to meet with her again and things are going seamlessly over there and we are as we're continuing this transition to our new leadership which I will be sharing more information about um the details of which we will use a committee structure like we did with our supervisors but I will share more information about that out at a letter D into the uh Middle School Community uh I'd also like to express my gratitude to some various groups that provided some donations to us first I want to thank the PTO for their help and support of our families in need through their Thanksgiving thoughtfulness and holiday happiness program which is run Miss Davis and I met about that so I wanted to specifically mention her work in this um I also want to thank the rotary and the Megan Bradley Foundation that is actually on this board agenda for for um for you to accept a donation uh for some essential items that are vital for our students so that is my report right now thank you very much okay next up is public comment on agenda items only the Board of Education recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and school matters of community interest in support of this position the law establishes a period of public comment at every board meeting individuals wishing to speak must State their name and place of residence comments are limited to three minutes per person for a total of 30 minutes an individual may speak a second time after after all others who wish to speak on the topic have been heard please understand that our public forums are not structured as question and answer sessions but offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer and no participant May address or question board members individually all speakers are requested to express themselves in a civil manner with due respect for the dignity and privacy rights of others whose legal rights may be affected please note while it is not the board's intention to stifle comment on matters of leg legitimate concern to the school Community the public should be aware that if their statements violate the rights of others under the law governing defamation or invasion of privacy they may face personal liability to the injured party if speakers are uncertain of the legal ramifications of their comments the board urges them to seek guidance beforehand from their own legal adviser we have any comments on agenda items Davis so I came here tonight to make sure that you as the Board of Education have been made fully aware that my daughter sharah has fed a subject of inexcusable inappropriate verbal racial abuse at her middle school on 1212 Shariah and two of her friends were leaving the lunchroom when another student came up to her and called her the most derogatory degrading dehumanizing and one of the most offensive words in history Not only was she called the N word but that was followed up with she's a monkey this is nothing short of verbal racial abuse there have been many issues with the use of this word towards my daughter and other students a boy on her bus calls her the nword daily boys from her class call her the nword then they ask her for the nword pet the Halloween dance were monkey costumes and racially inappropriate behavior was accepted as mother I will not accept that the word is powerful and it's un unacceptable in all courts I will not accept this Behavior Shariah will not accept this Behavior I demand the district enforce disciplined disciplinary actions to all of the offenders I expect the HIV 338 form that I had completed to be forwarded to the New Jersey State Board of Education with myself included this abuse happened on 1212 not one person from the school called or notified me about this until I called the question about who Miss heart is and what she does in the school that's unacceptable period this is simply inexcusable I expect more from bcms I expect more from our student for our students I expect more from my daughter Dr Chase our superintendent of our schools needs to be held accountable for the decline of our Middle School the Board of Education needs to be held accountable for the way our students are behaving the disrespect to their peers teachers and staff and even our community is simply heartbreaking but far F structure and accountability needs to be put back in place the use of the nword needs to be banished from our schools it's clear that this was not an allegation this is a fact my daughter was socially violated in your school she's been called the nword constantly our schools need massive improvements on the way our kids are behaving this restorative practice is simply garbage where is the respect for anybody or anything so with that my questions for the board are as follows what is being put in place so that this racial abuse never happens again what does the district on doing to ensure my daughter the safety the chief and tile sale what policy does the Board of Education have regarding racial bullying what disciplinary actions and not restorative practice actions are going to be put in place for this situation because it's proof that that restorative pract practice is useless and Dr Chase as far as my meeting for you on Friday 15 that works for me you just let me know the time thank you thank you any other comments on agenda items okay moving on to governance we have a few voting items we have a approval of minutes B approval of revised 2023 2024 School District calendar and C approval of harassment intimidation or buing in investigative report can I have a motion to move these items motion second okay uh any questions or comments can I have a roll call please yes again uh abstain as to A and C just by virtue of my absence from the December 7th 2023 meeting and yes as to B Mr for yes Mr Mater yes M yes to a and b um stay on C Mr Tan yes M Joyce um abstain on a yes to b abstain on C Mr carpent here yes passed thank you next up is policy and regulations we have one voting item a policy and regulations first reading can I have a motion to move that item motion second any questions or comments do we I don't know just we did me do you want to Dave do you have a report do you want you know just very briefly I mean we we've met uh a few times over the past you the ordinary course and we've gone over a number of uh very important policies that are going to require some further conversation and deliberation and we'll be raising those in the upcoming board meetings covers a variety of topics for uh tonight's purposes this is a little more straightforward it's attendance policy just dealing with uh professional staff attendance review and Improvement and uh they're just some Provisions that uh balance obviously legit legitimate needs of our uh excellent staff with uh certain needs of the district in terms of attendance providing advanced notice uh for absences and other items of the sort which are pretty explanatory self-explanatory so our committee recommends that those policies be adopted and we'll look forward to providing some updates as to the other things we've been working hard on as well thank you very much sir um can I have a motion to move these items Mo second can I have roll call please Mr yes Mr J yes Mr BR yes Mr Mater yes Miss sha yes Mr Tuma yes M Joyce yes Mr car here yes thank you and just so the public is aware we at our reorg meeting we typically Shuffle around the Committees so different people will be on different committees so we're kind of in like a weird stage since we or reorganized tonight so we met in previous year but then there will be some shuffling so we have reports from when we met 2023 so I'll just go through and and if anybody has a report they can read it out if not we'll just get to the voting items sound good um so next is education Mr maer do you have a report real quickly we met last month and uh the the main Crux of the meeting was regarding a special education update just for the uh for the education of the board it seems though we're going to need a bunch more um special education uh teachers next year so just for budgeting purposes that was a large part of our of our meeting that's so thank you sir um we have some voting items we have a conferences and travel B approval of student teacher C approval of acceptance of Grant funds B approval of 2023 2024 out of District program and E approval of service agreement can I have a motion to move these items motion second any questions or comments on those and I have a roll call please Mr yes Mr yes Mr yes Mr Mater yes M Shaw yes Mr Tuma yes M Jo yes Mr yes motions passed thank you very much next up is human resources Mr Tuma do you have a report no report we met prior to the last board meeting and haven't met since okay thank you um we have some voting items we have a approval of leave B approval of personnel C approval of 2023 2024 sub substitutes B approval of resignations e approval of winter teacher Academy presenters and f f approval of revision of leave can I have a motion to move those items motion second any questions comments so I just want to make a comment we have two of our long-standing employees resigning to seek opportunities elsewhere and Mr John Biser is actually responsible for video videoing all of our board meetings so I want to thank him and wish him well and the same thing to Mike Michael Dietrich who is going to another District to better suit their needs thank you for your service definitely thank you John we appreciate it I'm GNA miss giving you the thumbs up when you're ready for so good luck in your next Endeavor anybody else can I have a roll call please yes yes yes Mr Mater yes yes Mr T yes yes Mr yes oh thank you next up is business Miss Joy do you have a report yeah I have a real quick report um since we spent a lot of time also talking about the financial um constraints that we're looking forward to next year um but we talked about uh we had a review of the walkth through uh we did a pre qack walk through of the facilities um that I was able to attend which was very thorough and I got a really good education on what um facilities items the qac uh covers and what they'll be looking for um and we talked just a lot about finances we also discussed the turf and the hunting and the leases again there was a lot of discussion but I don't have enough okay thank you and we have some voting items we have a the bills list B secretary report C Treasures report D line item transfers e monthly transfer report F approval of non-public technology and non-public security Aid G approval of donation from the branch parur rotary and H approval of donation from the Megan Rose Bradley Foundation can I have a motion to move these items motion second any questions or comments on these can I have a roll call please Mr yes yes Mr yes Mr Mater yes yes Mr tum yes M Joyce yeah Mr here yes motion's passed thank you very much that brings us to our second public comment anybody who wishes to speak on any Topic at this time is welcome see no no movement um can I have a motion to poose the meeting to the public motion thank you the only solution it's the only answer