oh I don't see the light anymore oh there we go okay then I would like to call this meeting to order will the secretary please call the RO Mrs Becker here Mr sismour here Mr Cummings here miss gu here Mrs herck here Mr Hong here Mrs Reese Mr Winston here president LAX here we have a quum please rise to salute the flag I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to ad advance notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies in which any business affecting their interest is discussed and acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the East brunck board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted at the Board of Education offices written notice was also provided to The Sentinel The nework Star Ledger the home News Tribune the alternate press of East brunwick and the municipal clerk of East brunwick all Board of Education meetings with the exception of executive session discussions are videotaped for later Broad it is the policy of the Board of Education that videotape meetings are not edited for any purpose individuals who speak at the board's public meeting should be aware of these videotaping rules good evening and as we so often do I'm going to ask right away for a motion whereas the Board of Education must discuss matters which are not appropriate for discussion in a public meeting and these subjects are within the exceptions to the open public meetings act and are permitted to be discussed in closed session the Board of Education intends to discuss matters as follows those items listed on tonight's agenda the length of Clos session is estimated to be 1 hour after which the public meeting of the board shall reconvene and action will be taken now therefore be it resolved that the East bronic Board of Education will recess into Clos session for only the affers said subjects and be it further resolved that the East bronck Board of Education hereby declares that its discussions of the AFR said subjects will be made public at a time when the Public's interest in disclosure is greater than any privacy or governmental Interest being protected from disclosure in accordance with the open public meetings Act moved by Mrs Becker second by Mr is there any discussion all those in favor I again extensions motion carries we shall see you in an hour and we're back Welcome to our happy crowd everyone's getting ready for the snow I hope everyone hit the supermarkets early um we will try not to have you out of here too late but what you've all been waiting for Dr veski would you like to start off with your report this evening uh thank you president LAX and I apologize this is going to be a long report tonight but uh bear with me you know I wish it was always sunny in East Brunswick but just a reminder that tomorrow Friday uh January 19th we will be closed for inclement weather and we have a storm that's coming in uh so uh I want every be everyone to be safe I just want to remind the community that on our calendar if we used one snow day and we by tomorrow we have used two we will have to return to school we will not have February 19th President's Day off that will be a school day as a result of our two snow days um that we've had during this during this month the high school student council is thrilled to share they were honored with with two awards at the 98th annual njasc convention seconde honor school and top 10 project our own Chris o accepted the top 10 project award and I'm surprised he didn't bring it with him tonight on Thursday January 11th the East brunic High School Coral program held their annual Winter concert performances included selections sung by the tenor base choir acabellas Jazz choir Bello concert choir and full chorus groups the decades long tradition of Performing the Hallelujah Chorus included the EB core students EB chamber orchestra students and any EB alumni that wanted to join on stage and that was the culminating performance of this wonderful evening of music so we actually have a video piece to share with [Music] you [Music] for and [Music] huah hallu hallelujah hallelujah H thank [Applause] you the next morning on January 12th was the Evie chorus day this event consisted of over 700 students representing grades 3 through 12 the students gathered together in the JM pack at hamers shold Upper Elementary School they took part in singing workshops with the EV Coral teachers to encourage them to keep singing in chorus next year and during the workshops they quickly learned the song Bonsai Alba a traditional Zambian folk song and performed it together as a full group to culminate the event so we have a little piece for that and before it starts if you pay attention the two young ladies in the right front down below um you'll they're very [Music] [Music] entertaining [Music] [Applause] they did a nice job and our staff does a great job job with that too excellent job in sports Angelique karuchi was our female athletic representative at Ruckers University Jersey Mike's arena for the nji or Si AA National girls and women's day and sports Angelique was Captain on our gymnastics team she is leader in our Athletic program as well as in the classroom she will be attending St Leo on a dance and Acro scholarship this fall girls wrestling took the runnerup trophy at the girls GMC wrestling tournament on Monday January 15 and I will use the last portion of my superintendent report to talk about East brunsick Public Schools support for students our general approach to counseling students through Global tragedies is to handle matters on a case-by Case basis rather than on a large platform we have found that students often do not feel comfortable or willing to express their emotions and challenges in a larger format with other students especially while their emotions are fresh throughout the year not only following a tragedy the counseling department operates through a multicultural lens which encourages students to express pride in their cultural identities encourages students to work collaboratively to create awareness within their schools of their cultural backgrounds and teaches acceptance of cultural differences in previous years we've accomplished this through field trips to elementary schools promoting expressions of cultures a Project Unity event in June of each year at Church Hill Multicultural night events and individualized support for our multilanguage Learners including individualized classroom lessons and resources in East brunic Public Schools we are committed to fostering an inclusive and supportive learning environment for all students including those with diverse backgrounds and experiences recognizing the unique challenges faced by our students we have implemented various support mechanisms to ensure their academic success as well as their social and emotional well-being it is essential to highlight that our commitment to to inclusivity and extends to all students regardless of their backgrounds our goal is to create a nurturing atmosphere that addresses the needs of all students promoting unity and understanding within our educational Community all students are provided with confidential individual supportive counseling as needed the focus of counseling support is centered around holding space for students to process and articulate emotions and challenges they are experiencing related to their cultural experiences counselors at hamers shold Upper Elementary School are running a multicultural support group for students interested in better understanding in celebrating their cultural identity support groups are open to all interested students counselors at Churchill Junior High School run a non-paid after school club entitled International cultures Club also also known as ICC which provides a platform for students of all cultures to join and attend after school to express and celebrate individual identities and share cultural norms and traditions this platform is utilized for students to express themselves and share experiences through their cultural lens shortly following the events of October 7th students share the challenges they were facing during an ICC meeting students Express spear for their families and loved ones as well as disheartenment for the violence that was taking place students were encouraged to engage in support provided by their counselors in addition to the shared support from other students in ICC counselors also spearhead the diversity subcommittee of the safety and climate team at hamers shold Upper Elementary School opportunities are provided to students to discuss differences students are encouraged to respect each other's viewpoints and display compassion for one another despite any disagreement assisting students who have been exposed to graphic images shared on social media from a war can be challenging as such experiences May evoke strong emotions and distress and related to that I want to share our action plan to support those students first is create a safe environment we ensure the classroom is a space that is safe and supportive we let students know it's okay to feel a range of emotions and that their reactions are valid we acknowledge their feelings and we do that without judgment we allow them to express themselves and share their thoughts and emotions we avoid minimizing or dismissing the real actions provide information our objective is to offer accurate and age appropriate information encourage communication we encourage open communication we want students to know they can talk with or seek support from counselors and staff if needed as previously stated we create opportunities for group discussions allowing students to share their perspectives in feelings with each other offer of Support Services we make sure students are aware of support services within their schools such as counseling service or mental health professionals establish boundaries we are mindful of the potential for retraumatization we establish clear boundaries for discussions and activities monitoring student student wellbeing we keep an eye on the well-being of students over time and we look for persistent signs of distress and consider involving mental health professionals for more targeted support involving parents we strive to keep parents informed about what has been discussed in class and any potential triggers and we are committed to collaborate with families to provide additional support at home a solid parent and school partnership is critical in building and supporting our safe and inclusive environment for all students and we know from experience that each student is unique and responses to traumatic experiences can vary widely being compassionate understanding and providing a supportive environment are key elements in helping students cope with graphic images from a conflict these protocols apply to any events whether local National or Global and our school administrators as well as our school counselors are always available to answer parental questions and concerns thank you very much thank you very much appreciated okay we have a few presentations and reports this evening starting with a resolution of appreciation for Schoolboard recognition month was that's me if I can go up here and I'll enlist my resolution of appreciation School Board recognition month in New Jersey for January 2024 whereas the New Jersey school boards ass Association has declared January 2024 to be school board's recognition month a time that all residents might acknowledge the contributions made by our local school board members and whereas the East brons board of education is one of more than 581 local school boards in New Jersey that sets policies and overseas operations for public school districts and whereas the East bronswick Board of Education Embraces for all students the goals reflect in the district motto of excellence in academics Athletics and the Arts and whereas the East Brun Board of Education helps to determine Community goals for the education of approximately of 8,400 students in preschool through 12th grade and whereas the East brunwick Board of Education members receive no compensation for their services yet our committed and active advocates for public school students and as board members collectively work with administrators teachers and parents for the good of the East brunic Public School District and public education in general and whereas the East Brunswick Board of Education provides accountability to the public communicates the needs of the school district to the public and conveys to school administrator this public The public's expectations for the schools and whereas the East Bron Board of Education can take pride in its schools which rank among the best in New Jersey and nationally in indicators such as high school graduation rates class size college entrance exams participation and advanced placement offerings and test scores now therefore it be resolved that we join Community Statewide in observing January 2024 as Schoolboard recognition month and express our gratitude and appreciation to Lori LAX Heather gu Vicky Becker Timothy Cummings Mark sisar Lori herck leeu hung Barbara Reese and Jeffrey Winston collectively the East brunwick board of education for their unwavering service to the students staff and greater East brunwick Community thank you for all of your service [Applause] I was told you're doing the AI presentation as well I'm sorry oh her oh that's 12 do you want me to do the AI presentation now that makes more sense when you pointed sorry are we the ethics we are we're going to move that to the next meeting good evening everyone I'm happy to have Dr Herbert Palo with us this evening herb is our supervisor of educational technology and he has been working with stakeholders throughout the district uh in working groups to draft some guidance for staff and students on the use of AI in and out of the classroom and he's here to share that work with all of us this evening good evening it's great to be here thank you for thank you for having me I have at least one microphone situation um so like Dr boy said it's been um starting in September when I took the the job as supervisor of educational technology and even before that as you're going to see in some of the aspects of the presentation it's been it's been a busy five months um and generative AI which is what we're going to be talking about today um and you're going to see that you know there's a lot of AI and edtech terms uh that are up there and there's more AI terms that I didn't include uh because then we would you know we run out of uh space on the slides there but um the the the big thing that we're talking about with regards when we say AI is generative Ai and uh llms are large language models so when I say AI in this presentation I really mean generative Ai and the big uh the big proponent or the big uh Catalyst for the use of AI that's been very disruptive but also very exciting uh has been chaty BT so um you know my background as as a history person prior to being U supervisor of Ed Tech I think it's important to look back as as we also look forward so chat GPT launched only you know not that long ago November of 2022 and really for years it had been operating in a closed situation so the the folks at open AI who uh created chat GPT we're operating it for years in a closed environment using it for for different internal tasks and they kind of decided in November of 2022 if we open this up the same way that Google operates where anybody can do any kind of search at any point we wonder what would happen and that's that's really that's really the the plan that they that they executed and um disrupt it did pretty much immediately so um very very soon after that the impact on schools was was immediate the concerns about academic Integrity violations from from a teacher's perspective what's how's this going to change the work that we do uh the assessments that we give how are we going to make sure that we're still laying those foundational principles and skills that that students need to have to be successful in the world while also recognizing we have to embrace new technologies like this and so uh very much immediately it became a disruptor and one of my things I always say is that there's wherever there's challenges there's always opportunities and this is one of those pieces uh I think a lot of technology has been disruptive over the years U I'm sure the wheel was disrupted uh when it was first invented but nobody regrets that uh for sure right um and I think that we talk about the internet uh and even social media presents a lot of challenges uh but it also presents opportunities to connect people so AI uh is another one of those pieces of that so almost immediately I started thinking about this in my prior role as department chair for social studies like okay is let's let's let's not freak out let's calm down let's see what the challenges are let's see how students start interact acting with this and and see the see what we need to do and what we decided to do right as research uh season was either commencing or kind of wrapping up in the social Department right about the end of April early May is when uh turn in.com launched a an AI detection tool and most of the news coming out of turn it in we've been working with Turnin for years to you know they give you like a plagiarism what percentage they think it's it's PL a paper is plagiarized some of that information is you have to look a little clo more closely if it's marking quotations that's that's okay um but they talked about an AI detection tool and most folks thought oh they thought we're were talking about the launch in the fall of next year well they launched it in April and May and our teachers were going through the process and said well this is an interesting thing and you know what do we do with this number it's giving us a percentage but it doesn't always look clear some of the things they're marking look like sentences that anybody would write so I sat down um with damaran and we we drafted initial version of guidance that we decided we could pilot at the high school and we would see okay let's see at what is effective about this guidance let's see how it assists teachers and let's see what what further questions we have we we developed this knowing it wasn't going to solve everything but we needed a place to start from and it really was insightful it helped us I think have some of those conversations with students and be honest about it and I I remember you know us talking about it with Dr B saying this is something that I think you know we should look at and start to have broader conversations outside of just social studies and look at it from a from a secondary perspective uh with the creation of this position I was happy to to apply and kind of set forth my vision of I think this is how we have to do it I think we have to look at it from a K12 perspective we have to develop working groups and um I think we need to start the year with some guidance in place that everybody can use at Church Hill and the high school so I had a small group uh to uh of teachers from Church Hill and the high school who were working on some topics in in our canvas learning management system and we quickly pivoted to the AI piece and that's the guidance that was distributed to to staff and the students uh in September at the start of the year so it's hard to see on here but if you go to uh ebnet.org edte you can view these uh guidance documents and also students and staff uh got these documents and they were they've been distributed since the start of the year but these are these are the examples here of the gu guidance for teachers and the guidance for students the the the idea was to have one page of guidance for each we did not want a manual you know we didn't want a a situation where it had to be overly analyzed we wanted once again to take the next step in this larger conversation continue to collect data about what we need you know the questions that we needed to have answered further other feedback we wanted to talk to students and get their perspective but we didn't want to start the year without some semblance of a plan in place and something that we could continue to move the conversation forward and uh I think it's worked out well everything from how to site the use of generative Ai and um you know how to have those conversations with with our students so a little bit about the AI working groups so the the real the purpose of these working groups is really to you know my goal was to create a culture of collaboration and transparency about AI I felt it was a big very important piece of to this that the staff K to 12 know that when you come to the table I'm not looking for people who are experts because they're really we there are no super solid Experts of AI there are people that are continuing to learn and ask the right questions but I wanted people who came to the table curious who were smart uh who were the right amount of optimistic and the right amount of skeptical because I think that that's an important when you're trying to have a conversation and you're trying to find Solutions we need to bring people to the table who are interested in moving the ball forward but have good questions so that's been the goal from from the very start was to have that culture of collaboration and transparency um one of the things that we talked about was that we would be vetting Ai and edtech tools for staff and students that's something that we have begun to do um with an eye on developing those PD opportunities for teachers uh but also across the board for support staff for administrators everybody needs to be trained on how to use these tools effectively to make sure we're you we're working smarter I feel like everyone in this District works very hard um every day and we could always find opportunities in areas to work smarter along with that there's also areas where we need subject specific curriculum revisions and supports there's going to be areas where there's overarching every Department everybody can work together and use these tools effectively but there are going to be some difficult conversations about what this looks like in curriculum how it affects assessment how it affects certain learning opportunities how we can support different types of Learners that we have in District so those are some some conversations that we need to talk about uh as a team and then also refocus as as individual departments we need to set some some foundational principles about getting student and parent uh voice and training for them as well and I'll talk a little bit more about that later and then the idea that we would update these guidance documents for teachers and students for uh the 2024 2025 school year the uh groups are very diverse as far as as the makeup all departments are represented and including the uh counseling department and initially I got some some of the counselors who said I'll do it um but just curious why you know why why do you want counselors involved in this and one of the things I said to them was well if the students are using AI for all kinds of things inside of school and outside of school I think it's important that you all know what's going on and what the potential is and and think of some of the things that students are doing with social media that we like and that we we're not real big fans of I think we need to make sure that we're thinking about that with regards to AI as well and uh they were like oh well thanks for inviting us and I yeah know I want everybody there I want to make sure we're not missing anything we don't leave no stone unturned we uh started doing um AI edtech uh info sessions for all staff and students that we've done those at Central and I was at Lawrence Brook today we had a huge schedule for yesterday but we decided to move that to next week we didn't want to have a shorten day to uh to not include any anyone who wanted to stop by to get that increased voice but it starts with the working group and now we're starting to expand those conversations as well student feedback which I'm going to share some uh couple slides on student feedback as well with everyone we were able to survey students at Churchill and the high school in September October of this year and get their early perspective and the plan is to continue those conversations with the the hamers shold and the K4 students more in focus groups or small interviews we feel like that's a more appropriate set for uh for our our K to6 population uh but we want to make sure we're talking to them and finding out what they know and what supports that they're going to need as well um and we also met with students I also met with students during the principal a principal's council meeting in October uh November and Mr Hannis has uh shown an interest in doing the same thing with the Churchill students in the second semester and I'm hoping to meet with the students uh at the high school second semester at a good meeting with Mr penko and he was was on board with making sure we do that in the second semester to continue those conversations and to make sure we we bring more students student voice to the table so when we uh when we were asking students for their input I put together these QR codes because that's you know QR codes are an easy way you put your phone right up there and you can get feedback we also sent links out to uh through the canvas course page as well and these are some of the responses that might be hard to see on the screen but uh you know that Churchill responses and we got uh just under a hundred responses from each from each school which I thought was was pretty good and you know everything from it's cool to I'm I don't you know I feel like Ed Tech and AI are properly used to you know variation I think a human being should be teaching not AI which I totally agree with and that is our we are 100% in agreement on that um but also you know I I think it could help with notes and how to get info on things that we don't know um there are some concerns about about cheating and and that's one of the things that we've heard from students is some of them have been a little hesitant to use it because they don't want to be accused of of academic Integrity so uh everything from hey we should be using it to some reservations about that as well at the high school similar similar feedback um you know they were I think that the high school students that I that I've gotten that I've had the chance to speak with in person were happy to have some of that initial guidance and that they appreciated that we're making the effort to not ban it outright that's one of the the things that are are really important in that guidance is that outright ban is not the way we want to go that that's not that's not a way that we have a productive conversation and also embrace the realities of of what's going on in the world so some of the students here you'll see uh that when we leave school we can use whatever technology we want um and so schools should be teaching us how to use those Technologies which I think is great I I feel AI can be a great tool if it's used right I think that's a critical an important consistent theme that that I saw throughout uh the feedback was that you know what are the rules where's the you know can we be more clear about what the expectations are and a consistent message and so my message to students has been I promise you we're working on it we we need to have more information uh so that we can do that properly and as the technology evolves we need to create systems that allow for that so I'm very proud of uh of of the the feedback the participation in the work so far uh and we'll continue to and we're going to continue to do going forward so a little bit about the goals for the remainder of 2024 the like I said before the the revision of the 7 to 12 staff and student guidelines and best practices documents I think are critical the technology just in the last five months continues to evolve and change there are new tools that are coming out all the time uh and the important thing is a lot of conversations I've had with with Nick latronica and Clifford Raymond in Our IT department about uh making sure sure that we don't fall in love with any one program at this point because of privacy policy concerns also uh fear that if we really if everybody kind of goes all in on a product and it's not uh fully you know their Foundation as a business isn't fully laid then it could be something that we have to pull back on and that's not something that we want that could be disruptive to learning and uh and teacher preparation for for those things so um those are all the considerations that we've been making and like I said bringing all stakeholders and leaders to the table we have talked about creating uh K4 and 56 staff guidelines for AI we've actually started that process at hamers we uh we've had some discussions about some some things that could be happening there where we want to make sure that we're educating students uh preemptively about academic Integrity uh but also the use of AI properly students are finding these these resources and using them very effectively in some cases and other times not so much and we have to make sure that we're teaching them about that so we are working in a similar model to what I did last year and what we started at the high school last spring we're uh preparing for a similar process at hamers shold this spring where we would pilot some guidance with this the staff we would have similar uh guidance for the students as well and we're really excited about crafting uh that guidance we're working on that with the working groups uh we're going to be meeting on Tuesday to talk about that further the PD plan so the other that's a that's a huge piece of this and I think that in all of our administrator meetings that there uh that there's there's excitement and and a lot of questions about some different tools and some some suggestions that I've made about how we can use uh generative AI to to work smarter and more effectively and think about different issues that we're facing so those are that's one of the other phases I've been working with the curriculum team on is okay what aspects of PD are overarching that are going to be K12 all teachers we can have a summer PD session where all teachers no matter the subject or grade level could could really benefit benefit from this and what are some PD opportunities where it's very subject specific where this is this is a specific strategy that's going to be able to be used in the math department or social studies or English and so my conversations with those specific supervisors we're starting to navigate some of those things and work around those because I think that that's important work where maybe we can wrap some of that AI training into a curriculum revision or an assessment revision and that's where it makes the most sense whereas if it's an overarching piece it'll be better to bring a group of diverse group cross-curricular together summer PD for administrators and supports support staff I think is is extremely critical um and that's something that I think at all levels of the administrative team is to make sure that we're also using Ai and or not using it and and making sure that we know what those guidelines and boundaries should be and how we can work most effectively as well and really the the the my fiveyear plan as it were the road map to 2030 as I'm I'm calling it um is really to have that K12 vertically articulated Vision so all the way from kindergarten um all the way to 12th grade how are we building up those supports those lessons those those principles those guidelines so that they all match they're all building toward each other the same way that we build curriculum in every subject area we need a similar approach when it come when it comes to AI we shouldn't be treat this any different than we would uh any of our other very important you know curriculum guides student parent Outreach is extremely important I talked about this before I I uh I think that this is a a community conversation it's not just a district conversation so we need additional student feedback and I talked about this before with focus groups uh from all the way from the elementaries all the way through to the high school I think that I talked about the the kindergarten through sixth grade student interviews and focus groups be extremely important I was over I was over at Lawrence Brook today and had a great conversation with the media specialist about some of her specific media lessons with students and how project that they were working on today like oh this would be a great thing maybe maybe to have them use some of that she but but all right I have some questions before we do that I said perfect that's why I'm here let's think this through all the way before we before we just kind of jump in let's make sure that we we pump the brakes a little bit and talk about it and there's nothing wrong with that I think that's a health very good thing and and I I that got me excited if you can't tell I'm you know very jacked up about all this this is really awesome stuff um AI ethics is is extremely important and this is another piece there there have been some stories um nationally and and Statewide where there have been some some misuses of of certain AI tools involving imagery and some of the working groups have said you know herb what are we going to do you know how are we going to approach this and so I think that when we talk to students especially Churchill and the high school that we we're direct with them about some of these things and we bring them into the conversation I think the idea of a digital student code of conduct or a digital Bill of Rights and responsibilities is something that would be a really really amazing conversation to have with our students at Church Hill and the high school and talk about you know we have a we we we have a lot of conversations about what we want our physical Community to be like how do you want to feel when you interact with your classmates with each other and I think it's the same thing there's a digital world and a digital commun that the students also live in and we should talk about what we want that to look like as well and so making sure we give them a seat at the table and talk with them about that and is extremely important and as I I said before the parent universities homework help uh is is one of the areas I think that we can really speak to the community about when it comes to using generative AI um and talking about specifically homework help some of these very complicated highlevel uh you know aspects of our curriculum all you know element all the way to high school parents want to be able to help their kids uh and sometimes with the the textbook or or the online resources it's difficult but generative AI offers a a a real solid option for a lot of the subject areas and I know I have a quick story about my my third grader who was doing math one night and her mother is a math teacher so I usually defer those questions to Mrs Palo but I said I you know I can I got this you know I got to be brave right so I said honey what's going on on here what uh what you know don't get frustrated what's the problem oh Dad I'm I I don't remember what the communative property is I'm like oh I and I happened to have my computer open and I said well let me try so I started typing it into one of the uh the generative AI tools and it started to generate the answer and before I could say anything she goes oh Dad I'm so sorry that's I'm I was getting it confused with with one of the other properties I think I got it now hold on she does the math problem and she goes oh Dad look based on what it says on on there I got it like yeah you're welcome honey I got yeah yeah third yeah third grade yeah well it's and it is it really it's not a it's not a complicated it was complicated for me um but it's uh and for a third grader who's learning to differentiate between these different properties uh I was happy to help I'll just we'll leave it there but that was one of those things where and that's a big teaching point where the I think the fear that people have is that generative AI because it generates the content that it could do the homework for a child or there's a temptation to just get the answer and say here you go like let's let's get to dinner let's get to whatever we have next where if we frame the the the the um the howto the right way we can show parents how to help their their children do their homework achieve the mission achieve the objective or the goal for their project and not to have the generative AI just do it for them um so I think that there's a there's a it's a it's a tight distinction that we have to make make there and it's something that I think that would be a really welcome and valuable discussion at a parent University and uh I think it'd be a fun conversation to have with parents as well and the last piece of this is the vetting of AI and edtech tools apps and different programs and this has been one of the things that you know my my guiding principle every time we have conversations about these tools is how do each of our tools support specific student learning needs skill development and academic achievement and I think that that's something that need to continue to ask ourselves as we look at every single program not just with regards to AI but it has to do directly with AI because you know we we need to make sure we look at usage data we look at data that um that links the program to achieving one of those those you know learning needs skill development or academic achievement and make sure we're being good stewards of of our budget as well um I think that data privacy policies and cost considerations are extremely important you know um the other piece I have there is the impact of consolidation in the marketplace and that's something that with a lot of the new startups in AI one of the reasons I alluded to earlier where why we shouldn't fall in love with any one product just yet it's because what tends to happen in every business is that some of the bigger companies are looking at these these small startups and it's like well and you know they they roll out the checkbook and all of a sudden now uh this little independent program is now merged in with one of the big companies and part of their Suite that can change the price structure it can TR it can change the the data privacy policy it can change uh any number of of things they can start to to Tinker with some of the things that were effective about it that we liked and there's sometimes an advantage when a company stays small to do that so uh that's a a huge piece of this and a lot of the conversations that Nick cliff and I uh have and Dr boy about these things is we just need to keep a close eye on that going forward because it's going to be critically important from both a financial perspective from a learning perspective which is are are the real the re the top reason that we're here but also because of those privacy concerns I think is is absolutely critical so I can't say enough how proud I am of the work that our working groups has has accomplished but also our leadership team everybody uh you know you always worry when you're taking something like this on then people see you coming and like oh boy here we go like AI guys coming and and nobody well people say that jokingly I think um but they seem pretty happy when I when I come in and um eager to to discuss this and I I think that one of the things that's interesting that um that I talk to people a lot about is people say that they're very nervous or they're they're they're skeptical and some people are really excited about the potential and I one of the lines I that I found myself saying often is that if you haven't felt both of those feelings at some point then you really haven't used the technology enough because you should be excited by the use of it you should be wowed and dazzled by it but if but you should ALS you should be a little concerned there is there are aspects of it that should cause you to pause and just pump the brakes a little bit but if you're only feeling one of those ways you haven't used it enough to and really kick the tire so that's been the big piece of this that I keep uh continuing to encourage you know community members uh my colleagues the the teachers and the staff is to to continue to do that and I'm very proud of the work and the the open-mindedness that we're bring to the table it doesn't surprise me because this is how we tackle every uh Challenge and opportunity as a district and the 18 years that I've been here so uh why should AI be any different so thank you for uh thank you for giving me the time to explain some of the work that we've done where we're going and I'd love to take any questions that you have at this time thank you so much Dr P this was a great presentation thank you and I for one I'm um cautiously optimistic with AI because I agree with you I'm a little bit nervous but I've seen some of the good it can do but I love your digital student code of conduct because it gives the students responsibility and the ownership of their actions and the reality is cheating is something we've always had and I think back to the dark ages for some of you you'll appreciate this encyclopedias people when they had to do a book report they would take and you can read the open the encyclopedia and you can just take word for word and just transcribe so we've come a long way and now the computers are doing that for us but I think the students that are using it correctly and the fact that you're doing so much to help them and Steward them into how to use it hopefully is going to be something that we'll see less of the um more Sinister approaches to the usage and see just how far it can take us into the future so I totally agree so thank you incredibly excited for that Mrs gu um thank you for the presentation I'm I was fearful as an educator myself and then I have embraced what it can do for educators to allow us to give more to our students the part I appreciated about the work that you're doing is the living nature of it that constant reevaluation because I've had the opportunity to work with other Educators about Ai and the amount of change that happens like I feel as fast as I put together a presentation on how you can use something it's morphed into different more something I actually remember putting together a presentation and I wrote I wish it provided more feedback to specific items because AI now can give students feedback on writing very specifically and the next time I it up it had that like just tabs were added so I really I am very happy to see that this has sort of a living nature to it your constant evaluation and vetting because the programs change teachers like to invest in one thing and learn how to do it really well and this is an entirely different Beast because it changes as fast as you learn how to use it there has to be that I don't know fluidity to the way we handle it and I think you're doing that really well so thank you for your work because it's going to be endless absolutely now that's one of the common themes I got the chance to go to um the New Jersey AI literacy Summit in early December and one of the challenges that the other administrators and Educators that were there said was as soon as we uh draft not guidance or or different assistance guides that some of the things that we've been doing with regards to you know if we're going to use chbt or or the B co-pilot tool or perplexity a couple of these tools that that are out there the their big fear is that as we educate and inform that that it changes so quickly so how do we stay literate in a in a constantly changing thing where the targets constantly moving and I think that the best way that we all agreed was we we just keep at it and we have to continue I was you know continue to to do that and communicate with each other you know we have a great team here but even today as I was going through things um in my some of my notes uh I was on LinkedIn I think is for me that's the best place to connect with people and um I a couple of folks that at some of these Summits that I've met said um oh yeah here's here's a couple things to think about and you know this state just released AI guidance um to keep an eye on so those are the ways that I think that that I've found has been helpful and also just continuing to communicate because sometimes it's the teachers that find the resource first or this website and they want to check with me to make sure that you know am I is this okay is this something I can use but you're absolutely right we have to just continue to move with with the Target and stay stay positive and open minded Mr H yes thank you very much so when we met uh last May uh in uh Memorial School we talk about AI impact to the education and we spoke again during the commencement in last June so last year the curricular committee will viewed this topic multiple times that's why I suggest you take this uh talk give this presentation to the entire community so you guys job is a Pioneer job as far as I know no school district is state of New jerse have ever think about how to build a guidance for AI and nobody talk about the digital code of conduct so you guys are the first I should give credit to you Dr buly Dr vaski you know thank you very much for the job okay as for the ask us discussion so you mention that you are working on the digital student code of conduct so I will suggest you you do the similar thing digital teachers conduct uh conduct code of conduct because AI is not just impact learning it's impact teaching too so we need to have a similar uh guidance for that and you mention that the AI is a community issue but I strongly agree with you we need let the community know this a here as parents we better know it otherwise you never know what your kid are doing in in the bedroom it's very scary right so this the entire community community need to know AI is here we need keep up learning and uh so AI not not just impact our school district by academically so it impact everything Administration school security too so this afternoon I took two hours of my uh from my work I attend a seminar the title is how virtual AI is transforming the conventional school security model so AI is everywhere so we got to open our arms embarrass it and learn stay with it survive with it once again thank you very much for your beautiful job thank you I appreciate that and I and I you know my um doctoral dissertation topic was on cyber security issues in in schools and it's interesting as when AI launched I was like I wonder how much I mentioned Ai and there were four mentions of AI and because a lot it was I finished in December of 2022 or um I'm sorry uh June I wish I wasn't finished in December but it took until May of 2022 and it's amazing how quickly AI became part of that security model and I think that you know we talk about cyber security we talk about educ ation we talk about generative AI it's all connected it's an interconnected world we live in so I totally agree and I love the idea of a you know teacher the teacher facing component of that too I think is is important and and that's what they're asking for I think that our staff want to do the best thing that they can do the best they want to use the best strategies that they can think of and that they have access to and that they can be trained for and so I think that that's a big thing that everybody wants to know what are the rules and what's the best path forward so I I think that's an important part of that I appreciate your question or your feedback thank you thank you Mr Winston Dr blo was excellent um I knew this presentation was going to come one day and I just didn't know it was today so thank you um so much about what you said is great and I think you really describe the Playbook perfectly and that would be um what one would anticipate I think this Board needs to approach the rulebook on this because this is um there's a lot of rule I I I think Mr hung said it best I mean we're venturing into an area right now that I think we need to have policy around this uh there's a lot of opportunity for usefulness and there's a lot of opportunity for Mis usefulness if that's a word so uh I encouraged our policy committee uh to look at this and to see how we formalize the digital code of conduct to work into The Narrative of uh really harnessing the strength of this because it is it's pretty big big so my suggestion it's interesting that um as of just a couple weeks ago there are only four states that have ai guidelines for schools established uh California Oregon North Carolina and West Virginia and so I got a chance to to scout through their those um documents and it's interesting that I think that that's one of the challenges that we have is and why my Approach so far has been guidelines is because I think that eventually it's going to move to to policy uh I think before you know as as we move toward that having guidelines that we can vet test out and then discuss further I think is a is a great approach to make sure that if if we decide to move forward with policy that we're doing it you know through that process kicking all the tires and and making sure that we feel comfortable with all that going forward thank you just going to say real quick equally as impressed as my fellow board members with your presentation um when I first saw it and see the K there you think think to yourself wow really but you're spot on I mean it's going to be there if it's not being used already uh within the next and I love your your plan looking forward as well I think the passion that you bring to this is perfect and and necessary um and I really you know want to applaud you for that uh you're looking at this from a very comprehensive lens uh with a collaborative mindset um and you know recognizing that this will continue to accelerate and so how do we do that as strategically and more importantly as safely as possible so I just really appreciate and applaud your effort there and thank you thank you appreciate that thank you so very much Dr if I could just one quick question or not question a statement um I just want to thank the board for supporting the vision Dr B's Department in the creation of supervisor of educational technology and I want to thank Dr Pala because he is a passionate uh individual and professional I've known him as a teacher before he became uh the the supervisor of educational technology he is the right person for this job for East Brunswick and we're very pleased with the work that he does so thank you I appreciate you saying that thank you thank you thank you again speaking of our future Chris tell us what's been going on the high school hi everyone um a lot has happened at the high school since the last Board of Education meeting um with the most obvious one being our first snow day of the year uh many students warmly welcome the surprise as they granted everyone a few more crucial days to study for upcoming midterm exams um looking at the clubs over the past few weeks Asian Club held its annual bubble tea house where hundreds of students came to watch live performances held by students such as skits orchestral music and a spicy Romine eting contest and more additionally the East Bic student council attended the NJ JC winter convention at TCNJ where student leaders from across the state came together to share workshops with the East Brunswick student council sharing one of their very own workshops on um on the homecoming wagon building East Bruns High School is awarded with the top 10 projects award for a homecoming wagon parade as well as honor School award for a second year in a row which was a testament to all the hardworking members and advisers at East Ric student council um additionally many students are well into looking into their Palm dress and Suits the East bronic senior class Council beginning preparations for this year's prom with interest meetings and announcements to the general School body and finally the East bronic High School IO classes are making their final preparations for the state we to people competition which will be held this Wednesday um at the Ruckers Bush Center so good luck to all the participants there look get him and I believe I don't know is Dr ziki here tonight yeah she's in the back so um um the bear Den I believe has prom uh wear correct so for any students out there that are not um able to financially afford prom Weare it's a nice way um people that have worn the dresses because let's face it you wear them once kind of like wedding dresses but prom dresses um are available through doctors of Vicki the education okay so yeah so you should I don't know if any of your friends but in the hallways and for any of our teachers to know if their students um that are in need of prom dresses they can reach out to the guidance counsel and visit the bear Den so thank you so much for that report does Chris have any updates on his steps after graduation he shared it some with us last last time we we might have been talking about that before you got here yeah we did um not any updates as of yet um I think that's going to come back like later in March um so that's okay we're staying on the Princeton High you you keep riding yeah you keep riding that high we're with you space out for us yeah that's true that's right yeah that's all right um moving on to the good of the cause for the public the Board of Education recognizes the value of public comment and educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest to protect the privacy of all students and staff concerns regarding individual students and staff members should generally be addressed by first meeting with the appropriate administrative staff um in order to permit fair and orderly expression the board should provide a public period for comment at every meeting of the board you are entitled to three minutes um duration to speak to the board um the board secretary will keep the timer and let you know as your time is running out we always remind you that this is not a time to have a dialogue with the board so any issues that need further addressing the two lovely ladies in the front if you make sure that they have your contact information followup can be attained through through Dr ves's office so that being said I would like to welcome anyone up this evening to speak to the board Mr Shaw um and when you come to the podium for everyone if you could just state your name and address for the record unless you are a student which in that case you can give us your name and grade if you would like good evening I'm probably going to take my name is Neil Shaw and this is Nikki talowsky Bobby L and uh David Chen and we are the new board for the fast break Basketball Association here in East Brunswick we wanted to up here today and int introduce ourselves um kind of get to know you guys because we are going to be working in partnership with using the facilities and we did bring you guys a little bit of a a gift uh to say our thank you and um basically we would like to get your support um have you guys come out to our games come out to the different events support the community and be able to just make this a a whole Community event um I'm going to give the mic over to Nikki and Bobby because they're going to be talking about the numbers of how many new people that have signed up um we've had 1300 in the past I think we're at we're we're at 600 for our Recreation League we have two girls travel teams this year we also have a special needs division called our buddy ball division we have 105 buddies um we are still looking for pal volunteers to come out it's every Saturday at Churchill Junior High School from uh 10 o'clock to 12 o'clock so we're always looking for buddies to come uh buddies and we're actually looking for Pals so y we have the the sweatshirts and we don't want to take up too much of your time I know that you guys have a pretty long agenda oh go ahead yeah yeah um I did want to touch on one thing uh you mentioned education and what fast break is about is about educating kids about the love of sport and the love of team work so that's what we're about that's why we're here um I did have one quick question um I do have a game scheduled for tomorrow at throwing this out there to Dr VES I know you canceled us uh the schools uh Friday but does that mean is any chance that there is sports at the end of the day I'm just throwing out there you don't have to answer me now don't put I can't actually answer your question so we're gonna have to cancel everything for tomorrow the storm looks like it's its volume is going to be midday we're going to be spending the rest of bonafide snow day you can't do that kids yeah but we we're hoping to have we're hoping to have the buildings open for Saturday and Sunday events so that unfortunately Friday's are going to be closed go I I didn't mean to steal your snow day kids I just wanted Sports thanks Dr villis and I just want to say thank you for all you do for us allowing us to use the facilities and everything we really appreciate it thank you for everything you do thank you so we have four of us so that's 12 minutes it should be able to have enough time to pass out the sweatshirts and um still get under your guys thank you you have a lot of uh parent alumni of of fast break up here here so oh okay um to do that or call person what would you recommend okay since they're deferring their extra minutes I'm gonna give a thank you I actually have my old one too I have the new I have the new version we don't want to say sizes but this is probably to he's going to give me a trip XX over here hey hey hey I'm on a diet you if I make a mistake on these sizes please yeah we'll give you whatever you didn't tell me I Wasing because I gave you sizes for so I guessed did okay you got it right my friend extra small oh yeah yes they yes two is on the data so everyone is days hopefully get one to Chris they to Chris do they yes okay oh how can we forget you thank you thank you we got everybody thank you thank you thank you all so much we look forward to it thank you for all your progam okay all right what's that oh Barbara did you get Barbara one okay thank you sorry I digressed a bit uh moving back to the rest of the public portion um want to speak oh would you like to speak first okay you ready sorry I knew that you started to come up when Neil came so I didn't want to cut you off Shazad Shak here 8 Lantern Lane um first I just wanted to address Dr veski uh I am really happy that you guys are providing support for all these children that may have any type of uh trauma and what's going on lately and I want to kind of kind of talk a little bit more about the trauma with the children right because um even though these kids don't know it people are affected they're affected and you know what they may not even know how affected they are at a lot of times and the reason I'm bringing this up is because um a couple like about a month ago my son he was talking to one of his friends and his friend kind of said you know what one group of uh people should totally kill an entire other group of people and my son was very disturbed about that so what he did was he did bring this up with his guidance counselor uh and an HIV investigation was being done and it came out false which like because there was no other witnesses to it now here's the thing all of us were parents here and when I see a kid like uh do something wrong I want that person to be taken care of just as if it was my kid because you know what my kids like to say stupid things also they do stupid things and when I heard this kid say that I didn't want this kid to get detention I didn't want this kid to get suspended but all I really wanted is for someone to go and talk to this kid because to say one group of people should kill another group of people that's very very disturbing on so many different levels just having a convers ation with a child like this I mean for someone to say that I would I would imagine that this child unknowingly has a lot of trauma and it's not just what's happened the past October 7th our kids are constantly being bombarded with media uh whether it be the news whether it be video games music Netflix everything is hey this person is going to shoot this person or this person we are so desensitized as a society now on killing and death and we don't even know how much like uh damage it's done to our kids emotionally therefore like one thing that you mentioned is if people choose to have this health uh help or this support they can come up and talk about it but what what about those kids that are not like acknowledging that they have an issue if someone does say hey this kid said killing an entire group of people is okay shouldn't at least maybe even even a guidance counselor just approach his child and check if he's okay that's that's all I'm really asking at the end of the day and if there's any type of racism behind it at least talk to the kid that's all thank you so much thank you so much yes please come and state your name and address for the record and did you yes if if luk could just make a statement because I think there's some important information he he just needs to share Mr thank you for for that to our attention and I obviously I know you're not asking me to and I can't talk about any particular HIV investigation but I will tell you that in all of our investigations we always include that we will have counseling and students do the counseling piece so we would have that for any potential victim or potential Target or also someone who uh may have created a statement such as that so uh without speaking you know I know I'm speaking General but um I just want to make sure you understand that counseling is a part of all of our Hib investigations um as they're happening and also after they're done after the investigation is complete If the child just talk to you that's perfect that's all sorry that's okay thank you sorry about that thank you for your patience AA ganja 68 birkshire Way East Brunswick um so I just wanted to thank you um superintendent veski for the wonderful presentation I think it was very comprehensive very informative um and gave me um gives me uh GES makes me feel a lot of support um from the school system about this very important issue um just hoping that it can be systematically shared with the staff and then with students and families too so that everybody knows that we are aware of the gravity of of situ um these International Affairs and how they can affect us here at home um so I think it needs to be shared outside of this room because I you know obviously there's needs to it needs to be um needs to be systematically shared so just like a I talked to you guys at the end of the last meeting I had I had the opportunity to talk to some of the board members I I have a a daughter in prek so I don't have the same experiences on social media and things like that that the older kids would have but um you know I there was like one or two days that I was feeling you know really upset about stuff so I I I talked to the teacher about it and she didn't really know how to respond and so I felt like again that was just not because of her but because there's just no lack of support for like the staff of how to interact with families or students about this topic um and they might be scared to say something wrong or feel that it's controversial or something like that and I wasn't talking to her about anything political I was just talking to her about like you know that we're as Muslim families we're really hurting right now because my daughter's class has a significant amount of Muslims in in in this in the classroom and I I talk to the parents and we're all in the same boat feeling this way so I think like that support is definitely lacking for our faculty so I felt bad too for my for for the teacher that to put her in any kind of awkward um position so I um lastly um just the HIV reports I've been talking to a lot of community members like from the Muslim Community a lot of families they're unaware of how to do that um if there's any R some of the concerns I'm hearing is like will it go on the students's permanent record will the will go on a police record so they have like a lot of concerns about it they don't know the process step by step and I I did look at the website but maybe um putting a stepbystep approach on there how to do the HIV report and then maybe like an FAQ section to go over some of those you know Common concerns that parents might have um so again and then like maybe if you're going to if you're going to put out any kind of statement or you know that should be part of it as well the Hib reports because I think those are important that we document the incidents that are happening because I think there's a lot more incidents than just what you've heard in this session I I've personally been told a lot of incidents over the last two weeks since the last meeting so um I'm I we are encouraging our families to please document them um lastly just Dr Palo he might even be the expert of this is like some type of social media literacy course might be useful um in our curriculum how to how to navigate Tik Tok Facebook Instagram all those things how to spot disinformation um how to communicate safely and effectively on there I think that would be like really a great I don't know if it's available yet right now in our curriculum but that might be something to consider doing but um thank you so much for addressing this topic and I hope we can keep um actively being engaged with the parents about it with you okay thank you thank you so much Miss G is there any anyone else that would like to speak to the board this evening yes if you could come up and state your name and address for the record please good evening um my name is Jennifer Winston I'm at 22 clear viiew here in East Brunswick um I'm not only a resident but I'm the mother of two children who attended East Brunswick schools um and to clear up any confusion because of my last name I am Jeff Winston board member Jeff Winston's ex-wife so let's make it very clear that I'm not here to defend anybody in any way but only to get clarity um especially now after the recent comments we just heard about the um disbandment of the security committee um it was on social media um it was in an article uh in tap e Brunswick and uh you know in 2018 after the devastating school shootings at margerie Stone Douglas where 17 in innocent students lost their lives um Dr veski uh issued a statement from the ebhs football field uh sharing that when he began his career it was all about education but now it's become unfortunately all about the security and safety of our children and students uh rightfully so in my opinion this at this point um in 2022 after yet another horrific mass shooting at Rob Elementary 19 students were murdered that day Dr veski had a similar message where he quote called for a collaborative and ongoing uh effort surrounding security and safety measures um there were more than uh more school shootings in 2022 uh than any other year since Coline a total of 46 uh 34 students and adults died while 43,000 children were exposed to gunfire at schools 43,000 so I'm a little confused what is the justification for disbanding the school security committee I I'm I'm baffled by that uh and I'm trying to understand Dr veski was quoted recently as categorically denying that but yet there seems to be some question about is there a committee so I'm posing that question if there is one how often does it meet um there was a statement about it being wrapped up into the general School Board which as far as I know meets every couple of weeks not nearly enough attention on Safety and Security I'm concerned as the other parents are um and I'm more concerned about the infighting amongst this school board okay it's abhorent in my opinion you have placed your personal agendas above the well-being of the students faculty and staff okay so there's truth and transparency so is there a security committee and if so is Mr sisar the only qualified board member here with 25 years of of law enforcement experience still leading that um I'm curious to know and if you don't direct your energies toward making the East Brunswick school system better I suggest you do or I'll call for a recall of the board president thank you thank you so much Miss Winston is there anyone else that would like to speak to the board this this evening okay no seeing none I'm going to close the public portion and move on to our agenda for the evening may I please have a motion for the Board of Education item number one minutes and the agendum that was on your Mrs Becker by Mrs Becker second by Mrs herck is there any discussion all those in favor I opposed extensions motion carries may I please have a motion for the six items on tonight's curriculum and instruction oh did I skip Community I'm sorry little Community program is in the corner here uh Mrs Becker thank you second by Mr Winston is there any discussion Mr sisar I like saying the word humdingers here um just for clarification this was supposed to be on the 19th am I to assume that we are in school now on the 19th so this contract would not be voted on tonight and canceled Mr sisar yes we are we are planning to be in school on the 19th we're asking for the board approval should anything change between now if if the board were to make any changes in the calendar uh that we would still have this approved and set aside that just but right now on on the board's calendar you we are scheduled to be in session on February 19th correct so my my question is I guess is about the contract like if we're approving it tonight and we're in school we can't use it so there something in the new contract that says go ahead Jo I'm back door that we can the board is authorizing us to enter into the contract doesn't mean we're going to execute it and if we do not use it on the 19th we won't will not be obligated to there's no penalty I guess is my question for us not using it it's safeguarding us and giving us the flexibility that's my question yes thank you any other discussion okay all those in favor opposed extensions motion carries now may I please have the motion for curriculum and instruction items move by Mrs Becker second by Mr Winson is there any discussion Mr hung so for item number four so for item number four so this $460,000 and this is big contract and I from this short description I don't get how this counter will be executed and how this tiling program will be Ted so I want I like to know more information about this because this is very important this money is from state for will be used for the impact student who def desperately need our tutoring assistant but this one only says oh we give this contract to this organization for the the amount uh $460,000 how long and how this and how much our own staff will get involved so I sorry I want more information for this so if possible I suggest we table this this item for next vo meeting actually Mr Hong before well could we just could Dr boy explain what the high impact tutoring Grant is about certainly the and maybe that would answer your questions the $460,000 was the full grant that we received we are employing our staff our teachers to provide inperson tutoring for our students this company can provide virtual and virtual option for any gaps to fill in the gaps if we don't have certain staff at certain grade levels or in certain buildings um and also to provide flexibility for families so if a student couldn't stay after school or want it a Saturday morning perhaps and that work better for the family this company uh as needed we will use them as needed to fill in gaps for students so uh how much money will be paid to this company and uh how much we pay to our own staff and how long will this tiling program will last so the grant expires at the end of August hopefully the state since it was released late will extend that um it's hard to predict uh certainly we want to um you know support our staff in working with our students first but this company is a backup plan for any areas where we may not have staff available so that means you it's at certain situation this company will get nothing and this entire $460,000 will be paid for to our own staff whoever involved this program can I I mean I guess it's a possibility the contract obligates us if we use them to pay either the 1320 for a two days per week session or the uh $1,890 per three-day session a week session so the contract is only obligating US based off of use and if they fit into the two-day or the three-day we uh category that's the rate and we'll use them as needed so there a second tier to utilizing our own teaching St okay so in future I would like to see the contract before we move to vote because this is such a big number involved thank you for explanation is there any other discussion okay and I have another one oh you do I'm sorry for the item number two so we are going to get the uh Miss for for a m piece of music it says okay once the the piece is composed he would he will come to us showare some insight and the meaning behind the music so I suggest if he can come earlier to talk to our student share his idea get some in input from our student and then he start to compose this music that will be more meaningful instead of this way let's rece the the older and second one for the same things and this contract St that this writer got the copyright copyright so St is not work for high we paid him the money it's definitely work for high we should have the copyright instead of he has it but it's okay I let it go but I suggest he come here to talk to our student teacher first and then start his job that will make his job more meaningful so just come ments very good comment okay all those in favor opposed extenstions motion carries is there anything that need separating out under our 11 items under Financial Services if not I'm going to ask for a motion for those 11 items by Mrs Becker second by Mr Winston is there any discussion on the 11 items under Financial Services okay then this one is a roll call vote I'll ask the secretary to please call the rooll Mrs Becker yes Mr sisar yes Mr Cummings yes Miss guas yes Mrs herck yes Mr Hong yes Mr Winston yes president La yes motion carries we have one item this evening for human resources so move by Mrs Becker second by Mr Winston is there any discussion no the mo secretary please call the RO cat sorry um Mrs Becker yes Mr sisar yes Mr Cummings yes Miss guas yes Mrs harck yes Mr Hong yes Mr Winston yes president lacks yes motion carries we have four items this evening for student services motion motion by Mrs Becker second by Mr Winston is there any discussion okay this too is a roll call vote will the secretary please call the RO Mrs Becker yes Mr sisar yes Mr Cummings yes Miss guas yes Mrs harck yes Mr hung yes Mr Winston yep president alect yes motion carries bring us to community reports information items and the good of the cause for the board oh I didn't know Mrs Becker so last night the um recreation park Advisory Board affectionately known as the rpab met and a few things I wanted to um uh bring to the board's attention but also to the public first of all um Chris if you could take this message back to the high school Crystal Springs um still needs staff for the summer particularly lifeguards apparently there's a shortage of lifeguards in the state so um they're doing uh everything they can to advertise um and to get people to apply um if whatever could be mentioned maybe in school newspaper or student council um and for the general public if um the general public or their children are interested in working at Crystal Springs this summer they can get in contact with the recreation department at the township the phone number is on their website um also and this is really great news the rpab is applying for a grant to build an all-inclusive PR playground at Leni Park the reason why this is great news is because it will not just only be completely Ada accessible the equipment will be able to be used by any child and um it's wonderful for the kids of East Brunswick um particularly our special needs population but all children and anything that's good for the children of East Brunswick is good for East Brunswick and the final thing is I had mentioned last meeting that the East brunic Orchestra uh it has a Premier event this Sunday and it's sold out and uh what I wanted to reference was that many of the musicians in the orchestra are former East Brunswick students who played in the orchestra and banned at Churchill and the high school who are still living in the area so it'll be exciting to get a chance to see them reconvene that's my report thank you Mr sisar hi I have uh two committee reports tonight as the former chairperson of both policy and security um this this should provide some clarification for the public I hope um I want to thank Mr Winston for I guess starting the conversation uh we a lot of Us Saw on social media um I believe in transparen transparency as he does and I like to inform the public as much as I can about security so bear with me I'm cautious when when I speak um you know I saw it on there it says the committee was disbanded it was an ation of a redundant committee it was being abolished I I in my opinion I don't care whatever word one uses it's a bad idea to remove the committee in it in its past form as it was last month um I'm and I'm saying this too as an expert in security and protecting our students and staff removing it to where it is now it's an action that potentially makes the district less safe and I have a lot of supporting reasons why but I will only say potentially at this point because the board has the opportunity in fact the obligation and duty to immediately correct what was done um and I'm not going to use the names but it said in the social post the two people that made the decision um it to in my opinion it's a wrong decision to move it um and I I start what I'm talking you know we we are Board of Education we exist as nine members we are consensus seeking no decision and in fact policy backs this up should be made uh by by one board member so I'll start with some historical context this may clarify the difference to between the things so on November 29th 2018 the full board voted 990 to establish the security committee I was there Mrs Becker Mrs ree Mr Hong and Mrs LAX were were the remaining five from the made the decision on that day to create this I suggested it to uh Dr veski and the board after I came on in June of 2018 kind of kind of coinciding with with some of the comments from the public before about the time frame I saw the need for a security committee to discuss confidential matters and I brought it to the board I brought it to Dr veski and obviously it was it was past 90 to clarify some of the stuff that was online the meeting that was talked about that includes Chief Lako the OEM coordinator John kic um it included the PTA president the fire marshal Etc that was and is still in existence say it's called District safety it is not the security committee I repeat it is not the security committee and and those words are important uh District safety only has one board representative on it and like I said I can I can give you a quick timeline from 2013 District safety uh that's that's when I became involved in his employee and going into the meetings um there was discussions back then about arming officers in the schools 2016 again I'm not giving details but there was more paperwork done about discussions in schools I'm sorry I got on the board one of the main reasons was to protect the children of this District that's what I bring to the table and I I I make no bones about saying that in June of 2018 I was I was thankfully appointed by the board and I had to run in another election in August of 2018 that again that is when we established this committee and I'll tell you and it's this a little critical it is what it is from 13 to 18 we were talking about getting armed officers in the schools okay less than a year after the security committee was form we had armed officers in the schools we started small we've expanded it to where it is today it it it helps me to sleep at night you know Mr natal Jo's in charge of the program and let me tell you you know I I since then since 2013 Paul is my best friend full disclosure but we we we work hand inand to come up with ideas and do things so part of what I have is what I consider a policy violation in the way it was done and then if the board continues to have this moved into a full board discussion I have I have supporting reasons why I think it's a bad idea so I'll start with the policy violations policy 155 which was referred to in the U social media post and the message that was sent out to the committee um to the community security is still listed on there a as a committee standing committee District safety is still listed on there today but like I said that's a different meaning we don't talk about confidential matters in there we did it in 2013 we created policy six years ago which I've LED since then and moving it like I said if we decide to do that I have issues with it so if we look at the current policy 155 it says a chairperson shall be appointed by the president shall and I'm not a lawyer here but I have my lawyer here if I say something wrong it's an action that must be taken shall is not May or can or maybe should shall is there should be a chairperson far as I know there's no chairperson for this for this new style of committee the second thing I I have an issue with in the policy to change it from its past approved form which was a full board discussion and vote for one board member and uh sorry the superintendent to make the decision to change it I'll ask for I'll ask for a legal opinion tonight um the the statement from 155 is the board reserves the right to meet and work as a committee of the whole in informational discussion and exploratory sessions no no official action shall be taken at these meetings unless so advertised now I guess Mr jacobe I'm asking if a policy says so we had a committee that was voted on and approved the policy says the board reserves the right does that language mean that this then would have to be taken to the entire board or can one person just just change it so uh first let me just answer your first question um and I answer somebody in the public the the no committee the standing committees that are in 0155 there's 10 of them I believe they cannot be abolished but for action of the board so no committee was abolished um security committee the board under the bylaw you do have the right to have a committee of the hall for any one of the Committees so for example uh if the board wanted to have um Finance be a committee of the of the hall they could so you do have the ability to have there are some boards that have all committees and they operate as a committee of the hall for all committees I would not recommend that um because you basically are not giving due course to all of the um different um items the reason you have various committees is you get in depth on various things so the committee of the hall the and the bylaw also says that the president of the board appoints the uh committees and appoints the chairperson of the Committees that's that's a prerogative that's um not only codified here that's in every District in the state of Jersey so um do I think that the uh you know does the superintendent uh in consultation with the board president have the ability to say we want the security committee to operate as a committee of the whole I think they probably do have that that prerogative to to to do that but it has the committee itself cannot be abolished the only body who can abolish a standing committee is the full board and you need a Maj a majority roll call vote of the board to abolish a standing committee this isn't an ad hoc committee this is you know the difference between an ad hoc committee which is also in that policy is um it lives for the purpose so for example you guys have an ad hoc committee on the high school once the high school is built or not built that committee will just disband understand the 10 committees that you have there Finance negotiations I I don't know I'm all taught head security umul curriculum policy those are those are permanent committees they survive unless the board whoever's in power at time decides to abolish them or combine them Etc um do I think that the now the one thing I can also say is that um the as you know all security school security is discussed in executive close session so whenever you or uh the director of security Mr n Lio addresses the board that always occurs in closed executive session um because you have to protect the safety of the students staff and visitors so I do believe that the committee of the hall o 0155 there is discretion I think you could infer that the president who who appoints the Committees and who selects a chairperson of that committee does have the ability to designate it as a committee of the whole in essence what theid is doing is she's designating the whole board to be on the security committee and the moment that that happens once you have more than a quorum it has to occur at a board meeting now in terms of board meetings committees as the whole you can do a committee the hall at a regular meeting like this evening you could have Security in Clos session you could do it at a special meeting if there's something you guys wanted to just talk about security but you can also do it as an emergency if there's truly a Bonafide emergency you God forbid there some massive security issue comes up or uh there's real threats the board uh and the superintendent can call an emergency meeting you have to do that very um with great discretion it has to be a true Bonafide emergency you can't make up an emergency but let's say there's um some type of high alert that's put out by the federal government or the state government you guys could call an emergency meeting for the purposes of security but all those discussions do take place in close so the way I read 0155 I do believe that the president whoever he or she is at any given time can appoint the full board to any one of the standing committees and the moment that more than a qu is appointed it becomes a committee of the hall that's my opinion and again not to be argumentative sir we we have some pretty good discussions here the policy states what a president can do what a president do what a president do the sentence I read again it says the board reserves the rights to meet and work as a committee of the whole to me and and again you you you can you can correct me if I'm wrong the board is at least a quorum or the nine to reserve the right to meet as a whole I just again not to be argumented but how can one person change that no no I think what you're you're saying can the board as a whole say we want to meet as a committee the whole on all uh standing committees the board I would never recommend it but the board could what I'm saying is the the board policy it does say that the President appoints the Committees correct the President appoints the people in the Committees the committee structure just by the policy is a chairperson three other members and an alternate this totally changes the dynamic and the only thing I can see in here and like I said you I'm I'm not going to argue with your ruling so you're saying the president can do it by themselves without consulting with the Vo the president under your policy and under under this policy 0155 the president is empowered to appoint board members to committees and to appoint a chairperson to whatever that to that committee that's it it doesn't limit the board president from how many people they're appointing what I'm saying is by law the moment the board President appoints more than four what they appoint five people they appointed five people that requires it to be who occur at an open public meeting that's duly noticed accepting in cases of a bonified emergency when you can get a call without 48 hours so my reading of it is I do think that the board president there's no limit on how many people or how many board members of a board president can appoint to a given Committee in this instance I believe that you know the the president reserves that right to appoint five 6 S 8 n and if it's nine appointed then it operates as a committee of the hall that's that that's my reading I think that that's how you know a court of the commissioner would look at it I'm gonna actually interject here hang on I'm I'm I haven't I I haven't yielded my time okay there's no yielding of time we all that's Robert's Rules and I I was speaking to the uh attorney and again I want a clarification then it says a chairperson shall be appointed who's the chair I'm to clarify for you I have an answer for you okay please that was my next question thank you okay so um I applaud anyone that sits up here I've always said it everyone knows security is something that is near and dear to my heart and I am the sole U board member that is sat on the committee the Safety Committee with Dr Figaroa and the chief and OEM and the fire and the principles for as long as that has been in existence so no one is going to challenge my commitment to security and if you remember one of the reasons that I was so excited to bring you on to the board back then and to talk to you about the board was because of your security background so it did take a lot of years to get security Force the way that we've wanted it for a very long time and that committee and Dr fero can tell you back when Chief kuss sat on it I worked my butt off to work for security and that took a long time and I applaud your background I love everything you've done and your history is admirable but I will say this security is something that I feel is so important and the reason the Committee of the whole became such an important part of this bill this this body is that I don't even know if you realize this do you know how many security meetings were held in 2023 zero so you talk about and and the the public is worried that we're not going to have the ability to deal with security because we meet every two weeks in the four years or five years since you've had this committee I got the I asked them to pull the committee meetings there were 10 committee meetings 10 security meetings in four years so we meet every two weeks you just heard that we have the ability to have emergency sessions I'm sorry I don't feel I did a disservice to security I feel that by elevating it to a committee of the whole we have the ability to talk about very important situations that could come up have come up as a board because the reality is why you're absolutely Stellar background is wonderful the reality is the nine of us are the ones that have to make decisions that are based on the recommendations of this man that benefit the over 8,000 students and 2,000 employees in this District so while it is incredibly wonderful to have that we hire a gentleman to run Security in this district and so this is the problem people sometimes don't realize Securities and yes as the president I set security uh set committees and I make this person the committee chair and a lot of it's done by seniority a lot of it is also done by request requ EST since I've been president and it was a practice before me I ask please give me your request what committees would you like to be on so you didn't even give me the request for security committee so I don't know where this is coming from but I will tell you that 10 meetings in four plus years I felt that we needed to be able to do it every guys can I just I just want to clarify one thing so that the public understands you got the board sits on all various committees the Committees that you serve on they're to make sure that the district is well run the school ethics act which is a law that all these board members are bound to uphold and if they violate it they go before the school ethics commission commission um you have to make sure that the school is well-run you don't run the day-to-day operations so what the security committee has done over the years in consultation with the full board because committees bring things to the board is you guys have made a very robust and I've said this to you guys privately and I'll say it publicly I repres we represent my firm represents not me personally over 100 school districts you have bar none in the entire State the most comprehensive security playing I've ever seen nobody there's not a district in the state inner city Etc that has the security force that you have of what 80 90 retired Law Enforcement Officers armed trained it's unbelievable but the committee does not run the day-to-day operations what you guys have done is you've hired Dr veski to run the day-to-day operations and since he's technically charged with overseeing all security you guys have also permitted him to hire a real Bonafide expert in Paul natalo and Kevin zebra as the vice security I don't know director um because those are true those are two true Bonafide experts they're both retired law enforcement so I don't want anyone in the public to think that the board runs security they don't they oversee the security they want to make sure it's well run but the people charge with running it day-to-day to make sure the students and stuff are safe or that gentleman right there and well that gentleman back there who works for Paul natal Lucho and works for the board those are the folks that make sure that the day-to-day are safe because board members aren't in the buildings day today these are the people that in so I just want everyone I think you know everyone should understand the board is the body that you there wouldn't be 90 plus security officers with guns in the schools there won't be these robust I'm going to say robust security things that the public doesn't know about but for the board authorizing the purchases the hiring Etc based on the recommendations of the superintendent in consultation with the board and and the various committees so I just want everyone to know that that you know there's there's no uh um the board board itself no matter even if it's a if it's a individual committee a security committee or a security Committee of the whole that committee does not run the security they do not have any input in data operations they can't by law they put forth the policy they give the as I always said it's kind of like a a football team you guys are like the owners you guys get the money and then you hire your head coach Dr veski and then he goes out and hires his quarter back Paul natal luio and Lou Figaroa and things like that and that's the team that brings you to the championship game so you know the team that runs the day-to-day operations you guys oversee that team and you oversee Dr veski and you hold him accountable and then he has to hold all the employees below him accountable in their various expertise you heard the gentleman tonight Who's I learned more about AI tonight that I even knew ex existed um a little scared about it but uh you know that's why you guys have done it you guys have done it I I mean I have to tell you this board and the five of you that were here from for years and other boards of con I've never seen anything like this in any District I represent I've been doing this for 30 years it's the most robust security plan in any District I've seen in the state and frankly a lot of the districts I represent which are very big districts contact me and say hey do don't do you represent East Brunswick how did they do that how did they get that many secur people well it didn't happen overnight you guys as you know this was a planning thing that you guys did and budgeted for I mean it took years to get to the point where you are if a new District started probably take him a decade to get where you guys are today so can can I finish my statement yeah may I finish my statement oh yeah I'm just I'm just trying I I got it I got it I I wasn't going to go down this road you know but I tried to call some meetings this year and people weren't available and I understand that we're all volunteers and even some of the meetings I moved to 5:00 on Thursday days because it's hard for people to come out on a Tuesday or Monday or whatever and then in social media again I wasn't go down this road it was called redundant that was again repeated five minutes later I don't have a problem with redundancy when it comes to security I think we should talk about it as often as we can my problems with moving it this is my opinion for moving it into closed session okay our policy says a committee meetings may be called at any time by the committee chairperson this this this option has been eliminated now it has to only be called basically under the rules of an open Public's meeting act like there were plenty of times that Dr veski had called me and Paul and whatever we kind of had an impromptu meeting about security so by moving it this is my problem by moving it into closed session then it falls under executive session rules the quickest to meeting and I know it's and and an emergency CU I'm very well worse than it it better be a very serious emergency bonified emergency correct something that's just important all right not an emergency not a bonified emergency the quickest the quickest we could have a security meeting is 48 hours because by moving the security committee into executive session it falls under different rules the open public meetings act so we have to give 48 hours notice to the public that is the quickest we can do something I get it a catastrophic emergency but you know it it it limits the ability to speak to uh Mr natalicio other experts in the field because when we talk about stuff in closed session guess what folks we can't talk about it to anybody else so if we're in Clos session and we talk about something I'm actually violating the rules of executive session by going out and doing my own research on these topics and talking to people it kind of it doesn't honestly it doesn't belong in executive session this was used from time to time because Dr veski came to me and he said hey he said uh you know this is something we should bring to the whole board and I was very agreeable to that I just don't think first of all I disagree you know and and sorry we can we can have disagree with Mr jacobe when it says the board reserves her rights because we've said the board several times tonight the board is the nine of us a singular person make a decision I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that sir um but from everything I know and again I'm not patting myself on the back but I was there in the beginning I've been hand inand with Paul all the way moving this into executive session is a bad idea committees are created we know why committees are created it's a smaller group of experts and we can bring other people in and you hone down the ideas and then you put it into place that's how we got here today is the committee format not handling it just in executive session that's my objection to this I made no negative comments about you president LAX I didn't say you don't care about security and if I finished my statement where I was cut off I just said as an expert I I don't I don't think I think it's a bad idea to put it into executive session and I have right in my notes Here I am not saying that President lacks Dr veski and in fact all my fellow colleagues on the de do not care about security any less than I do but I'm saying listen to me because you don't know security like I do I don't think it belongs in executive session so I made no negative comments and had I been able to finish my statement I get it Lori yes that's why you brought me on I I gave a paying job to come on here and do this hand inand with you I'm telling you right now this is a bad idea to keep in an executive session it should be a committee you want to appoint somebody else's chairperson you have that right and and and since you went down the road of when I gave you my my personal email about what committees I wanted and I didn't choose security my email stated I don't want to do Finance I can't do any daytime committees but I opened the door I said put me on any committee you wish so this hasn't been a a u a combative relationship but I but I do have my opinion this is this is this is not a good idea in my opinion and I I say this should have been a full board discussion before the move was made so thank you for your time thank you for your opinion I respect your opinion one thing I do want to clarify though and as I said I'm not taking anything away from your Stellar um resume but we have to always remember this is the hard thing that Matt just said a minute ago we have to remember our position as board members your conversations shouldn't be with Paul natalicio Dr veski and Paul natalicio should be discussing the direction of our security and then he reports to us and that's something that sometimes as board members we forget the only administrator that we are supposed to talk to and deal with directly is Dr veski he then can send us in any direction or tell us if there's something that needs to be done that another administrator has to weigh in on but as board members unfortunately our role is oversight so no matter how wonderful some of our backgrounds are in all the different areas that we bring at expertise of Our Lives that is something that's hard to remember and for you as I said because you are so decorated have done so much I understand your passion for security and I applaud that but I just want to caution you that this is in no way taking away from that it's just in this particular case Dr veski and Mr fig Mr Excuse me Mr natalicio are the ones that are supposed to be directing security and I have to just you made you made me think because when you talk about back in 2013 um and Mrs Becker and I are I think the only ones left from the initial way back when discussions I have to tell you something the person who we should be patting on the back for our security and I I don't know if anyone has realized it yet is this man because we have been through three and for you four different superintendents that we have tried for a long time to get this done so it's not one person two people it's this man that did it because it's always and you see that every year we have the potential for a different body of people that are sitting up here so you have to have the guidance because he's got to get the votes because trust me I know what it was like you're right when these discussions I was on the board back then and I can't discuss how people voted but I did know he's have the votes and I had to go to our Safety Committee when they would sit there and say Point Blank Lori what's going on with your board why is there no security and I had to sit there and say to them I can't tell you why because we didn't have the full board so I applaud you I applaud everyone that was on the board back in 2018 but as I said this guy gets all of the credit for it because it took us three superintendents to get it done and this is in no way especially uh Dr maestria Maestro it's in no way she's was wonderful and she was ahead of her time in security so I mean no disrespect at all to her and what she's done in this District I'm just saying and I'm sorry to do this to you but you won't take a bow for it but the reality is you have been soal security focused so you might want to let the public know I mean I don't know if people realize that that we keep on talking about Mark being an expert people might not know you're a retired law enforcement officer work for the Secret Service things like that so you have a lot of law enforcement I want people to think that you're an expert yes you you that was your job and you're doing security now in another District a neighboring District so just so people understand because there's probably a lot of people in the public that don't realize what you're you're the reason you're an expert is that that was your profession and remains your profession I want the public to know that yeah I just a quick comment it's not argument but you said you know about giving caution me about giving directives to Paul and stuff it's not directives I never gave directives to Paul Dr veski it's research and the only way you can get things done is by individuals on this board conducting research it handcuffs us like I said to put everything into executive session so it's not directives I didn't I never called up dreski or Paul and said No it's it's an important point to make it's research and each board member should do their own research overseeing something when somebody wants to make a decision on overseeing if something's done correctly I encourage you to do your own research and get your own facts for the situation don't even rely on what I say okay that's not that's you should you can question people that are experts in a field do your own research this this is this is handcuffing some of it thank you thank you Mr one other thing too just so Mark when you got when you we're not a committee the whole the the committee in the committee form of four three people with an alternate that still was closed to the public it wasn't an executive session but the public yeah I can talk to Paul yeah no exactly but I'm just I want the public to understand that secur the security committee by its very nature is never disclosed to the public because we don't yeah why the public but I don't know if the public does it can never be disclosed to the public because the primary concern of school Security is to protect the students and staff in the buildings and the only way you can ensure that bad people don't can't breach it is we you don't share all of your strategies equipment uh men and women power that are are done throughout the school district so that's why no matter what it's done those discussions are always done outside the presence of the public you and I may disagree but I wholeheartedly applaud your you know Vigor for security as I said I have the same thing so um I am fine with agreeing to disagree on things and I respect everything you said Mr Winston sorry hi thank you thank for there's a lot of clarity in there and and in many points perhaps I I will too agree to disagree but I really I want to I want to go back to something that was really laid out very nicely uh president LAX and and our board attorney here are some of the comments I just heard uh you pointed to this man Dr V and giving him the due credit which I agree you mentioned this committee uh that we had had and and and our our attorney said the most robust is the result and those all sound like pretty positive things I'm not sure I would break something that those were the results I'm not sure what would compel me to dismantle something that gets that gets the accolades that you all just said so when I so where I really got hung up on this yes I wrote it I don't regret it and I am a concern concerned about it I get hung up on the why why would you do this if the results that we've received have been exceptional to the point of other districts around the state around the country are coming to US based on what we had what would make you think that we needed to break it and change it it makes no sense so I had to go back and I said why and unfortunately the tap did did an article and they did quote and essentially they said why it eliminated a redundant Committee of the board of ed all right uh it it it you went on to say this is a quote from from Mrs LAX in this article and if it's misquoted please correct the record you said it was just by a few board members that was literally repeated uh to the board an hour later please M PL tell me that wasn't the reason why you did this it was not the reason but that's what you said the quote is is inaccurate it is inaccurate yes oh good all right then then let me ask you if it was so good and produced so many great results to all of the things that I just heard everybody line up and say what had happened since what year 2018 why would you change it so what we're talking about was is security as a whole we're not talking about the security committee there's nothing I can point to and this is not and I sat on the security committee with Mr sisar so I'm not insulting myself or Mrs Becker or Mrs G like the people that sat on it but there's nothing so good that came out of the security committee wow so because Jeff I think you're confusing two things you're accusing you're you're you're confusing this security of the district with a committee that meets to discuss things and as I mentioned before in over four years this committee met only 10 times so what I'm trying to explain to you is that it's not that the the committee hasn't done anything but the reality is I'm gonna and I apologize I'm going to go back to your quote for a second the quote was a conversation when Marina asked me about the committee and she said would you be losing anything by not having this committee and so the the comment that I made was that no it was so important that we wanted to have it as a committee for the entire board because security is something that you need to know about and Jeff you didn't sit on the security committee no I'm talking about the results but I feel personally you need to be a part of any conversation about this District because as the nine members that oversee the district we all have to have a say in security so when when when Moren said to me well if you take away the committee does that hurt security that is where and it's kind of it's not that it's misquoted it was the conversation was that nobody loses out the conversation was if we have a committee we'll sit there and have a discussion and then we would go into executive session and we would then and I apologize you're getting my back we would then tell the rest of the board so it wasn't I was saying it was just reported five minutes later it was that we're having the same discussion you Chang you need to be able to have the same information I I'm fine I'm fine with that so you that's good all right good I'm happy happy to hear you were misquoted and that does make me that does give me uh a little bit of lift here but it doesn't change the question of why whether I didn't sit on the committee I didn't I didn't sit on it I agree but what I did hear is what the results of our to current security structure whether it be through committee or the people who run it or or um or or ass sure that it runs well you the results sound great I wouldn't change that I just I don't understand why I would change something EXC me I won't I I don't know how you could explain it to me I don't know how you could explain why one would change something that's going so great it is literally like trading the greatest quarterback in the world I just can't get there it doesn't make sense there is no reason why and the public deserves to know that it's not broken you're confusing two things Jeff our security but there's no results that came out of a security committee what we have in place it doesn't matter where they came from you're missing the point and this is where you're getting and I worry because this is where I get nervous that you're going to make the committee the the public think that there is some kind of lack here of security because the reality is our security system hasn't changed the effectiveness of our security system hasn't changed not according the expert the expert just said it made our district less safe we just agreed he's the expert that's what he just said I I don't I I really don't think we want to leave the public with that perception I really don't I I have listened I have listened quietly and over 10 years as and it wasn't just me it was many boards it was many people who are passionate about building security it is the Public's trust that we got to support the financial obligation to hire this many people it was a Public's trust to have those people in schools and one day after Parkland to suddenly they appeared armed Mr sisar had a part in that as every other board member did but every board member who is elected by the public has had a vote in what we did with security committee by itself any committee doesn't have any power they make recommendations that comes to me as superintendent I pass that on to the board nothing can get done without the entire board voting on it so that's where I I have a misunderstanding because every member of the committee is still a member of the committee the committee has just expanded in my opinion fair enough I I think there's a logistical issue that Mr sisar pointed out and and and there's a disagreement on that I'm okay with that if you disagree you disagree I I just simply rest on why you really haven't heard why you want everybody to do it that's great I like to think that Mr sisar and his committee had a lot more to contribute than what you're stating uh however all right you say that they didn't so um I guess that's where that's where we land it's fine I disagree with the decision but it is what it is that's not true all Mr s just one more thing real quick um yeah Dr vesi it's not that it's making it less safe like all of a sudden we're going to be in harm but it's taking away options for timeliness it's taking away a chairperson and it doesn't have to be me and I didn't ask for any I didn't Pat myself on the back tonight because I got a I got a saying if you're always patting yourself on the back your hands aren't available to do the work that's not what I'm doing here tonight but the way it was structured as a committee is I would talk to Paul I would talk to Dr bless I would talk to experts in the field we would come up with an agenda and in that agenda we brought up things and no not everything that was brought to a security committee was brought to the full board because how a committee works is we all know is that the committee talks experts talk some things are put on the table some things are taken off the table and then it's honed down and it's presented to the full board nothing was ever kept from the full board but there were things that do not pass the pass the committee phase so like I said I just think it takes away options for timeliness and not for nothing sorry it it it bogs down the system because we get you know we have like an hour for Clos session we've had security meeting a lot longer than an hour there were things that were brought in and I don't even want to talk about that were thrown off the table before they came to the full board because they just weren't practical from it from several experts in the field not just me that's all I'm talking about in Form and Function it works better as a committee so I think that encapsulates my whole point tonight it works better as a committee not executive session every time point of clarification give me one second um we are not held to 1 hour for our executive sessions we do the 1 hour from 6:30 to 7:30 if there's a need for a second close session and you know we've most of you have been here we've had that before so I don't want anyone to think that we have one hour in which to get all the work done in executive session there are times that you have like we've been here midnight one o'clock in the morning so executive session could go as long as you need it's just that a lot of times we can get the work done my other question about a chairperson and and an agenda are we going to have that going into the future are we I'm sorry we're going to have what a chairperson and an agenda the way a committee is structured is we have a chairperson that sets the agenda and brings the agenda to the committee I asked before who's the chairperson I also asked because we had a meeting tonight there was no agenda so so again my question is Form and Function going forward since we didn't vote on his board to move in an executive session but it's there now is there going to be a chairperson is that chairperson going to create an agenda and then will that agenda be brought to the meeting well try think say generally Dr vesy brings us security I can create an agenda so if you'd like him to do that for the agenda as you know when we go into close session the items that are listed so security when it's on there Dr veski briefs us on what needs to be done do you want a formal agenda is that what you're asking for in the committee form yes I I have dozens of agendas where like I said call it what you want I talk to I'm sorry I talked to Paul I talked to other experts in the field I run security another District we come up with ideas we put them on an agenda and no you don't have to meet every every week or every month but when new things come up when new options come up um there's an agenda there's a chairperson by our policy these things are missing no matter where it meets and as a new Committee Member who do I address things to if I have a question who's my chairperson you well you I mean I what I can tell you is is is anybody on any committee you can address it to the president or you can go right to Dr veski it has to be a chairperson to the committee well so the day to-day if you for example if if um let's say Mark in in the district that you're in you come across something that's phenomenal new software whatever you have every right as a board member to call Dr veski up and say Dr veski you know I want an agenda item and I want this listed so we can have this discussion in close session I understand my right just just the Form and Function has been changed and you know there's a committee structures a chairperson chairperson calls a meeting chairperson sets agenda and and then basically kind of runs the meeting so has that all been removed um hea hea are you asking me a question yeah because I'm sorry yeah our policy says there should be a chairperson chairperson call the meeting the agenda is set by basically by the chairperson in in consultation with the person from Administration who was assigned to the committee I think because it's going to be if it operates as a committee of the hall and it's in closed executive session uh I would say that the chairperson is the person who runs the day of the operations that would be Dr veski so Dr veski would act as the chairperson for security and Dr veski will make the decisions of whether or not to bring in Mr Lucho uh Mr zebra that so I think Dr veski because he's the one he's a quarterback doing it he would be he would act as the chairperson of the committee of the hall for security discussions and so my recommendation to you guys is anybody who has a security uh issue that you want on an agenda a discussion if there's multiple items contact Dr veski because remember Dr veski is the individual along with the business office that puts together the agenda every two weeks they're the ones that create it they're the ones who put together who what's on Executive student if it's a student matter whatever Dr veski is the person to go to and that would be the and frankly if it if there's something that's very pressing Dr FES is also the one if there's a bonafied emergency emergency he can consult the board president say we need to have an emergency meeting with less than 48 hours notice be pretty yeah you're right yeah but there but I don't want to alarm people there there could be a situation where like I said president United States declar some typee of National Emergency right after 9911 code red yeah that happens that's a bonafied emergency you could call an emergency meeting this I think um Mrs gal had her hand up first oh yes okay sorry I wasn't going to weigh in but I do want to I I only have some concerns about the portrayal as people have said of what the Committees do um I don't I'm not comfortable with the reference Mr sisar and his committee it's a committee it's we Mr sisar when he worked for the district was doing that work but now another district has the benefit of that and we have hired a as a board Dr veski has chosen we have approved we have hired a substantial security force that is really well L and I in my mind I'm kind of listening to things as we go and answering what I think you know when Mr Winston says if it's not broke why change it well it has been evolving for years and getting stronger and stronger you know it was a it was probably the strongest Security in any school in New Jersey three years ago but we have continued to grow and do more things that we can't share but we have always improved so using the entire board to weigh in and to handle you know this information I think is another change to improve the other thing is that the I our role as my understanding as board members is to make sure the district is well run I have I have expertise not in security but I have expertise in curriculum writing but I would never overstep and want to go work like you said you work hand inand with Paul and and it's a different ground because you're friends you have said but I have expertise in writing curriculum but I would never overstep to try to sit with Dr boy and tell her how we should write curriculum not not our place as board members I don't think I think it's too up and close to the Daily Runnings of the district I think as board members our job during these meetings is to listen to what the experts are saying and ask intelligent questions and that's where your expertise has always been so valuable you know the questions to ask which is a benefit to all of us but I don't think we are supposed to be as board members running the district down on the ground that's this man's job and he does it beautifully our security department is amazing but no one committee I I chair committees I don't claim to be running you know student services in any way shape or form I'm there to ask intelligent questions with the other board members um and understand what the people that the board and Dr veski have chosen to run the district what they're doing for our students and make sure it's done well but I just I'm uncomfortable with the public believing that our job is to run certain things you have expertise it's true it is not my understanding that is your job to run Security in any way it's our job to make sure that we have the best people to do that and then to ask intelligent questions I think that's all I wanted to say Point thank you oh I'm sorry Mrs Becker it's okay um I hate this phrase but I've been on this board a long time and I was never ever told either by a board or attorney by New Jersey school board orientation by the board members who mentored Me by any of the superintendents I worked with that a board member is supposed to do research as a matter of fact I was always told if you want to see research on a particular subject you bring it to the superintendent who will bring it to the appropriate administrator because as Heather so eloquently said um it's not Heather's job to do research if uh Dr Bley has informed us that she's thinking of a new science program for the elementary schools it is not Heather's job because she is a teacher and curriculum um expert to do the research to present to her it's the other way around we everyone has been saying this but nobody seems to get it we ensure the district is well run the fact that there is terrific security is because the board and administration have supported the funds and necessary Personnel to develop a program an agenda a committee a chairperson number number of times a meeting is held is not what has created this terrific security program the security committee actually if I recall the first year I was president was the first year we had security committee and I viewed it as all other committees as I think Mark you might have said um with the committee system we get into the minutia of a particular subject because if if all nine of us had to be uh for instance if we go to a curriculum meeting and we get information about textbooks the committee makes a recommendation to recommend the textbook to the board but as I have pointed out a million times sitting on this committee and other committees that doesn't mean the board will approve it a committee is a place where IDs can be talked about but that doesn't preclude it from being discussed at the board level we once had a calendar committee meeting years ago that went on for hours and hours where the people on this committee were led to believe that they needed to make a decision on certain days off the District was going to have and I couldn't take it anymore I said I hate to see people wasting their time we have spent hours discussing something that the full board can completely overturn it is not up to the committee the committee is a forum to discuss in minutia and detail this district is not less safe more safe because of a committee this District's Safety and Security is dependent on the incredible program and staff that has been developed and the security committee has been a terrific Forum to listen to different ideas to have different programs explained to us different pieces of Technology but there was nothing in that committee that wouldn't have come to the full board there is nothing in that committee that prevented the security becoming better it is a committee we used to have a technology committee we used to have a transportation committee the technology committee is now part of building and grounds I believe as is needed or technology actually I'm sorry technology is part of the finance committee as is needed and the transportation is part of building and grounds as needed does that mean that we halted any advances in technology or Transportation or we no longer transport our children in a safe efficient incredibly state-of-the-art manner of course not decisions are made about logistics and the way things are formed it's a frame it's a format it is not the content it is not having or not having a technology committee doesn't mean that meets two or three times a year doesn't mean that we don't have a First Rate technology program and I'm looking at the man in the back row who is responsible for it with his incredible staff and everything that has been done combining the technology committee with the finance committee as needed had no impact on the validity efficiency and security of our technology we have been talking about Security in this District since Coline it's not like nothing was ever done until 2013 no disrespect or 2018 Mark and I have talked in meetings about prior to 2013 what Joanne magistro did to develop security plans that were held up as a model in this state but yes Lori is absolutely right was finally under Dr veski that we formalized a plan that is now not only recognized in the state but recognized in the country and it has nothing to do with a physical paper agenda it is nothing to do with the name of a committee chairperson thank you m I was done but I I just want to clarify Mrs gu's comments because she kept saying and looking over here about running the district running security I made absolutely no statements that I ever and Dr veski can back me up on this that I ever tell him how to run his district did I ever tell Paul how to run the district it was in advisory capacity second if you think I'm going to sit up here and not do my own research I never knew that that was a a a rule that people that oversee $190 million budget are not supposed to do their own research well how do you ask questions about something if you don't do some type of background research on the subject and again let me let me just like I said I'm not saying it's unsafe like tomorrow your children are unsafe I said it I think very eloquently District safety had civilians on there and stuff there's stuff we couldn't talk about that's why in 18 when I came on I made the suggestion to create the security committee and we still had District safety we have it till today it just didn't function as efficiently as District safety because you can't talk about stuff to the public there was public that sat there on the committee I've got the list from 13 so again I will say my because people are adding things in here that I never said tonight it just functions better as a committee that is my opinion period so all these little tangents that that that went off are not things that I said tonight thank you I just say that Safety Committee does function and has a tremendous impact I understand that but I just want to out of respect for Dr fero in that committee um it's a phenomenal committee there are certain things that can't be discussed yes that's I did not say it wasn't a good committee but it's said we can't talk about confidential matters that was my issue so we created an additional committee safety that's all I didn't say they did anything wrong no no no I just wanted to make sure because that's an absolutely essential folk board board members can do their own research but you uh so if you want to um educate yourself on certain items that's fine the the bottom line though is the day-to-day operations comes from the administration so I forget which boy member said it but like Dr Bly if Dr Bly says um you know the science team at the high school school is recommending uh geoe on physics um that would not it would not be appropriate for Miss Becker who's on the curriculum committee I think you are uh to go and say no not g Kobe I like cotfield on physics that you know what you're talking about that's not appropriate can can can can uh a board member educate themselves on why absolutely so board members can absolutely there's no prohibition or legal prohibition about educating yourself the the the um again it's you make sure the district is well run you don't run to the day-to-day operations that's the law and so you you what you do is you hire the best staff that you possibly can whether it's a superintendent whether it's somebody ahe of curriculum head of security they are the ones that that and you make recommendations to them and they might say no you know what that's not the right research I just want everyone to understand that thank you okay well I think we've cool have done ourselves this evening um I just noticed this lovely plant thank you for helping East Brunswick schools grow um from the Eva thank you on behalf of the board um from truly the people that do help our students grow with the work that you do so to be a part of that I thank you and Chris I hope that you and your friends really enjoy the snow day tomorrow and build a lot of snowman and think about swimming and think about swimming and being a lifeguard while you're playing in the snow I hope everyone gets home safe stay safe um has your refrigerator stocked up and I'm going to ask for a motion to so moved Jeff and Vicky I don't know which one said it first give it to Jeff give it to Jeff any discussion all in favor I oppose extensions motion carries good night thank you so much