##VIDEO ID:H8d0nBaOAbY## to the flag of the United States of America God indivisible and justice for all the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice and to attend the meetings of public bodies of which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of the ACT Board of Education as caused notice of this meeting to be published on September 8th 2024 and September 10th 2024 and posted on the district website at www.foe.com publish in the board's designated online media Outlet newspapers the record and the Star Ledger filed with the clerk of the burrow of Fort Lee and mailed to all persons if any who have requested said notice please be advised this meeting is being recorded and may be broadcasted on local TV and online at a future date the open public meeting act allows for remote participation at board meetings and defines meeting as any Gathering whether Caporal or by means of communication equipment which is attended by or open two all of the meetings of a public body held with the intent on the part of the members of the body present to discuss or act as a unit upon the specific public business of that body roll call please miss bu C Miss Curry N Miss Kang here Lopez here M Morel here Mr Rino here and Miss R here the board will be convening to Executive session to discuss legal personnel and other confidential matters the board will reconvene to public session at approximately 7:30 p.m. may have a motion to go into executive session motion Rino second Morel all in favor I I any opposed okay exective session Morel will you lead us in the pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands indivisible andice for all the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of the act the fortly board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published on September 8th 2024 and September 10th 2024 posted on the district website at www.foe.com published in the board's designated online media Outlet newspaper the record and the Star Ledger filed with Clerk of the bur of Fort Lee and mailed to all persons if any who have requested said no notice please be advised this meeting is being recorded and may be broadcasted on local TV at a future date the open public meeting act allows for remote participation at board meetings and defines meeting as any Gathering whether cial or by means of communication equipment which is attended by or open to all of the members of a public body held with the intent on the part of the members of the body present to discuss or act as a unit upon the specific public business of that body roll call please miss bu Kang Miss Kat Miss Curry here Mr Knight M kotang yeah Mr Lopez here M Morel here Mr Rino here M rord here the board convened executive session at 6:30 P.M to discuss legal personnel and other confidential matters Dr Kravitz will you begin by sharing the superintendent report yes good evening everyone and thank you for attending uh tonight we have two cases of hivs that were unfounded as we ended the meeting last time there was some discussion about scheduling I just want to remind everyone that we are in the process of gathering all our information and we will be doing a report and we have all that information the school year is well underway and we have a lot of training taking place in our district thank you to all the students the teachers parents everyone as we patiently uh work through all of that training to make sure that all of our our staff are getting uh the necessary training for the for the year we're working with Renaissance we're working with mtss training and inrs training as well as a reminder of the full play The Outsiders is this Friday and Saturday please see our website for more information tonight we welcome tiisha Jane andol for sem once again the Victorious meet again [Music] as on November 1st a group of students from the camera and environmental clubs went on a four mile hike at Rockley wood Sanctuary the camera club members used analog and digital cameras take nature photographs and learn how to use a drone to take aerial shots the environmental Club used the planetet app to identify various plants and trees it was a fun educational experience and we are in the midst of planning our next trip this fall Big Mo conf American League champions included the boys cross country which was undefeated the boys soccer and also congratulations to these team and all these athletes we are pleased to share the exciting news that the Key Club at portley high school has been selected as one of the environmental awareness challenged Grant recipients we would like to recognize and congratulate Henry de hisus Abigail Lee and Eugene langang for their outstanding commitment and effort in securing this grant their hard work truly embodies a spirit of positive change within our community thank you for your continued support and we look forward to seeing the positive impact that SC will have on our school community members of the high school or show performed at the annual Fort Le of Chamber of Commerce Gala on November 14th over 2540 citizens attended this event the student council will host a schoolwide volleyball tournament on Tuesday November 19 The Outsiders is coming to courtley high school stage on November 22nd at 7 November 23rd at 2: p.m. and 8:00 p.m. and November 24th at 3 p.m. we are on a mission to fill our [Music] SE thank you very much and I'd like to wish everyone out there a very Happy Thanksgiving weeks so enjoy time family thank you very much thank you do we have any committee reports I think so right talk about the field um okay do we have any questions or comments on tonight's agenda or any other topic board members no Amy you have any questions on the [Music] agenda okay um need to read those Walkin before we open the floor to the public sure okay you want to read them okay these number yes one is 4B and one is this is yeah this resolution 4B whereas njsa 18a 20- 8.2 and 18a 20-2 20-9 permits a board of education to convey its land for any rights or interested of any by it which CE to be suitable or convenient for the use for which they were required or which are no longer needed for school purposes and whereas the forly board of UC a was approached by the B of for Le potential potential purchase of the vo property located at the 10th Street field for New Jersey a portion of block 2591 2 with the intent to make substantial improvements thereon for the use enjoyment and benefit for the citizens of Po and whereas the board explored certain due diligence and background work for the potential disposition of the property pursu to resolution number [Music] 34337 and whereas the board will need to amend it long facilities plan invented property to the Bur whereas the board and the bur contemplate an arrangement whereby the bur would provide the forly public school district access to the property after the conveyance for continued occupancy and use by students and athletic programs to be memorialized in the form of an agreement to be executed contemporaneously with the conveyance of the property now therefore we resolved that the superintendent business administrator Endor other members of the board business office as well as board counsel and other board professionals are hereby well to perform any action required to begin conveyance of the proper to the burrow including but not limited to amending War facilities point that was 4B Chris yeah yeah I was told that was 4 B yeah and then what would be five is an authorization uh to authorize the prepar resolution preparation of long range facilities plan where is the board has previously approved Environ etics group Architects EnV as architect of record and whereas the board has identified a need for the preparation of a long range facilities plan and whereas on August 15 2024 EnV provided the board with a quote for the preparation of a long rage facilities plan for the board in the estimated amount of $83,000 now there be resolved that the superintendent visit administrator and or other members of the board business office is as well as board counsel and any other board professionals are hereby authorized to enter into a contract with EMV for the preparation of a long facilities plan and our to take any action required toate before we move on to the public are there any board members who have questions on those two walk-in resolutions just so um if um if Chris you can put it in plain English for folks what the two resolution are sure of understanding so so the first or the second resolution uh is just Environ etics group architect was already approved as the board's architect record and the Board needs a long range facilities plan repair and uh your architect Rec prepar quote and $3,000 to prepare that fac so that's B I guess is kind of put the C before the and then the other um resolution is to authorize the in connection with any potential conveyance of the 10 Street field to the Bur uh to ight the amendment of plan which you to be prepared thank you that helps question relating to repe um as I understand our district um already had our share of Le replacement challenge in it is extremely difficult as I understand to replace a teacher with on and such what would the impact be um with Miss L extending her Le to April do do we need to find a new teacher um I hope everything is okay with one child teacher um is there going to be an issue here to find replacement so with any replacement the intent is to find the the uh any anytime teachers out on leave for any reason we always look to make sure that there is a leave replacement available um we do our best and I I think our new HR director doing phenomenal job looking for those those individuals and replacing them as soon as they can so our goal is to have somebody in that classroom and I believe there is someone SL slated for that classroom I can't confirm that but I believe there is someone who will be slated for that classroom this you know but I I believe our goal is to actually have all the replacements filled then I also want to thank the your service to [Music] District okay um may have a motion to open the floor to the public motion second motion Morel second Rino all in favor I any oos or extensions okay we will hear first from any members of the public physically located in the cafetorium then we will take questions and comments from those remotely participating participants are limited to three minutes in which to make their statement for remote public participants please select the raise hand button Mr rero will recognize each Community member in the order of raised hands please unmute your microphone state your name home address for the record and begin your comments everyone is limited to three minutes anyone in the public wish to speak hello everybody good evening uh Keith Goin 2185 L Mo Avenue um just a couple things I wanted to touch on tonight obviously number one is going to be the special education parents Advisory Group uh the meeting is uh Wednesday this week November 207 p.m. and it's going to be on Zoom this month um if you did not get the zoom link via email there's seems to be someone or some people not receiving emails including myself um please email CAG s p a f lbo e.com and we will send you all information you need if you did not get the email with the zoom link for Wednesday's meeting at 7 um and we have a presentation from Bergen's promise talking about the care Continuum for uh children uh with special needs um even if you're working with them already U we do apologize if it's duplicative suff duplicative for some of the parents that will be at the meeting but we do have to um cater to everyone so we're trying to do that the best we can um and the question for the district um or the board maybe um some parents mentioned using the school playgrounds when the kids aren't present and sometimes the playgrounds are locked and sometimes they're able to get in um because with special needs kids it's kind of nice to have a fenced in park where the kid can't run so we're just curious that there hours on that certain rules or anything regarding the playgrounds at the school usually the grounds are open when the schools are open um they try for insurance purposes to make sure that there's supervision even after school there's usually an after school program or there might be the administrators there for a period of time afterward so usually comes down to um if for for Safety and Security as well thank you hello everyone my name is Michelle pz 555 North Avenue um first congratulations to Chris H and Doug on being reelected to the board um the I have a question which course now is totally lost my my mind while I'm standing here um I do have well let me actually ask a question um at some of the meetings when a board member not a member of the public I'm talking about what a board member called in Zoom after traveling or whatever um is it a requirement that a board member use their camera or can they be off camera and just have audio and I'm sorry I can't remember the other question you saying here so I don't know answer it's Poli say if video for whatever reason maybe something technologically [Music] participation [Music] participation so it just be a matter of checking if there's a policy there should be a problem again okay I just don't know what to talk yeah and usually I'm all like Nery about looking into it but I just didn't um I do remember but I wanted to say I wanted to congratulate all of you I understand that I completely missed it I think it was two years ago when you approved your goals I was no no so we have them we did discuss them we've never actually memorialized them yet in an agenda so that should be the next meeting I'm super excited about that because I went to the goals page today and we in the middle of November 2024 and the goals up on the website are still from 2019 to 2020 so I'm very very excited that this board is having regular committee meetings and doing work and I appreciate all what you do so thank you uh good evening Brad Rondo 2298 moreit uh also uh would like to offer um my congratulations uh to the board members who recently reelected uh would like to Second uh what another parent said which which is um that the the goals process which I know has been moving forward for going on half a year now is finally ready to be memorialized I think is actually um a really significant uh achievement and um that kind of forward-looking uh work is at least by this parent and I suspect by a number of parents uh is appreciate um the other thing I wanted to say uh and Mr I think in some ways this is sort of directed to you and more just a request than any um I congratulate the board members who reelected uh obviously that was not the only election uh that occurred recently um obviously we had a national election that people have a lot of feelings about that is that people are divided about even in this town the one thing I hope everyone can agree on is that all of our kids deserve to feel safe in our schools and the reason I say that is because uh there have been incidents around the country including here in New Jersey in recent days uh of high school students being targeted with harassing text messages uh with other forms of intimidation no indication whatsoever that any of that has happened in for late but I do think it's at a time when there are so many divisions where people are so riled up about so many things I think extra vigilance um so that if something like that does come to our town or does make its way into our schools um action can be taken quickly to make sure that every one of our students feels and is uh safe in our schools and I trust that would be the case but I just wanted to under thank you very common actually well well spoken um so we at the high school we do have a new club called no place for hate and that's part of that theme that every opinion is is that we understand we work with and we're all one that's the point of the comment no place for hate so we're looking for exciting things to happen from that club that will be working with students across District actually that's wonderful here thank you evening everybody Brian drum n Lane for Le I just wanted to touch phas on the uh 10 stre field I know this is another step and another progress forward but um mayor Mark going be here tonight due to a work obligation but and this is more for the public than the board because we've been working with President Victor vice president morale was in a committee meeting remember uh case KN was in a committee meeting and if I forgot anyone I'm sorry I think Mike you were there with us as well I know it's been a lot of work and a lot of efforts but if anyone from the public has any questions on the burrow side you know we have an open door policy at 309 Main um my cell phone not that I speak on the entire burrow but I have been involved with this project so my cell phone is 55124 67725 you can call me anytime um where we can sit down I think this would be a humongous win for the portly Board of Education the B of ptle as a whole and especially the most important our students and our youth in our community so thank you for everything that you guys do congratulations to Kristen Holly and Doug on your uh reelection and thank you for everything that you do for the V Bo [Music] thank all right Mr rerro you're up Deo you've been promoted to panelist please unmute your microphone and feel free to share video please state your name and address for the record you have three minutes hi Steph cazo Yannis of Tom Hunter Road fortly New Jersey can you guys hear me is I am I un muted yes I can hear you okay so I just wanted to go back and touch on a few things um it's come to my attention that we have 894 um thousand illegal immigrants in New Jersey which is basically one in 10 people and I was trying to figure out in our numbers on the special education for the Spanish because I was trying to figure out why the district is breaking you know people down into races and this and that I find it a kind of a terrible thing I'm wondering where are the numbers and how do we know that the kids who are being assigned 3 to one are not first of all illegal immigrants or out of District where would those numbers be in the report and I guess this is costing basically every citizen an extra $2,100 per the government website that was released today I want to know and make sure that when we're talking about our district are we speaking about kids that are here illegally is this what's weighing us down um because I really do still have a problem with this kind of Dei training that teachers are having to go to for the Hispanic children so where are these kids from and is it in our our paperwork that we can see where that is from and um that number one number two would be the no place for hate Club how is that run who runs the club and um what rules does that fall under and I'd also like to give a great congratulations to Donald Trump for winning the election and um taking the house and the Senate I think we're going to be much more safe and much more secure in our country because of this and it'll deal with a lot of issues that many of the parents were worried about so just waiting to hear from the board on where I can find those numbers thank you for your questions all of the information regarding subgroups and populations and characteristics of those subgroups are all available in the New Jersey school performance report card that are on our website it's also through the NJ dooe you can access that information for every school in the state of New Jersey as far as the not place for hate that is a club you can Google it uh the position was posted teachers um submitted their interest in that we selected a student a excuse me a teacher who is now running a club um like we do every other club extracurricular activity so that's where it is thank you Andrew you've been promoted to panelist please unmute your microphone and feel free to share your video please state your name name and address for the record you have three minutes Andrew Andrew G 326 Bridge Plaza North I just want to touch really quickly about what Keith spoke about which is uh CPAC um please there the flyer is posted on the forley website they're asking for all parents and Guardians to please honor VP uh for Wednesday's meeting also if anybody again as Keith mentioned anybody has any trouble they did not get the link please email um CPAC and we can send it out to you also our December meeting is scheduled for December 18th more information will follow um information will be posted on the fle bu website thank you Daniel Martino you've been promoted to panelist please unmute your microphone and feel free to share your video please state your name and address for the record you have three minutes hello uh my name is Daniel Martino I live in 2100 lywood AB uh I'm GNA start off of course by congratulating kisten Holly and Doug on their recent success uh during this past election cycle um it was welld deserved uh with that being said I wanted to quickly discuss why I have felt compelled to join in on so many board meetings over the past year or so uh some of you may recall that one of the first times that I decided to speak uh to the board was during a vote on policy 5756 uh while speaking I chose to hammer in on the singular Point uh that being that a known hate group was brought here to Fort Lee thinking that they would be able to challenge the civil rights of the queer students that live here uh that hate group will now be holding a rally in our state tomorrow in protest of the realization that their demands are unjust and unacceptable the hate group moms for Liberty hased hosted many rallies all across the country in Florida they marched along side groups like The Proud boys and goam Defense League known neo-nazis although I'm appreciative of the board at large for making the correct Choice regarding policy 5756 I am disheartened at the idea that there may potentially still be board members uh engaging with rhetoric created and shared by bigot uh when people share space with uh join social media groups with and comment on posts made by members of local chapters of a large organization whose founder has publicly supported directly quoting and agreeing with Hitler it is noticed the community is watching and the community is concerned that's all I'd like to say today thank youle Sanford you've been promoted to panelist please unmute your microphone and feel free to share your video please state your name and address for the record you have three minutes old Kyle Sanford 809 Harvard Place or Le New Jersey um I'm just want to say I'm talking to Mr Kravitz um I brought up to the board last time about busing kids to the vanon Park area you know after school for for it was for um soccer and for girls softball 10 11 12 and 13 year olds um he was entertaining the idea or they were going to look into it and look into an idea I'd like to know where that's at um if they're still entertaining the idea or not entertaining the idea um I still feel it's a safety issue for the kids to walk across the three highways and I believe that you know something should be done about it I've asked this last year and it was getting looked into and now it's been stopped so I'd like an answer and also today in school my daughter the uh internet went out for her one of her classes for her history class um and she wasn't able to do her work so I wanted to know um if there's a solution for that too if there there's any idea because now she's got a a ton of work to do her regular work and her homework so that's all that's my question thank you much thank you very much for your your comments as far as the internet uh the entire District went down the internet um service provider went down for about four or five hours today so every everyone in the district and then it was intermittent at around 1 p.m. and then start to it's it's now working so as far as students with a significant amount of work I would suggest you contact your teacher as well as the principal if they don't if your teacher can't give you an answer regarding some leeway knowing that they no one had access to the internet within schools um as far as the busing yes we we you know continue to look at it I know you I've received multiple emails from you as well um we've talked about this in the past we have nine buses that we operate every day those nine buses the bus drivers begin at day early in the morning approximately 7: a.m. they run routes which include all of the routes not all of the routes but many routes for special education students as well as activities throughout the day and then activities after school at the end of the day there are three bus drivers available and three buses those bus routes end at 3:15 and they finish 3:15 to to be back at the high school by 4:00 the other six routes are running Sports and other activities for away games so it's the matter of whether or not those three buses are available and most of the time those buses are running to find the other students if they miss the bus or any of those things so we have limited number of bus drivers limited number of buses but we are looking into Alternatives I know we have even spoken about if we were to Outsource it I believe in one of the meetings that you came and spoke about we did offer the cost of that bus route per day and I think it's between $100 to $300 per route so we're looking at all those options and as we look at the budget we also have to make sure it is an equity issue for all students because you can't offer it to one team and not the others so yes we are still looking at it and as we continue to daily to look at our budget and where we are with our projections because as you know a budget is a projection a budget we are looking to see if we are under budget or over budget on a daily basis thank you m you've been promoted to panelists please unmute your microphone and feel free to share your video please state your name and address for the record you have three minutes uh hi Mel Tom hun uh 24 so I want to ask what does the board U do in regards to comments like the person before me my understanding is that that person has no kids and what he basically did was start threatening the board and the parents in town and declared that one group or another are Nazis fascist or whatever it's like this is a repeat from this spring where and we got threats to people's places of employment and so on it's like why do we entertain this it's like that I I thought that we had a conversation that people that are actually in the town and they have you know kids in the school districts would be the ones that would speak and I I don't see why do we have to even you know entertain this kind of conversation where somebody just comes in and threatens people sir just to is that can I just add is that is that your only question yes that's the only thing just to address your questions in kind of reverse order um public comment is open to all members of the public uh it's not open to any just parents it's not open to just member uh just residents of forwe open to all members of the public and to address the first portion of your comment I I I didn't hear any threats uh during any of the public comments that I heard so for tonight um and so I'm not totally sure where where that was directed to but um that's all I to say about those two there are no more rais oh I'm sorry Jean syic you've been promoted to panelist please unmute your microphone and feel free to share your video please state your name and address for the record you have 3 minutes he me can you hear me yes hi hi everybody Jean sunic Buckingham Road Fort Lee New Jersey um I just wanted to uh go on a a little bit of a positive note here I want to thank Dr Kravitz and board and the entire board of education for continuing to support the fort Le boys basketball league we have another record breaking uh season with 514 kids they're going to be enjoying uh and staying off the streets and active and that's a huge part of saying thank you to the board of education for providing the facilities so I just wanted to hop on here and just thank you guys we're starting in a couple of weeks and uh we're all excited for it so thank you Dr Kravitz and everybody there thank you there are no more raised hands I have a motion to adjourn the floor to the second motion Rino second Morel all in favor any oppose or extensions okay moving on we have a motion to approve items 1B through 5B Mo motion Morel second Lopez roll call please M Cur yes Co on Mr Lopez Mor yes and I stay on my name on three days Mr Rina yes yes and I abstain on my own name on 3B may I have a motion to approve item 1 s motion motion Morel second Rino roll call please M curing yes M kotang yes yes yes Mor yes Rino yes yes may I have a motion to approve items 1 Cur through 4 Cur motion motion Morel second cang roll call please miss Curry yes M Kang yes Lopez yes M morel yes Rino yes M RoR yes may I have a motion to approve items 1f through 10f moot second motion Curry second Morell roll call please M Curry yes M kot yes Lopez yes M Morel yes Mr Rino yes m r yes may I have a motion to approve items 1 p through 10 P motion second motion Morel second Curry roll call please M Curry yes M Kang yes Mr Lopez yes M Morel yes Rino yes yes is there any old business any new business a reminder um first of want to thank Jas for adding the teacher details that on our District's website um the registration details are currently missing on our website and I believe that um many famili use that package that we use the PDF package on our website to help them prepare and gather their materials so we can restore that um that would be much appreciated um Mich thank you Michelle for um pointing out that we have some new gos to be placed on our website hopefully that should be up as well and then lastly I know that the internet outage is a oneof situation um I hope that we have a the district um if we don't already have a redundancy um system that we look into one as we move more as our students are and staff are both more relying on the internet and and using technology to deliver their lesson plan and to teach as much as they should all know it on the head any will help lessen the disruption to classroom learning so I hope that that is something we can into um and then lastly I know that we talked about asking the public to turn on the camera if they're if they're comfortable um I it's really helpful for us to connect with the public and and as much you know as Michelle you had pointed out earlier you have asked if the board member can can do that um I don't know if we can make that one of our ask for the public when you come and and and appear um speak remotely that you turn on your [Music] camera we motion that to allow to ask for that to [Music] happen I don't know if you can force somebody my suggestion to refer to the policy committee because you have policies regarding public participation they can look into that amendment that would be the appropriate rout to amending any thank you and and as my understanding we have two internet providers and I don't know I again I don't know if I can speak to why the internet went down but we do have redundancy right now two internet providers to our system okay may I have a motion to adjourn motion motion Rino second Curry all in favor any opposed thank you all good night