##VIDEO ID:i6Q1oZn-R2I## good evening everyone this is a meeting of the township committee the Board of Education the notice requirements provided for publics have been satisfied notice that this meeting was given by the building F January 17 here here deputy mayor of K here here Board of Education Frank here here jacn tobacco Jo minz here joeo here Kate Harley here pinski here and you pleas allege Al to the the United States America [Music] stand at this time I'd like to ask for a moment of silence the serving worldwi ourti freedom and way of life thank you all right well good evening everybody first of all I want to thank you and to thank members of the Board of Education uh for getting this date on the calendar I want to thank all of our professionals uh certainly this is a first for having a meeting in this room and a first for at least myself um in terms of having a joint meeting with the Board of Education um so certainly appreciate all of you making the time to come out um and join us uh as you may know a few months ago uh we uh have the fortune of poting judge Clark to join judge barui uh as members of our bench here in Middletown um they're certainly uh two of the best certainly I've known judge buuy a long time and judge Clark has uh been doing a phenomenal job uh since since being sworn in as a municipal judge here in Middletown um and a few months ago uh came up with a plan what what is truly certainly a first in Mammoth County uh and Beyond to uh provide a a sense of uh privacy when it comes to some of the most important uh issues going on in uh in a child's life a family's life um and for those members uh that have joined us here in the public um obviously this is an opportunity where both of these governing bodies have the ability to come together and be brief not in private but in public so that all the members of the the public can here as well um before I go any further uh I I certainly want to thank our professionals as well um I know that uh certainly many members including superintendent Jess alone Tony meron as I mentioned judge buuy judge Clark um and several of our team Kate um our court administrator uh I want to thank all them for for their work in in coming up with a program program that uh I think and I hope both the township committee and the Board of Education find to be uh one that um is is something not many people know occur but certainly impacts more people than you think and that is treny uh when it comes to our schools um and how that then comes back and falls in the lap of the court system where it really shouldn't be um in terms of the Public's uh knowledge of what is happening so judge Clark judge perui Kate I don't know if you want to come forward and and provide uh if you're I know there's strict rules with the administrative Administration courts there is strict rules appreciate okay no problem I think you're going to be uh pretty uh popular people as people begin to leave they're going to seek you out you know for uh maybe a quick sidebar but um I don't know um if Matt or Tony Tony so long yeah on tone do you want to provide a overview for uh for everybody that's joining us here today sure sure I'll do that can everyone hear me okay yes um yeah this came up uh really thanks to to judge Clark she she called me down one day uh to to meet with her her and Kate about an issue that they had recently experienced in court having to do with the treny matter um and honestly I have to admit I I didn't really make the connection that truancy issues wound up in municipal court before a judge I mean I suppose now looking back on it's logical but it never I never really thought about the process uh through and through um and we got to talking about it and so and they felt that you know public court wasn't necessarily the best place to be handling these matters and so we immediately set up a some meetings with the Board of Education with with Jess and and Matt and some of their staff and some of our staff to talk about it and the AOC were were participated in this process as well we're very Cooperative um and we all sort of put our heads together and started looking at this and just just to tell you the magnitude of this there were there were far more tcy cases than I imagined would be the case and some of them were very very extreme we're talking like 50 60 100 days of schooled missed in some cases it was startling really um but we talked about setting up a process to maybe intercede earlier um and keep it from actually getting to court and uh so what we developed based upon judge Clark's recommendation was to utilize the Court's mediation system which has been in place for a long time we have mediators who are trained and skilled um at dealing with u various situations and we thought this might be a better Forum to try to solve the problems that may be at the root of somebody's um treny or as as the Board of Ed folks call it school refusal um and uh and so so we put together a plan and it's kind of summarized in the the document that uh you all received um and I think we we're kind of ready tooll it out hopefully next month um and and put it into place and I just think it's a great collaboration I would never have thought about it if it hadn't been brought to my attention um and the fact that the Board of Ed staff were so willing to participate and help out and enthusiastic about it it was a great collaboration and I'm just hoping it'll be really successful when we finally do start implementing it shortly all right thanks so for that overview so again this this is a program that when when we do run into issues and rather them going to the courts and you have that sustained uh length of absences for our students we we don't want that to go out into the public to discuss Family Matters we don't want that to go out into the public to discuss perhaps health issues that may be uh at the root cause of why a child might be uh unable to attend school because their parent or Guardian is sick um and this program will help try and keep that process out of the court system um our our court I'm not even going to look at our judges I know where they stand on this our courts already have a uh the the courts across the state have a hard time already being able to keep up with the Ever Changing rules um that uh they they're consistently seeing that come out of the AOC the administrative office of the courts which is at the state level uh so why not have a streamlined process that deals with this in in in a very U delicate way uh and delicate manner that it should be treated with um so again I I want to thank uh judge Clark judge barui Kate I want to thank Matt Amy Jess uh everyone that was involved and I want to thank uh hopefully with the with the consensus of this uh of these two boards that were're able to move forward with a process that certainly respects um families uh respects our students um and certainly uh respects the process that that is defined out for for dealing with these matters um so before uh before we go to our prospective boards uh Mr home Mr President thanks for uh helping uh bring our two boards together and uh I'll turn it over to you for a couple words I appreciate it thank you mayor thanks ellot um thank you may once again judge CL thank you so much we respect our parents our children just show them the privacy and the courtesy what you're what you're implementing right now to me is Monumental action and when it was first approached to us about what this was going to be in entailed I said to myself I can't believe that it always wasn't done way and how it was always out in the open and like M said I wasn't aware that this was in the you know public sector of being out in the open for everyone to see so I do appreciate that and I thank you for bringing this to us I think it's a phenomenal thing that you're doing there you also want to say to the mayor to the township committee our collaborative effort on not only this we've been doing past several years is nothing short of amazing to do for our students and our parents so I thank you all and I'm going to ask if anybody has any questions or any concerns please I don't have any concerns I would just would like to just say something really quick that's um I think this program is fabulous it actually brings me back to when I was practicing with the Legal Aid Society because we've always had an approach to cases where you should look at it realistically and figure out what other underlying issues is actually bringing that person to the court system and you know years ago these types of solutions outside of a court system weren't always very welcome and so I thank you for actually being open to doing this especially for children because these are really sensitive matters um that should not be in the public eye as much as possible and we should be doing as much as we can for that child and also that family because navigating these systems are very complicated and overwhelming for people and a lot of times they don't even know where to start look for resources as they're trying to deal with some very heavy matters so I think this is great and you know I see that this is the first one I guess in MTH County that's going to be taking off and I just would love to see this spread around the state any other member of the township committee or Board of Education with any comments or questions feedback I'll just say um briefly mayor thank you that um it is something I also was not aware of I have two children who just went through the public school system and have graduated but when it was when it was discussed it is something that absolutely in my eyes should be private no child's personal business their health business their fam's business should be out there for the public record so I am thrilled and and really welcome and so thankful that it was brought to our attention and that we could we could make changes and like Miss Wright said we could absolutely pave the way for other municipalities in the county to to hopefully do the same to protect our children so thank you very much thank you any other member of the board vship committee all right seeing no other member seeing no other questions from the township committee uh I'll open it up for public comment any member of the public wish to make a public comment may do so we ask that you state your name and address for the record we ask that you keep your comments to five minutes at four minutes I'll let you know that you have one minute remaining any member of the public wishing to make a public comment I will student 398 will you have TR officers back in the day I think I'll defer to Mr katrick on we no longer have off but we did in the district at one point we do have two individuals that are hired as a security staff and will make stops at homes if necessary the safety as you said is the priority of child so a visit we have two individuals that do business we the kid hears there's somebody here a difference thanks Susan thanks any other member of the public wishing to make the public comment okay seeing no other member of the public stepping forward I'll make a motion to approve um and uh and ajour I think we do second I'm gon do v as a [Music] yes yes mayor yes yes hey we need a motion to approve discussion any Farley yes mral yes yes mrsy yes Mr T yes Mrs Right yes Mr yes all right thank you everybody this is a great program judge Clark judge buuy Kate everybody Matt Amy Tony everybody that was involved in this this is a big win for Middletown I think something that's going to be replicated across the county and the state eventually so I want to thank you again I want to thank all the members of the public that came out tonight and I certainly want to thank the members of the Board of Education and Township committee so thank you all very much thank you