all right 7:01 p.m. we're going to start this regular meeting of the Rutherford Board of Education February 12 2024 we ask everyone who can to please stand face the flag for the Pledge of Allegiance the flag of the United States of America and to the repic stands one nation God indivisible Li I ask Mr Kelly to please take Ro Mr ban present Mrs Cole here Mr KY Mr Healey here Mrs Jones present Mr maone here Dr Rim here Mr Sprayberry present Dr a here you have a quorum thank you the New Jersey open public meetings Act was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meeting of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the Rutherford board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place posted on the bulletin board outside the burough clerk's office mailed to the herald South bergenite and the Record newspapers and filed with the burough clerk hard copies of the agenda are available in the meeting room and the agenda is posted like electronically on Friday before the meeting date on the district's website at www. rutherfords schools.org subsequent to the meeting a video of the meeting will be uploaded to the district's website www. Rutherford schools.org the video link can be found by opening the Board of Education link and clicking on public meetings and then videos uh board members in your packets there were two sets of minutes to approve one of the regular meeting and the other of the executive session of the January 22nd 2024 meeting meeting any questions or comments on those sets of meeting minutes uh seeing none I'll ask Mr Kelly to please enter those uh our student representative is not here so we are going to move to our next piece which is a special presentation I want to Welcome Matt Lee back it's been a little bit of time but we're happy to have you back to do a presentation for us this evening on board ethics Matt Le's uh Bergen County field representative from the New Jersey school boards associ so uh Mr Lee welcome and we'll turn it over to you thank you Mr President I think we have to uh hang on one second till we get our presentation on no problem so yeah we're actually going to uh move to the report of the superintendent uh and then we'll come back to the special presentation thank you um a brief report tonight a couple of um updates which I think I included most of these in uh my message communication to you but congratulations to the um High School consumer balll team they uh once again won the Bergen County competition I believe that's twice in the last three years that they won the competition and that's against um all all schools in Bergen County and they move on to the regional and that is uh essentially a competition involving uh consumer uh finance and business and things of that nature um the Academic Decathlon team that we've had so much success with over the last I guess 15 years or so um won this the region once again and they'll be competing in the state um and they had a um a very strong sh of the region so they go into the state with a very high score it doesn't carry over but it does bode well for them in state competition which uh it's the end of February I believe is the competition last last weekend of February is the competition or it was probably the beginning of March uh that February 29th weekend uh also I want to mentioned that our athletic uh teams from the high school are now getting towards that part of the season when state tournaments will be coming and uh competition such as as that uh we've had some very successful Seasons with all of our Sports our swim team our basketball team wrestling um we have some Elite champions in their um track uh doing very well so all of our bowling all of our teams have done very well this season and there's still um several weeks for most of the sports left in the season some are kind of winding down but some are Contin school is closed on Friday of this week U and on Monday that school is also closed the district's closed it's a a very short winter recess weekend for President's Day weekend uh I included in the packet for all of you the uh midyear goal report uh a lot of if you had a chance to look at it that's basically for your knowledge and information uh a great uh deal of it was uh discussed directly or indirectly the night we had the various administrators and supervisors here uh to talk about the committee reports a lot of that you'll see consistency uh in that report but if you have any questions about that I'd be happy to answer um and you know we'll uh we have we have a uh significant weather event supposedly happening tomorrow so uh we'll be opening the envelope at uh 9 o'clock tonight till everybody know what's know what's going on tomorrow okay um I do want to mention one other thing Bergen count County uh the New Jersey school boards Association through Bergen County's group uh does an unsung hero award every year uh schools get the opportunity to nominate a high school um student uh we we have nominated one they did they are going to be honored uh it's March 5th uh 6:30 uh to 8:30 the event is held it's going to be at beckton High School in their um Performing Arts Center their Auditorium so um I will send you tomorrow the link you may have gotten it from school boards already but I'll I'll send it to you and if anyone uh is planning on going would like to go it's a good event but also um I'd like someone maybe to uh if anyone's playing or going they they prefer uh it's nice to have a board member present the honor to the student so if you're interested in going you can complete the form if you're interested in presenting it uh you could you could let me know uh if if there's a problem with anybody being being able to attend we'll make sure then that somebody from the high school is there but being it is a um School Board Association event School Board Association award it would be nice if someone would go so I'll email you all the link and you can fill out the form if you're interested in going but if you're interested in presenting you know let me know and it may even it may even indicate that on the form I'm you know for a place for you to say that I didn't I didn't open the form up but okay and that's it so you'll be getting that from me tomorrow okay thank you all right thank you Mr earlyy uh questions or comments from board members all right uh hearing none uh Mr Lee welcome you back and uh we will turn it over to you I'll get out of the way here thank you Mr Lotti good evening Rutherford board it's been a while since I've been here it's nice to see you all wanted to um just kind of give you a little bit of overview of what we're going to talk about tonight the uh New Jersey qac monitoring system requires in its governance rep uh governance um review of The District's operations that Boards of Education review the e code of ethics once a year and often boards do that at reorganization just by reading through the 10 tenets but our aim with this presentation is to give you a lot more sort of depth and um a lot more of the uh most recent advisories and cases that have been put forth by the school ethics commission so um that's what we're going to uh discuss tonight please if you have questions or comments as we go through uh just let me know and we can uh discuss those things so I'm going to uh begin with a discussion about the school ethics act which is where all of this sort of um guidance comes from the school ethics Act was passed in 1991 and basically its aim was to ensure that the uh local Boards of education and administrators hold the respect and the confidence of the people they are serving and it it advises board members to avoid conduct that's in violation of the public trust or conduct which may create a justifiable impression that the public trust is being violated and we'll talk about that as we go forward School ethics Act established a number of sort of Institutions if you will to uh keep help board members stay in uh compliance with the school ethics act if if you look at the chart that we see there um it starts in the upper left with the school ethics commission we'll talk a lot about that prohibited acts which um sometimes is referred to as conflicts of interest those were established and defined mandatory training requirements were put in place for Board of education members the code of ethics came about in 2001 nine years later and was interestingly based on an njsba code of ethics which its members adopted for themselves back in the 1970s and finally the need for disclosure statements those personal relative and financial disclosure statements of board members fill out annually there's a question about who is accountable to the school ethics act and um it's interesting that uh those Provisions will app some Provisions will apply to all school officials and that is to pay attention to those conflicts of interest or prohibited acts that we'll discuss a little bit further in detail and also the disclosure statements that we referenced earlier those things apply to all school officials so that's board members it's also njsba interestingly enough and it's also administrators who serve in local districts Provisions that apply only to board members are adherence to the code of ethics and also the mandatory training requirements and once again those are public school board members and also Charter School trustees because of course charter schools are funded by public money as well so we referenced the school ethics commission earlier and the school ethics Comm is the body that is um charged with enforcing the act the composition of the ethics commission is nine members appointed for three-year terms by the governor there's no more than five from any one political party the there are always five non-school officials that have been appointed to the board two school board members and two School administrators the interesting thing about the commission is it is not always fully staffed and and that has an implication on our next slide when we talk about the output of this SEC there are two main thrusts of their work the first is advisory opinions and those are requested only by a school official and they are about proposed conduct or activity that a board member or School official might engage in and the idea there is that the SEC can weigh in on whether or not that proposed conduct if followed through would violate uh somehow the act or the code and you see that little note at the bottom of the leftand part of the slide says can be made public it needs six votes of the SEC in order to be made public well in times past the SEC has been down to only five sitting members which would mean that it would be impossible to get six votes to make an advisory opinion public and therefore provide guidance to the rest of the state and at times when that uh body becomes fully staffed there are a number of advisories that are released at once because there's sort of a backlog and that can send a lot of districts scrambling to figure out ways to ensure that board members know how to stay compliant with the latest advice the other main thrust of the sec's work is uh judging ethics complaints those complaints in contrast to advisory opinions can be filed by anyone so a member of the public a staff member an administrator another board member those alleg that some kind of a violation of the school ethics act has taken place and just to give you a sense of what this the uh volume is that the SEC deals with annually there are typically 85 ethics complaints filed in a given year and 35 advisory opinions requested we talked about mandatory training a little bit earlier and uh this is a place where there's been a change recently in what's required of board members you can see from the uh sort of middle of that slide that the mandatory training is uh titled governance one two 3 and four governance one two and three are taken in the first three years of board service they deal with basic knowledge and skills in governance one then finance and labor so negotiations in governance 2 and governance three is about student achievement at the bottom of the slide you'll see governance four and that is taken by every board member in the first year of any subsequent term to their first term and that is essentially a legal update the uh the thing to note about mandatory training is that governance one is now required for new board members in the first 90 days of service every other level of mandatory training you have a full year to comply but with governance one you must now do it within the first 90 days njsba is the only provider of mandatory training and we have a number of different ways that we do that there is inperson which we highly recommend because it gives you a lot of opportunity to have discussion and dialogue with other board members and the instructors there is a live virtual option that will allow board members to attend via an online platform and they must complete all three phases of that in order to get credit for it so three different evenings of a couple hours each um if you miss one you will have to either start again or use a different platform to fulfill your obligation the last one is a self-paced online that checks the box but is uh sort of the least um uh the least amount of information the least amount of participation the disclosure statements we referenced earlier are about personal SL relative and financial disclosure statements and they basically talk about whether or not a board member or an administrator has a relative working in the district that may have some implication on how they can participate and also um the financial disclosure is whether or not the board member or the administrator might have some Financial involvement with the district whether that be a company they work for or um some other involvement that might have an impact once again on how they can participate new school officials need to f file that disclosure statement within 30 days of the start of employment or taking office and returning school officials have an April 30 deadline to fill out their disclosure statements when we talk about the secc and ethics violations there's a a series of penalties that can be imposed by the commissioner if the SEC finds there's been a violation that's taking place the SEC will make a recommendation to the commissioner based on the facts of the case the commissioner has the final decision starting at the top of the slide we see a reprimand a reprimand is the least serious of those penalties that can be imposed it is essentially a written rebuke by the commissioner it does not result in a formal resolution and that is in contrast to a censure which is also a formal note of disapproval by the commissioner but that is publicized by the ad adoption of a of a resolution by the local board to acknowledge that that penalty has been imposed the next two pieces are a suspension and a removal fairly self-explanatory a suspension means they are barred from engaging in any activity for a designated period of time typically between 30 and 180 days and the last one is removal which would be immediate termination from board service the next set of slides are a re uh basically a recounting of the code of ethics um since you guys have reviewed that at your reorganization meeting I will not go through those tenets right now but I would like to point out when you do get a copy of this from the board secretary that at the bottom of each of the slides is a set of Standards those standards reflect the actual language that the SEC is going to be using to determine whether or not some type of activity um has violated the code so um just be aware that that is a really good guidance as to whether or not the circumstances of a particular case might have uh warranted a a violation to be found come on there we go all right um so I want to walk through uh a number of cases here and the ones that we're highlighting this year are ones that are illustrative of violations of tenet e of the code of ethics and in particular the clause in there that says nor take any private action that may compromise the board and you can infer from this that there's been a number of these instances lately that have caused the SEC to take action and caused us to highlight these in particular when you look at the uh citation uh starting with the first bullet point you'll see c98 D21 the c means that this is a commissioner's decision so in other words this has gone through all of the um secc work and been referred to the commissioner uh either with a recommendation or in some cases the commissioner has already acted on these so these are sort of highle details of the case um at the end of the presentation there's some links where you can read the full documents uh if you're ever bored one day so uh c98 D21 in this case a member copied and pasted info from a board email and sent those non-public contents to uh officials of their Township the found that that action revealed the board's intercommunication and that had potential to compromise the board and it was also considered confidential information because the board had not yet voted on those contents the recommendation there was a reprimand to be issued to the member in violation in C 59-20 and by the way the -20 the -21 indicates the year that these cases uh were instituted so in this one a member sent email from District account to a known political entity and misrepresented the intent of a rally that was taking place the content suggested political motivations and also invited only one side of the issue using the board email the SEC uh advised can give the impression that statements were made on behalf of the board so that's something we'll talk about a little bit more in depth as we go further in that case a reprimand was recommended and issued and imposed by the commissioner in c2020 on this member's own the member contacted vendors and districts for prices to go from MacBooks to Chromebooks the SEC advised that a member can express disagreement at a board meeting but it was inappropriate for board member to go out and conduct an investigation on their own as we see throughout the code of ethics board members do not run the District board members Ensure that the district is well run the next case c58 D21 in this case um a board member used a board email to Express Personal views on mask mandates and encourage some action be taken in opposition to that that uh personal view on board email was sent to State Legislature and members of the public um board members expressing personal view should not be done on uh within the perview of the board members role and we'll talk more about how board members can express their opinions in public as we go further c86 D21 in this case there were two incidents a member at the request of the Union president sent an email to the board and an administrative assistant accusing the superintendent of changing graduation date due to a personal conflict that same member as a secretary of some local organization was told by the principal that a corus wouldn't be at an annual event and texted the chorus teacher to question why the request for the explanation from a subordinate was considered to be administering the schools we often ask this question in training how many people work for the board right just one the board employs the superintendent everyone else in the district works for the superintendent and therefore if there are questions around uh an employees conduct that investigation and that um you know the outcomes of any discipline that might happen there is the prayview of the superintendent and the superintendent alone c58 D21 a board member met with members of the public on her own for a walk-on motion uh sorry to justify a walk- on motion of a highly divisive board action to change a holiday name this independent action undermined the board's decision- making because it's up to the board to publicly discuss Andor explain the rationale for making its decisions and it had undermine the administration's Authority and imposed unnecessary strain on the administration board relationship once again a reprimand was issued issued there in Co 4-20 the day after the board president lost election directed the board counsel to conduct research on another board member who campaigned against him and took of course took private action and used a position to secure uh an unwarranted privilege for himself in that case a centure was recommended oh sorry so we talked about prohibited acts before and another way we referenced those is conflicts of interest so um if the conditions that we see uh delineated there with the uh letter designations exist for a board member so they may have some kind of a business interest or some kind of um unwarranted gain or privilege that might take place be for them or for a member of their immediate family board members would have no discussion and no voting over those issues they need to remove themselves completely from um involvement in those things there's been discussion lately about um the difference between an abstention and a recusal so when a conflicted board member votes um they need to recuse themselves from discussion and vote not abstain just abstaining on a matter isn't sufficient to acknowledge the fact that the board member has a legal conflict and is not eligible to discuss or vote so an exstension it doesn't cover the board member in that case they need to recuse in other words no discussion and they also need to um refrain from voting uh if board members have questions about whether or not a conflict exists for them based on their personal circumstances that is something that the board attorney should be able to help the board member with certainly njsba can give some guidance as well as we do have an attorney of the day service that members can access relationship definitions are sort of one of the key uh metrics by which you can measure whether or not a conflict exists and defining what those relationships mean is is important to that an immediate family member is described in code as a spouse civil union domestic partner or dependent child residing in the same household a relative which is obviously a much bigger scope has all of those uh classifications that you see following the colon under relative and if you look at the end of that uh paragraph for that bullet point you can see that that's whether related to the board member or their spouse or partner by Blood marriage or adoption so again any questions about your specific circumstances your board attorney should be able to help this is just a sampling of um what came out of an advisory opinion in 2023 where the SEC endeavored to basically address every single permutation of a relative or a relationship I should say to determine whether or not there's a conflict uh that is just a sample um the link there uh goes to a PDF where you can see the entire list once again whenever you get bored okay so we talked about um hiring and Personnel um and of course board members cannot participate in hiring either a relative of themselves or a relative of the uh administrator but of course board members can be elected to serve on a board and superintendant can be hired into a district where a board member is already or excuse me a relative is already on the board so if that's the case and an administrator is hired into a district where they have a relative on the board or relative who works in the District I should say the administrator can't exercise direct or indirect authority over that relative someone else would have to be in charge of supervision and evaluation if a board member is in place uh excuse me if a relative is in place of and a board member comes on they can't take part in any employment matters concerning that employee or anybody in that employees chain of command between them and the superintendent they also cannot take part in any Personnel in matters involving the superintendent up to an including a superintendent search they could take part in no aspect of a superintendent search if they have a relative in the district we talked about negotiations before and this chart is pretty handy when it comes to helping you uh decide whether or not you may have a conflict the chart is um based basically four columns in column the First Column we Define the relationship to a board member in the second column whether or not that person is a current member of a Statewide teachers union and then the next two columns participate in negotiations yes or no vote to ratify the contract yes or no in row one a spouse dependent child child who's not a dependent or a relative who works in a district it's a no on both counts no negotiations no voting in row two if yourself your spouse or dependent child works out of district and is in a Statewide Public teachers union you may not participate in negotiations still but you may absent another conflict vote once all of the terms of the contract are settled you can be briefed on the contract terms and then vote in the last row a child who's not a dependent or a relative who works out of District but is in the teachers union you may now participate in negotiations and you may vote to ratify the contract once again absent another conflict and the the other conflict is typically heightened Union involvement which would mean that that relative is a building rep or is a negotiator or is an officer in their own local yeah Sergio does that does that relate just to the Educators Union terms of negotiations or also supervisors and administrators they they correspond so if if the relative is a supervisor uh when the supervisor's contract comes up same thing okay but they can negotiate across other yes uh bargaining UNS yes um the other uh fairly recent change is this piece here A 10-18 in that advisory opinion from 2018 it said that endorsement of a candidate by a local or Statewide union doesn't create a per se future conflict unless a financial contribution is given and is intended to influence the member in Prior advice board members who um were endorsed by the local whether or not there was a financial contribution were advised to stay away from negotiations for the first year of their term here are some advisory opinion opinions or cases that are related to conflicts so in a1023 a board member's child worked in the district after a CARE program and the supervisor was a teacher who reported to the principal the question was is there a conflict there and the SEC advice was that yes that person needed to recuse from any and all matters related to the superintendent and the supervisor in the chain of command and the Union in a223 in this case the spouse of a board member was a councilman in the burrow and wanted to know whether she could participate in the hiring of an SRO officer and in this case they said that the actual or perceived personal or financial involvement of the spouse that could violate public was something that could violate the public confidence so was advised at that point to recuse from any and all matters related to the burrow the next one is a commissioner decision c80 d22 in this case uh the wife works in the district mistakenly voted to renew the csa's contract in a block of 48 items within that vote the uh board member in question actually abstained from another item in that block of 48 items but did not abstain from voting for the superintendent's contract because there was a potential for conflict perceived actually perceived uh a reprimand was issued in that case A123 this advisory opinion said uh asked whether a board member can continue to work for a food service vendor as a quote unquote lunch lady in the district and because the nature of this person's employment had them in schools for up to 6 hours a day it was said that the SEC recommended they that that person be reassigned um and had to recuse from any and all discussion and votes including competing vendors Etc um because of the uh scope of that person's service in the district 8-23 said the town is town was entering into a contract with a firm to upgrade tennis courts shared with the school and they were placed on school grounds and the question was can the board member's firm be a subcontractor and surprisingly enough um the answer there was yes but that person was uh not able to have any more um standing or benefit as any other contractor that bid on that work the SEC advised for someone else to physically perform that work and that board member was not to have any authority over staff and to advise a superintendent of his or her activities within that um project the last one c81 D20 is a commissioner decision um in this case a board member who is the burrow CFO voted to approve a shared service agreement with the burrow for maintenance activities the SEC said that the uh board member had a direct or indirect fin ccial involvement in the activities within that uh program and um needed to uh basically abstains abstain from that kind of involvement and a reprimand was issued there uh there's a couple of cases here uh from a523 related to a board president standing in this case the board president um child was an instructional assistant in the district and the question was could that board president um without conflict appoint committee chairs and members to committees that would deal with issues around that employee and it was said that uh no that that board president could not choose the chair or the members of the Committees and or serve on any committee that remotely touched upon that employees um working and the second one is that the board members spouse was a 10-month employee in the tech department and once again cannot be involved in any and all matters including serving on committees that remotely touched upon that employees work when it comes to Executive session and a relative who works in a district a couple of commissioner decisions to draw your attention to c87 D21 in this case a member attended executive session discussion on candidates to fill a vacant board seat and in this case that board member's husband applied and that person did not recuse herself uh so a censure was issued in that case and in Co 9-20 a board president attended multiple discussions on a matter involving an immediate family member in this case other board members were unaware of the identity in both cases Council was consulted first so important thing here that um even if council is consulted and you're given advice as a board member um you could still be found to have violated the code or the ACT um in and in explaining those two censures it said when a board member with conflict goes behind closed doors it creates that justifiable impression that public trust is being violated it may give that board member an unwarranted privilege or Advantage uh the member's presence um especially if the conflict is known by the rest of the board could affect the discussion and in the end members are responsible for their own actions with the duty to act prudently and cautiously this is a very recent um set of circumstances that came out around the advice of council defense that we referenced on the prior slide so in years past the even if a board member was advised to act a certain way by their board attorney they could still be found to have violated their code of the act and they could also be assessed penalties for that activity very recently though this advice of council defense was uh basically legitimized if you will on certain conditions and the conditions are that the approval or advice was received prior to the action that the individual who offered the advice possessed Authority or responsibility with regard to ethical issues that the individual seeking the advice or approval made a full disclosure of all the facts within that case and that the individual complied with the advice received including any restrictions now if all four of these conditions are met the advice of council defense can be met and that might save a board member from uh a penalty that might be imposed but they could still be found in violation of the code or the act from volunteering activities for board members um based basically board members who are engaged with outside uh organizations um there's no limit limitation to board members doing that so board members can still be on ptas and booster clubs and even be officers in those kinds of organizations um but when it comes to volunteering out of those organizations there is are some limitations for board members basically um board members can't be can only be involved activities that are classified as non-executive um types of activities and infrequent activities so they can't be involved um to the degree that they're giving direction to students or staff they can't have any um involvement with handling School funds um and they can't be in the building on a regular basis so what they call in meshed in the building so if board members are showing up to do volunteer activity on a consistent basis such that somebody could walk in after seeing them a couple times and mistake them for an employee they're in the buildings way too much um if you are going to do volunteer activity so something like reading on Dr Seuss day would be a very appropriate volunteer activity for a board member uh let the superintendent know you're going to be in the schools um obviously a board member's presence in the school um is noted so um uh superintendent should be aware that that may be happening um going in perform that volunteer activity and then take your leave it's not a an opportunity for board members to go check up on things um and and while you're in the act in the uh building for those kindes of activities or even if you're there for a parent teacher conference you should refrain from any board related discussion so when it comes to voting um in advisory opinion 1222 was asked if a board member would violate the ACT if they voted affirmatively to refuse to implement the New Jersey student learning standards for Comprehensive Health and physical education the SEC response is very much related to tenant a of the code of ethics which says that as a school official you're obligated to obey the laws rules and regulations promulgated by the State Board of Education and in this case of course if you did vote in that way you could have be found who have violated 10ed day of the code of ethics social media um there's a lot to talk about with social media as you may imagine the most important thing um is is that board members shouldn't be commenting in a way that they could be perceived to be speaking for the board and part of the way to do that is to use a disclosure statement and these are rules that were promulgated way before social media even existed so back when L itors to the editor were the only way you made your opinion known uh you were meant to uh apply a disclaimer statement to anything that you had published and basically it is what the SEC has um recommended which you see in bold in italic and by the way they do recommend that you put it in bold and italic and basically this says that the uh comments are being made in your capacities a private citizen and not in your capacity as a board member and that the statements are not represented of the board or its members and solely represent your own personal opinions given that there are some questions that we here often around those disclaimer statements and they are as you see there if you use a disclaimer does that automatically protect you from being in violation no it doesn't but it does help clarify in which capacity you're speaking what could cause you to be in violation if you do use a disclaimer and basically it comes down to the content of what your statements are so if a reasonable member of the public could think that you are speaking in your official capacity or pursuant to your official duties that could make the disclaimer inadequate if I don't use a disclaimer does that mean I'm automatically in violation no once again it's the content and the perception and lastly must you use the disclaimer exactly no but you should hit all of the Salient points of the disclaimer um in a222 a board member asked if as a private citizen it would violate the ACT if they answered operational questions about the district on a Facebook page well are board members responsible for the operational aspects of the district no they are not so should we board members be speaking on that no they should not okay I think we all get that okay some other sort of General guidance about social media um it's quite frequent that folks who are campaigning for a seat on the board will create a campaign page on various social media platforms you are advised that uh you should not use those campaign uh media Pages after you become a seated board member because it clouds the perspective from which you are speaking uh also they want you to avoid social media accounts that inherently indicate that you are a board member once again because you can be mistaken to be speaking for the board when you don't have authority to um the liking or sharing of a social media post isn't in and of itself enough to find you in violation but once again you do have to be very cognizant of the content that you are liking or sharing also um at the very bottom of that slide um the SEC took pains to uh basically say that they don't have the ability to control sort of um off-color Language by board members but they do remind you that conduct that derogates from the mission of the board should not be something board members engage in and lastly they also reminded board members that the public ultimately decides who can best serve their community and your actions can play a role in their decisions couple last points um if you have conflicts um well either way boards should develop a list of members with conflicts and uh basically take stock of whether conflicts exist for any of their members periodically um your board attorney once again is your best uh resource for or identifying any ethics issues you might have or any conflicts and Schoolboard notes does uh publish advisory opinions uh as they are released by the SEC and that's a good resource to keep you up to date uh and these links here once again are ways you can look into the details on some of the cases that we highlighted today so Mr President that concludes my presentation uh there are any questions happy to entertain them first I want to say thank you that was very comprehensive I really appreciate the case studies and the some of the specifics there uh for sure uh start with uh reactions comments questions from board members anything Stand Out M Jones I I have it I can send it to you thank you one more question sure a board member that becomes a certified I'm sorry a board that becomes a certified board uhhuh what procedures do they have to do I know go to certain amount of meetings right uh for the board or for individual board members yeah so uh basically you become a certified board by doing in District training so it would be myself as the ber County field rep mostly coming here and doing programs like this uh it's required that you do 16 hours of that kind of training within a 4-year period in order to gain certification there's also a few other things about you know having your policies looked at and your contract analyzed and supplying your contract data to our database um and of course ensuring that no member of the board is in conflict with the code of ethics uh that's on our website so if you look under um board member Academy you can see all of the requirements for both board level and individual level certifications sure other questions comments just one clarification so if you have a social media account you're suggesting in your profile background information you should not put that you are a member of a board of education right okay and the idea there of course is that once you um identify yourself in that way um a reasonable member of the public could infer that you are speaking in some way shape or form for the board okay other questions thoughts M really one question about uh Matt you mentioned about the uh abstaining of recusing versus abstaining yes um if an item comes up like a financial item for our expense reimbursement are you saying we should recuse ourselves from that one item uh or is abstaining sufficient I would say you probably safe to vote on that because it's not giving you any undue advantage or privilege you're you're merely being re reimbursed per District policy for those things that you expended money on but if you have any doubts your board attorney can answer that yeah thank you sure other questions or comments all right well hearing none I want to say thank you Mr Lee it was very informative and helpful I'm glad to know we can have the uh information slides as a followup okay nice to be here again um Mr Kelly I will leave this on table yeah all right uh thank you thank you Mr Lee so we're going to shuffle a little bit and go now to the report of the student representative thanks again uh poy vson uh happy to have you here and turn the floor over to you good evening I apologize for coming late tonight um but nonetheless I'm happy to be back in reporting for the accomplishments and future events of rhs to start on the academic side many seniors received early decision and early action decisions in the past month for the colleges and regular admissions coming around March similarly Juniors preparing for njpa test coming the next month and AP season on the athletic side rhs student athletes are beginning to wrap up their winter season the next few weeks are highly anticipated including specific track members and the state group meets this upcoming weekend and the girls basketball and the secondary Bergen County tournament so very exciting news comes from the boys and girls swim team so the boys won the njic conference meet and the girls took second similarly spring Sports registration is now open for student athletes eager to carry these victories into the spring RF students have been kept very busy with extracurriculars so to name a few the computer Club LED younger students in the hour of code to spread interest in younger generations of the Redford School District in stem initiatives the fbaa club had select students win at the regional competition Miss bot and Mrs Leonard had 45 students participate and NJ future Business Leaders of America Club Northern Regional competition and six winners in their respective business related competitions won Heroes and Cool Kids continue their trips to pront school to educate sixth graders about substance abuse and how to build their care the band and choir held Cafe night at the high school where they performed in groups or solos for fundraising and finally the rhs drama is preparing for the spring musical The Lightning Thief the Percy Jackson musical which will be held on March 15th and 16th at the high school that's all I have for the past months and I'll take any questions all right thank you m j fight Percy Jackson so it's a book series and a movie series other questions or comments well thank you as always for a comprehensive report we appreciate hearing what's going on very excited for the seniors and all the exciting stuff going on for everyone else um all right well you can feel free to stay if you have other things that you need to attend to this evening like homework and all that good stuff we understand thank you thank you just get no on Wednesday all right uh I'm going to turn it back over to Mr Hurley for an additional piece to his report right when I um did my report earlier I failed to mention what's embedded in the agenda which is the um Mid midpoint uh report of uh incidents which are recorded in terms of um violence vandalism substance uh or other instance leading to suspensions and hibs and also Hib trainings and programs and something new in the report this year restraint and seclusion if um that's has to be done and as you'll see it has not had to been done there none of those reports U to be no incidents to be reported uh as I say every year the incident um tolls are not high uh considering the number of students the number of schools number of school days and um in terms of of the ones in terms of violence which would be a a fight tication two seven substance one weapon which was which was a pen knif that was running in elementary school um five hi confirms and the ones that are reported and a reminder that the trainings in hibs are for uh staff the programs are for students okay so uh reps there if you have any questions I'm happy to answer it um I have to report both the midpoint then again at the end of the year and then again when it's um s back to us and certified by the state so these reports get done three times around all right thank you any questions or comments about that all right hearing none we'll move on now to the report of the president uh just keep it brief I wanted to acknowledge and thank Mr Hurley and Mr Kelly on the preliminary work they've been doing on the budget for this coming year um and how they integrate strategically what are the priorities for the next year and the finance committee and buildings and grounds committee related to building projects and and whatnot uh so that's going well I wanted to acknowledge that uh for the public and thank the Committees for their uh great work on that so far and asking any clarifying questions that are relevant um also wanted to uh thank Mr Hurley for the midyear report on District goals that were submitted so uh it's a nice uh check in on where things are and also a good reinforcement after the last board meeting where we had presentations from the different supervisors and administrators on the different academic committees that are uh working on the structure and content of curriculum in various areas uh everything else and one or two other things I was going to say but Mr hly uh took those in his report so uh always want to celebrate and acknowledge our stud students the rhs consumer Bowl team academic to cathon team a lot of great stuff going on so congratulations to all those students uh any questions or comments from board members all right hearing none then we are going to open the meeting to the public for the first time this evening for any related to the board agenda there any things related to the board agenda this evening all right hearing none uh at 8:00 pm we'll close the meeting to the public and we're going to move on to new business where there is action to be taken and we will start with Personnel Miss Cole good evening I got the good mic uh there will be 21 motions to put forward tonight number one to accept the retirement of the Audrey Mayfields with regret number two to to accept the retirement of Patricia gerine with regret number three to accept the retirement of Lynn lore with regret number four to accept the retirement of Nancy Brundage with regret and number five to accept the retirement of Arena Dria with requ with a regret number six to accept the resignation of a teacher at Union Middle School number seven to approve the termination effective the the 60-day notice of termination as of April 2nd 2024 number eight to approve the following teachers as listed as part of the teacher to teer program number nine to approve the ELA summer enrichment teacher number 10 to approve the math summer enrichment teacher number 11 to approve an increase in the hourly rage for uh Alexander Medina number 12 to approve a ility leave for employee 2843 number 13 to resend approve the following coaching assignments and stiens for the Rutherford High School assistant boys lacrosse coach number 14 to a resend approve the following Middle School co-curricular assignments and stiens as listed number 15 to approve Lauren Conan as the substitute nurse number 16 to approve Mary Murphy as a substitute registar number 17 to approve the following substitute teachers as listed number 18 to approve the following substitute teacher assistance as listed number 19 to approve the following internship clinical placements in the Rutherford Public School District as listed and number 21 on the agendum to approve um Julie was that's a hard one wusi I hope I said that right as a biology teacher for the Rutherford High School this is a replacement position all right thank you Mrs Cole questions or comments from board members um I could on number 18 17 and 18 The Substitute list we're going to add uh Julie waleski the teachers being approved number 21 for beginning to work next school year we're going to add her name Mr Kelly to the minutes uh put on substitute teacher list and substitute teacher assistant list okay and I omitted number 20 for travel reimbursements to approve the following travel reimbursements as listed I'd also like to comment briefly on uh the additional retirements we have five tonight and those five individuals probably average uh over 30 years each in the district um and have been Main Stays in their um departments the buildings uh we have you know a very important person up in the board office who's our account payable person um think about the district and $50 million budget and she's the department for accounts payable um and two had custodians here at the high school and one at the K Center and um teacher in our science department who's been outstanding teacher and Lincoln School and outstanding teacher both of them well over 30 years so um we're up to uh 16 retirements per year and of course we'll have a lot more to say about all these folks is year I was going to say that end of the year staff party is going to be a good one multimedia uh all right questions or comments from board members other than we're losing some really wonderful teachers people they I've known many of them for a long time come go back to the 80s yeah they're really wonderful I wish some best Miss yep all right M gold you want to move those sure I would like to move motions 1 to 21 all right thank you we have a second Mr Sprayberry any last questions or comments caring none Mr Kelly please take roll Mr ban uh abstain on 19 yes on all others Mrs Cole yes Mr Haley yes Mrs Jones yes Mr mazone abstain on 15 yes to all others Dr rine yes Mr Sprayberry yes Dr aot yes motion's carried thank you all right thank you we'll move on now to curriculum and instruction Mr Jones thank you we did not have a cni meeting and tonight there are seven uh motions put forth by on recommendation of the superintendent one out of District placements two field chips totally 112 three School Improvement P this is for the 2324 year for service provider which is a um Dr M neurod development evaluations um five and six are HIV and seven is home instruction for two students okay thank you so just a reference he should be moved as 1 through 7 right okay yes the numbers there apply to but they're 1 through S all right thank you uh questions or comments all right hearing none Mr Jones you want to move those I move um resolutions 1 through under instruction all right we have a second Mr beian any last questions or comments hearing none Mr Kelly please take a roll Mr Mogan yes Mrs Cole yes Mr Healey yes Mrs Jones yes Mr maone yes Dr rine yes Mr Sprayberry yes Dr aot yes motions carried thank you all right thank you we'll move on now to finance Mr bosan we did not have a finance committee meeting since our last full board meeting uh tonight on the agenda we have seven motions to consider number one is the routine approval of bills number two is the January Treasures report number three is budget line transfers number four is to accept a proposal from Laura Bishop communication uh number five is a Cooperative purchasing agreement number six is to accept the New Jersey the NJ DSA Grant uh and number seven is to accept the contracted service agreement with the South Bergen joint sh okay thank you any comments on any of those questions all right Mr bosi want to move those I'd like to move motions uh 1 through 7 under Finance all right we have a second Mr Hy any last questions or comments hearing none Mr Kelly please take rooll Mr bosan yes Mrs Cole yes Mr Healey yes Mrs Jones yes Mr mazone yes Dr rine yes Mr Sprayberry yes Dr aot yes motion's carried thank you all right thank you we're going to move on now to policy Mr Healey yes uh we did not have a policy committee meeting since our last board meeting um as a second reading uh there is one resolution with one policy and uh two regulations uh being put forth this evening uh as listed okay so this is the second reading for those questions or comments on that uh one one comment on um and again it's not a major issue there was a phrase left out and of one of the policy on uh in the grading regulation and uh on page five of eight U it's lumped under the category for grades 7 to 12 but the change should be be uh for the um final exams it should say beginning with the 24 25 school year in grades 9 to 12 and we'll change that in the policy before it get close it because uh final exams are and the midterm exams are occurring grades 9 to 12 not in grade 7 to 8 okay so that will be noted before the policy gets posted after soon it gets approved on the second okay thank you all right so with that change Mr Hill do you want to move that yes I'd like to move the one resolution all right we have a second Mr maone any last questions or comments heing none Mr Kelly please take roll Mr bosan yes Mrs Cole yes Mr Healey yes Mrs Jones yes Mr Mone yes Dr Rim yes Mr Sprayberry yes Dr aot yes motion approve thank you all right uh we'll move on now to buildings and grounds Mr Sprayberry good evening uh we did have a buildings ground I would take thank M Gamba Mr fored Budget on building stuff um we have one motion for middle school for Ed all right thank you any questions from board members all right hearing none Mr Sprayberry moved that do we have a second Dr rine any last questions or comments hearing none Mr Kelly please take roll Mr bosan yes Mrs Cole yes Mr Healey yes Mrs Jones yes Mr maone yes Dr rine yes Mr Sprayberry yes Dr o yes motion carried thank you all right thank you we will move on now to Old business is there any old Business board members would like to bring up no old business this evening all right then we will move on to legislative update Mr Jones anything for us uh this is a Senate bill number 2599 introduced on February 8th 2024 which is this last week Shirley K terer is um a representative from District 15th which is and Mar raises the age requirement of also a school attendance from 16 to 18 years old my understanding was if a student is under 18 and they wanted to leave it required the signature of the mother or the father corre okay well now I guess there going to 16 and not need that not smart well that's just put forward as we okay all right thank you Mr Jones uh all right it is 8:13 p.m. and we're going to open the meeting to the public for the second time this time either for any items related to or not related to the agenda this evening at 8:13 p.m. okay seeing no comments we're going to close the meeting at 88:13 p.m. uh we do have a need to go into executive session uh for one student issue one contract issue should be out for about uh 5 minutes or so need a motion no action to be taken uh need a motion to go into executive session uh Mr Mone seconded by Mr Sprayberry all in favor I all right thank you we're in executive session