##VIDEO ID:AnifGVWKd7o## of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay we have a couple presentations this evening you want to yeah we do pull up the agenda all right we are starting out with the growth dojo Mr dilio is going to talk about growth mindset and some really awesome things that happened uh through the martial arts school challenge I can hear you I'm not sure if it's on K's got it I first of all um Mike dilio um I want to just take the opportunity to thank uh the members of the growth DOA for being here and also um what they're um donating and allocating to us so I'd like to call um Liam Raymond to the front and Mark and Jamie Moore to the front if you would be so kind so cute so having um I'm looking I'm looking at Liam here so having kids um who went through some sort of martial arts he's obviously showing off his white belt right so what I what I do know my little knowledge about that is it appears to me that Liam you've accomplished certain tasks and your your senses know that you're doing a fairly good job and you've mastered certain things do you know what your your tips and your tape mean do you know no Sensei Mark can you tell us sir why don't you hit with flip the switch go ahead let's go Liam is an amazing martial arts student our Dojo he's in our five and six-year-old class he's super focused and he follows the three a of a champion always try your always get better and always have Focus give him some energy good job Liam so you know Liam you're in a very important place because the growth Dojo is something that um you know people in Township know about and PE and um Mark and Jamie have really worked hard to you know embed themselves in the community so um we're going to give some certificates and I know Mark and Jamie they have a check and I'll give you the mic to present that um but I in recognition of your dedication perseverance and commitment and personal growth Liam in your back to school championship at the growth Dojo your willingness to embrace challenges and learn from experiences and a Winner's mindset you you have set a shining example for others so your hard work and dedication helped raise money and charity earned at your School Wedgwood Elementary School in the donation of $2,000 I'm going to let coach Mark talk about that and then um the Board of Education congratulate you sir on your accomplishments congratulations I'm going give this to you Liam and um to Mark and Jamie Moore and recognition of your outstanding leadership and commitment to the Winner's mindset within your dojo and the character that you help establish for your students your guidance your encouragement your positive leadership examples um the way you've empowered students to embrace challenges develop grit and resilience and have them somebody like Liam at such a young age believe in their potential to succeed your efforts have not only shaped their skills but also their character so thank you for being a source of information for our students and benefiting um our Township as well and i' um I want to thank you for the money raised in the charity and the donation you're about to make but I'd like to pass the mic to you and thank you thank you so much thank you very much apprciate thank you so much uh yes thank you so much for allowing us to be here we're super excited about Liam and the our whole dojo we issued a challenge of a personal growth challenge for back to school a Winner's mindset a championship checklist on how to develop great habits but then also more importantly it was $20 to enter in the in the uh Challenge and that $20 went to underprivileged kids in our school area and um whoever signed up for the challenge and took on the challenge and had the courage to take it on we pulled their names out out of a hat and their school would win the money and they would get to be the hero for all the underprivileged kids so our Dojo with the backing of Liam they were heroic growth Warriors so we're super excited to be here today and they all did a fantastic job over 140 kids decide to step up Take On The Challenge to help others but also more importantly improve themselves as well so give it up for Liam you w thank you yeah you guys want to come you okay C thank you everyone thank you yeah what's that you got it kicking off uh coming to the microphone uh we have our our very awes awesome uh HR Director Mr Sean Sweeney uh Mr Sweeney uh applied uh for something special and got some great things for for some kids so Sean why don't you talk about what happened sure so as you know we partner with ESS is that our substitute uh teaching provider and uh we were fortunate to enter a drawing as one of their uh participating school districts and um I have Brian angle who is our Point person for assess here tonight to uh present us with a uh a reward good evening I always get the tough spots to fall last time I was here was the Christmas holiday songs now this time I have a Kar kid in front of me so I can get better time better spots next time but um I'm so excited to be here um this is my eth year working with the Washington Township School District uh as Sean mentioned the district has won a $1,500 scholarship uh that ESS is giving it to the district um just a little background uh at ESS we really try to improve on our service year-over-year and one of the ways we do that is through client surveys uh we do two surveys a year uh Shan filled out the most recent survey for the district he did give us fours and fives it was all positive uh feedback that we got but uh as an incentive or an bonus we do a raffle where we give away $1,500 to our to a district that fills out the app U survey Sean filled it out so we're very excited to uh present this check for $1,500 the district can give it to one student or however they see fit but we're really excited about our partnership uh this is our 13th school year that we've been working with the district so you know we're looking forward to an exciting 2425 school year so thank you very much you thank you [Applause] SE all thank you so much thank you thank you so much big round of applause char thank you Bri this yeah uh next up uh we have Dr Nathan to talk about uh some test scores okay good evening I have the pleasure and the responsibility of sharing our annual district testing report this report will include information on njsla as well as access for our English language Learners multilingual Learners access is the collective name for weda Suite of summative English language proficiency assessments and newer to the assessment Suite is the NJ GPA the standardized test given to our 11th grade students an important concept to keep in mind during this presentation is how data is utilized data is a source of information to help our teams generate questions and wanderings as we continue our strategic goal workor in District it is important to be mindful that our student stories are told through a plethora of resources and artifacts so we strive within District to create data stories around each of our students it is at the student level where data is most impactful this report is District level and sharing can be limited based on the number of students in a cohort when a cohort is too small data cannot be shared to ensure confidentiality I will begin with our njla results these are administered in English language arts in grades 3-9 math grades 3 through 8 in algebra geometry and Algebra 2 and science in grades 5 8 and 11 and we will provide uh tonight um State comparative data so displayed on this slide are the proficiency levels with a range of one to five where a four and a five are considered passing in New Jersey we begin with the New Jersey student learning assessment in language arts The Columns circled in red illustrate our proficiency levels and those of the state this slide displays the total percent of students scoring in levels 1 through five our district is on top and the New Jersey score appear on the bottom it is the same information from the chart from the previous slide and allows you to see it in a more visual way it also reveals a pattern at a glance if you view the colors and you look at the top in the bottom you can see we mirror the state's achievement as we generate questions around this data we can dig into an into the numbers further as for example we are above the state in fourth fifth 6th 7th 8th and ninth grade and close to the state in grade three here is our math information again the circled columns represent the percent of students who met or exceeded expectations here is the visual display for math these are levels 1 through five for our district and for the state our district is again on the top and the state appears on the bottom this time we mirror the state in a few grades but not all for example we are above the state in third fourth and fifth grade and for Algebra 1 we are close to the state in sixth and seventh grade and below the state for Algebra 2 and geometry moving into njsla science one thing to note is that the science has four proficiency levels as shown on this slide again a level three and four here is passing yeah just take a second I I don't want to go deep but one of the things that always comes up in school districts would be eighth grade math as an example and eighth grade is always a dip could you take just two seconds and just explain that sure and you can see the state also has a very low percentage of passing in uh eth grade math and this is because in eth grade we're able to provide the correct challenge level for each one of our students so a student that is ready for Algebra 1 or another advanced math does will no longer take the eighth grade math assessment so students who are most likely setting their goals around math it's an area where they're trying to strengthen those are the students who are taking the grade 8 math more often than not um so on this slide uh when we notice and wander as part of our data teams and part of our discussions we tend to notice uh something that jumps out which is that very few students similar to in grade 8 math um in the state in this Cate um are at an achievement level of proficient or Advanced here is the illustration of levels 1 through five for our district and state our district once again is represented on top as we dive in a bit deeper we are slightly above in fifth grade and slightly Below in 8th grade and below in 11th grade subgroups refer actually go back one uh to students who share the same characteristics or some of the same characteristics this leaves the potential for students to overlap in characteristics and in categories so this slide represents our subgroups performance in English language arts here the subgroups represented are free and reduced lunch 504 multilingual or elll special education and general education students additional displays of the data include subgroups by race as seen on this slide this SL illustrates our subgroup performance in math here the subgroups represented are free and reduced lunch 504 elll or multilingual special education and general education students additional displays of the data include subgroups by race as seen here this slide illustrates our subgroup performance in science here the subgroups represented are free and reduced lunch 504 English language Learners or multilingual Learners special education and general education students and again additional displays of the data include subgroups by race as seen on this slide moving into one of the newest assessments within this presentation NJ GPA and just for a little bit of background NJ G GPA was administered for the first time in the spring of 2022 administered to 11th grade students in math and English language arts only and in 2324 school year the scores counted towards graduation so for last year and for our students this year that is still the same NJ GPA has two categories not yet graduation ready and graduation ready and here you can see what those scores entail on the right on this slide is graduation ready according to this assessment for the state and for our district we are outperforming the state in English language arts with 87% graduation ready and slightly under the state in math with 50% graduation ready according to this assessment here is a visual of those numbers for GPA here our district again is on the top and the state is on the bottom and the percentage of federally reported subgroups by race is identified in this slide green is indicating graduation ready and the percentage of federally reported subgroups including free and reduced lunch 504 special education and general education is identified in this slide again green indicating graduation ready moving into our alternative assessment which is the dynamic learning map or dlm some background information students take testlets in designated subject areas these testlets include questions from one or more of the standards that teachers use for instruction during the school year here you can see that nine testlets in English language arts 6 to eight tesl testlets in mathematics and nine testlets in science were a part of the dlm displayed on this slide are the proficiency levels for dlm and our results in these results students are grouped by subject rather than grade level to improve confidentiality based on the number of students in this data set score categories range from emerging to Advanced the yellow bar represents at Target here we can see 16 students at Target in English language arts and three students in advanced 10 students at Target in math with three students in advanced eight students at Target in science with three students in advance access for our English language Learners are multilingual Learners is next and our last data set within this testing report access for our multilingual Learners scores provide information on students English proficiency on this slide are the proficiency levels where a 4.5 is typically the score achieved for exiting out of the program this is one of multiple measures weda makes the model test and access is the state of New Jersey's test that uses the weda scale it's a progression as you can see on this slide here's the distribution of scores by grade level bands the school and districtwide Trends are more meaningful as a means to eval valuate long-term program impacts than as a method to evaluate anyone individual or draw conclusions about any particular group of students weeda recommends using access for ell's scores as one of multiple pieces of information that inform reclassification or exit decisions schoolwork in-class assessments educator insights are all very valuable as evidence that can help provide a broader picture to understand a student's English language proficiency and development okay as I reached the conclusion of the testing presentation I wanted to share a quick video [Applause] [Music] [Applause] okay [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I hate this [Music] [Applause] country now [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] he fore [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so just like in the video moving student achievement takes all of us and it's amazing what we can accomplish when we're all focused on the same goal our uh we have three main goals in order to make that happen in order to have small moves make big impact um this school year so digital content instructional approach and our new evaluation system the Danielson model are the three goals that our entire K12 or pre112 uh district is focused on this school year in addition we use intervention strategy IES in order to help move our achievement and have all our students be successful structured interventions additional time structural changes professional development and again that integration of digital tools and resources are all going to help us make sure every one of our students is successful that concludes tonight's testing presentation thank you for your time time and attention as I shared out [Applause] tonight for presentations that is it okay for the races yeah sure think do the ELA the ELA scores being higher than the math scores I know like we had the uh Grant last year we got a significant investment you know that we could put into tutoring stuff do you think any of that had a effect on this or was it the testing was too uh timing didn't work with the tutoring versus the impact on the testing you think that I so I I mean I think Dr Nathan the question is can we can we tie the the tutoring Grant to any of this um it definitely allowed for extra time it it it actually ended up being a um I'll use the word challenging challenging was a right the grant intervies us ability yeah I think that you know when we look at math you know I know Pam some of the things that that you're exploring are looking at some of our High School courses and how to do things possibly a little differently uh and and breaking out different courses so I think that's that's a look uh definitely you know definitely had some room to grow in some of those specific areas which we're going to analyze and come up with a plan for any discussion okay School community relations no items at this time old business um can we have a report from our student representative Callie Terra barelli she here Cal do you have anything you're good nothing okay she have something for the regular any old business so uh unfortunately I missed executive so I don't know exactly what I miss but I wanted to bring up um there was some emails going back and forth I don't think it's executive level because I'm not going to talk about anything evaluative in nature but I wanted to talk about the superintendent's evaluation I don't know where we are with it um but we obviously didn't follow process I don't plan on talking about anything evaluative just process okay we did clarify this in executive session I don't know if it will be helpful to talk to you after the meeting and explain where we ended up but I think the issue was resolved for now unless Miss speaking is it executive level confidential information the superintendent evation asking the attorney for advice on what steps yes I'm not exactly sure what you're looking to talk about at this point but was the superintendent rice is a separate issue which I don't believe he was but I don't think he has a problem with waving the right the rice notice but you are talking about an employee are you okay with waving your right to talk about this or not yes yeah so I I think we got to a spot where the um the valuation comments are going to get put back in based upon the majority I think that's where we got to I I mean just yes I mean we're talking about so two things if you're if you're talking about the process of the superintendent's evaluation fine yeah if we're talking about Dr hbs's evaluation that's a Personnel matter that regardless of the rice issue you have to compel it to public so again if you have a process question yep okay not about pretend like it's not his evaluation let's talk about superintendent evaluation okay so from what I understand and guidance that we got I got from school boards and I know Ralph you were copied and I think Scott you were as well that we didn't follow the appropriate process but but we're talking when you say we didn't follow the appropriate process we're now talking about the superintendent who's sitting here okay so the process for the superintendent evaluation any superintendent evaluation is typically that a board puts in their information and their evaluation and then after that collectively as a board the non-conflicted members um we all come together and review all of the comments and then a majority of the board comes up with a rating and then the second step is after that rating is happen then the comments that are in the evaluation as a final review have to be commensurate with the rating which was comprised of the majority of the non-conflicted board members so my question is that did we talk about that process as it relates to just in general agreeing that that is the process because it does follow State Statute and it was given to us by New Jersey school boards and that's the way it's been done at least when I was on the board is that all of the comments are there for us to see as a board and not including hibs and then I'm saying then just in general again I I am concerned and I I'll leave I'll say this and I'll leave it at this you guys can take it or leave it but you are you're talking about the superintendent evaluation I mean there's no way around that with what you're saying it hasn't been compelled to public as far as I'm aware I I have I think we settled the problem we settled the issue it'll be rectified as the next meeting so so Ral um I think we're going to go back into the executive at the end of tonight anyway cuz there's a couple other items we have to discuss so we can bring it back up maybe fill you in on what we discussed in the first executive perfect okay any other old business okay open to the public on agenda items only um I have a motion so move second second all those in favor I oppos okay you fill out yellow card I have one yellow card here Julie kmle hi Julie kmle 10 Sher Court what just happened actually is not what I that's not what I wanted to talk about but you just got a presentation of test scores that from my view what was showing it was just a report out of test scores but there was no analysis and hoping that that would happen so that you can answer questions like did the tutoring grant that we got help raise Ela scores because the data is supposed to be analyzed so you can make goals for example we're failing students in the subgroups in science like those numbers were nobody said anything or asked any questions about that so that's the type of thing that's important to talk about no one says a word and asks or asks you you know Dr Nathan anything and now you're talking about the superint like you're doing your inside stuff whatever it's just indicative of the way things are right now okay let me go quick because that timer's in my face um I know that some things I'm going to say are going to fall on deaf ears I know that because I've reached out several times to this board and the superintendent and I've been completely ignored I have even been ignored after presenting ideas at this Podium when I made budget comments I am a parent of three students I am a taxpayer I am a former board member and I deserve common courtesy that said I am going to now ask publicly for an apology for the remarks made by the superintendent about me personally by name at the last board meeting and here is why first when did you take a public vote to wave attorney client privilege on anything I've watched all of the meetings and never saw a public vote on attorney client privilege being waved a vote such as that has got to be taken in public or else it's not valid so there's your first misstep privilege was not waved second the information presented by the superintendent appeared to be his opinions or the board better hope they're just his opinions um on a matter that he took it upon himself it seems to investigate based on an over request from a citizen it's interesting how that that same citizen filed ethics charges against me and now that that's wrapping up he has to dig something else up another issue about an insurance contract from 3 years ago so he can continue to say I'm being investigated for eth ethics so thanks for helping him Dr Hibbs Dr Hibbs claimed in his remarks that this was the worst behavior he has ever seen and his incredulous response just indicates his inexperience more than anything else you have never heard someone do a walk- on agenda item Shawn Lindsay walked on your Merit goals just a few months ago so you could get an almost $40,000 bonus they were not on the agenda the goals they were walked on also this happens routinely when a board doesn't agree with the administration's recommendation which we did not and we have not on several things the difference is I didn't make any money off this situation I saved the school district money when we went with that firm our board saved the school district money Sean's walk-on got you a bonus false information I'm running out of time Dr hibb said the insurance firm that we hired build $400,000 immediately that's wrong the previous broker build that and was paid that amount insurance contracts run on the fiscal year which is July 1 to June 30 the new firm got paid I'm deliberately not using their names the new firm got paid on the contract from the previous firm that the previous firm negotiated in May 2021 the following year the new firm handled the renewal the increase was 2% on the medical the new firm was not the benefits broker for 22 and 23 the previous firm was and they got paid the $400,000 increase the new firm took over July of 2021 although Janine didn't send the broker of record communication till August or early September even though there was no contract or broker of record letter sent the new firm worked on the contracts and serviced the casework for the district while not being paid the new firm was replaced effective July 1st 2022 which then the new contract came in of a 2% increase in which Janine and Eric say cost the district almost $400,000 but what they're failing to mention is that the district was offered the ability to go flat or a 0% increase by switching to Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield or get a 1% increase by moving the dental to United Concordia also the 2% is only on the medical as the RX was cover under two years and a 2-year contract so the 2% doesn't even equal $400,000 it's more like 340 and again the 2% was not paid to that firm Dr Hib said the firm we hired was not licensed that was incorrect they were the lawyer misspoke in the email and corrected himself in later emails but they were neglected to be read five firms were presented why did the lawyer only refer to three in the email I'll let you know it's because the internal grading sheets are completed by administrators and the firm being recommended was associated with a man that we had all seen socializing with our business administrator at a New Jersey school boards event the year prior she introduced him to all of us board members administrators former superintendent and his wife by name as a board we had no right to choose the company we have a right to choose the company we want to choose and it was a unanimous vote we picked the local Miss Deo was on the board I haven't heard a word from her I'm hoping that in executive she's explaining the stuff we picked a local firm who promised access and provided it they saved the district money for the first first time in years suddenly Janine put the insurance out for RFP without even telling the business committee or the board a new broker was on the agenda for approval and we were never advised it was even on the street these are the facts Stacy Deo was on the board when this happened and I find it hard to believe she did not share these details with you also Elaine Clancy was on the board when this happened both of them voted yes and it was a unanimous vote of nine I have a lot more to say I'll be back up I do expect an apology for what happened at the last meeting thank you see no other hold on one second yeah um you got to stop them from um so um the first thing is I I definitely am not going to offer an apology uh I stated facts that concerned me and reported those facts to my board uh I stand by those facts I think I've really given nothing but facts um the RFP rating sheets were very low and there was definitely a legal analysis by our attorney on an email that you were copied on saying that you know offering legal advice as to the considerable defects so uh I'll St there uh and then I'm going to let Janine address some things as well okay um so I'm just going to try to go Point by point and explain where needed um so the walk-on agenda item um I think that was just referenced because when we looked at U some of the information that Dr Hibbs presented was the attorney's um recommendation so it was a little bit different than than some of the other walk-on items um you mentioned that the broker saved us money that is false in one of the emails you referenced a letter that was um $400,000 that we got as a rebate that has nothing to do with either broker um that's something that is a requirement of the Affordable Care Act if our claims don't go to 85% to um you know medical claims we get a rebate so we had um gotten that in the past and we do a calculation and share the rebate between the school district and the employees um for their Prat a share because they actually pay a portion so that was actually false um we were promised savings and we didn't get savings so the at the end of the first year that we were with the broker the um renow that we were presented for the following year actually had an increase there was no savings and what happened with the increase and the $400,000 that's being referenced that had no has nothing to do with which broker got paid the $400,000 that's being referenced is towards the end of the first year when this broker gave us the renewal that we used in our budget we were told there would be no increase we built our budget around the no increase we submitted the tenative budget we got it approved by the county office after that was done around April 1st we received the the actual renewal like a presentation included in that was actually an increase the increase was around $400,000 so if you go back to that year when we put the budget together we at our public hearing we had to amend the budget and make Cuts in different places um we also increased taxes by using Bank cap that we had to make up that $400,000 so it wasn't re it wasn't a matter of who got paid that it was a matter of we were given a renewal there was an error and then we had to modify our budget and cut even more out of our budget um there was a reference to M myself not sending the broker of record letter um I did that as timely as possible and I want I just want to clear the record that that what happens is if the broker gets paid through Amer health so when we switch Brokers there's a specific letter that we have to send to AER Health to let them know that we switched so right away when um the new broker IC was appointed I reached out to a mar health and asked them what letters I had to send them I informed them it was as of July 1st we went back and forth with them about the letter um and I believe the the letter that was sent from this new broker amera Health wanted a different letter but right out of the gate AER Health knew it was effective um July 1st I believe it got out out to a mer Health after we again we worked together on the letter it was the end of July and it was clear that the change was effective as of July 1 so I just wanted to clarify that um there was also reference about the 2% increase so again we're not we're not the $400,000 we're not referencing who got paid that's not the issue here it's just on the mistake that happened on um the the presentation and the increase that we had to adjust our budget um the the the renewal that was given again we're building our budget in March around the 0% and then on April 1st we get a renewal that includes an increase so we're shocked internally and trying to figure out what to do about that and what it means and then as we read further because it was just emailed to us we realized that part of the increase could be lower but contingent Upon Us switching all of our members to a new dental program what month was that that was April 1st so for a July 1st start date if you're familiar for July 1 start date so if you're familiar with the way the schools work you could never just you know anytime we would switch something like that and possibly change benefits you have to sit down with the Union leadership you have to make sure that um the benefits you're presenting are equal to or better than we look at things like how many providers that our members use take this insurance with a large majority of our population had the switch those are things that after we got the um renewal on the first and you know kind of panicked and scheduled we scheduled several meetings and some of these things we didn't like we didn't get the um equal to or better than letter until May our budget has to be adopted prior to that so we had to have all this figured out and a budget done and submitted to the county office and approved at our public hearing which is at the end of April so even if we wanted to take that additional 1% we couldn't work it into the budget you have to budget for you know what you have you can't budget to switch when you didn't go through all those steps it was not timely at all uh in in a normal year if we were planning on Switching providers for savings um that whole process of getting the pricing happens happens in the January February area because you're building your budget around that and you have to have all the conversations and make sure it's an appropriate switch before you do anything so I wanted to clarify that can you also the concept of the dentists wasn't there there was yeah so there was um I wouldn't say a significant part of our group but there there were a number of people who their dentists that they see did not take the insurance and and again we didn't work through all that with the company until until May which was too late um there was a mention about the firm being licensed um again just stating the facts that and the attorney pointed it out in the email the the license that was submitted with the proposal it expired in March of 2021 and the proposal was submitted in I think it was June June 1st of 2021 so the license was expired again the license that was submitted with the proposal was um expired um there was also mention about the attorney only reviewing three of the proposals um I wasn't actually involved in the process of reaching out to the attorney to ask for the opinion I was only looped into the attorney's opinion at the end but I can tell you that when um we analyzed the proposals and we did our scoring sheets um in each when we put out an RFP we asked for proposals there's certain criteria that we grade the proposals on so things like what other school districts do you service um list all the services that you'll provide list the team that will be helping us so when we scored these proposals there was two um that were were pretty much spoton with all of the criteria and got all both firms got full points for almost all of them and then there was the one firm that was the that we're talking about that was the lowest and then there was two other firms that were kind of in the middle they didn't really meet some of the criteria that we would want to see like other public school districts public school districts are size so I I can only guess that the attorney wanted to see the two top ones that we were working with um I also want to point out that I didn't make any recommendations so for the professionals that work hand inand with the board a lot of times the attorney um insurance that kind of thing what the process that that we always do is that um we time them so they're opened up they have to be publicly opened prior to a business committee meeting so at the business committee meeting in June I sh share all the proposals so everybody can look through every single one and um then our purchasing department you're also required to um do a summary of all the proposals that are received with the recommendation and if you look at some of our agendas whenever we approve rfps you'll see the summary sheet so we're actually required like under the local public contracts law to do that so I share that information and at the the business committee meeting I didn't make any recommendation I pretty much just my suggestion was there was two Front Runners uh that were pretty much neck and neck the one firm was our existing firm who we knew could service us the other firm had a lower fee so I felt that we had to at least investigate their proposal was very good and the the summary of the per their their team their their services was very good but I you know anytime you have 1,500 employees and you know you're you're dealing with health benefits you want to be careful that they can service us so my suggestion I talked about the Two Front Runners and my suggestion was either for me and and the HR team to reach out to the to the runner up who we didn't know and you know kind of question them hey this is the type of service we get this is what we expect to gauge if our comfort level or that the business committee which we sometimes do or the full board we've done here interviews both so you can always bring them in for interviews we've done that in business committee and we've also done it as a full board so I didn't make any recommendation um and then the broker in in question that I have this so-called personal relationship again not accurate um one of the professionals that was listed in one of the proposals that would be you know a team like 11 or 12 people is a broker that I worked with in a former District so it was just somebody that I had worked with as a professional in another District who um was already on board with that District when I arrived so I wasn't even involved in hiring that person so that's absolutely not true that I had any kind of personal relationship um let see and then at theend end of the following year there was reference made to like to me putting out an RFP without anyone's permission um so I just want to clarify like formal board action isn't required but we do have a schedule and we always talk about that when we um decided to do the RFP at the end of that year it was really because of the services and some of the things that I'm discussing we just could not go through another year of that so I did discuss that with the business committee and got the final green light from the board president at the time um it it happened earlier so we were able to open the proposals and then in May I discussed the proposals that we received at our business committee meeting and we also discussed it as a full board and executive session and I wrote up a memo of you know why I was recommending what I was recommending and just a recap of all the issues and why we did the RFP so even though and this is one of the things I told the business committee even though the RFP went out the board has the option to to to renew with the same vendor or or do whatever they want um I think that was it did I miss anything no I think you did a great job and just to clarify too I I didn't investigate on my own uh opras came in and I asked questions which any decent superintendent would do I'm not looking to help anyone one I brought my concerns directly to the board and various other places as well I think you clarified it all nothing I'm uncomfortable with I got a question what does any of this have to do at the current board why was this even brought up to begin if I mean Janine it sounds like we followed the book you went I mean you follow procedure what what's what's the issue I don't understand why we're wasting so much time you don't understand going back why Administration is going back and forth defending themselves well I think the first the first thing is let me I'll take that the first thing is there was a question and accusations levied and raised so that's that's that secondly um it is is my duty and you were told this by at least one lawyer that it's my duty to bring concerns of this nature to the Board of Education which I did what you choose to do with them is entirely entirely up to you you can sit there and say you know I don't I don't care uh that's totally your prerogative I I I will simply say that as a superintendent when I see something that's concerning I will bring it up and that is exactly what I did that's exactly what I did so so to go back and forth about you know why I think it's kind of fruitless at this point yeah yeah yeah understood so yeah yeah we we wave privilege I believe so right uh we have done so all right correct me if I'm wrong we wave privilege before on an investigator matter in public correct we we on on a previous investigation I don't want to get too too far into the weeds but we've done that before we've waved privilege in public so I'm just going to be very careful with the short answer to your question is yes with regard to the privilege issue I am conflicted I'm not going to respond in any which way you guys have Council uh who has weighed on this matter right so the question yeah I appreciate that counselor thank you why didn't we go the same route if there's already precedent that we've waved privilege in public before why didn't we wave privilege in public again to keep that you were there for executive though right our conflict Council that was here advised us exactly what we needed to do and I feel that we were followed in a unanimous vot the we did that though I'm saying we did that no we did that I listen I I take full ownership from my vote I'm not say but what I'm saying is I didn't know that we voted in public previously on a previous investigatory matter which we we have precedent why wouldn't wouldn't we follow that same procedure for this if we because I didn't know that had just been brought up to me from a previous investigation that was done before I was on this governing body know there's a lot of I don't know why we're going to argue back and forth on this okay well I have I have a comment though so um it's around this privilege issue we're going to talk about that next next week it's not about privilege okay I I would just like to say public though the mere questioning of why I brought this up is a lack of supporting and protecting School Personnel so I have consistently laid out to board members concerns about ethics that yet again is just another massive concern okay so I'm going to uh where I needed to support you I have I've voted your way against against my own you know my own Scruples and and morals to help you out because you needed it with with specific individuals on specific votes and it's fine but but to protect you I I don't know where in the bylaws it says that we have to protect the superintendent we have to hold accountable at the superintendent as our one and only employee to make sure he governs the district properly have you read the and we have to understand what our role is within the parameters that we're working with i' love to see I have not but I would love to see where it says that we should protect you at all costs because that word has been thrown around a lot so I'm just curious I would love to send that to me we can have an offline conversation about it yeah no problem it's it's right it's right policy I think think I think we I think we had no AB I have a comment to miss kazmo and one comment leads to another no I'm going to comment because no I I I am so miss kmle I would like to respond um you had mentioned when you came up that car there's no back and forth and now you're going to and I have the ability to speak so I would like to comment on what you said with regards to the testing the scores the reason why I didn't comment further is because I was acting chair this this month for instructional Affairs so I didn't have any specific questions for Dr Nathan if I had questions I would have emailed them in um we get all the minutes we have this information I just didn't have any questions which is why I didn't talk about it because I oversaw that committee meeting so I wanted to comment on that because test scores are important we're headed in the right direction in areas so I wanted to make sure I let you know that's the reason why I didn't comment you um you mentioned about me bringing up inside stuff that was the words that you used instead of talking about test scores I think that deserves a response my response is this the superintendent evaluation is not inside stuff that's something that we're required to do so what I'm trying to do is reduce liability as a board to ensure that we are are producing documents that we have to produce that's why I said that I don't think that's inside stuff to talk about the superintendent's evaluation you also mentioned that things that are read into the agenda are routine this is now on my five and a half years on a board of education I have never seen anything read on an agenda I just want to make that statement so to say it's routine I have not seen anything with regards to a vendor and an RFP being read in okay so I just want to say that and that's my comments for now [Applause] okay look out where we are we I don't do you have any more comments or no yeah any more comments close ex I mean close moot motion to close to open to the public so move second all in favor I opposed all right committee reports HR committee negotiation committee Mrs Baker uh the uh HR negotiations committee did not meet okay business committee Mr Liberty yep all right all right business committee met on October 9th um present myself Ralph Connie uh Dr HS and Janine talk through a bunch of items uh we we got an update on the energy audit that the engineer was finishing up review of the RFP we're going to incorporate his feedback and then release that RFP as soon as possible that still on track right Jenny on track energy AIT RFB yeah awesome we are looking forward and excited about that hoping we're going to make a rain here with millions of dollars right we're going to try all right we also talked about the uh budget Community task force um we've had two meetings of the community task force uh one was just last night and the other one was two Mondays prior to that uh I think all the feedback was extremely positive we really impressed with the quality and qualifications of the community members that we have on the task force um we we laid out the problem statement of that we are going to be facing another shortfall with the budget and uh the task force was working on coming up with ideas on how we could save money or generate Revenue to help offset that uh that shortfall uh we did a bunch of design thinking exercises we did Rose Bud Thorn and um threw up ideas on things that we should do more of that could generate money or save money things we should stop doing that could save money and then uh things that we could build upon to do that um think we all had a prettyy good time great here for a couple hours did a great job Scott got some great ideas we last night went through and Consolidated and prioritize those and uh we'll be talking about those more here so hopefully some some good things to come out of that but uh some good ideas generated out of that yeah and shout out to all the community members that gave their time they were really amazing anything else yeah got a few more things we talk through some upcoming purchasing items um I'll go through them all uh uh we talked about that addendum for ESS for the subs approving a new long-term sub rate uh we debated that for a bit just to make sure it was equal and how the we police that to make sure that um the administration was using that one appropriate talked about our qac uh assessment we talked through the comprehensive maintenance plan and the forms that needed to be filed for that uh and then we talked through transportation and um basically uh hiring some additional drivers so that we could bring some bus routes in house and that was going to help us save about $450,000 is more in savings there by uh bringing those routes back in house and hiring those drivers so great to see that additional savings uh talk through the fact that October is cyber security month and uh whether we're going to do like a tabletop drill exercise and reaching out to our insurance broker because that is a service that they should be providing to us for free and then we talk through uh conflict Council when use of conflict council is appropriate and we decided to uh discuss that further in exec have our CCT Council come so we can talk through that and I think that is it thank you IA committee Mrs Bloom Mrs I'm going to report out um we had a great meeting uh I just want to turn it over if I could to Dr Nathan to talk about the amazing honor with Christine garinger being selected as a delegate if you wouldn't mind just commenting yeah it was awesome to have her there um and then we uh celebrated you know Dr Nathan talked about uh the learning walks that she's done so far this school year in three schools one in midle um one in elementary and one in the high school and the goal of the events is really just to be in the classroom have conversations around teaching and learning um discuss Danielson domains as a team and share ideas so it was awesome to hear that you already had you did four so that's see there you go so just that's a lot of work to do them so the fact that we've already have four in is amazing obviously talked um about the State Testing results overview that was going to be presented tonight there were a few field trip destinations and then some exciting news about um some Grant funded programs um social emotional social emotional learning tutor an academic a recovery tutor and um two different prep Club advisers all Grant funded which is great news um and that's pretty much it next meeting date is November 13th thank you Carol policy Mr s yes sir thank you so uh we went through give me one second sorry uh last committee meeting was on October 7th 2024 at 6: PM board members in attendance myself president Ross vice president La Liberty La Liberty sorry uh director Shan Sweeney was in attendance as well uh the items we discussed uh policy 0155 board committees changes were recommended uh as a walk-on agenda item that's odd last meeting walk- on agenda item uh for a first read so tonight it's up for a second read so uh policy 24 31.4 concussions and head injuries and regulation 24 31.4 prevention treatment of sports related concussions and injuries changes are being made to that policy and regulation based on Strauss Esme uh recommendations we have policy regulation 7610 vandalism uh Strauss Esme updates as well we also have policy 33 24 support staff and policy 4324 right of privacy for both support staff and uh regular staff uh Strauss ask May updates to that uh we'll recommend it as well we also have policy 9323 notification of a juvenile offender there was some Strauss SME recommendations to that policy as well and that is all that was the end of the committee meeting thank you Mr President thank you for the super attendant nothing at this time no sir instructural Affairs nothing at this time nope uh policy as for a motion to approve policy items number 1 to 10 move second discussion yes I'd like to have some discussion about um 0155 this is the second reading of it right so what goes if we pass this what happens does it become a new policy yes ma'am couldn't hear the question what was the question back does it does it get is it go into action if it's passed tonight it does second yes yes okay CU I still have a problem I don't feel ready to decide this um I've read over the one that Scott gave us I've read it several times and I think it contradicts itself I don't think it makes much sense uh I made my own that I thought made more sense but I understand that that may not have been what you're looking for my question questions are did you what was the opinion of it you were going to get in touch with Strauss Esme what opinion did they give on there I I didn't get in touch with Strauss es me I did not have time to do that yet I think so I didn't have time to do I think that's an important step to take before we vote on it in my opinion and Aries I wanted to hear his interpretation of the changes in the policy so Pat be clear that this is a policy particularly the changes that both you and Scott are working on that that have no legal Authority in other words there's no right or wrong legal answer okay this is the definition of a policy that as a board you guys need to come to an agreement as to what makes sense for you okay it's not you know a lot of policies are legally required a lot of policies have language that um you know uh speak to a particular statute that's not the case here okay and my last um I guess my statement is without saying too much to me this was an isolated at the time one issue that led to this and I feel that how it was handled by the people that were there was totally appropriate as far as the meeting didn't take place and I'm not sure that this is something that's going to come up a lot enough that we want to change a policy at this point I think it's rather reactive and I I personally don't think that we need to take any further action that's just my opinion as a board member I'm not speaking for anybody else I haven't spoken to anybody else that's just where I am with this policy y so I appreciate your point of view on that I think the well I'll say near Miss right like that incident to me brought up this policy when I read it the whole I saw in the policy that I was attempting to bandage or correct was a member of the public could be invited to a committee meeting with just a simple majority of that committee and to me the risk that exists there is that when you bring somebody in from the outside that has no contractual relation or obligation to the district right and employees Bound by their contract their code of um you know policies that we have here a contractor would be bound by the contract that we have so so there's some protections there when you bring in somebody from the outside there is no protection we have no relationship with that person so if something gets said or something like that we have no recourse by which to attempt to uh deal with that so if we're going to invite people from the outside I think it would be good for the full board to know that and to approve it uh and that's what I attempted to do with the language I put forth I understand your concern about the timing of it right so you have a committee meeting and you want to invite somebody and you don't necessarily have a board meeting prior to that what do you do um I don't see that as a huge issue I think you could always have another meeting at any time like like the business committee we we created special meetings of the business committee to invite the public to so that we could do the business pertaining to that particular subject with the public and also you know even though it wasn't required I ran that through the whole board so there was awareness and made sure that the board was comfortable with that it was a board action not the action of just four board members in a committee so that that's what I was going for if we're going to invite the public and potentially have people we have no contractual relationship interacting at a committee level I think it should be a board decision and that's my personal opinion too right didn't have a chance to look through Strauss smme and not sure how we would do that but I do think this is a hole that we have to that we should plug um I don't see why we wouldn't want the board to approve those types of things unless it was something where it was expedient and you needed it to happen in which case you could have a special committee meeting I guess when I went over my language my language was valuable some uh individuals who can provide valuable input that will benefit the business of of the committee what happened that night wasn't it wasn't giving valuable input to me that would have taken care of it just with a language without having the contact just again Scott we're going back and forth and then you know because we have different opinions good come back yeah that's a good back point though but you know the valuable input for but I thought kind of covered that so I just wanted to State what I thought uh I think AR you mentioned it last week or last meeting we we don't have to have committees right no you have a committe we don't have to have committees so we're going to put extra steps in for this and uh Miss Chiller brought it up um the last meeting about feeling that a certain way about how the Committees are established so right off the bat it creates an issue of trust amongst the board so let's not have those trust issues let's not pass a policy to approve this let's just eliminate the Committees and then we can all it together well I think that's a suggestion that Mrs Cho brought up last time too that you might want to look into that I don't know if Bo wants to immediately go into something like got to wait until you know the elections and perhaps uh yeah I mentioned that too I I agree with Mrs chill that she has some concerns about that that we could operate as a committee of the board we don't have to have committees and that's certainly something we could look out the school boards about we don't though we don't have that we haven't met anyway since that meeting that we're talking about HR hasn't met so it doesn't matter right I think it's much more efficient anyway to have when Sean sends out everything that we have to approve I don't know why we have the HR committee any and I think it goes right back to what uh Pat Bloom has has been talking about we need to go back to the um having a board meeting and having a a a meeting where we're going to actually do the the work of the board okay that that would be very conducive to getting some things done entire board working on the on the Committees I agree with Connie yeah I've been researching it a little bit and I feel like we need a lot more information but the things I found out is that the work session is a planning meeting and for the public it doesn't mean that the public can cannot speak we can have a time when they can speak because I know that that was a concern and you receive information from the superintendent we discuss specific spefic topics um you review things that have been sent to the board there's public comment you can go into closed door meetings as needed and then it said that um at a work s session you gather information and discuss it's there's not usually a formal action taken whereas with a regular meeting the formal action is taken so that was that was just a story yeah I think you know with school boards we can move in that direction I think that's a very good idea that Mrs Chiller brought up well in in in the meantime committee meetings aren't being attended anyway so do we abolish the HR I'm saying committee meetings are not really being attended right it's almost like a crapshoot like who's coming who's not can I come can I not right like you don't really know what's happening they're canceled the day off I know things happen but I'm just at this point I would rather just say let's just make I don't know if we can Ari you can weigh in we can make the HR committee a discussion that we have here because we're getting the information anyway we haven't had an HR Personnel meeting anyway and the full Board gets the information ahead of time before we vote on anything but I think the committee meetings I guess my confusion is that the committee meetings were never really I guess the way they were done in the past when I was a part of them it wasn't just agenda items that you were voting on you actually talked about other things not just what you were voting on and that happened by communicating through the chairperson on that committee so that's not really happening either like I feel like all of the Committees are in a state of flux where we're not communicating to the chair I think the only chair that's probably communicated to is Steve because it's policy and it happens here so we all talk about it and then we say can you put that in committee right but other than that even like IIA like I don't know the last time maybe you received the question from the from anybody on the board to say hey can you put that on the IIA agenda so you guys can talk about it that's something that's like normal to do and we're not really doing that so again I'm going to reiterate whatever way we decide to do it right now the HR Personnel committee is not meeting after that one incident we're not meeting anyway so if it goes to the full board if everyone's pay at least through January to say forget the HR Personnel have Sean it to the full board we all review it and then we bring our questions I think you're painted with a a very broad brush we had we had one meeting we didn't have and you're making it sound like it's every month okay hold on stop literally we're trying to work on something like to dissolve committees we're not going to sit up here and fight over meetings and committees it like this needs to end thank you I'm telling well you can gel if you want but literally I might be here for two months it needs to we're not arguing over Comm like yeah I'm trying to be productive and say let's have a conversation let's move as a board to say conversations are great but I think we all can see where this is going and I think we would all benefit for whatever time we're here together is to not break off into the little subgroups and solve problems as a whole I agree because there's a small amount of us so it just seems like repetitive committee committee committee and you're all discussed let's take the mistrust out of it let's just clear the Slate we all make that motion make the motion make make a motion I think we're I think we're in the middle of motion I'll make the motion did somebody make a motion to approve the second reading so before before we take another motion let's vote on that motion we we have we have a motion on items number one to 10 think that if we talk about abolishing it that we don't really need that policy I need a a motion for items 1 to 10 I I motion I don't understand why we're doing it in that order now we're in discussion so make a motion to to resend the motion then I make a motion to resend the motion to talk about policy to vote on policy does anyone this is going too fast for me hold on pause I made a motion okay to resend the motion to vote on on policy Pat second the motion just hear me out for one second Pat second it the reason why I did that we have to vote correct so let's vote on that so we can clear out that motion we can go back and vote on it but we're having conversations it's somewhat productive I made a motion to resend it pat second it let's vote on that okay so let's be clear on what we're voting on we're voting on resending the motion to vote on policy right now so what's that going to put us so we're not we're not voting on items one to 10 we may not even have to worry about the policy if we're going to abolish personnel number four Carol Carol we may not have so that would be item that would be item number four okay perfect so there's a motion on items number one to 10 and a second on that so let's vote on it wait wait wait what there's a motion on the floor for items to approve items number 1 to 10 if you want to resend that one I think that's item number four and then if somebody wants to make a motion later on that we that we have the Committees one session and that's what we would do on guys you hold on so you you had a motion on the floor to approve one through1 which had a second correct right yes okay is discuss you can't just layer on motions on top of that that's why asked her to Res that's why I said to hold off Carol so that's that's where you are what do we need to do so Carol made the motion to resend that motion which you got a second I don't know if there was a vote on it I was now we have to vote the reason why I'm saying globally to do it let's just clear the board for a minute instead of making it all confusing and then we can have the dialogue it doesn't really matter she's second it anyway you have to you either have to vote on it or you have to resend the resend just let's just vote on it right and then you're not you're not getting rid of your right to vote on anything that's going to be presented tonight I think you just want to talk about restructuring your your uh B it why why wouldn't we vote on the policy turn it down you're going to vote on the policies and I'm not telling you not to that was the motion that was made I I think so we have a motion to resend the motion we had a second so let's vote on it okay roll call Mr Baker we're I know so we're voting from what I understand to resend clearing the Slate you're voting to clear the Slate we're voting to not vote you're voting to clear the slate no no I don't want to beend I want I want to vote Lori Mrs Bloom yes M Chilla yes Mr Mayo yes Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindsay yes Mr Serrano no Mr Arpino yes Mr Ross no okay okay so we resend him all right so if I could just summarize what Jim is trying to suggest and you can correct me if I'm wrong go ahead he's suggesting a restructuring of the meetings that you do so you have two meetings a month right now which structurally already set up to do what Jim is suggesting you do I I think and correct me I'm wrong you'd want the first meeting to be a work session which is essentially a committee of the whole and the second meeting would be an action meeting where the board takes action is that what you're asking to do so we're clear why are we bring Motion in that now when we're talking about the policy right now there's no motion he's discussing it but he we're going to vote on this and then we're going to go back and vote on the policy I think some people are suggesting that some of the policies might be irrelevant at that point if the board would prefer to change the structure of the meetings to the the work session we'd have to vote on that if we think that it's know yes we're going to vote on it change structure and [Music] away it hey guys can I can I wi in for a sec so let's let's I think we can probably wrap a systems process around this if if everybody here wants to talk about the concept of making that that Workshop a true Workshop which means that a we would try to keep everything voting off of it it wouldn't be possible at times because prudently you there's times where you're going to have to vote on things for timeliness so you shouldn't say that there wouldn't be any voting so it needs to be advertised as an action meeting but the goal would be to turn that Workshop into your committee meetings so what we would do is that we would disseminate all the information we could have the same type of of flavor to it there could still be you could still have a chair or you could figure out a way for your your insights to get to that table on that day the goal would still be to give us time to prepare because if you don't give us time to prepare administratively coming to a meeting we're not going to be ready to talk about things so just like in committees there would still need to be the structure of hey I want to talk about X and not a problem we'll pull X for you so we have that if that's what you want that is a real simple switch and quite frankly you've been talking about this for a year I'm not saying that disrespect that's been the the interwoven is the concept Pat has brought it up numerous times about the concept of a workshop that would do that and that would alleviate the committee meetings so you could do everything still the same way so that's the frame that's well well I have a question for the solicitor however I think the uh HR negotiation committee meeting would have to still remain so the negotiations committee would have to remain because you're not going to negotiate the contracts with the full board I don't think that's the intent of what you're talking about obviously we still have a negotiations committee I mean the meetings of the negotiation committee would continue on whether they do with the association or with the negotiations committee it also has Personnel okay Personnel issues but it wouldn't so so Personnel is not a requirement I mean they would as I understand what Jim is suggesting right now we would have a negotiations committee because we have to obviously negotiate contracts all other committee work will be done during the committee of the whole during the even even yeah but like any other meeting or like everyone like the law requires you're going to be going to Executive session and talk about personel stuff and other confidential items it would be the full board in it would be the full board but yeah it wouldn't be the public to be clear the public wouldn't be involved in those person personnel and confid Jim you want to you want to make that motion change change structure make the committee as a whole except for those at the at the the first board meeting the first board meeting of the month yeah it's a work session yeah all right so the motion is to make the first board meeting of the month uh a work session where all the Committees will be there the public will be able to be part of that um and we'll have a question I mean an answer at the end of that as well yeah all right so listen so your current this is the current policy language nothing Chang so the current policy says the board reserves the right to meet and work as a committee of the whole in informational discussion and exploratory sessions committee meetings of such nature will be advertised and official action shall not be taken at these meetings unless they'll adverti so there's nothing really you guys are talking about making a structural change but the policy already permits it so if the full board is amenable to doing that you could essentially start doing that next month then you put it on official oh hold on no no it doesn't you have to oh no no you're good official no sorry I got confused official action shall not be taken unless so advertised so we're just going to advertise it as an as an as an action meeting we're good to go well it's already advertised as an action meeting anyway so it doesn't even matter all right let's move on you want you want to give a roll we're gonna do a um Jim did the first Carol second what we vo to change the structure right you are you are absolving all committees except for negotiations negotiations as of right now will be your only standing committee HR policy IIA business will all roll into Committee of the whole on the on the second Tuesday of the month all right Lor let's have a r call make the motion can we we we have the motion can we just make sure we have the exact language that's being suggested yeah I have changed what language do we need here hold on I'm still looking at your because there's two separate things you're doing now number one somebody is I think you're talking about absolving all committees with the exception of negotiations yeah and I'm just looking at your policy which all the policy says is the president of the board shall design and appoint ad hoc indoor standing committees of the board as necessary standing committee shall be limited to no more than four Board of Education members they I don't believe obviously I don't remember your policies by heart I don't know if you have another policy to commit look at number three they so there's nothing in here that seems to require yeah have to read number three all standing committees are dissolved at the end of the board's year at any time prior to that by a majority vote of the board yes so you but this is my point we need to figure out what we're voting on you're voting to dissolve all standing committees with the exception of negotiations nothing else in the policy needs to be you don't need to make any policy changes though is what I'm trying to get at no but you need to dissolve your motion needs to dissolve no I I understand that but we just need to make sure that what you're motioning is not contradictory to anything in the policy or else we'd have to be changing your policy that does not appear to be the case as I'm reading this sitting up here so so AR you want to spell out the for Lori the uh yeah hold on back that so I can yes so number one you are going to be voting to dissolve all standing committees with the exception of the negotiations committee number one I believe in Jim correct me I'm wrong because this is coming from you as a motion obviously number two you are voting to operate as a committee of the whole yeah which you you already have the structure set forth so this is more of a vote just to show the public what you guys want to do to validate what you want to do and that's you know we're going to meet you already meet twice a month but our first monthly meeting will serve as a committee as a whole I think is what you're getting at I think you only I think you only as per policy need to dissolve the standing committees with the exception no I agree for policy but I think they want to just validate what they're trying to do to the public right now about task force that's an ad committee that's an ad hoc Committee just no action could disolve that that wouldn't be included in disolve no because the wording I used was standing uh I that in the Poli standing committees you want to read I basically if I remember what I just said I basically oh go ahead you want me to yeah well I have dissolve all standing committees go ahead go ahead J motion to dissolve all standing committees with the exception of the negotiations committee and set the first monthly meeting as a committee of the whole the first meeting of theth yeah treat the first meeting of each month as a committee of the whole during which action might may be taken something like that what you said did a great did a great job any more discussion on that all right Lor Scott did you want me Scott did you have anything for discussion or no yeah I have discussion but we have to make the motion first okay so we have Jim and Carol second so Mrs Bloom discussion discussion discussion sorry discussion all right so um yeah I me I'm fine with that that's how we're going to do it I think we're just going to need a longer exec session in that first committee meeting I still think even doing that and it'll come later that we should amend that policy because that policy is still going to stand 0155 and I still think that 0155 could create a future liability to to the board if we go back to committees and the Committees then start inviting you know public members in without the full board approving it so SE issue which we'll get to you'll have the full board there huh you'll have the full board in session not if you go back to committees this this policy would allow for committees to be formed again right we're not abolishing that you have not abolished or changed the policy you still have the ability to form committees yeah how about would you be amendable to putting it on for the regular session and then that way there's a little bit of time in between to Wordsmith the language and maybe like cont uh the um expedient nature of it right the uh the time of well in between though we don't have a we don't have Comm meeting anyway I mean I agree with you I'm just saying in the meantime we can word Smith it a little bit send it out table that one correct so if we can table it and then vote on everything else okay and then that way we can bring it back we all set what we're voting on we have everybody want a table yes hold on there's a motion in so we're still so right now there's a there's a motion to disolve all committees with the exception of HR or with negotiation that's the motion on the table motion and the second part is operate operate as a committee of the whole that's what we're voting on right now we had a motion we had a second now we have to vote any more discussion let me be clear we're walking this on under J1 that is technically j11 or is just we're walking it on under new business we walking it right on it's not an RFP it's just a policy change okay yeah what we put it under we're doing policy right now it's under policy you're actually not anywhere just make you're you're really not anywhere cuz you you voted to get out of policy so you're kind of just in this like Limbo with a motion so vote you can make a J1 right or J whatever uh hold on J1 and vote on J1 through J1 there you go but we're going to Scott wanted to table for to be talked about at the regular session then so so so the vote will be J1 table four or how about we just for the sake of the fact that we put this motion on the table and second it let's just vote on this right now and then you guys could do what you want to do with the other policies that are out there how about that right all Rory okay Miss Bloom yes Miss Chella yes Mr de Mayo yes Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindsay yes Mr Serrano to be clear j11 is what we're voting on no no no we're voting indidual item right now the individual item doesn't fall under any subcategory no it was just that it was just walked on as a motion we're voting on now then we're going to move on to policy that's it understood yes okay Mr Arpino yes Mrs Baker yes Mr Ross Yes okay okay so beginning next month the first session will be with all the Committees and certainly uh um all the Committees will be dissolved but we'll talk about all the individual yeah concerns can I ask one more question do you want the same set up everybody would do you want it I would I would like the one we had talked about but I'm not sure if that's possible in years past it was tables in the middle and you all sat there maybe they couldn't see you but they could move around you could have chairs maybe in different positions but that's just my thought but I'm just glad to get it so if we don't move around that's fine too well it's still a board meeting yes took a year Mrs thank you Mr Arpino okay all right we're leaving it you guys can talk about that as move forward it doesn't matter now now we're on J poliy now you can do J one through 10 right all right motion for items number one through 10 no no it should be well no it's not 11 you're not adding on but don't you want to we just voted on that other one AR you aren't you aren't you not going for you're not going for cuz why are we not going no no someone's got to make that motion if they want to table for so I'd like to make a motion to table J for before we vote on J I'd like to make a motion to table B 0155 Board committee's second reading okay a second discussion wait we have Steve and then Sean second and this is to table item number four roll call okay Mrs Chilla yes Mr de Mayo yes Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindsay yes Mr Serrano yes Mr Arpino yes Miss Baker yes Mrs Bloom yes Mr Ross Yes okay it's 1 through three and 5 through 10 in policy under policy you're going to vote on 1 23 and 5 through 10 okay now now we're voting on item on items number 1 through three and 5 through 10 some move second discussion second roll call M too Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindsay yes Mr Serano yes Mr Arpino yes Mrs Baker yes Miss Bloom yes Miss Chilla yes Mr Ross Yes by Student Activities Communications items number one and two motion so move second discussion roll call Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindy yes Mr Serano yes Mr Arpino yes m Baker yes M bloom yes Miss Chilla yes Mr de Mayo yes Mr Ross Yes Human Resources motion for human resources number items number 1 through 39 move discussion right Scott got a couple retirements here got uh Mr Charlie Dow after 17 years student data coordinator Central Administration and Megan githin 19 years elementary teacher at Whitman 36 [Applause] years any other discussion I I I have I have a question on item number four is that new job description to replace retirees to to the the the job description that you have in there no it was um there was one small change to the qu qualification Sean yeah just one small we had approved it previously and then needed to make a change okay just any other discussion roll call Mr Lindsay yes Mr Serano yes Mr Arpino yes M Baker no to number four yes to the Mrs Bloom yes Mrs Chilla yes Mr to Mayo yes Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Ross Yes finance and Facilities items number one to three motion so move second second disc discussion roll call Mr Serano yes Mr Arpino yes for two andain from Miss Baker yes Miss Bloom yes Miss Chilla yes Mr to Mayo yes Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindsay yes Mr Ross Yes okay uh motion to open to the public when any general School District new business we got new business new business what I miss oh new business I'm sorry sorry sorry new business uh yeah I have something under new business um this uh came to me from uh the school that I liaison for which is Bunker Hill Middle School uh received a letter here uh basically congratulating a a teacher in the school by the name of Matthew Potter he has received the program Excellence award uh in the field of Technology and Engineering so I just wanted to uh say congratulations to him and they're actually going actually from what I understand to Princeton or I'm sorry Ruckers on November 1st uh including a president's reception held at the Ruckers Club so uh big congratulations to Mr Potter thank you very much any other new business okay motion open to the public so moved any yellow cards Mrs cassle I'm just finishing up what I had written oh okay so anyway I'm wondering why my name came up last week when you were talking about this insurance issue I wonder if it's because I'm heads up running against the person who walked on your Merit goals um I and others think this was a calculated move based on the people involved Dr Hibbs and this District are now at the risk of a lawsuit for his actions I feel a minim apologize to me in as public as a manner as he attempted to disparage me I know he won't though because when confronted with failures and I also have on very good authority Dr hibs while representing this District was in the superintendent's Round Table call telling the other superintendent in the county that a long letter he wrote that details what he perceives as ethical violations on the part of some of you board members is his insurance policy if his people are not elected and just so everyone knows the superintendent's Round Table is the superintendent from all TW all districts in the county I was also told he was bragging to the superintendent that the election is in the bag I am confident in making these statements because I heard the exact same story from multiple districts the last time I checked Dr Hibbs is not on the ballot so who is he referring to as his people and what does he mean when he says the election is locked up this Township has had enough you have votes of no confidence from two unions which has still gone unaddressed people are quitting right and left the staff is stressed parents are upset you're playing in elections the board members that support this Behavior are on the wrong side of history and need to either resign or do the right thing this has to come to an end that's not mine to answer um but I I will say this um everything you just said is completely false uh if you'd like to reach out to Francis Yola or Jim lavender uh or Bob Bumpus you know who could have been there for those conversations I I suggest you do so I take my my reputation very seriously uh so a I don't double down when I'm wrong I actually apologize when I'm wrong uh I try to really make uh that's a big part of my life a b i don't mention board C and I certainly have never mentioned having something in the bag at the superintendent's round table that is just a complete fabrication the election being locked up I have no way of of knowing election results or or what could happen I have never stated that that's really I I don't I don't plan elections and I also don't think it's very nice to try to come after someone someone's reputation like that without facts I presented facts about what happened I stand by them not going to talk about it anymore but that was just not accurate Tom balero I applaud you for standing up for the district um it's not easy you know I talked last time about how it's really hard to hold accountability ethics election law um um you know it's really hard and that's why I asked for the board to hold the board accountable uh I know Mr Schneider I think you were going to go back and look and see if there was a way to develop a policy on what I submitted last time I hope somebody brings that up for discussion I know Mr Sano I gave you the document you said you would take it um and while I'm talking to you just for the ethics there's also just right and wrong too and protecting is right and wrong it's right but it also is word for word in the ethics I will support and protect School Personnel in their in performing their duties that is a huge part of being a board member I've I've had boards and they've supported me my entire career and things I've seen this year are things I've never seen from a board um when you allow when when when you show favoritism to members of the public uh you know person who was up here first time that wasn't on the agenda you just let him go um you didn't stop him and then you try to stop Mrs ch from talking you show favoritism that's not protecting and supporting anybody uh when you allow the union to you know expend the time just so they can grandstand on stuff that wasn't right around the budget when your experts are right here and Mrs Baker you used that term at our budget committee your experts are up here and she told you there was no money you let the board Grant stand that's not protecting your personnel I hope that doesn't happen again uh we need to get to the business of educating and the way you do that is by it all starts up top it starts with providing proper guidance support and again that protection of all district Personnel you know you do hire one person but you protect them all 100% uh and I hope to see more of that this year but again I I would love to hear something on accountability you know somebody again was up here earlier talking about how you know I might bring stuff forward but here's the thing if there wasn't stuff that they did wrong I'd have nothing to bring forward so I bring facts I don't make you know comments that aren't fact driven um everything I've brought forth has been factual and happened um you know so I'm I I take pride in in trying to stand up for this District because that's what I'm doing there's a lot of people who don't like what's going on but they don't come here and they don't talk you I've been called this this makes me laugh a political operative I am the least political person in the world I hate politics uh I'll over Sharon say I I I didn't vote for the first time in my life until I was in my 50s because that's how much I hate politics um especially in this room and when a contract is given to the chairman of Democratic party that made it political not me bringing it up um so again misplaced accountability uh it's not my fault people did bad things you know if I see it I'm going to bring it up too and you you all should rather than ridicule me or or call me an operative how about thank you how about wow you put your neck out for this District I haven't heard that one time and it's not easy to come up because people just don't want to speak up because you get your employer called you get attacked as well um I will continue to do and and and try and put my head down on that pillow at night like you talked about Dr hibs I will try and have it so my daughter respects me in how I act and what I do and she watches and she laughs at some of the people up here I'm you know and it's a shame but I would appreciate some discussion on what I brought last time you know we are coming up on an election we we will have new officers and I'm sorry Mr Ross you should not be president you have not filed your election paperwork and you have not told us you have not not told us why who gave you the money why will you not speak to it tell us why it's okay for somebody who breaks the law to be our president up here just you know if you can make it make sense to me I'm very logical make it make sense don't just ignore make it make sense and if he won't there's eight other board members up here that can challenge him or not put him in that chair next year you have a student sitting right next to you how do you tell the student that it's okay to break a law and sit in that chair and there's five of you up here that voted for it and none of you have answered to it so I would love to hear that discussion thank you cards so a motion to close to the public hey hey Ralph hang on a second I'm sorry um I just need to clarify something um Mr bald I commend you on being able to come up here and speak as eloquently as professionally as you do I don't have that luxury I've never been afforded that luxury I've always fired off at the hip and I really don't care what people people think when I say however I am Bound by a code of ethics I have honored that and I'm going to speak as clearly and as calmly as I can without exploding an accusation was made against me that I walked on Dr hbs's Miracles and I gave him $40,000 let the record reflect that we had to have those submitted by September 30th and if they weren't submitted it was going to create a problem that's why I walked them on and this man up here has to earn $40,000 he has to earn it I do not literally go my pocket and say hey Dr hibs guess what there's your $40,000 hope you have a great time with it don't give a damn what you do sorry for cursing again I'm sorry but when you attack my character now I have a problem I have done nothing on this board to indicate to anybody that I'm any type of way other than honest and I'm full of integrity and for someone to call me out like that to me that was a coward move so anybody that's in this room on this day that wants to contradict anything that I've done I please I would love for you to come up here and tell me that I've done wrong when you attack my character I have a very very bad problem with that my reputation has been built on Integrity loyalty and truth and I will continue that and if anyone has a problem with that or they think they can contradict it step up to the mic and prove me wrong otherwise please have the facts before you make accusations thank you yeah a motion to close public it's well said Sean and Tom I appreciate you motion yeah I just real quick um so just if you could all indulge me for a second and Mr Arpino I know you're newer on the board um we have a code of ethics for school board members it's njsa 18a 12 to 24.1 I will uphold and enforce all laws rules and regulations of the State Board of Education and court orders pertaining to schools desired changes shall be brought about only through legal and ethical procedures I will make decisions in terms of the educational welfare of children and will seek to develop and maintain public schools that meet the individual needs of all children regardless of their ability race Creed sex or social standing I will confine my board action to policym planning and appraisal and I will help to frame policies and plans only after the board has consulted those who will be affected by them I will carry out my responsibility not to administer the schools but together with my fellow board members to see that they are well-run I will recognize that Authority rest with the Board of Education and will make no personal promises nor take any private action that may compromise the board I will refuse to surrender my independent judgment to special interest or partisan political groups or to use the schools for personal gain or for the gain of friends I will hold confidential all matters pertaining to the schools which if disclosed would needlessly injure individuals or the schools in all other matters I will provide accurate information and in concert with my fellow board members interpret to the staff the aspirations of the community for its school I will vote to appoint the best qualified Personnel available after consideration of the recommendation of the chief administrative officer I will support and protect School personnel and proper performance of their duties just going to repeat that I will support and protect School Personnel in proper performance of their duties last I will refer all complaints to the chief administrative officer and will act on the complaints at public meetings only after failure of an administrative solution I I can email it to you not that you just so you know just in case you weren't familiar with it you were newer that's why you didn't do anything I'm just telling you I will email it to you I know where it is okay perfect like would no no I'm not saying with any discourse I'm saying to you I wrote readd it to you because you were new and I'm not saying you committed any of these violations I'm just telling you 46 years old okay I don't need you to I appreciate it like I don't know how to respond to this I don't think it was I wasn't meaning it to be bad I just I okay well I appreciate it but um I can read okay perfect that's great then I don't have to send it to you so then along those why was e should and I'm not saying it just I found it odd that a member of the public sent an email to members of the board everything that happened play to play in the last exective session it's the same thing so if we want we have to talk about that because we have to follow them agree we have no choice and there's members up here that are dead wrong in their action but I mean I appreciate you reading it for me I read it to the full board but I wanted to draw to your attention because you know there was no ill will at all if you took it that way I'm not I just I haven't had someone read me in a long what happened to exective happen but somebody didn't know that we support and protect personel I want to make sure we were going four years yes both ways you know saying so especially the past couple years so I'm not quite sure someone's saying something okay and it's always against certain people so it's pretty clear who's doing what so all right a motion to close public yeah second second all in favor okay I'd like to make a motion we go back into executive for the p uh purpose of obtaining legal advice no action will be taken okay some move second second all those in favor I I opposed resolve that pursu to Section 8 the open public meeting act the public be excluded from that portion of the meeting involving the discussion of personnel legal attorney client privilege second session will last approximately 15 20 minutes no action will be taken or board action may may will be taken okay take a little break and then uh we'll go into executive session