##VIDEO ID:CoERoV7mJD0## attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of the ACT public notice of the meeting has been given by the board secretary in the following manner posting written notice on the official bulletin board at the E Abbott Central administration building mailing written notice to The Courier Post in the South Jersey Times and filing written notice with the clerk of the township of Washington on November 20th 2024 um can we get a roll call of existing board members Please Mr Arpino Mrs Baker Mrs Bloom here miss chill here M de Mayo Mr Li Liberty here Mr Lindsay here Mr Serrano here Mr Ross here this meeting is being videotaped anyone not wishing to be be seen on television may be excused please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all at this time can I get a motion to approve the election results certified by the gler County Board of Elections so moved and roll call Mrs Bloom here yeah Miss Chilla yes Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Serrano yes Mr or Mrs Baker Mr Ross yes good okay at this time we're going to have are swearing in of our new board members Elaine Clancy Linda Harang Julie kmle and Steven Serrano do Steve first tell the other ones to leave Steve you go first with theator just uh the rest of you could wait one sec I think Steve's gonna go first unless you want do they he's getting sworn in by Senator Mar you could swear you all in if you want or separately that's up to you guys you just head right over here whoever okay okay okay goad I'll do it once and Paul's going to go first and I think he's going to do them all okay okay how is he going to do them okay sounds like it C you go I think you right yeah right to the microphone right okay so we do it right okay uh you should wherever the camera is so you guys can be seen there you go why don't you stand right here here could move over there so they can see there you go if you would uh raise your right hand and repeat after me I state your name do solemnly swear do soln swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey Conti of the state of New Jersey and I will bear a true Faith be true faith and Allegiance and aliance to the same to the same and to the governments established and to the governments established in the united states in the United States and in this state and in this state under the authority of the people under the authority of the people I do further solemnly swear I do further solemnly swear that I possess the qualif qu ifications that I possess the qualific prescribed by law prescribed by law for the office of member of the Board of Education the office of member of the Board of Education am not disqualified Asif as voter not disqualified as pursuant to rs19 colon 4-1 pursu rs9 4-1 am not disqualified due to conviction and not disqualified due to conviction of a crime or offense of a crime or offense and that I will faithfully and that I will faithfully impartially impartially and justly justly perform all the duties perform all the duties of that office of that office according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability so help me God so help me God I do further solemnly swear I do further Solly swear that I have undergone a criminal history background investigation that I have undergone a criminal history background investigation for the purpose of ensuring for the purpose of uring that I am not disqualified from membership that I not disqualified from membership due to conviction of a crime or offense due to conviction of a crime or offense listed in njsa NJ 18a 18 colon 12-1 and the results are still pending the results are still pending and I hope the results are good congratulations thank you thank you okay thank you sir my pleasure sign anything uh no no thank you yeah sorry can I have enough SE yeah one on the okay there's one here and one here way there's one here and one do you want no I think that's I'm buying forever that's that's mine but it's it's it's the other empty and then there's one right there congatulations and then we're going to have to flip around because when she Advocates she oh right okay so we'll take a roll call of the new board Mrs Baker Mrs Baker yes Miss Mrs Bloom here Mrs Clancy here M Chilla here Mrs Hartong here miss kazmo here Mr Li Liberty here Mr Serrano here Mr Ross here okay at this time I'd like to open up for nominations and election for board president Carol chill is my nomination okay um Mr Li Liberty nominated Carol chill is there a second I second it you don't you guys don't need a second okay my bad I like to make a nomination okay Julie Mrs Baker nominated Julie kazmo other nominations okay hearing none we'll close for nomination for board president and we'll take a roll call on each one we do a discussion a discussion discussion yeah and then you V in the order in which they were nominated okay discussion I'd like to make a motion that we go into executive or legal advice prior to the voting okay um just real quick um Julie I don't have anything personally against you but currently you're defendant in ethics trial and the judge has not ruled on that yet and so therefore I I do not feel you should hold an office until this is resolved okay um at a later date I can see where you could run I wouldn't have any problem with it okay is there is there a second for Scott's motion I'll second it all in favor okay do a roll call can you do a roll call on that L yeah Mrs Baker no Mrs Bloom no Mrs Clancy um what am I voting on nominating to go into executive to go into executive session advice relative to yes oh boy M Chilla yes Mrs Hartong yes Miss kazmo no Mr Li Liberty yes thank you Mr Serano no Mr Ross no five no okay so carry okay so the motion does not carry um and now we will do roll call on the nomination by Scott Liberty for Carol Chilla so this is a yes or no for Carol Chilla as president correct yes this is a yes or no discussion can we do discussion prior to that okay sure so I have to be careful how I word this since we can't be an executive but um are is there anything we should be considering relative to the uh count conflict council's communication to us late this afternoon regarding potential conflicts me there's absolutely no way I could discuss that right now not not to mention something I received while driving here so no I even even if I was fully immersed in it or aware of it we couldn't discuss that right here we'd have to go into executive 100% it's not even a question all right I guess fellow board members did you at least see and read the information from conflict Council that we received this afternoon I read some of it but I can't say I think I'm totally clear on you mean the longer the longer email is there a longer just just to yes I know you're not trying to go there Scott but just to caution you guys I I just want to make sure nobody's getting into the substance or anywhere close to the substance of advice you receive from an attorney just just to be I just want to make sure everybody realizes they got an email with advice from the conflict attorney and they've read it prior to voting that's it and that's why I wanted to go into executive so if there were any questions relative it which I have questions we could ask those before we casted our vote with that information I go in second I'm willing to go in if someone wants to redo the vote Pat Pat would have to remake the motion can we do the vote please motion we take the vote you you'd have to make the motion because I already made shot um I make a motion that we go into executive second are we now we v on it let's take a roll first you want discussion on the vote yeah um who is the conflict attorney and who and what are you talking about like who authorized him to get to give you whatever it is you're talking about that that question should be better served in executive session I would say otherwise we're getting uh you know into conversations with Council and the board members which we got to avoid so here's another question am I going to be exempt unable to be in that conversation because if so I don't think we should go into executive when I'm when I'm up for an officer position I would need more information as to what this executive discussion is going to be about to be honest with you maybe just the board president now and the vice president ought to meet with our the ones that we have now there there is a you guys are in the middle of voting for board president I guess for me I'd like to make sure everybody's aware of the memo and what it entails and if there's any considerations we should have before we vote there's people that are going to be voting for president who haven't even seen the memo and understand its content I think everybody should be aware of that before we vote I I find it troubling that we're getting a memo that is this important at what time today that sounds very concerning to me more than anything else right now so I would like to sit here and read it I don't have to go into executive to read it and anyone else that needs to read it that hasn't read it please read it but that really concerns me that we're to the seven or whatever and I I'm pretty good at checking my email disc for whatever reason I didn't this afternoon I did this morning but it it shouldn't not be this 11th Hour email I think that's a good point we don't have to go into executive but let's just take some time to read it either way you guys need to vote on whether or not you're going to go into EXA so we can move on one way or the other so that there's been a motion in a second the new MERS me do a roll call and the new board members don't have the information that's why I think we should go into executive so they can privy to it no I know but they couldn't have received will I be privy to it will I be privy to it right here yes I can't answer that you'd have to answer that you guys have to vote you guys have to vote on whether or not you're going to go into executive session right now so we can move on with the meeting because there was a motion in a second correct I just like to make a a point I agree with Pat we don't have to go into executive we sit here and read it and we can make a decision from there we don't have to discuss it I think the challenge is not everybody has it the new board members don't have it I have how are the new board members going to be able to vote on that they don't have to vote on it I just think they should be aware of it before they cast their vote for president and vice president we received legal advice from a conflict account conflict attorney that's all Scott why don't you read it out loud so that the audience I can't I can't read it alloud in public oh wasn't that why we're talking about this in public so that aware not mentioning the content we're saying I'm trying to make a go into executive so we could make everybody aware of it again guys just at this point we need to vote on whether or not we're going into executive session then we could proceed with the meeting there's been a motion there's been a second there's been discussion there's another motion what's the other motion no no cuz somebody was saying we make a roll call no there's been another Motion in a second yeah take a roll call vote as whether or not to go into exective Mrs Baker I'm taking a roll call on the second motion to go into executive yeah no Miss bloom I'm saying yes but I'm very upset by this whole situation this should not be happening the way it is happening Miss Clancy it's mine Julie yes to Julie please um Mrs Clancy yes Miss Chilla yes Miss Hartong yes Miss kazmo This second motion for the exective oh no okay Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Serrano uh no I just I have a question though how how long are we going to filibuster and Executive before we come back out and vote for new elected officers I just I just this a question you don't have to answer it here board members it's just answer an executive session because that's what it seems like just an attempt to fill a buster so it's a no vote Mr Ross no five okay motion carries can I make a motion are we going to go somewhere can I make a motion I make a motion we don't go in executive already we're going into executive Bas five V right we voted once and we voted again on the same thing yeah we got to go somewhere else obviously you're not going to move everybody else I ask solicitor we voted we wrote it already once and then we voted again okay we already said we were not going to go into executive and then there was a a motion to do it again and we voted yes so why can't I make another motion to not go in because the vote didn't carry the first time it carried the second time the board's in ex carried the first time it carried the first time the first time it carried we were not going to go in it was five votes five the the motion was to go into executive session there were correct there were four votes in favor of it there was further discussion somebody else no no no no there were five votes did not go into exec I understand I understand the vote the motion did not carry at that time because there were only four votes in favor of the motion that Scott made uh after further discussion another board member made a motion to go back into executive session based on that discussion there were five votes in favor of that that's where we are right now we're going into executive session I I and I assume we're going to go to another room another room go to your office your call what do you want do you have more room in your office um I think there's more chairs there e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e for already Janine can I say something before we vote I just want to make a statement and I hate to do this and be the person because I didn't expect to be put up for the position of President tonight um because I don't have conversations prior but we were just walking back in the hallway and Miss Baker said to miss Bloom so Pat that doesn't change your vote does it not okay this is where we fall down every single time so I'm saying it and I'm letting you know um you're misinterpreting what I said number one the superintendent was given an opinion and he has a right to get along with everybody Connie you know what it's 2025 you're EAS dropping and you don't know what was being said hey Connie I'm quite confident of what I just heard and if you're upset by it then you can be upset but I'm going to let the public know this is the kind of stuff that has to end period we don't get better when we whisper behind closed doors we don't get better that's all I'm saying and it was my right to say that cuz that's what I just heard I was right behind you it's Mis interpreted what I said I didn't misinterpret are you going to change your vote ladies and gentlemen we vote for Carol I I agree with what you said as far as voting and I'm thinking about voting that's all I've been thinking about for the last several weeks I mean I'll tell the public I was asked to run by people sitting up here there's a missing link that people don't know the reason I didn't go with that was I'm just not sure that I I have the right heart for it but I'm not sure that I have the right temperament to do it as fairly as I should because I get caught up in a motion but more the one person up here and sitting there have asked me to run for president and this is a very hard vote for me I'm not going into it I have nothing against Julie I have nothing against Carol I have nothing against our superintendent or anybody sitting up here this group is a mess all of you can see it's a mess I'm not sure how we're going to come through this but I think that I'm going to do what I think at this point will give us the best chance of doing a lot of the things that I wanted to do last year like make a calendar have training have Retreats there were so many things this past year that I talked about that were never picked up on and at this point Point I've also had some health issues this year none of your business but I have I was diagnosed with cancer and I'm doing fine but I do not need this pressure right now I dread coming to board meetings because of exactly what's going on right now everybody up here has something I have something good I could say about every single one of you every single one of you sitting up here this has got to stop this is embarrassing this is not the way it should be and I'm not putting up with it that's my resolution for this board knock it off let's do what we need to do for our children for our staff for our community and we have such a big problem with finances coming by the end of February we're going to find that out between now and then we have got to come up with goals goals that can be measured goals for the district this nonsense has got to stop and I'm hoping that with new board members up here maybe you'll be the key to making that happen but the funny thing is that they said nobody up here other than one person knows that I've been in discussion about being board president and it was a really hard decision to say no because in some ways I think I'm the best one but in other ways what it would do to me internally right now and if not best for me but I'm going to be up here and I'm only going for what is best and I'm going to tell you something else there was a there's people in the in the public that give us trouble at every board meeting and I feel threatened tonight and I feel threatened because there was a person in the public that said if you vote for Julie kmle here's another part of it take names and numbers of anyone who votes for kazmo or Serano to be president of the board I feel threatened so I'm putting that out to you I feel threatened policemen stay here I feel threatened okay this is the stuff that all of you don't know you don't come to you know what you know but when people speak up there we're not allowed to answer you when we vote Yes or No some or something you know nothing about what's going on behind the scenes absolutely nothing that doesn't make it right that doesn't make it wrong but keep that in mind when you come to to decisions and you talk about being political I see Republicans here I see Democrats here guess what they all have a right to be here I don't care who they are but we are here for children we are here for staff and we are here for the community which basically means we need to figure out what we're going to do with money to keep our district going and doing what we can for do for our children so this is I've had Cas in case you can't tell I've had it and I will be much more vocal if that's what I need to do but I'm going to vote the way I think I should I've played around with it for weeks I don't take anything I do lightly up here and I really don't think most people do Dr Hibbs doesn't nobody else does we are in it together this group and I talked to somebody this week this group needs to learn to reflect compromise communicate and listen and listen and none of it is happening that's got to stop so if you're willing to have it stop think about it show it to the public they don't deserve that everyone sitting up here was elected by the people out there I don't care if you're Julie I don't care if you're El late I don't care if you're me we were all elected and Dr hibs he was appointed by a full board that's the same as being elected we are all here to do what we need to be doing knock it off thank you make a motion to close executive second taking a vote on car the first nomination Mrs Baker we're voting for Carol Chilla for president oh I was closing just closing EXA executive she still closing and then we're voting for Carol for president first first this carol is the call or what are we doing right now a closing executive okay it's all in favor the vote for president okay at this time we're we going to take a roll call for um the nomination made by Scott La Liberty for Carol Chilla for board president Mrs Baker no Mrs Bloom I respect Carol very much but my vote right now is no Mrs Clancy yes Miss Chilla yes Mrs Hartong yes Miss kazmo respectfully no Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Serrano no Mr Ross no carry okay that motion does not carry so now we will vote on the nomination made by Connie Baker of Julie kazmo for pres board president Mrs Bloom yes Miss Clancy no Miss Chilla no Mrs Haron Kong no Miss kazmo yes Mr Li liberty no Mr Serrano yes Mrs Baker yes Mr Ross yes that's fine y congrats that motion carries I see thank you you going y switch y s okay so I put their signs up okay next up is um we're going to take nominations for vice president do we have any nominations for vice president El clany I heard elain Clancy and Steve Serrano any other nominations any discussion yeah I just elain you were on and you were Vice President when I was on the board back when you served last time I thought you did a phenomenal job you had to step in as president when F Ellis left on medical reasons and you actually navigated us through a superintendent search so I thought you did a great job and love to have you back in that position thank you any other comments seeing none roll call on um the nomination of elae Clancy for vice president miss Clancy yes Miss Chilla yes Miss Hartong yes Miss kazmo no Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Serrano no Mrs Baker no Miss Bloom my answer is no but again I I um respect Mrs Clancy very much that's not the reason Mr Ross no that's five to four motion fails can I have a roll call vote on the nomination of Steve Serrano for vice president miss Chilla no Mrs Haron no Mrs kmle yes Mr Li liberty no Mr Serrano yes Mrs Baker yes Mrs Bloom yes Miss Clancy no Mr Ross Yes motion carries congratulations Steve I'd just like to read a little something to set us off on a good tone tonight if that's okay with everyone before we go into Old business I wrote this um it's a little long I might cut it a bit but um good evening members of the board Educators parents students and community members tonight let me take all my glasses because I'm going blind um tonight I'm filled with immense gratitude and a deep sense of responsibility I want to take a moment to thank each and every one of you for the support and Trust you've placed in me as an incoming board member and now Board of Education president our mission to provide every child with a quality education inspires me to remain focused on this important work and I know inspires all of you as well in both my personal and professional life I rely on the words of Elanor Roosevelt who said great minds discuss ideas average Minds discuss excuse me events small minds discuss people when we discuss ideas we honor the voices within our community we're not just a board we're a collective of Educators parents students and community members each bringing unique perspectives by engaging in a thoughtful dialogue we can identify the needs and aspirations of our children ensuring that we're building a future where every student can Thrive I'd like to take a moment to speak directly to the adults in the room not using my teacher voice like Pat used her teacher voice very well but um sometimes in our passion to create the best for our kids we're guilty of doing what our kids call doing too much my teenagers tell me I'm doing too much at least five times a day our our students are living um in a complex World filled with a lot of noise and a lot of distractions let's not add to that instead of getting caught up in over complicated discussions or stressing about every little detail let's try to focus on what really matters the children's well-being and their education so as we embark on this for next year together I invite you all to embrace the spirit of great minds a productive School Board focuses its discussions on ideas ideas that can transform our educational landscape and Empower our students and teachers we have the opportunity to think boldly and create ly about how we can improve our schools enhance our curriculum support our teachers and we need to be grateful for that and honor it with the work that we do for this reason I've created a planning document that will keep us all focused and excited during the months ahead ahead which I can share in a a little bit um I consider this a living document that will be updated and changed as we work so thank you for your dedication for dreaming big with me and for believing in the power of Education together we can uplift and create lasting change for generations to come hopefully thank you is there any old business from the board members yeah I I have something I want to say and this is just uh Ralph I just wanted to thank him for you know being president last year it was you inherited a a very fractured board it was rough to deal with all of us all nine you know every single meeting you know four and five hour meetings you hung in there you stuck in there you know some of the decisions you made you know wasn't always in favor of but I just wanted to say that I appreciate the fact fact that you tried to you know tried to build those bridges with the superintendent with board members Etc so thank you any other items of over business Miss I have three um I'd like to ask the superintendent uh last meeting I raised a question with regard to these classrooms and all the buildings the question I had that uh you said you I I know if you have the answer yet that's okay we could do it at the next meeting but my question was that do all our schools have a classroom that's designated with this new furniture I I think that for the Dr Nathan I think that it's across all buildings correct yes yes yes ma'am so so all all buildings have a classroom um I want to thank you Dr Hibbs for inviting board members to go and look at those classrooms I like to I'd like to go into to see wedgewood's classroom sure okay Wedgewood by abely okay thank you um are you saying that some classrooms are done and some are are not yes it's a process the entire scho so we had Furniture deler as part of the process techology as part of the process are there any classrooms completed okay I'd like to see wedgewood's thank you um the second one I have is when I was at Wedgewood school they were doing a program and the audio system was really bad and I inquired about it because I recall when we did the budget for 2324 clearly it was when we got the extra million dollar that we were going to get all the schools upgraded with the audio system okay you probably can't answer that and I that's okay maybe at the next meeting you can let me know if all the schools were upgraded with the audio system that was in the budget for 23 24 you you know you don't have to answer that uh I know that you may not have that answer but I am interested in knowing that okay the other the other the other question I have under new business there have been several community members that have I mean I mean old business several community members that have shared and I've seen it on Facebook numerous times it seems like there's there's a segment of the community that would like us to take a look at this Easter break and instead of having a full week off and then Good Friday that go back to the where we had Thursday Friday and Monday off I'm wondering um and I could pose it as a motion to the board that we do a survey to with our community to find out what the community would like it it's pretty clear that there was some there was definitely a segment of the community that would it would be up to the super about doing a survey the board can't you know enforce or or require anybody to do a survey just so be something the board votes on that's my point what is can the board do anything about that if it's coming to to our attention no it's a well it's a request you you just made to the superintendent essentially but the board can't vote on uh a a public survey all saying so okay basically then the request is to the superintendent that we do a survey with the community to see what the community wants thank you just one one can I make a suggestion oh go ahead sorry sorry um we also have a calendar committee so I don't know if it's probably too late to change something this year I'm not opposed to looking at it but it may be something appropriate to not only do a survey but to also put it in the calendar committee as well good so I was just going to we were just saying um we can even do better than put taking the time to do the survey if you want to just put bring it up at the work session we can put it on the agenda for the work session as um just to discuss and then if people want to send their information you know send their feedback between now on that meeting and the um regular session we could do that if you want it on the agenda for the work yeah i' just like to get a feel for what what the majority of the community wants there was definitely a small segment of the community to voice the concern and I don't know if there's other people that feel the same way in other words that the push was that to to you know get out earlier in June also we it's academically good that the kids are still there we have about 100 employees as a result of having a full week off that have an additional three vacation days so I think it's definitely something that we could look at or we should look at thank you okay thank you I just want to piggy back on the new furniture um I can remember having to rescrew in the chairs and the desks in my classroom which were still in that classroom as of last year so so it's good to hear that there's new furniture because um kind of got tired of putting the desk upside down putting the screws back in it Etc so and and we'd love to have as the furniture is all still coming we would have bought new furniture anyway every school district in the world has to buy new furniture there's not one that doesn't uh when the rooms are operational I would love you to see the the dynamic changes that are there for the learning environment for kids uh we are already seeing dividends in attention in Inspiration in creativity in Innovation uh uh less trips to the bathroom so it's just it's really truly Innovative um and something that every school district and a lot a lot a tremendous amount already have flexible seating and things along that lines so uh I'd love for you to see that I'd also love we tried to schedule a trip to Kindle I would love for you to also come to Kindle to see all the amazing things we have with our prek that that happened before the holiday and then we had some issues scheduling at the last second but I'd love for you to see both of those things I have an item it's sort of old business um but I based on what we're talking about right now I feel like it's talking about getting into the elementary schools I think it's probably a good idea to bring it up now so I'll just pass this out uh I typed up a little hopefully there's enough there a little proposal on this interested in um your thoughts Dr hibs especially um because we'd be going into the schools here you pass these down J sure okay I think I have like 20 of them um anybody need another basically I think I'm good what this is um I'm just calling it bringing government to the people just because I work in Camden County and that's what they do there so I remember hearing that and thinking that was a great idea um the I'm thinking of why don't we have one of our meetings each month in an elementary school and there's a couple reasons for suggesting that and again we need to know the logistics of this um but if we could have one meeting a month I was suggesting the work session if you want to do the regular session doesn't matter to me um but if we were to have our meetings in the elementary schools it would allow families I just feel like it would allow for the schools to promote it to their families signage e backpack you know the this the kids send things coming home with the kids and maybe we will get a nice out of people going walking down to their Community School to go and have a work you know a meeting there as opposed to the intimidating you know microphone and the Das and then the buzzer um can we do away with the buzzer that big buzzer anyway it can be intimidating to be in this rooms whereas if you live around Wedgewood or you live around Bells you know you're like oh the board meeting's down there in March I'll go to the board meeting I think it might be a little less intimidating and a way to address this town hall issue that comes up every single year that no board and no superintendent over the past 10 years has been able to put together because there's just so many Logistics with the Quorum and whatnot so if we did something like that the principal could give you know that could maybe be that school's presentation since they all present the principal could showcase some things we could I mean we can't tell you how to do this but I would love to hear from maybe like the fifth grade students um that gather information from the school like involve them in the process if there's some way to do that down the road but in the in in the very base B level um since we're talking about the dates later tonight too I thought um this was just something that I'd throw out there for your for your consideration and your thoughts um starting in January I think the next meeting is at the high school right for teacher of the year is yeah Jan it's that's usually January regular session right so that so January it wouldn't be until February I guess it would be the earliest we could do something like this I don't know I think it's a great idea U I think that uh it's definitely Innovative and um if we can as long as we can bring more people to our meetings and I think the community aspect is a great one and showcase the kids when they when they do their presentations at the schools that they're from I think it's certainly something to look in look into absolutely I just have one request if we do something like that can we be at the same level as the residents and the the people that we serve I don't know that we should should be elevated uh if it if there's no need to I feel like if we have that round table if we set up just a table with microphones on it we feel they feel like we're more accessible and we're not elevated from you know looking at them looking down at them we're looking at them at eye level so we did something maybe in the in the allpurpose room of of the school um or the library I guess depending I mean I'm familiar with most of the the setups yeah but the size that's the thing of the group yeah yeah how about we sketch it out we that's one of things we can talk I just want to see if the board even has desire to do this cuz if you guys don't have a majority of you don't have a desire to do this then we'll just let it go but if you would like for the administration to look into this for February um we could we could I guess you're open to doing that absolutely um Julie a lot of this they're already doing but there are other things that you have here that look really um positive okay so you're in favor you like look at dates too yeah we have to look at the dates yeah re not in there and and space ample space to fit as many people Library might be tough but there's rooms for sure M we can sketch it up okay yeah and they have tables and everything there hopefully so it won't be too much of an expense Janine's nodding and the traveling mes I don't know about chairs how many they have all in okay so just can we do like a straw all right can we do a like a straw boat no straw boat I mean you don't even need to vote on it if if if it's something that you want the administration to look into yeah just giving Eric the guidance to do that at the next meeting I mean it might require you or will it will require you to change the advertisement that's likely going to go out tomorrow yeah one location so but yeah Eric if a majority of the board members want Eric to explore this possibility he could consider whether or not there's sufficient space and okay uh and at the next meeting you guys can bring it up again the advertisement can always be changed at a later date doesn't matter it's if it if it pleases the board I'll just email each principal ask them for a space that would accommodate something just like this which I think would be important and then make sure that we have tables and chairs everything else we can figure out right and they can really like showcase their school that's you know even if they wanted to take us on a tour or something before I'd be open to that yep you know you got it I just okay can all right thank you guys no problem can we do the anything the passing of the budget can we do that and most likely have to be done in the playhouse that's the only exception I mean you can pass the budget in the bathroom if you wanted to right like just if we have Corum just the content the only yeah that's the only meeting that sounded bad that sounded really bad but yeah that's the only question that I would have for that presentation you mean you want to be able to see what they're presenting on the screens and whatnot yeah and and there were four or 500 people there last time so we need to SP okay well I mean there's six elementary schools and there's 24 meetings so maybe we can just I'm sure there's some yeah that we're we're going to have to do at the high school or whatever but I mean it's up it's up to you to you know figure that out so we'll leave that in your you got it in your capable hands okay um uh can I get a motion to open to the public motion second all in favor I okay I have one card uh you know what normally I would say this at the top of the meeting but if anyone would like to speak there are yellow cards in the corner you can just write your name and fill that fill that out and pass it to miss Clancy she'll pass it down to me right now I have Randy Ford so if Randy if you would like to come up there's a five I'm sure you're aware of this but there's a five minute um yeah uh good evening so Randy Ford uh congratulations to all the newly elected board members uh I want to kind of go off of what Miss Blom said about the public you know and I'm paraphrasing of course um know nothing about what goes into the decision-mak process of of this board so I have a couple suggestions uh the first one is you all whisper a lot like no one an Ari lovey dude you but you don't you're off and sorry I have to address through the president so anyway long story short there's a lot of whispering there's not a lot being picked up by the mic and all that back and forth it's an open meeting it's not exempt from public session so it should be loud enough to be picked up by everybody so that's my first um the second thing I think that planning document sounds awesome awesome and I'd love if it was made available to the public I don't know how authoritative deliberative all that goes but I think it would be awesome Miss blom's been pushing the the calendar concept for a long time but um Miss kmle talked about the planning document so that would be cool um and then just the the last thing agenda item H1 tonight is a board training and if I remember the conversation from November uh this was going to be done by the New Jersey school boards Association I understand that our rep has retired after 16 years it's now going to be done by Mr Snider I would ask that the board make that a public session instead of doing it an executive session if there's specific questions that rise to the level of attorney client privilege someone can stop somebody and go through that process but to me I think if you want us to know what goes into the decision making what goes into a board member and an administrator can and cannot do it's imperative that that type of training be made available to the public it's going to be recorded people can watch it again so those are my three items I got it done in two minutes and uh again congratulations to the new folks and uh I will say night and day from presiding uh since Miss kmle again running the meeting it seems like that's much more better flow except Etc um the only other thing sorry I lost my place oh parliamentary procedure I think would be a good training item for the board as well because during that you could have had motion for reconsideration motion to table Robert's Rules 12th edition Barnes & Noble 11 bucks I'm willing to donate copies if the school board would like every board member to have one so it doesn't come out of the budget thank you everyone have a great night thank you Randy um I'm going to speak directly into my microphone do we still have a professional development budget Janine for the board yes okay we could buy that book out of the professional development budget do we have to vote on that or anything no okay yeah one time I usually got books with that for the board when I was here so that's a great idea and to piggyback on what you said well first of all I know my rappers rules so we should be okay and I've done this before but um when it comes to people don't realize and I used to get actually a lot of we used to get complaints about this before when I was the board president that no one spoke but me and that's actually how a functional board works um and you can ask any lawyer or parliamentarian that you know I'm supposed to respond to the public on behalf of the board or the board president is the superintendant is here in case I need him to answer a question he does not have to answer any questions from anyone here unless I say to him you know can you take that one um that's why they're here that's why Janine is here so this like get up to the microphone and then someone responds and someone else piggybacks and that's actually all not Robert's Rules you know so it's it's It's tricky because then people think oh the only one person is speaking but that actually is how a board should function am I correct in that just explaining that correct with the caveat that certainly when you're asking for old business new business Etc of course board members are going to have items to add so it's not a matter of board members shouldn't speak but there are times that are more appropriate than other times to uh to to get involved okay so and the other thing he said was stop Whispering um but again he's right uh anything that is whispered can be opened so we these mics are a little difficult you know see what I me we talking into it and it sounds fine now but the minute I get that close it sounds crazy so it's we'll we'll try better to do that uh the planning document I can I can show if I can project my computer somehow um I can show that under new business if somebody wants to tell me how I can project this um anyone else from the public wishing to speak um thank you Senator morard our state senator Pao already came here um I actually should have recognized all of the legislators in the room sorry about that Paul was here I see Pete Del barell from the council president is here is anybody else here an elected no I don't think so okay next item on the agenda is just go ahead I'd like to put a motion on the floor to make item H1 public instead of wait let me close a motion to close to the public motion can I get a second just to close to the public guys can I get a second I thank you all in favor I I okay now you have a motion on the floor to I'd like to yeah I'm going to start over I would like to put a motion on the floor that we conduct this board training H1 in public instead of an executive session can I can I okay as soon as you're with I don't know no I can do that later but I don't actually know why it's there but um are I think can explain okay so a couple things on that and I understand the desire to have them you can't hear it oh in your mind put it closer it's like you have to be almost is that better okay so I understand the desire to have it done publicly obviously a couple things though and Randy I think you asked the question about school boards this is not in place of school boards tonight's session was in addition to school boards I think it was decided I don't know two or three months ago that school boards was going to give a presentation at some point in time correct me if I'm wrong but I think that's still the intent of this board to do um with regard to Steve's specific motion uh there's a reason that this sort of presentation would be done by the board attorney in executive session as opposed to by school boards in executive session and that's because there will like be many questions that come up throughout the course of this presentation that will put me in a position where I will have to give legal advice Andor put me in a position where someone's asking me to say that somebody did something wrong which I can tell you right now I will not be I I'm not comfortable doing publicly nor should you want that to be done publicly I'm happy to change the presentation around give a far more generic presentation and do that publicly at the next meeting if that's the preference if you would prefer that I have no issue doing that I'd like to I I would probably prepare a slightly different presentation and I won't you know there won't be questions and answers though for sure so so we we are I want to confirm what you just said uh counselor so we're going to have this training done in public with the New Jersey school boards Association that's not up to me that's my understanding as to what you guys wanted to do that's not up to me though we are that is going to happen we can certainly do that so the request was to have a a training at this meeting because we have new board members coming on so the request was to definitely have ethics training at the reorganization meeting but we couldn't get anyone from school boards so we talked about if school boards couldn't come Ari could do it so if we want to do if we we can do whatever you want have another one by we can I I wasn't I wasn't sure so disregard I'd like to resend my motion to make H1 uh public I wasn't sure if this is was the only training we were going to get for the year but if we're going to have a formal njsba training I'd rather that be done in public so okay go ahead I'm I'm sorry you were going to say something no I was just going to actually ask Linda um I think everyone else that's here has served on the board before for Linda and there's usually like a packet and some onboarding and you would meet and everything like that before you would have any of this training so would you I don't want mean to put you on the spot but I'm okay with moving the ethics training until she has like a basic vocabulary you know and knows how to access board dos and things like that she hasn't had any of that yet and I think tonight's a little premature but that's just my thought and Madam President we have uh emails are already in your account to set up times with us for that for all three all three board members Steve already knows what he's doing okay yeah I mean not to put you on the spot anybody can talk about it but I've never I remember my first ever meeting and it was like there's a lot to on board yeah and my only thing is I would like to do it tonight and then ask questions as we go along so at least this way I'm getting the answers directly from Ari versus somebody else telling me the answers yeah I think it's important to always do it we haven't done it tonight in a few years and I think when you start out on a board and for the public too we need to start right out with ethic training and I think we do need to have it in public at some point either from our or school boards but I think I had to either I signed the paper about ethics last year Janine I don't know if I signed it or you gave it to me the first night mean tonight and it's one of the most important things that we're doing and I think we need to H hold that an account and we need to go forward every year if we can on the reorganization meeting okay just and and Pat if I could just Pat I I have no issue doing it publicly all I ask is that if you guys want me to do it in public let's do it at the next meeting instead so I could refine the Pres do it tonight privately and maybe you could do a public one at another meeting if we can't get school boards because I think that person may have retired I'm not sure how soon there'll be somebody else assigned to our area I did I asked Ari about this um because I've never done ethics training and executive so I thought that that was a a mistake I think I emailed you about that too um because I do think it's useful for the public to see that presentation because when you don't know what you're talking about conspiracy theories take over and I've been a victim of that so um and a lot of people have so I think it's important at some point to have that in public okay action items um can I have a motion to um approve um the policy and regulations agenda item where's the 1 through six 1 through six action oh here it is action items 1 through six motion can I get a second second any discussion do we have a tentative meeting date calendar to look at yeah yes it was it was placed at our seats should be right in front yeah yeah you know I try and be so organized and I just where did I where did iine go okay does everyone have this yes so I I just wanted to mention this was just put together based on the 2024 meeting schedule and in looking at the 2025 calendar that we have at this point um that's why it's just tentative we just put it together so for example months that you see like October for example where there's a week in between that's when we normally have the school board's convention so it you know obviously it's up for discussion and approval by the board this was just a tenative one that was put together see my only question is on April with the budget like will those dates kind of coincide with when we need to do the public advertising yes so in March the March dates are important because the tenative budget is due to the county office on the 19th so that works out well with the work session being on the 18th um in April the reason why there's a week in between is because that's when spring break is um and then the important meeting um or at least the required meeting that we have to have for the month of April is the 29th so the public hearing is like the last um week of April and the first week in May that we're required to have that so that lines up this I want trying to Pro this all right um you want to share that with yeah you sh with me you Google you Google yeah um what's your Google there's connection you have to change I'm not sure if it's working I don't I don't want to try what your email um okay uh in the past here just control v um we also if if I could Julie just um right below the chart we had talked previously about the executive sessions beginning at 6:00 and then the work session or the regular session beginning at 7:30 so I tentatively have that listed on here because we had discussed it in the past and then the only other discussion would be at the top of the notice we usually put the location and we note that you know the the januaries is um where we we do it in the playhouse so we would just have to tweak it a little bit for the locations we can discuss that okay further I just want to point that out that okay um 6 to 7:30 about the um the 7:30 start time I put something in we have to change the policy because for that if we're doing that cuz the in the policy it says 700 p.m. I don't know where I put it but um let me get into board docks I can't it says 0161 0161 all public all public meetings shall be called to commence not later than 7:00 p.m. of the day designated but that would just be an easy policy change right if we're going to start at 7:30 so policy 0161 Janine okay um can you just update that and bring it to the work session for a first reading oh that's Sean yep okay yeah um well I'm not going to ever tell them what to do okay um one thing I want to say about this sorry I was a little distracted is I always want you guys to think that we can change things like we don't always have to do things the way that they've always been done just cuz they've always been done that way if you don't even want to have the meetings on Tuesday nights and Wednesday is better we can do that so just think about that I don't you know know if Tuesday nights work for everyone but I mean I'm fine with this with the exception of the location so okay um any other discussion Julie um I just uh wanted the solicitor weigh in I thought I read something that has changed with newspapers there's something that came through that because the newspapers aren't having printed material they have it online that when we when we advertise for our meetings it doesn't always have to be the printed version do you know anything about that that's something just recent I saw it was passed do somebody have any idea on that I don't off hand but I can look into it are you aware yeah I I think that all the Genesis was from the Star Ledger you know ceasing to to go in print and I think think uh the governor put temporary guidelines out if the newspaper around only went online so I I think that's that that's what I think Mrs Baker's talking about so so basically we could just advertise online yeah but there was parameters for how long Okay uh on that so we can we can absolutely look into that and come back and report back okay thanks yeah right and just so the public knows there there's actually a policy it's policy 154 which is called annual motions and designations that states that at our reorganization meeting we have to do very specific things we have to designate one or more depository for our funds we have to designate people to sign School warrants we have to designate the paper we have to pick our meeting dates um we have to adopt a calendar we have to vote on sometimes vote on curriculum so that's what we're doing right now um okay any other discussion seeing none roll call good luck figuring out who we're starting with Lori I know right I'm on Mrs Hardon sorry you're voting on The Action items 1 through six so it's to pass yes yes Miss kazmo or no well I have to do you last say hang on lero Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Serano yes Mr Ross yes Miss Baker yes Miss Bloom yes Miss Clancy yes Miss Chilla yes Miss yes motion carries thank you um now on to new business can is there anyone who has new business for the board if you just py yes Mrs Baker I have a couple items on under new business um I happened to read an article in the paper uh with the Cherry Hill School school district actually over the years they have really been you know pretty uh Innovative in their their their in their programs and things that they brought forth but something that they are doing right now and I'm wondering and I could put forth as a motion to the board um what they're doing they're work they have ESS just like us and they're working with the community to try to get the community to come in and sub because obviously just like us they're having trouble with Subs the the state has recently reduced the number of credits from 60 to 30 that would also include some of our residents or our students who are in college that could actually come in and substitute uh so I'm I'm I'm I'm asking the board if we might want to consider having ESS get involved with with our school district they're having um several um meetings with the community about how people in the community could become substitute teachers there may be some people uh parents community members that have a college degree that maybe never thought of really getting involved as a substitute maybe there are some community members who actually would like to become a substitute so since the credit have been reduced we have a pool of people in college and we have Community people and I think that that that really is a pretty creative idea on Cherry Hills part that maybe we could also take a look at take it sure Sean you want to take a sec and talk about um you know what we've done for ESS and Subs yeah so Sean lean in um actually Sean I'm sorry ESS if you don't know is our substitute service so we bring ESS into a lot of our events um to promote and and to start the uh registration process with any interested um candidates um couple of the the events they've come to you know you talked about college students when we do our College job fair ESS is here with the table they present to the um college students who are here college students have the opportunity to sign up right there on the spot some do um they they are at I can't I can't firmly say they're at every back to school night that we host but I know they try to set up tables at some of the back to school nights throughout the district early in the school year to be present for um parents and community members to again interact with them potentially um you know register to uh to be a substitute in the district um you know they're they're constantly you know out promoting and and partnering with us with different things so and we we can look to to bolster that as well yeah I I know that ESS has been very involved with us I think this is kind of a different spin uh they're focusing on the community maybe maybe contacting Cherry Hill and seeing what they're doing and and and seeing if that would work for us y you got that Sean okay thank you you got it Dr Hibbs just said that to me he's like we should just reach out to Cherry Hill Connie uh also uh with Cherry Hill um and this might fit in uh Julie with what you were saying about your that the the document that's going to be kind of a live document if Cherry Hill has a Facebook page that's run by the PTO and it and they work along with the administration and they provide the community with information about what's going on in the schools and if you go on their it's called um I think it's called Zone PTO and I like it because what it we I know we have some websites out there where parents tune in they they they kind of you know we we we we some of those websites promote activities that are going on uh parents or community members might speak up about concerns that they have but this this this website and maybe you know uh Dr hibs you can go on that website and take a look at how how they're doing it it seems to me to be a very constructive way of getting the word out to the community and parents about what's going on in the schools and I like the fact that all of their PTO are involved in that it sort of goes a little bit along with what Carol Chiller was talking about where you were trying to get I guess Mr dilio to get involved he he's our parent um Community I guess it's part of your your work that you do Outreach that maybe to take a look at what they're doing and see if that some of those kinds of things can be implemented here I know the high school Connie can I just ask you that EAS or West Cherry Hill Easter West this is the whole District I think right school so we have parents where though I think it's Cherry Hill the entire School District all the PTO and all the schools know I'm say say we have parents now it's I think it's called Zone PTO you have to take a look at it uh I thought it I thought it really is something that would be good for our parents to know what's going on in school Connie I just realized as you were describing that and going through the details of what that is that that you don't have access to parent Square because you don't have a child in the district but if we could show her parents Square um maybe when I'm done this it's great it's like a feed of all the announcements almost like a Facebook page but all of your kids information is in there um and you can it's everything is in parent square but I think it would be good for our board members that don't have kids in the district to see that um tonight if possible or later and then just see what you think of that or we could do a presentation on it you know maybe we could revisit I'm sure Elaine could could chime in on this we have asked over the past couple years that those board members who don't have kids in the district to get information that's going out to the to the community we we don't get anything right and and that was supposed to be taken care of but it never got done right is that like a thing I get the information from my daughter-in-law who has children in the district that I don't care I'm I'm going to ask um Dr Hibbs to um see if it will be possible to create parent Square accounts for board members that don't have kids so they can they'll be able to see everything but they won't be able to see obviously their child's information and maybe do a little presentation or something because it it really is like a good feed for it's the best situation that we've had so far in my opinion that's great yeah yeah I would I would love that because there's information that goes out that we're unaware of letters things of that sort and sometimes people are asking us stuff and we don't know and you're relying on and you have to rely on Facebook for it yeah that's a good point the the the the last thing I have under new business uh it was it was brought up at I guess at the last board meeting or the board meeting before about what is what is the board doing that's constructive um in 2011 we we were approaching 2010 approaching almost 10,000 kids we're down to 7,000 what we had at the time is we had an agency come in and assess all our Administration as to what they were doing in terms of their job and maybe expand that to our non-unit people um I can't I like to ask the solicitor are there districts that actually do these kinds of things to try to say what what because we're going into the budget what what do people do and is there some things that we can kind of collapse together do we need all the positions are are there are there agencies out there that can come in and help us assess that are you aware of that with work that you do in districts other districts get it's not something I've seen to be honest with you I may have heard about it on occasion but I can't think of it offhand um I you know as I sit here I'm not aware I can certainly look into it I'm not aware of any agency that comes in and evaluates I think the the effectiveness of administrative staff is well we have we have a document we have a document from 2011 yeah I think what I think what m bigger when she said agency I think it was a consultant that came in back in 2011 and did an audit of the entire Administration and made suggestions about where you could eliminate where you could fuse you know where you could you know where you could gain the whole it was an audit okay well what my thoughts is that was about 10 years ago and we're we're we're going into the budget season um there there was some issues about you know issues revolving around what people do and I'm just wondering is this a good time to to get some consultant agency to come out and take a look and give us some suggestions uh based on their their reports I can pull out the I can pull out pull out the old report and we can go from there um well I I actually just found out about that report so I'd like to see it but I think this to me sounds like a budget conversation because even if we did something like that we'd have to pay for it so if I'm not really sure where to um put this other than to say um I would leave it for the for a budget Retreat type of conversation a lot of it relates to personnel which we can't discuss publicly anyway would that be okay I'm about to propose a bud a budget Retreat so yeah I I I I'm just looking for us to get some type of an assessment on the number of different positions in the district with our enrollment having decreased by 3,000 kids from 10 years ago and and we have heard from the community you know we're kind of topheavy are We topheavy or aren't we okay and and have have a a a someone to to to look at this objectively and give us some information as to where we can go with that we have we have a budget problem there's no question at all coming up and we need to take a look at every position in the district and I'm just I just think it's responsible I know Carol you've brought up many times about having somebody come in and take a look at different areas of of of um the school district and and give some objectivity to it um just throwing that out there is something that maybe we want to consider so um just to catch everyone up who was not part of these conversations um yes I have asked for and I think Sean's working on it anyway I I've asked for uh Market data as it relates to salaries and when's the last time we went out and looked at the actual market right so I think that that's really important we have a lot of um community members staff members parents that talk about um different salary bands what's appropriate what's not I think a few meetings ago I had said what would be the budget impact if we brought a certain group of people up to um a a different level than where they are now in terms of find it was the AIDS the support staff so I think it's important to do that market data and I said that a few times and I know um again I know Sean's working on it at the direction of Dr Hibbs so I just think it's important for us to do that because we don't really know if we're pay what kind of pay Equity we have here unless we know what the numbers show we could pretend like we know but we don't so that's what I asked for was Market data okay well I mean just to EXP the request I mean it sounds like something that people are interested in getting this information I'll just you know leave it to Dr Hibbs to talk to whomever and we can talk about it at the budget Retreat mhm okay what just happened to this okay and you want us to to you want me to send that sorry uh do you want me to send an the 2011 document to the entire board I would like to see that what it is that we're talking about okay yeah this my mic stopped working okay where are we at now new business still any other items of new business that's for me thank you all okay so um I wish I could come over there and move the um Mouse around please don't laugh at my uh my sheets work because I don't I'm not skilled at Excel or Google Sheets but what I'm trying to do here and if there's anybody who's better at this than me I'd love to hand this over to you to reformat it but um it's gone now what what this is while we're waiting for it to come back up is my attempt at splitting the year up because what's so hard is every year with a board of EDS at least three people can be switched in and out so it's very hard to do like long range planning for anything but if we at least look at this next year I know it's kind of hard to see that blue part but I was trying to show you like each color is a month so for instance let's look at January January is the first one all all the way on the left there's a row for key dates so things that we know we have to do we have to start the budget in Janu well we have probably you guys probably started the budget last year but start the budget in January get it reviewed do the retreat then we have to vote on the tenative budget at the end of March send that to the county superintendent get the okay on earmarking those funds then work on it a little bit more than approve the final budget in April and that's a lot of work the other things there are other things too actually Pat made me aware of something from New Jersey school boards that has uh different things that we have to look at but like the superintendent evaluations on there our our evaluation should be on there if it's not and then under that I just put like the work session and the regular session so we can literally see each meeting and what our Focus would be this is where it gets murky so just from like a planning perspective again the layout is not great but um the spirit of the thing is that we would start the pre planning um and data collection so we would determine at our January meetings for example like what do we need to know in order to move forward it could be salary information it could just be everyone does a review of the policies you know there's many different things that we can um request from Administration I put that down a little bit lower um review if you can scroll down it's a again the layout's terrible engage stakeholders collect input from different stakeholders including teachers administrators with with information that we already have parents students I'd love to look at the equity scorecard um again Equity not meaning with race but Equity there's something called the equity scorecard which I encourage everybody to look up the New Jersey Equity scorecard for our district it's all publicly available information that's presented at these meetings but it's all in one place and there's tabs you can literally drill down and see how many of our students go to college how many go to two-year College foure college what classes they're taking you can look at subgroups and see how well they perform form in college and I mean there's so much information you can take from it that's really interesting to me to me personally for instance I was looking at the equity scorecard and I'm like we have no students that take like computer classes we have I think it's one computer class at the high school I forget what it's called but there were like six listed and the enrollment was zero and I'm like in this day and age like why is no one taking like there must be a reason for that like maybe it's because it's a not a tested subject maybe we don't have the staff I don't know but why are we not taking computer classes you know Earth sciences and space and look what's like we need to we have some purview over this you know what are our students learning so there's a lot of work in terms of gathering data that the district could do for us to make us educated in what we're making decisions on really so January is kind of just like that pre-planning data collection so on so forth then in February we'll probably still be doing some of that but that's where we can take a look at our mission vision and our goals see if we want to change anything I would absolutely love if after this meeting everyone tells me um or thinks about a couple of goals that you personally have in mind um which some of which were mentioned tonight I and I just read an article today about um did you guys see the article about um pushing back the start time of school it's like all over today that that's something that they're thinking of doing we've been talking about that for years is that something that we can do now if this getting more support so um you know to just come to the next meeting with a couple of goals that you want to accomplish like I said this to you Steve like when you when things were crazy like on the board and you were like oh it's crazy remember I said to you I said come up with three things that you want to accomplish and you bring it to the meeting you present it you say does anybody else care about this can we do this and you carry it through and that's how you stay focused but if we all get together and decide what we want to do as very real goals um we'll see ourselves accomplishing them and we'll feel a lot better about the time that we're volunteering to do this work um moving on to March that's more go development that's when I think would be a great time to have a retreat um for the prior to the county superintendent vote but to have a retreat where we talk about the budget um we can talk more about that later because I know this meeting is getting really late but if if you're interested in this I'm happy to share this with everyone here but again if there's anyone lorri Maybe there's anyone who's better at Sheets than this Julie than me it would be a good idea if you could like send this to all of us so that we can cruise through it yes I would love to do that it's like for us to be able to see everything here we have to like turn around I mean I even shared this with my sister she was here earlier because she's she's an accountant by trade and she's an Excel person and she just was like trying to help me but I don't so I could use some help with that and then I would love to share it with everybody but if we have something like this this is what I mean by a living document if this is a we can start our meeting and say oh this is what we're doing like this is what we're accomplishing and then at the end of like February we can say look we have our goals and this is the stuff we're doing this year so um it's important to stick with that because everywhere you go shop right baseball basketball people find out you're on the board they're like let me talk to you about this let me talk to you about that and you want to bring that stuff back but at the same time you can't we can't do every single thing that we hear when we're out we have to stay focused on goals or we will just be chasing our tail so that's that um any discussion or comments on this okay I'll send it to you so you can get a better you know idea of what I'm talking about uh oh I said about the updating we're still in new business I actually already covered this stuff that I had in my new business except for um oh yeah onboarding um onboarding of people so policy 144 um I guess we'll do a training of board docs for for um for people right yeah but um policy 144 is like the onboarding like this is what you should have when you start off as a board member so I'd really like to follow that you know and I think maybe there are some people here that never got those things and maybe we all could use it all of that is available in board Docks but there's certain things like that I you know like to look at contracts you all should have a copy of the contract well I'm not allowed to have it and who else is conflicted on the contract P we're not allowed to have it but um actually we are that's public but we can't vote on it but you know you guys should all have that stuff um so in addition to the goals we'll do the on boarding with me and Linda and Elaine and whoever else wants cuz it's been a couple years and then um committees um I know you guys did away with the Committees and you did a committee of the board which Joe Baler will tell you I was asking to do that for many years and I thought it would be a great idea then I saw the meeting last month where you were you were you weren't able to explain why you voted no on certain why certain people voted no on certain things because there were Personnel issues attached to that and I saw that and you couldn't respond and it was just not a great situation when you're in those non Quorum board committee meetings you can have those conversations and you can say well this is you know we're going to give this guy $10,000 more but we don't have to hire in this other position over here so the net net is this but you can't talk about that stuff in public and so my my worry just based on my experience and just seeing that what happened um is that people are going to be a lot less educated about what they're voting on if we if we continue in that so I wanted to see um what you guys thought about that um what Dr hibs thinks about that um if we could go back to committees I personally think we need to try it we only did it for one month and I also think that because of the way the board is reacting to each other right now I like the idea that everybody would vote on things not just a committee of three or four on a committee I like the fact that for right now we're all voting and we're all getting the same information that's just my opinion so real quick comment when we had committees the chairperson of the committee was supposed to have a report that went out to the board members prior I'm talking prior not the morning of but prior soon as you done your meeting you get the board minutes the Comm minutes to the person the rest of the board so they can be familiar with what is discussed um I thought that we got a lot more done when we had committees just a personal opinion I agree with that I think you know having everybody have the same information I understand that challenge that you brought up Julie I think what we could do with that is make the executive session a little bit longer during the work session so we can go through the Personnel issues and discuss the Personnel things in exec and then everything else up in public yeah I'm I'm actually in agreeance with bringing them back with you and Elaine I think that you know we can have a more person conversation and as long as we report out properly what happened and and you know how you know what we're going to pass what you know what was discussed I think that it's it's better we can be have a more candid and and transparent well not that we're not transparent in public but as the solicitor still State as the I don't know who it was I think it was you who stated it that you know we're not able to talk about certain things as far as Personnel Human Resources Etc so that kind of hamstrings us and we still have to vote on something without having knowledge of said it I mean it's more meetings which stinks but um if are so are you saying that there weren't agendas and minutes for committee meetings or anything like that oh there were okay because we're not voting in committee I just want to make that clear like the committee discusses it and that like the way it's supposed to work is that the committee is like the first pass of these things and a sounding board and can kind of work things out and then all of those ideas come to the board nothing's like dead in committee um everything's going to come to the board and the committee people are supposed to talk about like the discussion that they had and have the minutes and and go forward so when you're looking at Finance you know Finance Janine usually you know it's got a million things on there that we have to approve we probably talk about one thing for an hour in that committee meeting to understand to come to understanding and things like that we still have to go to the boarding and have consensus on that and instru structional Affairs really is a long one I don't and I don't know I'm just watching the work session I didn't see that conversation that I know would have happened in committee um Dr Hibbs did you want to say anything or anybody else I know that um so that you w here like a couple of days a week we had backto back meetings if you were on two committees which made it easier um so that it only tied up maybe one of your days a month rather than a couple of days a month depending like how many committees you were on well I was going to say what why don't we do this then since it sounds like kind of half and half we have a lot of meetings that we're going to have to add because of the budget we're going to have to do a budget Retreat we're going to might have to have additional things that we meet about so let's just leave it the way it is then um for a couple of months 6 months might be a lot but let's see how it is for a couple of months and way back talk about it again and just keep it on our radar that we're trying to you know see the efficacy of doing this does that work okay is there I don't know that this is possible but is it possible maybe to have something like a policy as policy and maybe another committee as a whole and then Personnel we do with a chosen committee negotiations we do with the chosen committee and then uh Finance with the chosen committee so we have those one-off meetings we're able to speak candidly and then maybe something like a policy we can have out in the open as a whole or is that not possible or we is it all or nothing it's not really possible with the format you have because when you have a committee of the whole it seems like you're suggesting having a committee of the whole on one end but then on the other end actually breaking up that Committee of the whole and so you guys need to decide which way you want to go about it you can't kind of mix them together can I just my in real quick so okay I I mean I personally I would like to say as a committee of the whole only because from the transparent the transparency to the public um especially after last budget season I think that if we had a lot more of the conversations that we could have with everyone listening I think it just gives everyone a little insight and background yes the last meeting was rough it was the first time we did it but to your point I just think we need to give it a little bit more time to see I think that I mean personnel and negotiations is still done in exact we can't do that in public anyway so right I mean those are conversations that we can have but the other ones I just think it gives everyone a background and a foundation of kind of what's coming ahead and then that way when people hear something that we're talking about and they want to comment and talk about it they're like hey I heard you discuss this I have a comment or a concern I don't know I'd rather keep it for a little bits we cover all that in the meetings we cover all this in the meetings and when you look at when you look at policy 0144 uh in in the meetings and we're happy to have with with anybody but each new board member is invited to come in talk about board function board policy procedures uh we do all that and a whole lot more in in when we talk so we'll talk about board dos we'll talk about the Friday memo we'll talk about all the all the things you can and can't do okay thank you does uh it's important to have consensus I mean even though speaking as a person who just got to this position with a 54 vote I do believe in consensus so I think it's important to wait a couple months and see how it goes okay any other new business seeing none can I get a motion to open to the public are you raising your hand just one one um comment I'm hoping that we're still going to have the aons to the different schools from board members I hope that continues um with this board see why not list I can pass thaton list to you okay you want to redo that or add to it okay I guess I'll just get that information from everyone via email but yeah that'd be great um did someone else have their hand raised no okay uh motion to open to the public motion second all in favor I I um Randy Ford again sorry love the uh how much we're talking about policies so I'm a nerd in that subject so um it's kind of cool just a reminder uh District policy 0132 superintendent has a seat on the board she have the right to speak on all matters at meetings of the board but won't have a vote um I do have a question on going back to H1 which I guess you'll do right after this I'm not your Council I respectfully disagree that the initial training and not the questions themselves from the board are not subject to an exception and I would just ask that you follow when you make the resolution for H1 and vote on it because board resolution is or board training is not one of the nine exemptions to opma that you read just stating the general nature of the subject to be discussed and stating as precisely as possible possible the time when and the circumstances under which the discussion conducted in closed session of the public body can be disclosed to the public and just one other thing is I will be open public records requesting the initial presentation that your attorney will be presenting tonight just because again that's not questions that's informational presentational so expect an Oprah tomorrow morning thank you and have a great night thank you Mr Ford uh Sean Lindy uh good evening members of the board members of the public um everybody probably knows I'm Sean Lindsay I was on the board for two years um and during that time I did noticed quite a quite a quite a few things that have gone on behind closed doors that you are not allowed to be a part of and I understand that however this board is there to do one job it's to better the district and the kids um during my tenure there there were a lot of fights there were a lot of arguments there was definitely a lot of back room talk that should have probably going on however new board new term you know I see a couple members up here that I've worked with that I can honestly say I respect your decisions um some of them aren't the easiest decisions to make some of them aren't even popular amongst the public however it was for the betterment of the community and the betterment of the students so personal feelings aside I think everybody on this board has the intelligence to do that um I would like to make a suggestion even though you know my suggestion probably don't mean much I do believe that you should go back to committees um the reason I'm saying that is because when you're in committee you have different you have certain people on the board that are I'm going to say they are Professionals in what they do prime example I'm going to use one of your board members Scott you've been the business guy for how many years on this board I don't know if anybody who can do a better job than you and I'm being honest with you I don't know Carol Chilla your HR skills I don't know who can do it better I don't and unfortunately with our t with the 10e last year committees were definitely skewed they weren't fair they were packed and a lot of things that happened should not have happened so if you are going to make a suggestion to go back to MIDI go back to committees uh as board president miss GLE I hope that you will be open-minded that you will make it fair you will have people in there that have the strength to better that committee and also you know bring some respect that back to the board we lost a lot last year and I don't care anybody please contest me on this last year not one one single person in this public had trust in this board not one the communication sucked and I can say that now because I'm a I'm not a board member anymore so I have freedom to say that and I again I canest anyone please challenge me on anything I'm saying if anything I say is out of line correct me if you think I'm wrong say hey you know what Sean you're wrong but I'm not wrong on this I was on this board for two years the crap that went on that you didn't see was sickening it was disgraceful and if you would have seen what happened even you would have been disappointed and I'm speaking just as me Dr hibs I've said it before I think what you're trying to do in this district is highly commendable I respect what you've tried to do you've been met with I'm telling you you you've been smacked in the face with a wall and the Wall's getting thicker and bigger every time and I I really hope that this board will will back you support you like you're supposed to Bound by ethics you are supposed to support him and to anyone in here that contests me again look it up school ethics code to support the superintendent and the staff I do hope that this board does a better job than last year because last year was an Abomination we were an embarrassment to this District and I really hope that this board changes everybody's opinion thank you thank you Mr Lindsay um Ray Anderson good evening everybody congratulations to all the new board members good luck much success to all of you uh I'm here tonight I'm the proud principal of Washington Township High School the largest High School in Gloucester County and I am also here tonight as the president of the Washington Township principles Association I would like to look forward to getting some dates on our calendars to have our negotiations our contract expired in June of 2024 I initiated the conversation to begin negotiations in August of 2023 and unfortunately we have only had one meeting since that time to discuss our contract so I look forward to hearing from you and getting some dates on our calendar and moving forward with our negotiations thank you thank you Mr Anderson any else is there anyone else from the public wishing to speak seeing none can I get a motion to close motion second all in favor okay so the board is now going to okay wait a minute hold on we were G to we're supposed to be going into executive session for this board training but in speaking with Mr Schneider that is your last name right got it everyone just called you Ari um he is willing to give a Public Presentation he just wants to buff it up a little bit so it's worthy of the public um and then do the questions that the that we would have an executive in like two weeks um and I wanted to just bring that up again is there anyone who would want to do that just based on the comments that we've received from the public tonight it's not something you have to vote on it's just if a majority you want to do it that way we'll do it that way okay I I have no preference I mean I'm just going to speak up I believe that uh Linda brought up the comment to say that she wanted to be able to ask questions as it was being presented so if questions would not I'm not speaking for you obviously I'm just saying that was a point questions as it's going on because if not I'll go home and it'll rack my brain for days and then we'll come back to it and I'm not going to remember what I to to be honest Linda you are able to ask questions during the presentation like in total full transparency people need to be able to ask questions about me and my situations and they can do that in executive that's why they want to go in executive and I'm fine with that go in executive I don't even need to go in ask whatever you want or let me in and let me explain but during that presentation you can ask questions you can stop them at any time and ask your questions listen it's fair that people have questions I'm okay with just let me just add something for the for the purpose of transparency and understanding this right School boards generally does this presentation School Board does not represent the districts that they do this presentation for they're not District Council I am District Council so if I'm sitting down explaining ethics to to board members explaining your roles your obligations legal decisions I'm giving you legal advice in effect if I worked for New Jersey school boards I wouldn't be giving you legal advice I'd be giving you a presentation because I am not your legal counsel that's the difference again I'm happy to do whatever you guys want as a group it's a presentation that can be done in public or in private um it's it's your choice it's just all I'm asking is if you want me to do it publicly let's schedule it for the next board meeting um or even the I won't actually be at the meeting on the 21st someone from my office will but they could do it on the 21st or I could do it on the 28th it's totally up to you as your board when you do it do you go through through the school ethics um codee but then do you get scenarios like we used to get scenarios like this happened this happened was this ethical or unethical and we had to guess there'll be scenarios I'm sure there will be plenty of questions on other scenarios that's OB and then the board can go with you without me and or with me whatever they want to do and well well to be clear have it out to be clear I'm not going to answer questions on individual board members any questions I answer will be more generally based you know I'm not I'm not here to say board member X did this wrong or board member y did this wrong that that's certainly not my role in this but I'm you know I'm sure there will be questions there will be concerns things that I can answer but no there's never going to be a discussion about you just to be clear that's not part of this presentation okay um does anyone okay want to make a motion to move it or uh and to make it public just based on um I mean Mr Ford I believe you're a lawyer right so you were we can't go back and forth but based on the public um comment I think aing on the side of caution would be to move it is there does anyone want to make a motion to that or close and what do you guys want to do again you guys don't I I don't think you need a motion if all of you want to just do this publicly at one of the next meetings that's fine we'll just do it that way okay so move it that if that's what you guys want to do okay but how I need to I need to see how many I need to see if we have a majority of people that want to move in and I can't do a straw vote so my only question is if we move it to public if I have a question can I stop you because ethics is like huge for me I don't I want to make sure I don't do anything I'm not supposed to two things you could always stop me and ask me the question chances are I'm going to say I'm not going to answer that in public but I will answer it after that said if you have a question as soon as this meeting adjourns if you have a question you could ask me that question also okay it's not I mean nothing against you Julie personally I don't want say I don't care but my questions revolve more around ethics and make sure that I'm being ethical rather than what someone else has done in the past yeah yeah and I think it's I think I think it is important to go over that will you go over some policies too about like what the right and right of abort yeah and I think I don't want to Eric is part of the onboarding or review of the code of ethics or not I assume it is yeah it's it's part of the policy manual I Linda I can point you to that right now okay uh so that you can you can read that and it's it's right out of code but they just talk about prohibited acts they talk about the code of ethics okay that'll it'll give you generalities I think that here's the easy answer here AR is not going to be able to answer anything that will be a specific scenario relating to us does that make sense so if you're saying Hey would this be an ethical violation if it's not something you're doing Ari can most likely answer that in previous places lawyers had no problems answering general questions where is going to stop you is if you go specifics yes VI did do this wrong I'm not going to answer that question that's conc I want to make sure that I you can ask whatever question okay yeah for instance like one thing that I know you're probably concerned about that everyone usually is concerned about is what you can and can't talk about in different places and we actually um you know I keep saying I you know go look at policy 146 it's called board member Authority it's very clear on how you're able to publicly Express Yourself board members are entitled to express themselves publicly on any matter including issues involving the board in the School District Individual board members cannot however Express the position of the board except as expressly authorized in accordance with blah blah blah blah blah a board member shall not represent his or her personal opinion as the position of the board and shall include in all formal expressions in which his or her board affiliation is likely to be recognized such as letters government things like that so like that's the thing where in the me you're you you're told all that jargon and then you're like do I have to close my Facebook account or what like do I have to put something on my Facebook that says these are not the opinions of the Board of Ed yes um so those those types of questions though those types of questions like I just said should be asked in public for the edification of the public as well so I don't know what kinds of questions are going to be asked an executive again but if if the board feels that they need that time to ask personal legal questions then they should have they should have it but I think that that it's better to have a Public Presentation um tonight yes okay so can I have a so we're still going into executive anyway I are we going to take action at all uh no I don't think so yeah we we can take action it's listed on when we come out of executive are we going to take action that's the question okay no there's no action wait can I have a what if there's something walked on in executive and we come out we can take action the way the way it was it was uh public publicized to the public it says the board may take action so you could as part of the resolution and go into exact you could say the board may take action if that's the case there's nothing wrong with that if that's how you or we just can't we just can't take like what would be like really what would walk on I don't I plan to bring something up in executive okay so here I'll read this we have to can someone make a motion to go into executive please I'll make a motion to go into executive can I get a second second all in favor I motion carries okay now I'm going to read this jargon resolve that pursuant to Section 8 of the open public meet public meetings act the public shall be excluded from the portion of the meeting involving our discussion of attorney client privilege further resolved that discussion of such subject matter in executive session can be disclosed to the public if any action is taken by the board either at the resumption of the public session at the conclusion of the executive session or at a public session at a later date our executive session will last approximately 1 hour we don't know if action will be taken so if you want to wait around until we come back out then if take action it would be then and then we would adjourn the meeting we don't need it now good legally with what I just read uh yeah you're going into executive for attorney client advice on a pending grievance and I don't know what other matters so if there's other matters someone else is going to have to speak to it okay so um so we're going to go in the back now and come back out as soon as possible right okay one question yes do any ethics training in public tonight uh is that okay to move it I'm just so that it's in public and you can ask your questions in public but if your question is legal in nature it we would just say hold that until you get into executive so you're getting everything you would have gotten tonight but the public has the benefit of the presentation it will be one of the January meetings I'll work with Julie to figure out want to avoid the teacher the year one yeah definitely not which one is that I think it's the last one okay you said oh sorry um well I just made a motion to move an executive already uh can Mike dilio talk about the hogi sty real quick hang hang on even though we already that I don't think anyone voted did that why did all in favor yeah we did but we're technically in executive session we're in executive technically leave executive come back out and then go back into executive that's fine sorry I just he just texted me uh okay we can do it at have another meeting y okay all right sorry about that okay thank you um I need to see if are you going to wait are you waiting e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e all in favor I okay can I please have a motion to go back into executive motion we just stay here I just need to PE Mo now I'm not really sure what's going on okay I'll just read this what's the topic that we're going back okay can can someone second the motion to go back into executive okay all in favor by okay uh resolve that pursuant to Section 8 of the open public meetings act the public shall be excluded from the portion of the meeting involving the discussion of attorney client privilege regarding contractor adice attorney client advice have attorney client advice regarding professional contracts yeah you get that further resolve that discussion of such subject matter in executive session can be disclosed to the public if any actions taken by the board either at the resumption of the public session or at the conclusion of the executive session or at a public session at some later date the executive session will last not one hour not very long um no action will be taken oh we don't know if an action will be taken action might be I'm sorry this is so messy action may be taken okay that's it can we stay here yeah thank you that would be just a couple minutes hopefully it's only e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e I'm okay anyway can I get a motion to close executive motion all in favor I can I get a motion to adjourn the meeting motion are you just a motion a second who's the seconder Okay all in favor all right