e e e e e e yeah that's not very that's the movie that's not very nice you got a share uh good evening call to order Mr secretary
may we have a roll call please Mr Kiri Bradford here Mr Dylan here Dr forer M Jolly here M Connor M Stanley Mr Terrero
here meeting notice and a meeting notice statement adequate notice of this meeting of the Berkeley Heights Board of Education was given as required by the open public meetings act as follows on January 9th 2025 notice of the Board of Education meeting schedule
was sent to the Star Ledger and The Courier News and was also provided to all schools PTO presidents the bhea president and posted at the administration building a copy was also provided to the public library and filed with the municipal court adjourned to
Executive session whereas the Berkeley Heights Board of Education seeks to adjourn to Executive session in full compliance with the open public meetings Act njsa 10 col 4-6 and whereas the open public me meetings act provides that a
public body May exclude the public from that portion of the meeting at which it discusses matters related to those identified below matters rendered confidential by federal law state law or Court rule individual privacy collective bargaining agreements purchase or lease
of real property if public interest could be adversely affected investment of public funds if public interest could be adversely affected tactics or techniques utilized in protecting Public Safety and property attending or anticipated litigation attorney client
privilege Personnel employment matters affecting specific prospective or current employees be it resolved that the Berkeley Heights Board of Education adjourns to Executive session to discuss matters related to students Personnel negotiations and legal issues and be it
further resolved that the minutes of the discussion of any of these items will be disclosed to the public when matters have been determined and confidentiality is no longer applicable may I have a motion to enter into executive session thank you Dr forer a second I'll
second thank you okay uh vote please I thank you the time is 6:33 P.M e
e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e we are returning to our public session now and may I have a motion to return to public session so move thank you Mrs Stanley may I have a second thank you
Mrs Conor um Voice vote we are returning to public session at 7:42 please rise for the flag salute States for which stands one nation God
indivisible and justice for all report of our student representatives and girls thank you we saw you this week in fencing and we saw you in swimming so you did a fantastic job very proud of our teams good evening throughout the month
of February GL has been celebrating Black History Month by highlighting in black singers and songwriters each morning during announcements earlier this month the Highlander robotics team came in third place at a league tournament securing their spot in a state championship in March throughout
February G students have also participated in service activities and the future Business Leaders of America Club held a bake sale fundraiser with all the proceeds being donated to save the children additionally the environmental Club also opened its
eco-friendly thrift store on February 2 5 th and 26th in order to combat the impacts of fast fashion looking ahead Governor Livingston will be holding a student organized blood drive on Friday March 7th this event is incredibly important as a blood donation from one
person can save up to three different lives from March 20th to 22nd the jail Hilltop players will be debuting their spring musical The Prince of Egypt there will be four shows including one matina on Saturday March 22nd thank you
hello everyone even with the winter sports season coming to a close there's a lot of new information regarding the teams at GL GL hockey has had some major wins that's LED them to competing at State semi-finals again and they will be doing so on Monday along with that some sports teams have also completed their annual senior night both wrestling and
fencing who took the win celebrating their seniors making it even more worthwhile along with that girls basketball has a game tonight versus Point Pleasant burrow and it's their first round of sectionals there have also been multiple Baseball commits this month this includes Michael nney in the class of 2026 committing to UMass
Amherst and Michael basil in the class of 2026 committing to Lehi University congrats to the two of them next comes the accomplishments of both the boys and girls swim teams both teams qualified into the sectional finals with the boys against hell and the girls against New Providence although the boys lost they
put a lot of effort into their season and they continue to support the girls team through the end now the girls team this year has had an incredible season if I do say so myself I am a part of the team at GL and this year we've made history for it the girls won sectional finals for our third year in a row and
we won 8684 so it was pretty close our team then moved on to State semi-finals a place that we have reached multiple times we never SE to pass this point at this meet we tied 885 to 85 after an extremely well done 400 freestyle relay with Anna Kyra Mayer and Lillian Arts
being the MVPs of this meet finishing um first almost after being almost half a lap behind after waiting the Powerpoints we pulled ahead and made it to our first state finals as a team unfortunately we did lose against Haden field um 118 to 52 but even with that loss I can proudly
say that this team has never been so excited to make it this far and we had never thought we this would be possible and I would like to thank Mrs Bradford and Mrs terrer for coming out to support I really appreciated you being in the stands and the spring season starts around next week for many so be on the lookout for track lacrosse and
golf thank you for the reports uh ladies I appreciate everything that you do and congratulations academically and to Athletics uh you may stay or you may leave as we proceed with our agenda tonight thank you superintendent
report yes good evening and thank you Mrs Bradford uh tonight we have board member training from New Jersey school boards and with us we have uh Jean clar and I'll let her take it away thank you so it's a pleasure to be with
everyone tonight I am happy to see new board members um who have joined at your reorganization meeting so I am Jean Clary from New Jersey school boards the field service representative that works with um Berkeley Heights and I was asked to come in tonight to um address ethics
uh this is as you know something that we do on an annual basis so I'll just run through the slides oh sorry um first have to start off by just reminding everyone and for the benefit of the public who may be listening that this is meant as an
educational um piece so that you will be uh well acquainted with the rules and regulations that you need to follow it is not meant for legal advice um your board attorney is the best source to provide guidance to you um for specifics
the presentation um is a bit lengthy so I'm going to just ask if I can go through the slides and you from what I understand the uh presentation has been shared with you in a PDF electronic format so the hyperlinks that you'll have available will work for you so as I
refer to them while I'm going through this so the school ethics act recognizes the importance that um the conduct of members of the local Boards of education and the administration hold the respect
and confidence of the people of the community the work that you do is so uh crucial being focused on uh student achievement that we need to make sure that the behavior will not distract from the important work of serving students
so because of that the board members and administrators must avoid conduct which is um puts their actions in violation of the public trust or which creates a justifiable impression for a reasonable member of the public to think that their
trust has been broken so it's not only the action but it's very very important to remember that it's the impression that we leave the community with so the legislative intent of the ethics Act is really to ensure that
we're preserving public confidence in school in the Integrity of school officials and as lead administrators and board members you are recognized as school officials so they recognize that to um guide your conduct it's important
for you to have the benefit of some standards and we'll be looking at those standards this evening and also a disciplinary mechanism that's in place um to you know ensure that there's adherence to those standards so one of the things we also point out when we do
this training is that um these are minimal minimum set of ethical standards and that we should always be looking to hold ourselves to higher standards but here we'll look at them um so that we can learn and look through the lens of
what we need to know as school officials so the purpose of the uh provisions of the ACT is really to ensure accountability and for board members you are required to meet these four things
uh this code of ethics training um mandatory training prohi uh understand and be in compliance with prohibited acts and file your disclosure statements lead administrators in the district are required to um also be in compliance
with prohibited acts and file disclosure statements and we're going to take a look at these things on the next slides so it's important to understand also who enforces uh the act the school ethics commission known as SEC referred
to commonly um is composed of nine members appointed by the governor um no more than five can be from one political iCal party and it's constituted in the following way the nine members represent five non-school officials two school
board members and two School administrators now important to note for right now currently both positions for the school board members and one for a school administrator are vacant so the school ethics commission is currently operating with six
members so we mentioned disclosure statements there are two types that you are required to file annually um the financial statements as well as personal relative statements I brought some paperwork in and there's um a sheet for you that uh lays out those relative
relationships for reference um so if you are a new board member or newly hired as an administrator in the district you must complete these by um within 30 days of being sworn in or starting your job um every year thereafter you need to
complete it by April 3rd 30th now I want to also just caution that um very often your ba or business uh SEC your board secretary pardon me um will send out a reminder but even if he does or he doesn't each one of you has the
responsibility of maintaining that for yourselves so you need to be aware of what you need to be in compliance with and hold yourself accountable to ensuring that you act on it regardless of whether or not you have been reminded um oh I should just go back and say that um those
those statements uh sorry going the wrong way the disclosure statements um are public records that will be hosted on the SEC website and um failure to file again you're responsible for yourself failure to file will uh lead to
penalty towards you so please be sure that you're in compliance so the other thing that board members are required to do is to meet your mandatory training requirement now just for perhaps the benefit of the public more than the board at this point
um New Jersey school boards is not a regulatory agency we've been um selected as the entity the association has to provide this mandated training to board members um what we do is we do track that uh you have to have your ba
register you for each year of your mandatory training and be in compliance and complete it by the appropriate time if you fall out of compliance we comp f a list we do try to reach out and remind you that you need to do it to get back into compliance but we are required as
an association to turn that over to the school ethics commission and penalties can be imposed for failure to be compliant so in the first 90 days new um newly elected or appointed board members must complete governance one which is basically looked at as new board member
orientation things that you need to know um from the beginning uh basic knowledge and skills an understanding of of NJ qac especially as um those in charge of governance and oversight for the district um those things that you would
need to know as a board to especially be in compliance with um hi training and as we know one of the most important things that you need to do outside of hiring your superintendent is to do an annual evaluation of your superintendent um towards the meeting of those District
goals that serve students right so everyone should be participating in that with the exception of anyone who has a recognized conflict who should not be participating um so it's required under statute that you receive uh
training as you come on to the board so that is provided in governance one as well as um discussion of open public meetings act and of course code of ethics so I'm sorry if new board members are hearing this twice but it's that important that you will um by the end of
year two governance 2 has to be completed that covers fin and policy third year governance 3 goes deeper into depth on student achievement and labor relations and every year following reelection or reappointment you need to
complete governance 4 which provides you with the most recent legal updates which would help to inform you in your decision making going forward so we do try to meet the needs understanding everyone has different schedules and requirements to try to get this training
in we do provide it in in-person sessions um live virtual sessions and self-paced online so if you have a question um and you are seeking guidance about a
behavior because you want to avoid being in um create an Ethics violation um you can seek an advisory opinion or your board attorney can seek it on your behalf any school official may ask for one or the attorney on your behalf and
what that does is you're posing a question and this will make more sense after I go through the code of ethics but if you are concerned that an action you're going to take would um be a violation you can pose that question um
if the school ethics commission has six members agree and right now there are only six um that there's value in the both the question and answer provided uh for other board members throughout the state they can vote to make that public which creates the library and the
resources that we have available to us um your name or identifying information about the district are removed it's really for educational purposes so if you seek an advisory opinion um recognizing that the school
ethics commission retains the power to be that authority to provide that and will also determine um violations afterwards um you are required to be in compliance with the advice that they give you and you know the policeman is
there to just remind you that if you if a police officer informs you that an action you're about to take um could be could lead to arrest or be a violation of the law you can always choose not to follow that but if you do there will be consequences and you assume that
responsibility and likely in the situation with ethics will wind up in a violation so on the bottom of this slide and you'll have access to this in what was shared with you um the hyperlink there will bring you to the advisory
opinions and what we recommend is that before you um seek to get the answer to a question is to actually re you know review The Advisory opinions that have been provided because there might be something that answers that question for you already that's why they make them
public so I am not going to read through all of the cases and all of the advisory opinions just really more to get you familiar um with this if you're not already so um a1424 up in the corner and might be cut
off on this slide um that's a hyperlink that will open to that case that means it's an advisory opinion um case number 14 in the year 24 and excuse me if we look down at the second one
a1324 the question was posed can a board member participate in negotiations if they have an aunt employed in the district who is not a member of the local union right so they understood that if the person was a member of the local union they couldn't but they this
family member is not a member of the local union so interestingly this the school ethics commission advisory opinion was that a member working at you know with the relative working in the district um that member is unable to participate in any aspect of
negotiations and that's because very often the contracts that are drawn for administrators that are outside of a union um take some of what they build it off off the union settlements so um it creates uh something that you need to
avoid the um next one that I'd just like to point out and these are just provided as samples and examples to you um but seeing how when you get familiar with reading advisory opinions how they can inform something that might be something that you're coming up against or
questioning right so on the bottom a724 um the question was can a board member who owns a business in this case it was an ice cream shop um participate in fundraising requests that would benefit the PTO and um by hosting and
advertising right so we could look at it on the surface and believe that that person wanted to that board member wanted to um provide additional support through their business and and is well-meaning and well intentioned but intention has very little to do with it
um the SEC has a very clear uh understanding that you cannot as a board member provide services to pto's District families or any District organizations because of the concern
that the public could see that and then doubt your ability to be objective in future things that come before the board right so we always going back to one of the earliest slides the whole purpose of all of this and the training is because it's so important to hold the
community's faith and trust in you and the roles that you're filling um for the benefit of their students and the aspirations that we all hold for our students so if we move ahead um on this one the second one down 0
a524 um Can a board member who received and used an endorsement from a local union in their campaign materials participate in policy matters relevant to the union members um and here they said that considering the type of uh the
type and level of support it's specific to the case that's presented to them the the information the question um without any Financial contribution which would create a problem um it's not a per se conflict but if you have um support from
a union as a candidate that comes on you should refrain from being involved in negotiations within that year right because again of the impression that's left behind a little bit further down in a224 can a board member who has a
tenuous history with the superintendent including being fired as an employee participate in matters relating to the superintendent and it was really decided that in this particular situation the totality of the board members actions
towards filing a suit um putting up Billboards against the superintendent and other actions as that um would make participation in matters um would clearly damage the Public's trust and the public would have a very hard time
believing there was any objectivity there in any matters pertaining to the superintendent so that was pretty clear so as far as ethics complaints anyone May file an Ethics complaint any person may file an Ethics complaint
um but to do so they have to do the following they have to file that complaint within 180 days of the alleged infraction they have to identify the specific part of the act that they're claiming is violated and they have to produce factual evidence to support that
because the school ethics commission is taking that and taking all that material and really looking at the specifics that are presented to them um they'll consider those facts and circumstances and then um produce a
finding so if there is um a finding that there has been a violation there are four levels of sanctions that can be imposed and the school ethics commission makes the recommendation and the final step is for the commissioner to then act
upon that so um they make the recommendation but the commissioner is the one in you know who has the authority to actually make that so the first level is a reprimand where it's a re by the commissioner saying that your act did actually violate the um code of
ethics but it doesn't res result in any kind of formal action a censure is a bit more serious and it's a formal disapproval and is actually publicized through the adoption of a resolution um going up the scale there's
suspension which um could bar a board member from activities for some set period of time from participating in any board activities during that period and removal is of course for egregious acts removing a board member or the immediate
termination of employment of an administrator so on the next slides just so you know how we're going to do this I'm going to go a through J for the code of ethics I just want to point out that on the bottom um where it says standards that's actually providing what someone
would have to produce as the factual evidence to support a claim that this this part of the code has been violated so on the first one um you as board members are saying that you'll uphold and enforce all laws rules and regulations of the State Board of
Education and court orders pertaining to schools and it goes on to point out that you will make Desir changes only through legal and ethical procedures and of course we know that you as a as a board are a policy-making body and your
policies guide you and ensure that the correct processes being um applied when you are looking to make changes B is I will make decisions in terms of the educational welfare of children and will seek to develop and maintain public schools that meet the
individual needs of all children regardless of their ability race Creed sex or social standing so we know as candidates very often we're drawn to wanting to serve on the board because we have things that we're concerned about we want to serve we want to serve um
Children of the district um but when you become board members and are recognized as school officials we have to remind ourselves at times that we serve all students and want to be committed to to not um just focusing on a subset of
students right it's what you are um tasked with doing so C is important and I think most board members are aware and uh there's a tendency to focus on the first part of C I will confine my board action to
policym planning and appraisal and I will help to frame policies and plans only after the board has consulted those who will be affected by them right so again your policy reading you have a reading the public gets to hear it at a at a board meeting reminding you as
board members that your board meeting is a meeting of the board about board business that's held in public but not a meeting with the public right open public meetings is in place to ensure that the community can see the Sunshine
Law be able to see the functioning of the district and also have access to public comment um so that you can consider those concerns and comments from the public so um d goes on to say that you will carry out your responsibility not to
administer the school which is rightfully the role of the superintendent and together with your fellow board members see that they are well run and what's not laid out here but implied is that you are a body that
has the authority that's been granted to you through the Department of Education which came through the legislature which came from the New Jersey state constitution the board as an entity has Authority and power but individual board
members do not so it's important to recognize that when you act you act in concert with your fellow board members so e excuse me I will recognize that Authority rests with the Board of Education and make no personal promises
nor take any private action that may compromise the board again because you do not individually hold 1/8 or one nth per of the power on the board you have no more Authority than any other individual in your community you do have
more responsibilities as a board member the board has Authority so um you do not speak for the board you do not um conduct business outside of the board table you will refuse to surrender your independent judgment to special interest
or partisan political groups or to use the schools for personal gain or the gain of friends and violations under this can be really varied um and personal gain can be um interpreted in many different ways and can be very
specific to cases brought before the commission so um it's it is really advisable to to go on and look at some of the advisory opinions because it really can help inform you g is I will hold confidential all matters pertaining to schools which if
disclosed would needlessly injure individuals or the schools and you'll provide accurate information in conert with your fellow board members and interpret to the staff the aspirations of the community for its schools so
holding information confidential um we recognize that boards rightly want to be transparent with their communities but there's a proper way to do that releasing information prior to it being ready for the public to hear it can lead
to confusion and mistrust in the community so we hold that information whether it's through our committee structure and committee work we hold those things um confidential and bring it out into public in the proper format
so that the community can retain that trust in you and be informed of what they need to know for what is happening in the schools and with their students um and also that part about um producing the accurate information we know that by
policy the superintendent speaks for the district and the board president speaks for the board right so it's not our independent voices but the voice of the board h says I will vote to appoint the best qualified Personnel available after
consideration of the recommendation of the chief administrative officer for the benefit of the public chief administrative officer often called CSA all means superintendent um the superintendent makes a recommendation to H for hires
based on her experience as the chief executive in the schools as well as her experience as the educational leader of the schools and she will make make recommendations for the hire of those who are best suited to meet the needs of
the district the board has rights to um do some level of review to have confidence that that's happening appropriately and your policies will lay out what you may and may not do um but at no point would a board member be authorized to make a recommendation for
hire that didn't come from the superintendent I I will support and protect School Personnel in the proper performance of their duties um this goes towards understanding that even in recent um times we have uh disagreements in the in the community perhaps even um
different viewpoints on the board personally about things that may be included in curriculum for example but as long as uh staff members are in compliance with New Jersey student learning standards and covering material
that's required to be in the schools um then regardless of personal feeling about that uh you as board members need to support the staff in the proper performance of their of their duties and J I will refer all complaints
to the chief administrative officer and will act on the complaints at public meetings only after a failure of an administrative solution this really goes directly to chain of command so it's I I was a board member myself for six years and you live in the community you serve
which is is wonderful but it's also um problematic at times um because people in the community do see that you have some Authority and are involved in things and will come to you seeking um support for some concern they have and being of the community and being people
that care um which is what put you here uh you want to help them but what you need to be really crystal clear on is even saying things like I'll look into it let me help you out with that that becomes going in the direction of a
violation because you are acting as an individual and you have no authority to act as an individual and it can confuse the public remember the whole point of all of this is to main public maintain that public trust in the community um the right thing to do when you're
approached is you can explain to people that it would be outside the role your role as a board member but that you want to be helpful by forwarding them to the person on the chain of command closest to the issue they're having and then informing the superintendent that you had that conversation so she
can um be aware of it and take whatever administrative steps she may believe or necessary it also helps the staff to find administrative solutions that can be replicated for similar types of issues with other people which helps to support uniformity um and making sure
that people are treated equally and fairly if a solution is not acceptable I should say um to uh a part a party um then and only then would it come before the board the board as an entity and you
would have to vote on it any involvement with back and forth conversations with that person would really require you to recuse yourself because you would not be able to be seen as objective if you had participated in any conversations with that person prior to it coming before
the board so we'll just take a moment to look at a couple of cases um related specifically to the code of ethics that uh a through J that we just went through um here we have C 2422 that's case 24 from it started in
the year 22 these things tend to take time before a resolution so that's why there's a delay but this just came out in 2024 so in this case a member was involved in ongoing efforts to reverse an HIV violation and code of conduct for
their own child um they made contact with the superintendent request ing that um also went to the board as a whole followed up with the board members individually and went to board councel um and this was all for something very
personal to them that would benefit their child so that was beyond the duties of a board member and because of that um and because of the fact that it was seeking to influence board members to overturn The Authority that rightly
resides with the superintendent um it was determined to have violated and if you look at parentheses there it says c d and e it tells you the specific ports of the code that uh were found to be violated and it led to a reprimand so I'm going to skip ahead on
uh C20 I'm sorry c78 23 what's interesting right out of the the start about this one is it say a 15 plusy year board member right so we sometimes can feel a little bit comfortable knowing that well we know we serve we have
experience but anyone is capable of unfortunately making bad decisions or choices or um without intent breaking the code of ethics so we want to be really careful when we look at this um but this particular case was uh this
board member um went beyond the role of a board member by taking actions which would deemed to be to usurp the authority of the superintendent who's responsible for making disciplinary um recommendations um this board member
took it upon themselves to go out to the uh staff member who was found to um have disciplinary action by the superintendent and uh went out and picked up a letter came back gave the letter out to the individual board
members instructed the be ba so that's administering the district when you're directing the work of the staff member the ba um not to give it to the superintendent um and then did not recuse themselves but went on to
um speak up for the staff member in an attempt to overturn the superintendent's decision um so we can see it violated BG um c d f and J and it was a recommended suspension of 60 days because it was seeking to undermine board operations
and the authority of the superintendent these things are um important because they negatively impact the focus that we need to really maintain on really important topics before the board that will serve your students we need to be focused on student achievement and
outcomes so if we move ahead to here um we'll talk about the difference between recusal and exstension um recusal is the formal process of identifying that you have a conflict and that you will refrain from
participating in both the discussion and the vote and it's the formal way of memorializing that you recognize you have a conflict and that the records will indicate that you have properly um memorialized that and again that serves
the public interest because they recognize that you are recognizing that you're objectivity could be called into question and are taking the proper actions um to to maintain their public trust abstentions are are not similar
because they're usually um for other reasons and it we try to avoid having to abstain on votes um as much as we can but there are reasons why it will happen you may not feel um you may be a new board member you may not feel um that you've had the experience on that topic and the vote has to happen at that time
so you may need to abstain um doing that is fine but recusal is the formal way of recognizing a conflict and having that go into the record um the board attorney can actually advise if you use recusal um what impact that might have on the
Quorum and the vote for that so we also talked of the four things that you have to be in compliance with um prohibited acts and I just want to say from the beginning here that this is really um a very brief
Slide the h link that's provided if you look at that will provide um a lot more information for you but we talked about having a conflict we talked about if you have a conflict having to recuse yourself and here the prohibited acts
out lay out for you the reasons that you would be looking to recuse yourself if there's a benefit to you as a school official um or your immediate family due to these conditions a business interest or professional activity that's in
Conflict use of position to secure unwarranted privileges advantages or employment any Financial IM um involvement that may be seen by the public as influencing you um service or employment that may Prejudice your
independent judgment and that could be on a specific topic right you might you can participate in other things but on this particular topic you might need to recuse yourself gifts favors offered with the intent to influence and I would caution that you don't determine that
that is looked at by would people in the public think that that gift was given with the intent to influence and of course any financial gain um also key to understanding that you as school officials as board members um may not
Ever represent any other party or interest um that comes before the the board right your focus has to be on what serves the interest of the district first and foremost and if you have a relation to what's before you um that
could be a conflict and you should get your board attorney's input and guidance on that so if we're going to keep using the word benefit that you have a benefit we need to um look at how that's defined so the school ethics commission lays out
that the definition of a benefit is direct or indirect Advantage right could be your family member not you directly um um profit privilege or gain whether personal financial or otherwise and I would draw
your attention to or otherwise because cases are decided on the specifics that are involved in those cases and the impact it would have on a reasonable member of the public having their trust violated confusion um in the public
leads to uh issues so that that term or otherwise kind of leaves the door open so that those things can be decided on a case-by casee basis the determinative factor is again not your belief that you could be objective but what a reasonable member of the public would believe
whether or not you could maintain objectivity in that case so here we have a case 1223 that was actually an Acting Superintendent who put a substitute list before the board and it was found that
one of the names 160 names on the list one of them was her son so of course that's a family member that son would have a financial benefit by being on a substitute list um and it did result in an Ethics violation that led
to um a reprimand um there were it's interesting sometimes see why things are decided the way they are we don't have all the facts here of course um but some things that might have mitigated uh the rep the uh
sanction so so conflict benefit cases um the one at the top co321 a member is um president of the PSA and here it's the parents staff Association and owns a spirit Weare
company and uh wanted to donate merchandise to sell as a fundraiser to benefit um groups in the school uh but it was found to be a violation because of a couple of things it was being done
through their um company's website they were uh working with the principal to get the principal to go out and encourage family members to buy that merchandise from that person's website that board member's website um and it
brings up a host of issues about um can you be objective in that situation if you that board member when that person's contract comes up before if the if that principal say I don't feel comfortable with this um I don't think my families should be put in a position do those
families feel like they have to participate in that fundraiser because you're a board member those are the things that came up and it was a recommended reprimand so relationship definitions um I did provide a relationship list for
you so it's listed here and you're all capable of reviewing that when we look at hiring and Personnel um it's very important to note that you may not ever hire um a relative of a board member or of the
superintendent if however that family member is working in the district before you arrived as a board member or as a superintendent There are rules that need to be followed an administrator may not ever exercise direct or indirect authority over their relative so that
would um require some clearly laid out chain of command organizational charts to avoid any um violation a board member may not take part in employment matters concerning um the superintendent or anyone in the
chain of commands between their relative and the superintendent and a board member may not take part in the search selection vote to hire um or post hire evaluations or annual evaluations after that um or anything to do with contract
discussions because you have a family member in the district if that's the case so this grid for collective bargaining just kind of lays out um for you there are questions that come up uh based on your relatives uh what the
relationship is if it's you or a family member who that person is if they work in the district or not if they um even aren't working in the district but belong to a union and have heightened um
involvement in that Union in leadership roles um even if they are not within the district you would uh be in conflict because often the thinking behind that is that um One Union in one district is looking at what another Union in another
district is doing so um there's there's that comparability there um so it lays out for you in these scenarios whether you may participate in negotiations um and even if you aren't able to participate in negotiations it may be possible to participate in the
ratification of that um for the vote after the memorandum of agreement salary guides total compensation is in place but it's very specific to the relationships so um again this is not legal advice so you go
to your board Council who will guide you on that so um endorsements of candidates um is not a per se conflict from local state or national um unions that support a candidate but again um a Bo a board
member who comes on and has been supported should uh refrain from participating in negotiations within that year again just so that it's clear to the public so another uh question that has come up is um if you as a board member
have a family member in the district how it might affect some board decisions like committee assignments so an advisory opinion um was found a board president has a child that works as an instructional assistant in the district
and we recognize that it's the president's role to um assign board members to committees assign the chair of that committee um but because they had this family member in the district they were not allowed to have anything
to do with anything that may touch on the employment of their family member so they were not owed to assign people to committees uh assign the chair of committees and often the president will sit in as long as it doesn't cause a quorum on committee meetings and was not
allowed to do that either so it's important to be aware of that underneath that it just mentions that it's not the board president but another board member who has a family member in the district very similarly you can't participate in um it says limited but uh not not
limited to but including personnel negotiations instructional and finance committees so in real terms um your ability to participate can be greatly impacted advice of council defense for penalties so to be clear if penalties
are ascribed um to use an advice of councel will not remove a penalty but it can mitigate the findings um but it can only do that uh based on whether or not these four things are are in place it
has to be that the approval or advice was given prior to the action taken that the individual who offered the advice uh had the authority to give that advice for you as a board member which would be your board counsel and not necessarily your friend who's an attorney who lives
up the block um that all pertinent facts and circumstances were fully disclosed so that the advice given to you um contained all of that even information that may not be compliment um and that the individual board member
complies with the advice received so if there are three things that you are given as advice to follow and you only follow two it takes away the ability to use advice of counsel now even if advice of councel all of these conditions are
met um it's really very case specific and fact specific so it may help mitigate or quite frankly it may not so we recognize that board members are often very um involved participants
in schools in the community and the question about whether or not you can participate as volunteers comes up so I would point out that one of the greatest volunteer activities you are undertaking is what you're doing right now as board members serving your students um but the
school ethics commission considers the degree of involvement and Authority so your involvement with students and staff um the fre frequency and level of interaction that you have with them as well as the authority to give and receive directions um and give orders to
staff or students and also your um authority over funds and resources so it's really a matter of degree for involvement and authority to guide you on whether or not a particular volunteer activity outside of your volunteer
activity on the board um is acceptable so when we look at it we know that the code of ethics we talked about C mentions that you have to confine your board action to policymaking planning and Appraisal so if you are um regularly
actively going to be a presence in the schools working um side by side with um staff whose normal responsibilities are to be there and be handling things um and you're having heightened um contact
with students staff or families that would likely be a violation of the code under d uh where it speaks about not trying to administer the schools if you are in situations in schools where you're giving and receiving directions
um from staff becoming directly involved in things that would normally be staff responsibilities that also becomes a concern for a violation and also when we look down um where we're saying you'll not take any private action that may compromise the
board we have to be careful as board members when we are in school settings because if you develop relationships with staff where it looks like you're a colleague with them um your objectivity and your ability to be objective when it
comes up to things that will affect their employment um contracts or any other things that may affect their job um could be called into question your objectivity could be questions so you have to be uh very careful about how friendly is friendly because you are now
a board member so volunteering in schools some guidance that has been given through advisory opinions is that if you are um assisting your spouse who is running the theater program and you're in the schools all the time through all the rehearsals and
you know the the custodian is coming in you're telling them to set this up or move that you're directing people the frequency and level of involvement would be considered um an inherent violation uh likewise if you are perhaps before
you are on the board or if you are on the board now and um running a club which puts you in direct contact with students on a regular basis that would be an inherent violation um or if you are a volunteer coach and working alongside the football
coach and working with the students inherent violations one time in frequent things that you may do as a board member you may go in and participate and read across R America and then maybe later in the year you might be asked to chaper own a trip might even be for your
child's class and you may want to do that that infrequent um activity probably would not be a problem it really becomes a matter of the degree so one of the things we always suggest is that you um whenever you are going to be in the
schools that you are letting the superintendent know of your intent to be in the schools and why you're going to be in the schools that helps um to keep it on the record and above board helps her administratively guide that activity um and ensure that it's not distracting
to the students and that you are not seen as having advantages that other members of the public wouldn't have right most times our doors are locked when our students are in the building and people can't just freely walk about so with social media when a board
member makes a statement the SEC considers the content substance and context of the statement to determine if a reasonable person in the community would um believe that you're speaking in your official capacity okay so what they look
for is a Nexus and they're looking about you know the post and the rule that you have on the board so the two samples that are given here the first one is a member discussed without a disclaimer um a policy she moved to abolish in uh a
policy indicating it was reviewed by board counsel and approve and opposed by four board members so clearly that's board business right the topic was board business um and there was no um disclaimer so it would be reasonable for a member of the public to think you're
on the board you must be sharing this on behalf of the board so that was seen as a violation um in the other situation a board member just shared a campaign image of three people that were candidates um running for the board and didn't really make any statement didn't
support not support that those candidates just put it up there um and it was found to really not there was nothing to support that that would confuse the public or lead to a Breaking of trust so for social media um again it's
um whether or not the public would have a reasonable expectation that you are speaking on board business on behalf of the board so they provide a suggested disclaimer that should be used and yes in fact it is suggested you use it bold
and italic um the following statements are made in my capacity as a private citizen and not my capacity as a board member that's the first part but very very important to include the second part these statements also do not rep are not representative of the board or
its individual members and solely represent my own personal opinions so it was found that um a member had endorsed board member candidates and spoken against another candidate and only used the first part of that disclaimer
leading members of the public to be confused and believe well you're speaking and you're a board member you must be speaking on behalf of the rest of the board they must all feel the same way this person does and that was actually um found to be a
violation so questions that come up about disclaimers you're not automatically in violation if you don't use it disclaimer but you are taking a risk um it will be content and context specific as we said um you're not
required to use the exact one from the SEC but I would say that since they are the body that will be finding whether or not you are in violation it might be a good advice to use their recommendation for disclaimer um and what leads to a
violation right again can't say it enough it's really the content the context and the impression that's left to members of the public um going on from here some general guidance um if you have been
using for candidacy um social media you must stop using those social media platforms that you were using in candidacy because that alone can be confusing to members of the public to know when you are a candidate you free to say anything you wanted um not to
suggest that you don't have uh your right to free speech but as a school official you have a higher standard that you need to meet to be in compliance with the school ethics act so you have to be more concerned about your speech um any social media account that
identifies you um and your position on the board um is problematic if you just simply like or share a post um from your personal account and it's not on anything that's in front of the board very low chance that that's
going to be a violation but one thing I would like to point out is um being an administrator for any social media page is problematic because by being an administrator making a choice about what you allow to be on or don't allow to be
on you can be seen as guiding that and participating in that statement so you can actually in violation by not having a disclaimer and by having um a situation arise where it's confusing to members of the public so it is not recommended very strongly not
recommended to be participating as an administrator on social media Pages because you could be held responsible for something someone else says so thank you so much because you're still all awake and with me and I appreciate it and I really just want to thank you as a former board member
myself as an administrator in a public school district I really um respect and appreciate the time and effort you do put in and the community should be very thankful that for that time and your attention to these things that really are very very impactful to the students in your District so thank you so much
it's always a pleasure to come out I look forward to seeing you all again this is Clary thank you so much I appreciate that um does any board member have any questions okay thank you Mrs CLA we know you have to leave and thank you for being
here moving on on our agenda uh there are no committee or liaison reports uh oh I'm so sorry I apologize um yes we have our
auditor for a presentation thank you thank you good evening I'm here to present the uh fiscal year 2024 uh annual comprehensive financial report and also the udit's management report uh there's two reports that you have the smaller of the uh two
reports is the udit's management report uh this is a report that's required by the Department of Education they give us certain section to look at your Student Activities your payroll your purchasing and if we note anything during our audit we'll have a finding and recommendation in here and this past year you did have two findings and recommendation a I just
want to go over uh the first uh finding deals with your student uh student body activities uh we noted several checks only containing one approval signature in addition cash receipts were not always posted to a cash receipts register uh the recommendation is that all Student
Activity checks contain two approval signatures and cash receipts be posted to the cash receips Ledger uh with cash receipts uh there's one where it's just a deposit slip uh we we're we're charged with making sure you're depositing money within 48 hours so we always want to see that in the C Ledger with a date on it so we can check the seem to have gotten
into the bank within 48 Hours uh and as to the uh checks your Student Activity policy that you have at the district uh requires two signatures uh it's required to have the principal signature and one other signature on there uh to the schools that we looked at uh some of the checks only had one signature on them
they refer uh field trips Turtle Back Zoo was one of the uh one of the vendors uh so nothing no large no large dollar amounts but you have a policy in place that calls for two so you should have two uh the second uh fing recommendation deals with your application for state school aid uh reads we noted several
differences between what was reported on the application for state school aid and what was reported on the district supporting work papers in addition supporting documentation for several students reported as low income was not available for audit uh you have work papers that support your application that that is you know approved by the
state uh there's a difference between the two uh in discussing it with the business office we it was determined that the Mountainside children students were not included on the actual ASA count so that's why that there was a difference between the two uh with the low-income applications there were seven seven students that we tested where we
couldn't have either a approved application or a direct certification saying that they were low income direct certification is if the students on food stamps the state will send out a list showing that the student automatically qualifies uh so seven of the students we could not get documentation for um is
there any any questions on the anything in the management report Mrs zakeri hi um thank you for presenting I have a quick question uh in the acfr we
see the spending for certain line items I felt that did you reconcile when you report let's say on Transportation or security whatever is reported in the acfr reconciles with the actual invoices how do you reconcile those numbers um
we'll we'll we'll we'll basically do a sample we'll we'll SE select a sample of vouchers and on the voucher if it's charged to uh a transportation line will see that it's charged to the transportation account and make sure it's Transportation Rel totals do you reconcile the total spend for the year
uh reconcile with what with what was actually paid the actuals versus so what was actually paid from by the district for transportation or security does that reconcile with the actual paid number uh well the the
actual paid number in the in the a in the Acer is it's your what was dispersements your checks you wrote and also accounts payable so you may not have written checks for all all the money that's showing is spent on the on the Acer in the on the C1 which is your operating statement it will include dispersed checks written and it will
also include accounts payable where you guys have ordered Goods or gotten received goods and services but have not paid them yet so it's not going to be automatically going to be what exactly what you spent with checks so but you're looking at data for last year so you should have everything in in the data
set correct yes okay so because I did see like a little bit of a discrepancy but I couldn't email I will email um the board secretary and then you know can answer that sure thank you yes Mrs Dolly thank you um just so on on the
findings um in terms of uh you know I was looking I was uh discussing with our board secretary the corrective action plan um is that something that comes from you as a recommend that's purely yeah that's purely purely purely finance office yes Mrs
Connor who's who's generally responsible for tracking the plan so I see the corrective action there are a couple steps who's responsible is there somebody in the business office that's that's sort of the the person responsible or how do we
make sure that the corrective plan is in motion yeah that's kind of kind of left to you guys in the district using the corrective action plan it it'll State you know if something to do with the student activities you may mention the principal you have it's something to do with in the business office well it may be the the board secretary but uh that's
that's up to the district how they want to track that yes Mrs Stanley so I just had one question I know you've done our um audits in the past these are new right these are new things that were found had we had the
same issue about the non- signatures before and it just was we it wasn't a corrective action plan or is it getting worse or just there were a few exceptions last year it got worse this year so we felt it should be bought to board yeah okay and the asssa was a unfortunately was a repeat finding from
the prior year so that was that was two years in a row where we had that problem yeah for the second one yes yeah okay thank you so much um from from a from a just to go over from a financial perspective uh the district's general fund which is basically your ating fund uh you started
the year out with a little over $1.2 million in Surplus and you ended the year with a little over $12.2 million in Surplus uh there's various components of what that Surplus is uh the first one is your assigned yearend incomes that's for monies where you guys have ordered goods and services have just not paid for or
received them yet that was a little over $1 million your excess Surplus from the current year was $2.4 Million uh your excess Surplus and that $2.4 million will have to be used in your fiscal year 26 budget you guys are working on now that has that's the minimum minimum requirement you have to put in uh the
excess service from the prior year was $1.4 Million that was used in the fiscal year 25 budget that you're in right now uh your capital reserve uh stayed about the same at $3.9 million your maintenance Reserve pretty much stayed the same a little over a million dollars
your unemployment uh Reserve is $444,000 your unassigned fund balance uh was a little over $1.1 million and your assign designated for subsequent years was $746,000 that was money that was also used to balance your fisc year 25 budget that you guys are in right now so
overall the district as of June 30 2024 was healthy any other questions or comments from board members no I see none so thank you very much thank you very much oh I'm sorry Mrs Jolly right there was just um one
question I'm not sure if you had a chance to see it there was um on the asfr on page 123 the exhibit um I think it was like J two sheet number two there was like a bottom line number of three million and change I just wanted to
understand what that number really represented okay so that so that's your uh it's your net position as of June 30 2024 there's three different versions of accounting in your in your in your act for the one that the district keeps their records on is the budgetary basis and that's what you guys base your
budget off of and basically all your decisions off off of about over 20 years ago they decided they want us to put in full acral uh statements um so that's your net position which takes into consideration things like your debt service your pension liability your fixed assets uh it's more for reporting
purposes it doesn't really affect you know the the the records of what Anthony keeps in the business office yes Dr forer that your office that submits the AIT State uh well we we basically come up with with the audit report give it to
Anthony Anthony has to it it's on a portal now he get it on a portal yeah anything else okay thank you very much thank you apprciate
it um just a reminder to board members now that we have heard the ethics presentation please sign this and hand it into our board secretary by the end of this meeting moving ahead to uh board Communications
Mr secretary there are three uh board Communications that I have first one is from the um there's titled the audit from the Berkeley Heights um Community Watch Team second is titled serious concerns
regarding the 4.5 GPA scale that is from Mr Daniel Brown lastly is the school closures and delays and that is from Michael leblond those are the three communications that I have
received thank you um Mr secretary may we have the report of the business administrator uh yes um have some uh items that were uh done with uh GL we had a replacement of the heating coils
in the classrooms uh there was installation of a new Spotlight in the blue gym for the uh wrestling matches placement of uh LED lighting in the Halls uh there was something that was uh done with the power outage that
created the uh lighting to go out uh company had sent replacement lighting and our team had uh reinstall those uh the repairs to the cafeteria rooftop units uh were coils were done um we had uh repairs to the doors
to the main entrance of the of the school uh new sports banners were hung in the blue and red gyms uh and the floors of the classrooms that were affected from the uh Heating units uh with the hot water and coil
brakes uh were scrubbed by our custodian by our night custodians and everything that was mentioned was all done by uh done inh house by our staff and lastly the uh cafet the coil for the cafeteria rooftop unit uh was ordered and that was
uh notification was sent to us that is going to be shipped out on May 8th uh Mountain Park painting of door frames and hallway walls are in progress and work is being performed by our um the Mountain Park custodial
staff at Mary Kay there's a ro uh programming of a boiler that's being done in house by our staff used there is a repair ing of uh heating univ ventilators in two classrooms and uh in the cafeteria that is also being done by our
staff CMS we had belt Replacements and pulley adjustments to the blue gym uh rooftop unit at and uh repair of a hot water actuator in the vice principal's office uh those are being done by in-house staff and lastest over at
Woodruff uh Mower and snowplow uh repairs are being done in house by staff and that uh concludes my report does anyone have any questions for our yes Mrs Stanley wanted to comment that the wrestling light I got to go to one of
the meets looks amazing I think that the the team and the parents really appreciated uh just that extra uh care for that it it looked great C CJ's been asking for it and the gentleman finally got around to doing it after all the Heat and repair between the update of the gyms and the painting and the new
mats and it just it looked everything looked great so I just wanted to make sure we hopefully over over the break we're looking to get the uh lockers uh painted on both floors to get that done and the other thing that we wanted to start to do is pull one of the um uh
Banks of lockers and have one of the um trophy cases started uh just to see just one of them to see how it comes out we've gotten three quotes um had to divvy up that quote by the 19 of the uh benches and the lockers that they wanted
so we're going to see how the one comes out and if that does come out well meets everybody's expectations then we'll proceed about doing several others that's great because that was one of gl's big asss when we um did a walk when that you offered the board walkthrough yes so they're going to be really
excited about that so we're we're progressing and that concludes my report any other questions or comments okay thank you we're going to move on to annual appointments now resolution a all board members may I
have a motion to move resolution a in a second thank you Mrs Stanley and a second I'll second thank you Mrs terrera uh the board president understands that there is a lot of controversy about these
appointments um at this time our policy 0155 needs to be restructured and redefined these appointments could be temporary and shortlived but I feel that we need to move ahead and get some things started within our our board and
work with our Administration on these uh as a reminder what we're going to do we have separated the committee appointments from the liaison appointments and at this time as we go around we can have a discussion uh we'll go around the table and we're going to have each member's comment and then
we're going to vote Yes or no uh again the policies that we have in the Committees that we have policy says that the board president does the appointing and the majority of the board approves again these policies or excuse me these committees and some of the liaison
appointments have been outdated and need to be updated and refined and hopefully that will be done very soon so going ahead now we'll start with Mrs akiri do you have any comments on this I'll pass thank you Dr
forer yes Mrs Stanley so I mean I'm not particularly happy with this situation because I think that uh we kind of had four board members you know kind of like stomped their feet to get this um and I think
it's not necessarily in the best interest of how we do things however I do know that we have to move forward um as we could see right of the last two meetings we have a lot that we need to get done and I think as uh Jean Clary
said we need to focus on the students and fighting over Who's Who on where is just not productive and and not in the best interest of the students um so that's my comment um but other than that I I you know I'm I'm frustrated that
we're at this point but I hope we can move forward and get stuff done get the work done Mrs kaana not supportive of the way these assignments are right now I see several deviations I see three people on the
finance and Facilities committee we've traditionally had four um I don't think anybody's preferences necessarily are coming through in these um uh in these assignments I did have an alternative proposal that's in everybody
mailbox um I I I don't think that these committee assignments um are are necessarily reflective of the preferences or the choices that were shared Mr Dylan uh one question to start
uh was was myself individually excluded from every any committee uh because of my town of residence or was I considered for all and um before we vote I'd like to understand how the priority tracker that we all did
translated to this um to understand the differences uh M Mrs Terrero so that was one of the things I actually saw Miss con's email and I was kind of looking in comparison to what the preferences were
versus what M Bradford put together versus um what Miss cona provided and and so I was a little confused as to why things were moved around the way they were like the thought process of
it and Mrs doll all right so I'm G to read from this because I prepared um a comment with respect to each um committee so finance and Facilities why were there only three members is there were typically four and Gail why um were
you on the committee when it wasn't even a preference for you while Mrs akiri and Dr forg are had it as their number one preference um negotiations asked um why is Mrs Stanley on the committee um over Mrs Terrero when Mrs Stanley didn't even
ask for this um and Miss Terrero had it as her number two preference Athletics wise Dr forer in the committee when he didn't ask for it but it was a number three preference for you Personnel um why is Dr forgan the committee over Mrs Conan when it was his
fourth choice and Mrs con's First Choice why are you on the committee when it wasn't even one of your preferences strategic planning why did you put Mrs akir in strategic planning in place of yourself when it was your second preference and it was number four for Mrs
Airi technology while Mrs terrer was the only one who listed it as um a choice why did you put Mrs akiri on the committee when you didn't give her either her first second nor third preference curriculum based on preferences the committee should have been myself Mrs sakir and Dr forer this
these were all our number two choices no one had this as a number one why would you bring Mrs Stanley when it was her number four and Mrs Conan when it was her number three policy why did you assign Mrs akiri and Mr Dylan when neither of them asked for it instead of myself it was my number one choice and
Mrs Stanley it was her number second choice so I guess in summary I would say that you largely ignored um the preferences especially those of Mrs cury and inserted yourself and others in committees that they didn't request um the point of collecting
preferences was to help guide you so you can build consensus and create committees that the members are passionate about I think that would help the community and the students and the and the schools so I'm very confused by your proposal to me makes zero sense um
and I think that if we do fail to create committees based on your proposal I think that would be a failure um on your part thank you um in terms of preferences Mrs akiri had three of her excuse me two preferences I had one Mr
Dylan had two Dr forger had three Mrs Jolly had three Mrs cona had two Mrs Stanley had one and Mrs Terrero had two we had a conversation with Mrs um uh Mrs cona and Dr phry and yes m Mr Dylan
there were some exclusions and changes were made to be honest and that was at the request of Mrs kanana so moving ahead you have an opportunity now to vote yes or no on these in terms of the liaison everybody received their
preferences on the liaison there were two two liaison representations that were not filled that my name was put on okay Mr secretary may we have a vote on on the um Lee is on I thought I
had put my name for the rec but I think I didn't end up putting it in the document so if that is well we're also not on that resolution we're on a and that's B just for reference right but resolution A and
B are together on this resolution but we only moved a we moved a okay all right so um Mrs Bradford I would like to understand I put in uh my preferences for four
committees and I didn't get any of them and this is my just to document this I hope it gets documented in the minutes this is my third year serving on this board and every single year I have requested my first second and third
preferences are never assigned and I get pretty much I it feels like I get relegated to committees that I have never asked for and I just want to understand and um also if we are trying to move ahead with the new superintendent why aren't you factoring
in any experience or continuity and it's it's a great idea to you know rotate members but you should take our preferences into consideration and also I do not believe there is anywhere in our policy that says that uh you know
the board president basically just arbitrarily makes the decision on who gets appointed on what you you have to ask you to seek our input because we have to work collaboratively the whole point of committees is to work collaboratively for the district or you know to for the betterment of the
students so if the intent of you as an appointed board president is to work collaboratively you need to take our preferences into consideration and based on the final outcome that we are seeing it doesn't seem like that was taken into
consideration thank you everybody did receive a document and they put their preference down for committees and for liaison and not everyone got their first choice or second or third but they did get a choice of both preferences we're going to call for a roll call vote is
that correct now Mr secretary um just a one other comment yes while that may be true there was no reason to work your way backwards because you put yourself in committees where you didn't even have a preference taking away someone's spot that did so that makes no sense to me
what's ever and there were some committees that people only had a choice or two of there was only one committee and that was the technology committee and not and again not saying anything that had to be filled I agree but you filled it with people who you didn't
give their first their second nor their third saying Mrs sakiri got her one of her preferences she got number four thank you um again you have the opportunity to vote Yes or no so Mr secretary are we moving only a for
committees at this time I believe that's what you said if I'm not mistaken okay and then we'll come back and do B so there's a roll call vote on committees also um one quick question um Mrs Bradford I I see that the board attorney
here and I see you asking him some questions and if he's giving you any advice I think the board attorney is for the entire board so I would really kindly request that the board attorney give the advice in the mic so that the entire board can here yes board attorney
would you please repeat what you just told me about the number on the Committees so I've said um so um I've said two things number one I confirmed that only a was on table and number
uh on the issue um one of you folks mentioned that at one time some of these committees had four members I don't know if it was recent or not but it was recent so this was an issue addressed by Me by the way my name is v g and I've
served the board for in various capacities for about 30 years so I'm gonna say this was about 10 years ago the administration asked me a question I think it was raised by public on M of the board about some of your committees
so some of your committees would be improper to have four members so and the reason is because there could become matters come before that committee for which you would be function as a s not
an and you have a violate open meetings act the best example I could give you is the Personnel so if there was a matter coming for the Personnel be talking about something going on at one of your elementary schools the board in that instance functions as a board of seven
not a board of eight if you had four people on that committee we' be violating the discuss that person I I don't I don't know what the board did with that advice at the time but I believe there was a period of time when you went from having committees commit
of that I don't know what changed over time there might be some committees where people could still be okay imag all of that I only said I only said I think there are C deal I me I I've reminded them on
occasion when it did happen yeah thank you and I just wanted to understand what the advice was and I believe we used to have separate finance and facility committees before prior to 2022 in 2022 the board decided to merge these committees and that was one committee
because that had four members uh because everything it's for the entire District finance and Facilities Finance maybe obviously a s person not an so again you have to be careful about that very easy if you have a committee to violate the
open me repeatedly because you're discussing thank you I have um can we make an amendment to this resolution on the appointments well you can make a motion to amils okay can I I would like to but there
also is a uh in our policy it does say that the President appoints the members and that is the reason I'm with all due respect this Brad again we know that this committee structure needs to be re-evaluated eight is too many and hopefully that we can refine this and
restructure our committee within the next few months so that we are able to function beuel this has nothing to do with yes we can restructure anytime this has to do with you ignoring um reaching out to the board receiving preferences
and then ignoring them the these are two separate things we can always restructure the committee that's fine or the number of committees they may be temporary but to the extent that they're not and they're going to be around for a while maybe for the least next two three months right until we come up with a new structure this has nothing to do with
the structure of the Committees this has to do with the appointing people irrespective of what the board preferences were um we have already called for a vote so can a motion be after a vote um I believe I would like to move a motion to amend this
resolution yes can I read it yeah that's where I was trying to read it and I got interrupted I would like to move a motion to amend resolution a in regards to committee appointments to what um the vice president dipti Han had proposed um
for athletics and co-curricular member chair was Bill Dylan members are Mrs Bradford and Mrs kanana uh for curriculum Dr forer is the chair um akir myself and Mrs Jolly are the members for
finance and Facilities Mrs Kana is the chair uh Dr forer Mrs Bradford and me are the members for negotiations um Pamela Ley is the chair Mrs Bradford and uh Dr forager are the members for
personnel Mrs Bradford is the chair uh Mrs Tero and Bill Dylan are the members for policy uh Mrs Jolly is the chair um Pamela Stanley and Mrs kanana are the
members for strategic planning um if akir this me as a chair and Mrs jolly and Mrs Tero are the members for technology techology and Communications uh Mrs Tero is the chair and Mrs Stanley and Mr Dylan are the members may I have
a second second can I make a comment because I'm just looking at this whole situation and I'm trying to take a step back look we're not going to get anywhere with this either way we're
rejecting M Bradford we Poss possibly might reject Miss Kan I think we should talk because obviously we want to handle this as a um a board as a whole on this let's talk about the positions that we
really care about and work towards not just doing what one person does or the other let's try to work together to come up with a solution so we don't walk away tonight without any committees I hear you uh Debbie and we have tried to work
together we did give our preferences and as you can as as you just heard me say this is my third year on the board none of my bir second and third preferences were taken into account and this is second year in a row with a president who has been appointed by the county
superent and last year you know how many committees and liazon Mrs Bradford appointed herself on excuse me I did not appoint those committies last year that was Mrs Penna um so you you were on a lot of committees you were not a chair but after Mrs Penna resigned and you
know uh you were in charge so yeah wait yeah no if you were the president sorry I'm sorry you were the appointed board president and you did that so I'm sorry and uh so you appointed yourself to almost like nine
positions and you were not a chair on any of them that's not accurate can can I just please finish so this is we have talked about it we have conveyed our interests and there was a Google
document that was circulated to all of us de we put in our first second and third and our fourth preference and layers on mine I had to go back and change it the second time because what I put in was not act like you know was not accurately reflected and then the
process that was followed especially in in the spirit of collaboration we all got we were supposed to get if we got a one googlec document where we put in our preferences where everybody could see what what everybody I could see your first and second when the final appointment or assignments were made by
Mrs Bradford after meeting with Mrs kanana and Dr feltri we got individual emails basically saying hey this is what you're appointed on and that is that email is what and then the language in that email and even today the statement
being 0155 need to be reconsidered rest structured this is this is not accurate like you know we confirmed with Mr dler at the last board meeting e 0155 at the reor Mrs Bradford said 0155 is in limbo
today she reiterated 0155 needs to be restructured this is only small you know stop Gap or whatever there is nothing like that our board attorney gave us an advice say saying 0155 is in fact in effect so the email the whole process of
seeking feedback and then communicating oneon-one just basically arbitrarily putting her choices I didn't ask for any of these committees listen I agree with you I I agree with you that you should have gotten one of your first two choices and 100% I support you on that I'm willing
to take my third or whatever this is my third year in a row so where I'm coming from is yes we need to work together and I believe Mrs kanana and we have tried reaching out to Mrs Bradford I sent her an email she sent a communication to the community members with an inaccurate
chronology of events I never get any responses back from Mrs Bradford FYI all my emails just feel like they're going into a black hole and I never get a response so this with inaccurate information we just had ethics training I think it was G it said that the board
president is the chain of command she can communicate on behalf of the board that communication had a lot of inaccuracies in chronology of events so if we want to so if we want to work together please finish Mrs S yes there if there was anything inaccurate in my email you should have replied back to me
okay so now if we want to work together and move away from this meeting today with committee appointments we could have done that in these three weeks leading up to now so let me ask you guys a question because I know there's motions on the board here and there's
Mrs Conor's version there's Mrs Bradford's version maybe we should actually work off of the preference document and talk this out let's talk it out in the meeting let's do it right now I mean let's look at the
preference document and discuss it if there's an issue we can at least put some committees in place but let's talk it over and let's not negate certain members for whatever we feel that they're not qualified for
CU that shouldn't happen and let's be fair and make sure that it's fair to everybody right it can't be one side or the other I would be very happy to work with Mrs kanana in doing that but not at a public meeting now when we have so much to continue There is a motion on
the floor Mr secretary would you take a vote please on a sorry motion sorry motion I feel like there's a piece of information here that I still need to vote Yes so I think your answer to my question before was it wasn't anything legal or statute or policy that would
prohibit me from serving on any specific uh committee it was the preference of a of the three of you to say I shouldn't yes it was Mrs con's uh main objection Miss F she said you were there
too though were you yes right yeah but I don't have a role in choosing committee members so let's let's let's talk about it let's talk about it so there were a lot of us that had preferences for the finance year and this is specifically the finance committee that I think you're referring to is that right yeah
sure let's go there I so is there any other committee that you were wanting to be a part of that you did not I I I want to make sure that I understand how this is operating and in order to participate in what preferences we are how do we make committees need to understand if
it's the view of the board right that there are certain that I need to remove myself from I walked into this room not thinking that let's talk about it so Finance I think is probably your your biggest question as to in order to work collaboratively I
need to know which ones this this group is saying I am not allowed to participate it's I don't know what the group is saying but I will tell you my I'll tell you my perspective this is the Berkeley Heights Board of Education finance committee you
are here as mountains side rep no offense personally but that is reality the situation is real you are here as a representative of the sending District you have the ability to be in the finance committee in Mountain Side
the rest of us have only one finance committee only one chance to be on the finance committee of the Berkeley Heights Board of Education so while I understand your preference I think the rest of us only have this one opportunity the other point is there are
so many things that are discussed in the finance committee that are relevant for Berkeley Heights students only transportation is a perfect example so in that case I feel this is my opinion I feel it's more important to have a Berkeley Heights resident and board
member be a part of that committee be in those discussions where they will get to vote I mean you tell me you wouldn't want would let's let's flip let's flip this if there was a Berkeley Heights resident on the mountain side Board of
Ed who was adamant on being the finance committee chair or member help me understand would you be supportive I want to I don't want to say I'm ad right I I'm I'm one that needs to understand the Rules of Engagement so when we enter
into this collaboration or any discussion I need to know you are entitled to your individual opinion so I need to know when we're talking about which committee's on on I need to know if I am allowed to participate or not and when I'm walking away with is all
the communities R to me and as we collectively work it is your opinion right that that one or any that have a collision right you would prefer perly Heights people being there no matter what committee you assign a mountain side representative to there will be
topics that are particular to something that I am not prived to so whether it's technology whether it's negotiations or it's Finance the points you brought up are all the same if you think about all of the Committees
that that are important for the district I treat Finance I treat personnel as particularly sensitive and particularly important for what the role of a board member is in those committees so everything that you said about
technology I I don't disagree but if you were to think about the role of the finance committee versus the role of the technology committee there're you're stating your personal preference that's what I was trying to get but DP can I ask a question I I think this is more of a question for the attorney what
of being a mountains side representative and only supposed to be voting on matters that are related to the high school if he's serving on a committee he should be only dealing with uh matters relating High School related matters is
that correct um can you necessarily School related this well or because they could District that's what I think that's what needs to be clarified so so the way I would say it
is matters impacting the high school population that's correct so if if if there's matters that are related only to uh the middle school or the elementary then he shouldn't be involved in those
decisions well is that better is that and I'm just trying to clarify this for Bill across all that scenario in any of the eight committees that we're talking about yeah okay I understand I'm just trying to I understand and dpy I would ask you this question because you said facilities and
finance and Personnel but your recommended option under Personnel was to add him so I don't understand where that logic is you follow what I'm saying I'm not understanding it and I don't I don't want again I don't want this to
get about me and I really don't right but I I'm trying to figure out a way that I can best represent and move forward for the students of this District right there was wanted to make sure that I understood how I should proceed given the rules of engagement I
honestly guys I have my answer right I I I what my concerns and what I and what I thought coming in here are one individual's consideration and preferences and I will take that into account as we continue I'm good board are subject to being assigned
to any committee and any liaison so we have a motion on the floor for Mrs Air's uh Mr secretary a vote if I may Mr secretary so what's your voting on is whether or not to amend and I would actually say
necessarily replace in some instances what you see before you in a so this is not to adopt this this is to change the motion before you and then there would have to be a second vote change the motion to what Mrs con's ref recommendations are that's correct so this isn't a vote on her recommendation
it's a vote to change uh item a to reflect her recommendation and then you would have to have a vote on that in order for it to be adopted our policy oh so that's a violation of be a violation okay a violation is it a
violation of policy well the policy says the board president recommends the these are not the board president's recommendations so I to me it's pretty straightforward but you said I as that is the reason why before I moved my motion I asked you Mr Gagliardi can we
we as a board are governed by Robert's Rules and in Robert's Rules any res resolution yes the policy says the board president makes the recommendations or makes the but it's a resolution the policy is two part the first part being the board president makes the
appointments which have to be approved by the majority of the board now when the resolution is on the floor we are ruled by Robert's Rules and I move I asked you if I can make an amendment you said sure hang on a second you either what my advice or you and Robert's Rules can hang out together but we can't do both right you asked me what the you
said do I have the ability to make an amendment and I said yes you didn't tell me in advance what it was okay by essentially replacing the president's recommendations with these recommendations you you you have the technical right to make an amendment but you are going to cause a violation of
your own policy I mean I think that's why you got the advice you got from from uh my colleague Dave dler which is that that policy is in effect but you need to revisit it you see the difficulties that it that it causes here um I'll give you an example that that maybe less
controversial but I think would be more palatable to the board to understand on Personnel matters they come before the board by recommendation of the superintendent like any other motion of course you can make a a proposal to amend the policy but if you were to uh
have a recommendation from the superintendent to hire but Abbott to be the principal of a school and say I want to make a motion and replace that with luk Costello technically Roberts R says you can amend the motion but that motion could never pass because it's not the superintendent's recommendation so here
you've put a a a scenario in place where the board has to accept or reject the president's recommendations okay but what this motion would do would be replace the president's recommendations with one of your own thereby causing a conflict with
your policy so we can see what happens with this amendment first but if this amendment were adopted and then passed by the board you'd be in violation of your own policy so it's it's creating quite a difficulty for your yourself um if you had made a proposal and the
president accepted let's assume you picked one of the Committees I'm making this up and you said instead of so and so be the chair I would like to make a motion to be so and so to be the chair and the president said I accept that she's willing to change her recommendation then you could amend the motion and you would not be in violation
of your policy if that motion passed Dr forer has uh has his hand raised oh I'm sorry Dr forger all right so we seem to have a conundrum here I'm going to offer a way out um 155 is a roadblock so under
131 I can move to abolish 155 then we can proceed with uh the motion here on a um you could do that and then no one get EXC on it excuse me I have the floor that's great I have the floor so I
object to your comment um your interrup ruption wait please Mrs Stanley I have to object uh all right so the thing is uh we have to stop consideration of a and then we have to abolish 155 then we
have to go back to a and start over uh with Dip's thing and if that fails then we can try uh Gail's thing but that's that's my way out don't yeah so uh to par phrase what Mr forger said
we have he said we have to stop consideration of a in order to stop consideration of a and consider something else the the proper procedure is to make a motion to table if a motion to table is made and seconded there's no discussion on a motion to table you either vote it up or vote it down if the motion to table passes then uh a and the
amendment to a are no longer under consideration and you can make another motion or have another discussion I object to the consideration of the question but we don't have one to the consideration of the question uh I need a 2third uh vote to object to the
consideration of the question because one it again it goes against board policy um and two if we do get rid of the policy that directs us then no one has to vote on the Committees and the board president can just appoint people so I think this is not in your best
consideration but can I ask you a question we don't even have a 131 so how can you even abolish something if you don't have a 131 right so G I'm going to rely upon the thing called The Ghost of
131 so the the best resolution to this Gail is for you to actually go back and look at those preferences kind of like what Debbie said that we were going to do and make your recommendation otherwise it seems you're making your appointments that were doomed to fail
then you also need to consider my right things which was not done in the other option right no I said go back to the last year I ched two committees as right Miss Airi said that we we should go by seniority and we should go by uh
experience well then I should be chair of of policy and Personnel again right but that's not how we're doing it but again none of this helps the students right and we already know we're kind of behind on some of these matters we just had a discussion about how we could have
done something in a committee but we had no committee so I think that all of this right none of us are going to be happy because we all have to vote on it right none of us are going to be happy this literally was here so that way everyone got a chair position so no one could be complaining right that's not usually how
it's done but that's what we're doing and I get that we all want to discuss it forever but we have to start moving forward for the students of this District okay again yes Pam what I was suggesting is what Miss Terrero suggested you go back to the preference
document look across pick your preferences and I will not argue for any and Miss maybe Mrs Bradford then can appoint the chairs and that way everybody gets what they want and then uh she can appoint the chairs that would be the fairest way and that would be a board consensus
based on your preferences there would be committees without chairs if we went and did that that's one and then two we we're already at 9:30 and we haven't had public comment so while I understand this idea that we could just talk it out right like we've been talking for I don't know 45 minutes about talking
about it so I don't know if that's feasible so I'm not in favor of um violating policy and but I'm also not in favor of what's in front of me on the agenda all right so let me if I may
Madam president try to get us back on the procedural track right so um the amendment a I know obviously Miss Akira moved it who seconded a who I had Dr forer and dpti they were two seconds
yeah so um a is on the table to be voted as amendment I do not know if the Mover and seconder wish to withdraw it since I'm telling you that if it were to pass can't adopt it because it would violate your own policy what the if you also
made an objection which needs to be voted so I think the net of this conversation for me is Gail your proposal is not going to pass if you would like to work with the rest of us and actually come up with with something that will work for everybody there is a
there's a chance that it will work um this current attitude of railroading is not going to work and this was the reason why we've we've been having this conversation for a year about policy 155 is to not have one person just have all
the rights this is where we need a discussion we need a consensus so now the balls in your court if you want to make this successful you know what you need to do the board and taking a look at these yes but we need a vote on this on the agenda tonight uh can you please advice by when
when you say after the vote and after this meeting because you had from January 7th to February 27th and the next meeting that we have is our approving the temporary uh you know the the draft budget so technically if
you're not willing to take five minutes and work with us right now we will technically I would like to ask um Mr Gagliardi to confirm this we will be operating as a board of the whole and instead of the draft budget going just
in front of the finance committee everybody has to meet and discuss what needs to stay on every line item what needs to get off what are our reserves what are our projects so if that's the way you want to uh proceed Mrs Bradford you have every right to do that but I
just want Mr gagli to confirm if that's if my assumption of not having committees uh we operate as a board of the whole no can't do that the vote um the yes uh we U can I have Mr also has can I have Mr gagle respond yeah so we
are a board of committees you you don't uh you don't have um the board structured to operate as a board of the whole right you so um I if if this were to go on for any
period of time I think for certain ongoing obligations in connection with collective bargaining for certain issues like the budget that's a terrific example right the same policy that has you tied up in this gordian knot also provides the the board president with
the option of um having an ad hoc committee so you have you would have two options right you would have the the extraordinary option of having as you described it perfectly correct you know every law item being reviewed by the entire board or you'd have ad hoc
committees I I an ad hoc committee doing it and I think that for the budget which again is I think is a terrific example and I believe there's one of your collective bargaining agreements that's expired that you're due to negotiate um obviously the longer that drags on you
put yourself in danger of committing an unfair Labor practice so that's probably another one where you'd have an an ad hoc committee but none of this is ideal you already knew that yes so and where no no my question is where excuse me I just have a committees were
recommended but four committee members did not sign up for anything and four committee members did okay so is one of the committee members who did not because first of all they were prescribed times and again randomly picked um since we're talking about policy 155 policy 155 specifically
states that ad hoc committees need to be established for you know oneoff in one off things now prior to even trying to establish committees Mrs uh Mrs Bradford declared ad hoc committees there were like six of them that were essentially
standing committees by a different name without even attempting to you know so like the fact that yes she can do ad hoc committees they are not for the purpose of you know the these you regularly recurring things that we normally that's
why I thought that that's I may Madam president that's why I thought the example was a good one right so I'm not talking about um a a finance committee that is not really you know we don't call a finance committee but operates as a finance committee I'm talking about AOC committee specifically for the purposes of the budget and I'm not
talking about a a negotiations committee a standing committee I'm talking about a committee to deal with um the one specific collective bargaining agreement that has expired and expired a while ago as I understand it so that you can avoid an unfair Labor practice so I agree precisely with your description of the
difference between a standing committee and adoc committee and so my specific recommendation of the board is narrow not calling finance committee and atop committee not calling a negotiations committee and atop committee but two committees we're just using these examples I think they're good ones
though about an ad hoc committee to address specific urgent needs the budget for sure and the outstanding collective bargaining agreement I think are good examples so yes so that's exactly what Gail Bradford did at our last meeting a month ago um and we had meeting times
established for two weeks ago and four board members stomped their feet and said they will not attend and this is how we got here tonight now everyone seems to be upset that Gail Bradford had the foresight to know that we were going to have difficulty setting up committees so at this point we need to set up ad hoc and we need to get
moving and we cannot continue to do this at 9:30 so Mrs Bradford had the foresight because she knew she was going to do this okay I think what we need to do because I think we're probably at a stalemate is maybe what we should do is set up a
special meeting you know to actually discuss this and we have some other things in exec that need to be focused on as well so can I propose that we talk about a special meeting where we can set this up
you know within a week or whatever the time frame is so we can work this out and maybe put this as the only thing on the agenda I think at the last um board meeting at the reor I I had that very suggestion that we need some more additional meetings we needed a special
meeting for the audit findings we need it so also for the Committees I don't believe that so if you're going to call for a special meeting to have all eight people arrive here and discuss the appointments of the Committees I would instead I would rather say just let's
it's it's about time that we should look at the draft budget so let's bring up the budget look at it together instead of appointments and then scheduling and also the ad hoc committee appointments were done the count the Union County
Acting Superintendent made an appointment around 2:00 or 3:00 and Mrs Bradford without conferring or seeking any of the board members input correct me if I'm wrong if she sought your input I would like to hear it I knew not yeah so nobody's input was sought between
3:00 and 7:00 and she made an announcement in the same breath reading Mr Palm's message that we need to work collaboratively and said I am going to make these appointments without asking anybody's input we that didn't can we
move forward tonight yes we have I mean let's not look back I know that some of you guys are aggravated I'm hearing you but let's move forward guys we have so many other things to do tonight we're not going to get through it by 12:00 and Mrs Bradford
was very well aware of this because at the very reorg appointing making these appointments of ad hoc committees without seeking anybody's input was deliberate today after seeking everybody's input and preferences which are in front of you you are able to see
them yourself she has not taken anybody's preferences into account it's also a deliberate act and now if she as Mr gaglardi says if she's going to call them tomato tomato like you know finance committee is not going to be called a finance committee but a budget committee for the name of working on the budget
it's four people we the the rest of the four who have been shown that we don't matter or our preferences don't matter we we might as well look at the budget publicly uh I think I think we're now in hypotheticals let let's vote let's maybe
there's a miracle maybe it passes who knows let's vote and let's move on we're now all in hypotheticals we'll be here all day spinning on every option A to B all right so there's a the motion on the floor is the motion to amend
all right so uh some members don't want to violate 155 okay um and we don't have 131 to rely on so the next step really should be to bring back 131 we were going to do that
tonight anyway once 131 comes back we abolish 155 under Robert's Rules we can now appoint any committees we like and then we can vote on 's resolution G's resolution we should walk out of here
with some committees tonight that's my proposal uh we have to no no no no why not 131 is under old business so can it be moved we don't have 131 in front of
us yes but okay so all right so you want to we'll go back okay so that was three steps we'll go back to a zero step now step one I gave you step one that was to bring back 131 say don't like to do that CU that's going to come later in new business so there's a procedure to
rearrange the agenda and we can rearrange the agenda and consider put everything on the table for the moment and bring up 131 okay so so we can do things in that order I've identified the way you would do that
procedurally if you don't want to vote if there is a board member who does not want to have the vote on this agenda it's been on the floor on the amendment it's been on the floor for about half an hour you'd make a motion to table that's moved and seconded there's no discussion there's a vote that if the if that is
tabled you and you want to do the same thing with a you would do that but you can't bring up new action items when there are there's a motion on the floor and there's a motion to amend on the floor so I've given you the procedure to do what you're talking about and it
doesn't involve making another motion on top of these you just not you can't do that proced I move to table the amendment all right so you have you have a path forward here that gets us to a vote okay yes I do so there's a help us out then all right so we've had a motion to table and that motion's been seconded just the amendment this is just the
amendment you gotta because there's two different things right so the motion has been made and seconded it's a motion to table there's no discussion the board secretary would call the role I I don't want to run the meeting here but okay you make clear one yeah so a yes vote means that you
are not going to consider the motion to amend at this time no vote means you want to continue the discussion and take take a vote okay but it it does come up later though someone could move it again later if okay so it's a motion to table to a specific
time I it's just a motion to table at this point it's been moved and seconded a is on the table unless someone un unless someone wants to make a motion to table that but but all this all your doing now is making a motion to table the amendment
because that's what's before you right now there's a motion to add the amendment tbling it means it's not going to be take you're not going to take action on it at this time moved and seconded okay Mrs Jolly yes Miss
Stanley yes Mr Kiri I'll pass Mr Dylan yes Dr forer yes Miss Connor yes Miss Terrero yes Miss Airi yes Miss Bradford yes
motion passes okay so the amendment is tabled now what you have before you is what was before you originally resolution a regarding the appointment of annual committees okay may we have a vote on that please now Mr secretary I move to
table second okay there a motion and a second to table the uh item spread before you as resolution a it's a motion to table there's no discussion there's a roll call so explaining again that if we do table this there are no committees correct that's correct unless further
action is taken Gail we're going down a path here that we'll eventually get committees but we're trying to adhere to our policies and we don't want to operate with a straight jacket but we want to be honest about what we're doing but I'm not sure that you can actually do what you think you can do because
there's no policies on the agenda for tonight until new business right and there's no public comment at this time right because this is a committee thing so I don't think you can actually do that are we not voting because we said take if if Miss if Mr forger can talk I can talk dipy and you
interrupted so our board attorney can you um summarize where we are now um several colorful phrases come to mind but um uh you have before you resolution a has been a motion to table and second there should be no discussion
there should be a vote it does not prevent you from uh a a later effort to try to create committees but again the later effort would be in violation of policy 155 because it was not appointed by the board
president Gail unless you have a change of heart so at this time you're trying really hard for policy 155 to be the reason why we don't have committees so why don't we just get on with the vote to there's very so so let me um clarify my
answer um and the attorney just said no discussion yeah well I as you can see my my advice is optional but um the U there was the royal U so what I mean by that is the the fact that a is
being cabled does not prevent you assuming no policy changes exist from making uh recommendations to the board consistent with the policy and the board voting on them consistent with the policy assuming nothing changes so this is not preventing the same tortured path toward
committees but there might be another path by the only thing that the only thing that's being decided is whether or not to act on this resolution this time Mr secretary what was the who was the first and who was the second because I'm and Conor Natasha was the first I
was the second and this is to table just a table table a only not B that's correct this is almost like Who's on First and who's on second that's all I don't know it's on third Miss Jolly yes Miss Connor yes Miss Airi yes
Mr Dylan no Dr forer yes Miss Stanley no Miss Terrero no Miss Bradford no motion fails you wanted to work together Debbie what
happened I just want to move forward and get committees this is moving forward let me tell you that but midnight is fast approaching so now the tabling of the resolution has failed so now we're going to vote on the table a so a remains on the
table okay I've never seen this in all my years the first time for everything same here aent hey Mr secretary roll call vote so we are going back to the original roll call all right and I had the motion was Mrs Stanley second was
Mrs Terrero Mrs Stanley what are we we're voting on the original vote for all the Committees and it's only a I am voting yes Mrs Terrero
no m Kiri no Mr Dylan yes Dr forer no Mrs Jolly no Mrs Conor no and
Mrs Bradford yes motion fails okay moving on now to B Lea zon can I make a proposal again I want to go back to can we please have a special meeting
set up to try to work this out so that everybody gets at least their first or second choice and let's work together to try to come up with something that's fair and can we come up with something within the next week if it's doable for everybody so that we at least have
committees debie we heard you unfortunately we cannot discuss that right now it's not on the agenda it's not in the order oh sorry you're you're not in violation but um I actually would like to make a motion to table bees and we are going to just spend another half hour I was hoping that b would be okay
since everybody got their choices is can we can we all right so I'll I'll I'll I'll IW no because I will withdraw okay and then I will make a motion to move be I want to make a motion to make an amendment and add my name there's a
motion on the table I need a second you no second yet I'll second her okay thank you now B is on the table okay we we just did a motion to amend B is what we're saying no a motion to move B B has been moved and seconded and who
did the second Terrero Terr okay I want to make a motion to amend B and um put my name as the secondly is on for the rec committee Rec commission
I'll second that yeah okay a vote on that which one this is on the rec commission to add um Mrs Conor along with Mrs Herrero on the recreation committee liaison who was the second for that
please I'm sorry I was okay gotcha so we have to vote on the addition and then it's the vote on the amendment only yes we have any discussion all right vote is Mrs Conor
yes Mrs Jolly yes Mr Ki she removed herself to Mr Dylan yeah Dr forer yes Mr Stanley
sure miss Terrero yes Miss Bradford yes Miss Airi is the amendment to add my yes motion passes and now we're going to ask for a motion for approval of all of annual liaison appointments with amended
just one dis just one discussion the PTO curriculum lays on right now the the Committees we were going to set up there was no one from the curriculum committee on that PTO leis on so if we whenever we do can we just have someone from the curriculum committee because it helps
correct um correct that's my only comment correct and again um these need the Liaisons need refining uh refining because do we really need a Berkeley Heights environmental commission liaison and there was no one who wanted to do
the New Jersey School Board Association um which meets twice a year so I was put on that so yes we need to refine that and now we have to vote on B with the with the re with the refinements correct right you're going to vote on B as Amendment
now okay Mrs Stanley yes Miss Terrero yes Mr kry is this the amendment this is yeah the with the amendment
yes Mr Dylan yes Dr forer yes Mrs Al yes Mrs Connor yes Mrs Bradford yes motion passes moving on to comments from the public on agenda
items during this portion of the meeting District residents and staff are invited to address the board of education on agenda it action items only the board requests that the individuals State their name and town of residence or School of attendance for the record all comments should be directed to the board
president and depending upon the nature and complexity of the question it may or may not be answered during the meeting by the administration if so the response would occur uh after this public portion of the meeting has concluded although the board may not respond to all items raised during the public for all public
comments will be considered the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding Personnel matters are discouraged and cannot be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New
Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by the members of the public please note that if any member of the public becomes disruptive during the meeting the board president May terminate the participant statement continued disruptions may result in removal from or adjournment of the meeting each
speaker statement will be limited to three minutes we will do those in person and then we will do those online do we have anybody in person good evening uh Todd Jaren Berkeley Heights Camptown Drive um really interesting meeting tonight with
collaboration wow um never seen a president railroad something so much really unfortunate but there was an effort but it was just ignored uh tonight I'm here as an extremely concerned resident and taxpayer in this town uh after listening to the
referendum proposal last night I could not help but feel there's still significant issues trust issues between our board and the public that you serve I feel it's of great importance that we address sitting board member Pam Stanley who has been found guilty and liable for
ethics violations Mr jaran I'm going to caution you about talking about that it's not an agenda item neither was the reference actually I'm getting to the agenda item do you want to keep interrupting everyone because that's what you do is it a jaran I'm just giving you a warning okay well there is a judgment that was passed and it is not
a final judgment interesting okay well either way uh there were tax dollars that were used my tax dollars the rest of the town's tax dollars that were used Miss Bradford uh to pursue her personal Vendetta so as a result I would like to
ask that the board strongly consider resignation from that board member as well as yourself Miss Bradford and the reason why is because there was an opportunity to stop that charade a year ago and the two of you voted to allow it
to continue so you are implicated in this as well as a result by doing this I firmly believe you will restore the Public's faith and trust something we learned about tonight with the ethics presentation that's part of the board
meeting it is training so as a result I think that board really needs to consider the trust that you have with the community it is eroded completely and continue Shades like this and it will continue to
erode more so you guys want to propose a referendum how are we supposed to trust all of you when clearly actions previously have eroded the trust that the community has that's it oh actually sorry one
other question I hope you can get back to me on what were the total dollars spent on the legal defense for Miss Stanley there is a number thank you we'll have to get back to you um do we
see anybody online Tim no okay so we will okay yes hello can you hear me yes we can hear you please identif yourself yes Robert Chuli Berkeley
Heights um I did want to reiterate uh the fact that the action has not been finally determined it is on appeal um this has been a very unfortunate meeting to watch um the only humor came from
Galla's humor came from the attorney saying he's never witnessed anything like this before along of course with Todd naran's comments about you know faith and trust and all that stuff but I do value
people's uh desire for transparency so at the appropriate time I will comment in detail on the action against Saia Kiri and more more than just comment I'll relay parts of the complaint as
well as what the judge has said about her we want to make sure interrupt thank you thank you okay I see no other we have no other online U promoting so I will close the
public comment section at this time moving on to the minutes resolutions a all board members approval of meeting minutes may I have a motion to move that forward thank you Mrs Tana
second I'll second thank you Mrs jolly any discussion Mr secretary vote um I would like for the executive session minutes to be a little bit more in detail that's my only comment thank you
Mr secretary vote Mrs Connor yes Mrs Jolly yes Mr kir yes Mr Dylan yes Dr forer yes Miss Stanley yes Miss Terrero
yes Miss Bradford yes motion passes moving on to Administration resolutions a through e all board members may I have a motion to put this forward so moved that was Mrs Stanley Mrs Stanley was were you Mrs con
thank you discussion I just want to congratulate our swim team um all of our winter sports are having a great season so all of them deserve recognition what our our uh girl swim team again like um our representative said our student
representative said our um third time uh Champions so um County Champions so I'm really proud of them and uh I'm glad that we get to recognize them at their upcoming awards ceremony yes that's coming up Tuesday and Mrs Terrero and I had a a great time cheering them on they
did a beautiful job they have a lot to be proud of as well as the fening and the other sports fencing and the other sports y okay uh roll call vote please Mrs Stanley yes Mrs Connor yes Mr
Kiri um I'll obain on c and d and everything else is a yes Mr Dylan yes Dr forer yes Mrs joli yes Miss Terrero yes
Mrs Bradford yes motion passes moving on to education resolutions a through e all board members may I have a motion to move resolutions a through e all board members so moved that was Mrs Stanley yes thank you
and second second Mrs Terrero any discussion roll call vote Please Mr secretary Mr Stanley yes Mr Terrero yes Mr kry yes Mr Dylan yes Dr forer yes Mrs
Jolly yes Mrs Connor yes Miss Bradford yes motion passes moving on to Personnel resolutions a through M all board members resolutions n through S Berkeley Heights only may I have a motion to put this
forward so moved thank you Mrs Terrero a second second thank you Mrs Stanley discussion which letters for me sorry uh a through M all board members okay n through S is Berkeley Heights
only quick question on K is there anything that the date myself here pound sign or as Mark means on two of those names uh the assistant track Coast uh Danielle Louise a hashmark and then Kelly fiser
hashmark yeah it has to do with them meeting their pre pre-employment authorization getting the fingerprints done all of that stuff it's pending that and then one more question uh the purpose of L um are we down to teacher
yeah okay okay yes so Stanley first I wanted to um uh say Welcome to our new assistant superintendent under B um I'm excited
for our our staff to be back in order um I also wanted to um recognize our retirement staff under Jay um thank you for your years of service to Berkeley Heights and then Q um I I all of you are
wonderful but especially je nardy um for all her work that she's done at Hughes over the years both of my kids have had her and um she is really wonderful with the children and they adore her uh her Halloween costumes are some of the best um so you will be greatly missed and we
wish you the best um yes that's it yes under Q uh approval retirement of Staff some of these staff members have been with our district for 40 45 years so this is is quite an accomplishment and we want to offer our sincere congratulations and best wishes on
retirement to all of those who are retiring yeah I'd like to have a special shout out to Mrs nardy as well she always remembered the kids' names everybody always knows who we are is super friendly and the kids love her no other discussion then vote please
miss Terrero yes Miss Stanley um yes to everything I'm gonna say no to S Mr Kiri uh s to everything abstain from B
abstain from B B Mr Dylan yes for a through M Dr forer yes to all Mrs
Jolly yes to all Mrs Connor yes to all Miss Bradford yes to all motion passes moving on to business resolutions a through P all board members resolutions Q through f s Berkeley Heights only may
I have a motion to move the business forward thank you Mrs Conor I'll second thank you Mr Stanley discussion uh one question on M we know
why the amount changed uh to increase $1,000 yes uh adding error by myself okay I didn't have my proper fingers out Mrs Mrs jolly so for item I with the corrective action plans I know that AJ
and I have been emailing quite a bit the way that the action plan is written doesn't tell me exactly how this is going to be fixed right um so and given that there are auditor said that you know uh the first finding with the two
approvals and the cash receipts and The Ledger actually got worse this year and that so there was and that the second item as well with the backup documentation for what gets submitted to the state that got worse this year as well that I
would like to see a corrective action plan that states more than just the district will ensure like how any other discussion Mrs cona I have a question on
L uh this is about the approved transfer funds to NJ cash management is there is there an amount that goes in that resolution no I'm just taking all the all the funds that are in the cap reserve and just moving them all into M cash management so how much is that any
idea ballpark I could tell you right now actually you should you should have it right now actually it's about because I was going to have that as a as a discussion because I know that we were talking about cap reserve and I have that somewhere over here was like $4.2
million okay and uh you know we were talking about projects because as you can see there was $210,000 going for the bathrooms and what I was trying to give a little uh background to was what we were going to be coming up in terms of spending next
month because the roof projects are going to be coming up and we had 1.44 1. 440,000 coming up for the roofs Press Box was going to be about $36,000 roughly roughly so that was going to leave me somewhere around 2 .4
$2.5 million so so we are moving about 2.4 million well I'm going to pull I'm putting the whole thing over okay into there and then have that high higher interest bearing account and then start
taking money out there afterwards for all the projects that will be coming out so do we know what's the interest rate like it fluctuates it it fluctuates higher than what we're getting now in um citizens it's higher okay okay yes much
higher that that's why last year last March we moved everything over over into there except for cap Reserve into cash management thank you uh vote please um I just have a quick question on Q that's approved contract for
classroom toilet upgrades at William Woodruff so I believe in 2021 we spent about half a million for toilet bathroom upgrades at Woodruff and mkm so that when we were doing the
reconfiguration to make them an element so we are in 2025 what additional work is being done that costs um 20 38,000 I believe two with it's 192
it's highlighted there and it says it right in the resolution that we're taking the bid for 192 okay so this is also are these new so what I'm to understand is they're completely new they they're adding on because they're adding uh is it
preschool or kid in it two two preschool classes classrooms that was so preschool preschool so there were so in 2021 we added in classrooms there were old bathrooms that were closed and then they reopened them and made new bathrooms so
that kids can go directly into the bathroom so that was just in 2021 so this is a not those classroom no that was the kindergarten and this is preschool I I I don't know anything because I wasn't here in 2021 so I can't
tell you okay I know that they're adding additional uh what is that kindergarten you said or preschool preschool so with that being said that the bathrooms have to be in the classroom so they're they using closet space there and putting new bathrooms in okay so I'll send you an
email just to understand more clearly thank you you can also look back at finance committee meetings because this has been discussed before during the finance committee uh leaz on report and yep and those committee meetings are posted online yeah right uh roll call
vote uh Mrs Conor yes Mrs Stanley yes Mr Ki hold on can I pass I just have to Mr Dylan yes thank you Dr
forer uh no on m&n and yes on the rest of it Mrs Jolly yes to all except I and N I and N you said correct I and N
okay Miss terrera yes to all uh Mr Kiri uh yes to all except no on I M and N Miss Bradford yes to all motion passes moving on to finance
resolutions a through D all board members may I have a motion to move this forward oh sorry I'll move so moved I did the Bills okay thank you Mrs Stanley a second second it I also did the bills
so uh any discuss um I have a question on a check number for 21 it's 211 759 it's solar Services um I would like to know when so
does GL have solar panels on the roof like what is this payment for yes we have solar panels on the roof um were the board approved like did we yes that was years ago and this is the C like do we are we under contract are we
leasing the panels do we own them like where can we find the details it's one of those ppas I believe that's the Union uh Union County Improvement Authority that I had that there's everybody that's in Union County has solar panels to that agreement that goes way back when yeah
but I thought it was a grant so where my confusion not a grant no has nothing to do with a grant so when it was initially um I think it was in 2022 or something that it came on and it was supposed to be like we're getting a grant so now I see like it wasn't a grant it was switched over to a different company
there was a letter that went out cuz I got it when I was in Rosel it was just switch over to a different company there's a letter that came out we just got another letter um that was sent over to uh Mr gagal A's firm um we got to
have some advisement to it so so is this like an annual contract or is this a multi-year contract that we have with Union County Improvement Authority this I forget when it dates back to I'm going to say it's probably 15 20 years at least can you what is the letter that Mr
the board attorney is looking at um you're asking these things off the cuff I if if you had asked this in the office or or beforehand I would be able to have the document in front of me but asking off the cuff I couldn't tell you yeah it we we we were strapped for time
looking at the bills so uh maybe I'll follow up with an email I just want to know like so these are permanent solar panels and we only have them in one building in our district I think it's two if I'm not mistaken which two I'm not sure we we talked about this yesterday so Woodruff I I learned
something new okay Woodruff has panels and they generate like 90% of the power that they use okay and GL has it to a lesser extent okay I'm not going to go as far as what was stated yesterday that they generate 90% um I'm not I'm not
going to say that that generates 90% don't hold me to that 90% I'm going to tell you one one thing when I had him in Rosa we had him at one school district I'm it was nowhere near 90% and it was it's a trouble because every time when you had to go and had any roof repairs I had to use a a roofer or some some
company to come in move those panels and have the the repair done and have the people come back and put put those back the footings everything was always just a pain in the neck because those things always had to to be repaired so bear with me so the reason why I was asking
about this particular bill was I do see on our bills list there were multiple bills I think adding up to hundreds of thousands where we are doing roof repairs something in like you know with the hwac stuff so my I would follow up with an email to Dr feltri to understand
if this is a lease or a own and you know we don't we don't own them they least right Union County Improvement Authority owns them okay thank you that's so what what I'm learning here is that sorry Dr forer yeah what I'm learning is solar is great for the people that repair
roofs yes and we still have like really high bills on energy so yeah exactly and SRS aren't aren't as great as what they were thank you okay uh roll call vote Mr
Stanley yes Mr Kiri uh yes to everything no to check number 211 634 to 21 1752 211
645 and um no on U yes um it's basically no on Q and yes so you have three checks that you're saying no to 21634 21752 and
21645 yes and then you're saying no to letter Q letter q and no that's what she said that's why I'm repe 24 oh it's um it's basically C and D so
C and D is a no yes Mr Dylan yes Dr forer all right um uh on checks uh yes
to the checks except for check number 21634 check number 21752 and 21645 uh yes to b no to C yes to uh a uh d okay so you said no to C and D am I no
no to C but yes to D and are you saying yes to a and b mostly yes to a except for those four chicks uh Three Chicks okay so you have a yes to a and b yeah and D
yeah but a a and d a b and a b and d yes but on on a though there's three checks that are a no I got those and and C is a note as well right Mrs Jolly yes to all except checks 21645 and
21752 211 645 and 21152 Mrs Conor yes to everything except check number 21645 check 21752 check 21634 M
Terrero yes to all except I'm going to abstain on check number 21865 because it's to myself and that 685 you said 211 865 865
865 good you need to am I supposed to recuse and yes abstain is correct yes and Miss Bradford yes yes to all okay so we have one two three we
have three checks 211 634 211 645 and check number 21752 uh do not
pass and the rest uh do pass everything else passes except for those three checks could you repeat those checks please Mr secretary 211 634 211 645 and 211
752 so I think you might be mistaken on one if I was doing my counting correct says 1 two three that's wait a minute 63 752 and 645 6 34 is the one that does pass yes
okay can I ask what those checks were I'd have to go back and look those up I was in the board office when they were checking the bills so I find it um difficult that there was an issue that wasn't brought up when we were there or
brought up to you can ask your fellow board members they can probably tell you better they know what they are and they voted them down I know yeah I would I would really request um the board president to ask for some you know personal like respect for each others like you know I
saw Mrs Stanley was there she left we we had scheduled time we were there for at least another half an hour after she left so and then I she did see me act like I don't think these public allegations or statements are necessary
thank you so I would really request that we refrain from them thank you would you like to share which checks that you did not approve well they they are up there and we reviewed them we had our concerns and we we voted no it's as simple as that thank you thank you moving on to
comments from the public on any topic during this portion of the meeting District residents and staff are invited to address the board of education on any item the board requests that individuals State their name in town of residence or School of attendance for the record all comments should be directed to the board
president and depending upon the nature and complexity of the question it may or may not be answered during the meeting by the administration if so the response would occur after this public portion of the meeting has concluded although the board may not respond to all items raised during the public forum all
public comments will be considered the board asked that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding Personnel matters are discouraged and cannot be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New
Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public please note that if any member of the public becomes disruptive during the meeting the board president May terminate the participant statement continued disruptions may result in removal from
or adjournment of the meeting each speaker statement will be limited to three minutes in duration um we'll take our public comments first in person and then our online I see nobody in public uh Tim can you promote online
uh can you hear me yes we can hear you hi John mcz uh Berkeley Heights so I I just a few things I wanted to talk about the first is the committee I mean this was by Design Gail I mean that was pretty clear uh you you imposed ad hoc
committees at the beginning you waited weeks to formulate committees and then gave nobody what they wanted um and it was meant to implode so that you could then justify having ad hoc committees it's I mean
it's like obvious and when people bring up points to you you answer questions they don't ask like I sent you an email asking for a detailed EXP explanation of a certain board member and you responded with a chronology of events I didn't ask for a chronology of
events it's as if you're talking over people and it's frustrating um secondly you're incorrect about the confidentiality of the matter that was discussed before it's on the it's on the SEC website and I would caution you not to interrupt people or
to infringe on their free speech that's a district that's liability to the district you can I can go right to the site and pull it out it's there if I'm I'm disappointed to hear that the district is going to pursue an appeal um and all the terrible things
about missaki well that was already said in a board meeting and published in a 39 page uh complaint that was largely dismissed um everybody's there to read it um they could see it just like they could see uh you know Miss Stanley's
complaint um but I I kind of wanted to talk a little bit about the CMS field today um and you know I get a little irritated by it because I'm not necessarily against the field you I don't know I don't know much about it what I'm what I'm what I have an issue with though is sort of the campaigning
around it without the public having any detail of the lease agreement like how can people be so in support or against it like I'm not against the field I'm against a process where there's this high pressure tactic against the district
to sort of give away its property without the public understanding what's going on and I got I'm in possession of two letters I'm not going to go too much into it right now but if if shared services are going to be held over the district's throat in terms of you know it's $36,000 that's not a ton of money
and that doesn't belong to the town that belongs to the taxpayer the town could give it back to the taxpayer if they choose to withdraw from the uh from the district you know um I'm not even going to get into the other thing because that that is I have to think about that
before I frame it that that was terrible in terms of like the tennis courts um but I just want the board I just hope the board doesn't Cho I hope the board promotes a process that allows the public to fully know what's going on
because I I our Athletics budget is through the roof and if we're going to give away property I would like the district to receive some kind of money that I could put into services for kids connected to academics or something some type of Revenue sharing thank you very much thank
you uh Tim is there anybody else online thank you hello can you hear me yes we can hear you hi my name is Cherry jordano from Berkeley Heights um my wife and I moved to Berkeley Heights last fall and we look forward to to enrolling our
daughter in the schools when she's older um for the past 12 years I've been a teacher School administrator and District administrator in Michigan and New York City uh last night I was at the special board meeting in person and that was my first meeting um I have no context about what was going on today uh
behind the contentious committee discussions but I didn't enjoy watching it um at work I've experienced firsthand the importance that a collaborative board has on a superintendent success and with our new superintendent in place and all of us wanting her to be incredibly successful for the sake of
our children I hope the board will find a way to decrease tensions and collaborate effectively to form productive committees and move the important work forward thank you thank you I do not see anybody else online is that
correct oh wait M please promote our next person thank you can you hear me yes we can hear you please identify yourself uh yes my name is Tina barter
uh my address is 120 Kent Drive um I would like to speak to vocalize my support for the lease agreement um between the Berkeley Heights Rec Department for the use of Lower Columbia Fields I am fully aware of the intentions of installing the turf
field at lower Columbia and I am in full support of the improvements that this will provide to the children who participate in Berkeley Heights Youth Sports as a mother of children who have participated in palal soccer lacrosse baseball cross country as well as the
Berkeley Heights Youth Soccer Club I completely understand the overuse of Snyder field and the horrible conditions at Lower Columbia and paic Park fields if your intentions as member of the Board of Ed is to improve the experience of our students including their growth
that can be achieved through participation in Youth Sports that I highly encourage you to support execution of these of the lease agreement with the Berkeley heads W department now that my children are at the end of their participation in Youth Sports we have gone
through I don't know eight or nine years um with multiple Sports we've experienced extremes of starting practice as early as three 15 following School ending and start times up as late as 7:45 p.m. our children have shared
Snider field with three or four other teams on the field at the same time we've been hit by soccer balls while attending lacrosse practice and we have finished practices or games as late as 9:30 p.m. to the context tonight I am
not able to be at the meeting because my child had sports that ended at 900 P p.m. tonight at Snyder field we also have participated at numerous practices at paic Park fields where our kids have left practice with bug bites all over them and they were drenched
from flooding on or between the fields not only is the existing field space at Lower Columbia and embarrassment to our visiting towns and the middle school teams that see this field as their first and possibly only impression of Berkeley Heights it's also
completely unsafe for our youth athletes the Board of Ed today has a decision or soon has a decision to either help our town move forward by creating a stateof the-art dedicated turf field for our youth sports which
would reduce our Reliance on county-owned and managed space or they could be the blockade that leads to the continued decline in the available space and lack of control over prioritization for our youth athletes I encourage everybody to look beyond their
personal agendas and vote for the benefit of years of Berkeley Heights youth athletes um also I wanted to comment on a statement that was made by one of the other um attendees about not understanding what was being presented
or what was going to be done on the fields including the tennis fields um I have attended meetings at the Berkeley Heights Town meetings where I've heard a very detailed presentation of what the Berkeley H Rec Department is intending to do with that space so I encourage all
of our residents to go back to those those public meetings and listen to the replay of what the Berkeley Heights Rec Department is planning to do with that space um I believe it is very well thought out and is the is a great option
for furthering Our Youth Sports programs thank you thank you I see no one no one else online is that correct correct okay at this point we will close our public comments and is there anyone who
would like to make a comment Dr phry or attorney on anything no Madam president okay thank you uh we're moving on now to Old business discussion of policy 131 uh by Mrs Jolly Mrs
jolly and that would be attachment Q that's correct um as per the last board meeting my intention was to make a motion to adopt this version of the policy that was um approved at the last meeting but I guess procedurally it has to go through old business so I making a
motion to adopt policy 131 as per the attachment second and uh again as a review the policy 131 again does not require a second board a second um a second review by the board by the public that is
correct and it also cuts out our superintendent so to be fair um everyone has seen this version for quite a while and by putting it and by adopting it after that point second reads will be in plate I have a comment okay Mrs Stanley
so the only thing with that is that the superintendent did try to bring some recommendations um on this policy and I was kind of surprised because the first time um there was no like asking the superintendent for recommendations but then when she did give recommendations
it was like oh it's too late I already have this so I was pretty disappointed to see that I was really dis hardened because I really think the whole point is that we're supposed to be working with the staff not telling them what to do um so I was just just utterly
disappointed this policy is not in compliance with stress esme's recommendations either um stress smme has been a policy consulting firm with us for 20 years they have lawyers they have attorneys they have uh super
intendant all on there they've been dealing with policy with our district alone for 20 years right so they have tons of experience and this doesn't even follow that um so this is just this just another push through and then I know even Debbie Terrero gave you feedback
last meeting and you didn't incorporate that but you Incorporated something else about about shess Esme being removed from the the one part and putting something else in but yet Dr phry couldn't change anything because that's what was voted on last meeting but you changed something so it it doesn't make
any sense and I just I'm just so frustrated that we're even here and I really think that we need to establish a policy committee and have them actually go through this and have the staff give input to this before we adopt it because right now the staff is completely
removed from policy and they are the educational leaders of the District right most policy is for the district not for board members very few policies are board members and those are our bylaws which this is but to not get the
import from the district is just I don't know I think it's horrible can I ask a question uh Mrs Jolly do you have a copy of that to share with our our board attorney I didn't print it it's on the
it's on our district the attach website as part of the attachments attachment CU just having a little trouble bringing up the I'll give you my laptop oh thank you okay I think he's thank you um if I may speak uh
Natasha can you clarify two things um this policy that you're trying to revert back to was the word version from 20 which version are we reverting like it's yeah it's primarily the version prior to the one that we had um the intent is to
give the board um a greater voice in bringing forth policies for recommendation again the the superintendent Administration is always participating in policy committee we're receiving feedback but as we experienced last year um a minority of the board
held the majority of the committee and only certain um policies were being recommended as a result even though a majority of the board would have approved a slightly different version so I think this version unless um our attorney finds something that is um you
know not correct um gives everybody a greater voice in bringing the policies forward for a vote so original version so when I was in 2022 prior to it being changed said that and today from the ethics training from njsba the primary
role of the board members is policy making and oversight so if the board members have to create and recommend policy es or changes then a board member should be able to recommend for them for adoption and unfortunately in so just to
give you some History Dr feltri it used to be this was the version which was approved by our legal I think the Mr gagleard your firm had uh you know looked at the original version that we are trying to revert back to and then in
between 2022 and 2023 we reverted which removed the ability of the board members to bring a policy up for Vote or make any amendments to existing policy we inserted the word that any recommendations for policy amendments
and updates have to come from the superintendent and no no disrespect nothing U we understand the role of the chief uh School administrator and the superintendent but policy making and any amendments are a board um role as we
heard and I think we we're just basically reverting to an older version that was I think blessed by Mr gagliardi's firm sorry there's it's like just to be clear it's not exactly the prior version yeah but we removing what we are trying to add is the ability for
the board members we're removing the filtering where everything can only come forth through I I to be honest with you I couldn't even if you try it's listed as a procedure and if you go through the steps of the procedure I couldn't even follow it because there was so many kind
of filters thrown in okay um let's see Mrs terrera had her hand up first then Mrs Stanley and Dr forer so I would just be curious just because I was listening to what Miss Stanley said that there was a
recommendation that Dr phry had provided so I'm curious to what our comment I'm curious to what that was because I obviously missed it well the comment and and and I still have it here it was more of a comment
slash question and it really um sort of came to a head today um but I'm the one who has to implement the policies that are set by the board and um by not having uh me have a role in it then it
it the board could set a policy that Administration would not be able to or or not be able to implement in the way that the board would want or there may be unintended consequences and and and
unintended I I guess consequences to to to what the policy is the second piece and I think this is a question for the board attorney is the reason why this is old business is because the superintendent recommends
a policy or recommend the agenda items and I couldn't recommend this as an agenda item because the policy wasn't in effect and so we went through this but if the if a board policy isn't recommended to the superintendent in
order to be able to put on the agenda do we always go through old business so um I I don't know that that's the most functional way to proceed and my assumption is when you have a policy committee would go through all business we go through a policy
committee okay but I I the the part stricken here on the draft is your existing policy um we abolish policy 131 but that's what was in place prior okay so so right now there is no policy on how
policies are created if I said it correctly yeah so the only thing that that I would say is I don't read the policy that existed when you had a policy to um give the superintendent
veto power over what policies the board can adopt the way I read this is that the initial recommendation can come from the board or the superintendent and the superintendent's role is to review and
comment on it so I'm looking um at um section four so what that means is before the board acts to consider proposed policy um you'd have the benefit of the superintendent or the superintendent's designes thought about
the policy but it doesn't say that the that the superintendent can preclude the board from considering a new policy and I think that's consistent with uh other bylaws and and certainly with the the way um Robert's Rules would have a board govern itself this only requires that
before you act you get the input of the superintendent so um if look if if what you've proposed this evening passes then that's fine but if it if it doesn't and the issue is um the
board not wanting to be prohibited from considering policies if the superintendent doesn't recommended I don't think that's what you had before and if it was implemented that way again that that would be news to me but I I I don't know if
um if you have if you had the problem that you think you had and maybe some super attendants who've been here in the past um read it that way but I don't think that's what it says and I don't think I don't think it could be that way so I think the issue that we had um at least that I felt that we had previously
was that um things going through committee again because whether and the superintendent is always present at the committee and the and the feedback is always taken into consideration um but it could be that you know especially given that we are a
policy making body that you know if certain if something wasn't recommended it could it would not come up for Vote or it has to go into new business and then it Cycles through and Cycles through several iterations right so I I was trying to craft this in a way that
would allow to present you know both sides of the argument so if perhaps Dr phry felt something wasn't appropriate but there was a majority of the board felt that it is we are you know we we we should be allowed that op to explore that option right because it is our main
you know um function yeah so I to be clear I don't disagree with anything you've said the policy that existed before now when there was no policy I guess is it the old 131 can I call it that okay would would not have prohibited a majority of the board for
enacting any policy it wanted assuming it was lawful the the Restriction that I think 131 put on you is before you took that action you needed the benefit of the super prenant's thoughts about the action and then you could take whatever action you wanted so I I I I don't think
that was the problem it sounds from the from what you said and I obviously I appreciate this dialogue because it's educating me was not whether you were going to face a veto from the superintendent because the superintendent didn't have such but whether you were going to face a veto
from the policy committee right we want to bring up a policy goes to the committee it could die in the committee we could never we could never talk about it as a full board right right so right and what I think this also does is it allows us to see what the alerts are as well because
sometimes I don't you know things get brought into committee right um based on a few people's I don't know I guess view of it um but there might be other policies that are coming through the alerts that you know might be beneficial for the board to hear so if if
procedurally right so if if everything that I can do with this version of the policy is what I could have done before then what's you know Pam is saying well this wasn't recommended by stra Esme so what is the big difference in terms of
how we act right that is you know that would that this couldn't you know move forward um Mrs Stanley could I ask for you to comment also yeah so um so that's the thing is you did bring this up in a meeting in November right the only only
thing that was the problem is that you didn't have two meetings right with the five person board so there was nothing stopping you from bringing policy except for actually bringing it but again like uh the attorney said this one says you can bring it without ever going to
committee and without ever going to the board president without ever going to the staff and that doesn't allow them to give feedback and we can face real consequences in policy and we have faced them before so what I'm saying is that this policy
right is a problem for me because you are removing the district and their ability to give feedback it also when it gets put on the agenda it says the recommendation of the superintendent and we saw that our Acting Superintendent removed himself from that motion when
you had done this so again I think that maybe your intentions were good but I don't think this is the right way to go and I think that you know you we have to keep the superintendent and yes we've had other superintendents
but this is the one that we hired right the majority of this board all sat together and hired this this superintendent let's work with her you already changed the policy that says that they every policy has to go to committee you already changed that policy so that's not even in this one
right but please let's not remove right the superintendent and the district's ability to get feedback and consequences of what's going to happen that is the problem with this policy currently so to be fair um the and the attorney can
correct me um if the policy recom does not come recommended from the committee it just goes it it it it says it can be allowed to be voted on to be brought as first read in the following board meeting so having it as first read it can go back into committee it can be
discussed with the superintendent so I don't think it says that you know it automatically goes on the agenda and gets voted on so um actually that's just what you said right it would go to first read and get voted on and then we could go back to committe on the subsequent on the subsequent but you're asking people
to vote on things that they wouldn't have information from the district on right so anytime that we vote on something right we always say I need more information I need more information so you would be then asking everybody to vote on something that they never even
got information from the district on and that that's a problem especially when it's the superintendent and a policy that's going to affect our whole district and our students and our staff I think your interpretation of this is incorrect Mrs kanana so I'm just I want
to make sure that I'm reading the right words here the point number one of this policy that's being proposed says a new or revised bylaw or policy may be suggested to the board by any board member the superintendent any staff
member or a member of the public okay so we have not excluded the superintendent from being involved in the process at all I don't think a member of the public should do yeah that's just one point a suggestion for a new or revised bylaw or policy may be
referred by the superintendent or any board member as appropriate to the subject to a board committee or a public advisory committee for study and formulation of a recommendation to the board
superintendent still a part of the process can you go on this is good I'd like to hear the rest of yeah you want to hear the rest I can go on far this sounds very good I just like to hear the rest of it sure I don't I I can't see any problem with it so far any study of
a policy suggestion should consider whether the matter is adequately addressed in existing board policy and whether the matter is more appropriately addressed by ad administrative regulation Point number four I I skipped Point number two I'll I'll I'll say that
policy SL regulation alerts issued by Strauss Esme should be shared with the entire board that was Point number two I already read Point number three point number four if a recommendation for a new or revised bylaw or policy results
from referral for study a proposed draft will be submitted to the board for discussion and approval on it first reading copies of the proposed draft will be made available to staff members and the public and comment will be
invited changes in the draft may be made by a simple majority vote when the draft is presented for approval on first reading okay Point number five if the study does not result in a
recommendation or if the bylaw or policy was not referred for study the board can vote to put the proposed draft as a first reading at the next regular meeting copies of the proposed draft
will be made available to staff members and public and comment will be invited changes in the draft may be made by a simple majority vote when the draft is presented for approval on first
reading Point number six uh the proposed draft approved on first reading meeting will be submitted for adoption at the next regular meeting of the board changes in the draft may be made by a simple majority vote a change that
alters the substantive meaning of the draft will constitute a new first reading and the draft must be presented for adoption at the next succeeding board meeting a change that is merely
editorial may be followed by a vote to adopt the new or revised bylaw or policy on second reading Dr fter you had a comment if I may so I think where my concern comes
from is is the word may um like I may suggest but it may go around me as well um one does give me the opportunity to suggest but in three
I may refer it or a board member May refer it without me necessarily having any site on it and I and where my concern my personal concern comes with the total elimination of four
down at the bottom where it's crossed out where it says I will review everything I the superintendent or designate will review all new and revised draft bylaws policies and regulations prior to the board receiving a draft
well I don't care about the prior to the board receiving a draft but um where where I don't have the opportunity necessarily to actually review it to one know what the expectation is even though personally I would read all the notices and all of that but that's where my
concern comes in is that a policy could get put through you know without any input from me understood the exact opposite I wasn't necessarily reading it in the limiting fashion that you did but would you be supportive if we remove the
part where it has to go through the superintendent before the board receives a draft but so the point excuse me Mrs Jolly had her hand up so number three where Dr
feler where your concern lies right so the essentially the recommendation can take two paths right it can be recommended to Committee of which you are part of so you will be part of that committee now I'm a non- voting member of committees what was that I'm I'm non voting I'm not a board member I'm non
voting so I I agree in this is where you would provide input right I think your concern was that you don't get to provide input and it kind of goes around you right but so the committee is where you would provide input right if the um if the
policy does not get referred to committee right then it can be put on the agenda for a vote to be brought back at the next meeting as a first read so prior to the next board meeting when we have a policy committee right we can
review it with you in attendance as well there's nothing that's going to go in the agenda that you would not have had in put on the first reading you you could put it on for first reading without me ever seeing it the way the policy's written because I would see it in between first reading and second
reading and there's also something in there that says between first reading and second reading it's really about making minor edits otherwise you're going back in revising the policy and going I think that was just standard language if it's a first read yeah yeah that is standard language expectation U
Mrs Airi had her hand up then Mrs Terrero and then Mrs Stanley oh I'm sorry I didn't see her it's okay I had my hand up mrsi Tom forer he actually dropped his hand because he never got recognized yes I'm just I'm just letting you know like I think somehow the T only
two people one person gets recognized so drry with all due respect as you said you're a non voting member on every committee even on this board so on budget you will make recommendations on Personnel you will make recommendations
it's the board members who vote on them and we always take your advice and your input into consideration be it budget be IT personnel be it administration of the school district District bylaws what we are trying to tell you is the previous version the thing that got
struck down and we have had instances where and even today when you first spoke up and said asked Mr gagleard a question you said the reason this is in new business is because I did not recommend it to be on the agenda couldn't not that
I didn't I I I and then you also said one thing that I would like to clarify with Mr Gagliardi you said all agenda items are recommended by the superintendent I believe the board agenda belongs to the board and if we
want to put any agenda items we go to you as Administration we work with you to put them on through but it's not similar to this policy or you know amendments we work with you to put something on our as simple as a board agenda for a regular board meeting
similarly for the policy you are on the policy committee you actually chair like you get you receive all the communication from Strauss smme all we are saying is because of the past precedence where the entire board was
not able to see the Strauss s May alerts the advice or the recommendations and there were instances where we got Google links of documents where even we we didn't have access to like we click on them no access and then so we have had
this issue and what we looked at is looked at the past version of this policy until 2022 there was no requirement for the superintendent to make any recommendation for any policy to be voted on we so with all due respect we are not trying to come into
your lane and we would really like you know we don't want to administer the school district we don't want to be in your day-to-day running of the school district but as board members and today's training the one thing that we are expected to do is policymaking so I
would kindly request you to support us and have this ability and not be shut out by if the policy committee doesn't want to put something on the agenda we cannot make amendments like we are basically you make a request and if it doesn't get through then you're done
that's where this is and we are not trying to cut you out of giving your input you are very much a part of it anything that we so in a policy committee it will come to you you will you will be a part of that discussion if let's say it doesn't come out of the
policy committee for a vote if it is getting on the agenda it will again come to you and say hey we would like you to put this on the agenda as new business so you are very much integral part of everything where is it that we are taking your right away that I don't
understand would you like to address this or should I go to two other board members oh if they want to no Sor Mrs uh Terrero and then Mrs Stanley so I actually want to ask you a question um so one of the things that I I remember
you saying was that the reason why you wanted to change 131 correct me if I'm wrong here was because you felt like there were two other board members in the policy committee that kind of present like prevented you from being
able to bring a policy change forward is that correct okay so oh okay so is there a way that we we can try to maybe address that rather than removing the superintendent in that
whole process is there maybe a way that we can I'm trying to come up with a solution here is there a way that maybe we can try to fix that so that all members of a policy committee let's say have a right to be heard and
have their ideas brought forward thank you Mrs Stanley and then Mr Dylan and then Mrs K so as the attorney said that the the previous policy did not prevent that which is how Miss uh Jolly brought the
policy in November so there was never anything stopping right the minority in the policy committee from bringing policy to the board the difference is is that it wouldn't go on the agenda as a first read because it was not recommended by
the superintendent what would happen is it goes to Mo business and then that person makes a motion in new business to move this forward to the agenda if it gets passed then it goes on the next agenda right but the problem is it takes three months to do that and some people didn't
want to wait that long um so which you found out um but I want to go through what was actually removed and how some of this didn't need to be removed um so we heard right the one side but under one the original said recommended to the
board or to the superintendent right and then we had recommended number two right recommended to study as appropriate to the subject to the superintendent a board committee or a public advisory committee for study formulation or recommendation to the board right then
three it says a proposed draft will be referred to the superintendent at the discretion of the board president as appropriate to the subject to a board committee all proposed and revised for all revised and new board policy shall be submitted to the superintendent the superintendent will review all new and
revised bylaws policies regulations prior to the board receiving a draft of a new revised board uh bylaw policy or regulations for board consideration so I I think right we're trying to make it not a big deal it's not a big deal but it really is right because you what you
are saying is that the you are going to put it on the agenda without ever having the district give you feedback I don't even know how you could ask board members to vote on that right and like Dr felt said it this in between first read and second
read right according to every training that I've ever done in policy you're about to do a policy training Natasha for um your second year right all that says that you really should only be doing minor changes it should be minor right if it doesn't pass then it can go
back and get major changes but that's not the what that's not what's supposed to happen so this idea I don't even know why it needs to be done because I think that the bured attorney already told you that this doesn't need to happen in order to get what you wanted um but I I
think we've had multiple weeks where Dr phry was here with us that we could have worked with her on getting a policy ready for today but we didn't and I think that's that's a real problem which is why I beg that we put this to the
policy committee so we can really hash it out and get something that we can all feel comfortable with and that the district has a voice in so I'm Mr Dyan I'm sorry Mr Dylan was next then Mrs Conor I I sometimes I have to say it out loud because I'm trying to follow the
bouncing B right so in in my assessment of this this policy was abolished in my words for the most part in order to do what the board did in December to change
155 with all the Committees and and in my so we Bish it we the board abolished it that we're bringing it back because we realized that was a bad idea and that first reading second readings there's a
reason for them we're trying to bring it back and at the same time we're trying to bring it back we're trying to alleviate some of the concerns and I agree with this where there is an applied filter in terms of what makes it to the broader board um and agenda items at the
same time I'm hearing you Dr phry speak out publicly that there are some things in this current language that you are uncomfortable do I have this right okay Mrs conna was next and Mrs Jo um that sounds right but I I also want to point out that I did send this like in Fe like
that this has been circulated in our January meeting I resent it February 10th Dr phry did you ever write me with your concerns just the one time I mentioned it okay Mrs Conor so I'll I'll start by saying all
of these bylaws regulations are usually written with the best of intentions assuming that people in positions of power behave in the most appropriate way we are now in this position because
pretty much all of last year Pamela was the policy committee chair when you stack up and it goes back to the whole discussion about committee assignments when you stack up committees in a way that people in the committee
who are in the minority don't feel that they are heard this is sort of the culmination of a whole Year's worth of behavior so if we want to do better if we want to just respect everybody's opinion on a committee and also work
with the superintendent I think we need need to reflect a little bit upon ourselves to see what will we do better what will we do different we can adopt whichever version of this policy if the behavior is not going to change you know
the policy can only do so much and I want Dr feltri to answer my question like she was going to answer and you interrupted her doc Mrs Bradford I don't get it like the administrator almost had the mic and you are like no no no I'm going to let I want I want to hear from
Dr feltre where are we taking your right away from giving us our input and I also take like I don't agree with you that any item that gets on the board agenda has to be approved by you because the board agenda belongs to the board and I
want Mr Gagliardi to answer me on this does the board agenda belong to the board members who are duly elected by the residents of the community or does the board agenda belong to the administrator I hear you that you have to administer and you have
to enforce some of these bylaws and policies and with all due respect I'm I we don't want to come into your lane so I want Mr Gagliardi to tell me once and for all does the board agenda belong to the board members and who has a right to
propose an agenda to get on the board agenda because what has been happening in this District since 2022 that I have been on is either it's just the board president and the superintendent they have a say on what gets on the agenda if you cannot like you cannot discuss
anything so then we started trying to bring up anything any topic that we wanted to talk about in new business and what happened with new business one time Dr forager asked the superintendent to give a presentation make a presentation because the superintendent reports was
everybody else making a presentation except for the superintendent the just because he made that request in new business the majority of the board came up with a policy to put in a 4 48 hour rule requirement you want to discuss
anything in new business you got to give us 48 fine we are abiding by it we are abiding by every change that has been done to these policies since 2022 all we are asking for is our ability to put things on the agenda and Mr gagleard I
would like you to tell me if the agenda belongs to the board members or the superintendent uh none of the above and all the above okay so the vast majority of things you like that so the vast majority of things that you vote on vast
majority by law require either the affirmative recommendation of the superintendent Personnel is the most obvious example but it's not the only one or the affirmative recommendation of the M administrator spending money is the best example not the only one so the vast majority of things are not going to
be covered by the policy because they're already covered by law um there are a handful of things like this right uh which are not the purview of the superintendent the way you had the policy written before the superintendent didn't have veto power but you were required to get the input
of the superintendent before you act um I think you would find that in most cases that's a sound practice but it's not required so for example I'll use a very obvious One hiring outside professionals you don't need a
recommendation from the superintendent for your attorney your architect your engineer Etc most districts get the benefit of their uh retained administrators but you don't have to do that so the typical approach is that the agenda is a collaboration between the
board president and the superintendent where the superintendent has a control over a vast majority of agenda because the law requires it there are certain things that uh a committee can recommend that the superintendent will advance to the board agenda and then there are a handful of things which seem to be
what's bedeviling us tonight that are not encumbered by law or regulation or practice where if a board member wants something brought up for consideration and
possible action it is certainly permitted if I were I'm going to go a little bit beyond your question if I were um asked to take a look at what used to
be 131 and what's proposed tonight and address what is bedeviling the board I would leave in place old 131 it would solve the superintendent's concern between you might get her input
and you shall get her input but I would add to the old 131 the language in what you've proposed that sort of fills in the Gap the old 131 didn't tell you you what to do if something were referred to the committee and the committee didn't
recommend it and a board member still wanted to bring it before the board and that seems to be what's bedeviling you what you have in the um in in some of the paragraphs you've proposed here fills that Gap in so I I think as
challenging as this seems in terms of your discussion you can um honor the role of the super intendent and answer the question that seems to be the stumbling block which is what happens if something goes to
committee the committee doesn't recommend it but I still want it to be presented before the board so I I I don't think there is as much of a conflict between old 131 and what's presented tonight as this discussion might suggest because I do think you can
fill in the Gap to the old 131 to answer the question that I think is at the heart of your proposal which is um what do we do if um it is not recommended by the committee and that's I think marrying those two things is not a challenge that and um the fact that it's
at the dis the old policy says it's at the discretion of the board president um which um which policies are referred it's a number number three and so given what we've experience
now we'll never going to see anything no so you're making a a right so again right you were able to bring it in November so you're trying to say that the policy prevented you but you the policy didn't prevent you in November from bringing it it took you abolished
it in December because you weren't able to get it done in two readings before you lost your majority right so again you're making something that's not true on top of the fact that there's lots of stuff that's not true right like the that nobody sees the alerts they're in
every single policy committee that I stopped you I know everybody loves to say I'm horrible but the reality is right is that the board president was on that committee the district was on that committee excuse me I am talking you
keep saying I interrupt but I don't interrupt you guys do you got to stop allegations please continue we are asking you not to make allegations how am I making allegations these are facts in email that you can look at any policy document out there and it has the
alerted and linked so please stop interrupting me please stop interrupting there are six emails where we no access to the documents that the has the floor yeah right 90% of the time um I you got to time yourself one
time okay so listen I I think that I would love to go back to the original we can put some wording in that protects you but this idea that that you weren't allowed to do it is not true this thing that we stopped you is not true there was four
people on that and three said that they should not move forward you had you can work with other board members to do stuff you know that and so this idea that the policy stopped you is not accurate if we if we do this I do believe we should go back to the
original we can add wording to make sure that you feel that you can bring it right the minority could bring It Forward because that's actually in Robert's Rules and then I would also asked that we um put in that it has to abolishment has to have a second reading um because we are seeing issues with
that uh let's just abolish policy because we can't get what we want done and that's that's not how board effective boards work well is that in the Strauss sesme version since yes yes it is okay in their option and you saw that because you were on policy right they gave us their their their version with the
option we chose not to so I so it's late I don't think I have anything more to say that I haven't covered in last meeting and this meeting any changes that we can make to PO like you know folks can vote for it or not vote for it and if we do vote for it and it goes
through other obviously changes can be made once we in policy to this policy because then we could bring it to policy committee so I move that we vote um anybody
else okay yes yes so we're voting on this version I think your claim is to call the question right yes basic we have a motion already to approve the policy in a second so what you're saying is you want to call
the question you want the vote Yes so could we be clear now what a yes and a no means a yes would mean that we adopt the new version a no would mean we do not hey Mr secretary
Mrs Jolly yes Mrs Connor yes Mr Kiri yes Mr Dylan I think there's been other options that Dr forer yes Mrs Stanley no M terrera I think there are
better options too I agree with Mr Dylan no Miss Bradford no motion fails can I just ask a Qui question are we going back to exact session do does the district feel that we need to does the board members feel that we yes we need
to go back to ex session unless we need to uh we can set a different time can can I we still have can I make a suggestion to the 131 issue and actually go with the direction of what the
attorney has suggested of going back to the original 131 with the thought process of making the changes that have the concerns of the other board members I'm going to object I think you know we're done with 131 for tonight we need to move on to
the exact session there is else is left for we have new business yeah I don't think we can spend any more time on 131 tonight you want to bring up 131 you know for the next 25 meetings you can but let's get on with the rest um Mr uh our board attorney would you be able to
help us with the language yes yes okay all right going on to new business discussion on policy 155 myself and again I would like to revise that and reduce the number of our our um our standing committees and reevaluate
our Liaisons that's it policy discussion Mrs Stanley I'll refer to next okay uh board committees Mrs cona that was my proposal for the board committees if you want to pick it up for
discussion now happy to do that everybody has a copy um on their email if you want to spend the time to make changes make suggestions we can do that collaboratively or we can move on to the next item we'll move on to the next item
uh board agenda attachment attachments we we we need to discuss that it's not a one person decision well no one has the uh board preferences um I emailed the snapshot of the board preferences to everyone in an
email um in our email conversation um everybody has the link to the spreadsheet that they can look at so everyone has it I don't think it would be productive to do at this point at 11:15 at night but I am willing to have another board
meeting a special meeting to do this Mrs Bradford these are Google links shared by you I think we want to have you know in the interest of working collaboratively I think it is if it is going to be productive to go into an exec session that was not even advertised FYI the on the agenda we
basically said new business adjourn the meeting there was no executive session after the meeting that was advertised and I checked with Dr feltri if she recommended it and she said no she did not so what's on the agenda is in front of us so if we would like to discuss
about committees one additional time instead of trying to scramble and find everybody's availability because at the reorg we did not want to add any additional meetings I would like to discuss them okay um Mrs Ziri would you like to talk about the attachments board
attachments no I'm talking about the board committees we're still talking about the board committees I guess gaale can you explain again what prevented you from Simply taking the preferences that were listed and formulating committees
based on what people were passionate about or really wanted to participate in four people had their first choice and and that makes a committee or you or you remove one right right and then there were other things that Mrs uh some
people had five choices and some people did not but but if you look at the spreadsheet it went committee on the you know and it had one two three so if you just take everyone's top choices you can form the committee but it was not a top choice or second it was these are just
four preferences no there was number one number two they were ranked first preference second preference exactly third preference and if you just go across each committee I mean I could tell you right now what committees would look like if you simply just took the preferences I don't know if there's a feeling within the board right now to do
this at 11:15 when we still have other things to do take a poll Mrs president because like otherwise we walk out of here without committees and I'm trying to understand your rationale for not lit taking the information that you requested and not using it because we
had an hour discussion on this and you guys were not willing to even have a discussion right like I I so you're you're trying to blame everybody else but this is this is it's a it's a negotiation I mean we heard the community just say that they thought it
wasn't done well there was no collaboration Gail sat down with dip Deana uh our vice president to go over this I so this idea that we're we like that Gail is somehow preventing all of you but the reality is is it is Gail's
recommendation and we vote on it and I don't think that we should do this in the middle of a meeting that we already spent an hour an hour discussing this so I think to move the district forward it is important to have committees and so all I'm asking all I'm asking is that
and I did make the recommendation you know Mr terrera made the recommendation I supported that recommendation during that hour discussion that we look at the preferences and form that is collaboration that whole spreadsheet was collaboration right and you you just
didn't I I don't I don't I don't understand the rationale so on the finance committee you would like Mr Dylan Mrs akiri Dr forer and Mrs Stanley so again that might not be my top choice but that's where we should start from right that was the preference
so for curriculum you had three people where it was their number number two choice right that was that's a committee right there right go across I know technology was problematic so I'll take whatever you put down for technology because there was only one person who put it down like
going across like policy like Mr Dylan didn't request policy why is he on policy there was a shuffle as a request of Mrs uh cona um again these are preferences these are not first second
and third choices in there and I am willing to work with Mrs K but what's a preference then if it's not a first or second choice I do I call it a choice or preference that's what I prefer that's my first choice right like I that that's that distinction Escapes Me Oh sorry Dr forer okay so I don't
know if we're ever going to get anywhere but I'm going to propose a technological solution um this is very much like uh student preference is they sign up for their classes they have choices and we have a program that assigns them right I
would like to ask our superintendent if we can just take these preferences and these classes namely the Committees and run it through their the choice program that they have and come up with assignments what it's not
possible to put it in power school in the way that you you can't do it all right so technology fails in this case uh if we could actually agree on an algorithm I could write the code but I don't know if
we could even agree on the algorithm you know like how do we make the assignments given these preferences so um I just have a follow-up question while Mrs kanana was not there so you're saying Mrs Bradford is after you sought everybody's feedback and our preferences
you met with Mrs Khana and Dr feltre and this was the were you there Dr feltri or no I was there when they had their discussion about it but I did not meet with them to arrange the correct so
um so dipy what Mrs Bradford was saying is this final output is what was the outcome of the discussion with you is that true no uh Mrs con had made several suggestions uh the one that she was most
adamant about I took into consideration and then reshuffled to make sure that everybody had one chairmanship and two sitting committees and what was your rationale for um putting people on
committees that were never on their any any of their preference well for example technology only had one person no I'm not I'm talking about Finance so let's talk about finance and Facilities that got merged into one big Committee in 2022 and Mrs kanana was on there I have
been requesting since 2022 to get on this committee never had an opportunity looks like I'll never get it um maybe next year I'll not even ask for it um so Dr forager was on it in 2022 2023 um and Mrs Stanley was on it couple
of years back back to back so I want to help me explain your appointments for finance and Facilities can we move forward from the explanation no I'm asking her for to preferences yes the preferences and how did she end up not rehash let look at it Deb we have to no
she just said that she met with Mrs kanana and this is the outcome of it so I'm asking her how did she decide who it didn't pass so it doesn't matter let's move forward I am willing to work with Mrs kanana again and get this done within this next week within we could
set a time but let's let's just hypothetically let me just this let me ask you this why can't we why do why does Mrs Bradford need a private meeting where the board members who have put their preferences are not allowed to be there why can't we do it now let not
let's not rehash this let's move forward we do it now yeah let's do it now so let's stop talking about what they did let's talk about it now let's discuss it so all right so I'm looking at the preference again this is the appointments of the board president and I don't know if we have the time to do
this right now she doesn't want to do it it's not that I don't want to do it I will do it but at 11:25 at night so it takes five minutes but let's go through fin it won't take five minutes let's try it give it let's try yeah month it's so
let's all right I'm just looking at the first line item you have Athletics co-curriculum you have Mr Dylan Mrs Bradford and myself is the three people that put our names down does everybody agree to those three yes fine okay
excuse me I'm going to have to make a chart here it'll take me about a few minutes I I'll start typing this well and the so I think what everybody's missing is the chair situation right what what Gail was trying to do is give everybody a chair right and you really
shouldn't be chairing a committee that you've never been on which is really difficult right so I think that's where we ran into some problems right but then you could right like I'm I'm only on two committees or something right so like
trying trying to figure that out is the difficult part right that was the difficult part is trying the one thing Pam I'm not I'm GNA chair technology I've never been on the board right I have a in but that's that's why we shouldn't do that right we shouldn't have chairs that are just like everybody
gets a chair right you really should have people right usually it's seniority which would be me and Tom usually it's board President and Vice President right like those are the people that get their picks right and then you move on to other people and like I suggested right I suggested dipy should go on policy CU
she has never been on it right and and learn right about policy and really have to go through reading it right we usually recommend the newest board member to go on policy to help learn it are we doing this now can we just get into it the other option is me I have the floor I'm I'm not opposed to having
somebody new be the chair because so can we maybe form the Committees and then yes can we have an ad hoc committee to do this no no can we just do this now like yeah de can you move to the next line Athletics we are all in say go to
the next culum has five people yes Dr forger Mrs Jolly m aeri m cona and Mrs Stanley so who question whose first preference was it on that but hold on so
it's Mr for Dr forer sorry um Mrs jolly and Mr Cary so the question would be does Mrs Conor or Mrs Stanley have an objection to forgoing doing the curriculum for something else but again right then
you're going to hold on excuse I'm talking right you this is the second time you interruped me so the the the problem with that though is is that if I remove myself from that one I can't remove myself from others because then I won't get right I won't be on a certain
amount of committees and then again do we have people there that have been in curriculum that could share right so that's that's where I think we're we can so my suggestion if you want to do this one round of this we can come back and see if we need to readjust you never going to get it right and the
preferences are all over the place okay so if you ask me I'm fine to not be on curriculum and do something else if the other people are like really want to be on it okay what about you a minute let's just name them again please
so it's curriculum it would be Dr fer sure um Mrs jolly and Mr car yeah I wouldn't vote for that committee I would vote no to that you would say no you wan to be part of the no I would say I wouldn't vote for that committee right that that's these these committee
members I don't feel would be good in that committee right I would vot question is do you want to be on it or on the question no that's not what she she excuse me I question about do you want to be let let's clarify the question cuz we are not individually voting on every committee we are trying
to do our best to figure out who are the members that would be most acceptable in forming a committee and I said they're unacceptable fine okay you don't want to give up your spot no okay I'm willing to drop off of curriculum let her have it
okay okay are you comfortable with that I'm not going to comment oh my God cuz I Hon don't think we're going to let it let's get on with the business let's say okay so Mrs um so Dr had her preferences
of she preferences of curriculum negotiation fin finance and Facilities no uh well that was that was five but she was already on that um and then what is that personnel and then then she had so she
had five preferences you look at the spreadsheet they choices First Choice second choice third choice four five and again I want to make it fair everybody have that yeah so I'm dropping off Debby you can remove me from there okay so let's just say for
right now for curriculum Dr forer Mrs Jolly so who's the chair please Danley well we haven't gotten that far yet and Mrs Stanley okay we'll just say that now F I'm going to skip over say it again curriculum no let's do that's the
most important one let's do it the curriculum is Tom and finance and Facilities is Mr Dylan missir Dr forer and Mrs Stanley so Dr forger is on curriculum I'm sorry Natasha could you
repeat that please myself and curriculum now what about Mr D no we're talking Finance no that was curriculum I was reciting oh sorry Mrs Natasha would you repeat it one more time for curriculum Tom myself and
Pam thank you finance and Facilities we have for first choices we have Mr Dylan Miss Airi Dr borer and Miss Stanley so we need three Finance can we
have four members on finance we used to have that's a hot item we have it hasn't it has been a practice the past two years but it has not been a practice before it's only there was an alternate there were three board members and there was an alternate so dipti was
an alternate the first in 2020 okay so can we put all four of those members down and then we can f figure out later how everything falls and maybe decide who an alternate would be I disagree with that because we
ran into trouble with the alternate no what happens is uh you structure the agenda so that the uh first part of the meeting and have four members and then when you when you get into the k through eight part of the agenda then you have to drop what that alternate member
that's the way it was working yes so can we put all four people down so that one of Des no and then we'll go back and revisit it once we kind of have this all shaken out yeah
just who was that now Dylan who was your other three um Dylan Airi forer Stanley okay so now we have negotiations we have Bradford Terrero forer Airi I'm happy to step down from that if somebody if the
other three want it I'm okay with that even though I have it as Bradford Terrero it was Bradford Terrero forer Kiri so first was Bradford second was myself Dr forer was third you were fourth you do have four Cho you have
five choices on yeah I dropped out of curriculum okay so I'm okay with not doing negotiations that's fine if if it's a problem so then we could do Bradford forer and Airi so I would vote that down as well because uh that same
group was what uh has been handling negotiations last year and we so why don't you we are in trouble according to we're not in trouble we're about to be in trouble we not in trouble let's not exaggerate things we're not in so now that means not in just so you guys know
so just so you guys know that now means that all three of your committee choices have been appointed so there's no other option for you guys so I got Finance so it would be if we're if we're work oh I'm sorry wait you backed off of
curriculum but Dr forg or your choices would be done yes just so you know you got curriculum finance and negotiation okay so now personnel has first choices you actually have two first choices did you know that
you have personnel and you have policy Okay so I can't change this but just remember that okay so so Mrs con wants Personnel so then the third choice because there's nobody for second would
be AE Stanley and Dylan I would suggest I'll drop out Debbie to so are you comfortable with that Tom no no Tom's not there so it's Conor Stanley and Dylan
yes could you repeat that please cona Stanley and Dylan or what personel Personnel Stanley okay and Dylan policy um you have First Choice is Mrs
Jolly M cona and Mrs Stanley now yeah I don't what do I okay so so you have three people are we moving on from policy there's a fourth person so she's on it's her first fourth choice for policy so it would
be how many times do we have certain people just because I I want to make sure that we uh one person should chair and then they're two sitting no no no I mean like I want to make sure that somebody's not on four committees right I'm keeping track of that okay so if we did for policy Jolly cona and Stanley
sorry I'm just using your list just is it's easier okay okay then strategic planning would be Mrs Bradford Mrs jolly and myself
right okay and then technology I'm the sole survivor over there so who is left that doesn't have anything how many am I on at the moment
list three three You're On Athletics finance and personel Debbie did wasn't my name on strategic planning your name was fourth yeah you were on fourth choice no but I only got two as of now right because I dropped out of curriculum and I dropped out of
personnel so I only have what do we have left drop I could drop that if you want to take yeah I will take strategic planning okay so miss car Beyond strategic planning with gaale and myself so then who do we have left
because I'm on technology Natasha and who's the other person because somebody is missing last year we only had no last year we only had two people on technology it was just me and Carri the way no no yeah there were oh Angela
dropped out okay sorry so yeah sorry yes so if nobody else wants to do it then gaale you want to do it with us I mean I'm just because you're the board president I will go anywhere well how many did Dylan have did you get enough
you did okay good don't have that yet I have Mr Dylan on finances and on personnel and Athletics just wouldn't recommend me on a committee of two because if I got to step out then you're left talking about what have we talked about before if you're talking about
technology you're talking about I know technology at a specific building you're can ask me to leave the meeting right so but your but the technology should go throughout so I don't I don't think you would have to leave the meeting because we're not in a quorum you just wouldn't be able to vote on it in public what he
said was before um there would be some sance oh that was before no that was with four yeah I think you'd be able to be in the committee it's just that we would the Berkeley Heights would miss out on one more voice but okay so how does this shake out right now so
technology do you have that gu it's myself Natasha and you who somebody not have at least three committees I have not calculated that yet okay because I know we have four on facilities that's
why and if we can put four on facilities if that's a hot number I think we should do it so Athletics we have Dylan Bradford Terrero on curriculum we have forer Jolly Hana and Stanley so who's dropping
out it was for and P yeah that's right P then finance and Facilities we have uh forer Dylan Stanley and a
k and a that's four though correct who's going to drop out quick question was well maybe what we do is we have one of those people be an alternate or can we have four people in the case where Bill has to step out
you do so that's what that was my question is he said anything that we are discussing from K to 8 we can't have because he doesn't have the Voting Rights so I I don't know Bill do you want to be in the
alternate yeah because there's no voting in committee right I think the only in committee right the only reason why we ever had someone step out is because in that when we right because you can have all four board members be Berkeley members and that fourth person still has to step out because the Quorum has been
met right so and we we did run into issues with this last year because sometimes you don't realize that this is a a threepers job um and then we ran into issues where people didn't want to be the alternate they wanted to come so it if we're going to do a fourth
alternate then we got to at all adhere to the fact that you will only be invited sometimes and you have to admit that that's Happ is there anything preventing because we have four people that really really really really want to be on this committee is there anything preventing from a quorum perspective or
whatever of having all four of those board members attend that meeting as long as there's an alternate that can only attend when we have a quorum of eight for the vote when like transp
build right then it's only three okay but so would we be forget this I'm confused by the alternate statement can we have I understand dropping out a good option might be if Dylan's on that maybe he's the alternate
because then he could always be there when it's GL only okay um that makes sense so we would have to we would have to ask the business administrator when he does the finance committee with us the G only go first and then Dylan would
leave the meeting or be present just not say anything other schools only First District or G okay yeah and then would that then if he's an alternate would that put the scenario
where he would then be also on the technology as an alternate he already has two boards okay so so how does that fake down and is that something that's reasonable that everybody
feels like they haven't been slated was Gail on the finance committee though no but she also didn't put herself down at all as a consideration and nothing no offense to you Bill but I feel like finance and Facilities ESP especially when you are
you don't vote on any of the hiring from k28 or financial decisions for buildings it's finance and Facilities it's not a separate facility separately and finance so there might be multiple instances where we will only be talking about
those buildings so do you still want to be on finance I don't want to comment anymore on this i' I've shared my statement okay um and I think we worked out an option that it well you guys put forward your proposal and I'll vote Yes or no I mean
I'm really done with the conversation can't say anymore I think we should allow I think it's the right thing to I've been on the finance committee in mountain side for five years I cheered it for three I bring valuable experience that you guys could all benefit from the school this District could benefit from
all I can do is offer right that's that's what I'm here for um if that's if that doesn't sound like the profile of somebody that you want there to help out then we'll vote and we'll figure it out I think we should I not
like I just come up the street right I I I come this no see all I'm saying is like I was able to meet in the middle and I dropped out out two of my would you supping that's a hypothetical yeah well I'd be I'd be fine to answer right so I
think the role I would answer it this way the role of us here are to create the best learning environment for all the students if that individual came with a with a level of expertise or experience that could make my district
better 100% they I would want them on the committee the expense but nobody is losing their spot because everybody I we oh second we are and she has been on the finance committee I don't I don't think of it that way right like we this
is this is this is our this is our I get it and you're you're starting to scrape away at some of the tension between the the Two Towns right I mean and I do not want that at all I want I want our Mountain Side representative feel an
equal part and it's only one voice right or or two right so um yeah I I think I am here to offer what I can offer um you have your opinions if the version that comes in front of us you don't like v no
I I don't know what to tell you you know and I I think I think listen I don't want to hold listen guys I listen I know there's some bad blood on this board I know people have felt slated I'll be honest
with you I was very upset I was very upset about what happened in December to me well but I'll be honest with you hold on I've let it go we the let yeah let's try to restore trust and faith in each
other and let's try to move forward I think everybody's pretty much gotten options that they've want no I so Debbie respectfully I dropped out of two of my choices personnel and curriculum and I very strongly feel that
finance and facilties should have berley Heights members so it's my I'm just going to put it out there Bill wanted Personnel even though there will be 80% of the items on there could be k28 and I'm fine with it I dropped out of personnel I wanted to be on curriculum
and collaborative consultative model is a very very close to my heart and I'm fine with it all I'm saying is for finance and Facilities in a year where we are also planning for a referendum I feel like we should have Berkeley Heights members but the referendum is going to be an adog committee it's not even going to be part of that committee
can should be strategic planning actually it should Mr D let me let me comment because I was my name was brought up my selections are not my preferences my selections are where I think I can
have the best impact for this board it is not my preference finance and Facilities is a lot lot of work right I'm I you know it's going to take time away from my family right I'm already on finance Mount side right however I can't
sit here and not offer up the best expertise so what I when I filled out when I filled out the form I filled it out where can I make the biggest impact same thing it's not it's not a preference you you it's not a preference preference it's where I think it's where
I think I can make the best impact for the board what what you guys are suggesting is the voices and the talent you're not taking into account experience or impact or anything right you were no we are so all I'm saying is I have also the preferences were the word used because
that's what Gail Bradford had asked for us in that log all I'm saying is DP and my me we we manage finances we manage multimillion put this forward and let's decide on here's the need for committees
outweighs the desire for me to be on whatever you want to do so take me out of it put your names in the boxes and we'll vote right this is why this exercise was not going to work at 11:20 U but you decided to do it so put
forward your your version and let's vote okay let's let's go till 12 o'clock and see what we come up with do we we need to decide on chairs no we we still have too many people on a committee too and not everybody has an equal amount they don't so what's not equal correct that's
what I'm working on now I I do want to say that we should have board president on certain committees like that's us like that's that's a usual standard so usually the board President is on finance and Personnel at minimum um because it's
it's some of the most important doesn't she have the right as board president to show up to those meetings not if we have four people not if we have four people about for that's the point of the committee okay so so for only have two only have
two Mrs Stanley only has two oh she's on finance and facility three she has three I have two Personnel Finance faciliity hold on I have uh let's see
curriculum I have curriculum and finance and Facilities what was the other you only have two yeah so for policy I have Jolly Conor Stanley and Bradford have policy Jolly Conor Stanley
hord Jolly Conor and Stanley I have policy I have Personnel right now so you want to be on technology with us I w't be in finance but I can be on technology Mrs con I have you on Personnel policy and what was the Tak off of Finance
that's it I don't have anything else prer and the preferences had this the preferences had Dylan car so for policy we have Jolly Conor Stanley uh for strategic planning we
have Brad for Jolly Terrero akiri and Mrs akiri I thought you'd be good on that one dropped Natasha Dro oh you dropped okay it's good Sai Debbie you on strategic planning okay and for technology we
haveo actually strategic planning fun fact never meets 2022 not a single meeting 2024 one this year yeah it's a it's a big one this year Well we never know no so strategic planning is the fiveyear Strategic plan that we have
which it needs to get done because one our our strategic plan ended and then two we have a new superintendent okay let's decide on dpy what's you what is it that you want let's go for the vote so for athletics I have Dylan Bradford
Terrero for curriculum I I have forer Jolly Stanley Finance of facilities forer Stanley akiri Dylan negotiations Borger Bradford Herrero Airi I I pulled myself out of
that it's Bradford forer and Personnel Conor akiri Stanley Dylan forer no that was and not and Dyan okay so at this
point Mrs Ziri has let's see she has finance and Facilities correct yes and negotiations has three she has negotiations finance and
strategic strategic planning Bradford I have I have negotiations you have technology strategic planning negotiations and Athletics so I have a question from Mr Gagliardi in a finance
and Facilities committee meeting can the non- voting member be part of the discussion so if we're discussing finances for hiring more people Athletics or facilities related stuff can the non- voting member be part of
the discussion so from the mountain side Mountain Side representative so represent partip when I was talking number people concern is thatc fa maying about
add the finance issue impossible to imagine doesn't involve that would impact the high school in which case um it's okay my concern is when you have a discussion in the midst of all of this that is not going to
you're have four people sitting that's why it's my recomendation as it I don't see how you're that find accidentally violating and in fact now that I'm think the
reason I asked to that a C made a series ofs and triggered an investigation it was Miss excuse
me we were talking about it earlier no no no Mrs no this is this is ridiculous I never my opma related stuff didn't even start until after reconfiguration so please refrain from he's talking from 10 years ago I moved to this town like
12 years ago and I had no idea about border Fed so I would really request that you apologize if you're going to make these kind of allegations it wasn't yes um I don't want the board to think
that is simply an overactive legal mind this was of an issue was investigation office which resolve by way ofec action plan that I believe is the
reason why I only iation that a matter of have a ref that element you toine hey Kea get us to a vote remove me from Finance I I
don't I'm walk I'm walking out in six minutes well we have to be done in six minutes so that would leave Mr Dylan with Personnel Athletics and what was fine techn I'm I'm fine with your hold
on Personnel Athletics and they're basket weaving put them on technology that would be four on technology then can't oh who else is on okay for there's nobody else on technology there's Terrero Jolly Bradford oh that's right
you're on technology two is fine I got other stuff to do if you want to be on strategic planning I don't two is
fine so for Mrs Airi we have Finance facilities negotiations and strategic planning Bradford negotiations technology Athletics uh strategic planning Dylan now personnel and
Athletics borer curriculum Finance facilities negotiations jolly curriculum policy strategic planninga Personnel policy and I don't have anything else here was it curriculum no you took yourself off of
that one what was your other one my second preference I think was Finance okay Finance but then that adds four people right that would be four so um can you repeat who's on the
finance I finance Finance Finance Finance porer and Stanley we have Stanley Airi and I'm sorry um Gail put me as an alternate DP was on it for the last two years he just said we're gonna get rid
of four that's why Mr Dylan removed himself so we have forer on finance Stanley and Airi and gaale your your committees I I kind of disagree with like you should be on personnel and finance or at least Personnel if not Finance
would you agree we only have three members technically the president can attend any meeting but they can't they can't dis have a discussion they can sit there Debbie we have five minutes let's
put it to a vote and then let's just put it for a vote it's five uh there's no vote possible yet because we don't have an even distribution yet and I don't have it done we have six minutes and I suppose you're not going to trust me to put this together and talk to Mrs KH about this tomorrow if we can just get it done
we'll have the Committees and start exactly yeah start moving you don't have to ask for another board meeting adver have another board meeting anyway to talk about other items that are that's a separate topic Debbie see we asked for additional board let's yeah let's just
get it done right now yeah let's go okay if I call your name out will you keep count for me how many you have Athletics Dylan Bradford Terrero curriculum forer Jolly Stanley Finance of facilities forer
Stanley Airi negotiations forger Bradford Airi Personnel Conor Stanley Dylan and then we have policy Dolly
Stanley and Conor uh strategic planning Bradford Guerrero akiri technology Terrero Jolly Bradford or Dylan you want can we please move to a
vote I move we don't have a committee evenly distributed well there's four on technology Terrero Jolly Bradford and Dylan how many do you have so far two you have the technology that would beerley right
Brad can we go I just so because I'm I can we choose the chair that would be four I would have four then so the finance has Stanley forger and Airi Finance head forer Stanley Airi
negotiations Airi Gail Tom Borger Bradford Airi no Brad yeah Natasha how many did you have three what one two could you tell me those three please so I have on
curriculum I have and I have you okay oh wait minute I'm sorry well it's 11:59 right we're not done yet and Mrs Jolly would you tell me
again please Tech policy and this Terrero where do you have what do you have I have Athletics um strategic planning and Technology you're a and Bill you had personnel and
Athletics correct Dr forger what' you have Finance negotiations and negotiations three you had curriculum finance and negotiations and Mrs Jolly did I just do you curriculum oh I was going around um
Mrs Conor what did you have policy and person not curriculum no Mr Stanley what did you have I believe I have curriculum Finance I don't know what the other one was
policy I had you down for policy I thought oh okay I thought I had Terrero cona and jol on I'm not on policy I know that okay policy had had Jolly Conor Stanley
right that's right so Mrs Stanley you had curriculum finance and policy and Personnel that's four no I wasn't on Personnel yes you were I am it was Conor Stanley and Dylan I have it as Personnel
too um and then U Mrs Terrero could you tell me what you were on I'm On Athletics strategic planning and T okay so Mrs akiri has three Bradford has
four Dylan has two Borger has three Dolly has three Tana has three Stanley has four I've got two which one I have you on person personel policy not curriculum no so what's Gale why don't you take my Personnel spot
then she already has four I already have four Gail does yes so what what are you on Pam Mrs Stanley I have on curriculum Finance policy and Personnel so do you want to give up curriculum to depy because she only has two or what other
so I wouldn't vote for that okay what vote for jolly forer and con on curriculum we struggled there last year so what committee what committee are you cul last year I didn't say you were wait what I didn't say okay it is
12 o'clock so we could call it now and then I can put this together Mrs Connor Mrs Bradford we no we we are almost there we are Debbie just asked a question from Pam which ones do you want to be on
isn't it open violation if we go on today yeah actually it is and it's we have a policy one and we got in trouble one time for going past midnight um and we don't have we don't have chairs picked either no need to
share and I won't I won't vote for negotiations as is I won't vote for that's not the question work collaboratively Are we just discussing who are we not going to vote for okay can I tell can I talk about how what I'm
saying is it's going to take more time for me yeah just go over Athletics is this correct Dylan Bradford Terrero yes yes curriculum borer Jolly Stanley yes
yes Finance of facilities borer Stanley Airi yes negotiations forger Bradford cirri yes Personnel Conor Stanley Dylan
yep policy Jolly Conor Stanley that's right strategic planning Bradford Terrero akiri yes and then on technology let's see it would be Terrero jolly and
Bradford yes yes okay so can we to each other because we're working collaboratively that we will be respectful of everybody's opinions on things and be open
to suggestions maybe because certain people didn't get on those committees to be heard Debbie are we voting today or are we not let's not prolong the discussion in the whole point be done with it yes if this is the list that we are voting let's vote on it
yes I don't want to prolong this further and okay on um Athletics Dylan Bradford Terrero chair Dylan you want to be
chair curriculum forer Jolly Stanley I I vote with jolly or myself I will chair finance and Facilities forer Stanley Airi P for chair I would not vote for that that's
fine because we we haven't been getting um like you have to present to the board when you're the chair and we struggled in that area last year and so hacking people why don't we just go and choose the chair but I'm saying I won't choose the chair because of those reasons so
they're factual Reasons I'm not even just accusing anybody right is borer Bradford a cury Bradford Personnel Conor Stanley Dylan has to be either has to be Conor or
Stanley I would go with Kaa that was Personnel Personnel policy Jolly Conor Stanley that would have to be Stanley that would have to be Stanley strategic planning
was Bradford Guerrero Airi got to be a c gota be a c committee never meets technology was Terrero Jolly Bradford gota be okay so if I call your name you have
a chair if I don't call your name you don't Dylan Jolly for for Bradford Conor Stanley akiri Terrero does everybody have a chair who's chair of negotiations me Bradford borer and then standing
committees would be under Athletics it is we know that chairing so it would be Bradford and curriculum Jolly is chairing so it would be
Stanley and forer finance and Facilities forer is chairing so it would be Stan Airi negotiations Bradford's chairing and it would be
forer and Airi Personnel is Conor chairing it would be Stanley and Dylan so policy question on Personnel
okay let's finish this I'll come back to that on policy Stanley is chairing so it would be jolly and Conor yep strategic planning akiri is chairing
so it would be Bradford and Terrero Peck would be Terrero jolly and Bradford so it would be jolly and Bradford that's right Terrero okay so let me just make sure
that everybody has two you can you could yeah I have only one Jolly sorry one two make sure we're good yeah we're good can we
vote one you have to allow people to have a discussion because now right like I think some people might want to hear why I don't agree with this right because right and you guys might want to say why you don't agree with this right so I I think trying to call a
vote you know you just accused other people of that so yes I have one plus one that's right so you only have two that's is on personal policy that's right and you're okay with that Mrs
Stanley I would like other things but I'm not screaming and stomping like some other people Mr Stanley has three I'm pretty sure you did that an you know three hours ago when we first discussed it so Mr Dylan has one Mrs K has one Mr
Stanley has three I have three what chairs you are chairing policy and you are on curriculum and you are on finance and facilities and you are on Personnel she's on four per committees instead of everybody El like and there are Mrs
Stanley is on four committees that's what I'm saying I don't think some of these are are correct but you know the finance and Facilities has a lot to do and that's we're not going to get anything done and Ne negotiations is a huge year for negotiations with Mountainside teacher contracts we have a negotiation that hasn't moved anywhere
with the same group of people so I that one I will definitely like that one's a problem um because we I can't wait another year to get stuff done um and we can run into legal issues as well um and then finance and Facilities again right
like we we have to work with the ba and and these some of these people on here have a have difficulty working with the ba and so I I think that that also is not going to happen and when we have so much going on no that's what I'm saying because I
don't the people on there are not uh I think you speak known for I show up to everything you guys can you know whine all you want but I show up I show up I work with the district I work with the superintendent I work with
AJ very well no we're asking you I got the bills Done Quick right are are you are you going to be able to work with the people on the committee or are you stepping down no that's what I'm saying is I don't think the committee will get a lot done right because I've seen because we saw
negotiations which is very similar you're you're trying to project I can say the same thing about so many committees go for it go for it but that's not the attitude that we need to bring to the table it is when we have huge issues that we need to address and I don't think that these committees will
be able to move those issues forward yeah that's a district issue we had the negotiate committee with Airi and Tom that did not move anything for an entire year now we're going to put Airi and Tom on the finance committees are we really
going to be able to get things done are we really going to be able to get the budget done no no Dr for no let's not get there no let's let's just take a straw pole no Pam you you said no straw Poes and then you you know change your mind right now it's 12:5 Pamela you and I are on two
committees together I haven't said a word about you at all I have my own go for it but what I'm saying is I have a concern about the district not about these people about the district because I'm saying that I watch all concerned about the district get off your soap box
if you want to work together let's do it I'm sorry that you don't like what I'm saying but I have a right to say it so Debbie you want to know why this didn't work last year this is why and why we're having such a big problem you want to work together you generally start by
working with people and not attacking them all right it is after 12 we are going to put an end to this I will put this together we won't put it for a vote tonight no no we we it's your no we want to know what does the majority of the board do Mrs Brad we have Stanley on
three Conor on one Dylan on one Terrero I that's fine are we going yeah that's fine that's not right I'm on more than one okay so somebody's got to produce the real version that we're voting who's got okay chair yeah yeah
yeah chair plus one this is it that's what it is yeah so astics I have we have all the we have written it Ord Guero members curriculum Jolly chair
Stanley borer finance and Facilities borer Stanley akiri negotiations Bradford borer Airi that's a problem one Personnel Conor Stanley
Dylan policy Stanley Jolly Conor uh strategic planning akiri Bradford Terrero Tech Terrero Jolly Bradford how can we fix uh negotiations with
Bradford for G there's nothing to fix Mrs Bradford we want to go for the vote and then you can talk it's it's two members voicing concerns let's ask the rest of us what is can I ask the concern let's be open and honest
what is the concern because forer uh uh kir and Bradford were on negotiations last year and nothing has gotten done the contract accurate June and we still do not have a contract that's not accurate we have a lot of reports that's from one person I was ready to give I
was ready to give a presentation it wasn't one person I think I just said this and it was called slander but it is a problem it is a very big concern especially when we have it wasn't done big contracts coming up that Mr Dylan has asked us multiple times to get
started on because we might lose somebody if we don't take this seriously so I have a huge concern with that one on top of the fact that the same combination is basically in finance and it's going to be an issue so you have the same three people that were on last year and nothing was accomplished that's
not that is not true we have we do not have a contract I'm sorry but that's because you time today we have a presentation that's ready to go I was going to do it tonight I had it on the no we do not want to do that that is confidential information about your presentation no we don't want we're not
doing it now you are making some statements that are totally false all right there is a in totally false in that negotiations we have two roads to take right sorry and we we're not going to discuss this in
public but that's your reason it's bogus if this attempt was let's get people's names have chairs appointed let's just put this to vote either it passes or it doesn't you tried to do it your way I gave my suggestions now we've
had this conversation collaborative everybody has had a chance to say what they want to be on some people got what they wanted and some people didn't it is what it is so I don't know why we are still debating put putting this on for a
vote let's make it happen we've been talking about committees for two months now and I think Dr Fel made a statement that that she feels she's hamstr can I can I ask a question if we're finding the items that are concerned
and I'm not trying to Target you guys I'm just asking a question that things like negotiations aren't moving forward can are we all willing to revisit it to try to see if we can step in and help it move forward all we were
on the part of the meeting being televised I don't think we should be talking about this okay again these committees could be temporary because we are going to have to restructure 155 reducing it from 8 to whatever we come up
with that you'rea that you're not allowed to talk about it is not accurate and no no there's there's something in negotiations we cannot talk about I agree but that was not Debbie so Debbie's allowed to discuss what she want okay I just want to ask everybody do you want to vote on this
tonight or not just tell me yes or no because I no very we know about well and that's why right and that's why they're they don't want you to hear our concerns because then you might change your vote to say no right and that's that's why they're trying to stop us from talking
and again um when I my version and even I think M and Gail is supposed to give a recommendation to the board and she's not comfortable with this so again I think we're in a lot of problems here it it is not Equitable Mrs Stanley
has three M Mrs Jero has to um yeah so make a recommendation or ask her to step down I I cannot with all this moving around here right now it would take me probably some time to do this so I am not ready yet it's close it's close we
are just pushing this decision by another month and I don't think it's going anybody and again we should have a meeting um so are we willing to change finance and negotiations we have forer Stanley and Airi on finances it's the negotiations
Bradford uh forger and Airi what do you want switch out why don't we just talk so do you want because I had no the problem is Tom and me okay there are two board members who do not want the two board members who have been on negotiations with the teachers contract
successfully got this through okay we got a four year so I don't understand so are we that's not accurate information so basically yes everything we say is not accurate and whatever slander that you throw at us is accurate right so all I'm saying is this
yes Mrs uh Terrero comfortable I dropped out of two committees else would you be able to if we did Terrero forer and air on negotiations put me in negotiations and then I would take Tech Bradford Jolly oh
I'm already on there do that no can't do that I'm already on there there is only one board member sitting here who has four committees we need to that that's fine if that's how you want to go ahead with the vote that's fine if I mean I did have negotiations as my
second option yes you did so if if if you guys would feel more comfortable with me moving in there and then I would be happy to give up something else that I was slated for that's fine that would be Athletics
or Dr strategic planning so is somebody else that would would want you guys want to do it would be Dr forger moving to strategic planning no I don't I want to stay on negotiations I've done the work I've got
the presentation ready to go we could have done it tonight but you know you allowed certain other discussions to take place you could present your I I presentation to a member to present to I have it ready to go I've done the research I don't think I think it's just
that really there's some another issue here that I can't talk about but I've done the work I have the presentation all set to go if you want to go back here in exec session I'll do it tonight it's a 15minute presentation
okay so the question are Stanley and air I mean air and forer that have to change I already dropped out of two committees Mrs Bradford be fair as the board member who has four committees to drop up so that doesn't solve the issue no it
no but if you what do you mean it doesn't solve the issue unless you put it for a vote so so what they're presenting is that I would take the place of one of you guys on the negotiations that's basically what I'm
here then I want one of my first choices which is Personnel or curriculum there was a problem with me being on curriculum give me curriculum I'll drop out of negotiations yeah well Pam would you be willing to give curriculum up well no that would have to Mr Dolly but then we would yeah then we
have the chairs would I would it be okay if you want if s if you take curriculum and I'll take negotiations yeah sure okay we are on the max duration we have to stop our meeting and we have to let the custodians um take care of this we're
close when do you want to meet again no we are not closed we have we can vote I'm I'm I just said fine I'll I'll take curriculum let Natasha be on negotiations does that does that make you guys feel more comfortable only why is my opinion not I
like why is only one board member I don't like this no one board member doesn't like we are told in exec oh one board member recommended this that cannot be on this but here one board member has the supreme power this is not how it works well if we swap out jolly and the
ciri then Mrs Kiri has two chairs and Mrs Jolly has none no what two chairs how do I have two chairs you would chair curriculum and you would chair uh yeah MH that's fine I don't want strategic planning give it to somebody
else then we would have to redo everything here can we have can we schedule suay next week I don't understand we heard Pam like so you could right heard Pam's objections let's whatever here can we vote on it we could put it on okay without the changes here
let me go over it one more time and when you you can read it when we're moving the motion Mrs Bradford Athletics Dylan Bradford Terrero curriculum Jolly Stanley borer Finance forer Stanley Airi
negotiations Bradford forer Airi Personnel Conor Stanley Dylan policy Stanley Jolly Conor uh strategic planning Airi Bradford
Terrero and Tech Terrero Jolly Bradford correct okay so okay we'll take a vote Yes it is not so then why did we go through all this why we go through all this
no because you had to see the true colors no if we can get with a board again we're close it's not going to happen again so can we can because we have other stuff we need to talk about in exact can we propose
another meeting Deb if we are not voting tonight okay we we have sat through here you have really seen the true intent and the true colors of the two board members who do not want to put it up for vote I I'm asking for a straw poll no I want a straw poll from Bill do you want to vote
on this tonight no no I just want to know yes yes so let's let's let's have a roll call vote yeah let's vote right now by saying that you're not you've been sitting here you've been taking notes
you've been doing all of this all right let's take a vote if this is is this a violation of a policy the policy requires this be the board president's recommendation so I don't know if the board president saying
let's take a vote is her formatively putting this before the board let's do it are you comfortable with this she just said it twice Debbie please it's 12:25 let's do
it going to need a first and second I move it I move the motion to vote on Bradford's recommendations I'll second it really if you want to move ahead you you've seen how this is
playing out you have to step up so let me ask you a question if there's a concern about a certain committee and things are not get getting done are we going to make a commitment to each other that we're
going to have to somehow step in to get it to move forward why don't we get rid of negotiations and make that an ad hoc committee don't make new suggestions at 12:25 I think at this point I think yeah
I call for the vote we have a motion and a second yes can we call can we do the roll call yes we have a motion we have a second and I think we need to call for a vote I mean you asked the Madame President
right and she said she's she wants to move along so gag Mr gag help we have to make sure we're not violating the policy right it's a it's a very straightforward question is this your recommend are you recommending the compromise that we've hammered out here to the board for consideration okay so it's been recommended by the president it's been
moved and seconded properly before the board are you saying I already Ready set go okay Mr Kiri yes Dr forer yes Mr Dylan
no Miss Jolly yes Mrs Connor yes Mrs Stanley Miss Terrero pass pass M Bradford yes I'm not comfortable voting unless I
know if the board president is comfortable with this I just voted yes okay yes motion passes okay so we'll put this together send it to everybody
second all in favor I well we were going to do a second exact are we going to no no all right but we do have to come to some conclusion about the Lower Columbia field this month before the end of March otherwise it will incur cost and
Personnel by the district end of the month right this is February can we have a can we I remind you setting up a time to to go over that
I would love to set up the time we're not are we off yes are we off Tim we're done