##VIDEO ID:xaKzr0WqIv4## I would like to call this meeting to order this is a regular session of the Board of Education held for the purpose of transacting appropriate for business in compliance with chapter 231 1975 the notice of this meeting was advertised in the Mars County Daily Record copies of the agenda of this meeting were appr purly posted made available to the public Mr B here Mr brander here Mr Cabana here Chen here Mrs Hermes here Mr Johnson here Mrs mbde here Mr Mills here Mrs Wick also present Mr patini superintendent principal and I see our student representative Christopher vill we have a quum thank you please [Music] stand of the United States of America stand na indiv andice for all the first thing I would like to do this evening is wel Charlie Peterson our New Jersey school boards Association service represent ire she's she's going to do a presentation for us uh ethics for school officials 2025 can I just sit here and just kind of pull a chair absolutely you have the pleas yes I was just you want to go first it's all okay first we'll hear from our student representative thank you everybody it's great to be here uh College alumni panel was at the high school on January 8th for both Juniors and seniors to discuss about college process how that transition from high school is to college life living alone academics Etc uh they also the Juniors also had their own College kick off so in other words different than really what we saw was more of what's like just in college more of okay here's the college process application wise testing test optional all those critical information the winter formal took place Saturday that was great Conor Higgins was chosen as a football scholar athlete uh for greater chapter of national football moris County um the academic team they placed fourth highest score in the valley cup three and uh and then really to Circle back with I know I wasn't here in December was feeling ill but I think I want to Circle back with it's very important was 8ighth grade open house was success I happen to be there I actually follow the schedule around going class to class went for math to science and stuff to get a great feel and it was very great wait for incoming whether you're here whether you're at Bri Cliff um to get a feel of what the high school will be like the curriculum they had teachers on site counselors on site um everything is maed out colorcoded and um they I thought it was very great and not did an excellent job putting that together well thank you very much you do have somewhere you need to go worker inity will not be offended thank you very [Applause] much with say usually ethics clears the [Music] room you want to have your audience members leave just schedule an Ethics so so you know the board has been continuing to work on its certification Journey so of the 16 credits that are needed I just looked before I left you're up to 14 and2 so you only need a credit and a half so you know that will be um earned after today and then coming back in February right so then after that you'll have so then the last piece of it is um completing the board's Health evaluation I looked and I think the last time was maybe December of 2023 um so they're supposed to do it every year to be part of this process so we are actually rolling out a grand new board self evaluation we haven't changed it in I don't know how like 15 20 years so it's like brand new and it's going to be um kind of structured a little bit like the superintendent evaluation where you'll be able to input the your board goals and then also you know evaluate the progress that you've made on your goals as a board um and then instead of nine different areas I think there six so just kind of try to to streamline it and try and you know continue to like increase the the accountability so right now it's pretty much we've been beta testing it and now the last piece of it is our it is having some issues getting the the reports to generate at the end so that's where we are so hopefully within the next few weeks or so that should be available so you guys might be one of the first ones to use it but question our governance committee had discussed like the board self evaluation um you know board members serve for calendar years but the school year and the goals board goals are school year and we discuss let's just do a along with the evaluation so Pros cons should should we do it soon together cation um no I mean that's pretty much boards that that's one of the things that there is no defined time to do it so boards either do it at the end of the board year or like you just said like in conjunction with their superintendent evaluation or right before you're going to do goal setting so that information that comes out of the board self evaluation can help drive you know your District goal or your board goal so if you think about it you're doing it kind of that same time as the superintendent evaluation that's kind of why the pieces is all line up together so I think it also helps that like depending on whether you have new people coming in and the boards rotated but since we're all seasoned now you know I think doing the spring be good you know sometimes you might want to capture people's opinions before they leave yeah there's a is a conundra because on the one hand if you do it an April Bay you're doing a before goals but you're not but you can have brand new members that can't really do you know a good I guess reasonable job of evaluating the themselves and their board because they've only been here for a couple months you know but then you do the C you're in the middle of your goals you may or not know you're halfway there so sort of either way sort of you could change it though right it's us we just do it in I guess we can do whatever we K and then if there's new board members then maybe do it at the end of the year or you delay it so that they have year and like you might skip at back I don't know but since it's all the same players I would say let's do it at the end of the spring a different being than the superint so it's a whole together but close yeah well you know and you to your point is like the state used to require it it used to be part of qac and then they took it out of the qac requirements that's probably been I don't know 5 10 years now um so we just say that you know board should do it as a good governance practice right if you hold the rest of the district accountable you should hold yourselves accountable in all of the the research would say that high performing boards one of the characteristics is that you take the time and reflect on your work and see how you did and you know hold yourself accountable to that work so um you know so as you're looking at your governance you know responsibilities that that would be an important component of it a couple years ago I kind of did like an informal check to just to see out of all the districts in the state how many completed it and it's only about a third so um so ideally it would be higher than that but that pretty much you know where was that so um so yeah so that's great that that you know that your board makes a commitment and makes that be part of your work that you do so we're just going to go ahead and get started here so kind of the reason that we talked about you know maybe doing ethics is just because there were so many new advisory opinions that were just released and so many new like a lot of new cases this year so thought it would be an opportunity to just kind of update you and let you see some of the new things that came out I don't think I've done like a full blown ethics presentation in a while right for you guys so just kind of making the point here that this isn't a legal presentation right that you get your legal advice from your board attorney this is just essentially um you know sharing information so when we talk about you know the school ethics a lot of times we just think about the code of ethics but it really comes from the school ethics act itself so this is where it all started and kind of essentially this is what separates us that a lot of times as board members like think about the work and think about all the time you put in and think about the fact you don't get paid right but a lot of times board members just talk about themselves as volunteers and this is kind of essentially saying that we're really different than that in that you are an elected public official and that being an elected public official there are responsibilities that come along with that um and so essentially saying that you are held accountable to holding the respect and the confidence of the people that elected you and then talk to about your conduct um and the guidance there is that we have to avoid conduct that would be in violation of the Public's trust and then takes us to an even higher standard and said like even if it there's nothing wrong but it creates a justifiable impression that it could be then that's the standard that we're held to um you know and somebody said you know Charlie I feel like I have one hand tied behind my back sometimes CU like as board members you can't always do things right that members of the public can do and but you know that's part of the responsibility of being an elected public official and so you know we only have our our power or authority when we're seated together at the board table um but we're held accountable or responsible all the time right to the code of ethics in everything that we do so not say that you know if we think about it we really shouldn't think about it right it's punitive or something negative but saying like we want to be the best that we can at this at this you know this work that we're doing and we want to make sure that we are being accountable to our community and that we're serving them well so that's really the way then that we should look at this and consider this to be you know standards to help us do that and you know the school ethics commission said you know that board should not um that board should consider this to be the minimum standard right that you hold yourself accountable to and that you should have higher standards for yourself than it's a than this so the the provisions of the actor like I said it's more than just the code of ethics it's also mandatory training so those are things that are just word mbers only and then prohibited acts we'll look at that just a minuted disclosure statements are um word members and some administrators and it explains down at the bottom there who they are um so the the school ethics commission is the body that oversees the act and so one of the things that's kind of you know you see at the nine member board the majority five of them are non-school officials so there's two board two board members and two administrators but one of the things in this past year that we've discovered is that both of the board seats have been vacon the entire year um and only one administrator has been there so seat is buil so right now there's five non-school officials and one administrator on the school ethics commission so they're appointed by the governor for a threeyear term so we're kind of wondering if because we're going to be getting a new governor like if they're kind of waiting for that we're not sure but you know and we'll see in just a minute how this really ended up um impacting us um so I don't know if you guys got your disclosure statements yet I know I've gotten some inquiries from a few board members I just had to fill mine out um so for those of us that are returning school officials you have um to completed by April 30th you know it comes from comes right from the state um for new board members you have to complete it within 30 days of being sworn in and if you hire a new administrator they have 30 days from when they started work um and also these are public documents so they are you know anybody can walk in on the state's website to to see their disclosure statement so we're essentially just disclosing any relatives right and any sources of income that might impact our work on the board so one of the things I just want to bring up a couple things with mandatory training just because we made some changes to the content so you know you know for governance one that last year that changed that new board members have to complete it within 90 days now that they no longer have a full year to complete governance fund and it was just thought that you know we should be trying to do everything we can to get new board members up to speed as quickly as possible so one of the changes that we made is in governance to we just started this year um including policy as part of governance too we were finding that we were getting so many questions about policy that it was decided to make that part of mandatory training now so the labor piece used to be the the second part of governance 2 so now that got moved to governance 3 um and then governance for the legal updates so that's um you have to take that in the year following your reelection regardless how many times you've been reelected and it's legal update so it's something you know that's always different um each time it so yeah this next weekend coming up is the you know the weekend do board member orientation for um so I think uh the M lakes board member are going to to the weekend training session um so when we talked about a few minutes ago and just said that the school ethics commission only had six people um this is where it impacted Us in that in looking at advisory opinion so one of this is one of the the the task of the jobs of the school ethics commission is that they can issue advisory opinions so if you as a school official are not sure whether something would be a violation of the code of ethics or not you can ask if like before it happens and say here's the situation give me your advice on this what do you think do you think that this would be a violation or not um like a good example is there was a board that had a high school senior um elected to their board while he was still in high school so before he started the board is like well like what happens if we have to talk about his teachers or some of his friends or one of the CL you know and they have all kinds of potential you know conflicts or scenarios and so asked the school eics commission for an advisory opinion and they you know essentially came back and said you know we're not going to treat this student any different than we would the rest of you if something's a conflict for you they would you know be under those same guidelines um so and if six of them think that um it would be helpful for the rest of us to learn from that advisory opinion and they take all the identifying information out of it they can vote to make it public so with them only having six people we went all year with nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing and all of a sudden in December boom like 12 of them got released so we're thinking that that's probably the first time they had six people there all year right um to be able to vote then to release them so that's what all these are so I'm not going to go through all of them but like you guys have the presentation right you have your live box or no yes okay so it's those are live links so if you wanted to click on any of those links like can read any of these and explore them further um so just wanted to bring your attention to the second one so in the second one it talks about someone asking if they could participate in negotiations if they have an aunt who's employed in the district who's not a member of the local union so the guidance always used to be that you were conflicted if you relative belong to a same or similar Statewide Union so this is the first time they're saying okay now we're going to expand that a little bit and say we recognize that even though your aunts not in the union a lot of what the terms and the conditions of what she gets are related to what the union has bargained for the other employees who are in the so because of that connection between what the ants benefits and salary and things are that now you can be conflicted if someone's not in a same or Statewide Union because of that connection so that's kind of the you know the first time that we've seen it expand like this um and then also just want to kind of show an example from the the bottom one there so this was um two board members decided that they were going to open an ice cream store in town so hopefully not get too much this just now um but anyhow so so if you think about like all of the the fundraisers that local businesses sometimes have so they said that the the PTO approached them and said could we have like a dig in your store or you know some kind of a fundraiser type thing and the school ethics commission came back and said um that they would consider that to be a violation because having that fundra and advertising it and having people come to the store could benefit the store financially so here you are as board members gaining some kind of a financial benefit as a result of this fundraiser even though your the intent is really to help out the PTO right so they said like if someone were to come to you say a group and they were trying to sell ads in the back of the yearbook or something and any business in town could buy one of those ads then that would be fine um cuz that's no particular benefit to you it's something that's available to anybody and then they ask okay well what about if we hire some of the the students um and said okay you know then no special benefits or anything should be afforded and if any issue comes before the board involving those students that you would have to recuse yourself from any discussion or vote on the one of two is a little interesting so here's somebody who's adult child works in the district as the music director and gets a stien for it um and they are also a substitute in the district but the the substitute you know they get their substitutes from a third party um so that board member asked if they would have a conflict and they said they wouldn't have a conflict because of their child being a substitute because they work for the third party and not for the district if they had work directly for the district that would be the conflict but because they work for the third party they don't but but during the time that they are getting that stifen then because of that then the board member would be conflicted during that time and wouldn't be able to participate like say if that was when it was time to evaluate the superintendent the board member wouldn't have been able to do it while their child was doing that um this one I wanted to bring me down to the I guess the second and last one so this is the first time we've seen there was um somebody who um the superintendent fired and then that person got on the board um so when they got on the board kind of made it their mission then that they were going to get rid of the superintendent um had petition going around actually put up Billboards um in town asking to to get rid of the superintendent so essentially an advisor opinion then came out and said that because of the fact that that person couldn't really be objective right that if they were to participate in the superintendent evaluation that would kind of be um damaging The public's trust because they have essentially already publicly evaluated the superintendent so while I have heard of board of attorneys giving that advice this is the first time you seen it coming from the school you so um so in addition to um issuing advisory opinions the school ethics commission also looks at complaints so while only a school official can ask for an advisory opinion about their conduct or you know or a f member in their same district anyone can file an Ethics complaint if they think that you know something has been violated so the school ethics commission said that kind of what they you know what they use in considering it is like not what do you think not what do I think but kind looking at this through the lens of what would a reasonable member of the public like kind of going back to violating that public trust or that justifiable impression so what would a reasonable member of public um so assuming that you know if the school ethics commission did find that a violation had taken place um so they just make recommendations of penalties to the commissioner of education and then the commissioner is the one that opposes the final penalty more often than not they do take the recommendation but not always um so the the least restricted is a refand that's just like a purple hand slab um Center is more formal in that a resolution is read at the state it's read your board meeting and then all of those places that you read in your open public meetings act notice where you notice your board meeting the resolution would have to be there as well so um a member can also be suspended and that's usually for a certain number of days and then a member can be be removed and ugly enough probably you know sometimes like we'll see some of these um cases and people have done something so horrible or you know things really bad and they may get a center they may get a suspension but if you don't complete your mandatory training you're Ro you you know you can be removed from the board or if you don't turn in your disclosure statement on time you can be removed from the board so just kind of you know the state demonstrating how important it takes those legal requirements that it you know imposes so these are the tenants and I know that you know you guys go through this as your um meeting so just kind of wanted to to show you so like the top part is the tenant and then the bottom part is the standard so if someone were to say and file ethics charges and say I think that Charlene violated a of the code of ethics the school ethics commission said okay then they have to provide evidence and then we will compare their evidence to these standards and does their evidence meet the stand standards that we have here um and then so that's why we see probably 75 to 80% at least um of these get thrown out or get dismissed and most of the time it's not because as you read through it that the board member didn't do something right or wrong it's because the evidence that the person provided doesn't align with the standards or what it is that the SP ethics commission you know would need to to make a determination um so just going to kind of just like quickly just give highlights so like in this one talking about upholding laws rules and regulations this is essentially saying with the state's boots on the ground right so whatever things that that they passed that they want to have happen at the local level so before Co we were having a really hard time coming up with examples of what this might look like and then all of a sudden is all of the mass mandates and the other executive orders were coming down that boards were being you know charged with carrying out this is and what holds you as a board accountable that um this one talks about us making decisions and to me the important part of it is that is based on the educational welfare of all children right um and saying that that we need all the needs of all children and so kind of essentially saying that as people are you know in the audience or people approach you about situations they may have a concern about a particular grade a particular situation and you have to take a step back and I I hear you but the lens that I have to make a decision through is how is this impacting every single student in the Township School District because that's who I'm responsible for so when I make decisions that's the lens that I'm looking for this one talks about the state now kind of telling us that what our goal is saying okay board this is your lane your policy making planning and Appraisal that's your work and then saying you know I'm also holding us account while Consulting those will be affected by them so that's why we always have two readings on a policy so the first reading puts it out there and then the second reading they can come back and say okay board just so you know this is how the policy impacts me so then you've given them that right then to know about that and to be able to come back to you as a board before you you know at the second reading then vks to adop so this one you know kind of New Jersey school board monitor right that we don't run the schools but we make sure that they're well run and importantly together with my fellow board members right so just kind of emphasizing the work um that we do as a team and this one holds us accountable to not taking independent action and so again just kind of goes back to that emphasis that we're a team that a work happens here at the work table and so kind of essentially saying that if you want to make a difference when you come on this board the way make a difference is not that you're doing outside of the board table but how are you making this board table be a stronger table a stronger group presenting your ideas helping the board come together and um you know make decisions that are in the best interest of students this one talks about um again not surrendering your independent judgment or using the schools for personal gain but to me that goes back again to the all children that regardless if you ran on a particular PL platform or a particular reason once you're here you know now that that's got to take a back seat and that what's really important is you know what do the students need and how can we have um this one is where we're held accountable to confidentiality where we know we're a public body we do our work in public um and but the state said that there's nine different reasons that we can go into executive session right and it's typically to protect the legal rights of staff students the the district um you know talk about Safety and Security things um so this has been what we're held accountable to um in terms of confidentiality and sometimes you know we don't really even realize the impact of the information that we have I think it was last year the year before that there was a case about a board member who like guess like sitting around the the dining room table said talked about an issue with the students next thing we know someone and the family went on social media and posted something about the student about the issue and being damaging and hurtful to the student so you don't sometimes really realize that the impact and information you have how important it is that you keep it confidential um the other thing we're held accountable to is providing accurate information and essentially the the school ethics commission said that based on the the conversation you have the level of information you have that if you say something about the district it would be reasonable to anyone in the public that it must be true right based on the information that you have that it it adds more credibility to what you're saying so then now hold you accountable to making sure that what you say is accurate um this one kind of just confirms that we don't hire and we on fire right we just um either approve or disapprove the recommendations of the chief School administrator and the state you know even go so far as to say we can't disapprove for arbitrary decious reasons um this talks about supporting and protecting School Personnel in the proper performance of their duties and this is becoming more of an issue with social media right I was kind of saying that before we might think about it just at the board table out at the ball field or somewhere but now you know now that you think about the impact social media could have there's a board member that had a Blog and for whatever Reon one of their favorite topics was one of the teachers and just said like I don't know why we ever gave this person tenure I don't know why we're paying them this much and just continueed to post things and finally the teacher just had enough and filed ethics charges so just you know making sure then that we understand that it's all the time and everything that we do um last one here kind of talks about us as you know when we can get involved in a situ situation and sens saying not until after failure an administrative solution and at public meetings so as much as people approach us or you know think that perhaps we can help them this is essentially saying that we can't until they've gone through the process um and holds us accountable to that so the way that we can help them is by you know helping them understand the chain of command say well did you go to the teacher did you talk to you know kind of helping them understand what that chain of command is and you know sometimes too people will come to your board meetings right thinking that um you know instead of going through the chain of command thinking I'm just going to come right to the board meeting with this issue and then sometimes leaving frustrated and not understanding why the board can't resolve it when essentially this is saying that legally the board can't get involved until after failure of an administrative solution i i a district earlier this year and the board was in a close session for HIV so I'm sitting out there the all this big like I don't know maybe like 10 parents come we're sitting there sitting there're sitting there probably an hour past and we start talking and turned out they were there for like the third grade issue and I'm like well did you talk to the teacher no did you talk to the principal no I'm like well I ha to tell you this but the bo can't really help you and they like man why didn't we talk to you an hour ago you know like but but just kind of essentially but you know making sure that people come to the meeting sometimes with that expectation instead of us helping them understand how to get the he you get the um so um just kind of wanted to explain when you see these cases like when you see the like the e in parentheses so that's the tenant then that was violated of that e was like taking independent action that could compromise the board so just wanted you to to kind of see um what that was for um the bottom one here is kind of interesting because it it kind of that connection of being a board member and being a parent and sometimes you know how that line can get word sometimes so here was a situation where a board member's child um had an HIV case going had a Cod of conduct violation and this board member was trying to do everything they could to get that reversed and try and get that out of their child's record so they like appealed to the the superintendent appealed to the full board contact each one of the board members individually reached out to the board attorney um and then like when it was over someone filed you know ethics charges said well like that wasn't me as a board member that was me as a parent trying to stand up for my child and so essentially you know the scho ethics commission said you know that you like you had Privileges and advantages that a regular member of the public would not have a regular member of the public could not contact the board attorney if they had an issue with their child or they couldn't you know kind of try and Lobby all the individual board like so just kind of saying you have to separate and say well you have both roles you still have to recognize the responsibilities that come along as a board member when you're carrying that out um this one was no not this show you the next one cuz this one if you look look at all the the letters like this one violated almost everything so this was a situation where someone had been on the board for 15 years um the superintendent had alerted the board that they were going to um talk about a disciplinary matter in close session so this board member was friends with the the staff member who this issue was around and because this staff staff member had some kind of a health issue the board member went to the staff member's house and picked up a letter that the staff member wanted to have shared with the group so the board member then came back to the board meeting went into close session told the board secretary to make a for everyone but the superintendent of this letter um and then continued so then instead and then so they said instead of removing themselves because of this close personal connection that they had of recusing themselves and removing themselves from discussion and vote instead essentially led the discussion of kind of advocating for the staff member and saying look like their their version is so different from the superintendent that like don't you think maybe that the superintend leading us down the wrong path and so there's about 10 different things on there right that would say that they violated and again recommending them that they be suspended for for 60 days so kind of saying that they use their position to secure a privilege or a vantage for a friend they went beyond their duties as a board member overstepped into the day-to-day administration of the district and you serve the superintendent Authority so this is kind of um you know a difference that we've been looking at things lately in terms of when and using the term abstaining versus the term recusal and so kind of saying that if you have to step out of a vote or step out of a discussion because you have um a conflict then that should be identified separately like I can abstain just because I feel like it I can abstain because I wasn't at the last meeting I've better stay because I don't have enough information about something but if I can't vote on something because I have a conflict the record should be making that distinguishment and identifying the fact that I am not voting not because I'm choosing not to but because I legally can't so saying that in those cases you would say I accuse myself from this discussion and vote and that the should reflect that as opposed to saying I'm OB staining which is you know usually what we [Music] years um so the the areas then that you would have that conflict um would be if there is some kind of a benefit to you or your mediate family that's a business interest kind some kind of financial involvement anything you just saw kind of that unwarranted privilege or Advantage right so in any of those types of situations um are when you would be accusing your cell um and so just to kind of show an example of what this could look like um there was a case in this past year where a district had an Acting Superintendent and you typically when you read your motions it says like on on recommendation of the the superintendent so in this case the board was approving a list of 160 substitutes and as it turned out one of them was this Acting Superintendent son so this this person's like I had no idea like I didn't even really look at the list and didn't even know my son was on there um so someone filed ethics charges and said that essentially she should have recused herself and said that the son got a financial gain as a result of being approved as a substitute and you know used her position to secure employment for her sons so again just kind of looking at the level um that that were held to and then again goes back to that what's the perception of the public cuz sometimes you know people call and say well you know I think I'm okay I think I can be objective um and so essentially saying like we don't really care what you think like you know it's it's about what would a reasonable number of the public think about your participation in that situation so um so these again are some cases that are related to the conflict of interest so I'm not really going to go through those um here's a just kind of the state gives us definitions then of when they talk about that relationship of your immediate family member so it's your spouse partner or dependent child who resides in your same household a relative is that bigger broader definition that is almost everybody who kind of one step removed from you you know the only term we' see that's missing is cousin but there have been some cases that involve somebody's cousin and it goes back to to um saying they use the term other so if someone who doesn't need this definition but is still getting a privilege or an advantage as a result of their connection to you then that's what matters so the the reason kind of using this term of um you know relative is saying that a board can't hire a relative of a board member or of the the chief School administrator um in same that limited exceptions would be if you have a position that's so hard to fill that you tried everything else you can to find someone to fill that position and the best qualified person is the a relative the other thing can be if your nepotism policy said that it's okay to hire board members kids to like do work on the grounds in the summer or to be a substitute teacher then you can hire them but it has to be in your a policy if that provision is not in there then you can't do so um it's saying so the administrator can exercise authority over their relative and a board member couldn't take part in any employment matters concerning the superintendent or any supervisors and the chain of command between the Rel we had just gone through this whole search process if you had a conflict you would have been able to participate it also impacts um collective bargaining so this is kind of then on the impact of that advisory opinion we saw before someone not being in the same Statewide Union but you could still the impact so essentially if somebody works in the district you're out of both no negotiations um and being able to vote if you or an immediate family member are in a same you know are in a same or similar Statewide Union in another District then you cannot participate in any of the negotiations you can't be part of the negotiations committee you can't get involved until the salary guides are done the memorandum agreements done and then you can vote on the final contract so essentially saying it's too late for you to change the you know have an influence of the outcomers the only um caveat might being is like abent another conflict so you or your relative has heighten Union involvement then say that that might be what's considered another compliment um and then that bigger broader definition of a relative if they work in another District and essentially saying you're fine you can participate in negotiations and um for those districts where you get um you might have a union endorse your campaign and you're running for the board and they give you um a financial contribution um said that you'll have to sit on of negotiations for at least a year so this is the first time we have seen an advisory opinion talk about um someone who as a relative that works in the district and not only being conflicted from voting in certain situations but this time they said you can't be on committ certain committees um so in this case there was a board president whose child was an instructional assistant so typically boards give their president the authority to assign committee members so this time they said this board president would not be able to assign any committee members who remotely touch upon or are directly related to their family members employment and then said including but not limited to and they listed Personnel negotiations instruction and finance communities like there's not too many left right after that but just so we've never really seen guidance that would suggest that you know instead of just stepping out and recusing yourself from situations this time saying that you really can't even be in those um there was a situation last year um but um two instances where board members went into executive session they had potential conflicts pass the board attorney and the board attorney said it was okay um they were both then found guilty and so said that um you can't use the advice like you're responsible for your own um conduct and said that you can't use that as a defense to say whether you're guilty or not guilty but it could help mitigate the penalty of penalty you know but it said but in order for you to claim that you know like you have to make sure you have to meet these four conditions of say yeah I did tell the ask the attorney first before it happened like I did tell them everything about the situation so just you know kind of making sure I can fly with their um so you know one of the things that we sometimes talk about with board members is and again kind of separating their role of parents board members is volunteering in the schools and saying that it's not discouraged but again has to be carried out within the obligations of the school ethics act and said they look at two things saying what's your involvement with staff and students kind of saying how much are you in the district how much are you amest in the district and then your authority to give and receive directions in orders to to students and staff um and so said so let's kind of take it back and kind of see how that relates to the code of ethics so saying you know we were in the building all the time there heighten presence I'm at activities all the time with regular contact saying that that's kind of going beyond our policy making planning and appraisal and so it's kind of hard to maintain that 30,000 ft view of the district if you're in there all the time um you know and saying that you shouldn't administer the schools so this is saying that you you're giving and receiving directions to staff that could essentially be considered administering the school and then saying that you shouldn't take any private action that can com compromise the board and said that if you had were you know were that involved it could blur that line between colleague and school official right so then when it came time then if you're in negotiations or voting on the person's contract you may be looking at it differently because of that Clos relationship perhaps that you um had with that person so just kind of saying you have to be mindful of those things so like some examples that the school eics commission gave um is there was a board member whose wife worked in the district and she ran the school plays so this board member used to help his wife and they said nope that we would consider that to be violation just because all the time that you spend in rehearsals you're giving a receiving directions some other staff members um there was a board member who um came in once a week in the middle school and come um did a coin collecting club with the students and again they came back and said NOP here you are you're leading the students you're meeting with them every week so this board member actually dropped off the board and better we get that up um there was a situation this past year where there was a board um there was someone who was um volunteer coach to helped on the football team the board had a vacancy and they ended up having this person they appointed this person to fill the vacancy like there's one more month left in football season like I really don't want to stop coaching I know I'm not supposed to be doing that while I'm on the board um so someone filed ethics charges against them and so essentially the school ethics commission came back and said right we agree you should have been doing this but there's only one month left in football season so they didn't um impose a penalty on them but settling it would be okay for you to volunteer for the rec team that uses the school's facilities because the rec team has its own bylaws it has its own budget it has it's like its own organization versus if you were volunteering for the schools team so it kind of makes that distinction between those two um so then the last piece of it is really been just talking about social media and board member social use of social media and we're just starting to get kind of more as there's been more charges filed against it just getting more go so in this case pretty much what they have told us is what really what they're going to look for is like a Nexus for connection like if you post something and and it's clear to everyone that the only reason you're posting that is because you're a board member and it's like part of the board's business then that's that Nexus we connect that they're looking for and kind of saying content matters so is there a connection between your post and your role and your membership on the board and um so like in some of the examples and some of the cases in one of the cases a member like posted that um talked about a policy that she moved to abolish and said it was reviewed by the board attorney it was opposed by four board members so there it's clear that this post is directly related to her work as a board um in this next one there was a board member that on their personal account like it was time for Board elections they were had an image of three people running for the board they didn't make any comments it didn't make anything was on the personal page so again you know you have your first amendment rights as an individual so there was nothing that connected the board's work to this post so that's a good question about that sure so like when we were going through the referendum we were trying to increase um just our message getting the message out maybe linking back to we would link back to the school that like kind of push out messages to encourage like dissemination information basically I mean it wasn't like opinion but like would that be inappropriate so typically it would say that that would be better coming from the Administration then from the board um but saying like if you as an individual wanted to just like like we were asked to by the communications team to like help get the message out so I would be like we would repost something that the school had posted I don't know I just thought I just think it's interesting it'll come around again I just want to make sure that we do it well you know the hard part twoo is that you can't as a district take a position one way or the other right all you can do is just give out factual information and I mean there was an opinion last year where somebody um I don't know there was like in town I guess there were like three or four different groups that would posting things about the schools and so someone said well how about if we just put them all together into one group and it'll and and I as the board member I'll be the one to answer and respond to all and the school ofic kind of said okay like you know you can't do that but then and their advice they said sometimes even if you are only sharing public information like that's still still might end up getting you in trouble someday you know so that's what it sounds like yeah so that's you but but this is interesting like so someone asked me the other day and said well you know now that like meta and other places are encouraging more free speech wondering what impact that will have on this and I don't know might be getting different you know I don't know but this this is the advice that we have now to to work from and learn from so so as far as her question is concerned with the referend for example they can State the best there are the things that are in the referendum some the cost they they they are free to do that anything their so to her question is kind of different whether you as a board member should even be doing that or not I mean it would probably be hard pressed for someone to say that you were doing something wrong if you were just reposting stuff that's already out there right but it's better if it comes from the school school we had a video that we were to okay it was it was just stating the facts but it's sounding like that that might cross the line well I mean it would depend where the video was being posted like if you were just online it was part of the part of but I guess it wasn't even but I could be ConEd by any sit on the board you want didn't everyone before my joined didn't everyone vote at various stages to improve ref it wasn't the secret all nine of the cor ref right so it seems a little bitting to say well you you can't say in public I supported a good point because it wasn't just posting and were reposting or sharing mean there were there were people talking well again it's you know providing information right versus stay in the position um can I go backwards with this thing I don't know just wanted you know so mention that the school ethics commission does say that we should use a disclaimer and um kind of essentially saying that the disclaimer is not like a security blanket that if you use the disclaimer you can't hide behind it the content still matters regardless whether you use a disclaimer or not and then they even gave the um example of a case where a board member just used part of the disclaimer it was someone who was advocating for like certain people that were running for the board and not others and so rather than just posting a general picture like that other example this person was wrot like an oped and was you know like stating things and um so essentially just said that it was his views but didn't say the second part that this wasn't the views of you know this doesn't represent the board and I'm not authorized to represent the board so they found him guilty for not adding in that second piece and so that someone could have perceive that the board was had the same perception that he did um so you know we kind of talked about the disclaimer saying you can't hide behind it content matters that you don't have to par the exact language of theirs um and then the other important thing is a lot of times people running for the board have a social media or Facebook campaign page and kind of saying that once you get on the board you have to shut that down and that you can't have any kind of social media account that inherently indicates your position as a board member so you can have your personal one but not anything that you/ board as a board member so just I thought actually that was interesting the midle one there CU it's it's it's very easy to do the like or share or liking something you know I mean CU when it came to the referendum we had community members who were saying isn't this right and they would like call out particular board members names and we're just like we can't respond and it's like it's tempting to like something but we're saying don't even like it don't touch it you're not allowed is that what they're saying from a personal account so if they see but again they were saying you as a board member they're not saying you as a person in a member of our community what do you think of this they're saying what do you as a board member think of this right so that's kind of the distinction but it's also saying I have to the m liking or sharing of a social media from personal social media account would not cause the Reon okay so you can you can okay un numbers proce wouldn't it be conent on what you're liking because there could be something very disparaging and if you liked it that's content yes cont does matter so you know and in one of the cases from last year like somebody had posted something that I guess was so ous and you know and the school ethics commission came back and said unfortunately like we can't can't find you guilty because if I went through all these tenants or went through these standards I can't find anything to compare to so you have to think about the the ultimate kind of court of appeal or the community and that they will choose not to vote you in again right if you are representing yourself in a way that's not in alignment with how the community would like to be represented on the board so and then the last part part of it they did say something nice about us and said and recogniz that we do contribute our valuable time skill and effort to the community and said that this service in itself is among the most important part of kind of volunteerism in which an individual age I think for all of you that have done this you've certainly um demonstrated that and can see the rewards to this that was it just wanted to thank you thank you I honestly thought it was going to be boring but it is so good to hear it yeah I don't not like this before no I mean we've done similar but this different having to learn the governance stuff but something ethics before too but this was it's very different because it's current it's what's going on you set us up for like oh and full disclosure when I reached out the tring to you do stuff at these two meetings she immediately responded saying I have this presentation already you know money yeah why don't we do that at this meeting so there's nothing going on here that recorded any of us yes thank you very very much I'm just say guys you know I just put in my retirement papers today congratulations out so so may may first congratulations con here we actually North Carolina thank okay with that we are back on our agenda we had a report of the student representative first so that brings us to board business motions 1 through three before actually we have we'll do me yes meeting minutes okay so for the meeting minutes for the January 8th meeting of Bo this is motion number two under number seven where it says appointments A1 should be that Jeffrey Chen will be appointed as the primary representative and Lauren B Be appointed as the old to the Education Foundation committee and to what we discussed at the meeting yeah yes so version three is still correct no this is the meeting minutes yeah that's a all right okay that's a whole other discussion no more versions we're version three currently on that okay yeah so so in the meeting minutes for the January 8th 2025 reorganization regular session meeting um where it says number seven appointments for A1 it should reflect Jeffrey Chen be appointed as the primary representative at timate to the Education Foundation as the pleas on and with that I have a motion for Bo is motions 1 through three is there a second any questions comments or discussion if not questions on the adoption board is motions 1 through three all those in favor say I anyone oppos say no any abion thank you I don't I don't have I'm try to get is it just from minutes yeah I'd like tostain froming from1 right yes and Mrs hery is abstaining B2 okay got it and with that we have a motion for motions A1 A10 and a12 under board misses move is there a second second any questions comments or discussion and if not the questions on the adoption V A1 A10 and a12 this is all all in favor say hi hi anyone say no any exensions and that brings us to administrative report starting with the business administra report secretary Mr M okay we have a couple things but I'd like to cover um just some updates uh that are going on within the district and then the tail end now that we have a finance committee we'll start rolling with the committee but I just want to do a kind of a preliminary discussion with the board just to roll out a couple things and then we'll as we meet finance committee we'll more Deb so um one of the Rec things that happened due to the cold weather yesterday near the end of the uh the day a heating coil in room 12 burst due to the freezing temperatures and hot water began flowing throughout the room uh the heating system was quickly shut down and the custodians were able to contain the water flow within the room uh the Water also shorted out a floor recepticle so I have to pull in a electrition to uh to redo that um we put an emergency call the boiler contractor we shut down the system temporarily seal off the pipe so we can get the heting back on the rest of the building which we did um and then today we had an hbac contractor in to look at the damage coil so they pulled that out and waiting for a price to get that replac and get heat back in that room in the meantime um Mr fi had to move some move the class around so that we still continue with the education process but not in that so that that's room 12 which is the technology room it was at the at the end of the day they were ready to catch the bus and it was right at the end of the day and they noticed the water and the steam coming out and the kids were already moving out of the room so we sent the custodians up there I went up there and we took care of that so hopefully within the next few days we're going to get that coil back in uh snow removal we had that storm uh just recently the township and the custodians did an excellent job in snow on Monday and we were able to keep school open from call day without delay uh and the generator had our scheduled maintenance performed on that BM preventative maintenance and it's in pretty good shape uh not pretty good it's in excellent shape power fail and then as Charlene had mentioned Financial Financial disclosure statements you'll be receiving an email from me with your login information P the board we have some administrators on there anyway as well so I'll give you your code to get in if you have any trouble just em same same process uh what I'd like to do at this point is um I'm sharing this with you it's a working document it will be posted um tomorrow on the website I just want to make sure that we have typo corrected but again it's preliminary and as we as I work through the budget and then we work with finance committee we'll update as we go along be as well so you've seen the presentations before you know not much changes every year we have all go through the [Music] items so as you know the board uh sets up board goals District goals and when we when I put a budget together we put a budget together as a district we make sure that the budget is Meeting those goals so these uh the district goals are always on the board agenda you see them there so any any thought that goes into the process for creating a budget always has those goals in mind and we have budgetary goals you know again maintain the quality programs appropriate Staffing levels class sizes uh updat to the facility the maintenance improvements and so forth and maintaining our technology and you know as you see year to year consider erations in budget development we look at the goals we look at enrollment we look at resources that are uh Revenue resources Capital maintenance needs um negotiations and not the uh BTA and other non-affiliated staff uh not extend perceive agreement distri tuition health care cost and so on so some of the assumptions that we uh we look at and this year in particular we look at the anticipated RVs enrollment it's in concert with the demographic study we did a couple of years ago um the Mountain Lakes tuition uh the agreement as you know as we all know has been settled for the next 5 years currently we're at about 197 students the smallest class that we have in RBS is going up there now so you'll see a little bit of a reduction in the number of students the cost per pupil is going up and that negotiated um but that little bubble is is there you know in fifth grade now it's the smallest class that we have now so as we replace you know the smaller classes with hopefully the same size kindergarten arm roll we'll start going the other way and then eventually it'll make its way up to the high school so we're looking at right now we won't know until the end of January maybe February U the state aid so I'm building a budget um based on status quo for that but we also have contingencies in case that doesn't work out in our favor um you hear a lot about the 2% cap really it's a it's a revenue cap it's how much new money is coming in from year to year our local tax levy is really the major uh source and that set of new dollars that we would be asking at a 2% level would be 297 approximately 297,000 so when we look at all our increases in benefits all our increases in salaries everything has to be manipulated to make sure that we're we have enough Revenue sources to meet all those expenditures uh benefits we're looking at estimate estimates about 10 to 12% negotiated salaries as you know the BTA contract expired June 30th of this year so beginning that process as well and we all know talking about administrative cost that enrollment either increases or decreases are going to impact that because you have fewer students to divide among those administrative costs at this time we don't anticipate any St retirements so on page five you can see the current enrollment we're at as of January 393 students you see that uh small class moving out up to the high school and hopefully being replaced with an equal amount of enrollment in the kindergarten level so we can maintain uh the three uh sections in each grade uh you see four grade four next year that two So eventually we're going to be at three sections in all those those grade levels Staffing is the other component we look at and not anticipating any uh I'm sorry nex's enrollments you can see a 10-year Trend in where we are with the RVs and the mount Lakes special education we currently have 13 out of District projecting about 15 next year uh currently we have four placements that are individually over $100,000 we've had more in the past but we're down to four right now and that does not include Transportation so next year we're anticipating uh know again we have to anticipate the district placements as well five students over 100,000 um and then we have to look at all the associated cost to go to these private schools uh for the disabled preschool currently we have 15 we it's a re small Revenue generator for US based on U the tuition for the gened kids that are are mixed in with the uh students with I so we're looking at a projected 16 next year and eight students that the uh gen Genet tuition thing students and the multip multiple disabilities program so vot Tech actually the last couple of years the trends have been more more students are going out to the votch they have excellent programs um currently we have 10 full-time and uh seven share time that's an alltime record for us so the students that are not going to the high school are going over botch and the bch tuition is probably around 9800 um we don't have any new tuition rates for next year but it's still it's a savings they have excellent programs we also are anticipating the 190 students going up to m page seven and mention the Staffing we don't see any anticipated changes in the Staffing um with the enrollment with the sections we have there may be some movement within the uh the grade level but uh as far as additional staff we at this point we're still having discussions we wouldn't be having any additional sta um slide eight we talked about in preliminary we have had approvals for the roof project for the plan roof project for um the summer of 2025 as you know the the rest of the roof uh systems were in the referendum um but unfortunately that that didn't pass so we're looking at again back the peace meal um estimated cost that the board approved is 1 Point approximately 1.1 million funding source is 100% from capital reserve so there will be no tax impact and that's why we've been putting money away for project a project like this you wouldn't be able to do it within the budget unless you were doing it through a referendum so I tried to depict the uh the roof plan and it shows U the 2025 those two little roof sections not roof section but they're 16,000 almost 17,000 ft you look at what we completed in the summer 22 and Sumer of 23 that was about 47% of the roof with the proposed project another 24.6 so we've done at the end of the summer of 25 we we would have done about 72% of the roof system and remaining 28% so you look at some of the cost so uh after the summer of 2025 it's about $2.6 million wor roof and that's again coming from capital reserve Square say again the price per square foot is a lot more it is a lot more and you know unfortunately I'm not going to say Co but uh there are still issues with supply chain um the cost that and I said last year if we were doing this group four years ago cost would have been much lower it's just there all across the board whether it's labor whether it's supplies I mean look at the grocery walk away with a few things used to be $257 um so that's the the RO project and appreciate the board's support um we'll talk more about that as we and and the board will have more decisions to make as we move forward uh and the budget timeline is actually the last Slide the tenative budget uh we have for approval on March 12th we have to submit it to the county office by March 19th the last day for the budget to come back approved so we can advertis is April 21st and um the budget hearing is on April 30th so that's last date that any Chang can be made so when the board approves that we're off and running we can start operating a new budget and November 4th this election we have as usual more to come finance committee and that's all I have to report great thank you very much and that brings us super thank you very much just slideshow here give it a little visual uh just going back next year uh last year prior to the break our second grade team a big book publishing party and uh parents and mentioning the break apparently there's this tradition of source for the RVs course go around in car so all the classrooms throughway and stuff like that really nice it's led by our very own music teacher um thisel uh we had our Rockaway Valley round table on January 6 we had a record number of people attend uh I think about 12 to 13 people there as well just want to invite everybody for our next session on February 3rd 7 right here in our RBS we have three RBS teachers um beginning their specialized training this week to provide students with a multisensory approach and it's compliment to a very solid foundation langage Arts I mentioned this once before Susan NE uh NE from R Middle School who was the computer teacher and also the district campas coordinator in M Lake she stopped by on January and provide a profession development session on campus for our teachers I also want to thank Susan for coming good luck to our basketball teams at the beginning of the tournament this Friday Please be aware that there is an admission charge for these games $4 for adults $3 for seniors and $2 for students best of luot to our K on Martin Luther King day families were were given three tickets uh they signed up to women's basketball double header at credential Center and uh they also had a $5 food voucher uh next report will include uh Martin Luther King Day clroom activities and projects we also began a new the year with three tenants of safety kindness and respect and letter went home to all CS our eighth grade ERS visited the DU Trace Center students got to engage in activities where they could apply science curricular skills and see those Concepts come to light beauty and beast auditions are well under way that will be happening on the weekend of March 22nd our new website is live and a test of our new notification system went very well that almost 100% And any the problem we have three students that participated in the honors band concert due to the amount of money we raised and donated um those three students will be recognized in accommodations uh due to the amount of money we raised and donated to the wound Warrior Project uh they sent Mr Bartell bracelets for all the students and we be receiving a plaque to hang in the hallway to acknowledge our donation I also want to thank once again Mrs Bartell because she has a very big role in the school for many projects and this is one of them uh another thing is I would like to welcome Dr Miller our new technology coordinator uh we had a new teacher Janine theara start this week in our preschool and just one other curricular update uh we're utilizing assessment results in the da system link to our response to intervention meetings and develop action plans that Target specific skill deficits and that [Music] is thank you very much [Music] and that brings us to the many administrative reports you've all a chance to look at the nurses report the student attends report the staff attend report the director Special Services report and the assistant principal report and with that we have commendations Mr thank you congratulations to three talented RVs musicians as I mentioned before Zoe pight Nan J and marer who audition for the north Jersey area band on a recent Saturday morning and the performance in the band this month was absolutely outstanding I'd like to express my deepest gratitude and thanks and appreciation to John gerner for all the ways he's improved our technology systems train staff on new software updated our database systems and so much more we will miss him and wish him well in his new District ay Spotlight on student work for December congratulations to in kindergarten Neil ding Jaden Aria Ernest Kara Claire Kenny Evelyn Matthew and javana theodoro in first grade Kenley castella Alana shreer in second grade Ashley beer meister and Braden Harris in third grade Connor and Dean Zoe Jane zesi the spotlight on student work which is examply worked by students in preschool through through third grade is displayed in the lobby on a monthly basis and the Falcons of the month and for December congratulations go to in fifth grade and Egan in sixth grade M de Roa in seventh grade Liam San and 8th grade Austin shreer the Falcons of the month are students that exhibit a dedication to learning leadership skills great attitude and strong character trait to promote a positive School climate and that's the end of the accommodations thank you great thank you very much all a chance to look at correspondence number one that brings us to open session number one the first public will will be limited to agenda items only second public comment period will be open today topic please be mindful that public comment periods are available to enable the public to give comments and feedback to the board personal matters and day operations are not appropriate subjects for board meetings these can always be most effectively resolved with the appropriate staff members or administrators according to the champ concept questions may be directed to appropriate School Personnel or board through email please state your name and address for the record and all comments related to 5 minutes would anyone from the public wish to address the board on agenda no no one we'll move on to Leon report start to support of Education sure um I attended my first m l meeting on January 8th uh it was actually really short um I joke on bringing some of the boo Township uh nice and short um but few things that were note uh The mation Association Along with Dr seagull recognized uh teachers and service professionals from each of four schools uh it was the governor's education of the Year award so they recognized uh a teacher a service pression from each I don't have the full list in front of me but it was it was a nice uh nice little ceremony um really quick it was a fundraiser I think that was held last Friday at 8 p.m for students competing in a map competition uh the winner formal was this past Saturday I believe from 700 to 9 uh the board did authorize an architect to do work uh on the turf at M Lakes High School for 175,000 I think it's just the architect from what I saw they're going to have more construction later but they looking at Turf um they had a really nice presentation on what they call linking Lakers um it's a new program they have similar to our Falcon veling they're linking the upper grades with the lower grades and they sort of have a buddy throughout the year uh it was nice they brought the kids in they brought some the buddies in they got to talk about you know the whole program I think this is the first year doing it so um it was it was really nice they had some teachers in there as well so whoos to for that um and their next meeting is on it's a special meeting on January 27th I believe this Personnel item go to which just got put on the agenda so now meeting next week and then after that February 3D so a lot of meetings that's it great thank you and that brings us to New Jersey school boards Association and Morris County School boards Association next one's coming first February is that one that they always do I'll get the DAT one that they always do REM be in all your your emails everyone's email schoolt the four the fourth seems to stick in on I'm not sure don't somewhere there it's okay but just looking your emails from Robert S school you have the DAT and set up information that Educational Services Commission had met before the last board meeting so have nothing report between the last meeting this the next meeting February oh thank you yeah that's why I qualifi answer don't quote me and just to reiterate it version Yeahs 645 provide your own dinner so let's see we Educational Services Commission that brings us to the bo Township special education parent advisory group last two Ls for school high school looking ahead on February 6 CP Representatives will meet with the RBS Administration for mark your calendars for two exciting events that will happen in February and that is February 11 at 7:30 p.m. our C5 will host a presentation focused on the cles for special education stents from our school to high school and and the presentation will cover all the aspects and details of that process Church no sorry you Mountain Lakes is hosting it at the Mountain Lakes Library so they for both District their husand sorry it's transitioning from 8th grade here to nor you say February 11th February 11th 7:30 p.m. and it's power C C5 but posting at M CH together library and then and then February 25th also at 7:30 p.m. also at this Library Miss Norma Frank will host a presentation on the topic of applicating for the dyslexic trial and this event open to anyone who's interested attending very great thank you bring be Beast March 22nd four kids club classes have kicked off volleyball 6th grade through 8 grade February February 23rd 12 two the sign up for that and I think the next meeting is tomorrow at 6: to 8:00 p.m. okay great thank you in got School Association so the HSA met say two weeks ago and the big thing right now is the talent show is next Friday evening at 6:30 p.m. they're planning some different events for the younger classman and older classman there's going to be an ice getting night coming up again which we get annually and that's pretty much it the big fundraiser this year is the fund run so thank you okay few things to report uh committeeman Thomas sppo will serve as the township committee's liaison to the board of education for 2025 the township committee looks forward to increasing Communications uh reminder that dog licenses must be renewed before January 31st to avoid penalty and they can be renewed online and boing township.com [Music] doog license application which is new um but you don't have to mail it in you can do it online which is convenient uh couple save the dates um the annual Township wide garage sale will be Saturday May 10th rain dat May 17th call the Rec Rec director at 97342 4 1 to sign up to participate is a $25 fee and all proceeds go to our summer rec camp and that concludes my report thank you and lastly new or is there one current so it is new for them to have a leas on to us um if I understand they're going to reach out to you John um and find out Doug will and I guess I spoke with Mr fatini then we'll get information that can share that then that information will go back to the township just to try and increase Communications between the two and let's see that brings us to Bo township Green Team Green Team um so the green team is continuing to work on the water story I think I mentioned that in the past um yeah so it's it's basically um it's actually really cool it it's telling the whole Municipal story about where water come from what it's like to a shared resource like talking about the sources of the water how to protect it where do it go where does the race water go you know what are the risks involved in climate change should be very interesting um we're looking to work um with high school the environmental committee there to see if like any of the students would like to um have an opportunity to participate in research and reports so great for colleges so we're going to reach out to Mr SAA and um we just secured the date of June 4th Wednesday night Wednesday evening June 4th for um the 2025 green Fair yeah so it was great the last time out was we by Girl Scout this time we're going to try to do it as well as she did but we're going to have vendor vendor State and vocal organizations coming in to talk this some we also invite them to give presentations and um hopefully uh engage the community in like art projects and yoga and all um and we we had received a grant uh preo for to do a a water fountain at RBA fields and so we we've moved that project along we've got an estimate now like into the town and stuff um very much and that brings us to facilities Transportation have not that yet then also Finance the Committees not met yet either so motion for finance motions seconds second any questions comments or discussion if not questions on the adoption of Finance motions one through four those in favor say I anyone say no any exensions and to Personnel no met uh I have a motion for personel motions one and two so sir second any questions comments or discussion if not questions I personal motions one and two this is this yes Brandon yes this yes Mr Chen yes Mrs Herman yes Mr Johnson yes Mr McBride yes Mr Mill yes Mrs Nock motion Carri thank you the program for committee is also not met but we have a motion program motion number one I I'll second is there a second second any questions comments or discussion if not the questions on the adoption of program motion number one all those in favor say I I say no any exensions that brings us to policy policy has yeah we have um we met January 6 so um the policies that are on for approval I had discussed previously the ones on for first read I had sent um a discussion about it it's in the um policy committee folder but the policy 5141 Sports concussion um the main difference to this policy is that the written clearance for um concussions evaluation of concussions must come from a doctor it must be an MD and for policy 3570 District records um again this has uh and I think Catherine had kind of highlighted the area the significant amendments to the Oprah um the process where now people can submit it electronically via letter or email it doesn't have to be the form submitted in so it's a little bit different there that's the two policies on for first read so the Highlight part new part yes yes and if you notice the one part that does talk about the submission of it the request um can be submitted electronically the first part thank you and with that that brings us to open session number two the second public comment period will be open to any topic please be mindful the public comment periods are available to public to give comments and feedback to the board personal matters the operation we did take a motion oh have all I'll take that back with that we do have fing for second reading so may have a motion for one is there a second hold a paper say I I get to listen to that again Open Session number two my apologies the second public commentary will be open the topic please be mindful that public commentaries are available to enable the public to give comments and feedback to the board personal matters the operations are not appropriate subjects for board meetings these can always be most effectively resolved with the appropriate staff members and ministers according to the change command concept questions made be directed the appropriate School person through email please take your name and address of the record and all com 5 minutes sounds like we Crow com it was you I I clicked on I know you didn't want to hear that but I was like I I was admiring our new website I understand good recovery close with that they from the public wish to address the board on any matter it sound like a crowd was coming in from that but there's not so thank you and that brings us to Old business is there any old business that come before the board I can quickly bring up some old business um let's see um two things one committees you uh you saw the various versions flying around with typos and Miss uh names not the didn't go on quite right some mixed names lots of things but currently we're person number three in one day down is up um there might be a four because of one misspelling one more thing but just to be nice about it um uh let's see after the meeting if you don't mind could you all stay after the meeting in groups of four or less and schedule just schedule your first committee meeting so that we don't do like endless emails to do to accomplish that and then once you sit once you meet for your first committee meetings then then schedule for the rest of the year you know while you're all sitting together with your calendars and then we would have endless emails flying back and forth to schedule these meetings as we we have like we'll try try to make that work but if you don't mind if you could whatever committees you're on from version three um if you if you wouldn't mind just trying to just connect uh you know and see if you can come up with the first meeting hopefully you know can help us with this calar too for that first if you don't mind me asking version three I I did print it out but iell on it is that what it was well the well no no what was the difference between version two and three it had me as the boot Education Foundation rep should initials CJ c JC then just to clarify I went to the video and listen to it to make sure that the minute you know what we said you know all that so Jeff Jeff Jeff one on that yeah the names on the third one are right just you just and then well yeah version three has a typo but I'll fix that but the names are correct yes version one and two basically had um continu as rep because it's started out without connect correcting the first line on it so we so version two had Chris Johnson corrected but still unrecognized for the mistakes and other other spellings and combinations of names Yes except for the typo like I SP who can find someone's already found it find but now we're going to be El focused on this get a free gift certificate something typo so we're going to wait for the next version to come out I I may wait you know just to make sure everything's settled before setting up version four but I'll do a version four just so it's type of was it in a name or a word a word names are fun I I hope oh Christine's going to point it I know I just want know it's an embarrassing spello okay oh I see it got it so heads version four education Berry like I said word is it's like typing typing fast you know yeah quality control in the uh in the uh staff that was involved typing that up and no longer error it's just a different language it could be could Google we like find different language on that has a ring to it uh and the second thing I asked we're talking about the uh the next um New Jersey school board's presentation um it seemed like there's a time between student achievement and Communications and I I communicated to Charlene before the meeting and she said we have a brand new uh um presentation on student achievement that is great you should do that one so if you all don't mind will do that and we're still good for 7:30 at the next meeting that that's a good question February February 12 yeah is that Val 12th I thought was the 12 12 12 12 Wednesday 12 we we have yep romance is not that in boot Township all right so just so you know on the website it has 2024 schedule I we've had we've had me on that day before uh so those are the only two things I had and then is there any new business to come before the board yeah I just wanted you know to thank Wilson and Morgan Roth on the like very detailed reports they put out it's just great and then to Mr patini for showing us the visual like really helps us feel like you know that you know like we're in the building thank you and I wanted to thank and I don't know who to thank who who did the heavy lifting for the new website it's amazing um The Curriculum maps are all up like all really yeah we'll miss wish him well gave shout out in the website shout out at the Mountain Lakes meeting and they were looking at saying they did all the front end and the back end absolutely I love all the sports updates and everything we're getting it just feels good thank you you oh one more thing so what I was doing is I was curious if people are looking at our like the videos are like right now like they're embedded so they're really easy to access I'm like oh that's great I'm like does anybody look at them too easy well apparently too easy yeah um I there but I was surprised the most recent one had 66 views cuz it's only been up a few weeks but the other ones had over 100 and like one in like 3 months ago had like 500 VI so you know I guess we're doing thank you that there other new business that come before the board I just wanted to say that it was very exciting to see that the fer actually generating some response and people are starting to get involed so thank you Mr for allowing this and community so Bing has an interest and an expertise in ballroom dancing and they agreed to give me private lessons don't get is it for kids or like it's for kids it's for kids and um and the other one is uh essay writing college essay writing for some of the kids middle school I guess it be eighth grade but if you're going to be writing essays and you have some you know some desire to do it it'll help you with writing overall so it' be good for all the kids I think in the so can high school kids come to or is it just uh it's just for RVs at this point and we may expand it but it really depends on how things take off like after it's like after school or in the in the evenings after school it's either before school or after school and I don't want it to compete any times I've done this in the past I can't have compete with the after school activities so I do prior to school or after the after school and then when the when the programs start to have their own legs and sometimes we'll get a pent volunteer they get their own sub certification and then we start to expand it to the other Upper Grade levels great because as the kids move on and they want to keep doing it and they're moving on into the upper grades they don't want we don't want to cut them off so we just expand the program and it's different than like the egg Foundation right I mean yeah it could be a one one shot deal or it could be an ongoing six to8 week thing or it could be a September to June thing yeah yeah I've done all all different ways great and this was in the community people that had these expertise and reached out yeah with an interest well Alicia and I talked about doing the flyer she wrote it up before I've done it before and uh it's just a wonderful thing to have everybody involved so you sent out the flyer and then I just started getting a couple that's great thanks I love do it's great stuff get to learn how dance but I have to be there because I'm you need a certificated uh Personnel so you will learn yeah I'll watch you don't want to see thank you and is there any other new business to come before the board and if not we don't have anything for close session we okay with that then we have a motion to enter into session to discuss issues that more confidenti as chapter 231 of the W of 1975 these matters may or may not be made public when the board be conv they will made public on the confidential subject is warranted the topic discussion is matters and there will be no board action taken after we return good night night night and um that is there a second neigh I okay we have just returned or we've just uh returned from Clos session it is 9:34 p.m. we have no other board action we have a motion to adjer I'll move is there a second second all those in favor say I I have a great month we'll see you in February