look for the light there's the light okay I would like to call this meeting to order will the secretary please call the role Mrs Becker here Mr Cummings here miss gu here Mrs herck here Mr Hong Mrs ree here and president LAX here we have a quum please rise to salute the flag I algi to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with libery and justice for all okay the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the rights of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed and acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the East brunic board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted at the East brunwick Board of Education offices written notice was also provided to The Sentinel the New York Star Ledger the home News Tribune the alternative press of East Brunswick and the municipal clerk of East Brunswick all Board of Education meetings with the exception of executive session discussions are videotape for a later broadcast it is the policy of the Board of Education that videotape meetings are not edited for any purposes individual ual who speak at the board's public meetings should be aware of these videotaping rules good evening welcome everyone at this time I am going to turn the meeting over to Mr Juliana who will be conducting the interviews made a good time good evening this meeting is for the interview of candidates to fill two vacancies on the board of education the selected candidates seated before us are pankaj goswami James Wilbur pan newo and an sang Jack levit is also invited to attend uh we were advised that he is running late prior to the meeting each candidate's name was placed in individual canisters and those canisters were played placed in a drawing box from which each name was drawn the order in which each name was drawn is the order in which candidates will be initially called upon and then rotated through to either make a statement or respond to questions each candidate will be called upon when it is her or his turn to respond to the candidates when you were invited to be interviewed you were apprised of the interview format that questions would be asked and that you would be allotted two minutes to respond to each question the questions were not shared with you in advance before we begin with questions you each have one minute to make an opening statement describing why you are interested in becoming a member of the Board of Education and discussing why the board should select you to fill the vacancy we'll begin with Mr goswami so I am pank goswami I am resident of for last four years uh I work for uh IT services and I want the vard to select me because I have the I have my kids study here and I am looking forward to serve the community the school the teachers the students and the fellow board members to help them to make East BR as one of the best school district and I moved East to East bronek because of the school district which is 546th ranking in the entire America and 36 in in the US in the New Jersey so I would like the board to consider me because I also would like to support the East Basic School District being a South Asian also because there are 14 to 15% of the South Asian students studying here who might need some guidance where I can help the teachers where I can help the board to help and support and take it forward that's it thank you thank you mran next Mr L one minute for your opening statement so as many of you all of you know I've been involved with the schools for quite a while now I've been with the East brunic education found foundation for about 17 or 18 years been president for a lot of that time and I've put a succession plan in place because I've taken the foundation to where I think I can take it it's time for some new leadership to take over but I am still passionate about the schools in East Brunswick I think that um it is an amazing community and I think the schools are the I believe Mr Mr Hong said it um they are the crown jewel of East Brunswick and I still feel I have a lot to give it's a very exciting time it's also a challenging time in education in New Jersey and I feel I have a lot to add and I'm not done yet so I hope to be sitting in one of those chairs when we're done with this process thank you Mr L Mr pan yeah thanks um uh thanks to everybody for taking the time for this uh process I'm very humbled and honored to be part of this uh this group um my my take is that we have an embarrassment of riches here to choose from um we've been living in New Brunswick Sor East Brunswick for 20 years uh we moved here in 2004 um we my wife and I joke that for our older son James's first birthday we bought him a house um and we moved here uh because of the excellent school system uh here that was top in our priorities in terms of looking for a place to live uh and raise kids and and have a family um and we're witnesses to that um our older son has graduated from the high school now our younger son is a junior in the High School uh now um but one of the things that I do see is that there are challenges to the school system uh coming up in the near future and for the foreseeable future not there nothing uh new but I think I do have uh the skill set and the enthusiasm and the wish to maintain that thanks thank you Mr Pam m s you're next oh okay well thank you everyone for inviting me I am also very honored to be here with a group of talented CAD um the reason I'm here is simply because I want to give back I've been in this community since 1995 um actually before I was married um so I've I've seen how the community is grown I raised two kids going through the school district to witness how wonderful it is um it is a very different time now there's a lot to do I hope the um the board will select me only if I am a good fit um with a group of um with a group here I think that to get the job done um if there is something that you think that I can contribute from what I've said here what my background is and it's a good fit for the group then I would like to join and do something for the community thank you thank you Mrs Z next is James hello thank you so much I like everyone else I'm honored to be here with you this evening I also purchased my first home here in East brunwick so that my son could attend our Blue Ribbon public schools and I am applying for this vacancy because I truly believe in the transformative power of public education as a public college professor I am an educator myself and I have been volunteering in the schools since since my son was in kindergarten I was a PTA room parent his first year and then when he was in first and second grade I was on the Warren stofer executive PTA board as vice president of cultural arts in that role I worked with the principal and with faculty to plan assemblies and I worked with other ptas to collaborate across schools so that we could all do assemblies together and have programming that really supported and augmented the curriculum when my son was in third and fourth grade I served as Warren sofer's PTA president and among other things help fund raise for a new sound system for our cafetorium and I'd really love to continue my volunteer work here thank you thank you m um first of all I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to come here and speak about myself and uh why this uh position is important for me to serve um I came from Pakistan 25 years ago with my two daughters and came directly here to East Brunswick and enjoyed the school system immensely we came here mainly it was a blue ribbon district and we wanted to uh see our daughters Excel and while they were in school I got engaged with the school's PDA and other um uh parent activities and I was all stricken in my first year what the school system was offering to my daughters and I immediately went to grad school uh so it's East Brunswick that inspired me to become educator in America and uh then I became uh I taught for 10 years in public schools um after that I switched gears to get my license in educational leadership and then I transformed toward um sorry so I think as we proceed I'll give you a hand signal okay when we have 10 seconds left oh go okay thanks okay well on to the first question the board is a consensus seeking group respect is the driving force behind our process of discussion consideration debate and conclusion please share your thoughts on how you would partner with us throughout the consensus process we go to Mr levit one of the reasons I want to join the board is because um they operate as a consensus seeking group I and um I'm an executive coach I build teams in organizations where um wherever I'm working I even wrote a book on building team and the only form of decision making that I advocate with my clients and in my book is consensus um the majority rules thing leaves somebody out it doesn't have Buy in and if you're going to move forward you're not going to be able to get everybody's full heart in the decision um so I believe that everybody needs to have their voice heard um I'm G to I'll be very candid I have opinions and I will be sharing them but it's also important that everybody recognize that it's only important that your opinions are heard and considered but if there are better opinions that are out there you need to accept that they are better and get behind it once the board walks out of that room after making a decision it doesn't matter who had what opinion everybody has the same opinion and that's the voice that the community needs to hear and the face the community needs to see um respect I think that um I've met everybody on the board and I have I do respect them I wouldn't be sitting here if I didn't think I could work with the group of people who are there I know that this has been a very sensitive issue in the past it was very sad to watch what happened at some board meetings and um whoever gets chosen I really hope that we never see disrespect like that again because I've seen this board work in fantastic ways as a unit and I'd love to be part of it thank you Mr pan oh sorry can you rem you one minute certainly I mean we I I have one minute you have two minutes two minutes two minutes yes okay um uh consensus is really important in terms of uh the things that I've done throughout uh My Life um and I'd like to highlight just uh two of the probably most Salient um uh experiences that I've had so I'm a pediatric oncologist which I found is usually a conversation stopper and probably it doesn't uh uh seem to apply here but one of the roles that I had as faculty at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School is that I was the clerkship director for the Pediatrics rotation that all the third year students um uh go through um as in that role um I've uh had a lot of experience dealing with an educational system with multiple moving Parts where you have to deal with and negotiate with and work with most importantly um people in other fields that I actually don't have a whole lot of direct control over um I think I was very successful at that um at that role um given the uh success that are students who are interested Pediatrics had in the match process when they graduated from U medical school but I've had that experience in the past my current uh role I work uh in the pharmaceutical uh business now doing clinical trials uh for breast cancer um and as part of that my team is what uh is referred to in business speak as a matrix organization what that means is that there are a lot of stakeholders that are involved in the development and running of these trials all with different skill sets and um and it being a major as organization again I have to know how to work with these people um and in these different functional areas uh even though no one is a direct report uh to me um those of you who are administrators um I am lucky enough to have actually zero direct reports right now and that is completely awesome uh but having said all that I think um those are the experiences that I've had um the most two two most important that I can think of right now in terms of um being able to build consensus and work with a team and work in a complex organization with lots of moving parts thanks thank you Miss s yes um I think everybody has said a lot about their experiences and we all have some experience reading consensus working as a team um but what I think it's most what I think is most important in order to do that is to be a good listener um and to be open-minded and flexible we all having a lot of like experiences to draw from um based on those experience we might have different point of view so it's important to be open listen and really listen and get into what the other person's saying um it's easier set that then to say that put yourself in other people's shoes but we have to constantly remind oursel to do that and then um give people I guess benefit of the doubt and think about that um that your proposed solution um maybe one of it may not be best of it and give people benefit of Doubt to um to try um and it's important to um to Rally behind whatever the decision the board decides and that's I think um the power of a group than the power of a single person so that's what I think um to me is how to do that we all know we need to do that but that's how I would do it thank you Miss James thank you so I see myself as a consensus Builder and I'd love to use that skill set here I think my six years as a PTA volunteer in part showcase that sometimes when you're on a PTA board parents will come to you with their very disperate ideas very closely held priorities and they don't always align and you have to figure out how to put that all together in service of the Greater Community and when you serve on a board whether it's educationally focused or not you know sometimes good people they have different ways of operating they have different ideas and you do need to be a listener and accept multiple perspectives and I think it's important to know that sometimes your idea like your idea for where the bus stop should go might not always be the best one but you're going to find a compromise and you're going to work diligently until you do that right and you're going to be open to learning and to being a participant I see myself as someone who's solutions oriented and in my career I really bring that to the classroom as well I mean I teach government in politics right so we're talking about pmic stuff you all know that and my students come from all walks of life they have very different ideas but I tell them this is a safe space don't focus on the controversy focus on the space where we can actually push this conversation forward and find that Solution that's going to be good for everyone right be a problem solver because that's what it means to learn um and I think that you know you can have respectful disagreements and always look for that space for collaboration and I would definitely love to have the opportunity uh to work with a consensus building board and to be a part of that um doing that here for East Brunswick because I do believe that you know volunteering is what makes our community great and that volunteering for the schools in particular is something very special so thank you thank you m James Miss soale okay so my colleagues have said quite a bit uh I would resonate most of their feelings I run a nonprofit wom to women forum and we have nine Community leaders and they are many of them are young uh women and we practice Collective leadership this is what we believe in and um I honestly feel that um each Str strong head can have different opinion but they can come in Partnership towards Collective goals and over the period of time you learn to accept the differences and you move ahead with them when you you realize maybe at some point you're not right but other two are right so this partnership this understanding with the your uh peers with your colleagues is what you need to know uh one of the skills that um my colleague an has mentioned listening skills we really need to be good listeners um to understand what their perspective is and maybe our perspective may vary because of good listening skills um uh I am basically known to be a team player among my colleagues uh because I'm very flexible and um I believe it would not be a difficult task for me to partner with my colleagues if I'm there on the board with them thank you Mr gwan So when you say consensus right I play a role of a product manager where I have built a lot of products in the banking Financial Services which is my profession so we most of the time we come into rooms where we close the room and we discuss and decide and come to a consensus because when we develop products today we use mobile we have developed multiple features in the mobile through the bank for the banks to give it to the public right so when I when I do these things this is first of all a team player also listener and also when you say designer because I have designed so much products it helps helps the public and it helps the bank to bring in lot of money so now coming to the team player thing I have formed Cricket Board in East brwi which is again a game of team which is team team team again bringing bringing lot of uh Community things I have I am a community leader here in is brwi I have successfully implemented a successful Diwali last year which is a huge event which bought a successful thing and then because of that I am going to celebrate another successful event in next 10 days which I I expect anticipate around 1,500 to 2,000 people okay so this is called a confidence on people when you show something rather than talk because pictures speak more than words you cannot just talk talk talk and don't do anything you show that okay I can prove then people bring in the trust and when you do something talk something then people believe not just by showing something to the people and again U when I when I say about the people thing I am a part of multiple four organizations but I the those are not for profit I I run as a vice president there and there are multiple things I do blood camps I do CPR camps I do uh uh Christmas gift donations for the hospitals so these are all Community thing when you do this people know you so when you people know you they have trust and they have confidence and they come to consensus easily rather than you have to do a lot of hard work to get into the cons thank you okay during an interview we are often asked what are your greatest strengths what could you tell us in regard to something that would be a potential challenge for yourself in becoming part of a team we'll begin with Mr pan this is always a tough one um I so off the top of my head one um again I recognize that the East Brunswick Public School System is a very large very complex organization um and the decisions that are made by the board of fed um are going to be relatively high stakes um because they affect everybody in town in many ways that um are obvious many ways that are not obvious um I think in terms of um the challenge for myself in regards to uh being a member of the Board of Education would first just be getting the knowledge base down uh to really understand the system that that we have here um and here I will quote what I said I I alluded to before that I um ran the Pediatric clerkship director at Robert Wood um for close to a decade and my on my very first day my new admin um uh Angela Hornsby came up to me and said so Dr pan what do you want do and I said my plan is to do whatever the heck you tell me to do for the next 6 months while I figure this thing out um and that's how it approach that uh that particular challenge in regards to the um uh in regards to my role on the board of education should I be appointed we have a lot of experience here not just in this room but with throughout the whole school district and I would be planning on uh talking to you guys and talking to as many people as possible in order to um really get a good understanding of the school system uh so that I can help uh to to make the best decisions for all parties concerned thank you Mr s in terms of um strength um I would say um I've worked mainly in the professional service job and I'm a relatively technical person um so I my strength would be um that I'm putting much a doer I just wanted to do things and I'm very much on U getting things done um I think I'm very resourceful I like this think I'm resourceful um creative as much creative as accountant can be um yeah I I I I like creative ideas um even in the professional training space that's what I'm currently working in um and I'm also hopefully a little bit humorous I think that we all need a little bit of uh humor in our life at the end of the day we're here um with a purpose um but we we don't want to take things too personal and too serious and we wanted to everybody to have a light heart um in terms of challenge I would say my challenge if I was on the board is advocating um for what I do I guess right now is advocating for myself um I'm not very good at that I would say um so I do give credit to people I'm working with I'm working together um but I don't do a good job in advocating what we do because I feel like I always believe in the numbers and the things we do the fact speaks for itself but um I also know now that sometimes a narrative wouldn't help wouldn't hurt it would help um so that would be I say a challenge is to to like um come up with a good story um describe what we've done and to do that yep thank you okay thank you Miss James well this is an incredibly talented group of people which I think really speaks to what we have here in East brunic and I think any of us would have no problem talking about all the ways that we could be successful but in terms of something that might be more of a challenge for me personally you know I would say don't have personal experience with older children in the schools because I haven't gotten to that part of my journey yet right I will but it's not my current perspective and of course our life experiences shape how we all think and what our knowledge base is and I think for me I would approach that challenge by really learning and seeking expert input seeking input from the board as many members of the board do have older children or have had older children uh that that have gone through the East Brunswick school system I would definitely approach it by listening and I'm not afraid of work you know I'm not afraid to be here and show up and just uh keep trying until whatever the challenges gets figured out um and I recognize because I have served in many volunteer capacities throughout my life and because I do work in education that sometimes there are challenges that you don't anticipate right I mean we are talking about transforming children's lives but we're also talking about you know working within a larger public policy context and we don't have control over every single thing that happens so I think being adaptable and being someone who can just um as I said keep working and keep listening and keep learning from experts is something that's really important I know that this work is is harder than just what I see right i' i' I've founded nonprofits and served on boards and I get that there's challenges that I can't foresee but I feel like I wouldn't be here if I wasn't ready to take that on couldn't have find that better thank you m soale okay so um I'm basically an educator and I love what I do and did um um there are a lot of pointers that I was writing I was a curriculum designer grant writer um I have worked internationally so I can build up with the support of definitely instructional staff crosscultural interaction programs or um uh a youth uh development projects in terms of engaging Community uh alumni bringing alumni leaders to expose the role models to our high schoolers and I worked on those programs as being the um uh principal of a local Islamic school in the neighborhood in fact some of my uh students from that school are now in ebhs and they are shining our Muslim Student Association student is um the the president is right now at ebhs so I personally believe that you know I am not just an educator but I'm also a community developer I have a lot of community affiliations uh one is my own organization the other one I'm serving in HRC as one of the oldest member there so I've built up these uh interactive crosscultural uh academic only Community Driven multiple programs and I feel that is my strength but the potential challenge that we all are talking about is getting to know this uh immense structure where you all are sitting so uh this policymaking these details that you all know and have worked on so far is something that I may need some time to understand and then work on thank you Mr goswami yeah so uh first of all my strength is that I am a father of a honor student of East brwi public school so that automatically gives me strength after strength and uh when you say hardworking right I never see my watch when I work okay what is the time now most of the people in his knows okay anywhere they go they see page that means page is available everywhere so they he doesn't see watch he doesn't see Time family always fights why you are not at home because I always support the community and go and work for the community and do as much as possible I do multiple events which is community event which takes lot of my time to to deliver a event is not a something which you can deliver over night it takes months of efforts when I'm doing this Diwali or holy it takes six months of efforts to go talk beg money from the people because when you go to beg a $100 it is very tough to get but when people come to you they expect you give $500 but when you go$ 00 nobody gives it so strength is like that and then I am friendly and I recognize people I was a leader in my in my company where I I I 1,500 people reported to me so I also recognize I also make friendship when we work and also make feel the people that okay don't treat me as a boss treat me as a friend and tell share with me how I can help you just not come with your issues and think okay if I go to my boss what you will think just come with your issues and make me as a friend and talk to me and again uh I am into sports Cricket I am into arts and culture I'm part of the board of e Arts colal I I am it product so I know it I can help in any form of it things I I am a financial guy I'm MBA in finance I am a budgeting guy I know budgeting and which I can help and contribute to to any of the budgeting efforts and then weakness I will say emotional earlier when I I this is is was my weakness but I have worked towards it to see earlier I used to think from my heart but I think it is always not work when you are in the business you to think from the brain thank you and Mr L kudos to whoever thought up this question it's a beauty I'm coming from an organization where I have been there for 18 years I know all the moving Parts I help create the moving Parts I am able to give input into all the moving Parts granted it's a much smaller organization than um the entire District but I I I know all the moving Parts each year we start from Square one and we move on to the end of the year and then we come back to the beginning of in September come back to the beginning contrast that with joining the board the board is a moving train that is moving at a pretty fast clip so jumping on to a moving train I'm starting from zero when everybody else has a lot more experience under their belt so that's a position I'm not quite used to um I am going to need to do a lot of catching up if I were to talk about what my biggest challenge is my biggest challenge is that I want to um contribute from minute one and know everything from that minute so it's going to take some some patience on my part um I'm very familiar with the district but I realize that what I see as the end product out there when I'm looking at the district I don't know exactly what goes into making the sausage so a lot of things go on behind the scenes that I'm not aware of and I know it's a process and learning the process being part of the process and really feeling familiar with everything that goes into it is is going to be my challenge because I'm going to want to run before I walk thank you we've all heard the saying the Board of Education doesn't run the district it ensures that it is well-run another way to look at this is that a board member is an is an ambassador for their school district what would make you a viable Ambassador for our diverse group of residents we'll begin with m Zang um let me think for a second an ambassador so I think think of a a board as um if I would draw analogy the board would be like in the film making it would be the screenwriter and the producer so being part of the screenwriter and the producer an ambassador's job would be to work with the director which would be the superintendent um to ensure that the administrators have the best resource to work with the cast The Crew um to put the screen to put put put the the script to live on screen the as an ambassador we need to advocate for our past producers and cast we need to um provide a vision um for the district and we need to collaborate um with the film team to put the best sh at the end of the day we serve our student family the community with that in mind that's how to be the best Ambassador I suppose okay Miss James thank you I think I would be a good Ambassador because as I said in my opening I truly believe in the transformative power of Education I'm the first person in my family to attend college I did not have the privilege of going to a K12 school that had the resources of East Brunswick the diversity of East Brunswick the opportunity for my son to eat dosa at lunch and for everyone to think it's just fabulous I mean I don't have to pretend because I you you know I'm I'm happy to be here like all of you and I think part of being an ambassador is having that like faith in in what you're doing and knowing that you're representing something that yes there are challenges but it's a good place and you want to be part of making it better and helping it grow and seeing our future right I want to be productive and I have a track record of doing that with the ptas you know I I felt like an ambassador for waren stuff for my former treasurers here because I basically live there I mean and I just always sought to bring people in and to be as transparent as possible where I could to encourage people to get involved if they were interested you know my identity would be you know as a parent and and as a Helper and as someone who who wants to help the schools um run well and and you know I I want to be around and work in the community in in multifaceted ways and I think that an ambassador is present an ambassador is communicative an ambassador listens and takes in knowledge um and an ambassador Works in in good faith and so I hope I could do that here thank you Miss soale um all right so being Ambassador means representing some people or maybe a lot of people um I'm already part of HR and over there I'm already being an ambassador of South Asian community Asian community and minority and immigrant community and uh and I can add on and on and on a Muslim Community uh uh so I I believe that I'm already serving in that role in ebhc so uh transforming that role here would not be that difficult for me um uh because I uh feel East Brunswick is becoming a World Village it's uh it has become a world Village if you go to high school you will see so many different ethnicities and I honestly feel that that needs to represent more in this uh board as well um and that's what my contributions would be that you know I will be bringing a diverse role diverse thought process and uh uh maybe a different creative type of thinking that that maybe my background my credentials my experiences of life being internationally uh growing up and then living in East Brunswick and uh becoming who I become today because of being as part of EB with my uh differentiated experiences so thank you mhm Mr goswami So when you say Ambassador Ambassador means people Trust you then only you become Ambassador otherwise you cannot become Ambassador you have to have a trust of by the people and when you are doing so much things in that Community automatically you are ambassador of the township not only Township you are the ambassador of your community you are ambassador of the people whom you spend time whom you don't spend but they know you many of times if you see if you know the president we know the president does the president know me no so it is like that people will know you you might not not know many people but people will know you so Ambassador think giving back is also very important when they see you are doing so much you are giving back to the community they build the trust because this guy is dedicated this guy is just not the guy who will go 9 to5 office come spend time with family sleep eat dinner and sleep not like that who is giving back that is the guy who is who people trust and he can become the Ambassador and again East brwi schools are fostering the you mean the board is fostering and giving the opportunity to the town and the people and the students and the teachers that opportunity to strive and they do better and that's why also many people coming from different towns and settling here it is just not like that the houses are not the the real tells me only there are 500 houses demand but there is only 50 available that means what people are coming and houses are not there so everybody wants to come to a town and when you go and talk when I do a event people come here not only from East bronek people from Woodbridge South River Midtown Edison everywhere so why because we are building this town in such a way that people think oh why not East brwi so East brwi is one of the place where we want to do best things support the school make the school top in the nation and work with all the peers to work and help them and how they can also where I can contribute for the betterment of the school community and the schools thank you Mr L lived in this community for I guess close to 25 years and have gotten to know it quite well and we are a diverse Community we're ethnically and religiously diverse we are socioeconomically diverse we're neur neurodiverse and we're intellectually diverse and what I love about our schools is that we are there for every one of these populations we have families moving in to East Brunswick because we have special education programs that surrounding towns don't offer we have um programs for um AP programs and um dual dual enrollment programs for students who are excelling and we address every population that is in each of our buildings um there is not any one student that any of us would look at we look at all 9,000 or so students and that's what's the mo the most important Outlook to take for the board in terms of being an ambassador um anybody who has seen me around town knows if you put a microphone in my hand I am very um shamelessly bragging about what our schools do um if you were at our um bear crawl I was there with our microphone just you know raving about how many people showed up and what the money we're going to raise is able to do for for our students come I've come and stood over there and bragged about the money that we had given to our students because we have teachers and students who can create the most amazing things given the opportunity so being an ambassador for me is just a continuation of the role just in a different with a different title and a different um slightly different voice but I am through and through even though I wasn't born in East brunck but I think if I went to Lab Corp they would find some in my blood [Music] um and Mr P um I have some recurring nightmares I'm adding talking about being an ambassador after Jack levit to that list um so um so where I grew up um is a town called Flossmore Illinois it's a south suburb of Chicago um homood Flossmore high school was the um School District uh that that I went to um and it's very much like um East Brunswick I was quite surprised the first time I saw the uh High School building because I thought I was looking at my old high school uh except everything was green instead of red cuz you know those were our our colors but uh one of the things that made uh growing up in in that town um and that town was known as the place to go if you want your kids to get a good education much like East Bruns um was that um I was one of five Chinese kids in the entire uh High School um that's 4 * 750 kids per class and one of those kids was my brother so um growing up in that environment um I think one of the if if I have a superpower it's being it was being able to learn to relate to people that were not like myself because I was forced to do it every uh every day um as a result for that um I think I've developed a pretty decent sense of empathy hopefully being a physician has uh helped out with that as well and where I'm going with all of this stuff is that when it comes to being an ambassador um you need to be enthusiastic and I do Fanboy a lot about the stuff that I'm enthusiastic about and I'm enthusiastic about education as I hope I'm making making clear but you also have to be able to read and understand your audience um and that's where I think um my life experience um and my ability to put myself in the other person's shoes uh can uh can really help in that uh regard one of the things that I do um as well is I teach the rcia course at St Barts um and one one of the things I have to do is figure out how to get the message we're trying to get to each individual person when I have six different people in the room and one message is not going to uh fit all so that's what I would do thanks thank you next question what role do you feel the district should play in the East Brunswick community and please identify an opportunity for improvement Miss James oh first for that one okay everyone gets a turn well you know when you say what role should the schools play in the community I guess that's an interesting framing for me because I don't know that I see them as separate right I mean we we are a community and the schools are the community and I mean I think so many of us started speaking about you know we came here specifically for the schools and that has shaped and was the beginning of our community experience I guess I don't really see the two as distinct but of course I understand that you know the Board of Education and administration is is one body and there are obviously a lot of other entities in the community as well um and I think one area of improvement that I I hope that I would be able to help with as an ambassador right since Ambassador engag in dialogue is just bringing parents more into your work I mean I know for me until I started coming here to testify about an issue that my neighborhood had with our transportation system um I I didn't realize how many committees there were and how many opportunities there were to be involved in the board and and I think all of us who are up here we have this diverse array of community experiences like during covid I helped found the East Brunswick educational Justice Alliance and it was parents from across different schools and and we talked about you know our concerns with what diverse parents were experiencing in the community and we actually got to work with Dr Figaroa on uh one of the surveys that you all did to see people's experience and I was just really Amazed by by how much is already here right or even knowing about some of the special education parent advisory groups that I wasn't at first aware of and so I think that if we can um bring more people in that would help thank you Miss so um I think the district is already doing a very good job in Asian community and as uh uh uh Miss uh James mentioned that she that our we are the community that is in school our children are in the school um however I mean a few things I was thinking about it last night too that how if I would be there what can I uh bring in or like as a community me member what can I bring even if I'm not on the board so I try to look up alumni list on Wikipedia and I've seen there is a huge list but at least 50% of them were Sports leaders and they are serving in sports leadership um but I did not see as many academic leaders I know my daughter went to uh Spotify to work and she did really great she's nowhere on the list and I honestly would like to see Alum our alumni ebhs is alumni to work more closely with our students to give them this Ray of Hope that if they can do it the others can also do it too uh that's what I just feel one part that I came across otherwise you all are doing a very good job thank you Mr goswami okay so the main thing is the board is anywhere doing good that's why I want to part be part of this board otherwise I would not be here right so uh the thing is I will see two things which can be improved mean which can be done which will help one is more more parent teacher engagement right so because I know the teachers are really doing lot but if there are more engagement with the teachers and parents then parents also can help the teacher to succeed in their roles more because I know 15 or 16 students one teacher cannot help that is too much for them because in my my son's class what I have observed they can definitely uh if there are more engagement that will be help another thing which I feel I don't know if it is a relevant or not always pizza pizza pizza right is why can't be Asian food why can't maybe once a week can be a different Comm cushion right for the kids I don't want my son to have a pizza every every Friday because it is cholesterol it can it can hurt them in the future not today but they love it but maybe a introduction of a different food menu in the cafeteria can be helpful because even a Indian kid or American kid or any kid they out of the school they go to Asian food order Chinese order Italian but in school they only get a sandwich or a pizza there is no option and my son never eats it and I don't I cannot cook and send food for him to school every day so this is one two things what I three but any other than that everything is perfect in his BR School District that's why I thank you Mr L one thing I've always found slightly puzzling about East Brunswick is that we have so many different organizations um we have the seniors we have the Arts commission we have the human relations commission we have the library Foundation we have the clergy um Council but they all operate somewhat as Islands um now I've heard that the school district is thinking about going out for a referendum next year something about a new high school or something like that um the community needs to be one Community if we're going to do this and I think it has to start somewhere and if our district could become part of each of these organizations by bringing out our best our best asset which is our students um a great example is um last week for the eclipse we had some high schoolers as ambassadors they went to the library they went to one of the um one of the pre the daycare places and they talked and taught students about the eclipse it was all over tap and it was a feel-good moment for the community and it's a feel-good moment for the school that the school's LED if we could unleash the talent we have in these um in these 11 buildings on the community and really let them feel part of what goes on inside those buildings I think when we go for a referendum it's going to be a slam dunk to get everybody to say yes we need a new high school because we are one Community thank you Mr pen yeah so um um the role that the school district plays in the town I think the town is the school district and vice versa um for many reasons that we've already um talked about not the least of which that education is often the number number one reason why people come to East Brunswick to um to live um having said that there are sectors of the community where that message seems to not be at the Forefront of their uh Minds I hate to admit it but they're um friends of ours that um have gone down the well why should I pay taxes to the school district my kids are out of school uh now um I've tried to set them straight and point out the flaws of their thinking there I am being an ambassador um but um but I I do think that if there's one thing that I would like to uh concentrate on is um showing the importance of the school district to the parts of town that quote do not directly get anything out of the school district um uh at this point in time uh because the thing is a school district means you have healthy vibrant families in the in in town if you have healthy vibrant families in town quality of life is better the activities that you have in town are better your prop property values remain at least stable or you know hopefully hopefully going up all of these things are a direct result of our school district being as excellent as it is and that's a message that I think um uh could sure use getting out to a wider to a wider audience thank you and Miss z um I see the district and the community as um symbiotic Partners I think there two ecosystems supports each other um our district provides the backbone of Education opportunity and our district are responsible for educating the next generation of residents and the community obviously supports us with um funding and also advocacy the area where I see opportunity to improve um the one that jumps to my mind would be the um what Mr L had mentioned um advocating for the value of our district to the broader group of residents um one area we've done well and I remember resonate with me was paren University um I think that in the Ever Changing fast changing um Society in um there is a lot of opportunity for our students the resource that we have to provide that sort of um um education and information um platform for our residents um you know the AIS the technology the cultural um all those areas that we can improve on and um and give our students the opportunity to volunteer and then to present our district as valuable asset to the community so that um so that all different um groups of community will rally behind us um when we need their support and that's how I I see ourself um of two ecosystems that will work together well thank you okay well as we end the interview session you each have one minute to make a closing statement we'll begin with Miss soale okay so uh great uh at this point I would say that if I I have become what I am today as I have said earlier because of what I got exposed in East Brunswick right in my first year of being here and I became an educator I became a community uh organizer and and uh build up uh myself professionally personally due to experiences what I have gained here through my daughters uh who went to school system and I love to serve the community and I have been serving the community I have uh uh enough knowledge of of serving as an educator in public schools as an educator in the leadership I have the license in uh uh uh of New Jersey Jersy uh to be an administrator I felt that I have learned enough to now take it to next level and uh serve at um the board of education level to um uh if I been given that that opportunity thank you Mr goswami okay so uh I would uh like to thank everyone for giving me an opportunity to come here and present myself so I would love to give back and work collabora collaboratively with everyone all the board members parent teachers teachers and the students and help them to succeed in what they are aiming for and also uh try to enhance the well-being of our schools and the community and growth and success of our schools and I look forward if you guys think about me to come work and support you in the next is B schs how to become the top in the country Mr levit thanks again for inviting me here today and sorry I ran in at the last minute there was a little traffic in Philadelphia um I'm glad I made it on time in short I love our schools our schools have been wonderful to my family and I feel this intense need to pay it forward um I bring some experience um to the job too um I've run a business sold a business um I'm a te I now I'm an educator at rers um passionate about teams and I love to volunteer all those things I think contribute to being a good board member by the way um Miss soale I would love to invite you to the Alumni Hall of Fame that we have at East brunic High School to show you what great things our alumni have done done and I want to create a lot more or be part of creating a lot more of those alumni that walk out of our high school um I would appreciate the opportunity to be part of the board thank you perfect Mr Pan um again thanks for taking a time um you know for for this process um and as I mentioned before I think no matter how the decision works out it's going to be good for the uh School District um I feel very very strongly deeply and passionately that education is the core of anyone's anyone's life if you don't learn about the world you're not going to be able to enjoy it um you're not going to be able to cont uh contribute um to it and that is everything that the East Brunswick School District uh system stands for I've seen it with my kids in terms of how they've uh uh turned out um and uh again I just want to make a little call back uh to my high school um where I grew up um I went to my 40th high school anniversary um and saw the wonderful things that my high school had done since then and I thought that these are all things that we can do here for sure and many of those things we've done I also saw the next town over which historically did not invest in their in their school district it was it was horrifying to see what had happened to their Town um that's the situation I want to avoid and I work passionately to make sure that we do a good job here thank Mr Z thank you everyone for interviewing me um I am a longtime resident and I raised my kids here um last year my daughter was sitting amongst you had the opportunity she had a good experience great experience um I would like to follow through with um volunteers important in our family um both my daughter both my children are EMT still um I like to um you know throughout their bringing them up by volunteer from WD offer I'm still volunteer for East BR youth Council I'm a professional trainer um a CPA I have I believe I have something to give and and to give is is the reason I'm here um hopefully working with the diverse group talented members I will be able to make a difference thank you thank you and Miss James well thank you so much again for having me here I feel really privileged to be part of this group and I think that I would be a good addition to the board um I also have the privilege of a flexible career so I have the time to be here I'm not afraid to be an advocate for important issues but I understand that this is a consensus body and I see myself as a bridge builder and a collaborator I see myself as someone who is Solutions oriented um I have experience with state and local budgeting including per pup funding formulas as that's a facet of my professional career and perhaps most importantly I have a track record of volunteering in East Brunswick Public Schools and I would love to be able to show my own children and their friends on the importance of that Spirit of community volunteerism so thank you so much for your time this evening thank you and thank you all for being part of this important process following this public session the board will recess to close session to discuss each of the candidates the board will not decide until the formal nomination process process takes place at a public meeting all candidates will be informed after that occurs Mrs is L thank you so much um so I have to go into the go of the cause do you dismissed you want take a recess or go right into the good of the cause maybe they could just sit well you know what actually I'm going to make you sit there because it's because well I'm not going to make you sit there well because you can see because if you are selected to be on the board this is what you will be doing so um this is kind of an interesting one because we do have some people out there but some of them may be for you um but uh just in case I don't want to to take anyone else's time away from being able to speak to the board so the Board of Education recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest to protect the privacy of students and staff concerns regarding individual students and staff members should be generally addressed by first meeting with the appropriate administrative staff in order to permit the fair and orderly expression of such comment the board to provide a period for public comments at every meeting you are entitled to three minutes uh time the board secretary does keep the clock um and I always like to remind people that when you speak to the board it is the time for the public to speak for the board to listen so it do not take our lack of a response as not caring about the issues anything that needs followup we always tell you to make sure that you leave contact information with the ladies today in the back of the room usually in the front um that being said is there anyone that would like to speak to the board this evening okay so we have an audience that's good to know um I'm going to then close the public portion um and bring us to committee reports information items and for the good of the cause for the board okay um before I ask for the motion for Clos session I want to thank all of you uh for coming out this is a volunteer organization and people sometimes forget that and just the fact that you have all put the time and energy into sending us applications and being here to interview tonight I really wish that we had six spots um the rest of the board may not feel that way right this minute um because it means they'd be out of the chairs but um in all sincerity truly I I I will speak on behalf of the board when I thank everyone for their time and attention um it's going to be a very very difficult discussion because you've all brought some wonderful um assets so I thank you all and now we're going to go and discuss so I am going to ask the board for a motion whereas the Board of Education must discuss matters which are not appropriate for discussion in a public meeting and these subjects are within the exceptions to the open public meetings act and are permitted to be discussed in closed session the board intends to discuss matters as follows there's items listed on tonight's agenda the length of close session is estimated to be 1 hour after which the public meeting of the board shall reconvene an action will not be taken now therefore be it resolved that the East brunic Board of Education will recess into close session for only the apers said subjects and be it further resolved that the East bronic Board of Education hereby declares that its discussion of the afer said subjects will be made public at a time when the Public's interest in disclosure is greater than any privacy or government Interest being protected from disclosure in accordance with the open public meetings act moved by Mrs Becker second second by Mr hung is there any discussion say by the Bell little exit music okay the exit music I like that all in favor opposed extensions motion carries thank you and good night to everybody thank you guys