all right good evening everyone please evening please stand for the flag salute to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible
with liberty and justice for all please stand for a moment of silence please be seated in accordance with the Open Public Meetings Act NJSA 10 col4-6 adequate notification of this
meeting has been provided by advertising in the record and posting notice in the board of education administration building and filing notice with the city clerk i hereby call to order the regular public meeting on Wednesday March 19th
2025 in the Hackinack High School Media Center at 6:17 6:17 p.m miss Sing can you do a roll call please okay miss Alston Balaputra present miss Emir Hamza present mr carol is absent miss Cordial
Alam uh not here either miss Gilmore here mr martin present miss Pringle present miss Harris present mr stein here we
have a quorum perfect so at this time we don't have a student special presentation um our student report which is usually done by Chenica Thomas but I am sure she is practicing for the play um that is going to take place this weekend if you get the opportunity
please please go and see our wonderful students perform um be it resolved that the Hackasack Board of Education determs it necessary to meet in executive session on Wednesday March 19th 2025 to discuss legal personnel student related
matters HIV reports negotiations and other confidential matters and be it further resolved that these matters will be made public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists can I have a motion to go into close session please i'll refer okay motion by Trustee
Stein can I have a second a second second by Trustee Pringle all those in favor say I anyone opposed okay so we are now going into executive session and I would say we would reconvene back by 7:45 and we'll
notify the public if it's any longer than that thank you okay we're back um can I have a motion to go um in to go back into public thank you a motion okay offered by Trusty
Amarza second by Trustee Stein um Miss can you do a roll call please yes um Miss Alston Balaputra present miss Amir Hamza present mr carol's not here miss
Cordro Alton here miss Gilmore here mr martin present miss Pringle present miss Harris present mr stein here we have a quorum okay be it
resolved that the Hackasag Board of Education approves the regular meeting minutes on February 26 2025 executive meeting minutes of February 26 2020 oh that's Oh yeah 2025 special meeting minutes of March 12th 2025 and the
executive meeting meeting minutes of March 12th 2025 um Miss Sing do a roll call please sure miss Al Balucha oh my apologies oh my gosh um can I have
a motion to approve the minutes okay I'll make a motion a second okay by trustee Ammer Hamza second by Trusty Pringle now missing to do a roll call please miss Alson Baluch yes miss Ara
Hamza yes miss Carol's absent miss Cordier Alton uh recused because I was not present cb Miss Gilmore yes mr martin yes miss
Pringle yes miss Harris yes mr stein yes motion passes okay um so we're going to move on so there was a data presentation but it's going to be presented in April when we have both math and ELA okay um so we're
moving on to the nurse presentation hi everyone hello good evening thank you for allowing me an opportunity my name is Wendy i am the lead nurse for Hackinack Public Schools since 2012 um I've been with the district since uh 20
2003 and I've only presented a few times so I consider it a great honor and a you know a good opportunity to kind of give you a heads up on what we do and who we are um I want to thank uh Dr mcbride and Rosemary for you know allowing us to discuss this important topic that seems
to have come up a couple of times um and so tonight my goal is really to just give you some clarity and resolve the concerns that you may have or that the community may have about the care of children and staff when the nurse is not
in the building because I know that you guys have a lot of pressing academic things that we really want to uh you know sort of improve on and knowing that the health and safety is done is going to be a weight off everyone's shoulders
so um I just wanted an opportunity to make sure that you know the names of the nurses that work in the building sometimes you know we say the nurse the nurse her she and we really forget that the nurses in this district work extremely hard you don't see them or
hear from them very often until there's an issue but these are the names of our nurses in the district we have Michelle Hogan and Diana Deffina at the high school uh we have G Marie Sheay and Miss Woolridge we have um those are at our middle school uh very busy nurses
quashima Bolds at Parker School Miss Gillan Janine Gillan at Fairmount School uh Fanny May Hillers we have a new nurse her name is Rosalyn Kesler myself I am at Jackson and we have our early childhood developmental center Lillian Alamura now what you will notice there
is that every nurse has a lot of credentials most of us have our masters if not all and some of us have two so we really do take our jobs very seriously thanks so next slide please Chris okay so I wanted to bring your attention because this has come up uh
apparently at the meetings and basically um we already have a policy in place that deals with the care of injured and ill persons um it is a Hackinack district policy created in June of 2017 i left a copy on your uh table there and
the reason I bring it to your attention is because it clearly states that any injury or illness shall be reported immediately to the school nurse or in the absence of the school nurse the building principal or designate so that has been the standard in every school
when the nurse is not there they are the point person for what happens next and that has already been a standing best practice policy which we all pretty much follow it also very clearly states at the end basic first aid may be
administered by district personnel to ensure the safety and comfort of the injured or ill person until the school nurse arrives or until another medical professional arrives on the scene so there you have it um basically uh we are
covered when that's why we have emergency response teams and this is in policy right here so that's the second thing all right and then the uh next slide please Chris all right so basically I just want to I'm not going to take too long i know
that's a lot of words but I talk quick as you can see and I just want to say that pretty much the standard of care is across the district the same but it does vary per building because our populations are slightly different our principal situations are slightly
different and so um what I want to say about this is that when the nurse is out of the building which is typically at lunch um the high school and middle school alternate their lunch duties so there's always one nurse available and one nurse is out if you know for that short time um they are complemented by
the emergency response team which is the ERT uh nurses at the elementary school stay until the very last recess now I know it was brought up that emergencies can happen at any time but clearly recess is a high risk time for injury so
we stay until every child is back in their classroom safely and and hopefully avoiding most of the problems throughout the day um the other thing is that if we do have a child that is ill at the end of recess we will typically take our
lunch late and we will stay and in some cases we don't take a lunch and we miss a lunch so that does happen you just don't hear about that very often um also the nurses take their lunch at the same time every day so this is not something that oh I'll go at lunch this time or
that time staff is well aware when their nurse is at lunch and they plan for that accordingly um so this is just a quick snapshot here if a child presents with a non-urgent complaint to their teacher and they are sent to the office which I
always tell my teachers please don't send kids to the office because they don't know how to triage a kid um what I tell my teachers is if you have a child that is complaining you know my finger hurts i stub my toe at recess and the teacher will say "You know what Jimmy
she's at lunch can you wait until she comes back?" Yes I can wait okay so the teacher will say "Dear Miss Lamperelli could you please check on Jimmy's toe?" "Yes ma'am I sure will as soon as I get back from lunch." Then if a child presents with a semi-urgent complaint that cannot wait for the nurse such as a
child vomited perhaps they tripped on the stairs and now they're complaining of pain in their ankle um the nurse will probably still be notified hey we had a child that tripped on the stairs and guess what the child may be sent home at the discretion of the principal so in
that case we call upon our policy principal says you know what I don't like the way this child's ankle looks they seem to be crying I'm going to call the mom will come and pick up the child uh last one is if a child presents with an urgent complaint so we had non-urgent semi-urgent and urgent if it's an urgent
complaint or issue that the um child has which is difficulty breathing um you know an anaphylactic reaction the emergency response team is activated for that specific issue andor complaint next slide please
okay so really quickly I just want to make sure you know that we have best practice right so the slide I showed you before was more or less what we do um in immediate situations for you know case-byase basis um but each school year
the nurses have best practice for how do we make sure that we can go to lunch enjoy a cup of coffee or a quick sandwich and know that our our kids are safe and our staff is safe and the way we do that is right here every single year we choose our EpiPen delegates and
we train them and we make sure they know how to give EPI and we make sure they know where that epinephrine is um nurse Gillan and Nurse Defina we are so lucky here we used to use our fire department which kudos to our police and fire always but they used to do our CPR training twice a year for staff for free
and now we have two nurses that are trained as um American Heart Association uh instructors and we do our classes twice a year and not only do they train them in CPR and AED they train them again on EPI they train them again on stop the bleed and they re you know
review any questions about first aid we also as nurses conduct code blue drills so these are drills that we do in our building to make sure that guess what in a practice run we did really good or guess what we did terrible and we need to fix a few things so we do that twice
a year as well and we debrief and we say what did we do wrong oh my gosh somebody forgot to bring the AED we can't do that so we have really good debrief meetings after that we also ensure that our substitutes because sometimes the nurses are out sick as Miss Markx did um
reiterate and we do use Miss Fenner to get coverage and sometimes those nurses don't know our buildings but guess what every nurse leaves a substitute folder and in that folder it says if Jimmy comes to the office please call Jimmy's mom he's very you know he's anxious or
whatever we need very specific instructions regarding specific children to our substitutes in addition they have all the medical alerts for our school um the na last couple things here is that we enter medical alerts into Genesis so
we have a very excellent program and I'm so happy that we still have Genesis because it's a wonderful wonderful platform especially for medical and the teachers which I'm going to show you on the next slide have a specific area that they can look and see if a child has uh
a medical information uh or a piece of information that they need to know in addition we have to upload care plans for children and those are also visible to teachers um we also have so we're required to have first aid guidelines and rather than reinvent the wheel the
American Academy of Pediatrics has put out a document called emergency guidelines for schools i'm going to show you that in the next slide only going to take a minute um we print that out for every office and in the event that I am not there um my principal and my vice principal if they have a child with a
beasting they can look it up and say "Oh okay being is this happening?" Yes go here no go here and then they'll say "Wendy when are you coming back i have a beast name." But you know either way it's there for them and I'll show that to you the nurse also provides first aid bags to every single teacher at the
beginning of the year so we give teachers a couple of things like you know tooth cups and band-aids and gloves and nosebleleed uh supplies and they are trained in our bloodborne pathogens every single school year via safe schools additionally seizure first aid
is as you know a requirement and every two years we have to do Paul's law uh nurses are the only people administering medication um and oxygen so last uh board meeting I was listening uh to the comment that was
made and I believe the comment was well who gives oxygen and who puts a pulse oximter well in the state of New Jersey only a nurse or an EMT or a paramedic can administer oxygen so we are never expecting our teachers or lay people to
put oxygen on oxygen is a form of treatment it's a medication no one does that but me or 911 and paramedics um we also have to follow standing orders um which means that we don't just get to decide oh gee you know Jimmy has a cut
maybe I'll use this or maybe I'll use that nope dr flores is our school physician has been since I came he's wonderful he writes orders every single year for nurses and we follow them um and then lastly if a child is ill and needs to be picked up and the nurse is
not there yet they are not sent back to class they are typically sent to the nurse with an adult caregiver until I arrive back in the school now in some cases this does happen and you know teachers we don't like we would never
send a child back to class with a temperature let's say of 102 but nobody would really know that child had a temperature until I came back so in some cases if a child has a mild headache they might be sent back if I come back from lunch and I check Jimmy and he had a headache and it winds up that he did have a fever you know I call the parent
right away so hopefully that clears up some next slide oh can you open that link for me Chris yeah open oh yeah that is the um Genesis page in medical and I took out the child's identifying information but
as you can see there it says in the little where it says text for medical icon see how it says call mother for any visits then it says um send student for any mild injury asthma seasonal allergies so that area is specifically
for a teacher so if this child has difficulty breathing the teacher already knows oh my gosh this little girl has asthma let me make sure I get the principal right away to the classroom and the part on the top where it says comments that's all me that's stuff for
the the nurses only see okay Chris and then the last slide that I have for you is just to show you uh that he's going to open the link yeah so this is the emergency guidelines for schools this is wonderful document um Chris can you go
down a couple pages until you see like the algorithm for let's say an injury okay right good keep going keep going this is the last slide people sorry about that okay um Right so here it is ems this is when to call 911 it's very
clear child has no pulse child is um you know moving the child could cause injury keep going and then this is for emergency keep going keep going uh keep going sorry i just want to show
you how easy it is uh okay first one there we go so see where it says allergic reaction this is so great because it's colorcoded so allergic reaction is the name of this um case right this incident so you look it up students with a life-threatening allergy
should be that are known should have epinephrine that's just a little sidebar children experiencing um an allergic reaction does the student have any signs of if the answer is no then that means you contact the student be aware of the
student exposure watch for delayed symptoms if it's yes then they're going to say "Check the student's airway look listen and feel start CPR." It tells you what to do if the nurse is not there this document was developed by the Academy of Pediatrics because many
schools were so blessed in New Jersey to have school nurses in every building thank you New Jersey for that but in many states there are not nurses in every single building so in Ohio you might have principles delivering first aid care because one nurse is taking
care of five schools so this is a document that has been you know around for a long time because this happens so I think that's all i hope that this puts the community at ease i hope I didn't go too fast i hope it was informative and
this is the last slide which basically is also in your packet um it is an article that was written by the American Academy of Pediatrics on medical emergencies in schools and what it says right there I just want to bring to your
attention for all the community when a school nurse does not when there is not a dedicated nurse on site they typically design uh designate staff members trained in first aid to handle minor issues who also work with lo local health care providers to provide medical
attention and they may send students home to be cared for by parents and guardian that in addition to that we may have first a train uh first aid trained staff which we do emergency procedures we have those state regulations
regarding medical care in schools will v vary based on local laws and regulations which in New Jersey we have Janet's law which means that we have to have an AED and five trained CPR people at all times um and communication parents will be notified if their child experiences a
medical issue requiring attention and may be asked to pick up their child if necessary and that's how we do it that's how it gets done and so far so good and as you know uh Detective Martin and Miss Markx I know you're not a detective
retired Detective Martin um mentioned the last time at the board meeting that we did have a collapse of a student here in this library and the nurse was at lunch but um I was at lunch but the other nurse who had just started was subbing and the emergency response team
came together we had done so many drills that it was just an amazing day and the father came in to thank us for cha saving his child's life and since that time we've had five saves in Hackinack public schools um I'm going to knock on
wood one there and um you know we we've been very blessed we have really dedicated teachers who step up to be on our code blue teams and and are willing to be trained and take care of our staff and students when we step out for a cup of coffee any questions yes I have oh um
when you when the nurse on the elementary school level when the nurse is out of uh the building and the principal uh uh the the student is usually sent to the principal as you said and he'll make a decision um
is there a first aid kit in the main office that the principal has access to or do he use your office and know where supplies are that you can use for typically the principal would depending on the situation if it's a band-aid the answer is yes they have a small first
aid kit um if it's something more you know serious than that uh typically the student is brought let's put a nose bleed a fairly significant nose bleed that child would not most likely be treated in the main office that child will be treated in the privacy of the
nurse's office um where gloves and other supplies would be present um and so to have a general first aid kit I wouldn't want to do that for a couple of reasons i never want the main office staff to feel that it's their duty to give first
aid so the principal would most likely bring the student to the nurse i don't even want my main office staff to feel that they have to take a temperature because technically that puts them in the role of an assessment and and a triage and that's not really their role
so the principal will bring the to your office and he'll treat the uh most likely or he may call a member of the code blue team call the blue um and he probably would call me and say "Hey I have this kid here you know are you close when are you coming back?" And I'll say "Yeah I'm on my way." And
that's how we usually and last question that I have will be um the uh principal sends oh if the principal uh decide that this student need to go home or call 911 upon your arrival you usually uh will be
notified that principal then you'll follow up or how that works well that's a great point because even Rosemary reminded me that often times when a student or staff member is acutely ill or suffering an emergency um we are
typically the people that call 911 i mean the nurses have called 911 many times because we know it's the right thing um in that moment that needs to be done but if a principal were to call 911 um I would have most likely already had a call and been on my way back to the
school um and at minimum I would have been debriefed upon my return that this occurred because typically there's a lot of follow-up paperwork um and obviously the nurse would reach out to the parent and find out if the child is okay and you know what what happened um and the
other thing is for staff we see staff during workman's comp injuries and also also for emergencies so sometimes you know again if a staff member let's say had an acute emergency 911 was called they would debrief me when I returned
all right and uh I want to thank you and your and all the nurses for your service that you provide uh our students and staff as well uh you you guys are um not that well recognized in my book
but uh you do phenomenal work and as well as yourself as a lead nurse who take this as a very passion i worked with you i've seen you at work and I know what you're capable of doing and again on behalf of this board we all thank you and appreciate everything that
you and the other nurses are doing very good thank you very much for that and I hope this answers your questions and please you know feel free to gather any other comments or questions and I'd be happy to address them if I didn't address them tonight thank you thank you
so much appreciate it thank you thank you all right so now we are on and and again nurse Wendy just to say thank you also for answering the questions of our families that were kind of left still unanswered um thank you so much
again very appreciate yes I hope so too all right so now we are on to our superintendence report dr mcbride good evening everyone good evening happy women's history month so we want to honor our amazing women who have changed
history women who rock and run the world they say uh so again honoring our wonderful uh women who are on this board our wonderful women in the district and throughout our history and I have the privilege of working with some amazing women who help lift us up so I want to honor them as well um I was in a school
yesterday and they were doing an activity and they asked "Well who is one of your sheerros?" So I decided to answer the question out loud and so one of them is Miss Shirley Chisum she was the first uh black woman elected to Congress in 1968 and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party in
1972 and one of her quotes was if they don't give you a seat at the table you bring your own folding chair and I love that philosophy of creating the spaces for at to the table bring it to the table exactly um so I want to honor her as well today and we have some uh local individuals we want to honor as well
miss Pedra Delvecio is who is a ESL teacher at Fairmont is a 2025 Women's History Month honore she was recognized by Bergen County as part of their moving forward together women educating and inspiring generation celebration so great job to you Miss
Delveio uh another one of our students Miss Shaina Alba with representing Hackinac High School at the Bergen County School uh board of association of unsung hero honory i think a few of our board members had the opportunity to go and and honor and and be in attendance so we want to celebrate her
today indeed uh happy St patrick's Day for those uh who celebrated St patrick's Day on last Monday uh we want to acknowledge also we are currently in the season of Ramadan so we want to observe and and pay homage to those individuals who are celebrating Ramadan right now and
they'll be engaging in Eid which is the uh breaking of the fast which which is actually marked uh the ends of Ramadan and that's happening on March the 31st we had 27 scholars inducted to the National Honor Society the EC Mara
chapter of the National Honor Society so we want to again give special recognition to those individual students we have many of us had the honor of attending and speaking and showing how much we are how proud we are of them the academic the Kathlon team finished as the highest overall large school in the state and secured second place overall
in the fiercely competitive state championship this achievement came with a coveted prize the team has earned one of only two spots representing New Jersey at the upcoming USAD national competition in Iowa next month so we wish them
well we have Mr martin Rojas Ortiz who auditioned and was accepted into the All North Jersey Region One Jazz Choir he will be performing with the group on April 6th at Livingston High School in addition he also became recognized by the Hackinac PTSA and Bergen County PTSA
for his original composition entitled Chaos Hermosa his musical piece is now being evaluated at the state level for his contribution to the theme imperfections martin will perform his piece on Thursday night at the PTSA ceremony at Bergen County Plaza so shout
out to him got a lot got a lot going on today um the boys indoor track team 4x400 meters relay team of four juniors Devin Dombre Dustin Dombre seven Garcia and Jaden Duza clinched bronze at the Nike indoor n the Nike indoor
nationalists this past weekend with a time of 31968 they also were freedom division league champions section 4x400 group four champions newark group four meet record holders in the 4x400 Bergen County 4x400 champions bergen County 4x4
first team and holders of the Bergen County 4x400 meter record that is amazing one of our scholars Mr 7 Garcia was individually named as a two-time all-American in both Nike New Balance 400 meter and 4x400
meter events third team allstate 400 meters first team all Bergen County 400 meters and first team all league freedom he is also the Bergen County record holder in the 400 meters with a time of 47.29 and lastly
it's a lot going on it's a lot to celebrate a lot to celebrate and the middle school boys basketball team recently won their championship and I do want to give a special shout out to Hillers uh elementary school i was there most of the morning i think we went visited
every classroom of the third grade and so what h what's happening we're doing instructional walks and so each leader has identified an area of concentration that they're supporting their teachers on in order to achieve their goals for the year and so one of the things I ask is what do what am I expected to see when I walk into classrooms and they say
we've been working on X and you try to triangulate to see actually is it living in practice and almost every class we visited we saw their priorities were small groupoup instruction the second piece was studentled driven work as
opposed to stage on the stage as well as student engagement so I want to give a special shout out to all the staff and students at Hillers amazing job to all of the staff our paris everyone was working very digitally and and the kids were amazing so I'll be visiting all schools so I just want to give a shout
out to them because they were yesterday and now it's actual student superintendent report um for enrollment we have 5,32 students currently enrolled our attendance is 96.27% um as it relates to our residency report in the month of February we had
two cases received and our year to date is 23 we had one residency verified year to date is 10 we had one unverified inh home visit and year to date is 14 um parents provided updated in district proof of residency we had one in
February for the year there was eight and there were zero students withdrawn in February as a result of a residency investigation and the year to date is one um as it relates to our HIV complete investigations between February 21st
2025 and March the 14th 2025 there were a total of zero founded uh five unfounded five total five pending and one with preliminary determination of not HIV and that concludes the
superintendent's report thank you so much Dr mcbride all right so we are on to public comment so if uh hold on something's not missing here we go public participation shall be governed by the following rules if in person a
participant must sign the signin and be recognized by the presiding officer and must preface comments by an announcement of his or her name municipality of residence and group affiliation if applicable two each statement made by a participant shall be limited to three
minutes duration during the public session three all statements questions or inquiries shall be directed to the presiding officer and any questions or inquiries directed by a participant to another board member shall be redirected to the presiding officer who shall
determine if such statement question or inquiry shall be addressed by the presiding officer on behalf of the board or by the individual board member and four all board and or superintendent responses to questions or inquiries
shall be held until the end of public participation at this time public comments is now open if anyone here present would like to speak make sure you state your first and last name got our own timer
yeah okay good evening Reverend Carolyn Davis good to see you all um it's good to hear all those reports from the nurse i congratulate her i'm also a registered nurse so I knew everything she was saying was uh on target i just have a question i've always been curious when
our students who are ESL students take the state exams is it given in Spanish or do they have to take it in English well before we um Mrs uh Reverend Davis did you want did you have anything else you wanted i was wondering you know we
hear so many good things about like tonight what our students are doing and I think sometimes wrongly when the if the scores are all together and they're all taken together not blaming those students but it's hard enough to take those exams if you speak English and understand the language and
if you're Spanish and trying to take that language and I think it it may not be fair if they're all scored together and everybody says "Oh how is that scores are low?" So I'm just trying to find out and if there's a way that they can be given those tests in their own language that was my question okay thank you just wanted to make sure you had
your full three minutes okay um was um Mrs marks going to answer that i'm sorry Mrs marks could you answer it in the microphone so that way we can Thank you
so in year one of being in the bilingual ESL ML program uh the math assessment may be taken in Spanish the ELA though because it's an English assessment may not sure yes if there's at the microphone
our director of curriculum has more to add perfect thank you good evening um so a a student can be excused from taking ELA in English for one year okay and then math is given in
um they do have the option to take that in in Spanish and direct instructions are can be read to them in their native language itself okay thank you thank you both anybody else from the public good evening good evening Victor from
Hackinack first I'd like to um thank about those who are participating in these clinics or whatever you like to call them so Gina and Leila I wish to thank you for attending these upcoming conference i'm just making sure I would
like to make sure that all of you attend these conference they very important to let you know where the state and the government is heading dr mcbride thank you like I said hope everything is working out for you
here you have any issues please feel free to reach out to discuss thank you from the public good evening everybody bridget I'm just here to address I think
it's your new attorney who sent me a letter um I've been coming to these board meetings for a while we had changing of the guards with the letters i mean with the uh attorneys but for some reason you sent me a letter introducing yourself as the new board
member yes I've got it i have it on my phone mr nuda is that your name Jason yeah I I sent you an email responding to your opera request right which is which I've never gotten before from any of the attorneys prior so I'm just kind of
wondering why all of a sudden I'm getting a letter from the attorney about an opal request which I normally do anyway i It's been a few weeks now i I believe your oper request had to do with some uh documents that may have been protected
by the attorney client privilege and I was asked to respond okay so normally I would just not get a letter from you you introduced yourself in the letter i have it on my phone so I'm just I'm just kind of curious because it's never happened
before and there have been changing of attorneys prior to you so I'm just kind of saying when I do these OPRA and I will do them for transparency and integrity and honesty about board and school district yes I will do those so I
don't I'm hoping in the future I won't get letters again i would just get the Oprah response that I normally would get from Miss Lydia when he comes through that's all i I can only tell you your specific Oprah request that you're referring to was referred to me and I introduced myself so you know who I was
so you knew why I was responding i need to know who like I said I've been coming here before you even got here i didn't know my reputation preceded me no I didn't know my reputation preceded me that you needed to send me an email i had no idea who you were when I got the request anybody else in the public
thank you is anyone online hi good evening everybody um my name is Tony Jackson Hackinack uh teacher and a Hackinack parent as well um I wanted to give a huge congratulations and just celebrate the efforts of um everybody
that was involved in the incredible Black History Month programs um I think it's it's wonderful to see um I happen to be out um recovering from surgery and and sick at the time uh but thankfully with my colleagues I was able to um to
be a part of it and it was just uh fantastic to see um and I I referring to that I want to say that despite there's a lot of external pressures right now um but it's crucial that we recognize how important it is uh
in the face of all of the anti-diversity equity and inclusion uh initiatives that are happening right now for students for teachers and stakeholders as we're celebrating these wonderful events that are beautiful you
know representations of Exactly the the DEI that's being fought against uh to to support these initiatives and to support all of the people that are putting them together as well so I I hope that we continue to see efforts like this and I
also hope that we recognize the substantial effort that it takes not just from the students but from the educators that are putting it together time is spent after school time is spent during school um and nothing is being taken off of the plates of the teachers
and the staff members that are helping to put these things together so we're we're doing this coming out at night um and making sure that this is something that's important that is seen and experienced by all the stakeholders so I want that to be recognized because at a
time where social studies and science often take the hit because they're not tested at the lower grades and so the focus falls onto uh math and NELA specifically i want to make sure that we're not losing that in the actual
practice of teaching and in the classrooms and in our curriculum so that those things are honored when we're celebrating these names i want to make sure that everything that they stood for is still being held as important um and happening inside the rooms and also that
the teachers who are sacrificing their time putting in extra time um you know these these programs could be we could we could pay thousands of dollars to have programs like these put on and these teachers are putting these things on for free with these students so I
just want that to be recognized the work to be recognized and for the DEI efforts to make sure that they're recognized that they will continue thank you okay anyone else online okay excellent so at this time the
public comment section is closed um I do want to say a few things so yes so just to kind of piggyback off what Mr jackson has said and everyone else um just to kind of reiterate there has been a lot of things
great things happening in our district a lot of celebrations a a lot of just everyone coming together for many different purposes not just one centralized um purpose um but it's all student centered activities right it's
all celebrations about them uh the board has been at several events at the unsung heroes the national honor society the black history month event event which was truly a phenomenal the energy in the room uh watching all of the students
from from the ECDC to high school was truly inspiring um some of the kids were you know like dancing right in front of us pointing out to certain individuals out there uh it was so so nice to see um the passion that all the kids had while
they performed uh the youth art um expo that was at the Johnson Public Library was another true way where our community came together the art teachers uh they did a phenomenal job from prek all the
way to high school that room was packed um if you went you knew it was like walking into Grand Central Station at some point um we had a student also playing um this the saxophone i I mean
it was truly like walking into a an art show a true art show um thank you to the library as well for hosting us um the director um I also wanted to thank the the Rotary Club who also gave two of our
students from the high school a scholarship uh that was also another great recognition of our students and their hard work uh the board has also been busy in uh we had a board retreat this month where we had our presenter
from the New Jersey school boards Tim Tien who touched on topics of ethics roles and responsibilities we did a team inventory where we completed a survey and we were able to figure out everyone's um communication style and
how we manage um certain situations i'm not going to go into details on who got what score but um everyone participated and it was a very great way to just see um the way people manage things right
like what roles suit each other uh we also had a special meeting where we approved the preliminary budget um and once again thank you to our central office staff for putting that together to Miss Singh and her team uh it was you know just the beginning step right of
getting our budget and then next month when you come we will have a much larger presentation um coming from missing and her central office staff uh and I believe oh one more thing I wanted to highlight i did see uh Hillers is also
highlighting on Friday to wear colorful socks day for world down syndrome awareness day uh so if you have colorful socks or crazy socks please wear them on Friday in support of the cause all right so that is all I have for this oh and
another one more thing uh this Friday we are also going to be attending the women's leadership conference down in Trenton so the women here on the board will be attending and I am very proud of that
especially it is women's history month all right so at this time we're going to move on to our committee reports and resolutions and we will begin with personnel with our chair uh trustee Emraheima thank you so much uh Madame President um
I would like to offer for consideration um items A1 through N and I do just want to uh take the the moment to highlight um a couple of things um first and foremost that you know we are are finally able to really expand the
capacity of our early childhood program um you know uh which is wonderful given the huge demand um for our program um and also just a note that there is u mention of a a an a sidebar agreement at the end of the the the personnel
resolutions that just um highlight our our school activities and clubs um so I would like to you know now make a motion to offer items A1 through N okay so we have a motion from Trusty Ammer Hems can I have a second i'll second okay second by Trustee
Martin missing can you do a roll call please yes yes Mr cal's absent miss Cordier Alton Miss Gilmore yes mr martin yes miss
Pringle yes miss Harris I abstain on item N and yes to all mr stein yes to all motion passes okay thank you i'm moving on to policy
and the chair is Trusty Pringle good evening so for policies um that's being presented as first read for the board's consideration shows the letter M as these are mandated policies and are
being updated to adjust changes in code policy 9163 spectator code of conduct for intercolastic events in a new policy and is also mandated because the New Jersey state intercolastic athletic association
is requiring every member school district to adopt a spectator code of contact policy during the school year the related regulations are being updated as recommended by Strauss SME our policy consultants
okay so we have a motion from Trusty Pringle can I have a second i'll second second by Trusty Ara miss roll call please miss Alston Balutra yes miss Amir Hamza yes mr carol's not here miss
Cordiro Alton uh yes good evening uh missing i would like to recuse myself first from the policy I mean from the personnel items uh again still pending information that I've yet to receive
with regards to that and I do approve the policy i'm sorry so you recuse from personnel but you're approving policy yes ma'am thank you thank you Mr gilmore yes mr
martin yes miss Pringle yes miss Harris yes mr stein yes motion passes okay moving on to curriculum and the chair for that is Trusty Pringle okay so for policies I mean I'm sorry
for curriculum I would like to highlight C8 um that our academic decathlons are going to the
finals i also wanted to highlight uh C10 um the sips and kicks um is a extracurricular program for students at Jackson who will be taught
by a professional soccer player um I would also like to highlight C12 um we had a student actually placed in our state finals for wrestling
um they also won the championship in our um well they have they've made it to the championships rather and this will be taking place in Atlantic City on March 5th through March 8th and those are my highlights for the
curriculum thank you all right so we have a motion from trusty Pringle can I have a second a second second by Trustee Gilmore miss Singh miss Alon Balucha yes miss Emir Hamza
yes miss Cow's not here miss Cordiro Alton really quickly uh just a quick discussion with regards to curriculum i noticed that we have two board members uh two new board members that will be attending the NSBA 2025 and I'm just
wondering if the entire board will be debriefed by them specifically upon return and will that be in a special meeting or at the public session um next month we want you to come back and Yeah we
could do that yeah we have no problem doing that it wasn't intended of course okay great how do you vote Miss Gordon approve thank you
Miss Cordelton approve miss Gilmore yes mr martin yes miss Pringles yes miss Harris yes mr stein yes motion pass okay thank you
one two nope test test okay we're moving on to to finance okay finance our chair is Vice President Stein great
i'm offering D1 through D8 uh I'd like to sorry I'm offering D1 through D8 uh calling attention to D5 which is computer solutions uh to renew their
contract and uh D10 um if there are any questions it's the South Bergen Genture Commission they supply uh transportation for us um and it is a contract that
we're approving tonight okay thank you so that is a motion from Trusty Stein can I have a second please i have second second by Trustee Pringle miss Sang roll call miss Alen Balutra yes mr mayor Hamza yes mr carl's not
here miss Cordier Alton excuse myself because I do not have enough information miss Gilmore yes mr martin yes miss Pringle yes miss Harris yes mr stein yes motion passes okay we're moving
to buildings and grounds and that would be our chair Trusty Martin yes i'd like to make a motion uh one E1 through E4 pretty much
standard and yeah make a motion on okay so we have a motion from Trusty Martin can I have a second i'll second second by trustee missing roll call miss Alston Balutra yes mr mayor Hamsa yes mr carol
is absent miss Cordiro Alton approve sorry yes okay sorry thank you miss Gilmore yes mr martin yes miss Pringle yes miss Harris yes mr stein yes motion passes
okay excellent moving on to community relations and our chair is Trusty Gilmore hi good evening so um we had our second community relations committee meeting on u March 13th our first meeting was um just a brainstorming session excuse me so on this session we
had um there were tons of good ideas but of course we can't do them all so I sent out a survey and um I asked um the members to select um their top uh choices and um the winner um was
unanimous we are going to plan a community health fair um we are in the planning stages it's a huge undertaking but I know this is something that our community will benefit from and I think it will be a good um engagement for everyone to come together uh for a
common cause so I'm really excited thank you okay thank you very much uh other committees so actually I do have something to report for other committees um for the joint city board committee uh which is Trusty Martin it includes trusty
Martin it included trusteeza and myself and we met with and along with Dr mcbride and Miss Singh we met with the city council on March 11th um it was basically an introduction of the new board the new leadership uh no
commitments were made at this meeting as all this information is new information to the current board uh a lot of the stuff that we were hearing was just more information of us gathering
and we did make we did schedule for a meeting in April and that's basically where we're at um we just heard a presentation from our demographer and as I said information is coming to us um by
pieces piece by piece yes right and that is all that I can say about the joint city board committee um anything for new business all right now this is on to our second public comment portion where individuals may address the board on agenda or
school matters of community interest for one minute do we have anybody here from the public that would like to speak anybody online all right excellent moving on to board comments we're on a good time here
guys uh we'll go to Trustee Austin Balaputra good evening everyone good evening um last the February meeting was my first meeting so I kind of just ease in eased into it but there was one thing I wanted to acknowledge from February that was
important to me um February is Black History Month and as a school leader I I'm proud of the school leaders that I've had an opportunity to learn from i come from a community of diverse leaders men women different religions different
ethnicities um coming from the Hackinack community but I think it should be acknowledged publicly that this is the first time that we've had an African-Amean superintendent and I I would be remiss I I felt remiss in February that I didn't mention that so for Dr to Dr mcbride I just wanted to
say welcome and we're glad to have you um moving on the art show piggyback off of uh our pres board president Harris what she said about the art show if you haven't been I highly recommend
that you stop by um I was particularly moved by the uh exhibit featuring Principal Lillian Whitaker but I was also taken aback by all the artwork and the level and the quality even no matter what the grade
was i was like I couldn't do that first like the first grader I was like this is high level i I can't compete um but one piece that stuck out to me the most is an American flag on the wall and from far away it's just an American flag but
as you get closer to it it's all these teeny tiny little flags and all the students made these teeny tiny little flags that make up the American flag and on their individual flags it could be students from Ecuador there's an Ecuadorian flag there's his another student that was their new puppy if
somebody was their Japanese anime or um they play baseball or basketball like whatever was about them a lot of it had to do with their ethnicity where they come from what's important to them whatever their values were but from far away you see one thing but up close it's made up of all the little
pieces and it's so intricate and it's probably one of the most hacks things I've ever seen and um it's quite moving and powerful and if you haven't seen it please go check it out I think all the artwork of all the students every school's represented the art department
um at each school did an phenomenal job coming from as a child of an educator in the arts making sure that we see that as just as important as reading writing and arithmetic i think that's something that this community does a good job of
highlighting but for the public I think you must see this this is not something you don't want to miss and I also want to shout out Miss Vita Story thank you for our treats we love you um I will be attending the
New Jersey NJPSA legislative conference while my colleagues are at the women's conference um there are some there's some legislation that's on the floor of our state legislature that needs to be attended to so I will be um attending to
that on Friday and I think that's it all right thank you thank you all right trusty Gilmore um okay okay so I just want to um I have something kind of long to say but I'll
be fast so February was an incredible month filled with learning connection and celebration uh on February 21st Trustee Ammer has a um Amir Hamza and I attended the mandatory school training in Princeton where we had an opportunity
to meet and learn from other trustees across the state as close as our our counterparts in Tene so you know that was pretty cool um February was also heart month my son and I were invited to come to the high school to speak to Miss
Medina's and Miss Arvazoo's class u we spoke to all of the 11th grade junior classes about the importance of CPR and uh we shared my son's story and the kids were really um engaged um and I was also honored to
attend mostly all of the district's Black History Month celebrations except for Jackson Avenue which I promised to get to um but returning to Fairmont where my son attended school was so special because I was an active PTA mom there and it was my first time meeting
Principal um Bangg um and witnessing his um admiration for his um his school was like watching a proud dad so that was really special then um I was off to Nelli Kate Parker um which I always call Maple Hill
because that's where um I attended um elementary school um that too also holds a deep place in my heart um but this year's celebration was bittersweet because we honored um the memory of principal uh Lilian Whitaker but her spirit was definitely in the building um
and Dr galliana I just want to say that I absolutely love uh the gesture that you give to the children a little love and I want that pin that you wear on your on your suit jacket and then I was off to Hillers i had never been to
Hillers before um except for to vote but um I was welcomed with open arms by um Principal Sodto Miss Bert and other amazing staff members um there I watched some of our youngest students proudly honor African-Americans who have made a
lasting impact um on their lives and that was truly inspiring their enthusiasm and hope for the future were absolutely contagious um the and lastly the district-wide celebration was truly a celebration um all of those involved
um job well done and I just want to leave you with a message that deeply resonated with me that I got from Hillers um at the end of their presentation a video came on um and a Mariah Carey song
was playing 100% and the kids you know they were flashing to different classrooms and all of the kids were putting up their fingers like this the number one fingers right so I just want to read you um a few verses from the song um so the song is called 100% a
champion's mindset so it goes I'm not just a dreamer i'm a believer a go-getter and a 100enter no obstacle will discourage or dissuade me because I know my path leads to success no matter what with determination and resilience
I'll give everything I've got and keep pushing until I reach the top so let's rise together stay focused and walk forward as champions put your ones up because we're all in 100% i'm giving 100% excuse me until I reach the top
um so today I'm putting my ones up just like my other trustees because we are giving 100% to this district to our teachers to our administrators and to our families um because we want to keep striving and learning and lifting each
other up so that's all I have to say i was truly inspired and thank you and get home safely thank you thank you hey Trusty Pringle that was great Gina you go girl thank you okay so I would like to start
off with this is going to be our flag football team's second year i'm so excited we finally have a name for these young ladies it is the Blazing Comets
and yes I'm excited my daughter's on that team too the Blazing Comets yes um their first game is going to be March 31st at 400 pm guys please come out and support these ladies i'm leaving work
early to be there okay i'm going to be there um I believe uh it is going to be a home game and I believe they'll be playing um against Payic i'm not sure but I'm almost sure
um okay so this month also outside of it being women's history month is MS awareness month if those of you who do not know what MS is it stands for multiple
sclerosis there's a lot of people out there that are suffering in silence and just know that those people that are suffering silence they don't have to because I've been there i was diagnosed
with MS back in 1997 um I was 26 years old i'm 52 and I'm still here but I want to partner with Eugina at
some point because I always knew there was a purpose um and I don't want to say that I got punished with this um this disease i think it was more so of a blessing um because me not knowing I was
able to help a lot of people around me that were younger and had MS as I progressed and learned my disease and how to handle it um and I want to partner up with you so that um MS can
have more of a awareness because like I said there's people you could look at them and don't know what's going on but when you're inside and you're tired of giving excuses on how your body may feel because you don't see what MS look like
MS doesn't have a face so people need to understand that MS does not have a look so just because you don't see them in a wheelchair or walking with a cane or whatever just understand there's people walking out there that really need your support and I just want to say that so
hopefully next year you know you can help me to where we could bring awareness to Hackinack and see how many people can come out so we can support them so that's what I want to say thank you thank you
i don't want to forget um Trusty Cado out online good evening everyone uh thank you for allowing me to attend remotely um I did want to go back to February
unfortunately I could not attend either remotely or in person for that meeting however there was a comment that seemed to be the theme for the evening uh based on what I saw and it was stay focused i believe the comment was initially made by Reverend Davis Davis and it said she
said stay focused um I I truly believe that staying focused is applying to so many things in my personal life right now but also in life with this board um the board of education for Hackinack absolutely does need to stay focused
many of you chimed in at the end of that evening um as part of your message so yes do that um unfortunately and sadly however I think that the stay focused I think that they are large part um
however I also believe that it more so relates to their agenda as opposed to how and why the things need to get done for the district so I did want to I did want to mention that from from February
um also along with everybody else the art installation was incredible i know so many of those students um and I'm so very proud of each and every one of you keep it going keep doing it um this last month we also had some amazing and
incredible track stars uh from our indoor track team uh too many to mention but I'm pretty sure that if you're a comic you are aware of who they are um congratulations between the Nike the New
Balance uh the All-Americans thank you so much for representing the best of Hackin Sack and uh continuing the legacy many records broken I believe even a a new county record uh made by our Hackin
Sack comments um it was made mention earlier that there was um some concern over our new legal representation
uh with regards probably to intimidating tactics is how I would classify them yes Mr nmacher continue shaking your head um I personally find you to be extremely disrespectful um I can reference an
email in which you actually said to me you were doing me a courtesy and I would like to remind you as I did that day in that email that you work for the entire board so please remember that the next time that you address me and I would
also request that you advise the president and vice president trustees my Harris and Stein to be sure to comment or respond accordingly to
email requests that I have been specifically told I'm not doing publicly by several board members sitting here now um Trustee Amar Hamsa uh Trustee President uh Mory Harris on numerous
occasions uh Vice President Stein has yet to chime in but I'm assuming it's because he understands i have sent emails i have specifically requested information and I've not received it i have sent text messages i've not received it i was specifically told I
think all board members were specifically told by President Trustee Mory Harris that any questions any of us have should be directed to her as quote unquote the board president and that she
would then delegate these matters out to individuals if she didn't have the answers so I have to safely assume that the only reason why I've not received responses from anyone on the personnel committee or anyone on the curriculum committee is likely due to the fact that
you've not been advised to let me know even though I'm asking i can reference emails and I will reference them here with dates as far back as January 13th and now most recently through March 9th
and even earlier this week that I have not received responses to um as I stated in those emails I know how to read I know how to pronounce and I know how to fish so you directed me to go to the
board drive find executive minutes find meeting minutes um but there's nothing there related to the questions that I have already presented and not have had answered so if you need me to give you the specific date so that you can reference those emails and the questions
I will gladly do so but I would like the entire board again because I I generally do CC the entire board on every question that I have i have yet to receive those responses and unfortunately I cannot do
my job as a board member if I'm excommunicated so not only have I not been assigned to any specific committees but I'm also not getting information with regards to what those committees are doing which in the past two years on
the board I didn't need to do because there was communication there was documents that were submitted there were informations writeups that we would all get so then if you had questions about that you could ask but you had a better
understanding of what took place none of that is taking place now and none of my answers none of my questions are being answered none of my emails are being responded to except with the exception of BAB BS Lydia Singh thank you so much
um and Dr mcbride both of you absolutely always try to get back to me with information that should be readily made available to each and every board member regardless of whether or not they could be in attendance so again I ask please review my emails and direct me to where
the information I'm requesting can be specifically found because I've gone into the board drive as trustee president my Harris has suggested I do actually told me that I do because she says that I don't reach out to her directly but I have and I get no
response um so much so that we women of this board will be attending the New Jersey uh women's leadership conference this Friday because I requested to attend i did not even get a response
from President Trustee Mory Harris acknowledging that request what I did get was an email that my registration had been accepted so thank you to Lydia and her team for ensuring that that happened and I'm very grateful that
everyone of us will be able to attend another thing that I wanted to mention is in addition to Ramadan which is still happening um our Jewish community most recently celebrated uh Porum which was
between March 13th and March 14th uh in my current Bible study class I did get to hear about it and learn about it further from the book of Esther so I would like to say um thank you to everyone um all of our students let's
hope we have a better March and April as opposed to the things that took place in our high school specifically um in the January and February months violence is never something that should
be taking place in schools i think everybody here and online is likely aware we had students injured they were sent to the emergency room they needed stitches we had a teacher get hurt all because students do not
know how to behave there's video of a student damn near naked from a fight in the hallway it is disgusting it is inappropriate
and I really hope that everyone learns from this and I apologize to our staff who have to deal with this and I hope that changes are being made and that our students realize who they are what they're worth and what they can do which
is better thank you and have a great evening i appreciate it trusty Martin oh I'm sorry yes it's your turn okay where do we start
um the um I uh did u miss a couple items I wanted to uh bring up during my um report for the committee if you don't mind madam president it was just uh uh which was it on the um something on
the side that took place that's are taking place and have taken place the official um single point of entrance located on the west side of the uh espan of the uh um of the um Nell K parker
School uh that will be um completed soon in the memory of uh principal Lillian K whitaker uh that's going to be a a pretty nice area so uh just tune in and
we'll keep you updated on that um also um at the five and six and seven and eight school uh their air condition there is air conditioned in every classroom i'm sure the parents be happy to hear that uh we don't need it now but
trust me in the future coming up soon we will and you'll be happy to uh that it's there uh at the high school uh that that's in the making they um uh working on that to uh make that happen also at the five and six school uh the kitchen
is being uh remodeled there so uh we looking forward to seeing that that should be a very nice project for um our five and six school and um the uh art celebration that we had uh
at the library was a big smash uh sponsored by the Hackasak Rotary Club and um the director of the library she did a fabulous job putting that together her and her staff of course um I do want to mention that um our former uh past
superintendent uh Tony Mlia he was a teacher here a supervisor and then became our uh superintendent of schools they with uh 50 years I have to repeat that again 50 years of service to the
library being on the library um board and with that he uh they dedicated a room to him uh with his name so please stop by there take a look at that uh his um is really uh it turned out to be a
really nice um room and um uh you know and then if uh you ever get a chance one day you'll get to see Mr mo just congratulate him uh he's doing a fabulous job here in our community he been part of this community all his life
he still live here and uh he loved he loved the school system and uh very modest when you do talk about the achievement that he have made here in the school he said well that's my other life and uh this is what I'm doing now
and um to everyone um our um to all the u women here sitting at the deis uh you are fabulous females you're fabulous leaders have these uh fabulous people here in the community doing good
things um our um how should I put that down let me make sure I get that right trustee President Jennifer Harris my uh thank you for your service thank you for your
leadership and um and as well to the rest of our trustees uh you guys uh keep up the good job there's uh three gentlemen here two trustees and we will be continue on following your lead uh as
they say uh we the men are as good as our females that stand before us all right thank you that's all I have have a good evening thank you Trusty Amrahamsa
thank you so much and um I mean so many wonderful things to celebrate um I I did just want to begin though by addressing and and kind of following up on on one of the comments that um uh Tony Jackson had raised in in his really thoughtful comments as well as Dr mcbride and and
some of our other trustees um one of the things that we've always viewed as our greatest strength in Hackinack uh is our diversity and unfortunately that is also one of the things that is under attack right now um it is a very challenging
time um a challenging time for our administration in trying to deal and and and do all of this rapid response to the things that that our community is faced with on what seems like a regular basis um a challenging time for our teachers
our staff and of course a very challenging time for our students and their families um so I do want to just reiterate our commitment to making sure that the district um is a very safe and
inclusive place for our entire our entire Comet community um all of our students and their families um all of our administrators all of our educators all of our staff um and I am very appreciative that you know starting with
central office to um going down to our our teachers and and our staff that everyone works very hard to make sure that we honor and respect uh the diversity of our district um and that we work hard to make our district a very
safe and inclusive place um I do also want to just remind folks as I have in the past um that we have wonderful resources that our central office team um um have made available on the district website uh so for any families
that have questions about resources for immigrant families students um and for members of the LGBTQ community please check out those resources on the website um I also uh did want to acknowledge Women's History Month i am really
honored to serve alongside such amazing women on the board um as well as our amazing president including our amazing president I should say and um we have wonderful female role models across the district um beginning with our two assistant superintendent um and so a
huge shout out to all the amazing women that really helped to to make our our district thrive um I also want to congratulate all of our Comets um our athletes our scholars our our artists um
all of the achievements that Dr mcbride mentioned um that our other trustees have mentioned the programs that we have had the the opportunity to enjoy um from the youth art show to all of the amazing events that have taken place from our our boys and girls basketball teams our
wrestling team our our our track team um uh our academic toathletes uh I mean just such amazing achievements that really make all of us very proud um so I really do want to honor our students for all of their achievements um and uh
again I want to thank everyone who comes out to make comments publicly um and we hope that more of you will come out to meetings and make comments uh because we really do take those comments to heart um and try and address them so to that point I do want to again thank Nurse
Wendy um for her wonderful presentation and for really um addressing some of the concerns that that parents have raised and um and I hope um that parents will continue to bring um any comments that they have but also I want to encourage
other members of the community and our staff um please always come to our meetings and raise your your concerns you know you're welcome all of th those comments are always very welcome here um I do also want to um really um mention
you know we're going into a time of a lot of um celebrations and observance uh beginning with uh tomorrow a holiday that I celebrate is is Norus uh the Persian New Year um and of course we are still in Ramadan and um and that will
culminate you know with Eid um and then of course before our next meeting we're also going to be celebrating Passover and Easter um so a huge um you know uh good wishes to everyone who's who's celebrating all of these wonderful um holidays um and I look forward to
attending all of the great events that are coming up uh in the coming weeks um and lastly I do again just want to shout out Lydia and her team at central office um um all of you for your great uh work in preparing the preliminary budget and so we're looking forward to seeing um
the formal budget presentation next month um but again thank you all so very much all right thank you um just in uh looking at the time as I jinxed myself uh we do need to make a a motion to extend the meeting past 10 but I promise
you it will not be that long but per our rules we still have to make a motion uh so can I have a motion to extend our meeting past 10 oh okay so that was from Trustee Stein second by
Yes trusty Gilmore thank you just making sure um all those in favor say I i anyone opposed okay excellent thank you very much now we're moving on to Vice President Stein thank you
um gee I I'm glad I write good stuff for Leila uh we always hear about how well our athletic teams do and we had a phenomenal winter season for all of our
sports including bowling which was not brought up um but as a former graphic designer um you had to be at the library to
see what our children are producing whether they're in prek all the way into the high school the artwork is phenomenal there was a saxoponist who played I believe he's a
freshman um but he entertained for I'm sorry eighth grade wow well soon he'll be a freshman um he the way he performed was wonderful uh
again include showing how inclusive we are as Dr mcbride said uh we honored 27 people children who are in deduct who were inducted into the National Honor
Society here at the high school um I too want to thank the Jewish population for the uh celebration that we had of Porum and uh Passover will be coming up very
quickly um and uh again a shout out for our track team every year they have a wings night where they raise funds for their
scholarships the wings night will be next Friday a week from Friday um this a week from this Friday at the Rochel Park VFW on Psych Street so if you like wings please come out and
support them for their scholarships and um that concludes what I have to say everybody have a good evening thank you thank you all right so I promised to be quick uh thank you once again to nurse
Wendy for her presentation on clarifying for our families uh to be clear I was the one who had mentioned the stay focused theme and we will remain staying focused as a board and as individuals um committed to our students and to our
district and this is why we are all here and present i am proud to say that all of our board members have officially completed their mandated trainings in time our financial disclosures in time all the things that are required from us
that have a due date of either between the 90 days 60 days or 30-day time period um thank you to also central office staff for helping us getting to those days um because sometimes it requires a lot of registration and not much part on our end i know he's looking
at me we did it we did it we made it um also um for women's history month you know there's always this quote that um always stays with me in terms of not
just women's history month but just women in general and the quote is always empowered women empower women and we need to remember that right um as we go to these trainings we want
you want to know what is this going to do for me it's not just for you it's for you to also pass it along to others and I think that's important and when I see I look at this room the audience majority I would say the majority is is
women right um once again I said this at our last meeting what used to be the minority is now the majority and this table uh represents that the table represents that and I am very
proud to be a part of it uh when it comes to so that the public is aware when it comes to emails technology it's very tricky in terms of how much you put out there um what you can put out there um and what you should not and things that
is personnel related matters cannot be discussed via email those things are discussed in our close session they are discussed in committees they are important absolutely to to talk about but you also have confidentiality
that you must protect we need to protect our staff we need to protect our people uh so that's why respond to me directly excuse me this is not the time respond to me directly this is this is not the
time it absolutely is then we are mute thank you okay um when it comes to committees so previously yes uh there used to be a form that people would fill out and you
would put things that you felt was important for the rest of the board to know and agendas were not given to all people all trustees at the time prior to committees now what's different is that all trustees are receiving the
information at the same time which means if you see something that you have a question about when it's time for you to go to your committee meeting or if you don't um at least you have the information there in front of you so you have at least a good twoeek window to
say "Hey I have a question about this what do I do or what is being what is happening here?" So you have two ways you either show up to your committee or you can reach out to your chair or you can reach out to myself or to the vice president um Trusty Stein
uh Trusty Cado Outton you chose on January 8th to not be in a committee you had verbally said it and that's that's your prerogative okay uh it is every trust's responsibility when you see the agenda if there's something you are
unclear if you don't feel comfortable with to address it i do not expect anybody to come here and vote on something that you don't know or you don't feel comfortable about if you don't you abstain or recuse and if you are unsure you ask uh the gentleman to
my right over here if if it's something that warrants you to recuse or abstain um I believe I addressed um all that is there anything else that I need to add if anybody would like All right okay um a few things that is
happening before we meet again uh the high school play uh Charlie Brown is happening this weekend a very huge production in our very brand new beautiful auditorium airond conditioned auditorium yeah make sure that you
purchase your tickets because it is reserved seating so do not show up and think you're going to sit wherever you want it is reserved seating also uh the high school is also having a tricky tray uh which unfortunately is the same day as our board meeting so unfortunately
board members are not um mostly I guess I'm assuming I'm hoping you guys will be here uh but it is a tricky tray so please go out and support our high school students which benefits um our seniors and the rest of the high school community and that is it for my board
comments i appreciate everyone for sticking around and it is 10:02 um can I have a motion to close our meeting i'll All right motion by Trustee Amra Hempson second by Trusty Pringle all those in favor say I anyone
opposed i'm opposed thank you all have a great evening it is 10:02 i was about to take the soldiers again