let's stand for the FL to of the United States of America the for nation indivisible with and justice please stand for a moment of silence
see so in accordance with the open public meetings Act njsa 10 4-6 adequate notification of this meeting has been provided by advertising in the record and posting notice in the Board of Education Administration
Building pavano educ ation Center and finally noticed with the city clerk I hereby call to order the special meeting Wednesday February 11th 2025 in the Board of Education Administrative Building 1912 Street P New Jersey
07601 at 6:16 p.m. missing can you do a call please Mr M here M here M here spr pres
pres pres you have perfect all right so presentations there are none be it resolved that the hack Board of Education determines it determines it necessary to meet an executive session on Wednesday February 11th 2025 to discuss legal Personnel student related
matters HIV reports negotiations and other confidential matters and be further result that these matters will be made public when the need for confidentiality no longer exist and I have a motion to go to session
ation by chus fringle and second by Jesse Stein all those in favor say I post excellent um we will notify the public when we are
out of full session thank you okay so this time we are back um out of close um it is a 10 p.m. we are going to go into our public comments section and I'm going to read our district policy
0167 public participation in board meetings 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 in order to permit the fair and orderly expression of such
comment the board shall set aside a portion of every board meeting length of a portion to be determined by the board a public comment on any school or School District issue that a member of the public feels may be of concern to the residents of the school district public
participation shall be governed by the following rules one a participant must be recognized by the presiding officer and and must practice comments by an announcement of P her name Municipality of residents and group affiliation
each statement made by participant shall be limited to 3 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 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 four all board and or superintendent responses to questions or
inquiries shall be held until the end of public participation the presiding officer May interrupt Warn and or terminate a participant statement question or inquiry when it is too lengthy B interrupt and or warn our participant
when the statement question or inquiry is abusive obscene or maybe defamatory C request any person to leave the meeting when the person does not observe reasonable the quum D request the the assistance of law enforcement officers in the removal of a
disorderly person when that person prevents or disrupts a meeting with an act that obr or interferes with the meeting call for a recess or an adjournment to another time when the lack of public decorum interferes with the orderly conduct of the meeting and F
wave these rules when necessary for the protection of privacy or to maintain an orderly operation of the board meeting at the this time we are open for public comments just Up's microphone
my I wanted to just bring a few things to the attention of the board and hope to get some answers I realized Maybe not today but just may be aware um one concern I have is there's no nurse in the building
forun I believe this for every school throughout as a registered nurse I realized the importance of having a nurse there in an emergency and I think it should pass be address that coverage be provided to all the elementary
students during this time I believe the middle school and high school have two nurses so they can Rel leave each other but I think in a school with young kids there should be a nurse there at all times my first thing my second thing is substitutes I
understand the district is short on substitutes and um I guess they're having difficulty filling the positions but there have been a few times where that I'm aware of that the classes have been split um I guess to accommodate not having a substitute for the
class I wonder if it could possibly be that they do a job fair for parents because I understand many parents would rather take a day a vacation day and cover their child's class then to have no substitute for have a exceptionally
large class with the kids are not learning um I myself would be interested in doing it and I spoke to a couple of other parents so if that's something they could do to maybe fill the positions and lastly uh my kids have been coming home
with pink paper which I thought was for Valentine's Day but I was made aware today it's because they don't have any white paper in the schools and because of the being frozen they can't get it so I don't know if that could be something that is just what school did you
sayk hi my name is Amanda Arena I also have two children at Nelly cap Arthur one in prek one in first grade and honestly I am here to kind of piggy back on what Donna says I have pretty much the same concerns as her I have two
children both who have anaxes towards peanuts and it is very concerning that there's no nurse in the school for um that lunch period and from my understanding she also hovers other schools so I'm not even sure if there's coverage during the times where where
she's covering other schools or who the nurse may be um at the time that that not um I understand that there may be a crisis team but it's just very concerning in the event that somebody does have an allergic reaction because it's not a n fre School
District um it it's you know we don't know if the the crisis team can get in uh there in time with having to go all the way to the nurse's office to get my kids heavy patents and you know um do what they have to do to save their lives
um so it's concerning with kids being that young and um also the fact that um it's not a nutree district is a bit concerning too I know there are other nutree school districts and I understand that they may not be able to implement
those rules in public places um but there are other districts and like other states and even within the state that are nutree to make sure that our kids with those allergies are protected at all times so the suggestions are great I
understand that but there may be a kid that comes into school with Nutella because their parents don't have to deal with um being aware of other kids and their allergies um and to figgy back on what Donna said about the paper if
there's a shortage in funds maybe reach out to parents they can bring in school suppli if they needed I'm more than happy to go to Staples and buy a full box lot of paper um as a parent I my kids education is important so I have no
problem donating or if you guys start a fundraiser if you're short on funds with school supplies I'm happy to donate to that as well um and then substitute teachers I'm also one of the parents that are happy to to uh volunteer and contribute to help the school district
out that's I have the same concerns as Donna but I just wanted to add emphasis on the fact that like my kids have allergies and there has been an incident where uh up uh cookies that contained nuts were served in one of like the
Thanksgiving um events that they had and luckily I was there to have pretty much remove it from serving students that's just I have two questions um concerning this district with the
lawyer this lawyer didn't come on until the actual uh February 5th board meeting so how long were we without a lawyer in this district and the other is a couple of agendas back I'm going to say back for
2024 um from my understanding hiring an uh in-house attorney was on the agenda and that was to save money and it was part of of the district's corrective um action plan so why are we not meeting our corrective
action someone needs to to that as well thank you anybody onine anybody else in the public out there please okay so just to thank you so much for for coming and for waiting
for us to be done um I guess I will just defer over to you guys um if we don't have an answer at this time then we will follow up with that um it's definitely very important that we do
have um a nurse especially during during lunch um but we'll one I can clarify there's there's no frees there's no shortage of supplies there's an abundance of I'm not sure who communicated there or why it was communicated but I want to
kind of get everyone the uh clear understand that our schools have abundance of resources we don't need to go buy anything U so we'll we'll figure out what and why it's communicating we'll make sure that it's rectified thank
you I thought the P paper was for Valentine's Day I got green papers too so maybe I to get everybody in the mood um and just to um to answer the question about our interim Council so I had
stated at our last board meeting when um our interim Council was appointed um that our prior Council they resigned January 31st 2025 and due to unforeseen circumstances with prior council's ability to represent us there's a slight gap
between our former Council and the award of our new Council which will be selected within the next few weeks as we have an O open RFP right now so that was back in February 5th um and that's why we had the resolution and we
hired um Adeline Hicks um we can't go into the details of it as it is attorney client privilege in terms of how much we can deul out into the public um but that is why we had the RFP the RFP closed February
and today we will be appointing new Council official board councel that wasn't a question the question was how long was the district without an attorney that was the question well that again is attorney fing privilege thank all right so at
this time is there anybody else on else okay so that closes our public there was okay go ahead hi yeah my name is RZA Mendoza and I also have a child at Nelly K Parker and
I know um I forgot who mentioned that there are plenty of resources at Nelly K Parker but my son also came to class um I mean home complaining about how his class had a lack of white paper and my
son is you know he has an IEP and it frustrated him that he didn't have access to white paper that day I asked why um he said he wasn't sure and then I responded to him that I'd be glad to provide white printing paper to the
class I found it odd that something so simple could be missing from a school classroom I feel like that's just such a minute thing that I could have gotten for his class and he said that he told the teacher that but that the teacher told him that you know they um she
wasn't accepting you know basically donations from parents for white printing paper uh so I initially thought it was just you know his classroom I wasn't aware that this was happening across the school and so I'm wondering
how there's this lack of I guess communication or you know allocation of resources where you know we're being told that there are resources but a few classrooms in the same school are saying that they don't have it so I'm wondering
if that's just a blip or if that's you know because again like someone said we're happy to donate as parents both our time and our resources when our kids need these needs to be met so thank you thank
you okay so at this time public comment is closed we're going to move on to our resolutions uh resolutions for legal Council so be it resoled that the mde Board of Education approves the appointment of the codes Fitzpatrick
Cole and Giblin legal council to represent the Board of Education from February 12 2025 to January 31st 2026 at the following rate of $185 per hour for attorneys and
$125 per hour for paralal services and be it further resolved that Jason nunamaker will be the prim AR contacts and coordinating coordin coordinating attorney and VI it further resolved all bills shall be forwarded to
the board secretary for review and the processing for payments and I have a motion to approve of legal counsel make a motion oh I apologize I'm sorry I apologize let me just fix what I had
just stated so the rate um for the hourly rate for the attorneys is 185 per hour and the paralal is 90 apolog my apologies it's 90 per hour for paralal services thank
you um back to the motion so can I have a motion to approve of legal councel motion okay motion by trustee bmore can I have a second second second second by trusty
Pringle Miss than please yes M yes Mr no and for all the reasons stated to the entire board during the process yes Mar
yes springo yes har yes Mr star yes motion passes thank you to Personnel um yes um we have two items to offer for
consideration items A1 and A2 okay so chess araha motion can I have a second okay trusty Pringle thing can you do a call please yes M Austin yes mmore yes Mr Martin yes
CR yes M Harris yes Mr sh yes motion passes exent on to committee relations do we have anything for community relations um just that U I met with the trustees that will be um on the committee with me and everyone is
excited and we have our final committee and we will be join um our first meeting soon excellent thank you uh at this moment we don't have other committees any new business okay and then we're on to our second public comments at this time
individuals may address the board on agenda or School matters of community interest for one minute online okay there are enough second public comment is closed fourth comments all right
absolutely uh good evening everyone thank you for coming in person um ladies I would just like to let you know that I myself um am severely allergic to a number of items including Nutella and uh I carry an EpiPen with me and it is and
can be very scary and lifethreatening um I I understand the concern I'm very sorry um there are definit issues Statewide Countrywide with regards to nurses and Staffing um but I do know
that our superintendent and um HR Administration are truly working effortlessly to try and fulfill all those positions um please keep coming please keep letting us know if it's not resolved and again I I really do
understand the severity of uh anaphylaxis I myself have experienced it um and it's you can die so I would like to let you know and I extend that I believe likely everyone would feel the same way
um I would like to address something that specifically took place uh at the last board meeting that I was in attendance to uh trustee uh Amir Hamza made a comment when I was asking with regards to certain items on
policy um I would like to ask that not only trustee Amar hamsa but other Trustees of this board offer me the courtesy of asking me if I did my due
diligence before you actually assume otherwise and then publicly State otherwise um currently I have several unanswered emails to both president and
trustee my Harris as as well as vice president trustee Stein I've ensured to CC you mark on everything that I send directly to president trusty myy Harris I have emails that are as recent as
February 4th unanswered and they go as far back as January 15th un answered however it has been put to me that president truste Harris requires an
answer in under an hour on something pretty important I've stopped my day so that you could do a straw pull I answered your call I responded to you I've responded to you via text with questions to which truste Amar Hamza is
also on so the fact that I'm still waiting on information from January 15th is completely unacceptable but I do ask relevant questions had I been assigned to a committee or had there been a
document forwarded to all trustees as was being done before I would be able to look at that see if I have questions further than what's being provided and then again go about that same procedure by asking and I also believe that I sent
you an email in explaining again both of you explaining the process that I have maintained and continue to maintain and will contain for the next and last year but have maintained for the past two years nothing's changed so again I ask
that each of you afford the courtesy of asking me before you publicly try to shame me it's very unacceptable very inappropriate um deliberative and efficient manner deliberative and
efficient manner so we have two policies that I am going to publicly state will require that regulations be attached to them and they're regarding the attorney process and items that full board should be privy to and aware of and voting on
um that would be policies 0174 and 0177 they don't speak to very much and they should be elaborated on so the individuals on those committee uh uh on that committee along with the chair uh Shabani trustee trani Pringle again
policies 0174 0177 deliberative and efficient manner both of those policies state that exact same thing and it's in regards to how things
are offered how trustees are advised um and the information in the two years that I've been on the board I've not experienced the process in the manner that it's recently been handled I got confirmation tonight from
the current board attorney in inam Hicks uh meline right uh that this was all acceptable behavior all appropriate right it's you said all appropriate njsba would agree but you also agree in your legal expertise that it's all being
done above board and appropriately however that was not my my what was commented on I would not relay what be discussed and closed um in public that's my recommendation that will we discussed and closed as legal council
and I would also disagree with that framing however I would just say that what we discussed clst session which is attorney client privilege should not be discussed in public gotcha I did you guys can call njsba if you would like to write up the ethics charges I understand
however again that was the context that is what was discussed that there were things being done here that I was questioning with regards to legal and this process and the comment that you made was that no I'm recommendation I'm I'm just counseling you for moving
forward for what was discussed and close to how that's being framed for the public that's all you with yeah absolutely no understood so um again one of the emails that I had sent to trustee uh president trustee myy
Harris was with regards to your interim hire um I am not under the impression that that should have been unilaterally decided it was not um so trusty you're now stepping into lines of attorney privilege you were given the opportunity to reach out however I emailed you and
you didn't respond that is let's let's bring it up I have it you can open it Bridget Bridget the Oprah Queen so this is not the time for that you are no but don't call me a liar don't call me a liar I have it here would you like to read it you are
entitled justad outon you are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts that's not my facts it's in an email with everybody on it given along with all the trustees all the trustees I spent 30 minutes on the phone explaining the situation you did absolutely and you
refused you said I am fine as exactly what you said you were fine I was fine what so you were given that opportunity that none of that ever happened none of that ever happen because we're going to move on none of that ever happened so show me the receipts and I will share mine they're open Martin
yes I'd like to uh thank the public for coming tonight uh really um glad you was able to come out and please do come with your concerns it's very important to us
uh especially um you know with the no incident I uh I concur um I'm sure um our superintendent will look into that matter and get back to you I hope you sign everyone signed the sheet yes a contact information and I superintend
will take that and get back to you with uh some answers um yeah we um you mentioned only I heard that that we didn't have the nurse doing lunch time it's during her lunch when she lunch so it's only a short period
but it's in every it's an hour a lot can happen no no and the hats and but I'm sure I superintendent will work that out and and and get back to you with that
um the um shortage on paper he uh m m explained that I think pretty much that I haven't heard of any free on any budget or anything so I think we pretty good there I think that will just
I think that's something that a len piece in that puzzle that's missing do color giving out papers for color on that particular day whatever but to care that and um
of course um I know there are some schools that are not free and I I agree that you know that's an issue maybe well you know down the road we can look into it as a boards work with our super
attendent help come up with suggestions and bring bring it back to us and uh we'll we'll work with that whatever it may be I'm sure it be an intelligent decision that he'll give us um but please and and everyone else
that's watching come out those are important concerns we need to hear those things like that and uh thanks again for coming out and um uh that's it just everyone get home safe and and that's
J I want to uh reiterate our thanks for you bringing all of this information to us and I hope that other folks who are listening um will participate in our meetings whether you come here in person or provide your comments um via Zoom it's really important that we hear from
you directly um and I know uh that all of us really um want to make sure that all of the public health concerns are addressed I know Dr mcry te that very seriously and and we'll look into all of that information um I do um also uh just
want to again um acknowledge all of the work that Dr McBride and uh and his team of Administrators as well as all of our staff are doing um to ensure that all of our our staff uh students and all of our
uh Community feel safe and welcome at our schools um and so again I just point out to our families that there are a number of resources that are posted on the district website um for anyone with concerns um as an immigrant student or
immigrant family or staff or a member of the lgbtq community um I also just want to remind folks um that tomorrow um February 12th is um preschool open enrollment so everyone please uh look
online to apply that begins at 10: a.m. and there's all of the preschool online registration so please definitely take advantage of that tomorrow February 12th um I do also want to um congratulate uh the new Ford councel and thank all of
the firms that submitted their applic and took their time to meet with us today um and again I want to offer my congratulations to our newest board member um who will uh hopefully be sworn in then at our next meeting on uh
February 26 so everyone can come out and offer their support to our our newest board member um and hope that everyone is safe and and stays warm from this impending we thank you uh just be PR
um okay um I'm sorry to hear about the situation with the that allergy was I wasn't aware that you had that allergy as well but um I'm sure stuff like that hopefully going forward we can look into and make sure that um I always thought
that there before activities happened that there was a list to go out if or a paper go out to State whether or not people had allergies or the kids had allergies to things so hopefully that still um continuing um as far as the paper I mean
everybody can make their comments I'm going leave it for Dr MC to to really look into that um for me if anybody knows me um I just want to say there's some days you know leaving from here and
with everything that's going on in the world since I was like 4 years old there was always a s that resonated to me and understand it until I became an adult and I understand now when I leave from here or when I'm having stressful
moments 1976 Stevie Wonder loves the Need of Love today one of my favorite songs when I leave here from De I'm going to listen to that song it may just sound mediocre to you guys if you pay attention to the words in that song then
you'll understand where I'm coming from my heart goes out to everybody get thank you just hi thank you for coming and and sharing your concerns I was a proud student of map Hill at the time I was the second class to attend so that
school is Mayor dear to my heart so um thank you for sharing your your kids on your child's experience and we will work um hard to take care of that but I do want to share this past uh Friday night I had um privilege of being invited to
um an event that was in inkle Wood um for M um everyone who knows me knows how near and dear the heart is to me um it was the National Coalition of 100 black women and they put on a wellness um program they had um a panel of um one of
the leading black cardiologists um Dr Marcus L Williams um a dietitian and a woman who gave her testimony uh about having trle bypass um surgery without even knowing that she needed it um there was um a chef there he was cooking um
showers how to make healthy food um a fitness instructor to show how you can you know exercise just by sitting up and down in your chair so there's no excuse to to move so moving is the key to a healthy heart it's not the end all be
all but it does help so um for heart month you know just remember um to to be healthy make smart decisions and and keep your heart healthy because you only get one thank you and you may not know but trusty Gilmore appears
on on Route four along with her son so the next time you're on Route four but don't C an next yeah was gracious enough to to um uh feature my son and I on on a billboard for heart month um because of
what happened to my son um who arrested but who was miraculously saved with 90 minutes of CPR so thank you thank you all right vice president SL um I appreciate the fact that we're hearing things about Parker school I'm sure it's
not isolated to Parker um my kids were adults now it's hard to believe uh graduated from Nelly K Parker School um you raised the issue about U
parents volunteering to cover class to me although I'm not an attorney and I will reach out to our Law Firm now um it raises a number of questions about
liability number one um are the parents that would volunteer are they trained uh in General Nursing number two uh all employees whether they be
teachers St St board members we go through a black a background check as well as having our fingerprints taken so this opens up a number of issues um it's greatly appreciated that parents would
volunteer back in the day he used to volunteer now uh the way Society is it's a lot harder to find volunteers with the proper backgrounds so that will
be something that I'm sure the board will discuss um going further um we're very pleased that we now have a a law firm in place uh that's very diverse not only in school law but all
types of Law and uh we as a board look forward to working with that thank you thank you um once again I'm going to reiterate what everyone said thank you for for coming out and uh giving us your feedback on what's going on um student safety is number one staff safety is
also number one for us and I just love the idea of parent volunteers because you know as parents we are going to be in it 110% so if there is that opportunity for parents to come in and maybe support us in some way during lunchtime during
recess time I would love to see it I think that just builds a community much stronger at at Parker School um I was also a Parker School parent for a while and I I know how close n of community Parker Parker is so um the pink paper I
do not know what the explanation is um as a teacher myself I just think maybe it just happened to be the one that was the box that was open at the moment um who knows it's probably hiding somewhere in a closet um I do want to thank uh the law firms that applied today that came
to interview um some of them showed their passion uh and it was so nice to see that um especially in the night like tonight congratulations to our new board councel um as a board we do look um forward in working with you I also want to thank um our school staff and
communicating about various events that are happening around our school district as a whole there are just so many events um and I just want to make the disclaimer that us as a board we try our best to go to as many events as
possible um unfortunately some of these events happen on the same night um we have personal obligations so um I will make sure that it is our primary focus that we at least have one representative from the board to attend at least to one
of these um events as long as we know about it we will be there um but please continue to keep us alerted about these events um I want to thank the truste for taking their time in the selecting central office for last minute changes
for phone calls in terms of how we going to do this process um just for clarity purposes and um for those of you who were not on the board previously the way the board selection process did not
happen this way the last time um trustees were not all involved in choosing former Council uh it was a small committee who chose it last time as a matter of fact questions that were apparently used during those board
interviews in previous times could not be found so we had to start from scratch and I knew when I was cut out of that process I knew that this process could not mirror that so that's why I made sure that all trustees had the opportunity which they
all did to reach out and get the information that they needed we made sure that central office had the information so that they could send it out to all the trustees so they can have the links have all the information available to them that was never given to me when I was on
the board um in terms of answering questions I am always available to answer questions whether you choose to reach out or not whether you choose to add your own comments after
the fact and say you're going to do your own research that's on you but I have spent my time speaking to every single person on this Bas at all times of the hours to answer those
question it is your duty as a board member to protect the district and if you choose to go otherwise we all know that there are ethics charges so please be mind mind ful of how you speak to the public and
how you speak to others I hope everyone gets home safe hopefully we don't get a lot of snow and that is the end of my um comment and I have a motion to Move Motion by trusty second by trusty Pringle all
those in favor say I anyone oppos okay meeting at 849