e e e everyone good evening uh I'd like to call this meeting to order adequate notice of this special meeting of the Kenworth of education has been provided to the home News Tribune uni County local Source The Star Ledger on January
3rd 2014 a copy 2024 a copy has been filed with the korth burough clerk posted in the Board of Education business office Harding School Bley uh David Bry school and the Kenworth burough Hall as is provided by the open public meetings act
the purpose of this meeting is to organize the Kenworth board of education for the 2025 year in accordance with statute and kbo policy 0151 um please stand and salute the
flag I pledge allegiance 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 okay uh good evening everyone and happy New Year everyone hopefully
everyone had a happy and healthy New Year and holiday season uh we'll start off by the certification of election of members of the Board of Education of the burough of Kenworth I Vincent a ganella secretary of the school district of the burough Kenworth County of Union New
Jersey do hereby certify that the following named persons received the highest number of votes and were duly elected as members of the Board of Education of the school district of the burough Kenworth County of Union New Jersey at the school election held November 5th 2024
and in the burrow of kennworth to it threee terms expiring on December 31st 20127 Suzanne Koli Joseph J herina and Michelle panichi and I do further
certify that Suzanne Koli Joseph J Hardina and Michelle panichi were elected for the terms set forth above okay uh at this time I'll administer the oath of office and we'll do that uh
alphabetically um and i' ask each member as I call you up to come over here at which time we will administer the oath first up suzan I will go slow but here's a copy just in case you there's a couple couple
of uh STS there so I state your name I Suzanne froli do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the
United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and that I will bear true faith and Allegiance and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same to the same and to the governments established in the United States and to the
governments established in the United States and this State and this state under the authority of the people under the authority of the people so help me God so help me God I state your name I Suzanne Koli do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I possess the
qualifications that I possess the qualifications prescribed by law prescribed by law for the office of a member of a board of education for the office of member of a board of education and that I am not disqualified and that I am not disqualified as a voter
pursuant to rs9 19 colon 4-1 as a voter pursuant to rs19 4-1 nor disqualified due to a convic conviction of a crime nor disqualified due to the conviction of a
crime or offense listed in or offense listed in njs 18a Colon 12-1 listed in njs 18a colon 12-1 and that I will faithfully and that I I will faithfully impartially and justly
perform impartially and justly perform all the duties of that office all the duties of that office according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability so help me God so help me God congratulations [Applause]
thank uh next up is Mr Hardina there you go you want me to hold that no you got it okay I state your name I Joseph J Hardin thei do solemnly swear do solemly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States I
support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and that I will bear true faith and Allegiance and that I will bear truth faith and allegiance to the same to the same and to the governments established in the United States to the governments established in the United States and this state and
this state under the authority of the people under the authority of the people so help me God so help me God I state your name I Joseph j harden theii do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I possess the qualifications that I possess the qualifications prescribed by
law prescribed by law for the office of a member of a board of education for the office of a member of a board of education and and that I am not disqualified and I am not disqualified as a voter pursuant to rs19 col 4-1 as a voter pursuant to R
s19 4-1 nor disqualify due to any conviction of a crime nor disqualify due to any conviction of a crime or offense listed in or offense listed in njs 18a col 12-1 njs 18a col 12-1 and that I
will faithfully and that I will faithfully impartially and justly perform partially and justly perform all the duties of that office all duties of that office according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability so help me God so help me God
[Applause] congratulations I state your name hi Michelle Pichi do Solly swear do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and the
constitution of the state of New Jersey and that I will bear true faith and Allegiance and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same to the same and to the governments established in the United States and to the governments established in the United States and this state and this state under the authority of the people under
the authority of the people so help me God so help me God I state your name I Michelle Pichi do solemly swear do solemnly swear that I possess the qualifications that I possess the qualifications prescribed by law prescribed by law for the office of member of a board of education for the
office of member of a board of education and and that I am not disqualified and that I'm not disqualified as a voter pursuing to rs19 col-4 4.1 as a voter pursuant to rs19 colon 4-1 nor disqualified nor nor
disqualified due to the conviction of a crime nor disqualified due to a conviction of a crime or offense listed in or offense listed in and J s 18a col 12-1 njs 18a 12-1 and that I will faithfully and that I will faithfully
and partially and justly perform and partially and justly perform all the duties of that office all the duties of that office according to the best my ability according to the best of my ability so help me God so help me God [Applause]
congratulations if uh you could sign those Oaths and send them my way that'd be great appreciate that [Applause] okay all right all right next up um we'll do roll
call biner here Koli here David here Ferrar here hather here herina here madadi here panichi here Zimmerman here all present okay at this time uh we will um
uh I'll ask for nomination for president n sorry Sor it's okay it's okay nominations are now open for president once nominations are closed I will call for a vote on each of the nominations in the order they were nominated as soon as one of the nominees has received the
majority vote I will declare that individual elected do I hear any nominations I would nominate Ryan Hy berther okay is there a second second okay are there any additional um
nominations for president oh I nominate Dr panichi is there a second second okay are there any additional nominations okay uh hearing no uh
additional nominations is there a motion to close the nominations for president motion to close made by Mrs Zimmerman seconded by Mr hather okay all those in favor of closing the nomination signify by saying I I opposed eyes have
it nominations are now closed I will first vote on the nomination for Mr hather for president biner no Koli no no David no
Ferrara hather yes Hardina no MTI no panichi no Zimmerman yes okay receiving two votes uh in the affirmative uh not a majority I'll move on to the nomination of uh Michelle
panichi uh biner yes Koli yes David yes Ferrara yes hather yes herdina yes L yes panichi yes zerman no having received eight uh Mo eight
affirmative votes uh which is a majority of the board I declare uh Michelle panichi president of the Board of Education okay congratulations M thank you thank okay uh would you like me to proceed with vice president okay all
right we'll start with now we will be uh opening up nominations for vice president is there a nomination for vice president for Vi is there a second okay are there any additional
nominations for vice president okay hearing none do I have a motion to close the nomination ations for vice president second made by Mr hather seconded by Mr biner all those in favor of closing nominations for vice president signify
by saying I I I okay opposed eyes have it uh nominations are now closed for vice president having only one um nomination I will now call um we vote on
the nomination for Mr Haber for vice president Mr biner yes KY yes David yes Ferrara yes hather yes herina yes lad yes Pichi yes Zimmerman yes motions
carry unanimously congratulations congratulations you want to um yeah you can proceed from here okay perfect thank you at this time we will now go through um review of committees if anyone is interested please U
procedure we've done in the past email me the Committees that you're interested in and then we will uh send it out later this week okay we can talk about later if you're unsure the newer members what the Committees are okay Mr ganella if you're ready we can start with the ethics presentation you know we got a good crowd tonight and I think some
people might want to take some pictures so you want to do that first before they families before we do the ethic training and then everybody can go yeah and they then they can focus on the ethics training because I'm going to give a quiz to everyone later on and uh okay why don't you do that okay take a moment full board picture we'll probably
we'll do we'll do that after we'll do that after the meeting we'll do that after the meeting it's board appreciation must it's always appreciation textbooks the new revision ones like 24 reviewed that have I yeah I'm just going to ask that yeah I just want to make sure we're not doing going
crazy with revision just wanted to give you yeah I canceled the house home don't blame me all right I'll take care of that back on the cable bill sells the same though right sells the same but the
the uh the house number doesn't exist someone might have it oh yeah they do took theow like requires and CRA job and half building is too hot half building is too
C's window that's train you do at work right guess figure [Laughter] just I mean those slides I don't know like for you
but back like training Shou like yeah like you just Tred they think at the end I said to the girls mom you miss one day school want
to go to Atlanta they win Thursday they're like no well come on it's not a question that's parential prerogative you could just make the decision she wants to go she's a without getting into it she was very she's very happy with the elect my wife and she wants to
go she's GNA be gone what you but honestly car's like so conratulations out of Short Hills not that I know okay okay oh
okay see you lat take care night everyone okay uh so um back to our agenda this is our um annual ethics training um uh this evening we're going to delve into the New Jersey uh School
ethics Act and the New Jersey uh School Board member code of ethics these guiding principles are not just formalities uh they are the foundation of ethical governance of our schools uh we do take them seriously uh the school ethics act establishes clear
expectations for conduct ensuring that our decisions and actions reflect Integrity fairness and accountability the code of ethics further reinforces our commitment to serve our students and staff and communities with transparency and respect uh this session will explore
the key components and the guidelines and discuss their practical applications and examine how uh they help us uh navigate challenges while upholding public trust uh where uh whether uh you're a new or an experien board member
uh understanding and embracing these standards is essential for fostering uh a culture of ethical leadership um so this evening uh we'll uh we'll use this as a guide to satisfy the board's annual ethics requirements under statute
and code um this does not replace place the individual ethics uh requirement for all new board members uh Joseph both you and Suzanne will be going to do your new board board orientation which will be the component of this as well it be much
more expanded than this Readers Digest version uh this presentation is to Aid the whole board in its annual uh requirement uh if we have specifics we always can ask either New Jersey school boards or our board
attorney so as I mentioned we're going to be discussing the school ethics act the code of uh code of ethics for school members um we do adopt uh procedures and policies to uh with those in mind and provide documentation that each board
member has received the code of ethics so if you get a chance sign the acknowledgement of the receipt and pass it down to my uh seat that we had this discussion and you received and we reviewed them
okay so first we'll get into the code of code of ethics um I'm just going to I'm going to try to go through quickly of these um you all have seen these um I provided them to uh Joseph and Suzanne at their or in our internal oper uh um
orientation uh and you as the other members who have been on the board have seen these multiple times so I will uphold enforce all laws rules and regulations the state of uh State Board of Education uh court orders pertaining to schools uh desired changes shall be
brought uh about only through legal and ethical procedures I will make decisions in terms of the educational welfare of children and will seek to develop and maintain public schools that meet the individual needs of all childrens regardless of their ability race Creed
sex or social standing I will confine uh uh my board action to policymaking planning and Appraisal and it will help to frame policies and pl plans only after the board has consulted those who will be affected by
them I will carry out my responsibilities not to administer the schools but together with my fellow board members to see that they are well-run I will recognize that the authority rests with the Board of Education and will make no personal promises nor take any private action
that may compromise the board I will refuse I will refuse to surrender my indep dependent judgment to special interest or partisan political groups or to use schools for personal gain or for the gain of friends I will hold uh confidential all
matters pertaining to the schools which if disclosed would needlessly injur individuals or schools in all other matters I will provide accurate information and and in concert with my fellow board members interpret uh to the staff the aspirations of the community
for its School will vote to appoint the best qualified Personnel available after consultation of of the recom consideration of the recommendation of the chief uh administrative officer I will support and protect School Personnel in proper performance of their
duties I will refer all complaints um to the chief administrative officer and will act on the complaints of public me at public meetings only after failure to of an administrative solution so that concludes the code of ethics um are
there any questions with regard to the code of ethics okay if not we'll get into the school ethics act um introduced in 1998 uh the statute has not changed uh what has changed is
how the tenants of the school ethx acts have been interpreted over time and based on case law so it is very important to get legal opinions if there is ever a question or a concern so uh School ethics act no school official or
member uh of his immediate family shall have an interest in business organization or engage in any business transaction or professional activity which is a substantial conflict uh with the proper discharge of his duties in the public interest no school official
shall use or attempt to use his official position to secure unwarranted privileges advantages or employment for himself members of his immediate family or others no school official shall act in His official capacity in any matter where he a member of his immediate
family or business organization in which he has an interest has a direct or indirect Financial involvement that might reasonably be expected to impair his objectivity or independence of judgment no school official shall act in His official capacity in the matter
where he or a member of his immediate family has a uh personal involvement that is that is or creates some benefit uh to the school official or member of his immediate family no school official shall undertake any employment or
service whether compensated or not which might reasonbly be expected to pre Prejudice his independent judgment or in the exercise of His official duties no school official or member of his immediate family or business organization in which he has an interest
shall solicit or accept any gift favor loan political contribution service promise of future employment or any other thing of value based upon an understanding that the gift favor loan contribution service promise or other thing of value was given or offered for
the purpose of influence him directly or indirectly in the discharge of His official duties this provision shall not apply to the solicitation or acceptance of contributions to the campaign of an announced candidate for elective uh public office and the school uh if the
school official has no knowledge or Reason to Believe believe that the campaign contribution if accepted was given with the intent uh to influence the school official in the discharge of His official duties no school official shall or allow to be used uh or or
allowed to be used his public office or employment or any information not generally available to the members of the public which he receives or acquires in the course of and by reason of his office or employment for the purpose of securing financial gain for himself any
member of his immediate family or business organization with which he is associated no school official or business organization in which he has an interest shall represent any person or party other than the school board or School District in connection with that
cause preceding application or other matter pending before the school district in which he serves or in any proceeding involve involving the school district in which he serves this position this POS provision shall not be determined to prohibit representation in
the context of the official labor union or similar representational responsibilities no school official shall be deemed in conflict with these Provisions if by reason of his participation in any matter required to be voted upon no material or monetary
gain occurs to him or is or any member of his business profession occupation or group or any great uh of to any great ex greater extent than any gain could reasonably be expected to acur to any other member of that business profession
or occupation or group no elected School member shall be prohibited from making an inquiry from uh information on behalf of a a constituent if no fee reward or any
thing of value is promised to given to or accepted by the member of or a member of his immediate family whether directly or indirectly uh in return thereof uh nothing shall prohibit a school official members of his immediate
family from representing himself or themselves in negotiating negotiations or proceedings concerning his or their own interests so that concludes the school ethics act review are there any questions with regard to
that okay so next we'll get into some uh common areas of concern um the financial involvement you you should recuse yourself uh when you're immediate families a financial involvement might reasonably be expected to impair your
objectivity uh do not discuss or vote on that involvement so this is where if you hear if you read if you were listening to the the the ACT you said you consistently heard yourself or members of your immediate family the definition
of immediate family has changed almost every year since 1999 they've either broadened it constricted it or broadened it again so if you have any questions you ask myself I could I could uh ask Mr Gagliardi if you want to talk to Mr
gaglardi you can do that uh whenever it involves some type of recusal so you have a question ask it okay better off asking the question and recusing yourself than being accused of actually violating this act okay personal
involvement recuse yourself when you or members of your immediate family have a personal involvement that creates some benefit to you or uh an immediate family member so they've gone to cousins now are considered an immediate family so you have to be careful of what the
definition of immediate family is so if you have a question let us know negotiations collecting negotiations discuss with your board attorney if you believe you have a conflict that might exist that may impact your ability to participate in negotiations so if you're
a member of uh if you have a member of your family who's a member of the njaa or the member of the PSA uh you should let us know and we'll we'll determine whether that precludes you from participating in negotiations okay ethics advisory
opinions uh if this is not a simple question if it's a complicated one we could we could request a an advisory opinion from the school ethics Commission which would provide us with some guidance with respect to that and then the doctrine of necessity uh that
is when uh you have so many board members that have an ethical conflict in a specific matter that you can't actually take action on that matter uh so you'd have to invoke the doctrine of necessity uh it could happen it hasn't
here uh but it could theoretically happen okay it's more common on boards that have five members as opposed to nine members but it could happen indemnification boards must cover the cost related to defending a board member uh for an act of omission arising
out of his her official duties as a board of education member okay um so how does the Act affect you um uh do you have any conflicts that would prevent you from voting or participating in a matter uh
have you sought an advisory opinion from the school Ethics Committee have you consulted with your board attorney are the uh are there any matters where the board will have to uh use the doctrine of necessity so plan ahead let us know so we could do our research if something
uh if you think you have some type of potential conflict okay uh where did we get help help um our board attorney is a great resource the school ethics commission but also New Jersey school boards uh any
one of those sources uh can assist us with that okay are there any questions no okay thank you don't sign the things packet yeah don't forget to sign your acknowledgement and send it
down to me thank you Vince well done any questions now Mr abouts okay if anything comes up please email him we'll now move on um I'm going to do the public portion of the meeting and then we'll go over resolutions and do a roll call we're now going to open up the meeting to the
public can I please have a motion to open up the meeting to the public uh motion made by Mr FIS seconded by Mr biner all those in favor of opening the meeting to the public please say I I oppos eyes have it motion
carry okay public par uh public comment is now being accepted the Board of Education sets a limit to public to speak to five minutes per person unless prior permission has been granted by the Board of Education to extend time pursuing to Board of Education bylaw
0167 for the record please indicate your name and address prior to making your comments good evening everybody Randy lechuck from 79 parf Drive in korth uh congratulations to the new members and congratulations again to your appointment for president um I'm up here
for three things I don't know if you guys could comment back or not I still kind of new to some of your meetings um but the three things I wanted to discuss was the first um we did an awesome job building a field and a track for not just the kids but also the community and
I haven't been able to attend a meeting for a while but uh every night once the sun went down and in the fall you know it gets dark pretty early people are walking in the dark and I asked some people like hey how come we don't have the lights on here what's going on and I
don't know if there's truth behind it or what but I was told that um the athletic director said it's not in the budget to have the lights on at night time again I don't know if that's true or not but um I wanted to bring that to your attention that maybe you know those
times 8 9:00 at night we just the lights are automatically on and then go off so it doesn't disturb the neighbors and the community could enjoy what we actually put money into I mean I think that would be a good idea as opposed to kids hanging out there in the dark or you know in an unsafe environment but
whatever times those that that field area is allowed to be open I think it should lit up um just a personal opinion uh the next um I've sent an email to um the principal over at Harding um and I did get a response but there's also been
uh no resolution about this uh I'm now seeing it at both schools where um people are parking in the fire Lanes uh tonight just pulling up here there was nine cars in the fire lane and the regular parking lot had three cars there
it's not a matter of um there's no place to park I hate to say it it's a matter of laziness from this community and no enforcement on the rules it's the same thing at pickup time for um Harding inside of the loop the cars are parked
there and it's not even that people are sitting in the cars to pick up their kids they're leaving their cars there they're it's the same thing when there's basketball and everything else um it hasn't gotten resolved so now I'm bringing it to the public so all of you know and everybody else knows that God
forbid the fire department ever needs to get there that's going to pose a serious problem um and I I really hope that somebody could do something about this uh I remember a couple years ago there used to be cones over there they disappeared the yellow for on the street
on both sides it's it needs to get repainted I don't blame the community because they don't know they see other cars park there and they just do the same thing um so I I really hope that that could be resolved for the safety of our kids um the third thing is
uh I think a lot of people of this town are really confused about um the construction that's going on with this building uh when it came up as a referendum we were all told that there was going to be a middle school that the middle school kids would be separated
from the high school kids and seeing the plans and seeing what's going on uh I I don't know how that's possible um when the downstairs is for high school there's only I think three classrooms upstairs um and today you guys posted it
up on your Facebook that it's a wing that it's not a school and I had put a comment on there and I looked right before I came here and somebody deleted my comment so I don't know who controls the social media for the school uh but to delete a public comment I don't know
that's that's not that's not really nice and the right thing to do a lot of people are question questioning what's going on over there we were told that the the middle school and high school kids would be separated and I I don't know how that's possible and I think
that if what's really being built was being told to us at the time a lot of people would have voted against it um I also don't understand if it's a wing why we need another nurse's office why we need another principle why it looks to
me about 30% of the second floor is for administration as opposed to kids I'm sure there's reasoning for it but to the common person like myself it makes absolutely no sense so I hope that does something for everybody thank you thank
you um thank you Mr vuk um let's schedule time because you got a lot of things here um but the social media posts just so you know we don't delete comments um I can actually still see your comment there I'll look into why yours is hidden but
whenever we post things there's a lot of comments that go up um only some of them show up for the public and I don't know why I'll look into that but I I can still see your comment because I oversee that but it it wasn't deleted like derory yeah yeah yeah but no what you
wrote was not derogatory I think a very fair thing where a lot of people common back of course the same concerns sure yeah and I think um we've been talking about that withth and sixth grade parents we had a evening
presentation about the new Middle School um talking about the separation of high school from middle school and how the new design will enable that um so we can talk more about that but that is appreciate yeah no problem seeing no more public motion to
close public second okay motion made by Mr David seconded by Mr hathor all those in favor of closing the meeting to the public please I I post eyes have it motion Carri like to do the resolutions please you do so okay so okay so
um just going to go over the resolutions there's 20 tonight um most of them have to do with some of the finances so I'll just go over them um one to eight real quick um contain the bylaws and procedures um newspaper appointments um meeting schedules record retention and
authorized signatures um 9 to 9 to 16 are appointments of legal council both the board of attorney and the labor attorneys Insurance Brokers order consultants and experts um I reviewed the fees especially with our legal council they're all within reason fair
and customary um and both both of those law firms are very good um 17 through 19 are textbooks curriculum and programs and 20 is the organizational chart um and I did just have one question is on the textbooks myself some of the newer
additions and I'm not sure if that's when we're adop them as textbooks or when they were or made or so the ones in 24 like you know history of 10152 24 is that when we're adopting or is that when that history book was kind of put into
circulation that because I just want to make sure that we're reviewing the textbooks that there's nothing in there that shouldn't be in the textbooks history and literature and everything else we do a thorough review we have just Sam hle our director of curriculum instruction she does a review with the teachers um it's all selected okay it
goes through a process we do have a review of all textbooks uh the copyright date or the you're asking I'm not sure the dates on here like there's one that says 102 2015 24 it'll specify whether it's the copyright date or the adoption date that's what I was
asking here the like textbook title publish that's the adoption date that's so these here yeah that's when the board adopted the textbook not the publication dat okay I'm good then sorry no worries good to find out that we're checking upbook there's definitely a textbook
process internally so that's everything for Resolutions I kind of um reviewed like I said especially the financials when it comes to fees and cost and they're all seem um proper so I'm going to recommend that we um well my recommendation is that they all be
approved at this time do anybody have any questions about the organizational chart any dates or anything like that at this time okay and this is if there no uh uh
that need to be voted on separately um this is resolutions number one through 20 on the agenda biner yes Koli yes David yes Ferrara yes hather yes herina yes Wadi yes Zimmerman yes panichi yes
motions carry unanimously perfect do we have a need to go into to close executive session we do not okay um at this time we'd like to ask for a motion to adjourn please second second okay motion made by Mr h seconded by Dr ni all those in favor please I oppos eyes
have it motions car now jours thank you