##VIDEO ID:eIetJIkzsQI## 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 thank you all right welcome to the South River Board of Education regular meeting of Monday December 16th 2024 in compliance with the open public meeting act chapter 231 laws of 1975 of the state of New Jersey adequate notice of this meeting of the South River Board of Education was provided in the following manner on January 17th 2024 the notice was delivered to the office of the South River burrow Clerk and posted at the Board of Education administration building on January 17th 2024 the notice was fact mailed to the following newspapers home News Tribune The Star Ledger and on January 17th 2024 the notice was posted at the South River burrow clerk's office Mr Rosa would you please call the role Mr basac Mr basac has been excused Mr budson here Mrs Bush here Mrs burn here Mrs L here Mr neelson here Mrs Sadowski here Mrs y Yao here Mrs orbanic here Calin samiri here g a COR thank you okay at this time we will be covering the items on our agenda the first being the minutes Mr Rosa so we have the pre-meeting minutes from November 21st and the regular meeting minutes from November 25th board members what is your pleasure on these meeting minutes move the reading of the minutes we have a motion by vice president neelon is there a second second second by Miss Sadowski are there any questions or comments on the minutes saying they're all in order all in favor I thank you next item on the agenda we have a few uses of facilities we have number 664 number 669 number 662 and number 673 board members what is your pleasure on these use of facilities M did he say 662 or 672 672 and 673 okay I'm sorry I thought I thought I heard 662 apologize oh I heard 672 okay all right so was the motion made by uh no move the use of facilities in accordance with board policies motion by vice president neelsen second by Miss burn any questions on these use of facilities all in favor okay thank you our next item on the agenda are our financial reports Miss L thank you very much be it resolved that the Board of Education hereby certifies that it is in receipt of the financial report which indicates that no major account has been overexpanded and that sufficient funds are available to meet the district's Financial Obligations for the remainder of the fiscal year the finance committee recommends that the reports of the board secretary and the treasur of school monies for October 2024 be approved and is so move we have a motion by m l second second by Vice President neelson are there any questions on the financial report all in favor I I thank you at this time the meeting is going to be turned over to our superintendent for her report Dr zurer yes thank you um before I move forward with my monthly report um we do have one confirmed Hib for the um board to review and then I will also turn it over to Mr Crouch who is here with us today to present our student safety data system information from report Period 2 which is January 1 2024 through June 30th 2024 Mr Crouch thank you very much Dr zercher good evening board as Dr zercher just said we're going to be doing report period two for the school safety data systems report can you hear him no um Matt do you want to maybe grab that handheld you can't hear me oh I'm sorry I'm speaking too quietly I apologize I mumble I guess thank you um so what we're going to be looking at here is going to be the data based on January last year school year all the way through June and graduation for the hi reporting as you've seen in the past before with me um the first section is going to discuss the TR show the number of trainings and programs that we had following that we'll go through the primary elementary middle and high school data in reporting period to Across The District we had three hip trainings and we had nine hip programs I apologize you can't see it that well on the board right there in the primary school we had zero incidents reported during report period two we had no removals we had no alleged hips we had two Hip trainings and we had four programs designed to uh inform people about Hib and processes the elementary school saw 14 uh and other in instance it is his removal was 24 uh there were 14 alleged hibs during that time period there were no Hib trainings but there were two programs that were held for a train for uh anti-hib and in the middle school we had three incidences and five leading to other the other that leaving leading to removal we had no alleged we had one Hib training and we had one Hib program in the high school we had seven incidences 12 leading to removal one alleged no trainings and two programs so where are we at right now as far as what we're doing at this time um we're right now we're offering monthly seal supports to in throughout the entire District in every single one of the buildings which are programs that are individually designed and tailored to the needs of the students we have the K12 building initiatives which is different programs that we have going on throughout the year besides the the supports that we have inside of the classroom we just had a very successful uh presentation or assembly that we it was called go green bully free USA I think some of you might have seen it online it was a smashing hit we have effective School Solutions and rub bhc that are supporting our students with higher needs um and then we also sorry we also have car Solace we're running a restorative community service program we have our therapy dog program and we also have brought in the use of a company called hipster that's helping us with managing all of our data about hibs moving forward if you have any questions or concerns please feel feel free to reach out to me um anybody all right thank you very much it's always a pleasure to see you and I wish you all a happy holiday season you too all right thank you Mr Crouch for that information again that is period two which is from last school year not this um school year so just keep that in mind um as far as my report goes today we have um a few things to report on uh even though we just had our board meeting about three weeks ago um but still we have a lot of reasons to celebrate I'd like to begin with that um we did have an opportunity to celebrate our National Honor Society students who were inducted this year 16 students were inducted we um also had the uh Wall of Fame induction as well where we had the pleasure of of um inducting Mr Anthony Rosano and Ed um sichi chii thank you uh for correcting me um and we were really happy to celebrate this time with um of course the inductees but then also their families um who were there who were able to speak on behalf of the wall of fame recipients um and the teachers who spoke on behalf of the student students who were inducted so it was a wonderful night we once again participated uh in day of dialogue this is an event that I have the pleasure of coordinating for Middle sex County and um we were able to hold the event in the past we've we've held it for a few years here on our South River Campus and we've invited um other schools from middle sex County um we have become quite bigger and with some of the construction on site this year we actually held it in Piscataway at the escj conference center um but still a huge success for both um our high school and middle school teams who have come back invigorated and and ready to um Implement some initiatives in uh in their schools um and they were there at the event with um hundreds of peers from across the county so it was a great opportunity for kids to have some conversations in a safe space with PE um both from their school but also from from others and then I just want to continue uh informing the community about the events that are taking place in our schools it seems like every month we are filled with different events We are continuing our schoolwide readouts at the ELC and primary schools we have um really just a lot of events to bring and engage our parents um and bring them into our schools the next one we have have coming up is um an opportunity to celebrate Heritage and kindness at the elementary school and now a new initiative at the high school is to um use the power of of music to engage our students as well and we are playing overhead music for students um encouraging them to take their uh airpods or uh earphones out and um and listen to music together and I know this week they were focusing on um holiday music that is um from different parts of the world um which is a which is exciting um so lots of activities going on our grade level meetings at the middle school um to bring in all of the different grade levels together as well with some guest speakers we've had members from srpd join those meetings and and so on um and then also you'll notice this month uh is a time of giving for our students we once again have um our adopta family program um which my dear friend Deb and um our former admin secretary uh was just so committed to and uh it's great to see that that work her hard work is continuing um through what our students are doing and their staff advisors as well and uh just happy holidays be safe be good um as we enter into this holiday break and we will see everyone in the New Year MH and so conclude my report oh wait nope I have one more thing I'm sorry that I wanted to add um we do have something exciting in the district that I did want to share and that is related to one of our freshman student Miss Ariana Rosa you might recognize that last name she is uh Mr Rosa's daughter she's a freshman at our high school and she just published um a novel she just published a fantasy fiction novel and had a signing this past weekend with um a ton of attendance at the peran boy Library um and it's just wonderful to see students um just really Thrive and and um and it's inspirational we now even have a course at the high school that is writing for publishing um and it's the perfect um Avenue for somebody like Arianas who's interested in that kind of work and who is so motivated so congratulations congratulations conratulations thank you and I think there's something under here you KCK the bucket I may have okay Sor with Christmas vacation and squirrel came to my mind I think it was me I'm not sure all right and so concludes my report thank you board members any questions or comments on the superintendent I have something to say um sure I have to agree with Dr zurer the uh National Honor Society inducting ceremony to see the smile on the parents' faces as their child's name is called uh definitely adds to it you know the kids are excited about it past the kids that have already been inducted to see their friends come up and the teachers but to see the parents the excitement in their eyes to know that their child is up there was uh really great and keeping with uh Tony Rano his uh grandson who uh initiated it did open the ceremony with a uh a dad joke so Tony would have been happy with that and that's all I have Madam president that's great sure thank you uh we're going to approve that under the consent resolution uh at this time we are going to open up the meeting for the reception of visitors and the public May address agenda items only there will be a public portion later on in this meeting for items that are of other concern to the board for the public to address us uh if you would like to address any agenda items please come to the microphone state your name and address and please keep your comments to a 10minute time limit and I offer that on first call and on second call and on third call this time the public portion will be closed we're going to move on to our committee reports the first is our buildings and grounds Mr neelson uh nothing to report tonight but you saw Mr bl's detailed report and the monthly report thank you Athletics extracurricular Mr busen there's nothing on the agenda for this month okay thank you finance committee m l thank you so much um the agenda includes approvals for Grant applications extensions and acceptance of funding supporting various school programs um contracts for services include year Brook production school assembly supplemental Staffing security Transportation field trips and additional approvals address facility upgrades including um we have some window installations snowplow maintenance and budget adjustments the finance committee after review of all items on this month's agenda and upon recommendation of the superintendent recommends approval of the items 8.1 through 8.16 with additional items 8.17 through 8.19 on the agenda as listed including routine items that is all I have for this evening thank you instruction committee Miss Bush sure um just a quick update in December the high school scheduling committee met they reviewed um course offerings prxs enrollment Trends Revis some course schedules um we are in the process of planning an event or events for grade 8 through 11 to learn about the high school electives and then make choices for next year um in December um also refining ped and focusing on social um social and emotional wellness and multilingual Learners um teacher leaders are analyzing data from from our state assessments and we're planning grade five trip to Camp Mason so that's the update of what's going on and then the instruction committee after a review of all items on this month's agenda and upon the recommendation of the superintendent recommends approval of items 9.1 through 9.5 with the additional item 9.6 on the agenda as listed including routine items and that is all I have thank you our next committee is negotiation we do not have anything on the agenda for this committee so we're going to go to our policy and legislation committee miss Ben thank you we just have one item the policy and legislation committee as review of all items on this month's agenda and upon recommendation of the superintendent recommends approval of the item 11.1 with no additional items on the agenda as listed including thank you human resources vice president neelson thank you madam president the human resources committee after review of all items on this month's agenda and upon recommendation of the superintendent recommends approval of the items 12.1 through 12.13 with no additional items on the agenda as listed including routine items thank you uh safety and risk management committee Miss Sadowski thank you safety and RIS management committee after review of all items on this month's agenda and upon recommendation superintendent recommends approval of the item 13.1 with additional item 13.2 on the agenda as listed ining items okay thank you at this time if there are no questions on any of those committee reports we're going to go back to the consent resolution ready yeah Mr Rosa so the South River Board of Education by means of a consent resolution adopt various resolution of a routine and nonc iial nature at one time and whereas the below listed resolutions are hereby adopted by the said Board of Education in whole as if the same were individually acted upon and those are under superintendent of schools 3.1 through 3.3 under Finance 8.1 through 8.19 the instruction 9.1 through 9.5 the policy and legislation 11.1 under Human Resources 12.1 through 12.13 under safety and risk management 13.1 through 13.2 okay thank you is there a motion for that neon we have a motion by vice president neelson second second by Miss Sadowski would you please call the role Mr Rosa Mr budson yes Mrs Bush yes Mrs burn yes Mrs La yes Mr neelson yes Mrs Sadowski yes Mrs y Yao yes Mrs orbanic yes motion pass thank you uh at this time we're going to go over to our school Community Relations Committee m y ya thank you there are no items on the agenda for this evening okay our school board burrow Council Lea is on committee representative vice president neelson nothing to report tonight Madam president thank you and our PTA Lea is on Mrs Sadowski thank you so the primary ELC PT are wrapping up some f week uh spirit work orders will need to be placed today um there nothing but bun cake orders will be available for pickup this Thursday December 19th elementary school they had a PTA sponsor the the holiday shop um is shop for presents and gifts for their family members um they are also hosting a candy bar Bingo on January 10th and your books are already on sale it's almost January so it's almost that time of year so your books are on sale for both primary ELC and Elementary and that's all I have thank you thank you what was the day of the candy bar of bingo the 10 January oh okay all right thank you our South River Public Library leaz on Mr busen uh I invite everybody to go to library and see DEC ated for Christmas uh on the 19th Santa will be visiting the library and December 20th there'll be a sing along at 11: a.m. with Miss Kim and in January 21st there's the adult trapped a tote bag decorating that's all I have thank you and our student board representative Miss kelvine um week one of spirit week was a success and one of the days was dedicated to Gilly the janitor to show appreciation for his hard work that's all I have thank you saw pictures of uh of that online of support Gilly day off but he he had no idea it was coming and he loved it he from what my boys were telling me he was like they're they're supposed to be me they're supposed to be he was all excited in the hallway he couldn't believe how many students and teachers dressed up as him and helped him out through the day he greatly appreciated it so that's great it's good that you know we we take care of everybody in the district from the top to the bottom thank you okay is there any older new business to come before the board at this time and do we have an attorney's report uh just for executive session thank you payment of bills Miss L thank you the finance committee recommends that all bills presented having been certified by the school business administrator board secretary be paid as listed and ISO move we have a motion by m l or is there a second second second by vice president neelon any questions on the bill list all in favor I thank you the bills will be paid okay at this time we are now going to open up the meeting to the public and this is so the public May address any concern or comment that they have for the board if you come to the microphone please state your name and address and please keep your comments limited to a 10minute time limit anyone from the public on first call this is going to be my last talk on this subject I finally we'll finish it I will continue my talk by picking up where I left off off last time by telling you again that no one has ever been shot in our schools and no one is going to be but there is always that nagging irrational fear that some parents have that it could happen and that something must be done to stop it as a parent I assure you there is nothing you can do to alleviate that fear parents are always worried for their children my children are 38 and 42 years old but I still worry about them some of you probably still worry about your kids regardless of how old they are but as members of the school board you are entrusted with making rational decisions not decisions based on some nagging fear before making any decisions on school safety you need to look beyond the it can happen and look at the probability of it happening the consequences of it happening the cost of preventing it and the effectiveness of your preventive measures before deciding what to do in an earlier talk I went over each of these criteria with regards to school shootings which showed that you needn't be doing what you are currently doing furthermore I'd like to point out that there is no evidence that any of the measures that are commonly used to harden schools against attack actually work here's an example from the recent appalachi Georgia high school school shooting on September 4th every teacher at that school carries a rapid SOS Panic alarm with them are you thinking about getting Panic alarms for the school was it effective there from the K through 12 school shooting database the first shots were fired at 10:20 a.m. authorities get the first 911 calls of an active shooter on campus at 10:20 meaning immediately 911 calls come from everybody has a cell phone alert for the shooting comes in from the rapid SOS device at 10:22 a.m. based on dispatch reports released by Barra County Georgia Why Pay $8,000 for a panic alarm system to alert the Police when 911 was 2 minutes faster and free remember this is a massive multi-billion doll business on school safety with no evidence any of these things are necessary or work this is just one example if you ask someone what kind of facility is hardened against internal and external attack and has video cameras automatic locks lockdowns Panic alarms metal detectives and armed security guards they always answer prisons they should also add schools our schools do not have violent inmates like prisons they just have children and that is how you should see them unfortunately people are seeing them as these violent inmates that can at any moment turn on students and staff and kill people it's just irrational since schools are not run like prisons it should not be surprising that methods that might work in prisons might not work in schools if I had more time I can go into all the different ways that students get around metal detectors don't consider metal detectors it's just a waste of time the students get around them in fact all the security measures you have students will get around because they know the security measures you tell your students to hide in the closet well Val or wherever it was I forgot where it was the student know the shooter knew that the students were going to hide in the closets so we shot into the closets and killed them every security measure you have will be defeated the automatic locks he knows how to pull off the magnetic stripes and lock himself in that no one could get in and so on so these things never work how about security guards if you have only one or two officers for 800 students dozens of rooms and multiple hallways by the time an officer arrives at the shooting the shooting will probably be over you kind of think the police come and end the shooting these mass shootings end when the shooters stop shooting that's almost all of them not everyone but almost all of them they just simply stop even in Uvalde when the student was locked in the classroom the shoot was locked in the classroom with those students for an hour he didn't kill them all he stopped shooting finally the police came in he shot at the police they shot back at him and they killed him even if the shooting is not over what can one officer do do you expect him to run into a hail of bullets to kill the shooter by comparing a prison might have 100 correction offices for for 800 inmates that's why that works they have a 100 times as many security Personnel that you'll have only the local police will have the tactical gear and numbers necessary to neutralize a shooter if that becomes necessary there are other models for school security that Focus not on hardening the schools like prisons but Focus instead but Focus instead on helping troubled students whether a teen dies by homicide or suicide is irrelevant either way the child is is dead it has been said that suicide is a permanent solution for a temporary problem and this is especially true for teenagers just starting out in life over the last 20 years about 400 teenagers in New Jersey aged 15 to 18 have died by Suicide none have died in a school shooting by the way in one of the pie charts I gave you it showed that shootings that occur within the school most of them occur outside the school but those that occur in the school 177% is suicides children take guns to their head in front of the classroom and blow their brains out or they go into the uh cafeteria and do it 177% of those in school no one else dies just that suicide given this statistic why would any rational administrator that has money to spend s spend so much on security guards to prevent school shooting deaths that have never happened at all in all of New Jersey rather than spend money on Mental Health to improve the lives of troubled students and perhaps even save a student's life the talid a Jewish text that expresses the belief in the sanctity of Life said say he who saves One Life Saves the World what you are currently doing just squanders money you're not saving any lives another added benefit of spending money on mental health is that School shooters that engage in the most fear type of school shooting the Rampage shooting have mental health problems or other serious problems at school or home they are often depressed and suicidal if appropriate Services had been available to them that would stop more shootings and any arm guards or other hardening methods well what should you do with your arm guards and security officers I mean you have them this is what I think you should do regarding your armed offices even though police are not needed in our schools and are a major expense firing them is unrealistic eventually they will retire just don't replace them in the end maybe just keep your director of security if parents are concerned just tell them that the schools on Montgomery Street are close enough together that one school security officer can get to any of the three schools quick enough if there is a shooting also South River is so small that a South River Police office officer in a patrol car is usually just a few blocks away from any school and if needed could be at school at no time I walk all the time through the town to lunch and I see patrol cars everywhere I don't know how many there are but I almost always see one and this town is very small a minute or two to there 2 minutes it really does not matter whether this is true was whether they could get there quick enough or not it really doesn't matter if there was a shooting it would not matter if an armed officer was in the building or not as I showed previously the data shows that schools that have security gods have as many shootings at schools that do not and if a shooting occurs there are two time 2.8 times as many casualties when a security guard is present so it is a tossup between armed officers just do not matter or they are in actual danger I also showed the misuse of firearms by by officers in the school security officers mostly they left them around they were found by students some went off a guy got shot in the eye put 100,000 guns in the school what can possibly go wrong if parent parents are still concerned have a control car with a Town police office or park on Montgomery Street when the children are entering the school building in the morning and leaving during dismissal this will not cost anything and the parents and the parents will see the police and hopefully feel safe explain to any concerned parent that it is better than having an officer in the school building because most shootings take place outside the building in the morning when students walk in or leave during dismissal and that is true that's when most of the shootings occur if you remove all security guards as I recommend amendments not saying fire them just eventually they'll retire these are not young men just don't replace them just keep Contracting the force if you remove all security guards as I recommend the to will the town will save a few hundred, a year each taxpayer about $50 a year or an extra $150 per year to spend on students or extra money to spend on Mental Health by the way I'm not advocating that you spend more money on Mental Health I don't know what your mental health program is it may be completely Ade and that spending more money on Mental Health may just have diminishing returns but spending it on armed security guards doesn't buy anything well this is the end of my talk it spread out almost over a year and a half I originally hoped to give it in 20 20 minute segments at uh maybe three or four talks rather than this long but it's the end of it thank you very much for listening to me have a good day sir thank you very much sir is there anyone else from the public wishing to speak and address the board on First Call On Second call and on third call this public session is closed the board is going to go into executive session so be it resolved that pursuant to sections seven and 8 of the open public meetings act the following subjects be discussed at a session of the Board of Education closed to the public and those items are attorney client privilege it is presently anticipated that the items to be discussed in closed session can be disclosed to the public when resolved is there a motion neelson motion by vice president neelson second by Mrs Bush all in favor I thank you right you can go have a nice happy