##VIDEO ID:ibfKycgCXO4## e e education this meeting is being videotaped anyone not wishing to be seen on television may be excused please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance sorry I pledge allegiance to flag of the United States of America and the for stands one nation God indivisible liberty and justice for all thank you just a couple of housekeeping items if you're a frequent flyer of these meetings you usually see Ari Snider here Ari is on a much needed vacation and his colleague Aaron man mandal Mand Mand is sitting in for him also you'll see I have cie our student representative from the high school to my left um I'll talk a little bit about why I made that choice but in the basic reason is we want to Center kids at everything we're doing this is supposed to be a learning experience for cie and for us from C so to have her next to me where she can pass me notes and things is really important so welcome back cie um to address the Board of Education please take a yellow comment card from the corner fill it out with your details and topic of discussion and you can hand it to Mrs Chilla who will forward it down to me our public participation is governed by uh policy 167 which allows members of the public to speak during designated periods at each meeting participants must provide their name their residents their affiliation and adhere to a 5 minute limit for the purpose of efficiency comments should address agenda items for the first public comment section so that the board can ensure that we hear you before we vote on agenda items so if you could look at the agenda and see if there's anything on there that you feel we need to know you want to comment on we really want to hear those things before we vote so that's why that they limited that to agenda items the second public comment section can then be on any District related issue all comments should be addressed to the presiding officer not specific board members employees or another individual the policy also outlines the Quorum rules including the ability to address inappropriate conduct or disruption during meetings the presiding officer excuse me may interrupt warn or terminate a participant statement question or inquiry when it is too lengthy it is abusive obscene or defamatory the presiding officer can request any person to leave the meeting when that person does not observe reasonable decorum and can request decorum and assistance of law enforcement officers in the removal of a disorderly person when that person prevents or disrupts a meeting with an act that obstruct or interferes with our meeting the presiding officer may also call for a recess or an adjournment to another time when lack of public decorum so interferes with the orderly conduct of the meeting and can wave these rules when necessary for the protection of privacy or to maintain orderly operation of this board meeting we have a presentation at the top of the meeting um Aaron is going to give us an Ethics presentation and do would you like to take it away Mr Mandel thank you my uh he's just connecting oh I can present right from here that's okay with everyone whatever you're comfortable I okay it's switch for you all right well I I don't need the oh there it is okay so uh good evening everyone again my name is Aaron Mandel I'm uh Filly in for my colleague Ari Schneider who uh prepared these slides for us today I'm going to be uh giving a presentation on board member ethics um the slides are uh that I'm going to go through are really quite comprehensive and it's almost like a whole uh how to be a board member 101 uh but for the sake of brevity uh we're not going to cover every uh everything in the slide I will make them available to the board members uh at least afterwards um and if anyone else has specific questions or uh wants to have further discussions about any specific topic that we don't cover uh in depth tonight certainly um Ari and I would will be available for that uh later um so when we talk about board member ethics it's a lot about what board members cannot do or should not do and uh there's kind of the the obvious uh things which are kind like for instance the conflict of interest uh which there's all different types of conflict of interest uh issues that come up um but a lot of them actually have to do with the limits of board member Authority and board member power um and there's usually a a big area of um confusion when we talk both about board members and especially new board members who first uh come on to the board and also the members of the public um who some and and sometimes there's a a a big expectation of what a board can do and what board members can do and the reality of it is often that the role is much more limited than people uh realize and appreciate so what can a board member do a board member is meant to uh generally there's exceptions but generally to set policy um and to set goals and to oversee uh the administration but not to actually admin the schools themselves not to make the day-to-day decisions of how the school is run um which all must be done by the administration um um uh um so the the board is supposed to create the the plan from a policy perspective the overall goals and the overall um um uh procedures but then it's up to the superintendent and the and the and the uh employees to actually carry out the those goals um so what we often say is that the board memb job is not to run the district but to see that it is run well um so when we the the law as it pertains to what a board member can do uh honestly there's tons there's hundreds and hundreds of laws saying what aboard must do what a school must do but when it talks about the board members themselves and what they actually do there's only certain things that are required um although as you'll see the last one is is definitely a catchall that that that leaves the door open to a lot of others so the official things are include adopting an official seal enforcing the rules of the State Board um making an amending repealing the board's own rule so that's how a lot of the policy is done and then this last one of course is the big catchall that uh you know incorporate so much else but it's the last one is perform all acts and do all things consistent with law um skipping some and necessary for the lawful and proper conduct equipment and maintenance of the public schools of the district um uh so again how does a a board act it it acts through policies and how does it actually do that well it does it at board meeting so one of the areas of FLW law that is often discussed in tandem with board member ethics but isn't actually like the school ethics Act is O um opma the open public meetings act so board members act most of the time during open public meetings by taking votes on and taking official action as as a board as a whole what board members don't do is act individually in almost any circumstance um and and uh carry out the board policy on as on their own away from a board meeting um and the specifics of how the board runs these meetings are is generally controlled by one of the board policies the board bylaws um so where are the board bylaws all the board policies are available online um and the bylaws are in the sections that titled 000000 which contains all the bylaws about how the board actually operates how the votes how it votes how the votes are called for um Etc and generally the thing to remember is that the board president um runs the meetings and generally has a lot of authority to set the uh agenda and what is to be discussed what's not to be discussed and also to control the me meeting moving and to move the meeting along excuse me um confidentiality so as we as we talk more about school me member School Board member ethics um confidentiality is one of the the requirements uh and one of the later slides will look at the exact language but uh the we we see this come up in a lot of different areas uh some key things to remember as a member of the board is uh if it's discussed an executive session it's probably re you're probably required to keep it confidential um if there's a dispute as to whether or not something is appropriate in in executive session that's you know a discussion that the board can have but uh by and large if it is an executive session and the board has made the decision to have a certain discussion confidentially in in executive session the board members are going to be expected to keep that conf keep that discussion confidential and to not um share that um there are some limitations to that what are the limitations one way to think about it and this comes from the school ethics commission but it's uh think about Oprah the open public the open public records act uh which says generally that a the minutes of an executive session for example remain confidential until they no longer need to be confidential so some things like uh student issues Student Records uh are always going to be confidential there will never be a time where a discussion about a Hib or a student matter no longer needs to be kept confidential whereas for instance if it's litigation strategy perhaps after that litigation is resolved uh the need for confidentiality is no longer there at which point some of the information or the meting might become subject to Oprah and once that happens there you know the the the duty of confidentiality kind of follows the um the public right to access uh all right so uh before I mention a little bit how the board acts through the superintendent the superintendent is unique and it's the board's one direct support one direct employee um and and it the superintendent is responsible for enacting all the board policy and Direction um but the board is almost exclusively limited to acting through the SE superintendent uh so the board for instance is not doing performance evaluations of other employees um the superintendent is the only employee that the board would directly evaluate and directly oversee um uh some things that the superintendent is required to do include uh Personnel so uh one of the areas where we see the um the distinction between the board's role and the superintendent's role come up frequently is with Personnel decisions um for almost universally the board cannot uh um make a Personnel move unless it is recommended first by the superintendent uh the board doesn't need to always do what the superintendent recommends but for a lot of the actions they the board cannot initiate it themselves an exception to that would be like a riff a reduction enforce which can be come right from the board but things like employee transfers um the hiring of a specific uh individual those all must be first recommended by the board um before the I'm Sorry by the superintendent before the board can act on it um one of the other significant jobs of the board in addition to overseeing the superintendent is the budget and that's also one of the ways that the board is able to implement its policies um and and have control over how the board runs is by uh controlling what uh amount the money is um available for different items and for different activities uh and overall by by uh with control over the tax levy to some degree um so when we talk about ethics we we talk about conflicts of interest we talk about um a lot of different uh ideas and what but the standard that we almost always measure everything by is the appearance um the appearance of conflict standard so it's not not enough to not for a board member to act um independently it it it what the standard is that it cannot appear to be unethical so for instance if a board member's um brother's business was up for a contract before the board the board member might think this this contract is really you know my brother's business is 100% the best one for the board it's going best deal I really want to support it because I because I think it's what's in the best interest of the board generally it doesn't matter what the board member is thinking or why they act the appearance of a board member voting to give money to their brother with board is not good it it appears unethical it appears like it's uh motivated by conflict so that would be enough to be a violation of the school ethics act so it's and so the and that's in a way is the way that the school ethics commission and the legislature imposes an objective person standard or reasonable person standard an objective standard on these things that we're not going to judge a board member's action by what they might in you know internally feel or think we're going to judge it by how it appears to the a reasonable Observer to a reasonable person um a little humor um but you know when must school when must school board members act ethically the question is of course all the time always um they you know once they take the O of the office they are always a member of the board um so there's two main laws that deal with um um School ethics and one of them is the board member code of ethics which the the citation won't give a lots of citations but this one is the one perhaps 18a call 12-24 is and also 18a call 12- 24.1 those are the two laws that um that we make up the school ethics act and that we talk about one has to do with the things that board members um shouldn't do in terms of uh limiting themselves to policymaking the other one has to do with mostly conflicts of interest and how to avoid uh that um all right so um the uh let see sorry all right so there's a lot of different prohibitions again and these really talk about uh conflicts of interest I'm not going to go through all of them uh for brev you know for interest of time but um I I'll read this one no school official or member of his immediate family shall have an interest in a business organization or engage in any business transaction or professional activ which is in substantial cont conflict with the professional duties of that they have to discharge um and here's when that actually comes up a lot 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 um so why is this one one that comes up a lot a big part of it is that last word others um and the way that the school ethics commission has defined that so there are distinct definitions for things like um um immediate family members of his immediate family um also when we talking about control of a business there's a a specific definition 10% or more uh ownership interest and things like that whereas this word others was left open and the school ethics commission at least initially went kind of um Full Tilt on that and said well others is absolutely everyone and anyone you know and could could be an other for the purpose of school ethics act and it became this like kind of all-encompassing thing since then they've actually gone back a little bit and and narrowed in scope but at the end of the day what it says is that uh it it always returns back to this objective person standard and says that um whether or not it would appear that the privilege being given is unwarranted or unfair um excuse me so one way that this had uh impacts board members often is when they have family members who are teachers or members of unions um if a board member has a relative who works in the district generally they can't be involved in the negotiation of those Collective uh contracts at all whereas if they are a member of a union or they have a family member of a union in a different District um they can have some some involvement um in approving the contract but not in negotiating it um and uh and almost universally a board member relative cannot be hired by the board once that board member is on the board um one of the other areas where we see these um restrictions come into play often is when a board member has a student in the district um and uh sometimes board members end up getting in trouble the school ethics commission when they try to advocate for their student so one of the things that the board member the the school ethics act says is that board members can advocate for their family members without creating a conflict um what if if a board member seeks money from the board even if it's on behalf of a family member usually that's a conflict that that that would require them to um to to give up their board seat but but as long as there's not a monetary component um usually the board member can uh represent no not but but seek um you know pursue like their child's interest for example in front of the board as long as they do so through the normal course and through the normal channels but if a board member has the superintendent cell phone because they're a member of the board and doesn't like what the child study team in one school did and instead of talking to child study team or instead of talking to the appropriate going through the just calls up the superintendent and tries to take advantage of that personal relationship that would be considered an ethical violation and that's one of the things that we often see um board members getting in trouble for um all right so uh that's I'm going to skip over the rest of the code of ethics stuff but um or I'm sorry the conflict of interest stuff and I will spend a little bit more time going over each of these uh parts of the code of ethics um so uh uh what a board member is required to do this is uh includes 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 children uh regardless of their ability race creat sex or social standing um and that's one of the main principles of a board member is that the board member is supposed to always act in the best interest of the children um that's you know somewhat of an oversimplification because we also expect board members to act in the best interest of taxpayers and other members of the community as well but um at the end of the day the board member is supposed to uh Above All Else focus on the welfare of the child and of the student and prioritize that um I will carry out my responsibility not to administer the schools but together with my fellow board members to see that they are well-run we talked about that a little bit before um where do uh board members get in trouble with this so one of one of the areas that I think is a little bit surprising is volunteering um and there's been some interesting cases that have come out from the school ethics commission about board members volunteering and I to me I think some is kind of illustrative of some of the principles Behind these ideas so um Can a board member uh the question was posed to the school ethics commission can a board member volunteer as a member of the PTO and the school ethics commission said yes um so long as the uh the the board member in their role as a PTO is not engaging directly with um School School staff members in such a way that the school staff members might feel like they have to do what the board member is telling them to do um so uh what exactly like which roles exactly are permissible the school ethics commission said that a building liaison a PTO building liaison would be inappropriate or could potentially because they uh at least in this one District that the role of a building liaison uh ire them to be in that building very often uh engaging directly with the principal of the building the other administrative staff of the building which was a problem because the as a board member they're only supposed to be engaging on those types of day-to-day details and things or really not at all in the day day details but um through the superintendent so by having a PTO member as the building liaison there was an improper um or there was a a a chance that it would appear improper and that this board member was having too much of a relationship and a direct involvement with the day-to-day running of this individual building but the school commission said what about a president of a PTO could have and you'd think well if a if the building the aon's too much then certainly the president would be not so the commission said president of PTO can be okay as long as they recuse themselves from issues that would involve direct involvement with anyone besides the superintendent kind of but even that uh perhaps um which will get us into one of the next points that we'll talk about um uh but but they said that generally the president of the PTO is could could at least theoretically be far enough removed from the day-to-day interactions and operations that it could be okay um well what about volunteering in the schools they said uh for instance uh if you wanted to volunteer at a school function and just be there to help students that that probably would be o okay if you wanted to volunteer to direct the school play though that wouldn't be okay because that role would require uh extended periods of time in the building interacting with staff members whether it's the custodians or the other staff who were on you know being paid to help out with the um the the production the theater production and that again would at least appear to be too close of a of a involvement in the day-to-day running of the schools that that would not be okay so um again the the the principle is that you must not the board members aren to admin the day to day schools but exactly how that comes up and how the board member interacts sometimes it's a little unexpected um and uh a couple others I will support important protect School Personnel in the proper performance of their duties so um one of the areas where we uh see these issues come up is social media a lot and social media posts by members of the of boards of Education have led to a whole host of different uh School ethics complaint um one idea is that school board members must not take personal action and they can only act through the board so if a school board member starts speaking um in the public a member as a as a um individual about oh I think the board should do this or I think the board should do that that could be a violation of the ethics Commission because they are not speaking on behalf of the board they haven't been authorized the board by the board to speak for The Bard on these issues um and and instead they are uh they're not confining their um their actions to the board and through the board um what the school ethics commission has said is that if a school board but at the same time a school board member doesn't forfeit their first amendment rights to freedom of speech and to be able to talk about matters of public interest so the school ethics commission said is that board members should put a um disclaimer out and if they're going to speak as an individual and not on behalf of the board they should say something along the lines of I'm a member of the board of education but I the the what I'm about to say is only on behalf of myself and is not on behalf of the board and is not um uh and I'm not authorized by the board to make this the statement at the same time the school ethics commission has also said if you're clearly still speaking as a member of the board on a member of board business it doesn't matter what disclaimer you put on there it's inappropriate for you to discuss board business um in public and to speak privately on matters of bit board business um disclaimer or not um so now that the test has actually moved a little bit away from you have to have disclaimers on everything which it was at one point to now it's more of a objective person standard and uh if if a person would be confused about whether or not you're speaking on behalf of yourself or as a member of the board then you ought to have a disclaimer that says you're just speaking as a individual um okay and uh so before I spoke a little bit about others and how that in that one section that the term of others uh is has kind of led to a lot of litigation a lot of confusion I I'm not going to even attempt today to try to give you know comprehensive advice as to who what types of relationships might cause a conflict of interest and what because it's it's it's would take way too long I will say this which is if you have any questions as a board member about oh I have a brother-in-law a cousin or something that works in the district that works works for a company that we have a anything like that the best thing to do is come and talk to me or come to talk to Ari you know through your board president and I have a question about this conflict a potential conflict and we can look at that that specific issue and give you good advice about whatever that the concern might be um and I I believe that's it um I'm sorry it's a jail oh yeah I mean that's so there there are the the consequences for um board membership or for these violations can you know range from uh censure or reprimand all the way up to removal of the from the board and of course if you know a board member acts criminally um there's potential criminal consequences um okay thank you think that's it thank you very much thank you thank you thank you is there anyone who has questions at this point I know we can ask questions any executive if they're related to legal or Personnel butes are there any general questions from board members on the presentation not about your specific situation we can answer that after but just in general clarifying questions okay okay um the next item on the agenda is just discussion um so I'm not exactly sure what I've never seen that before I did talk to Dr Hibbs about this and I believe we're on the same page but it used to to be um that the regular session agenda was provided at the work session and that item was called questions on the agenda so that we were able to ask questions about what we were voting on next week this week my understanding is that there were two board members a couple board members that wanted that felt that navigating that agenda was difficult it absolutely was because the work session agenda was all the way at the bottom and then you had to scroll up and go back and forth and so to clarify they were separated and so we talked about providing the regular session agenda to the work session next month so that we can ask those questions um and so that's something that we're working through so I just wanted to bring that up to anyone who had questions on that which I had received some questions after the meeting um Callie what does that look like what does it look like yeah so what we used to do um I went back I told you I went back through the old um agendas and I noticed in the summer that that changed and and I think I think maybe it was Connie that asked for the change I'm not sure that's what they I don't know it doesn't matter um but what it looked like is I would say are there any questions on the agenda and people would then have to scroll back up to the regular session agenda and look so that any qu like general questions that they had on things that you had put that the superintendent and the administration had put on the regular session agenda could be talked about in public like this week so that next week that stuff gets hammered out so that's all it was it was okay I I just want to make sure I understand the expectations because it's going to be really hard to have all the Personnel items and everything in a in a in a in a wrapped up in into the agenda you know a whole week prior I mean we we roll right up until the very end on an agenda before we let it fly as in it's ready to go so I just well there with the expectation that there's always going to be things that are added up to the final hour okay yeah absolutely we know that there's things that have to be added but also that there are things that we know that you know that are definitely going to be on there like you probably even know now there might be stuff for next week so that's just all it was but we always they always had to add stuff okay so if the things can speak to it more than me because I wasn't involved in the process but Janine was involved in the process of building the agenda back then so I I'm sorry to to put you on the spot but um yeah and I and I just think again like when we went away from it prior it had to do with confusion as far as which agenda we were on and then um there were some questions sometimes about if we didn't have information or what um things were designated a certain way if they weren't on the agenda in time for the work session but then were added later so sometimes there were like discussions on you know having enough information so I think the key would just to make sure everyone understands there has to be that flexibility but also knowing that through um you know our executive discussions if it's on Personnel whether or not we go back to committees or or stick with Committees of the whole that we always you know try to do our best to answer questions and get information as early as possible um yes and I I mean I would never um want for a board member to chastise anybody for not having oh you're just adding this you know two days before yeah um we don't want that happening or you might have you know standard um for examp just a couple examples from Finance if you have uh joint Transportation contracts tuition you know things like that that happen all all the time obviously they're going to be added with um Dr hibs always does a memo the week before the meeting so that you know we can include as much as we can especially if it wasn't um talked about in committee so so I would just say you know we just have to make sure when we go back like we're all communicating we we always um you know encourage everybody to ask questions especially as as far and advanced as possible because it gives us the opportunity not just to answer but also to give some history you know research you know whatever we have to do yeah that that really I think was the benefit of doing it it benefited the administration if you don't want to do it that that's fine um but J yes policy 164 states that it should be part of the work session agenda which was what made me look to see where it was so that's all yeah Julie I don't know if this is appropriate right now but since we're talking about the agenda back in August the business committee uh came up with the uh a decision to uh talk about the board members getting the agenda on Thursday I know there's an expectation to ask the board members that give give questions and when we get it on a late on a Friday the weekend then we have the we have the you know the meeting on a Tuesday you know we were hoping with the Thursday getting it on Thursday that would give us time to appropriately look at it and get back to the administration and I just wonder where we are on it and how come we haven't done it uh Dr hibs and I talked about that also and he's totally open to doing that you know again it's just moving timelines I think go ahead yeah yeah I think I think it is moving timelines um so you know managing the agenda here is a full-time job if if you don't know it really is so we're working up Bell to Bell um I I I think it's odd and I'll do whatever you want it's odd to have two agendas together I I don't know any place in the world that does that any place I've ever been or anyone that I ever know the agendas stand alone and then you either run through some form of committee whole separate and then you get onto an agenda you don't forecast things two weeks prior to that it's just it's just an odd practice I don't I don't know anyone that does that um so when it comes to like things like presentations yeah we can totally do that you know Julie says you know I want an Ethics presentation boom we can throw that on hey I'd like a test score presentation we can we can put that on if it comes to matters of personnel and things of that nature we're just not going to be there probably at that point and then there just has to be the flexibility of of understanding that we're going to add and then anything big we're going to we're going to run through the board you know in whatever committee structure you want um okay if that makes sense so like if personel we're in the middle of an interview process that might take two weeks that's going to be something that would be added or an example again for business a lot of times in if the the committee week I would tell everybody hey we're opening this bid but it's it's not until this date so I'm not really going to have the information told right before we re release the agenda and just make sure everybody's okay so you know timelines like that where where certain processes take a couple of weeks um I mean if it if you want to do away with that practice we just change the policy and do away with the practice I mean I remember Carol and I were on the board together when it was like that and if anybody else wants to look at um those agendas anything prior to July 2024 was in that manner and it was confusing once we went to board dos looking at it um and so I I realized that that that they were separated for ease of use but anyway just let's see where we can go with that for February we can talk about it um as far as the the Thursday we'll we'll definitely try yes so our goal is to release on Thursday uh to give you to give you the ample opportunity thank you oops thank you um just question about committees because we did talk about keeping the committees as a whole board um and here it says discussion of relevant committee items um so are we still doing the whole board because I think that's a good idea for transparency yes um that was on the agenda was that way when we you know when past couple months and so they're just I'm assuming correct me if I'm wrong that we're just kind of going through it all together the same way we would have in individual committees so you'll see when we go through it when I go through it this time um I'm actually going to well let me know how you think it goes because I made a couple changes to make it a little bit easier to understand okay um but yes it's just divided up that way for ease of use and just to I don't want to spend too much time on this but um if if everyone wants to look into Bill s 3240 I get Google Alerts and I heard that Governor Murphy was supporting this group I cannot remember the name of it 16 something or something 16 vote 16 um anyway it looks like the Senate and the assembly and the mayor U sorry the governor are supporting an initiative to have 16 and 17-year-old students vote in Schoolboard elections just Schoolboard elections hence another reason why we have Miss tal torelli here and this is please look into it um I I would love to discuss this you know I I was floored by this I actually found out about this um Dr Hibbs and I and Mrs Baker and Mrs Blom went to a department of Ed uh school funding talking tour Dr hibb spoke on behalf of the district thank you again for doing that um there were superintendents from Collingswood uh and board members Collingswood Haden Township Cherry Hill all over the place um speaking for I think they had two minutes to speak about changing the funding formula uh people spoke very eloquently and detailed about suggestions on changing it and at the end of the meeting one of a person who used to be a teacher here who now as a business administrator in another District came up to say hello to me and ask how my daughter was and she told me about this so um that's how I found out was that night that's why I was who I was caught up talking to and so I found that to be very interesting that 16 and 17y olds might be voting and I I think I feel I think I feel good about that I don't know I need to look into it more so just for the public and the board members this is something that seems to be coming down the pike um with alerts okay on to school and community relations Julie can you just repeat that law that we're supposed to be looking at yes um well the Senate bill is s3240 so I'm assuming uh and then the assembly bills here too it's a 4369 but if you just I Googled Governor Murphy 16-year-old's voting and like a bunch of Articles came up about it okay thanks so just an interesting development that I am surprised I didn't know anything about because surprised my kids didn't let me know about that um excuse me I have something um just you had mentioned that um you Connie and Pat went to a school funding presentation in the future um if you could consider or anyone on the board if we're participating or going going anywhere as a group it would be wonderful if we could BCC the board and say hey we're attending and then that way we could try to get a little bit more um I'll say camaraderie if I know what's going on and I know a group of people are going it would just be helpful if absolutely Carol I will do that this let me tell you how this came up though um it was the night of National Honor Society it was the same night and it was the same time and so I called Dr hibs and said I feel like somebody should go to this you know what what do you want to do and he said absolutely we're going to be advocating on behalf of the students like I'll go and I'll speak so and we thought it was important for us both to go so you would have had to miss NHS to do that I don't know how Mrs Blom and Mrs Baker knew about it but they showed up and they happened to be there I I didn't send it out to everyone I just we kind of talked about I think we got an email on it that's how I saw I had an email you did from who just from it was it was on our email okay because okay meeting there's one in Pitman on the 27th did you get that email on that Carol no she um the board president and Pitman emailed everybody I did check that one that it went to the whole board and she's hosting a meeting at Pitman High School on the 27th about school no these are these are all great activities don't get me wrong I just think that if we could like divide and conquer so NHS was that night the school funding thing super important so it's just a matter of like in the future if we could just whoever you know Julie I presume it would be you just to kind of say these are the events going on let's make sure we have representation there that's really all I meant by it and it was very interesting too because you heard from we heard from districts that were making decisions I mean districts that are in way worse shape than us that were T I think it was Haden Heights I don't want to misspeak but it was one of those districts that said you know we have four principles for six schools I mean that's they're making really really hard cuts um they were talking about not being able to buy buses if they get a a really expensive special education student um Cherry Hill has been cut I think they said 14 million over two years or something like that and so it was I think it would have been good for all the board members to hear like what other districts are going through at a minimum again I don't know who the email I don't even remember how I found out about it tell it was with the school boards you know how the school boards gives us a kind of um okay an overview because the school boards was involved with the Department of Ed okay at that meeting it was school boards that was I just know I got an email and I I I texted Dr Hibbs about it so anyway point taken if I ever hear about anything like that I'll be sure to send it to the board and check your email for the one in Pitman I think her uh what is her name the board president in Pitman April Miller I think she said and she was there and she's having this event on the 27th I'm going I don't know who else is going um okay now to Mr dilio can you provide us with an update on school and community relations and please the Hogie sale this time I'm sorry about last time can anybody hear me yeah yeah okay um thank you Miss kmle I appreciate it um members of the board we are having our 31st Annual hogy Sale coming up on um Super Bowl Sunday which this year is the 9th of February um it is a very noteworthy cause for everybody who's been in the township understands the importance of it um from year to year we raise several thousand doll for children with um and families with um medical complications or medical circumstances um we rely primarily on pre-orders so that we know um how to disperse it effectively we do um have a lot of volunteerism but we could use everybody's support not only in the room um for people listening at home and certainly members from the board to come out that evening or come out that day um and help us all day long or um certainly talk to your friends to buy a hogy or or just donate it's on the splash page of the website so it's right right now it's right under the board meeting information so if you could do that and any way you can promote that um would be really helpful um also I believe Miss tuso is is here I believe uh the 23rd or the 20 Thursday so on Thursday it stuffed the bus it was originally going to be on uh Gant toown road entrance but now it's been moved to the core because of the weather um and um we are uh getting um things donated to them as well um also want to call your attention to our uh leadership podcast that we have we have um five episodes currently published um it's on our WTV where you're watching this board meeting U Mr lined and the principles have been very instrumental in that what we're trying to do is pick a renowned staff leader and then in turn that staff leader picks three individuals and we just talk about um leadership and we talk about um you know what we're going to do in the future and things of that sort and I know um councilman Del barell has been very um interested in that as well and there have been talks with with him as well so I just wanted to to um make a shout out to certainly Mr linstead for organizing that as well um we're going to get about 16 this year um and that's um several several students that we're going to be able to talk to a ages um 8th grade all the way to 12th grade um and then finally some of the board members you had asked about parents Square um as far as if you do not have a child or family member in the district how do you get parents Square Mr Otto um one of our Tech integration Specialists worked out a tutorial we are prepared to give you that tutorial we're ready to go we just need to coordinate um a date and time to be able to train um anybody who's interested thank you thank you Mr okay um Julie one second before we move on because I'm new and I really have no clue if I wanted to talk about how great the thesbian Festival was over the weekend would this be the time or no sure is it sure cuz it was it was awesome it was explain what it explain what it is too the thesbian Festival is a collection of the entire state of New Jersey and some of Delaware lesbians are our drama students our singers our actors and they compete in a in different genres of drama so for instance my daughter competed in monologue and there's also workshops that are put on by people from Broadway and other theaters around the area and um I would love to have Mr Stefan here to give a presentation on it because he knows way more about it than I do and actually one of our seniors um Violet won for this whole state of New Jersey in the thespian Festival so I would love to have Mr Stephan here miss Kate to give a presentation about it because it was really it's something I've never seen before we hosted over 1700 kids at our high school and it was pretty amazing to see all the talent that we have it was pretty cool I uh it was amazing so I I stopped by around 9:00 on Saturday and if you can picture the rpac the entire bottom was filled with children and they were all um you know all of the uh the leaders of each troop were on stage when I was there and they were all doing their shout outs um and then they did different different activities throughout the entire day it got cut a teeny bit short I think due to weather on Sunday but Mass shout out to Mr Stephan he did a great job and his entire team and also Mr klano was there um was there everybody was there he did he won for something Mr C yeah something a leader oh that's awesome he won leadership award um we can put together a presentation on it let's put absolutely do a presentation on that but also was that on parent Square do we know um I I know Mr Stefan had it all over his parents wear and I do think the district put it out too but it wasn't really like an open to the public type of thing it was room it was for them right I mean after the fact maybe like just to celebrate the winners and the success of the event is that or do a press release or something we definitely we can definitely Splash it too okay thank you thank you for mentioning that okay um now we're in Old business I have one item for old business but does anyone else have old business that they would like um just real quick I want to shout out to all the students um that were inducted into the national Honor Society um I was really happy to see that this year the numbers of people young adults that were inducted because in the past I've gone to every single one and there was that one year where it was such a small group it was very disheartening and this was just amazing to see all these young adults being inducted to the honest Society so just a shout out for that thank you back yes um so um first sorry I'm trying to share like I'm sharing my doc with you so you get the comment about the splash page stuff um so I want to take a sec I I attended both so I we really you know and thank you to everybody who went um you know I know um Julie you were there Pat you were there con you were there um those are the three right that we had there and then Carissa thank you for coming with me it was awesome um so what I'm talking about is we were advocating for changes to the school funding formula for those of you that don't know uh the formula is is is really an Antiquated mess it's uh it dates back to 2008 and and part of part of my message um really was that the current systems that exist Force districts like ours to cut budgets year after year after year without really any any thought to the the the the concepts of costs that rise the rising costs of transport utility special education uh security um you know every District talked about the fact that they're having a hard time with capital projects uh they don't have enough money to to to do the extra things that that truly make make life special I talked about how when when districts are are put through their Paces with having to cut the first things to go are are important subjects like foreign languages our careeres the Arts uh all marks of just a well-rounded education these these activities they ignite passions in our kid and our kids um I made a a very I think sound point in saying that with 155 million general fund budget million dollar budget that we have about 1.2 million in capital for a district like for like Washington Township uh that's just nowhere near what we need uh as of right now we're going to leave Rod grants on the table that means that we're going to leave a 40% um give from the state if we can fund the 60 so I spoke about the consequences of in action um because you're seeing the the fiscal cliff that everyone talks about is absolutely here so if they don't figure out how to properly fund us we are all going to cut year after year after year and one of the most poignant things that was said there was full funding does not mean adequate funding and that was really a powerful message because you know if you give someone who's starving a small piece of bread and say that's enough you have food now it's not enough and and that's and that's where we are and that's where we're going to be um year after year if they don't unite and hear our message and hear that they need to make real changes to to go back to a formula that was designed in '08 you know none of us would would really go to a doctor that hadn't updated his or her practices since 2008 we wouldn't even think about it right but yet they're funding the exact same way which is just not acceptable they were very respectful they heard the message but you really heard time after time from from very large districts how they're getting cut so that was that and then we I had the pleasure of running back to the high school to see and we had so many kids this year that I actually went there I think it was from 6 to 8 right 6 to8 made it back to the high school and the seniors weren't even done yet um right seniors weren't even done and for those of you that don't know our National National Honor Society is amazing because our seniors get to pick a staff member that has made a difference in their lives and then the staff member gets to court them and then the student writes why and then the staff member courts and I you know Mr destio had the honor of of being on stage to being someone's most memorable person which is not shocking because he's totally memorable um and then we had all the Juniors so it's just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of children and you left a place where we're advocating for kids to go back to something that celebrates our kids which was just truly awesome so I want to make sure that was it was a great day how many how many kids really were inducted a lot hundreds lot oh really usually it's like 188 or 200 no we don't have a number I I still have the program at home yeah over 200 over 200 oh great awesome thank you Mr Anderson thank you Ray was Ray and his team were there too don't want to leave Ray out Ray did a great job speaking um did a great job with introduction so good job there everybody thank you okay uh any other old business yes go ahead uh at last meeting I brought up uh Cherry Hill and their initiative to try to draw people from the community to substitute uh we all we also added uh college students we have a lot of college students here in town Township and uh the administration said they were going to look into it and they were going to contact Sher Hill and I just wondered you have any update for us SE take it yeah Conor you had mentioned um you know the Zone PTA at Cherry Hill um having worked in Cherry Hill before I'm very familiar with it so the Zone PTA think of um a representative from every school in that District comes together um you know for a a meeting um as a collective group for the district um what they did in this particular article that you referenced they had a rep from ESS come to that meeting to meet with a own PTA members from from all 12 schools in Cherry Hill um they talked about the need for the increase in in Subs um Z PTA there agreed that they promote it you know within their schools and um try to get community members to come out and and be Subs particularly parents um you know it's something that is interested and willing to do with us if we want to amazing awesome yeah I like like to say Cherry Hill was one of the districts that was at that meeting and I did talk to them and I just wondered um I haven't heard much about it I wonder if we still have it we used to have a president's Council the presidents of all our pto's used to meet with the superintendent does that still happen it does okay so is is this something that maybe we want to emulate that to kind of work through our PTO to do this we can certainly ask ask them to partner for sure absolutely right great okay okay great thank you um everyone W received an update to the bringing government to the people proposal that I distributed at reorganization and um Mr Walters Mr dilio and um Mr linstead got together thank you guys very much for taking the time to do that and they got back to us with some information and I just wanted to send that to everyone so that you knew the logistical um concerns and not to speak for my I mean he said it's all doable we can do it we just to be aware of things two of the things that I wanted to pull out that I saw to be the most important items to address and for the public to know about one is um certain schools if well they need to get in there to set up I'm just going to be brief they need to get into set up AV chairs and things like that around 3:30 so if it's in a if it's in the allpurpose room and kids choic is there then Kids Choice can't be there that day they would have to go to the gym so it's for each Elementary School it's one day a year that they would have to do that and again it's doable they would have to communicate to the parents the new location and pick up um the other thing the other thing that I not that I thought was important to note um other than the setup and the work that would have to go into people doing that um was where did I put it oh uh actually that was it that was the only thing um is there anyone who had any questions on this update that I sent I let me go over it real quick just for the public if you want yeah yeah so let me just tell the public kind of what it was in there okay so we would every month they would have to assemble tables and chairs and tablecloths and things of that nature um 100 chairs for the public these are apparently stored under the stages and so so on but some might have to be brought in um there's other concerns like make sure the HVAC is up and running depending on the weather that really shouldn't be a big issue the school's going to be open during the day um that's if it's in a cafeteria if it's in a gymnasium then in addition to the TV cuz there's screens in the cafeterias um if it's in a gym then we would need to bring in drop screens and portable projectors we might only be able to project onto one screen so I appreciate the gentleman's attempt to exactly duplicate what we do in this room but obviously we can't do we're not going to be able to exactly have like six screens um showing everything but we will have one screen you know that people can look at I think it's worth it to go out into the community um and to have the schools help promote this so that we can get more folks coming out to the meetings and showcase the schools a little bit more um and the staff so that that's it for the update for the public now questions that you have I just have one question so if you were hosting it at the elementary schools is it going to be open to the public yeah okay I just wanted to make sure because the numbers I'm just thinking about um like TJ it's a split you know with the lunch area is in the gym they do have the thing that goes across so I just wanted to make sure that it's going to be open to everybody you mean like an audience and stuff a public meeting yeah yeah okay yes just want to make sure it would definitely be a public meeting I just have one question would it be possible to make sure that the meetings are scheduled when there's not a park and wreck event only because Park and wreck works really hard to schedule Sports schedules and it would stink to go in and tell them well no you can't have it now because we're having a board ofed meeting is there a way to work around Park and wreck I think that if it's I think there was only one school um Mr jilio if he can answer I don't know um I think there was only one school where we might have to have it in a gym right the other five we could do it in a c in the allpurpose room/ cafeteria so the gym would be the issue I think but I mean at a be obviously yeah they're going to make work with Lisa Collins on that perfect so I have something real quick is it possible we can get all the information that you have before we I'm assuming we're going to vote on it I don't know what the if there's financial implications I just have no idea um although I don't think it's a bad idea in theory certainly I just think that the position we're in right now I wouldn't want to cost the district additional Monies to do that right now it might be something we can consider in the future but I just completely agree it doesn't there's no additional cost that that's what came out of it and I so can we have that information though yeah I put it in the Google classroom and I email it to everyone are you getting emails from me that's like the second or third you did you have the cost in there no there was no additional cost even though they're coming in early to set up anday late stay late well if they have to stay late for overtime you would have to pay overtime but that would be like past 11 o' but there was what oh Mike okay that was but there was no cost was the cost yeah there was no cost Mike thank you so based on kind of what we talked about yeah it is it is doable however it would cost us $1,394 because that would we would have to have a two-hour swing for a custodian because while the custodian is setting up there has to be somebody there that can clear the area too for them to prepare for the next day so we can set it up there was talk about what to do and how to transport things all of that can be done but there is a cost to it okay could you say that again because this is this I don't you didn't say that when we talked about it so so I I put in and miss example I put in on the letter that we would have to pay overtime to the custodians of about 2 hours so 2 hours is $43 and or one hour is $433 * 2 is 8662 * 12 would be 13944 total for the year correct $1,300 okay all right so there you go 13 it's actually $1,300 the other thing is that's just custodian that doesn't include Mr Lind Dead's tvav stuff that we have to move his what his TV a stuff that we have to move all of that stuff that's right there that has to be assembled and put in a van and moved over there's a cost associated with that there's there is a cost because it creates extra hours for Mr linstead I thought well we can't talk about that but I thought I didn't know salaried employees had extra hours so I guess I just cuz it sounds like things are evolving as we're talking about it is it possible we could just get all the information and then the meeting maybe we could just talk about it and vote on it just so like next week yeah whatever yeah it's not even on the agenda tonight so we can put it on for next week if we could get all the information that way we understand you know uh even that small amount of money you know what I mean I just think everyone should be aware before we and we what we would need to figure it out by next week just to get it on the schedule and send out the Ann but yeah I can put it on for next week awesome there was nothing on for voting tonight it was just discussion no cool thanks but you you wouldn't wait yeah any anything else okay any uh okay so can I get a motion to open to the public motion second second all in favor okay Mark Mark what Mark Eberly hello my name is Mark Everly what else did you need from me I live in Su my son goes to uh Whitman Elementary School we love Mrs Fox and Miss shimo by the way um I'd like to request for the board to if you guys can please see if the town can put out animal friendly salt at the schools as you see I've got a companion with me that's with me 24/7 and with the salt that you're putting out I have to wash his feet 10 times a week thoroughly or it causes Burns dryness and cracks um I run a nonprofit I've given 125 service dogs to disabled veterans in New Jersey 15 are in new 15 are in this town so if they have children like I do they're dragging their well the dogs are dragging the veterans with them and we're just like the salt out front today I just had to run him to the bathroom I'm like oh God and I know you don't know till you know and I didn't know but I did call and I did ask and they told me no know it's not pet friendly or animal friendly salt so here lies my dilemma do I just kick my son out the street let him run to the school or do I walk him up that was one possible that was one problem I had now right before October and I apologize if I get emotional um it was right before Halloween a teacher came out to me at I was picking my son up like I usually do at school and she walked up to me turned around and talked to the police officer and I said to the parents I was like oh God I'm in trouble because I was that kid I just knew so she asked the police officer to ask me if I could move away from where I was because there was a kid coming out that's scared of my dog and I said well if she would have asked me I would have moved because I'm a parent and I'm a human but now that you asked I don't have to CU the American with Disabilities Act is clear but since that happened and you know it's it's pretty hard for me to drag my butt to your school with my dog because the day after I believe the two days after that the principal sent out an email to everybody and changed the pickup rules that no one's allowed on the property until 3:15 for children's safety I call it the mark Everly rule but my name wasn't on it so but when I did go back to pick my son up when that email went out I was surrounded by a bunch of parents with that email in her hand I came to this building and I believe Dr you were the one that came out and sat with me for like 45 minutes when I wife well I blacked out that day I don't remember having that conversation I don't remember being here I the whole time I wound up in a t I wound up in Glassboro where I grew up at a field with some police officers in EMT after I came out of my funk all I wanted to do is pick my son up with my dog I go to the schools and I do a lot of public speaking with my dogs there's two kids at that school that are fearful of my dog that I know to stay clear of and I do give respect if there's allergies which I don't have to but the email went out and said I'm not allowed on the property till 3:15 well there's a problem Whitman if you're familiar with the school you're looking at the school to the left is the handicap parking where I have to park there's buses and everything if I can't get on the property till 3:15 I can't get around the buses and get my car in that spot and then walk to the other side of the building to get my son out I have minutes it takes me about 20 minutes to walk 15 20 minutes to walk down by the time I get going so I don't really know what to do how to pick my son up from school without causing fear there has to be a solution of some kind like can I come on the property early I'm not allowed because the email went out just for our school only we can't go on the property till 3:15 for the children's safety so I'm at a crossroads right now with I love your school I love everything I don't want to put my son on the bus cuz he doesn't like it so I you know I didn't have an option as a kid we just did what we did but I'm broken I'm a broken human and going through this is not fair it's not fair at all and you know he helps me he helps me every day and for the teacher that knows me I'm not going to throw her under the bus I'm not that person she knows she could have just said hey Mark can you take us I wasn't on the sidewalk I wasn't blocking anybody I'm just thrown because of it because I love I love the town I love the school I love the teachers but the disrespect and not knowing I even called here the day it happened and said let me educate the Educators I do a ton of public speaking I speak at row and I speak at big businesses about the American Disability Act and discrimination against disabled veterans like myself you're allowed to ask two questions is this a service dog what job or task does this dog do besides that I should down so with the 3 seconds left thank you for your time and again I love the school I love shock we have to stop with that Bell we have Mr Everly thank you for your comments since it is sort of a onetoone issue I'm Dr Hibbs and you will yeah have already talked I think and we'll talk we haven't spoken since this happened yeah I I didn't aware that there was still an issue with the 315 happy to help you on that we can we can work I'll give you a call Tom if we're allowed on the property like to when I pick my son up tomorrow do I go to the school at 3:15 if you want to hang out after the meeting cuz we can't the policy says we can't do my time's up or he will I'll come back to your next meeting and we'll revisit it well let me just let me I can I can probably answer very quickly um a I'll call you I'll call you tomorrow and we can talk about the 3:15 happy to help you work that out not a problem the salt is is trickier because the salt that you buy that's pet friendly is is is so much more expensive than that we so let's see if we can up with some Creative Solutions to both I'll call you so if I could real quick um so Mark a fellow glbo High School alumni we are together um I I have to just make a general statement to say I'm really sorry that that happened um and you know if you could in the future do some kind of an education because I see you a lot on Facebook and you do a lot of an amazing work thank you and I really appreciate it and so seeing you here tonight was like a nice little flashback yes but I am sorry that you were treated that way I'm just making a general statement thank you we don't charge for the speaking though I bring a couple veterans and our dogs in and we just educate like educate the Educators because it's an awesome event and everybody gets to pet the dogs at the end thank you Mr Everly Mr uh say something keeping in mind the public Connie Connie and Carol I just want to keep in mind the public comment policy 167 is that I'm the only one that is supposed to be talking to the speaker so just real quickly though I I think it is then I would like to revisit that policy because in a case like this I think that we as board members if we want to chime in and voice anything at all you can but you just apologized on behalf of a staff member no I didn't I said I'm just making a general apology I did not say anything about a staff member I don't know any details behind it this is the first time I've seen Mark and probably I don't know I don't want to date myself 30 years I'm I'm not making a general apology about a staff member I said I said am making a general apology that that is what happened so I don't want to also totally stifle I appreciate the policy it's my dog he causes all the problems so I apologize it's not you at all please I just need all the board members to read policy 167 okay well they don't want to put the district in any sort of legal um position comments are always welcome but this is the policy thank you Mr Arpino Jim Arpino did you get my can I go now okay no I look that just going to get V right away good evening how you doing Jim Arpino Washington Township um you uh on the agenda tonight it says you're going to vote on policy the first reading of policy 9163 sorry okay it's great because I'm I read through the policy tonight I had something else to talk about which hopefully I'll be able to get to um I'd like for you guys to as the board to examine putting what you have in this policy into your policy for people speaking at board meetings cuz it says in here that you can't use abusive language you can't verbally harass an official um you'll be asked to leave you'll be restricted from coming now I know a lot of you like to cover this with the First Amendment which I do believe in um my issue is the use of derogatory language from the public towards women um I want to know how as a school district we allow members of the public to come up here and use derogatory terminology that the Mariam Webster dictionary specifically says is derogatory towards women I've noticed a member of the public sends a lot of emails I don't need to say his name um he doesn't need attention uh where he called former staff members clumpy about their looks or whatever further I saw a board member get an email where she was told to shut her blank hole that is blatant sexual harassment as a school district you're right and a public body you have to follow First Amendment rights sexual harassment you don't have to follow as a parent of a male student and a female student I want to know why my school district is not standing up and saying something why is there not not a speech from the superintendent or the board president or any board member that this is not tolerated cuz the next step I asked my daughter how do you feel about this because when this gentleman said me emails uh my my kid didn't sleep for a couple weeks so our plan is this is we're going to contact the press and the Press is going to come here and ask questions on why the Washington Township School District allows sexual harassment of women to go on in its public meetings over its email servers and then um luckily my daughter has a little Community organizer she's going to organize a bunch of students to come here with signs with the same word that this gentleman uses the same terminology in his emails and further I know for a fact that these emails right now are being passed amongst the student body and they're appalled that the rules that they fall under as students are being allowed to happen because according to your policy for your first reading you can't do this at a football game but you can certainly send an email or say it at the board I know some of you are limited by your position I can fully respect the Constitution and the First Amendment right but I think we're in a little slippery so slope when it comes to harassing terminology for women if this is the example in 2025 that we want to send as a school district to our students we don't have to worry about rankings at all cuz we have failed with that being said um am I allowed to talk about anything else or just what's on the agenda okay I can come back you going to have a second one yes okay I'll come back for the second one thank you thank thank you Mr Arpino for your comment um Raymond w Raymond w hello so um my name is Raymond was so um I was just looking over before I came in today just on certain things that were on the I guess the website through the board and I know that we do have goals on our on our page and stuff but they reflect from last year and not this year so I don't know if you guys are updating them at all and having it be concise to what the philosophy is for the new current board that we have on top of it the board beliefs because I feel like there's that doesn't say anything if it's been updated and stuff there's no date there's no validation of when they've been updated so I don't know if you guys are going to reflect and and updated with your goals so they're in line because some of them they are in line but some of them are just they talk about staff and faculty on one end and then the other doesn't so when is that going to be concise but also I know we have a mission and that's been the last time it's been updated was back in 2018 and stuff in November so I know that I love the mission our district Mission but things evolve change and everything else in education and we're seeing that in our future eyes as we see it and we got to evolve so I don't know if we are going to evolve from our current mission to make it more through progress and making a change for our students since we do have that and I love it still but I don't know if we are considering updating it in the near future and also besides the statement that I have on my card for the union and the address um I know Phil Murphy has mentioned a Statewide cell phone ban 3K through2 when he was discussing it during his address so I just want to bring that to your awareness that he was discussing that during his address to to our legislators of our state so I don't know what the ramifications are going to look for that because students do use their cell phones throughout after school activity or throughout the day to get reminders or whatever it may be so I don't know how that would look for our district and Statewide so that's another thing and then also hearing about our person that previously spoke and had his Ada be violated wow like I'm utterly shocked to hear that when that should not be happening in this District because I know that is a core value for me to have that be respected and just knowing that hurts me and wow just simply wow to hear that from a school to change that quickly I don't know that's just really shocking and just hearing it and having something that I created at my University to have a disability Student Union to fight for the rights honestly I'm going to be transparent we had a student on our campus at Rowan who has who is visually impaired who's blind and who has a service dog to be there on campus he literally not too long ago got ran over by a car and lost his pet and was not able to come back to class he was petrified he was scared and everything else not able to go to classes do everything and it was a lot of ramifications because of that because the dog got injured in that incident so it's like we have things to work on I know for me as someone who works at Rowan my goal is to make that change and make that awareness because that's unacceptable but we need better safety precautions for that reason but also for here knowing that's a problem it would become a problem more further if we don't handle it sooner so I'm being honest please please talk to him and I know you will but that has to change has to and I don't like seeing that start for 2025 unfortunately thank you Mr was uh I just want to comment one thing on that is I think most of us have probably heard about the cell phone ban uh I've been reading comments they're all over the place for the state I am interested in test taking the temperature of the folks in this town about that so duly noted Mrs Leni Nicole Leni oh and we'll update you on the go process with the goals later uh I had a question about the electronic surveillance in school buildings just specifically I had mentioned meetings ago about looking into cameras in classrooms starting with the MD and special ed classrooms if it can't go into the full District yet I have done quite a bit of research and there's a bunch of other parents that have done research and they're at the meeting it was said that off the top of your head and I can't remember exactly who said it that they couldn't think of any District around here might have been Ari that had anything like that on our research we found quite a few of districts local to us that do that do have cameras in the classrooms either in all of them or special Ed um so at that meeting it was said by the board that it's something that you would look into um with surrounding districts the cost of it and look into something to bring here to Washington Township so I'm curious to know has anybody actually looked into that have you done research into other school districts that have it and where are we with bringing it to Washington Township I I I would hi Nicole um love to love to know which districts you guys found if you could share that that'd be great um so I I don't think that um my recommendation would be to put cameras in the classrooms I think it's a slippery slope um Annette can absolutely reach out at our superintendent's round or at our at our special ed Round Table okay why don't you ask there and we can bring that back to the entire board and we can talk about it ask cler County where anybody is happy to do that as well um but that's that's we haven't gone anywhere with that just to be honest thank you Mrs Leni uh Randy Ford Mr Ford uh Randy Ford I had a request for a potential agenda item related to uh Dr hibs statement about school funding formula so kind of want to see if the board could consider some sort of resolution or letter of support or something that goes to Governor Murphy Senator morard he was here at the reorg on January 7th um asking requesting that the school funding formula be looked at I know um Bush Law Group I think they're the Council of record for Tom's River that sued the Department of Education not looking to spend any kind of funds like that um but at the same time and I know it's not political but you know Governor Sweeney who's been a big advocate of changing the funding formula just got 250 Democrat El officials to agree to his Governor's campaign announcement or support um whether we take this letter of support and go to superintendent roundtables whether we go to Pitman High school at that next funding uh event on I guess January 27th not February 27th um and ask other districts who we deal with Cherry Hill right Miss Baker references quite a bit uh Haden Heights you know and kind of take this and see how many other superintendents how many other boards of Education we could get on board and that actually does something it's not just you know no disrespect to Dr hibs but just going to one individual meeting it puts it in front of our legislators our elected officials who have connections Statewide that can try and push this and we're giving them the ammunition hey I have my biggest District in Gloucester County pushing for this or the fourth legislative district so that's my request it doesn't have to be tonight um but obviously sooner the better since we have the budget shortfall and everything else that's coming down the pipe so thank you thank you Mr Ford um I can tell you that I have oped the um transcript from the event that we attended because there were so many good ideas that were presented by people from other districts in even community members U remember the one guy that did reverse reverse an he used an AI to reverse analyze the school funding formula and there was no way we could write down everything quickly enough so um I want to get those transcripts and we have always met with um well he was assemblyman Mori Ari at the time uh Senator Madden and um and assembly assembly woman mcara we always met with them in the past about around budget time and the interesting point there is when Senator morard was an assemblyman he was the one like leading those conversations because he actually knows he's a legislators that that knows his legislation so I'd be happy to make a meeting with them usually it was um I think well back then we had a business committee but at a minimum you know we can go and bring the transcript and the ideas that's a fantastic plan thank you sorry Ron lucarini this isn't what I came to talk about but um just just to know Mr Everly I empathize with his concern but I don't know where that was an agenda item okay and um this is the first time that I've come to a meeting where people who get up to the microphone talk about something that's not an agenda item and they talk for five minutes but anyway that's the double standard that's applied uh when you have a school system that I contend is and I'm going to use the term political whouse I don't believe that term is is a sexual I don't think that's you have to stop please stop I don't have a gavel okay so my concern that I came here to talk about tonight was ethics or ethical Behavior versus unethical Behavior Uh and ask some questions to the attorney because some things might be legally uh ethical but they still might be wrong in terms of how the public perceives them right is that well that's right can't answer that but uh I want to give you a couple examples sir and then you could uh comment afterwards and tell me whether uh while why these things might not have fallen under the ethical and unethical um um description they were probably wrong and this actually happened in Washington Township and I was involved in it a uh former uh well he's still a teacher I think in the district uh was working part-time at a at a position in the district um he applied for a job in his field and he didn't get it and someone from outside the district got it who later he found out was uh the the principal who did the hiring and the recommendations was friends with his father through some basketball officiating or whatever the young man at the time decided that he wanted to file a affirmative action complaint because he was a minority and uh before I took the case or whatever you want to call it we went to a real lawyer who was more than willing to pursue a lawsuit against the district or whatever you might call it but first we gave the HR person the opportunity to react to this young man's complaint and the HR person listed Seven criteria that were used in evaluating uh the the person for that particular job I was amazed because five of the seven the person I was representing had the person who got the job beat so to speak one of the criteria was impossible for for the person I was representing to carry out because he was part-time and the last one we took a guess and claimed that our guy had a higher cumulative average in college than the other candidate and the HR guy admitted that even though we weren't sure of it at the time uh when we didn't accept the HR guys you know reasoning we left the beeting or we were about to leave the beeting and the HR head decided that he wanted to go back and talk to the superintendent who just happened to be in the other room after he went into the superintendent came out about five minutes later and he said the superintendent wants to talk to you Ron me not the person who got shafted out of the job okay went back to the room and he said he's got the next job and then he explained what the next job was going to be how one person was going to retire and uh somebody was going to be shifted from the middle school over to an elementary school and he would get the next job I believe that while there might be uh an Ethics charge there that would not stand up in a court of law maybe most people would say that's wrong because of eventually that job did come open and he did get it but what about all the candidates who were interviewed for that job thinking they actually had a shot at it right that's wrong whether it's ethical or unethical it's wrong so there's a lot of things that go on that uh are wrong but not necessarily officially unethical or ethical in terms of the legality there's your timer thank you Mrs Cole I'll be back can I have a motion to close to the public so move a second second I think that was Mrs Clancy and Mrs Chilla Oh Linda was it Linda sorry um all in favor okay um switching anything okay um just switching up two things um on the agenda G and H because there was the report of the superintendent which was Hib and it said committee reports and anyway M uh Dr hibs is there anything that you need to say about the Hib no we're okay okay yeah all right so um let's move on to our work okay I'm going to read out for the audience and the people watching Miss tarelli as well um what we're voting on so if we were still in committees the following items would be um I'm not going to make the motion yet but the following items would be um under instructional Affairs so first um we have instructional Affairs the district is seeking approval this is a summary the district is seeking approval of several policies for first reading when we do our policies they go up for a first reading we discuss we vote we send them to a second reading sometimes they make it to a second reading sometimes they don't so these are all up for just first reading meaning they're not going to be approved tonight officially okay so all policies um I I already said that sorry I write down everything I'm supposed to say and then I add lib okay so this is first reading most of the time policy changes I already said that okay oh that's the other thing um most of the time the policy changes are sent to us from a company called stra Esme they manage policy that's the company that we use to manage our policies so when things happen at the state and federal level they know about it they're like a clearing house and they make the changes to the policy send them to the district so that those things are automatically updated for example if there was a cell phone ban or something like that and that was built into Federal or state law they would make changes to the relevant policies which we still have to approve even though we're not necessarily bringing changes so some changes come from stra asme some changes come from the board um anything and again this is for if you're new to this um and you're looking at the policies usually anything that's in bold is well anything that's in bold is the new stuff right anything with a strike through is being deleted so when board members get this information we look through the policy and we kind of skim and look for what's bold and strike through because those are the changes okay so it seems like most of the changes correct me if I'm wrong Dr Hibbs seem like they came from Strauss yeah okay yeah and the only thing that was sorry not like a any other I think that and thank you Connie um I think Sean the only one that that we that we developed school security correct correct yeah there's a handful that are Strauss estim revisions um again we we push them out to the administrative staff who we consider our cour court experts in those areas to bet them are chief of Safety and Security HIV Specialists you know so on and so forth and um yeah as you said Julie you know you see that the B strike throughs that those are updates okay thanks for explaining that so um when the when a um for example I'll give you an example one of the policies states that when principal or design has Reasonable Suspicion to believe that a confiscated electronic smoking device a vape is being used as a Nexus for marijuana or other control dangerous substances or cannabis the principal or design shall immediately notify the superintendent or designate in law enforcement in accordance with the uniform State memorandum of agreement between education and law enforcement officials um so some of these some of those types of changes are what we're looking at in these policies so that said did you want to say something Dr Hibbs um I saw you motioning yeah the only so sorry I just more doc go crazy I I just so did we are we are we on policy now is that we we're on policies yes okay so we didn't vote on the HIV report I don't think well that's what I was asking you did you need to yeah that yeah we definitely have to vote on and then and then in front of that do you want to give the um the you know I think that we have Pam that needs Sean already discussed HR because a lot of HR will happen in executive session because it's not appropriate talk about that in public but I think Pam needs a talk um and then a couple of the admin just about the committee stuff okay so first let's vote on the hi report you got it now I have not seen a hi report so I'm abstaining right this was done everybody got this in December so Linda and I need to abstain everybody else reviewed it so and el el excuse me I'm sorry elain I just always think of you having been here you know the whole time okay um can I have a motion to approve number one under the report of the superintendent the Hib harassment intimidation and bullying report motion oh I just asked for the motion yeah who's making a motion so moved Elaine thank you second okay Carol second roll call please Mrs Bloom M Clancy um I have to abstain because I have not had privy to the report I just got on the board Miss Chilla yes Mrs Haron abstain okay Mr Li Liberty not here Mr Serano yes Mr Ross yes Miss Baker yes and Mrs kazmo abstain did that pass if we have three abstentions okay all right uh moving on like I said to uh I just explained the uh seven policies did and you said did anyone want to talk about the policies so these are policies 1 through 7 under policy and bylaws first reading and Sean is there anything that you need to add for for policy no you know as as Julia alluded to there's a uniform State memorandum of agreement between education and law enforcement officials that was updated recently and um any policies that that impacted you'll see as uh current revisions for for this first great okay can I have a motion to approve items 1 through 7 under policy and via's first reading I make a motion that we do that thank you Mrs Blom can I get a second Mrs shill a second roll call please miss Clancy yes Miss Chilla yes Mrs Hartong yes Mr Serrano yes Mr Ross yes Mrs Baker yes Mrs Bloom yes Miss kazmo yes motion passes moving on to Human Resources I'll just give my little summary here um the district is requesting in this section approval of several items that are in attachment such as employee transfers student teaching appointments payment to staff for their co-curricular activities so like their clubs and things like that that relate to education um approval for teachers to be paid for a six period class and changes to previous agendas it um Administration also seeks to approve tutoring paid through the title One account Title One is federal financial assistance we receive from the state for low-income students so that's coming from state aid not the local tax levy also in this voting section we are asked to approve additional time for teachers to complete work outside of their contract hours changes for hours for bus drivers substitute nurses Transportation assistants and Food Service workers of course we have our resignations and retirements as well as appointments of three assistants and one teacher and there are two leaves of absence are there any administrators that wanted to comment on or give more information about any of that no all right so um you know what I forgot to ask for discussion on the last one that's my bad um but can I have a motion to approve items we will on this yeah one through seven uh one through 27 I'll go back to that 1 through 27 under uh Human Resources wait wait a minute what if we have discussion on we're going to do it we're going to vote first no I need a motion to approve the and I need a second and then we do discussion I'm saying for policy I didn't do discussion Carol motion can I get a second okay any discussion I have a discussion this just might be a fluke I'm not putting any value judging on this but I noticed about three resignation at one of of our support staff at the same school it just might be a fluke I'm just saying that kind of concerned me okay any other discussion um I just have something real quick usually Scott takes care of their retirements I'll just fill in real quickly um so on the agenda to approve we have uh Mrs lenette Heist I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing um teacher at Birches Elementary um she's retiring Jun 30th and she's been here approximately 30 years so just want to thank her and then I have and I apologize if I'm mispronouncing this U Maryann schaper second grade teacher at Birches Elementary retiring June 30th with approximately 23 years so thank you for your Serv thank you thank you Carol well Lori that took care of that L Lori gave me Scott thing okay any other discussion seeing non roll call Miss Chella yes Mrs Hartong yes Mr Serrano yes Mr Ross Yes Mrs Baker yes Mrs Bloom yes Miss Clancy yes Miss kazmo yes motion carries nothing under finance and Facilities we have one item under special education it's approval of the dates for the ESP program extended school year program um for summer 2025 can I have a motion to approve item one under special education still moved second second any discussion okay seeing none roll call Mrs Haron yes Mr Li Liberty is not here Mr Serano yes Mr Ross Yes Mrs Baker yes Mrs bloom yes Miss Clancy yes Miss Chilla yes Miss kazmo yes motion carries thank you um two quick things I I made a mistake during policy and bylaw where I was supposed to say motion for items 1 through 7 first second discussion and I forgot to say discussion but um did anyone have any discussion that they had on the policies you reviewed them okay sorry about that um and then also um Dr Nathan wanted to make some remarks uh about the instructional Affairs agenda sure um just and again because we don't have committees um as we used to the committee of the whole just wanted to make sure that as of next week when we have items on the consent agenda that the board is in the know as to what those items are um so one of the things that uh we are in qac review this year so that's a process that happens every three years or so it's a full review for district accreditation um in the instruction and program section we've already already done our DPR that's our self scoring of the different sections within the qac review um inp instruction program is one of the unique categories in that we can't selfscore all of it um there is a portion that is relying upon our test um not only our proficiency but also our growth um so this year we are in kind of a unique circumstance where we're able to use a waiver process for looking at our results in that one section of inp that again that score is given to us um the reason is that the qac regulations will expire uh June 30th of 2025 so all of the districts like us uh and the others that are in the review process this year they felt uh qac the state felt that it was fair to give us an opportunity to look at what our score would be under current qac requirements and then what it would be under if we were reviewed next school year using that same data but their new calculations um so we did do that process um Miss Gerber and I uh went through a spreadsheet we were able to calculate uh the two different scores um so if we were to use the um qac regulations for this current school year we would receive a 42.1 you need a 40 to pass um the other 40 is actually the self-scoring part so our curriculum documents the uh presentations that we make on our state testing all of the there's there's a plethora of items within qac that we um have to make sure that we're compliant to that we do throughout each school year um so those those we do expect to get 100% on um and with this uh 42 we would get about an 82 which does pass us um however when we looked at if we were reviewed next school year our growth would actually um be weighted more heavily um that's a great thing for us we're growing our students um and we would actually receive 43.4 as our score so um Miss Gerber and I think that it is worth going for that extra point um on qac I think it it um just celebrates the hard work of our administrators our teachers our students and the growth that we do produce in our kids um so we can do a waiver process and essentially what that means is on the next agenda uh next Tuesday um on the consent agenda there would be an application for a waiver um Miss Gerber and I fill out that waiver there's a few questions we can share that questions and answers with the board as well um and we send it to the county and then the county will score us on the qac requirements that go into place in that next school year for this school year giving us that as extra point a point and a half okay um so that that just wanted to let you know what that would be because that will appear on the agenda for next week um other agenda items that you'll see some things are pretty typical you'll see our Field Trip locations so you know as our environments change we want our students to have those great experience um so we add Field Trip locations uh just one example we're adding coals um for a job site uh request for our special education students that are 18 to 21 years old um as Royal Bargains has been closed now so we wanted an alternative experience for our kids you're going to see some other um locations for our clubs as well on that agenda um you'll also see um approve uh on the consent agenda a request for approval for um members through our Title One funding um to be math and and English language arts tutors um also our program of studies will be on the agenda for approval as well um and that's again in timing for our kids to start scheduling um those are the main items that you'll see and we tend not to put items on the um work session as we unless we need to so we'll talk about them at the work session so that they'll appear on that consent agenda the next week thank you okay so thank you so much Dr and realizing too that that's not going to be the full agenda but this is exactly the type of stuff that's why we need to do it um and just some reflective listening so qack what does it stand for again just for everybody uh oh gosh my acronym accountability Continuum okay so we we have to do it every three years for like a different area of the district right or just whole District okay and it it's attached to our state funding it's attached to our accreditation our accreditation so what you're basically saying is a 40 is a pass right now we're at a 42 you want to put in a w you want to put in a waiver so that we can get a 43 based on the new standards absolutely understood any questions yes Mrs Baker um I just was wanted for an update I think last month uh we had a presentation regarding summer school where seniors could take a full English class and math class and then kind of waiver out of with the senior privilege where they would get out of School 10:30 in the morning uh I'm just wondering you know is there any update on that it was there there were a lot of concerns I know I have I have some concerns about that um where are we with that um Dr hibs is it okay for Dr naan to speak on that yeah sure yeah um what I had shared during the board meeting was that we're able to offer uh two different summer courses one is geometry so that typically would not be taken by seniors that would be uh students uh typically going into their junior year some maybe into their uh sophomore year um and also in ela 12 um so that would typically be taken by Juniors going into their senior year um option two types of classes like these are offered by other organizations by colleges students have always had these opportunities we've just never had the opportunity to offer it in District at Cost um our our goal is to hire our own teachers and to serve our own kids here in our High School uh dur during the summer um those interest surveys went out and we did receive interest um we our next phase of that would be parents would be registering and paying um and then we would know if we'd be able to run it for the summer um with our own teachers in our own high school for our kids um these are important especially the geometry course for two reasons um one it can be acceleration for some students who want to take um higher um more challenging uh math classes as they proceed in their High School path way um and also for some students that just needed more time with math um in the earlier years so as a freshman maybe they're still taking um a foundation's class uh because they're just not ready yet and then they reach that Readiness level and we don't want their Pathway to be cut short we want to have lots of opportunities for our kids okay um yes speak and and is that I'm sorry is that paid through state aid or the LA the tax levy it would be funded by um parents who want in the courses they pay for it they pay for it absolutely go ahead Mrs Baker I know in the past that we've not we have not done that was more for kids who have to establish credits that they lost or uh you know summer school classes um the question is a twofold does does the county approve something like that to take a six week course where kids would take it for a full year in school and doesn't the board have to approve curriculum so you we do have would we be voting on this uh we do have curriculum for geometry and for English 12 um the courses run already and we do accept option two courses from outside organizations um other school districts can also run these courses um as well okay does the board vote on curriculum yes we I we do but I think what Dr Nathan is saying that the curriculum for these courses is already established they're just accelerating it so that kids can have more Readiness when they take the actual course so it's like the equivalent of like in the summer like I teach a developmental writing class of 15 week but in the summer I teach it in five weeks so that they can take English comp in the fall it's like that that right absolutely I think part I think part of the concern a month ago and you can correct me if I'm wrong when seniors can take an English class that's a required class okay uh I think thought I understood uh the representative from the wtea state that we have close to 200 or more students leaving every day at 4 uh 10:30 in the morning and by students being able to take this English class it we could possibly even double that amount of kids leaving our building just just wondering if we're get any thought about that okay so I think the question is if they take this course does that count as one of their four years of English and or math it do does it counts as a course um and then they're able to take other electives or other courses that would not necessarily fit into their schedule and for some students with math it would be the only way to get back on a pathway that they could take some of those higher level math courses while still in high school okay yeah probably this isn't the time right now but I'd like to know a little bit more about what senior privilege is I I I've heard that kids that do senior privilege they're they're kids that are going maybe for college courses they're working but then I'm then there's rumors that there's just kids that just they take senior privilege they just they just go home they're not working and they're not going to school and I'd like to just have a presentation on that program and how many kids are involved in it do we check on whether or not they're going to school or they're working or can they just leave at 10:30 in the morning and and then I think the concern was from the representative that once they're able to take this English class we're going to have more kids leaving the building yeah I mean it definitely um puts us in a pickle because it's up to them I think um but I I I am going to give you my personal opinion right now and that is that um this is an opportunity for us to exercise our Improvement science and maybe we do just take this one little problem potential problem of practice and look into it like let's just look into it like how many people I don't know how we know what they're doing when they leave the building we don't know but maybe we can um ask Dr Nathan to look into that or something I don't know Mr Anderson noted how about that thank you okay um any other discussion oh there's nothing under we voted right Lori yes okay um I'd love to know what happens during senior privilege I I once was at mod wash and saw my shout out to my daughter's friends uh I won't say their names they there washing their cars we're supposed to be at work and we're washing our cars okay nothing under negotiation actually Mrs Baker is there anything you can't really there's nothing really to report you okay um can I just real quick on negotiations can I just jump in depending on what it is about because it's negotiation so y I think I'll just make a general statement um because last year I was on the negotiations committee and I want to make sure that I'm not um it let's put this way I want to make sure that everyone knows I'm no longer on the negoti committee I was not selected for that committee this year so I just want to make sure because we did start the process um with the supervisors and the principles and so I just want to make sure that they know I'm no longer on that committee um I probably have questions more for executive session on negotiations and just recent negotiations bring it up Carol I put I just said that Carol I put it on I put it on for exective okay perfect that way we could talk about it just in in light of reason things a th% yes thank you thank you okay um any new business from the board are we going to make a schedule for goals because goals should be made before you work on the next budget yes where's Jay Cuz I can I project now yeah weren't we asked to think of goals when we meet the next time and EXA I think we need a date though yeah so well at the LA at the at the reorganization I did ask for everyone to uhoh send me their goals um no one sent me anything um s yeah Carol I have but I didn't send them to you okay so this is uh where is Mr W still here oh yeah so I put everything into into Google Classroom I can't show all of it because there's a code on there that would allow anyone to join the class and we only want to be the board members um but I made the Google classroom and I put the tasks in there for goals so I saw Carol was able to access it uh Linda was able to access it um any El Lane but everybody else if you could go to that email that I sent you do need a Google account to get in did I know some people Ela at least personal encour yeah there were some issues use mine also personal account yeah I think that we don't we don't use it in the district en we don't have classroom I'm just more using it like just to manage like our workload I don't really know another option other than that spreadsheet that I put up which clearly was not ADA Compliant and also was difficult to follow so with this um thank you for projecting it um for instance I this this is the very first item in there update and set new goals and so my intention if you don't want to do this we can do it another way was for everybody to throw out almost like a wish list of two or three things that you would like to address so I put mine on there to kind of show you you can email this to me you can go in yourself and put it in but I put educate and include the community in our work through a transparent planning process which is this is exemplifying um support and the expansion of the prek program um to get to our Universal number which I know already is a is a district goal so these are kind of like easy ones and have zero budget increase which is a dream so I put those three up just to show you like I don't even know I have other things I'd like to do but I'm just trying to show you so if you want to email them to me or you can go in and add them yourself so I would anticipate having like 30 things in there and if if you could do that before the next meeting then we can kind sus through them and organize them and see like where we want to go so that's so like I said for ease of use this is just a project it so the community can see um send me two or three goals I'll put it all together and we can talk about it next week this is Clancy are you trying to speak um yeah my concern is that the only way I can get on there is using my personal computer and we don't uh you can correct me if I'm wrong um we don't use Google classroom in Washington Township so I don't understand why we're using Google Classroom especially since now we're using our own personal computers I don't think it's appropriate myself if you would like I can just make it a document I can just make it a document that we update that might be the easiest thing and just put everything that I showed um that was in the spreadsheet in a document to me that's like a boring way to look at it but I understand the challenges so and I wasn't able to open the spreadsheet only that little letter and the thing that the other thing with that too is then you guys have to send me all the information to input I wanted you to be able to go in and look through stuff you know what I mean and we can't do that but if you're if everyone's okay with that I can do it that way um just yeah um can I just on a Google Drive yeah but can we do that with our board email yeah our board okay you can do a share Drive yeah if if I remember correctly when I was on the grading um policy group we did have a shared um way to access information and share information okay well then I can I'll I'll put it there I mean I think that's pretty good I brought it up on the 7th and here we are with a better way to do it so that's progress okay thank you Julie yes yes um so the only thing just I think we can set the drive up that's fine we want to be mindful that um and and you can weigh in here so Google Docs are awesome in that we all can work together but if we end up five people in the dock at once it's going to it's going to be an issue I think because we're all doing board business in a document together correct so you would want we would want everybody to send all their things to Julie so she could upload into that Dock and keep it clean would be my thought process basically so it the line is it's it's there shouldn't be a discussion about po business um so uh with amongst five or more members so it's it's there's a gray area in terms of what you're using it for if it's just for everyone to share information but there's not an actual discussion about the the the benefits or the negatives of any one particular I think that's okay even if it's a central location for people for board members to uh share information with the other board members is only not only but one of the ways to think about is once there's a back and forth of of the sharing of the ideas and and an actual discussion taking place that's where we say wait a minute this should is should be reserved for uh an open public meeting so okay what if we what if we um had used a shared document but I was the only one that can make changes and everybody else was just a viewer let's do that okay so I will do that like this weekend um this just again just to go through this again though like this was the first um section which was like pre planning data collection so I did put in here a link to um the equity scorecard that I mentioned where you can look at um some of the data that you know these folks work with if there's anything else that we want to request I would want to put links in there too which in a Google doc if it's I can make it a link so that should be fine um and then that would be like January into February and then the next step would be the um to Mr W's Point too looking at our Mission Vision um things like that and goal development so all of this would be accomplished before the budget good good thank you um any other comments this is really constructive information to help me do this so any other comments I send goals this summer to I have yours my lady yes you s many goals you you gave them to me you gave them to me too and I think you gave me like some ideas from other districts and stuff too I have all that in my cuz I'm not real good with a computer end of it laor already send it I was going to have her again okay all right I'm going to stop now well projecting on that Mrs Baker yes new new business um yes okay uh yeah first I want to thank Dr hibs for sharing uh I believe it was the 2011 could have been 2010 document that we got on an assessment of the administration from the EC at the time e EC obviously is not not uh functioning now but um I'd like to put a motion on the floor that uh the board um entertain an assessment of our Administration and non-unit going into the budget maybe with an through an ad ad hoc committee talk about that um we had a a Community member come up and and say to us that you know we're not doing anything constructive and I thought that that would be a very constructive thing going into the budget to get an independent assessment can I wait can I clarify are you suggesting we vote on forming an ad hoc committee or I think you can only really ask do we have do we have to do a vote or or is that something that you can do as a board president to have to put together an ad hoc committee how how would that work board the board policy um well the bo the board policy says that I can assign people but I don't know how we make it it so often and I I can try to look it up real quick but often the board policy will uh say whether or not uh it's up to the board president to uh form new committees or whether the um board members themselves can do it well would would it be proper to to to have a vote on on the fact of looking into the assessment and then the board president would create the ad hoc committee to do that look into the assessment I'm not sure under in other words they get a board the board to vote whether or not we should consider looking into an assessment of the administration and non-unit going into the budget and if the board agrees that an independent study would be feasible then the board president could make an ad hoc committee you know we would have to look into cost people that would do it I'm just I'm right now I'm just saying preliminarily is that something that we should be proactive in taking that step and looking into it so just a real quick comment cost Factor where in a budget Crunch and if you're asking an independent company to do this there's a cost Factor um that would be part that part that would be part of what we would looked into well let wait let her when she finish elain were you finished talking I'm sorry I I just I just think I mean you can look into it but I'm not for spending money that doesn't have to do with our students because that's what our priority should be let's okay let's do this then so thank you for the policy number oh what was it 155 stating that stating that the it's the it's the president is the one to make the make the Committees both standing and ad hoc so technically under the board policy it wouldn't be appropriate to make a motion to create okay said the board president so I can okay so let me hear what you're saying is this last week we talked about the report from 2011 that's what you were saying okay so we could create an ad hoc okay I will create an ad hoc committee for the purpose of looking into I don't know what we would call it but looking into having an assessment done Elaine I get what you're saying about the cost and I agree would you like to be on the committee Elaine who would like to be on this committee I feel like Carol has mentioned this several times that Carol would be excellent you talked a lot about this kind of stuff before is this is this in line with what you were talking about L time no oh no okay so what I was referencing last time had nothing to do with um administrators specifically um I was talking about in fact I was going to ask the question where are we in terms of the market data for salaries and I've asked that about the support staff the teachers the administrators because we can talk all day long and get all these reports but we really should have Market data to better understand our salary banss and are we Off the Mark are we on the mark and that's what I think we really need in the district because I just don't know how we can even going into budget we can assume a lot of things but if we don't have that data and that information would you be willing to serve on that committee um I don't know what the committee would be because normally that was really discussed in negotiations I think it really should be um yeah it's not negotiations yeah it's more like a survey of like you said I don't know what we would call this committee but just sourcing information about salaries real quick so um I would not be able to do that because there there's companies that do that and that's also a cost right so I think you know Sean uh I was working with Sean a little bit during negotiations when we talked about this this is a question I posed a few times so I don't even know how that data would be readily available for Sean to access I don't know how much work it would be it was a question I posed at the last negotiations meeting that we had in terms of just asking those questions that's not something that I would be able to like you know sleuth around the schools and find out what everyone's paid I don't have access to that data nor I just it wouldn't be appropriate for me to do that I have a question that you are we we talking about an ad hoc committee or an RFP for independent consultant to come in no an ad hoc an ad then that ad hoc committee would have to depend on an an outside thir party to then do due diligence on the let me explain this when we had that study done in 2011 we had we had almost 10,000 students we now have 7,000 students we have less kids than we when we when we spent $50 million expanding our schools I'm talking about an audit an audit of the admin Administration and non-unit I can uh employees and the way we would start it is through an ad hoc committee to explore the feasibility because I agree cost is a concern but I I think we're going into the budget and we need to really be sure that we are operating efficiently okay um can I say something do you mind if I jump in real quickly yeah one of the one of the first thing would I would ask here is is that one of the things you should do is ask me what my thoughts are on this and that's completely absent here just want to point that out secondly um secondly um you know that study that dated back to 2011 you know totally outdated absolutely um you know it's probably going to cost you thousands of dollars to do this so I just want to be mindful in the fact that just for transparency we've cut Administration here year after year um and it'll happen you know however we have difficult budgets so um just for the record we are not administratively heavy we've cut year after year we have people doing multiple jobs to the point where it's actually a strain um so just I wanted you to hear that hear that from me and proceed how you need I think that's one of the pluses of of of an assessment or an audit if comes back and says everything should be the way it is then that's great we answer we anwers to the many people that say we're topheavy I I just I just think it's a proactive stance to do an assessment to look into it first off look into it maybe maybe the cost is prohibitive we don't know we don't know exactly what it is so do you want an audit or do you want an assessment because no I want an audit the the word is an audit an audit have to hire somebody to give it order right right we would have to explore what the cost would be okay so do we need an ad hoc committee for that my question would it be useful not do we need one would it be useful would it be resourceful okay I'm just looking at the email we got about this after the last meeting and the report that we were provided was called a staffing audit so I don't like the way that sounds as an ad hoc committee it sounds scary to for staff but what you're saying is you want to have this committee to look into how much it would cost to do something like this now which could go either way it could show that we have too many people or it could show the opposite that we need to hire more people but either way you're paying to figure that out it's an independent audit yeah and you're gonna you're gonna find that there there and and listen you can progress however you want but you're going to find that we don't have Vice principles the elementary schools and those poor folks you know work 140% you're going to find that year after year we've cut supervisors and directors and that everyone's doing multiple jobs so you it very well could point the opposite direction um of what you you think Joey could could Janine check into prices do you have that ability no I I really I really I really wouldn't um be able to fairly do it without an RFP I I don't know of any other districts who have done it recently that I could could tap into um yeah through RP to to see you know I have a contact for that was given to me that as a consultant with this also the college asking the college Rowan they were the ones that helped the board the last time when they when they came up with IRC you also have the county office Clos okay um can I ask that we table this until next week so that we can all get a little more educated on this okay okay but thank you for bringing it up um okay motion I have one more thing P I'm new remember that okay so bear with me I'm new but we received an email from Dr Hibbs with concerns when do we talk about that email in executive session okay and it's we're going to do it it's on this it's on yeah perfect okay can I have a motion to open to the public sorry real quick I apologize one more I don't know I already put the motion on okay well just real you you referenced um I just want to make sure that I'm clear and maybe I'm misinterpreting it but especially public comments about to open up so I want to make sure I'm clear so I looked over real quickly policy 0167 and yes you're correct about questions being posed by the participant it has to go to the president but it doesn't say anything in the policy that prohibits a board member from making a comment we shouldn't directly answer a question it should go to you for the question but I don't see anything in there unless I'm not reading it correctly which I I believe it states that I have to recognize you so the purpose of public comment is for people to be heard not necessarily for everyone to comment on what they're saying at that moment um that's been how it's explained to me uh Aaron if you want to I just don't see that in the policy where you have to acknowledge the board member to comment so that's why I'm looking for it yeah it's definitely I'll find it I think one um oh no I just ex that uh I paragraph three of that policy I just had it open um thank you uh uh it's it's talks about um that if a if if if there's something that's addressed to another board member it should be readdressed to the president and then the President should decide whether or not it should be addressed by any of the other board members that cor yeah it says um go ahead right 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 member uh so I think that's the part where the idea is that the during the public comment session the the president is supposed to decide whether or not to direct other people right but this says all stat questions or inquiries shall be directed to the presiding officer and any questions or inquir inquiries directed by a participant to another board member shall be redirected to the presiding officer who shall determine if such statement question or inquiry shall be addressed by the presiding officer on behalf of the board or by the individual board member my question not even question my statement was there was no inquiry statement or question I made a comment to the participant and that nowhere in here does it say that I'm forbidden to be able to make a comment it says I can't answer a question it what I what I believe in here sorry I believe the applicable line langage at least the way I'm seeing it and you I could look at it more and get back to you but um it is that the president shall determine if the statement question or inquiry shall be addressed by the presiding officer on behalf of the board or by the individual board member so it's not the language is is that talks about what the board memb is doing isn't the question com it's the addressing it's your the as a board member you are addressing the commenter or the question asker and what I I believe reading this policy now what it says is that it shall be the board the the presiding officer uh who shall determine if uh the the public commentor shall be addressed so it's it's similar to how do you hear me um ask Dr hibs if I can ask a question of the administrators I'm not supposed to direct or ask them anything directly like that's happened in the past I've watched board presidents do that but that's actually not um proper so if I want have a question of Mr Sweeney or Mr dilia or anybody over here I have to say Dr hips and you've heard me say that several times tonight can I ask Dr Nathan this or that so it has more to do with like I guess the flow of um of decorous behavior in in the meeting I'm not saying that saying something nice to someone at the microphone is a problem but um what has been happening in the past and I asked Ari about this specifically one of the problematic things is someone gets up to speak and then someone makes a comment and then somebody else goes well I want to piggy back on that comment and I want to piggy back on this comment and that's not what the public comment is for it's for the public to come up and say things to us that we marinate my word is marinate um that we marinate on so yeah saying something nice is fine I got concerned when you said I apologize for that it it sounded like you were saying that on behalf of the district then we can't do that because he was talking about employees and so on and I know you didn't mean that that was not your intention you were just being nice to him well I also qualified and said I'm generally apologizing that that happened I didn't say any I didn't take bleam I guess my my question was more around number three and the way it's positioned to me it just nowhere in here does it say anything about a board member being prohibited I think me motioning to you and saying hey I have something at that point I would have said hey can you hold your comment or whatever but you know cuz you've been sitting here that someone might say to you hey can I say something and you have no idea what they're going to say so they say something and then that causes an issue so that's why that's the that's the rationale I'm not saying I agree with it or no no I AG want to do it but that's why I don't disagree but we just got ethics training tonight so if a board member wants to put themselves out there and create an Ethics violation by answering it appropriately that's unfortunately you as the president cannot you know you're going to do your best but you can't prevent a board member from saying something that they shouldn't say as much as you want to and you're right I've sat there you can't so it's fine I just wanted to get clarification to make sure I didn't want any board member to feel that they couldn't comment I think that keeping comments to a minimum is best practice but in a case like that I think it was very appropriate for me to at least acknowledge Him at the podium yeah I completely understand and no one thought I said one last thing which is number seven in the policy 2 also is relevant and it also talks about um questions posed during comment shall be addressed during the session at the direction of the presiding officer so again it also says responses to questions posed by a participant during each public participation session there was no question that I was responding to at all I understood understood completely there is a motion on the floor to open to the public so can I just complete that can I get a motion to open to the public someone motion thank you Carol uh second second Mrs Hartong all in favor hi Jim Arpino just have a quick question Jim Arpino Washington Township I have a question about the board meeting or quasi board meeting that occurred before the end of calendar year 2024 in the burough of Pitman who orchestrated the meeting what board members attended said meeting was every board member that was sworn in at the time invited to the board meeting was board business discussed why did you meet in Pitman and not a restaurant in Washington Township thank you I didn't get all of those questions I I thought this said Pitman meeting I thought you were talking about the upcoming Pitman meeting no it's just coincidence that there was a meeting Pitman I got fed okay pitman's a happen in spot apparently okay you want me to repeat them real quick okay who orchestrated the board meeting or quasi board meeting in Pitman before the end of calendar year 2024 what board members attended the meeting was every sworn board member invited to the meeting was board business discussed and why did you opt to meet in Pitman and not in Washington Township okay thank you thank you are are you talk you don't mean a real board meeting you mean like people got together and did something you know where this was we we can't go back and forth he said before before 2024 ended I I wasn't at a meeting so I don't know I wasn't even on the board so D you like am iow Carol do you know anything about this I do I do so I'll answer your question um I don't know if I was necessarily the orchestrator but um it was myself Ralph Connie and Pat and we all went to Pitman to discuss uh nothing having to do necessarily well I have to be careful how I say this it was around conflict Council um other board members were aware as we did let them know that we did get together and meet it was certainly not a board meeting because it was the four of us so we did get together discuss conflict Council so I can answer yeah and the only reason why it was Pitman is because my daughter was performing in a show and I could walk up the street if not I'm kind of I wouldn't be able to do that so that's why it was in Pitman okay and else picked up the check Mr Scardino thank you I'd like the attorney to let me know if at any time I'm out of order please please let me know immediately I had a question about the negotiations report there was no report so I just have a few questions is it true that you have two bargaining units that have expired contracts is it also true that you have two bargaining units that have uh agreements that are about to expire at the end of this year and have any dates been submitted by any of these barting units those are my questions um we can't talk about negotiations but it is true that we have two expired contracts from June 2024 and two coming up in June 2025 in terms of dates I'll kick it to Mrs Baker expor exploring that she said okay okay thank you thanks Rob uh Angela tuso hi everyone Connie you asked about um or Mrs Baker I'm sorry you asked about some kind of a like a survey that want to do I I might be wrong about this so please correct me but as part of njaa when we sit down to negotiate anybody who's been part of that knows I've been on both sides so I know that side of the table and this side um njaa has all of that data that you're looking for it's free they have it they have the county averages they have individual salaries for support staff and W and wtaa administration no we don't they don't have that not to my knowledge I don't know maybe they do but that's something that they have because when we sit down to negotiate we take that into consideration when we sit to bargain we look at what the counties around us you know have we look at what the locals around us have and that's how we base what we ask for so they have that data you can also look at any contract that has been settled recently um I believe there are a few that have been I want to say gler County Special Services is one of them so that's a place to look without having it cost you any money I know it's a lot of leg work but you know maybe that's the time to partner um you know with the unions in NJ I know there's a a level of what you can and cannot say because it it's a negotiation obviously for all of us but that might be an Avenue for you to look at that wouldn't cost you any money thank you thank you Mrs truso it's helpful um Leni Nicole Leni okay um real quick just to touch on the cameras again I know you had seemed surprised when I said that there was uh local districts it was brought to my attention that in a local training recently a former District employee did speak with you Dr Hibbs about cameras in the classrooms it was actually talked about and it was asked for by the Union at one point so it is something that falam orange the arcano Newark and bankr are currently doing other than that um I'm sorry I I couldn't write it um um other than that um just bft the ark Newark fome orange these are just the ones I got in the last couple minutes um but apparently it was discussed at a training that you were at with a former District staff member that spoke about it specifically um in her District um so it is something that you were aware of but other than that side note before I even get to what I'm talking about the Google Classroom that was up there I I think you had mentioned that you created that I did see that as you were scrolling and all the things that were created were from October 29th before elections even happened and I thought that was very strange um just wondering why all of that board documentation was created prior to any elections even being made um but what I really came to talk about was I heard especially a lot tonight about um Miss Clancy said not in favor of spending money that doesn't have to do with students which I love that um I've talked about salaries for AIDS and the lower tier many many times um there's a lot going on in the district about money and jobs and I know Dr Hibbs had mentioned tonight that unfortunately it doesn't look like there's kind of like an end um but I have this piece of paper the appropriation adjustment journal from 24 to 25 October um I'm curious to know if any of the board or Dr hibs or if anybody knows things that are actually being spent um so one of the items on here was from this is all from October 21st one says adjustment budget request from Alexandra Pole to afford the purchase of two more books for How To Succeed given to by Central but need four the cost is $100 the line above that is the exact exact same thing for two more books given two but need four but it says 17,000 so I'm confused on that what really I'm confused on is in the midst of all this there's a line on here that says budget request for two rolling desks so that the principal and assistant principal are able to travel and have more presence in the building $1,300 the line right underneath of that is the same thing two rolling desks so the principal and assistant principal are able to travel and have more presence in the building $118,000 who needs a rolling desk for $118,000 appro uh no no I don't my my name's wrong this um appropriation adjustment journal for 2425 for October 21st I mean if I have it all of you should have it but that's my concern is no one we can't go back and forth we just what is the source of it Nicole somebody gave it to me offline uh School fi School fi is at the bottom um but anyway so my point is is that a couple suggestions as a as a principal an assistant principal if they need to be more freely in the school give them an iPad it's $500 they they don't need a $99,000 desk each in the same building what could go on that desk we have a wood shop ask them to build it you can go on Amazon it's probably $300 I I'm not sure what it is but there's been quite a few people I'm not the only one that obviously read this but somebody gave it to me um and then I kind of looked into it further to see if this $188,000 was actually a cuz there's no dollar sign in front of I said it can't be money like that that can't be what it is maybe it was a I don't know but I got confirmation from the district that it was truly $18,000 so between that and then the 1300 it was almost $20,000 spent on rolling desks um so I'm concerned with this and it looks like all of you were confused that that ever happened so how do all of you sit up here and say you're cons over money but have no idea what it's being spent on th this is what it's being spent on who who looks over this and Alexandra pole requested the purchase who allows that who where does that come from thank you Mrs Leni um one thing one thing I will say is I I board members and I've been I've been working with people on this who don't understand this it sounds like you're reading from the warrant Bill list from bills um on the warrant Bill list and I love getting into that thing like some of us that read everything get into that thing and but not everyone there's no like mechanism for training board members how to read the attachments in the agenda what do the position changes mean versus the transfers what's in the warrant Bill list where can you find how much you've been paying someone that all that stuff so I'm trying to teach people how to do that right now so but you're right I mean people have if that's approved then people voted on those things without looking at it um and that's problematic and yeah you can one other thing the Google thing that I showed you noted the date October I definitely made that I actually made that in probably September and just put it into a Google classroom in October because I believe that preparation when preparation meets opportunity that's where you can you know do some good and I was hoping that I was going to get elected and that if I got elected whether I was sitting here or I was sitting there or even if I was sitting there I was going to show that thing as something that this board should be doing because it was a mess so yes I did make it before go ahead so um I think that the report that uh you may be looking at is the report that's approved monthly and it's our budget transfers so the board of education has to approve all budget transfers um each month and I just want to make sure um so the process is each building has their own budget budget managers have their own budget if they want to transfer money from one budget line to another for for whatever reason if the um the purchase is more correct out of one account versus the other they put the budget um request through and then it comes through the business office because we look for things like you know is the money available there are certain restrictions on um the dollar amounts that you can transfer from one line to another um if I'm looking at the right um transactions and you can come up and talk later and certainly any board member can ask there is on the October report um a transfer from one account to another um and it does talk about rolling desks the, 1300 and the 18,000 that are being referred to is the current appropriation so that's actually the total amount of money in the budget line but the request is for $350 to go from one budget account within that school budget to another budget account um so looks like that purchase was $350 so just to can I interpret you for the Layman yes okay so when we get the budget when the budget is done all these funds get encumbered uh I don't know what other word to use for encumbering funds like if you got $100 and you did the the the envelope method and you put like five envelopes each with $20 that's encumbering the money right so we have like 40 accounts or something like for like we have so many different funds like so yeah so what she's basically saying is there was money in one of them and she moved that little bit into another one to pay for this initiative whether or not that initiative was tied to a goal that the board was aware of I don't know but that's I'm interpreting your financial jargon yeah and some of it like I said when when you do the budget you put the money where you think it's appropriate but we also have to follow um a chart of accounts that the state adopts so all schools use the same account number so it could be something as simple as you budget for something under equipment and then when you actually go out and make the purchase it's not expensive enough to be called equipment so you're moving money from equipment to supplies so things like that happen all the time and they're on um the monthly transfer report um but again I I believe this is the transaction so the 18,300 this particular report it comes from our financial accounting software so it starts with the current appropriation it shows the adjustment so it went out of one account into another and then it shows the New Balance after the transfer is made thank you Janine yeah so definitely didn't spend that much on desks um and and we'll always be transparent about things but I'm I'm massively concerned that people are handing you our our our bill lists out of our system that's just wow oh it's okay good oh okay good okay thanks okay she's yeah she's um Dana zel zosi hello so um I came for two things one thing please God don't waste money on board meetings being moved my son plays parks and wreck we already are limited to like the minute game start we can't practice anymore suddenly these kids are NBA players and they're not so please don't waste $1,300 I work three and a half hours a day in the district I'm trying so hard to get 5.75 I can't even get that don't waste money moving a board meeting the other thing Dr Nathan I did get your email um but I wanted to bring to the board of attention the whatever whoever approves curriculum whatever my sixth grader my sister talked about it before was learning about forget what it was last meeting but this past month my sons already talked to me we had to have a lesson on Medicaid and Chip what's the difference in them what's the pros in them who does it help how does it help them what do you how do you qualify for Medicaid and Chip he's 12 they don't have to know who has Medicaid because now that one 12-year-old who knows he has Medicaid or he has Chip knows that he is now he's getting that because of his income that is the crappiest thing I've ever heard of a 12-year-old having to know that to themselves so that was one thing the other thing within 30 minutes of that lesson that I had I told him we learned about car insurance was to New Jersey premium what's the difference between pip and what do what does Abby have to cover if the C ins this is the insanest thing ever for a 12-year-old and I get that they're saying like when my 22-year-old went to our schools in 8th grade she took a class about stocks and it was a quick where would you put your money how would it go how would it you know would you go up you would you go down whatever I get that so our eighth graders not taking that class anymore since the sixth graders had to do it in sixth grade and also in one day January 15th he had five lessons in one class what did he learn in that class from I can't I'm sorry I have like 3 minutes from on January 15th he did Five Lessons I don't know cuz I'm not the greatest mom in the world my son goes to school he passes I'm happy I it's not I'm he's doing he has a 97 or a 94 in the class I'm not complaining about that what are they learning that he had five lessons in one class what what is the benefit to it and that's my concern about it and I know Dr Nathan and I have tried to communicate CU but it's hard saying that I'm out of the building at 10:15 in the morning um but just something I would like the board to look into like what do these kids really learn in sixth grade instead of language or computers as far as taking a financial lit class he hasn't had to do how to succeed until I guess next next semester the next one I'm not sure um but that was it okay okay um Dr Hib said Dr Nathan will address your questions okay yeah no you're going to connect right oh now no you're you're going to connect with her correct I'm sorry back and forth right he he did say connect I thought you meant now okay sorry about that okay um Randy Ford uh just four things I'm going to try and be as quick as possible uh the first one is is I think some people are talking about executive session going into executive session at the end of this meeting it's not on the agenda at least the ones printed out back there but it sounds like you guys know it's going to happen so it would be kind of cool if we knew it was also going to happen uh the second question I have is who's on negotiations committee I know Miss chill just said she's not but it would be helpful to know who is um also have concerns just around the confidentiality policy for the board and the Google Classroom um you know hopefully we'll get that deleted I don't know if it's another school's account or something else that maybe admin or it needs to help with um just last thing is I'm trying to better understand the role of conflict Council because that has been coming up a lot I'm going to make some assumptions and guesses based on what I've been able to put together from board meetings and minutes and the YouTube videos so RFP 2522 special conflicts Council sometime during the summer that RFP went out to bid I don't have the dates so I can't vouch for those and they're not on the website anymore uh July 23rd 2024 doring new business not on the agenda but it was approved conflicts Council um and it was clear jacobe Alfrey Jacobs um October 15th 2024 in the minutes and this is an excerpt Dorian public portion Miss kazmo came up among other things she talked about was the insurance contract from three years ago which relates to like IC and um I think Chris milom or somebody anyway uh at that meeting during that public portion Miss GLE mentioned that her and miss Clancy were on the board at that time uh when that uh contract was approved and then also during that meeting this is in the minutes uh the board discussed previous investigation Mr Snider who's Council uh you know Bush Law Group said I I can't weigh in on this as he's conflicted and then um later quote from the YouTube video Ari said with regard to the privilege issue I'm conflicted not going to respond in any which way you guys have counsel which then Dr Hibbs jumped in and said um who has weighed in on this matter so that was that October meeting so then fast forward to January 7th Mr Li Liberty mentions during the meeting you guys all received an email from conflict Council I guess before the meeting I know Miss Bloom you mentioned during that meeting also kind of last minute um you went into executive session after two votes could have been three I know Miss Baker you were trying to get that third one um but Mr Snider went into that so I don't know know how that could have happened where your board counsel who's presumably conflicted goes into a close session that talks about that conflict so I'm just again trying to understand what the conflict is you know trying to piece this together trying to understand more transparent processes from this board so anyway at the end of that night there was another executive session there were two one I think was a grievance the other one was quote Professional Service contracts I stayed for that meeting so miss kmle and miss Clancy left the room during that session um so they were not in that the entirety of that closed session so here's my guess and feel free to help me out here or help the public out I can only guess that something had to do with the insurance contract because y else would mmle and Miss Clancy leave um and then also from press releases and public you know uh clippings Mr Snider on this board or the board attorney is also representing Chris milm who is the principal of IC in a criminal matter that's my only again these are my guesses because no one at this board or the de has come up and said hey this is why we have conflict Council this is the particular conflict we're dealing with so then when you all go into close session what we actually would know or should know about what's being voted on the attorneys who are giving you advice um all of that kind of good stuff so I thank you for your time any gaps or Clarity on clarifications that could be made available by the public or available to the public at this time uh would be very much appreciated so thank you uh thank you Mr Ford I would love now that I'm here I can't talk about any of that I would love to give you the full story I would love nothing more actually than to give everyone the full story detail by detail of what happened I'm not allowed to do that what I will say is there was a public board meeting at which a district employee I don't even know what I can say I was mentioned and got up and try attempted to defend myself um I don't know what else to say um does anyone else on the board you guys were all in executive when that happened I mean I'd love to wave privilege or something so that I can speak freely on this I'm sick of people saying incorrect things talking about people being indicted me being indicted criminal I mean it's just all conjecture and I can't defend myself on it and I really really want to there there is a statement that we were given it was an email we we got an email that basically said relevant documentation related to the matter has already all right it um relevant documentation related to the matter has already been furnished to the appropriate authorities and the board has no further comment in regards to this matter that that went out um I'm not sure if you were on the board I don't know if we got January 7th as far of that packet or if we got in December but that was I think with Council that was a recommendation from our conflict attorney as to what we should say regarding this matter thank you Mrs Bloom Mr Anderson good evening everyone Mr Anderson I'm here representing uh not the high school this evening I'm representing the Washington Township principales Association I represent principles assistant principles and directors here in this District so I'm just here for a reminder I was here two weeks ago and for the Public's knowledge the way that negotiations work for a collective bargaining unit is when a contract is coming to an end the contract the unit reaches out to um board of education and requests and says that we have intention to negotiate as we are coming to the end of our contract we completed that process in August of 2023 it is now fast forward to June of 2024 our contract expired at that time fast forward again to January of 2025 we are 17 months later after declaring that we would be negotiating or we had intentions to negotiate we have had one meeting on the books very cursory Mee meeting that has taken place I can't speak any more about negotiations as they are confidential and none of us is able to speak about the happenings of negotiations however I do want to bring to your attention that two weeks ago I did come and request that we set up some meetings to this time I have not been contacted by anyone to discuss this matter any further so I want to bring to your attention that we are requesting to get back to the table to get negotiating um Mr Ford you actually took my other question in regard to the negotiations committee because I was not aware that there had been changes to that committee so I am curious as to who was on there so I'll second that question and I think those were my two questions you know we are working right now without a contract for 7 months and uh we've been trying for 17 months to have a conversation in regard to our contracts thank you very much thank you Mr Anderson uh the negotiations committee is Mrs Baker who's the chair Mr Ross and Mr Sano and sorry Randy I forgot to say that when you in your notes uh Ron lucarini and Ray noted and they'll be in touch just a couple U quick reactions to some of the things that were said uh Mr Ford I believe I might be wrong but certain members of the community or a member of the community had um put in a different Oprah request related to that insurance contract which ultimately uh Dr Hibbs had to go back and research and then it was my impression that Dr hibs found what he felt were some um rather strange occurrences in terms of how rfps and contracts are awarded and then uh the decided that you know he didn't want to be left holding the ball there and forwarded the information to the State Attorney General's office I might be wrong but that's the way I what I thought I heard at these meetings so there was something in in there that made him concerned that maybe he should put it forward to the State Attorney General's office who was already uh indicted Chris milm in relation to his involvement in what the Attorney General called a criminal Enterprise working here in South Jersey so Mrs kml's misleading statement that there's people talking about indictments and it's not true well guess what it is true okay and we don't know what the Attorney General is going to come forward with in terms of that particular situation that I as a Layman called possible bid rigging okay but I want to get back to uh the guy back here who was making comments about uh shut your pie hole I just looked it up uh and Googled it it in no way has any uh derived anyway from any commentary related to women specifically okay so that's one thing we could throw out the window the other thing I um contacted an attorney who knows a little something about uh lawsuits and whatever and the other term or phrase that I use which I'm not going to repeat Mrs kmle because I know you get upset when you hear that kind of language even though you use f bombs in this particular Arena as a resident towards another person after a particular meeting uh but that term itself in no way can be construed as an attack or any hostility towards women in the context that I use it okay and um in fact I think we should be more upset about a letter again that was I think uh a part of an oer that Dr Hibbs wrote to the Board of Education several months ago about the conduct of board members behind closed doors and in interacting with him ER you know in relation to uh off off the official board meeting uh you know uh agenda let's say and in one of those statements that he was concerned about he mentioned that a particular male board member was making comments of a sexual nature I don't know what exactly what they were about another uh administrator in the district woman that he found to be offensive and unprofessional and I was wondering maybe Mr whatever his name is back there could comment at that at the next meeting since you only get two shots up here uh but that's would seem to me to be more disturbing in fact I told my granddaughter about that and I'd like to say that she couldn't sleep for two weeks but that would be a lie she went right to bed and she turned to me and said forget it Mr Luke pop pop it's Washington Township kind of like the line from Chinatown forget it Jake it's Chinatown anything goes in Washington Township and no sense makes sense all right uh one last thing uh it's got to be quick we have a board member sitting up there who according to this attorney uh committed a an Ethics violation and I'll get to that at the next meeting or maybe I'll put it in one of my emails okay thank you can I have a motion to close to the public I just no motion to close is on the table I all in favor Mr Sano go ahead no I I um I just wanted to address a question you you're conflicted so I just wanted to you know I can step in here in this specific instance so uh without going into too much detail Mr Ford this was uh in this was an attempt to I guess conflate two completely separate issues send them up to the Opia uh and and have one investigation run into another uh completely unfounded completely unsubstantiated and uh nothing is going to come of it so I mean that's uh that's my that's that's my personal opinion so I don't speak for the board but I will say that conflict Council was brought on to uh conveniently before the election to you know try and weigh in on an issue that uh in quite it it seemed apparent that wasn't an issue it wasn't an issue at all and and I don't think it's no no issue is going to arise from it so that's you know that I just wanted to you I can give you so many details without going into too much thank you um Mr Sano I I also want people out there to research who indicts someone cuz I've been accused of I'm going to be indicted and I actually emailed you um council president Del barell about this I haven't heard back yet and it's not funny um actually none of this is funny I don't know why you're laughing uh councilman but um councilman Bennett was laughing the whole time but anyway um when someone's indicted it's by a grand jury and no one's been indicted not me not Mr milm I think you're people are conflating that with George nor Ross who has nothing to do with me I don't know anything about Chris mil but none of us have been indicted so people get up and they say those things and they're legally reprehensible and they will be answered they'll have to answer to that Carol um I just want to address Mr sado's comments and since we're going to go there and say these are personal opinions and I don't speak for the board so I'm going to give you my personal opinion what you just said in my opinion was misleading okay we don't know where anything is going which is why we have conflict Council there's been no determination made so to to jump and what was there where I can Fleet or whatever was used um I think we know exactly who you're talking about and I think it puts us in legal liability to continue to do that at the de we don't get better as a board when we make comments like that someone comes up a lot of things we can't talk about so to make those comments furthers the legal liability for the board which also affects the district so Julie I know that you can't comment and really say much but I'm going to say we were given legal language when someone comes up to the podium and you can roll your eyes as you normally do but that is what we were given we were given legal language if someone came up and spoke about a topic which Pat read that is what we were instructed to do we were not instructed to talk about it any further at all so why you've chosen to dig deeper we can't talk about those issues Mr Ford I wish we could we can't but we were given that language for a specific reason to protect the board and I don't understand why we're not using that so I'm just going to encourage everybody the next time someone gets up and talks about it we were given language and we have to use that language so to go any further than that is not appropriate resolve that pursuant to Section 8 of the open public meeting act the public shall be excluded from that portion of the meeting involving the discussion of personnel legal matters negotiations legal attorney client privilege and grievance update further resolve that discussion of such subject matter an executive session can be disclosed to the public if any action is taken by the board either at the resumption of the public session at the conclusion of the executive session or at a public session at some later date can I have a motion to move into executive oh I was supposed to do that first can I have a motion to move into executive motion and I don't think the board's taking action when we come out of here this is just update so motion is there a second all in favor I okay so the board is going to have executive session in this room to go over those matters if everyone could just if you want to stay we're not going to take action after this but um we're probably just going to adjourn so thank you for coming said the word tonight and