faith had a question yeah Vincent I think you you touched on it just want to make sure that the increase in the average claim that is because of the nature of the claim or is it inflation no it's mostly because you know of our eight point six million dollars in claims so far this year well above 1.2 million is from for claims okay it's it's really predominantly driven by some extraordinarily large claims this year okay thank you yeah where there's several classes of very expensive claim types for insurance company's procedures things that can get into but it it's not just treasurer that sees these it's and I it's I also I think for GAF and I and and and they're longer I think this is probably most we've seen in one year I think these higher dollar claims so I'm not sure of a trend but it is happening and I will add it's not related to Kovac you know Kovac costs is are actually being tracked separately you know by Cigna and they're they're very small right now now we haven't gotten all all our claims in but so far you know it's literally hundreds of dollars that are attributed attributable directly to Kovac so far so if that continues that's a good thing for us any questions on the medical report everybody so happy it's great I know we're tired Thank You Ven and I think we have one more item is that the grants a report or we I think think you did it yeah and I sure as much more to add to it I think we covered that one can I ask one question sorry yeah he does have to do with the grand I just think yer eise about and I got in too late before the mechanical or the manufacturing equipment what is that what was getting remember it was the Sean Hanlon wave Board of Ed meeting and it was the the manufacturing equipment in that room that we toured it was the knee yeah yeah okay all right cool all right just curious thank you good question so much times gone by I almost forgot about that grant so thank you everyone up next with school modernization committee Andrew alright and if anyone wants to and if you want to add anything just let me know and we've had two meetings in May the first meeting was on May 4th both cool ears and our Cadis the two firms that responded to our owners project manager RFP did a zoom call with the committee and presented both highly qualified firms both did a wonderful job at the presentation both had knowledge of the school district and what our goals and objectives are with the modernization plan the consensus of the committee after the presentations was to move forward with Cole ears and to authorize Vincent and others to negotiate with them on their feet proposal which the RFP allowed us to do by town charter that was done and last night we had a meeting on the 20th and at that meeting we unanimously aside from before with Cole ears also the proposal that we agreed to move forward on was just with the phase one phase two work in the amount of forty one thousand dollars which can be amended from time to time as the work continues to move forward there's question about the timing of initially we were going to be looking to submit for referendum in November this coming November it was talked about and decided that we're going to be cautiously moving forward and we don't think we're gonna have a project ready for the November deadline which I think everyone here knows that kovat has affected everything and school modernization is not short of that also Richard Gustin burg did a great job there's been a lot of teacher staff input sessions at all of our schools where they have faculty and staff and I think that the theme of all of those meetings were the aging facilities the lack of space in order for teachers who are out learning new programs and initiatives that they'd like to bring back to their classrooms they're constructed by our aging facilities so that was the big push as well as some maintenance issues which are going to definitely be addressed this summer and moving forward with as we move the program forward other than that that's pretty much my report for school modernization of a-maz and questions comments I believe an imposed thank you I missed last night's meeting but the meeting before where he chose cool ears it sounded like the committee was committed to moving forward to bring something for referendum in November and it sounds like maybe that's not going to happen any longer that was the and that was the sense that the committee came forward with yesterday yes I mean there wasn't a former resolution saying that we're gonna we're gonna hit the ground running and we're gonna begin the process but in order to go to referent and we'd have to have something in September which would have to be a project which we out to bed out to the voters so yeah I want a basic math not common core math just basic math room you know simply sadly the committee's there's two months plus lost if we had Coulier as I say back in March then and one things are gonna have to deal with us a draw a Gantt chart timeline of things have to happen to give something defined as a project and beyond that not just define what it is when I'm doing costs but have ample time to get public engagement to understand what the cost will be and trying to market that and communicate that so we really didn't have last time if you look at the the timeline is concerns that we're gonna try to you know get there and crispiness you know the cutter or no display or a face and just doesn't want to explore how my any means and quite frankly it's still chance to probably do it but you know again there's just a little bit of cautious that we don't the committee does not want to rush to referendum without having a solid plan solid numbers that the public understands that's what it comes down to but will be more discussion this is next meeting but and just I mean the overall climate and we're looking at a zero percent tax increase and looking for you know no increases in cost to go forward with eighty million dollar project whatever the numbers gonna be it just doesn't seem really palatable at this time so so does that push the timeline out another year you don't know yet we don't know there was talking cream could be early next year we don't know yet okay I believe him a question yes yeah thank you Tony I'm just gonna highlight this for everybody probably all of us are aware this people sitting at home may be thinking about it so I just want to say it although I wish this were not the case we are talking we are likely talking about a different electorate different turnout presidential election in Cheshire probably you know 80 to 90 percent local election 12 month another 12 months later probably 35 to 40 percent a special election and word special referendum you're probably dropped down to like 10% easily and you could have wildly different results based on different electorates and that is that I don't know that that has anything to do with party affiliation or anything like that it's just different people who turn out at different times so just highlighting that there is I personally feel at this moment in time it would be rushing it to try to get it done like Andrew said by September with the project fully vetted and public support and stuff but the electorate electorates change with each each time they're asked to turn out Election Day or referendum there thanks yeah one last thing and I asked a question last night what was Colliers feedback you know our timeline and you know it Angela you're probably closer to about the feet I got from the committee was that yeah it's you know the panel is what is what they'll do it takes to get us there but you know we do want to hear from them too when hit the ground running soon you know what has to happen to gets to that point so I guess yeah it's list it's nobody's fault can't say that the committee by any means was wasting time they've been working incredibly hard it just that this coated thing really threw a wrench into I'm already an aggressive timeline but again I don't at no one I tell you the entitlement with the Town Council Rob nobody wants to see has prolonged in perpetuity we don't can't have an ongoing you know facility massive plant story for two years three years that's not going to be a case so I'm confident we can't do this year then I'll have to be you know early next year or at a time that you know we all think it's appropriate but we're still gonna move as quick as we can it's not an idea that we would be going to the voters but it has to be an actual project I mean it's the 20th of May we don't even have anybody under contract yet they need to that we need to sell they need to design I mean it's just unrealistic awesome any other questions there's one more apologized Adam did you have something yeah just just so I get a sense of of what could happen so if we miss the November referendum which sounds likely the the actual time the actual grant application has to be in by June 30 2021 is that correct and if town charter I believe says that if you do decide to hold a referendum you need six weeks notice is that correct I wasn't sure if that's like if it's something where you missed November you could pick it up and push it forward you know if we met if we're if we're saying that we missed two months does that mean that we could push it out two months and I don't know I guess vote on it in the dead of winter or something like that in order to hit the the the bonding deadline for June 30 I don't recall I mean the critical date for which which is that we have to file a construction grant application with the state is June 30th the idea of trying to hold a referendum in November is you know to Tim's point to try and take advantage of the you know electorate the the folks will be coming out to vote for the presidential election so because and we still would have had to meet the June 30th that the following June 30th deadline you can apply earlier but you can't apply later than that so we essentially what you'd have to do is is a special referendum let's say in the spring if you had a building project ready to go that you wanted to get referendum approval on mix it has an opinion or honor yeah yeah so Andrew when when you were speaking before about the likelihood of this project moving forward say by December by November just to confirm this is basically your profession not not that you're not getting paid for this at all but this is where you work in this space right okay correct okay all right thank you yeah I just wanted to comment on we can go to a special referendum any time that we designate and in in response to Tim's comments really it's our job to inform the public and to get this information out and and to get them to the polls whenever we decide that we're ready that we have the information and you know that's not a bad thing we we can work we can whip up the the electorate get them to the polls I mean if this is a this is a big-money project they'll be interest in it and I don't I don't see that as a as a problem having a special election a special referendum specifically for this one item I just wanted to throw that out there nice harmony I think Adam has a smile I'm sure I'll say something I'm in a rare convergence of ideas I agree with an and and that this whenever we do decide to hold this referendum it will be I think well attended just because of the I think even mr.
Slusser discussion action such then it is recommended that the Board of Trustees disgusts and take action on the following items approve the certificated and classified personnel actions as listed you have a motion Thank You mr. bender was it mr.
i just wanted to personally thank the board for all the positive comments and ongoing support you have given the teachers during the time i especially want to thank you for rehiring staff we really appreciate it also i would like to thank the parents who continually with their children at home and assist the teachers in keeping our scholars on the right track for success please stay safe and stay healthy clifton strong marion saba resource room teacher at school 15. i am a teacher at school 15. i just wanted to reach out and thank the board of education for their words of encouragement appreciation week i also wanted to thank my fellow teachers and staff at school 15 for making distance learning a positive experience we have all been working together and helping one another to get through this challenging time for both the staff and more importantly the students the positive outlooks and collaboration has definitely been a breath of fresh air thank you again xena fife at ccms i just want to let everyone know how proud i am to be part of the school district they have managed to do so much for the students in such a short amount of time i appreciate all those i have had the pleasure to work with these years and thank you so much for allowing me to be part of such a great district shout out to all the supervisors who don't get any recognition for all the time they have been putting in these past two months ian cutler i am a bsi teacher at school 12.
Stewart and a couple of these I noticed in the right of providing false information on this form may result in the application being denied or admission being revoked wouldn't it be better if we replaced may was will I would say oh I you know that says providing false information as far may result if it's gonna be made you said we're knowingly because what if they do it accidentally so make it knowingly providing false information okay so false information submitted knowingly or knowingly submitted on the open enrollment attendance application will be considered a breach of the agreement and cause for enrollment revocation so four dozen children yeah okay and then the next sentence says the principal shall determine whether or not revocation occurs that gives the principal the authority to determine whether it was knowingly or not yes is that work done yeah thank you good good catch we just have the motion for item three point YES on the top it's just like funny to me that it has the bullet points but on the second bullet there is an and so I don't know if that tonight's probably just nothing really that matters but since it has a bullets it kind of looks funny with the and just hang in there and then another bullet oh you mean at the end yeah you're right we can do that too we could strike that animals okay no sorry so I will change my emotion to approve item 3.6 with the aforementioned changes Cory Burgess hey Jeannie borlon hi item 3.7 regulation jfb are be the first change to this one because this was a regulation has been a regulation in the policy for a while I assume that it was approved probably at the same time that the the policy was changed because it matches that so changing the title to RB is because we just approved RA and we needed to change the name of this the other request that I have for you is to remove the very last sentence which says parents are encouraged to be present at the drawing that's at the procedure you know putting numbers or whatever with open enrollment since there is the likelihood that there would be discussion of students behaviors and or absenteeism in the tour attendance that would be kind of privileged information so we would not want parents present when we were discussing the behaviors or absenteeism of other students so I would ask that that sentence be struck any questions then I will move we approve item 3.7 Corey Burgess Jamie Berlin I item 3.8 classroom site fund plan mr.
Solon had put out I think they put out on a survey a survey a while back about you know when when people come out to vote and it was something like 85% of parents come out to vote when education is on the ballot so I think that the the referendum question whenever we decide to hold it it's you know and I think it is good since we lost time to have the project fully vetted and and and fully understood by everyone and that I think people will will come out and to enthusiastically vote however they choose to vote agreed and again I can't emphasize and you know and ruin an on a committee and Katherine helped start it so she knows that you know the goal behind us is we got to produce enough information that the FBI's proof to the public that we looked any milk and cranny justifying the cost of whatever comes out as ideas and definitely do not want to skip you know the part where we get the public to take a gander and test what we have so anyway again I'm not again I want to saw any was a bullet now we're not gonna do it but there's just some of the issues came up there we had some concerns we're gonna talk about that I'm sure we'll know by the middle of June all this is trending and you know we'll just as necessary but the stay tuned was more come at one last thing I think Anjali mentioned it is that the other thing that Vincent is going to start looking at for the committee is a couple of quotes for an updated enrollment study was gonna need that as well so that's coming underway soon that's all I had well Jeff is wanting any more about that and even in that meet those meetings as well no I just again thank rich custom bird Jen Bates Emery Kemp the people who spent a lot of time visiting all of our faculty built our facilities around the district and the faculty hearing them out and soliciting our staff for their feedback their input in the process it's greatly appreciated oh yeah I agree it's a great work is that presentation on the website from last night I don't know if our net upload video okay we have a send out to the group okay in fact you know what I have the person that sent it out to us I got together today so sorry been showing it's public information anyway so I'll get out after the meeting all righty I'll try to move things on low hung up next other standing committees we don't have the other standing community towards approval of minutes in our yoni yeah it's just on personnel did we have personnel meeting no but I just wanted to make a comment because probably have it upcoming okay good yeah so we will begin as the chair of the Personnel Committee we will be convening in beginning soon to do the superintendent's annual review and one other question one question for Jeff since the kovat locked down so-called March 13th have we had any separations of any teachers from the district Zig nation you don't have an art teacher it do them okay thank you thank you awesome thanks tonight forgot we're just talking about the personnel stuff yesterday I forgot it's uh it's June next week so thank you yeah we're talking about that soon and I don't please any other standing committees so moving on in our in our agenda we have links to our Board of Ed meeting minutes which now I just lost my time here in one second so we had meetings how of April 23rd 2020 and May 7th are there any changes from the board members from those two sets of meeting minutes I personally do not have any changes to make seen as there is none would someone like to make a motion to approve the meaning meds mr.
bender or miss Okara I apologize favor any opposed approve the requested leaves as noted thank you two motion so move second okay Thank You mr. Rowley Thank You mr. so all those in favor aye any opposed thank you motion carries approve the recommendation of the administrative hearing chairperson effective immediately on stipulated agreements tip number seven 2019 2020 any emotion so move Thank You mr.
i have had the privilege of working in that for the past two years i have always loved my experiences as a teacher in clifton but i must say i am so impressed with everybody that i work with from our district supervisors to my building principal mrs canning and assistant principal mrs ray and all my colleagues and mostly and mostly our students although this has been so challenging for everyone i'd really love to see how our community has risen to the equation our google meets have been a highlight of each and every highlight a highlight of each and every day i teach one bonus of being a bsi teacher is that i get to visit many virtual classrooms each day and see such a wonderful experiences in each one it was it was wonderful that they just kept our entire staff working the positive comments from our administrators parents students and the board for teacher and nurse appreciation was amazing and finally i must commend the philosophy that has been presented to us that our students and their families well-being is really the utmost of importance we want to be as stress-free as possible for everybody i'm certainly proud to be a school 12 panda as well as a clifton mustang monique de turri robotics teacher at the high school thank you for rehiring all of my tenured colleagues in in this complicated time it is encouraging to be able to feel some sense of stability knowing will be we will be working together in the fall as a member of the science department we have been diligently collaborating to make sure all the students are receiving the highest quality of distant learning i value every one of my students and wish to con congratulate my 55 seniors over half of my students have been joining me in the evenings for our weekly google meets an engineer series where local industry professionals have been discussing their careers and giving students insight into their particular engineering concentration the mechanical mustangs robotics team has also been attending google meet to week with our five montclair society of engineers volunteer mentor to continue their training in programming and cad computer aided thank you for the one to one chromebook initiative which has made this tradition transition a little bit easier i'm looking forward to my next four weeks of school and continuing to be part of one of the many planning committees already working for a smooth transition whether distance learning or face to face in the fall about halfway through rebecca monero thank you for your wonderful words of inspiration during teacher appreciation appreciation week i am grateful to be working with all of you the board and administrators have shown our district and community how important it is to stay connected i am so proud of my third graders during this quarantine and distance learning i am pleased to report that 100 of my students show up each day on our google meets with a smile and knowing that they worked hard we have built beautiful relationships and continue to have fun learning with new concepts we all miss the classroom and nothing to take away school the school atmosphere champions through it all keep positive and stay strong clifton friends lynne maracovitz paraprofessional at school 14 thank you dr robert tozie for the time to check in with the staff and providing words of encouragement and inspiration so that we may continue to provide the best we possibly can for the children in our classes thank you for the sincere appreciation provided during teacher appreciation and nurse appreciation week including the paraprofessionals in your message thank you for all that you have done and will continue to do to lead the district during this time of certainty we are clifton strong thank you matthew moore clifton school 14 kindergarten thank you to to the board of education and clifton public schools as a whole for being extremely supportive of its teachers staff and students good evening my name is alyssa minnelli i teach mathematics at clifton high school as a non-tenured teacher i want to send a huge thanks to our board of education the unity they create through this challenging time by rehiring all of us is a testament to the strength in public school district the bonds that i have continued to colleagues students and their parents through phone conversations google meets and emails make me so proud to say i work for the city of clifton as one of their teachers thank you for your continued support and bully and belief in the positive power of education during these unprecedented times catherine jergens my daughter is at kindergarten school number eight yesterday i asked her teacher about kinder about the kindergarten stepping up ceremony because we because we haven't heard any news about that that there will not be a kindergarten stepping up ceremony this year i would like to know if this is a district or school decision and why what what is the reason behind it not having a kindergarten graduation ceremony will be disappointing for our kids kindergarten graduation is an exciting milestone for our kids so why not celebrate it even if it is a virtual celebration especially because of the current circumstances the little ones have been going through a lot on their first year of school it would be nice to recognize their accomplishments sila martone 14 special ed teacher i hope all is well with you and your family i am a special education teacher at school 14 and i just wanted to let you know that i appreciate your very kind and awful words during teacher appreciation week this whole situation has been quite an adjustment but at least for me the support that i've been receiving from my clifton family has been amazing and honestly needed and honestly needed to get through this thank you for all that you have done and will do it is appreciated janet destefano clifton high school i would like to take a moment of your time and personally thank the board of education for rehiring all the staff for the 2021 year i am so grateful to work for a district that has foresight to see the need of our students and and their families to keep education health and the well-being in the forefront during these challenging times as a graduate and daughter of a graduate and now an employee of the clifton school system i know how incredibly dedicated inspiring and dynamic the teachers support staff and nurses are to our students it is because of dedication to their craft clifton offers such quality programs to our students thank you for allowing the staff to work through shine and show our students and fellow and future students of clifton how amazing we are i look forward to serving our district at clifton school nurse throughout the school year and years to come keeping our students their families and staff healthy and safe each and every day karen lieberman grade 7 language arts teacher at cc ms she just wanted to say thank you for rehiring all the staff jessica farnell i would like to take a moment to express the pride i feel as both an educator and parent in the clifton school district as an educator i thank you for assuring our staff that we do not need to worry about our jobs during these uncertain times we treat we appreciate being recognized for our hard work my husband and i also have three children in the district our oldest is graduating ecms and our younger two attend school number nine although we are sad that our eighth grader and fifth grader are moving up without proper goodbyes with their teachers and friends we are focusing on the excellent education and the love of learning their teachers and administrators have instilled in them this is certainly a gift that will last a lifetime to dr parker miss gaba and mr yeager as well as all of the teachers at ccms who have positive positively influenced our son thank you to mr healey and the entire staff at school nine thank you as well when we think back on this historic time we will remember all the great people who loved our family and helped our children both in school and at a distance thank you for your time stay safe and healthy alexa who is school number 13 thank you for rehiring the entire staff and for your wonderful words of inspiration celebrating teacher nurse appreciation week students in my first grade class have been enthusiastic about responding to journal prompts and sending picture fun educational activities that reinforce reading and math skills jeff labriola ccmsr teacher i just wanted to share some good news one of the art lessons i made with my eighth grade art classes at ccms was creating posters to thank essential workers students had to incorporate the style the art style of romero britto in their poster brito's style is full of optimism love and hope students were encouraged to create patterns to represent essential workers when done students were asked to hang their post in their front window or their front door one student whose mother is a nurse at val hospital asked her mother to display her beautiful poster in the hospital the student sent a photograph of her mom other nurses and doctors in front of the poster and it was shared on our social media pages i was very proud of the efforts put forth by my students and of course all our essential workers linda kowalski sila a preschool i would like to dr robert tosie janina kusalevis mark teigen and the board of education for everything that they have done during this pandemic this leadership team has kept us all informed with transparency guidance and support the guidance and support by the above team has allowed educators and nurses with the ability to provide our students and families during this difficult time every step the leadership team has made has been a benefit of our education and support staff custodians secretaries nurses and most importantly our students and their i'm not only an employee member of the clifton community as along with my children and grandchildren who attend school 13.
president it's usually the plan for the following year as presented in June this committee has been really good to work with all year some of the descriptions of how the monic money is distributed from the classroom site phone was and so we cleaned it up made sure it matches what's in the wall make sure that everything fits the way it's supposed to fit so it's mostly changes in the first two pages which are the description of the plan itself and in the very last page which is the reporting page and in fact ties all of the performance components from the law into where they're supposed to be which is payment out of oh one two as opposed to out of any of the other either of the other two funds so the committee has done virtual votes with their staffs this week and well over 70% approved which is the approval rate that's expected and I recommend that and adopted for school year 2021 any questions on the site fund plan I have one for dr.
chairman like make emotion please do I move that the Cheshire Board of Education approved the minutes of the board of education meetings held April 23 2020 and May 7 2012 and any further discussion seen as there is none the motion is that the Cheshire Board of Education approved the minutes of the board of education meetings held April 23rd 2020 and May 7th 2020 all those in favor aye aye it is the Animus awesome thank you teen up next is superintendent report I'm sorry most important one the secretary Katherine do we have any correspondence mr. chair we do not have any correspondence up next is superintendents report thank you very much mr. Perry Jeanne given that tonight is Victoria Perry Jeannie's 16th birthday and we want to get Tony out of here before her 17th birthday as quickly as I possibly can miss Solano and I have been planning for teachers student and parent debriefs to be held at the end of the year around remote learning the unfortunate reality is that we may be in a similar circumstance come the fall and the surveys have been fantastic but we want to do a little bit more to learn about the experience and see how we can improve on that the results are not in to you know steal a line from Seacrest but we are having a lot of feedback from our parents our senior parents and our senior students around graduation we've said many times this is their ceremony our job is to just do the best we can with it particularly given the fact that this spring has been so difficult and their seniors have lost so much we want them to really drive the boat on this one and the early returns are that it looks like there's a strong consensus around August rather than having in June ceremony in the hopes that we can have a more traditional ceremony I didn't have more flexibility with social distancing come August I know all of us are hopeful for that our students and their parents seemingly as well so that looks like that's going to be the case but we hope to send out more information tomorrow when more people have had the chance to respond I did not get an exact count on the students I know the parents were 240 when I last checked the fall when we come back number one priority if if we're not here is connecting with kids Adam and I had a great conversation about that the other day and the fact that I think our remote learning went so well because our students and our staff were already connected to one another there's just more personal accountability on both sides to be invested in that in the relationship and we hope that if one of the things that Marlene and I and our team are spending a lot of time on now is if we are not able to meet face face to face come August how do we forge those commitment connections from a remote perspective and this is one of those where we're absolutely hoping for the best and planning for the worst-case scenario I just want to give a shout out to our town manager Sean Kimball today back in I think it was January February I was in a first-grade class for a morning meeting and it was really great except one of our our students and Miss Marron golas class Graham Healy was was disappointed he had a great Cheshire pin that he had lost and the whole class seemed to know about this so he was apparently fairly bummed about it and so I reached out to Sean they didn't have any pins left we made ped like months go on KO vid strikes but today Sean and I had the opportunity to visit Graham at his house and give him a pin it was a real thrill for him to me Shawn and just be part of that so I do want to give Shawn a shout out on that one this at this point we started collecting library books this year the end of this year is unlike anything we've ever had to deal with because of the emphasis on safety and social distancing so we initiated the library book collection process yesterday that is ongoing it's going to take a while Highland alone has 2,400 library books out so what we're doing is collecting the books and bins in front of the school if any of our parents are watching you should have received an email indicating what books your child had out from the library we're collecting those separately just to get those out of the way and then we'll start collecting things the other items like classroom library books and classroom textbooks and other items is things go on and exchanging will be providing you know kids everything out of their locker and stuff it's it's gonna be a process and so we've just kicked that off now and that'll be continuing through the rest of the year the state is asked our students to engage in a survey called thought exchange there's no personally identifiable data collected but what they're trying to do and working on the committee through aces as I do one of the state committees we take that information that kids provide about their remote learning experience and try and use that information to better plan for the fall so unless there is any objection I'm going to be sending out it's a very brief survey where kids just write their ideas around you know different elements of being working in a remote environment and then they rate what other people have said it's actually something that Marlene and I have already started looking into for next year with our mission and vision revamp on our 10-year plan thought exchanges is really a neat tool that we've been using and I saw the the parent results it gives you just basically a word chart where the words that are most often responded to or bigger and the words that were less often responded to her a little bit smaller so they vary in size by the number of people who you know comment on each word safety to nobody's surprise was the number one word that that parents had mentioned with respect to opening next year finally I just want to say that we are very close to the end of the process in the Darcy interviews I want to thank all of our staff who've participated in that process as well as tomorrow the two finalists that we have will be taking tours of Darcy and parents will have the opportunity to interview them we have a group of parents that'll be meeting with those two candidates and providing us feedback as well we hope to appoint that person in a meeting later this year in June so that that person can be on board to start next year that's all I have for this I tried to shoot through it as quick as I could and I don't know if anybody had I saw a couple of questions pop up I have when I stated for Deanne so we work back here I think starting with Adam fate managers though um Europe yeah and you know and hopefully this won't be needed for the fall but as I know but before our meeting so that I was kind of messing around with our Google meet a little bit our I was you know I I discovered a couple of different new tools for backgrounds and that sort of thing and you know I'm just wondering if there's a there seems to be a lot of extensions and stuff they can be added for to help teachers for attendance and interviewing classrooms and stuff and I wasn't sure if if that was things that that were being used with the teachers already and also perhaps that if we are going to begin next year like this possibly that there could be some some additional tutoring for the students on how to better or more effectively use the technology just because it seems like there's a lot of powerful tools that that the Google Suites had sort of set up an anticipation for some day that a school system would switch over to this sort of system so I just thought you know that I know our IT folks have been doing a great job and that perhaps the technology should be further examined just even on the student side so yeah so first I would just say that since this Coban situation happened there have been an explosion of extensions available on the Google platform some of which you know I think lend themselves really well to us some of them are not so relevant but today we had a meeting of our tech leaders across the district our as well as our instructional leaders across the district who met with Marleen provided tremendous feedback and part of that was you know we realized that we need to provide more coaching to our staff so that there's a deeper understanding about some of these new tools we did that in April but already things have up so as they continue to evolve we're providing more professional development or staff some of that will be doing it done in this June with the extra teacher days some of it will be done in the in August when our teachers come back but part of that training will be how to support kids and understanding all these different extensions and trying to create some consistency in Google classroom so it's more familiar for kids to know how to submit work and things like that and Marlene I don't want to leave you out because you you'd spend a lot of time other folks today is there anything I was missing that no I think you I think you got it all and one just what you said Adams some of our kids around the use of this technology they know how to use the apps and things that they're familiar with so that was a point that I was sharing earlier with Jeff that we need to spend some time with that so that's being baked into our plan if we start teaching on tick-tock our kids we'll crush it it's that a problem true so that a faith you were up and then the Andrew I'm not sure if you're in any and then and after Andrew yeah Jeff is there any way that the public can access these meetings that you're involved with the way basis you know I don't know that faith I don't know if they're I'll look into that my next meeting is Tuesday but I'm not sure I know I think it might be a closed meeting the information is public but you know like the camp I don't know that people can participate just like we have you know some of our committee meetings could be work done in public but not a public meeting this I think this is the same way but I'll look into it okay cuz and the other thing I understood and I'm just reading something from Cade it came out yesterday these rats you see guidelines well love their acronyms but the regional advisory teams I understand yeah that's the one all right there was going to be an even more localized team involving parents board members whole nine yards is that going to happen because I do think that just in talking to parents there is a sense that they want to be involved beyond a survey yeah want their ideas heard well don't worry about this governor I do okay well the first thing that I think all of the groups have substantiated you know within their the rest groups is that this really has to be driven by medical guidance so we're working closely with the medical guidance like the CDC guidelines that came out yesterday though we're reviewing all of that to ensure that we adhere to that that's what our local health department is adhering to and then we have to plan education around that so when we get to that point I think we'll be communicating more with parents right now we're just trying to look at what potential options may look like in the event of a variety of medical situations everything from absolute entire remote learning to you know if we return as normal and every option in between okay I just I would just I don't know who you take it to but I have been speaking to some parents and there's a real concern that this is going to be for stood on them and with it and I just don't want us to get caught short with a plan that doesn't necessarily fit our district but I you know we'll see what happens so I just wanted to raise that yeah in nor do Marlene or Vinny our staff or myself so we're certainly working toward that end okay yep awesome Andrew Europe this is back to the parent and student surveys Ron Oh whose idea was to do that who actually drafted the questions because what I've been hearing is a lot of positive feedback from folks about the survey and other districts have not been doing that remote learning yeah some other remote learning survey yeah that was a collective effort Marlene I think Marlene drafted most of the questions we decided very early that it was going to be important for us to get feedback from all constituents so we've also I mean only mentioned parents and students but we also surveyed teachers and I think you know we're really proud of that fact I know we've been cited and national publications twice in the last couple of months for our work around our remote learning rollout and we're really proud of that fact and yeah Marlene gets the credit on drafting the questions okay Chad okay Chad agree and you're wrong great thank you I agree with Andrew I also have been hearing a lot from parents especially in the neighborhood because I'm walking every day again lauding the efforts of the teachers and everything that teachers have been doing which brings me to the comment that I wanted to make very briefly was one of the first things that you said Jeff in your report which was on having meetings for debriefing which I think are really really important I have been just involved in a debrief at Quinnipiac University with the language Department in which I was teaching and I can't emphasize enough yes you get can get training and all that on online teaching and learning and remote instruction and all of that but to share ideas with what worked first other teachers is so valuable because you'll just come up with so many ideas and different things work and some things don't work and this is what teachers do and we have really superior staff of teachers in our school district and but but nobody's perfect right you do things in the classroom and when you're forced into these unusual circumstances some things just don't work and other things work really well and you need to bring those nuggets out so that everybody he can hear about them and and work those into their scheduling for next year because there will be some remote learning come the fall I'm pretty sure we're not it's not going to be it's not going to maybe never be business as usual again in the classroom yeah and then thank you ma'am Adam let me gear up thank you just just a quick one in regards to the the plan for reopen in the fall is does chest' bracket have any say in that or is it is it strictly a top-down from the state from secretary as a super secretary Cardona and the healthy the health department from the state side or it's tresh Mercado sign up on something right well the the governor can issue an executive order when things are relaxed however so for example our graduation you know that the executive order was in effect modified to be more relaxed and in that situation we do consult with the local health district now I say the local health district because almost always it's it's more esposito in Farmington or in inter but for example when we're looking at Farmington Polo Club is an option for our graduation we would have to consult with the Health District there and so we've already done that so yes the Health District is involved but you know if it's an executive order to close the schools it's really not a it's a moot point then you know thank you I really have a question I just want to go back to my answer that I agree you know it is impressive I mean listen we I know Jeff liked to throw up that slide that shows our ranking and a per-pupil expenditure and you know I always kind of joke that it seems the less we spend the better we do oh you know we look at those numbers and it's not really it's kind of seizures but you know so there's a reason I think the district does well in general a number of fronts because our staff is because our leader our educators and all the support that goes around that so the fact that you know within five days we were to get on learning up and running and grant the note wasn't perfect and we evolved since I that does speak a lot to the CPS School District I think everyone involved I mean everyone that's been helping so I know other school districts the other board chairs I said that you know they they gave up on that you know initially because eighty weren't ready or some districts just and have the funding or economic equity you know in town to make things happen so I decided the fact that as we're heading into June it's been a very tough but I think we warned in three months so I do want to give kudos to all the CPS so big and for for making that on the forefront again they don't get it bothers me I got to tell you I the where we stay online the more concern I get about our students not so much from state perspective I was just reading something in an article I think the times couple days ago where you know some experts talking about what's happening with learning development especially with younger students that are online that are missing out on the interaction the social building skills they have in class and so forth you know longer this goes on you know what those effects might look like so I plot online learning but there could be a point where we have too much of it so but I know given a feedback and you know the dial is going on or try to make that as impactful as possible for but we just don't yet know what the Falls gonna look like although I think we're starting to see some inkling of some of the restrictions and I have I mean I just go back to the state's guidelines on colleges and campuses this summer and early fall I believe they already said it a few weeks ago six feet apart we're masks at all times teachers wear masks cafeteria I don't know how we're gonna be able to do that in our classrooms or in our cafeterias or you know have our teachers try to give a short lecture wearing a mask so we'll see what happens but I think once June winds down that's next hurdle is that unknown planning to fall so it's gonna be a little bit busy summer unfortunately but but I want to thank your mom for the hard-working Thank You Jeffery poor are they another any other questions and superinterns report Anna sorry I just want to add one last thing to piggyback on your comments Tony yeah when you say with the less we spend the better we do but you know when it really comes down to it it's it's not only is it the devoted staff but it's also the devoted parent or guardian who's sitting next to that child to help them get the work done we're you know in this community we're fortunate perhaps they have parents or guardians who are I don't we'll say more dedicated or at least apparently well I'll just leave it as that we have dedicated parents and guardians in our community and and you know just from our personal experience at least with a younger child is that sometimes there's a force of will on the parents part to help that child get through the the great curriculum that's been put together by our staff but that and I so I think that you know if you're gonna do a debrief of the staff that's one thing but to have to piggyback with faith is to have a debrief of the parents I don't know how you can do that and I don't know if Google Chat has that ability I know there are other tools out there to handle like 200 people out of time to be able to do more of a town meeting type thing but I think it would be important to have the parents be able to deep deep brief and decompress all of their pent-up observations of what's going on the last many weeks so I think it would be good to be able to do both we we did plan on a parent one and I don't think you know two hundred people in a meet is really effective so we'll you know keep the groups smaller even if you know they're a drop shorter and time and smaller it's more effective and more efficient for people to do that anyway so yeah that's that's definitely part of the equation and you know there's no doubt that there's a partnership that exists between our parents our staff and I don't want to forget it certainly most importantly our students yeah and thanks I'm for the parents I had things I think we're well it's a mixed blessing right we we know we have some employment issues all over a state country there are parents out of work at home even in Cheshire I think the the sohliang there is that at least they're home now with their kids you know I'm lying trying to you know help out where they can I'm hopeful that you know it was the fall summer fall picks up and I hope folks get back to work you know when people get back to work it's just it's got to happen but if they're not gonna be around there today and the kids don't online learning I think they may have some ideas and we want to share so I take you back you know planning ahead for that so so thanks and we'll try to find a way to get you know it's just said more of their debrief as we move for us Wendy very important thank you anybody else see us there is none I think we're almost there I lost my agenda link any audience I have no old business we have none in the agenda do we have any audience questioner comments matter of fact we do Mary Burnham patiently watching from home she just wanted to indicate that she's concerned that the budget does not take into account the additional needs that may occur when schools reopen in the fall do to covet 19 especially the need for smaller class sizes just wanted me to share that I agree you know obviously that's a real concern it's from a budget perspective things could be very difficult they could who knows if if we do start remotely and there's there could savings there so it's a little bit of a wild card but certainly a one of our we have two things that we're very sensitive to right now staffing we want to make sure that there's you know really good ratios to spread kids out and create relationships and maintenance because if kids are coming in we don't know what sort of you know sanitation steps are going to be required to ensure a safe environment or a cleaner environment so that I mean just the idea of face masks alone if we bought one per week for our students it's gonna cost us two hundred grand a year Ben was doing the math on that today so that's once a week you know I don't know how that's gonna be feasible yep any other questions that was the only the only comment thank you Mary I know Mary's kind of helping me keep me in check and make sure the agendas are posted and she's been trying to help get more community and public input so thank you Mary and team for your help in the word out there I'm my updates really quick I we don't have much of one so for public watching I I not sure how much the public is aware that over the last four five weeks that the town and board education and to looking at our budgets in great detail to see what we could possibly postpone or trim back the hell up a-town achieve a potential zero mill rate increase or I guess no increase going into 2021 solely because of the couvade economic impacts that or we're starting to feel not just in Cheshire but around the state and so much obviously the the immediate impact is it is you know next year the year after because you know a lot of jobs are lost and I could tell you in the clients for my company a lot of employees are laid off I'm not gonna iron most of them back anytime soon so we're worried about poor tracted downturn and you know can't really forecast all that but you know people are hurting a little bit in Cheshire so one of the things the town was trying to do is hey can we keep the status quo the next year to write this out and you know keep people employed and without losing a lot of services or frankly you know devastating education what can we do to our budgets and thanks for a lot of time on this tonight all those meetings are up recorded between the Town Council budget sessions and our meetings but we did have a summary meeting just a quick touch base last this past Tuesday night because the Town Council will be of dumping adopting a yeah adopting a budget next week they have until May 29th that leave Tuesday they'll finalize number and I think Thursday to be voting on it so Vince and Jeff gave him a quick update on the savings that he talked about earlier and that Leo's David Bowery a task hey you know if we get any any more detail on what those other costs might look like for school when you co but let them know before a weeks over so you know I would just ask that if we have you know I would bring up the issue of PPP II protection because we don't know the state some require for that we don't know what they're gonna fund if anybody make that happen so I err on the side of caution but long story short our budget request increase this year was two point 1 million honestly you know if we got a near zero increase that's a pretty huge number to try and make up I believe we identify close to a million dollars in potential reductions and light ions we've talked about a month ago plus some of the savings I have from code word that'll probably use again anyway it's gonna be very tight and so it's not just a board that's been looked at looking into this has been a town and and basically every employee bargaining units been to see if there's anything they can do to help just over the next couple years so that's the own process by imagine by June 4th we'll have a budget number and we'll start talking about what that's gonna entail moon 4 so stay tuned and for those that are watching I urge you to into town council meetings when they have their final approval and see what's what's happening it's a lot going on that being said I don't have anything else and it's kind of close to 9:30 so we do have one more item on the agenda let me just bring it up here I can announce I don't actually have the new upcoming meetings yeah we do have a board i visiting on june 4th for channel have the calendar in front of me but we can post that up on our board website i did ask the chairs to schedule or think about scheduling any remaining means before June 30th we have personnel coming up finance certainly with a budget Posse planning and potentially personnel so once those dates are known we'll have them out there and put in published for for review that being said we do have one more item it's executive session so I want a motion to adjourn the executive session we will not be with no volta fouls so essentially beginning the meeting there do I have a motion from the board to adjourn into executive session once I think that mr.
bender all those in favor any opposed thank you and the consent agenda it is recommended that the Board of Trustees consider approving a number of agenda items as consent list the consent items are routine in nature and can be enacted in one motion without further discussion this procedure conserves meeting time for a full discussion of significant issues the consent items to be approved in one motion are number 1 2 3 4 5 7 eight 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 they we have pulled number six and number nine earlier in order to discuss can I have a motion to approve all except six and nine at this time so move Thank You mr. bender and mr.
nicole zyrowski school nurse at school 11. dr cozy mr teigen mrs kusalevitz and members of the board of education i would like to take this opportunity to thank each of you for your support and kind words not only during the past several weeks of distance learning but especially during nurses week the letters of support the emails and the video monetize were very much appreciated i would like to also thank you for ensuring all of our positions and secure our all of our positions are secure and we will be returning next year knowing this frees up enabling us to focus our attention where it belongs on our students so we may continue to provide the care and education we have always i am so proud to say a member of clifton school district clifton strong i hope everyone's family is well my name is caitlin wendt i'm a resident of clifton extremely proud to be a special education teacher at chs unfortunately i will not be able to watch the board meeting tonight as i will be taking care of my grandmother who beat cove my team after spending 41 days in the hospital though i am not able to watch tonight i would like to send a message to the public comment section i absolutely love my job at chs i'm i am incredibly appreciative and grateful to the board for rehiring myself and all the staff i would like to thank you all your and all i would like to thank you all for your kind words and recognition in regards to teacher appreciation week thank you for all that you do louis vargas personally i hope this email finds you all safe and well i understand that these are trying times and i applaud the board's ability to find ways to conduct business as usual as possible with that in mind it has come to my attention that there are no plans to conduct any commencement ceremonies for students reaching that milestone at the conclusion of the year though i understand that we are living through remarkable circumstances and realize that these are unprecedented child unprecedented challenges have forced everyone to make tough decisions surely the decision to make an effort to provide our deserving children with an honor that they have earned is an easy one in accordance with the direction from assistant commissioner abdul saleem hassan division of field services new jersey department of education concerning graduation services the abortion every effort possible to at least provide students with a virtual celebration of their achievements other school districts have committed to make the effort to provide a virtual commencement ceremony for their students such as nutley and lavala and the capabilities and tools such as zoom which can host up to 500 participants at a time there is no reason that we couldn't virtually host every graduating class this year as a father of a kindergartner and school aide i have seen firsthand the school district's resilience and ability to step up and respond to the challenges we've all faced i believe together we can make all the necessary accommodations to provide a memorable ceremony for honoring our kids parents and staff elizabeth stefanko a paraprofessional i want to i want to thank you clifton board of education for the decision of rehiring the entire staff next year it means a lot to us our families our students we would like to take a moment to acknowledge the hard-working fourth graders at school one every april we have a science fair in the gym we were not able to do that we extended the date changed the display boards to google slides and they are being presented presenting them to each other in google meets the students are supporting each other cheering them on and asking great questions we gave them a challenge and they rose up to the occasion great job so far we are halfway through we are almost halfway through all of our presentations dawn ward that's my deep appreciation for the time and effort you put into keeping our entire staff intact during these most challenging times in the words of maddie s step and neck unity is strength when there is teamwork and collaboration wonderful things can be achieved thank you for your support and inspirational leadership together we can continue to be clifton strong my name is harry hichman marola this is my first year as a sixth grade art teacher at woodrow wilson middle school i was at school 12 as an art teacher for seven years before this although i loved the district all along this year especially i felt extremely supported between my principals maria romeo christine bertolo joe mankin and the wonderful supportive emails from mrs kusulevitz really did feel that we were all in this together and it helped these students i just wanted to reach out and say thank you i have a feeling i'm not the only teacher that feels this way my name is joanne bunowski i am an aba paraprofessional and i've been working for the district for 15 years first of all i'd like to thank dr cozy and all the commissioners on the board of ed for rehiring the entire staff it's very confusing to know that we have your support through these unprecedented times and to dr robertosi your constant communication with the staff is truly appreciated and you have my heartfelt thanks for that i can honestly say that i am proud to be part of this district and it is truly a great day to be a mustang i would like i would also like to send a shout out to the administration at woodrow wilson the daily emails and positive messages are a breath of sunshine during these trial times again my heart appreciation to all thank you diane zecker zacchacino a school nurse at school 15 i would like to thank dr robert tozie mr teigen mrs kusalavitz and the board of education members for their support during this difficult time distance learning is new to all of us the administration has been so supportive of all the staff as we learn this new process i really appreciate all the transparency this board has shown that has not been present in the past the teachers and i work i work with have all done a fantastic job navigating this new way of teaching as most teachers in the district thank you for continuing to support our staff by rehiring everyone for next year everyone is under so much stress that one thing you took off of all the non-intended personnel's minds as a nurse in the district i would like to thank you for your well wishes our nurses that very much appreciated we may be working behind the scenes now but once but now once we reopen we'll be front and center to keep everyone safe working on working together we all benefit thank you all again for your support and appreciation margarita escobar thank you for backing up the staff during these difficult times my name is jeanette hugh and i am a paraprofessional at chs i would like to thank you very much for rehiring the entire staff upcoming school year at first i found remote teaching challenging and now seems to be very positive i found my pleasure to be involved with four of the teachers i work with and really enjoy our google meets with our students they all seem to have adjusted well to this new way of learning i found out yesterday that one of our students was accepted to pcc and we are all very proud of her donna popowicz the online calendar calendar today is progress report day but there is no fourth marking period progress on the parent portal are they canceled lori lalama good evening dr robert tosie teaching mr levis mr uc and the board of education commissioners derelice gutierrez student representation staff administrators students and the community as the president of the clifton education association i want to thank everyone for their hard work during these challenging times situation has been very difficult on many levels however clifton public schools has risen to every problem with resilience to protect protect the children families and the community the staff has gone above beyond facing a new way to teach correspond with students and their families continuing to update their technology skills while their own situations at home we have developed as a district more unity to confront anything that comes our way we are appreciative for the hiring of our staff and the kind words during teacher nurse appreciation week thank you for all you do for our students and staff [Music] thank you for supporting our staff during this uncertain time richard carr i would like to take a moment to thank you for rehiring the entire staff your tremendous work is greatly appreciated heather boyko cdc guidelines were released for schools where does a district even start do committees get formed to see if the criteria can even be met how do we even come up with these amount of buses needed to social distance catherine falco of resource teacher thank you recognizing the teachers during teacher appreciation week and bringing all the staff back we appreciate it christopher tootstow uh phys ed teacher at cliff at the high school i hope this email finds you and your family well i wanted to take this time to thank you personally for hiring our entire staff back for the upcoming year during this challenging time together one thank you again and finally karen phillips thank you for rehiring the entire staff thank you again miss danny that can public comment your microphone was off could you repeat that mr your microphone was off during all that was it did you repeat all those please you deserve it thank okay so motion by uh miss bastard second by mr casper all in favor opposed hi somebody hearing me okay so we're taking up did you say a five minute break or just a minute five minute break miss bassford is somebody not hearing me no i was giving mister five-minute break she was just joking i make a motion i'm having a little trouble hearing i don't know why okay so there's no there's no break nobody wants a break everyone's good okay all right so next order business is education and administration can i get a motion um to approve ea one through eight so moved motion by mr casper second by mr smith um could i have missed basford read uh ea one into record yes uh my pleasure uh resolve that the clifton board of education recognizes joe canova as a 2021 alternate state delegate the board commends mr ken over for his dedication leadership and vision as a school board member as well as his contributions at a state level congratulations thank you thank you are there any other questions okay are there any questions regarding ea one through eight see none roll call mr abadraba yes miss basford yes miss beltran she left i'm sorry i'm sorry uh mr canola yes mr daley yes mr casper yes mr mr smith yes miss danny yes next order business personnel can i get a motion to accept p1 through p26 someone moved um motion by mr casper second by mr smith any questions madam chair i have a question um yes with the renewals for the teachers contract at what uh renewal stage would it be tenure is it the first contract second third fourth fourth yeah four years in a day um mr robert josie is um is anyone saying anything at this point yeah i have i have uh one question on uh our principles um there is approval for principles for helium and kenning and i assume they're taking uh replacement uh mr puzo and lazani the slanted um the only reason why i raised that was traditionally when we have somebody that uh of a principal level or something we like to recognize them at our meeting come up say a few words but obviously we have a virtual uh meeting today and that's that that's really not possible but i'd just like to um have uh dr robertosi to verify that so we can at least give a tip of the verbal hat to them as they start their careers as principals uh mr dale yeah there's there's no appointment of principles tonight there is an appointment of a vice principal um and he it was p17 p17 um that's just the that's the reappointment those are our non-tenured these are already our administrators they're just being reappointed again they're non-tenured okay just just for checking because i had two uh they're just giving me a point we do have we do have two elementary principles retiring right um i will have recommendations to replace those principles at the june uh 18th board meeting okay thank you you're welcome here so can we have a roll call since there are no other questions mr abedrabo yes miss passford yes mr canola yes mr daley yes mr casper yes i have to abstain on p24 mr smith yes it's danny yes motion carries so um uh dr robert trophy is yes thank you thank you miss danny uh at this time um board members as you know when we when we appoint an administrator vice principal principal typically they like uh to come to the meeting to thank you so we've asked mr waka to join us upon my recommendation and your vote he was just appointed as the new vice principal at clifton high school replacing mr kumba who's retiring so i believe he just wanted to say a few words to the board how are you uh of course i wanted to thank all the board members that are here i also want to thank mr robert ozzie mr teigen ms kusalevich of course i'm looking forward to working with mr doctor i want to thank him i also want to thank all the administrators the teachers school nurses custodians as mentors to me over the years i think most importantly i would like to thank all the students that i've developed relationships with um as an eighth grade teacher this past year uh and i think all teachers have felt robbed of important times their kids but i'm super excited because i get to take the next step with my eighth graders to the high school uh and lastly i want to thank my wife and my family for all the support they've given me over the years and so again thank you thank you mr white so the next order business is finance can i get a motion for f1 through f10 so moved motioned by mr casper second bye questions scene none roll call mr abidraba yes miss bassford yes mr canova yes mr daley yes mr casper yes mr smith yes miss danny yes motions carry next order business is public recognition do we have the second portion did anyone submit any comments i actually do have a couple if i could go through them real quick so at this point mr p will read into record the citizens comments for the open um public recognition portion is that these are just three that i received after the meeting started is off is that on the agenda it's it it's not there but i i it it is there it can be added in the minutes yes yes it was a last minute decision i believe yes all right virginia sheehan i just get clarification on that first please i i'm not following it was ironic okay miss gutierrez yes we'll just make it easy uh good good evening mr smith yes i recommended that we have like we normally have a second public comment section at the board meeting where members of the public can make comments on any item that on anything that's not on the agenda because the first public comment portion is for items on the agenda but for the second public portion it's for anything that's not on the agenda um in order since we're going to be continuing these um virtual meetings in order to make sure that we're complying with the open public meetings act i recommended that we give the public an opportunity to send in comments um for things that are not on the agenda after the board meeting has started so that it would be read during a second public portion and it apparently uh the agenda was already put together when um when i made that recommendation so that's why we're doing it this way did that answer your question okay yeah and the reason dude we're following we're following is the open public meetings act allows people to have to be able to make comments on things that are not not on things that are not on the agenda and what we're doing by requiring them to ask the questions ahead of time it's always on items that are already on the agenda so this gives the public an opportunity to comment on something during the board meeting something that they've heard at the board needing so you're just separating them out that's all that's correct okay okay in this particular case it might not be um either on the agenda or not on the agenda but wow we'll go with it so virginia sheehan mishi my name is i'm sorry i am a special education teacher at school 11 and i am so grateful for everything this district has been doing to support us in this difficult time i am so pleased to see that the staff has been rehired for next year and knowing that these caring and wonderful professionals will be with us next year makes us hopeful for whatever 2021 brings our way despite the challenges we have still been having meaningful lessons with our students today with the kindergarten classes of school 11 i hope the bilingual read-aloud of the story of marisol mcdonald doesn't match a story that celebrates uniqueness our world language teacher senora sonora pizzi read the spanish part and the rest of the kindergarten team miss montano sega and mrs angelio assisted when we called on children to share a picture of and reflect and reflect relevant the story it was a successful lesson and all the students enjoyed it this is tina robinson i know i missed the phone i know i want to truly thank the board of education for all their work during this pandemic i believe each and every one of these individuals should be recognized when this pandemic is over we individuals in the city of clinton would not have had half the information had it not been for dr robert chose sending emails and the board keeping us informed they have gone above and beyond and are deserve our praise i thank them all and barbara martinez high school spanish teacher thank you for your wonderful words of inspiration celebrating teacher nurse appreciation week and for rehiring the entire staff during these difficult times thank you thank you so now uh next order of business is board member comments i don't remember who was it um was it mr daley mr casper i remember i thought that's what i thought it was mr daley okay mr casper okay so i'll keep it short again uh good evening everybody i i'm happy to see everybody again uh through these difficult times i know it's uh rough so we can at least get to see each other uh first i'd like to thank uh miss rogers and mr doctor for their uh for their presentation i hope um people's questions uh have been answered i'd also like to congratulate mr waka um good luck in your new position starting next year i'd like to uh thank all of the retirees um enjoy your retirement and i would like to thank you for your service to our district um i'd like to thank all of our uh all of the people that commented tonight it was great to hear how uh happy many of you were um under our circumstances and i'd like to thank all of our teachers and our staff members for doing um for continuing to do a great job with working with our students in these trying times i'd also like to i'd like to congratulate joe mr kanova congratulations and um last but not least uh happy birthday mr abedrabo thank you everybody have a good night thank you mr casper mr smith uh yes um mr um dr robitazi and um the assistant uh superintendents mr yusi the entire district [Music] people cannot imagine the amount of work and time that goes into running a district but now running a district from separate locations and separate uh from your building with a lot of the files and information it's just amazing how well uh all of this has come together and that's because everyone has worked as a team and um while i appreciate all the people that uh called in and and wrote in to thank uh administration and the board um we also thank you we all have to work together as clifton as one to make this happen and if we don't it's not gonna work and we need to continue that in the future and it shows that when we work together and we do good things in clifton good things do happen and people are very satisfied and happy so let's hope that that continues going forward uh we may have some real tough decisions and and uh things ahead of us so we're going to need everyone's uh help and and support on that and that goes along with the public hearing from the public and knowing your thoughts what we're doing is a tremendous help and i think mr daley or somebody mentioned at the last meeting you know this board has been actively working over these weeks as well we've been holding committee meetings we've been holding uh different forums and attending different forums from the state from the new jersey school boards um so we've been working just as hard to uh to help make the district uh run smoothly but uh dr robitazia please your entire staff needs to be commended um this has really been uh something that has been uh not planned and not predicted and not mapped out and for all of this to go so smoothly um obviously there's been some some rough spots but most people don't know the rough spots and uh we've gotten through them and to thank the the parents and the students um without their support without their cooperation without their help um i know many parents a couple of weeks into this wanted to run out the front door and we thank them that they didn't and they stood by and the school year is almost over and we've almost made it through and uh i commend clifton as a district uh please remember on friday nights to remember the support of the class of 2020 with clifton stadium uh lighting of the lights at 8 20 p.m please tune in to facebook to see that facebook live um i would like to just spend the rest of my time uh talking about um a former educator in clifton uh who has passed away um from the uh from the coven 19 um he was a uh in charge of our uh supervisor uh dr barry muscari uh and i had the pleasure of working with dr miss gary from uh way in the beginning of the inception of residency um my committee and and uh barry muscari we put together residency for clifton and um he was just a true truly remarkable person um i know judy uh judy has worked with him as well and i'm gonna save some of my time to give to judy to talk about barry but um clifton was truly blessed um to have such a wonderful educator to have such a wonderful person uh working our district uh he had moved on to king university and did tremendous things there and wrote some great books and i just want to show my support from myself and and clifton uh to uh barry muscari's family and uh thank you for allowing to share barry with us for many years and um sorry that he had to be taken away in this way with this horrible and terrible virus so on that no please everyone remain safe remain healthy and um we'll see you at the next meeting thank you thank you mr abdraba thank you miss danny um if some of you see my screen blacked out once in a while um was breaking my fast i apologize please take no offense to it uh but i was listening at all times um congrats mr mr walker um listen our administrators by far um are the best i've ever seen in it throughout any other district and uh you know i say it's every meeting i guess this is going to be my it's gonna be this is gonna be my plug-in and i think it'll continue to be so because of you know the fearless leader we have at the helm of the ship um so you know i i i'm proud of our district i'm proud of where we are i'm proud of where we're going and i truly am and you know he laughs every single time i say it and i plug it in but you know it's it's true it's how i truly feel going seeing from how when i first started my my in my tenure as a border bed member my you know i've seen how things have shifted from the beginning to the latter part and i you know and while i can't i'm not saying that the previous person did not do anything he did we had a great board great super but i also see a lot of momentum a lot of a lot of things shifting in terms of how folks are looking at our district whether it's parents whether it's teachers administration whether it's us as a board member it's gelling it's meshing things are moving forward and there's no there's there's no quarrels between anybody so i thank you for that um which brings me to my next part um you know i'm not gonna give this whole teachers are the backbone of america deal but they are i'm not gonna say teachers are great and important but they are and i'm sure we all realize that especially parents now you heard me yell at my daughter as big as this thing i can't wait till these kids get back to school i can't wait till my daughter's at school not with her 24 hours and i'm sure joe you can you can attest to that too well you have more patience than i do so never mind but at that s at that sense he does so but at that time it's there's a lot going on that's out of out of our control why do i say that and when i say us i'm talking about us as parents there's a lot of con a lot out of out of control and when i say us i'm talking about us as board members and as as administrators in schools which will go into my next part which is parents listen we know and i said this parents have every right to watch their kids graduate i remember when my father first installed saw me graduate he cried he's going to kill me later on he probably yell at me after after he's heard i said this but still he cried i was the first kid to graduate high school uh in my family um he did not he didn't have the chance you know it's interesting because you know his i had my grandfather's name so um which was his middle name so and he just basically inverted our names and looked at it as though he graduated high school so i understand the importance of what it is seeing your kid to graduate high school um from from a a a you know from a father stance for my father but unfortunately there are some aspects that are out of our control um because of what's going on on the state level are we all asking and talking to our various you know connections throughout state to see what we can push i mean um jim you can you can back me up on this if i'm wrong but uh president sweeney sent a letter over to to the governor today urging that we have in-person graduations so stuff like that works reach out to your legislator reach out to your representatives you know for us it's the 36th district in clifton speak to folks if you know anybody reach out to them it helps us as well and they don't think they are that board member again from clifton calling me so you know if we if we do it as a team if we do it as a state i think they'll get the point that this is important uh in the meantime the administration is doing a good job to do an alternate graduation um that's not in person at least something is better than nothing and i meant it before we're not a 50 person senior class we're not a 100 person senior class we are 10 20 100 times more than that um so it's great to see what they're doing and i do appreciate it um joe you know i said before you have paid more patience than i do um you're a great colleague on the board you're a great friend and you know congrats on on everything you're doing in terms of moving yourself forward on the board and as a delegate um uh so that i'll give you and i'll end it off i'm sure you all either turned off your tvs or your computer because i'm talking too much but ended up by saying ramadan's almost done i met i mentioned i was working my fast two days and two days away um uh happy ie to all our um anybody celebrating i don't put too much emphasis on religion as much as i can i don't but um to give some sort of normalcy as i do with every other um community and religion in our town of course um you know happy eat uh rum run is is tough fasting putting yourself out there is tough for 30 days trust me i love food and my kid you hurt me yeah when i told my daughter don't make me that sandwich because she's still trying to force me to eat and so you're fasting i forgot so it's you know you got to put yourself out there and the point i'm saying is because we we we have to give to take we have to give to take an education we have to give to take as parents we have to get to give to take as individuals so hopefully by giving this graduation we get to take ourselves in a better health standard moving forward but again um i want to appreciate i want to say thank you most points to my colleagues as well because my colleagues um as much as we we argue we disagree we still work as a team uh no matter what and again that's with administration with mr t with with with janina with you know um superintendent robert ozzy uh but i i appreciate you guys i always appreciate you guys and i'm going to say right here right now so thank you thank you mr abu drabo miss beltran okay mr canova can you hear me oh yes yes sorry yeah sorry i was driving home from work um just closed the supermarket i'm sorry for my app since the last couple of meetings um as you know supermarkets have become the epicenter of this pandemic that's been going on unfortunately i haven't had time to splice myself to come to the meetings but i have been involved in the floor and the background so i always want to thank all of my colleagues for stepping up to cover up for my absence and i really appreciate the town in general a lot of people have reached out to me saying kind words the losses that uh my family has experienced throughout this pandemic um and i'd also like to thank danny roboto he's taking my phone calls at weird times with weird questions and out of the box ideas that i've had to try and you know give us graduations whether it be drive ups at stadiums or in person in some way and i really think that danny will figure out a way for us to have the best possible graduation and everyone seems sees continue to stay safe uh you know respect the orders when you're going to places you know wear the mask it really does save lives um and that's all i have thank you sorry for uh having to leave and come back that's okay thank you miss beltran uh mr kenova hey thank you everyone uh first of all thank you for the resolution for the recognition um so just so you know a little bit about this position there's a board that governs all the boards in new jersey and i am the alternate delegate for passaic county so what does that mean that means if the person who is appointed can't be there i would be the person to represent and have voting power at that point um and and when even when they are present i'm going to attend all the meetings so i understand and just keep abreast of all the situations but what does that mean for passaic county for clifton it means that i get to advocate for our community which is something that i'm over the moon about because um as you know i've been very vocal about different situation situations that we've been put in for finances and for fair funding so i can't wait to get a crack at this and i could have done this without everyone here on the board guiding me and i really do appreciate all my colleagues on the board so thank you um and you know there's a saying i think i said it last time is that they said it's easy when things are going easy the things that when things are well it's very easy to run the district it's very easy to do these things but it's in times that we're in difficult times it really shows the true characters of the individuals and i love hearing these these stories of individuals helping out for for food distribution for um in education contacting the students contacting the parents working with the children i see videos posted where um administration are there with their kids having a science experiment and this might not even be somebody in a science position but you know that's what they're doing and they're trying to get get the word out there help students help people understand these subjects and get get through some some difficult times um and and just i'm showing compassion i saw them spinning the wheel for pbsis um you know for that positive behavior side of things and really that's what it's all about it's about everyone sticking together and and i am proud you know going back to what mr abu drabbo said we you know we are proud of this town everyone's really stepped up here and and i really do see a difference and i hope some of those things continue on because um you know sometimes you go down south and you hear about you know that southern southern mentality where people say hi to you and they're very friendly and i'm seeing that now it's nice you know that's not really what we do here in jersey or new york area but it is nice and i hope some of that continues around here um thank you to the ideas and information sent from facebook as you know we can't reply to those things so we do send them on but just so you know we do hear them uh so if you want to keep tagging us you know that's fine we'll just continue to bring that information forward um graduation this is as you know i work for a college and this is for me the best time of the year is to see those students walk across that stage of graduation you know you hear these stories about children whose first time graduate um you know coming from from a family that you know didn't have or other other ones couldn't graduate for specific reasons and seeing them walk across and seeing the parents and the excitement on their face you know it's really special and i honestly do hope that before september we can do something like this for our kids it's really it's really something they deserve so i'm really hopeful that you know things change i'm hopeful that you know we've we flattened this curve i hope that we flatten it for the rest of the way before september so that we can get out and give them a proper graduation that's really what i'm hopeful for you know unfortunately that may not be the circumstance they may not come down to that to that point because you know there is a health issue out there which you know we can't take lightly so it is a balance between health and and a balance between you know giving these students a proper graduation obviously we choose health first um that's just not the unfortunate circumstance but i applaud our administration for putting together what they did for our students i think it's a really great thing to see here i think you know what even even some things that we're seeing that are happening now may even change the scope of what we do for for students you know we're seeing a lot of students that are getting educated going on their laptop and using these resources and using virtual environment here um maybe that is a tool we could use going forward who knows so there is some light at the end of the tunnel there and you know i hope that we can look into those things when we do come out of this um i do have two things that i'll bring it up another later but uh for a prominent project graduation i know we discussed a little bit about putting funding towards that from board of ed you know i wonder if you know during these difficult times if we could just flip the bill for these students as a part of their their graduation you know uh they missed out on all the senior privileges for the year i think you know maybe that's the least that we could do but we can discuss that later uh happy birthday to fahim i know probably the last place you want to be is at a meeting here for your birthday but happy birthday to you uh many more and uh memorial day you know thank you to everyone serving of all of our veterans and and everyone i wish you happy memorial day may not be like the memorial day you planned you barbecue and all but you know spend time with your family spend time with your loved ones and thank you good night thank you mr canova mr daley uh thank you madam president um a few comments um first of all i'd like to again uh thank uh miss rogers and mr doctor on working so hard and giving uh our students the best graduate we could possibly do under the circumstances uh again they thought out of the box they researched uh and that's that shows a lot of spirit about what they do in their day-to-day jobs just not doing their job it's the spirit in which they do it so congratulations to them and all our staff who have stepped up to the plate and and put that spirit into their hearts and done a great job during this trying time and thank you uh congratulations mr wonka well the best in in your new position um and mr kenova i know joe's passion because before the years he got on the board he and i would discuss uh the underfunding situation that faced our school district and you know through his efforts and others but he was a big part of the team in in the course to get more attention to our underfunding and i know he'll do a great job at his new position as the assistant alternative uh delegate and fahim happy birthday i hope you have some birthday cake later on uh enjoy and enjoy your family um again uh we're missing graduation as a board member the things that uh i really look forward and enjoy the graduation the athletics award dinner the scholarship awards dinner the national honor society um and especially the graduation course you see it up close and a student comes up and gets the diplomas some are mystified some are truly happy it's always great to look into these students faces and as they get their awards and recognitions and go to another stage in their life um it really does wonders for me i i really take a lot of joy in seeing that every year unfortunately we don't have that this year but we're going to go forward um in in that note uh we are in historic times and i know my father and my mother talking to me about the depression and world war ii and the rationing and my father talked about how he had to change careers because he worked on wall street and wall street collapsed of what he had to do to change his career and support the family and uh my mom would also talk about rationing during war two so um i got a secondhand um glimpse into history personalized but i did not live through that we did go through uh 9 11 which we will all never forget and this is another time that replicates those issues and i have a uh suggestion for the superintendent um as they go into next year it would be a project i think would be interesting project for the students to do kind of a documentary of what's going on during this pandemic uh the documentary in terms of what's going on in clifton and of course the board of education is a big part of that um and i know it'd be uh it's a dual thing it's not only preserving history and archiving history for the city of clifton but also it's a learning experience for the students with interviewing people both on the board and city officials and what happened so hopefully this does not last too much longer but i would make that recommendation as superintendent and the staff we have very capable staff that can work with the students and put i think a very interesting documentary about uh julia historic because we have the technology to uh leave some real footprints it's not just verbal written it's visual it's spoken and that would be an interesting project for the students that would be able to archive uh our history during this uh historic times and mr daley who knows it might even become as popular as the tiger king well so and and lastly uh memorial day um i think i'm the only veteran who's uh on elected uh board in clifton right now um and a lot of people confuse memorial day with veterans and um i've always said because i was asked to get a memorial day uh event many years ago and i said the the obligation of a veteran is to remember those who passed because obviously we're still here we did serve but it's more important we have to be the voices of those of god who have made the ultimate sacrifice and that's what memorial is uh day is about so it is an interesting summer but more important it's important that we take a little time just to understand what the sacrifices that were made during uh our fights for freedom and preserve freedom throughout the world so with that i wish everybody a happy and safe and healthy memorial day uh do your best to practice best health uh issues that we've been taught and directed to follow uh but also um do your best to communicate with your fellow citizens and if you do see uh i think you're gonna have the avenue of flags up over at city at city hall as they usually do and do a great job there so just give a few thoughts and a few prayers those have gone before us uh with that i'll conclude my remarks thank you thank you mr daily miss basford yes good evening i hope everyone this our comments find everybody well healthy congratulations to mr watcha uh happy birthday fahim lucia cake and you a cake now when we all finally get together well i could officially run for president now i'm 35.
Stewart though do we include the increased insurance premiums like in the first section or the salaries that goes basically have the salaries for south do we include that in there because we are allowed to do so we are allowed to do so done but the amount of money is is essentially not sufficient to include also insurance this year the teachers actually that last year and this year fourteen hundred and fifty dollars of each teachers each qualifying teacher's salary was paid out of 11 and that's not anywhere near what we pay for insurance so that when that goes into their salary okay this is I'm talking about it is the percentage anytime I was curious what was happening there and then on the third one the last one forty percent to reduce class sizes is that what we're using that for we use that yes what we have is we have several teachers paid out of that fund I think it right now it's at six this was in fact one of the one of the areas where I needed to move the teaching positions to salaries and benefits from a thirteen because we had more salaries and benefits out of a thirteen than the funds that we would have gotten into it this year I the the difference in funding this year from last year we were down about two hundred thousand dollars from what the state paid last year and so we had you know we had to make some adjustments and we had to make some adjustments in that so that we were sure that we were covering could cover the positions but then we had people in positions already and we needed to pay their salaries and their benefits so the combination of the money going down and salaries going up a bit and benefits going up caused that change okay as an FYI doesn't have to do with you approving this plan but Senator Allen who is the chair of the Senate Education Committee had put a bill in in action this year to among other things not make a lot of changes in it other than to take away these percentages and to give the decisions back to school board's local school boards on how they would use that entire fund it was my understanding as it was passed in the house I'm in the Senate and didn't make it to the floor in the house and I got stuck in the Appropriations Committee we had some notice this week to contact our legislators and ask them to try to move that long and while they indicated they would vote for it they were not in favor of bringing a new bill that involved funding up for discussion at this point when nobody knows quite what funding is going to do and they and they really didn't want to see changes right now so it will probably come up again in the fall and most superintendents are in favor of that because it would be really nice if school districts could decide how to spend those dollars as opposed to being told 20% that's way 40% this way 40% this way any other questions on the site fund plan I just don't feel like I fully understand what we're approving on it again so good question Brady did take what was set up before in the old description was that teacher we're getting some money out of 1112 and out of 13 and it's been a number of years before any money since any money has been available in a 13-foot performance pay so the performance pay has been saying oh you're getting 12 and you're getting some out of 13 so didn't take any of the elements out it's just we're clarifying that they're all kind of that one fund and then redistributed the percentages to reflect that the individual future performance by law to 33 percent of this pay the others can be whatever is decided within the district but that's the one that is dictated and and as appropriate is appropriate and then the expectation is student improvement student academic improvement be a large proportion too so you can see that it is it's 20% and then everything else is less so it was combining brandy from when you saw it in the past where we've kind of separated as two things it's just putting it all together in one so everybody knows that it's being paid for out of one account okay and then who makes the guidelines of the teacher performing this is that from the state that's making these qualifications or you mean the percentage or the the performance is nice solidly on the teacher evaluation okay so it's not on a student's performance there's evaluation now the first one individual teacher performance is the teacher evaluation and the law is specific it says that one must be one third of the list okay all of the other things listed here are in the law the law requires all of these pieces but the district can determine the percentages with the expectation that the student achievement growth peace be the next largest okay just with this before you know before reading this so I'm just kind of trying to wrap my mind around it a little bit still so all right any other questions then can we get a motion for item 3.8 I move that we 3.8 L second Cori Burgess all right hi Brandi du Bois hi Jeanne Borland I write item four point one could be into executive session can I get a motion to go into executive session a second Cori Burgess all right Jeanne Borland I brandy Du Bois I and I've already said yes yes we are an executive session you okay at this time can we get a motion to close executive session I will second Cory Burgess hi Nene Borland hi all right um there's no action taken so we don't have that 5.3 future topics it takes me a little good news too but you talked about on board Doc's Doug seems like it gets kind of like doing stuff but dr.
Chairman I would like to make a motion ok mr. Gribble please do move that the Board of Education adjourn into executive session including the superintendent and then a superintendent and chief operating officer to discuss collective bargaining agreements and the superintendent's evaluation with no action to follow thank you is there a second second thank you faith all those in favor it's unanimous thank you we will be during executive session we will not be coming back to me no lapse in the follow thank you for everyone Mary for watching and Mike let us know we're ready we'll transition
so all those in favor aye any opposed thank you okay so number six well my number six had to do with the education protection account it is it is obvious that the district has there will be money 20 20 million plus and I just wanted Matt to explain how that money is is being used and what the money is going to be for rape thank you I'll be happy to address that the education protection account was actually created by proposition 30 back in November 2012 what prop 30 did is it levied an additional sales tax and an additional income tax on high-income earners in the state of California revenues received through those two additional tax levies were then deposited in the state general fund and put in the education protection account per per prop 30 in the legislation it created that education protection account is used to offset state aid to school districts such as Apple Valley Unified and community colleges and the the breakdown for last school year in terms of our LCF revenue in our state aid and what came to us is out of our lcff revenue last year approximately fifteen point eight percent of the apportionments we receive are from the education protection account that's the approximately 20 million dollars that is so that essentially reduces the state aid that flows to us and it's replaced by the EPA funding one of the requirements for the EPA funding and as that is this not it is not spent on administration so the entirety of the EPA funding is used on teachers in Apple Valley Unified thank you we'll go ahead and take a motion on number six so move Thank You mr.
so you'll be uh you'll be getting a cake and uh we have somebody in the family that cooks very well so i'll have to go and ask him for a favor um achievement awards uh i saw they were online i'm very very happy to see the names of all the students to the to the seniors that are achieved the four-year award congratulations job well done what an achievement having four years of academic award yep great it's just it's outstanding um uh i'm so happy to hear uh all the messages and emails that we got from uh the staff so that's uh that's that's a testament to what they're doing and all the things they're doing it's very exciting memorial day is a day of remembrance for anyone who died during the american uh in the american armed forces um fyi there's a little group of uh very dedicated berkeley college people that are going to be putting out flags on memoriam six feet apart but we'll be doing that on memorial day or the saturday before well with weather permitting so i jumped right to that that one to get out of the house for a field trip it's well deserved and well needed um so um the other night i got a phone call from gloria labruza uh she was the secretary for the counseling department at the clipton board of education years ago and uh she retired before my my uh journey on to the board i did a lot of work with gloria for casa because she was the one that used to give us the names of the students and the names of the the award recipients and the poster uh people but she told me a story about barry muscari and she read me an email from his wife jane webber and it was a very heartfelt um email and he was fighting and he was uh really coming about and they thought he was going to be transported to another facility and it didn't happen and he passed away so i just i have a letter uh actually it's it's barry's um bio that we um that was in a book from three years ago when clifton against substance abuse um celebrated its 30th anniversary and barry was one of the recipients because um barry during his tenure as um on the and the clinton board of education uh mr lease one of our former superintendents encouraged him i like the word encouraged him to be um on the planning committee of a committee called clifton against substance abuse and he served as a trustee from 1987 to 2004 and he was the vice president of planning in 1993 1996 and he was the one that helped write the grant that designated clifton against substance abuse as a municipal drug alliance so we are very sad and that's clipping against substance abuse i talked to my colleagues today we are we are very very sad for his passing because in his in his bio is a plethora of things that he has done to touch not only clifton students but clifton's uh but students throughout the state through his work at king college and also all his work throughout the year in in substance awareness and substance abuse so to his wife jane uh heartfelt um condolences to you and everybody in your family we are saddened by the loss of barry muscari and deepest condolences from the members of casa um that's all i have tonight thank you very much oh uh save for memorial day thank you miss basford um so i just have a few comments um i'm going to keep it brief i'd like to say happy birthday to mr abu drabbo okay and um to mr kanova congratulations um very well deserved it's you know i know you'll do really well in the position and um you know again just you've been so active in clifton so very well deserved congratulations on that and mr walker thank you uh congratulations on your position um to vice principal and i'd like to take a moment to thank all the speakers um that came out and spoke today there were so many it was um really so nice to hear about everybody saying that you know we were you know we rehired so many and you know again it's just such uncertain times and we don't know exactly what to expect in myself being an educator um i just know that you know again it's it's been a challenge and as mr kanova said it's been quite a learning experience as well um but uh there you know there's a part of me that just wants to get back to normal get back to the classroom it is really nice to have those um personal relationships and you know bond with the students and students that need the in-class um experience it's really great for them the social aspect of it from them so you know um kind of can't wait to get back into the classroom um and hope that transition is smooth in september and to all the retirees thank you for your dedication to the clifton school district um i'd also like to say a big thank you to students um you know we're right there in the home stretch so you know just keep it going um to say thank you to the teachers who are making it possible the parents who have to work with students uh the administrators and everybody else that's involved in you know ensuring that you know the children of clifton get the education that they deserve so i just want to say thank you for that and happy memorial day again thank you to all those who served and um be safe and that's all i have for this evening thank you dr robertosi thank you miss danny i'm just going to turn it over to mr uchi uh for one more public comment that he missed mike very quick from our school nine principal mr healey he just wanted to wish i want to wish couldn't i wish to congratulate him walk on his appointment to vice principal at clifton high school he is a smart personable and committed to providing his students with the best educational experience as possible mr walker is widely applauded addition to our administrative team that's all thank you good evening uh commissioners and those who are uh watching at home um i really want to thank uh all of the staff members who took the time to send in a public comment tonight uh certainly was not expected uh and it was a bit overwhelming and it was very nice nice to see um so we appreciate the fact that you appreciate us um it's always my goal to make sure that the staff members who love our kids have their jobs but i only make the recommendation i recommend to the board that you get rehired and the board says yes we're going to do everything in our power to make sure you have jobs so um i'm glad that we were able to do that and thank you for all those kind words uh thanks to mr doctor and miss vicki rogers for their graduation presentation i know it was said but please let me reiterate again if we can have a ceremony in june july or august i vow to you that we will now we're not going to break the law we're not going to violate the governor's orders but i have a feeling from what i've heard the governor talking the past couple weeks that there may be a way that that there may be some sort of uh loosening of the restrictions enough so that we can hold some sort of ceremony in our field so it's the least that we can do for our seniors and i want to get it done and i promise you that if we can under the guidelines that exist we certainly will do that happy birthday fahim we shall eat soon congratulations joe uh on your appointment as a state alternate i i will tell you this there's no one that i would rather rather have representing uh clifton and passaic county than than joe canova he will represent us well uh he will stand up for for what he believes is right and uh happy to have you and put clifton on the map even more than we already are at the state level so joe congratulations i know you will make us proud thank you i do have uh one announcement to make tonight uh for our commissioners and for anybody who's who's watching at home we are unveiling our new district website tonight uh if you go to our current website there will be a link to our new website it is um more sleek uh much more easy to navigate much clearer uh it's on a different platform a much more aesthetically pleasing platform and i'm just so overwhelmed at how how nice it is and i think if you check it out i encourage you to i think that you'll really enjoy the formatting of it and how it looks i would remind uh the public that right now will be at least until the end of the school year we'll be running our current website and the new website at the same time and at the end of the school year we will just transfer over to the new website we know that there are people out there who are already familiar with our current website so we don't want to throw you off this will give you some time to to navigate to our new website and check it out it is only a preview website right now on a production server and so don't bookmark that website yet because it will change when we do the full rollover but please if you have a chance uh check it out from our website and thank you to uh jeff horn samantha derose uh and eric mountain for the hundreds of hours of their time that they spent um making it look the way it looks they're just an amazing team and i'm so grateful for them uh as the month of ramadan comes to an end and the holiday of feast eid al feeder starts this weekend i would like to say eid mubarak happy holidays to our community members students teachers and administrators that are celebrating i hope that you enjoy this holiday and finally while memorial day weekend is typically the kickoff to the summer um i know it feels a little different this year but i do want to remind everyone the reason for the holiday uh it's a day where we remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country to preserve what we believe in to preserve our freedom so please on monday if you have an opportunity hopefully you'll be with family um but please take a moment to a moment of silence or just a moment to remember those uh who lost their lives in service of our country and and finally uh finally finally there were a couple things that came up in public comment tonight that i would just like to address um for the board there was two comments about kindergarten um graduation or promotion ceremonies we have been spending a lot of time uh worrying about you know our seniors our eighth graders and our fifth graders so we have a virtual ceremony prepared for those students um to be very honest we we were not um planning on doing a kindergarten ceremony this year uh but i will discuss this with our elementary principles and see if it's something that that we can do um and if we can do it we certainly will and there was a public comment from miss popowicz that i would just like to ask if mrs kusalevich could respond about the progress reports janina are you there yes um good evening uh yes um our teachers have been working extremely hard with these shortened days and working to reach out to every student on a regular basis to ensure that they are finding assignments completing assignments participating and there's been such an incredible um time involvement for our teacher outreach um that a decision was made not to have the progress report because the teachers have been every single one of our teachers has been in weekly by multiple times a week contact with our students and their parents um so given that amount of time necessary to keep our students engaged focused and accountable for their work we made the decision not to have the progress report but we have been taking input on grading on how to handle distance grading when we have such multiple um options and platforms going on um so that is why there is no progress report but there will be a report card the high school one as was shared in the committee minutes and the middle school one will follow the same grading system that we have been using um with a heavy emphasis on students participating in the meet completing their assignments getting their work sub committed to their teachers um at the elementary level we're looking at the same thing participating in your meets completing your assignments and being in regular contact um at the same time at the elementary school from one to five it will be um a modified pass fail with um and k and pre-k will continue with our regular report card thank you miss danny that concludes my comments thank you thanks janine thank you next order business is new business is there any new business okay i have two the one just the ones i brought up in uh public comment before um the graduation and project graduation you know we had discussed these things earlier saying that you know do we want to fund them or do or at least for project graduation we ask the question do we want to fund it i don't know can we bring that back to finance to have that discussed find it mr daley your microphone's muted yeah yeah i'm sorry about that yeah there's no problem with that uh bringing it up i think it was kind of show because it wasn't any for this year um i don't think there was any intent to ignore it but um you know we were given some guidelines by our attorney on how to proceed with that and um you know we can bring that up for discussion uh since we were not going to have it this year there were there was no urgency to get into it but we can always revisit in planning for next year thank you so the next order of business is executive session and we will be going into executive session to discuss personnel matters ms gutierrez do you know of other um personnel i know it will be no the only thing we have is the is the one personnel matter that we're going to be discussing okay no action is going to be taken so we will adjourn in executive session yes okay could i have a motion to go into executive session don't move second by mr daley second by second oh stop i'm getting old um i'm older than you all in favor aye aye opposed pass okay so we will be going into executive session and adjourning from there
story why did we change AmeriCorps Matt well the format that you're getting is the one that gets produced when we actually do it in board Docs and I'm kind of like you I'm not I'm not thrilled with the way it looks on paper but using board Docs and having the minutes recorded as opposed to just a recording and then that Kim then has to go and do the written for a minute it's hugely more efficient and we've had some really positive comments from folks in the public who like it and even employees who like it that they can actually go listen to the listen to the minutes of that thing sort of it was a number of things to help us make sure that we're you know doing all the stuff we're supposed to do I agree with you I'd like it if board Doc's would kind of clean up the way that the version looks because it can either be very long and difficult to follow or it's the short version and you don't really get much in the way of notes that can give you the shorter version but paper form doesn't look the same on the on the computer it's different any concerns hints attaching certain things and I would say leave it alone that's not a future topic I struggle with it too dog don't worry it's a learning curve yeah any other items for future topics could I add something to it thanks in certainly okay one of the things that I will tell you that I like about it is that as soon as either kori gives Kim something or I give Kim something you know we think of it whenever it like tomorrow there may be things were thinking about from the next agenda and she immediately puts it in there in the draft so the nice thing is that as the month goes along as things get added you can look at them at the same you know at the time that they get added I think that's a valuable kind of tool in addition to the maybe having everything ready for four days in advance but as you go through the month he could be looking checking occasionally and seeing anything that gets added during the month and that's one of the things that would never happen if we were just doing paper and pencils and no other future topics okay item 5.4 date and time a future meeting we have many still in here yes well that's our time see that's see Doug I'm already falling victim to board Doc's future time is June 18th work for everyone [Music] as far as I know it works for me that works for everyone yeah I'll take the beating we'll set the meeting for June 18th of 5 are we doing do we need a workshop you might want it's up to you if you want to workshop to talk about both budget revision and the proposed budget that's up to you because you're going to get both of them right and there will be yeah that's fine all right I would say don't move it too much later I mean if you want to do it like the night before or something if that works for everybody the 17th if that works yeah does the 17th work instead of the 18th I'm fine what kind of trouble are you trying to keep yourself out of for [Laughter] [Music] my son's birthday I don't know if he's gonna be at camp he's supposed to be at camp but I don't know if they're gonna open camp so the 16th would be better for me are we able to I'm good on the 16th also I agree okay with the 16 Wow I think chiliad alright let's do that let's do the 16th 5 p.m.
Rowley all those in favor aye okay and then number nine was pulled as well yes and that's another financial question and the question I was asking as it says that we have 13,000 plus of unpaid cafeteria money and could you explain where that money came from whose owing us this money yes thank you I'd be happy to in recent years the California legislators have determined that we are to provide meals to all students who present in our lunch lines regardless of whether they have money on cash or on their lunch account previous years we were able to provide alternate meals to those students and there would be no charge to their account but the legislators did identify that that was termed meal Shamy you may remember that term in the news over the last couple years so we are no longer able to provide alternative meals to the students that do not have any money so we give them the same lunch that every other student gets and then we do create a debit on their student account for the charge for that meal any debits on accounts that create a negative balance the parents are contacted and advised of the negative account balance and asked to pay that account balance unfortunately we do have many parents that choose not to pay those account balances and at the end of each fiscal year we after we've made attempt to collect that debt it does turn into bad debt by definition and Code of Federal Regulations and the National School Lunch Program monies are not allowed to cover that bad debt so our unrestricted general operating fund must make a contribution to our Nutrition Services fund to cover that bad debt thank you any other questions okay I'll need a motion thank you miss Davis all those I any opposed and then any questions regarding the staff reports okay um the lasted we were - J comments any public comments Kylie we have no public comments okay thank you I know I said I was gonna not have any comment at the end but I do want to say a couple things one I should have recognized that we know that Aaron is coming back as your representative from Granite Hills High School however Maysles SIA is going to be the replay it will be the the senior class or the presentation at each board meeting from ASB so normally Riley would have brought her and let her do a presentation at the very end and we didn't get to do that trade-off so maybe in the fall we'll get to do that the other thing that I recognize is that next week if you looked at the weather it's supposed to be incredible and that's uncalled for and unheard of in graduation history and so I just want to go on record to say that the pandemic has all kinds of effects and I think next Wednesday and Thursday you ought to go outside and realize that it would have been a beautiful evening in the stadium and so we hope that when we get to do a face-to-face we get that same thing and then finally I'd like to recognize Mondays Monday's observance of Memorial Day and all of those who gave their ultimate sacrifice for our of their life for our freedom so we will honor them thank you and then there's so any other comments No mr. bender mr.
so we can get a workshop in at 5 p.m. and then get into our meeting yes have a workshop would you like you may want to start with the things are to decide you may want an hour dr. Stewart recommending possibly up to an hour in the workshop so 5 o'clock for the workshop 6 o'clock for the meeting what's our topic yes that's where we get the budget and two budgets the proposed one for next year and the revised one for this year all right we will if you want this in the workshop or not but we intend to have ready for you the are the contingency plans for that we want that workshop yeah we probably you guys everybody good with that if I have a clock works out I will have can't post them in the draft so that you have plenty of time wonderful all right so June 16 2008 emotion to adjourn Jeannie Borland we are adjourned you
Raum Wally mrs. Parra no comment mrs. Davis no comment thank you guys thank you I'm any future items okay um you as we're using DocuSign normally this would be the time we would be passing the the file for everybody to sign if you would take a little bit of time to check your DocuSign and log in on Monday and Tuesday we won't do it on Memorial Day but if you next week you'll have your DocuSign and you can get all of those things done you may actually have them there right now from the previous one and then our next really scheduled board meeting is June 4th at the same time same crazy virtual way to do this and there be no further business to come before the board of trustees it is recommended that the meeting be adjourned can I have a motion mr. bender made the motion and mr.
so did and I need a vote all those in favor motion carries thank you thank you if someone will just text message me we can enclose the breakout room and bring them back at the a moment's notice okay some would have my tech my cell phone number I can you guys are done thank you perfect and then as soon as you're done I'm going to help Maria okay I'm gonna have Maria go ahead and call Donna I'm gonna hang up with Donna so that she's on the voice with Maria's phone so Donna I'm gonna hang up on my phone call with you and then as soon as you guys are ready we'll get back in so we'll stand by you're gonna go into a breakout session now thank you okay you Donna you have to press the joint breakout session you miss Davis you have to press the if you can hear me please press the join breakout session you but welcome back everyone there be no further business to come before the board of trustees it is recommended that the meeting be adjourned do I have a motion okay and I need a vote all those in favor any okay motion carries thank you guys