001We Ready can we please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Mr Fano ons okay High School and notices room here question here Mr room here here okay thank you Mr alfano did you call Mr Russo I apologize okay okay thank you Mr alfano I would like to take this opportunity to welcome everyone to our meeting tonight this is our first um open board meeting since we opened school on September 8th the students so I do want to take this opportunity to thank um all of our faculty members staff members Administration for a very smooth opening of school in September and so far since that
002time uh things have been going very very well as Mr alfano is going to mention later we are finishing up some construction projects which should be finishing up within the next week or two and the schools I want to thank our custodians for the work that they did over the summer getting our schools in great shape so thanks to everyone for parents and staff and students you are well aware that I did post the updated covet guidelines to the website as you know we still have some cases of covid uh intermittently throughout the schools staff and students right now the guidelines are that if someone is positive they stay home for five days they can come back on the six day um with no symptoms and as per CDC guidelines and the local Borough guidelines
003from our Borough nurse there is no quarantining of students and staff members if they come in contact with covid we hope as the year goes on we experience less and less cases and as I mentioned before I think at our last August meeting we're looking forward to be getting back to normalcy as far as schools concerned I want to thank our principals and our parents who have come out so far to our parent visitation evenings actually tonight our middle school has parent visitation uh the last one after the middle school will be our high school we move that to October 13th so that it would give assigned time to finish up some of the construction projects that are taking place at the high school but I do want to thank our parents for coming out
004we've had a good turnout from parents out our last couple of Elementary back to school nights I do want to make mention that our guidance departments across the district are celebrating a couple of different events that occurred during the months of October this month September is suicide prevention month and I know our councils are addressing um that topic with students and with staff and running some programs also as we do each year we'll be celebrating respect week the week of October 3rd and also School violence Awareness Week the week of October 17th through 21st so our elementary counselors I want to thank Mrs R for getting some information out our middle school counselor and our high school counsel will be um offering some programs for students and staff that relate to these specific programs I
005have in your folder tonight a little spreadsheet of our current enrollment um at this time we are we have 3147 students we're up about 25 students from June if you look at the bottom of the sheet you don't have to do this now but when you have time you can look it over in 2019-20 we were at our highest of 33.19 so from that number we have dropped off somewhat and I think that's due to covid because that was when covert uh broke out and I think we did lose students during that two-year period And I think little by little we're going to gain those students back and I think our number now with 31.50 just about uh will probably creep up as as the year goes on but I did do a spreadsheet uh
006you could take your time look it over it if you have questions uh I can answer them next time or you can email me but that that's in your pocket for tonight I do want to make mention that on October 26th which is our next open board meeting we will have some of our principals here Mrs Calabrese director of curriculum and Mr Alban uh who's our Title One coordinator and does a lot of our data for us he'll be doing a presentation uh which is State mandated on our spring test scores for grades three to eleven so you know each year we have a a slideshow and he'll do the same this year comparing Cliffside to State averages and you'll have an opportunity to see some of the scores in all of our elementary schools
007middle school and high school we also are developing action plans for each of our elementary schools middle school high school to address deficiencies that we still have and we're working on that plan now and we'll be sharing it with the board and the public at our October 26th meeting also that night October 26th I've invited Mrs russos and and as you know School 4 was honored by being named a 2022 Blue Ribbon School by the New Jersey Department I'm Sorry by the United States Department of Education and I just want to read a letter that we received today from Mr delicio who's our interim County Superintendent day Mr Roman Gino gives me great pleasure to offer my sincere congratulations to you the Cliffside Park Board of Education the staff and the students at school number
008four in recognition of the 2022 National Blue Ribbon award granted by the United States Department of Education School number four is only two Bergen County Schools to attain this recognition and one of nine in the state of New Jersey as you are well aware of being recognized for this award by the United States Department of Ed takes diligence perseverance hard work and strong leadership on behalf of the Bergen County Office of Education congratulations to the entire Cliffside Park School community on this prestigious honor so I thank Mr delicio for sending us this letter and again as I did last time I want to publicly thank and congratulate Mrs russos and her entire staff at school number four they will be here the night of August 26th we'll present them with a plaque from the board
009this is I'm sorry October 26th Mrs russos will outline some events that we are planning for the fall as far as celebrating this this great honor and I met with her yesterday we have some tentative dates that once we firm out firm up I'll be sharing with the board and she will be sharing with you that night so that's a great honor for school four but the entire District so I do want to congratulate her again okay there are only 200 something in the whole United States that got the award yes that's about all those schools it's really a great recognition for the district and and and for the school and uh we should be very proud of that extremely proud okay at this time um any questions from the public okay so what I
010would like to do then is um before we look at the consent agenda any committee reports a lot of progress three major projects I've update out to uh there's a high school masonry project with the Courtyard little lane concrete down um the high school Red Oak project equation moves at the high school number six we hope to have again substantial substantial issue with walk through it on October 5th email stated from facilities managers espanella I'll take him down the scaffolding at the high school it's Friday of September 30th project I'm all we've really gotten some really good with the contractors Mr alfano is it safe to say for the public that the volleyball team will be able to have spectators okay confirm one scaffold ing up the area also we've done a pretty good back
011to school night High School we believe that's the majority of materials will be gone like I said we took a lot on last October in November as a board in the district and I think we signed up to where we are today back then I think we would have signed that before like I said we've gotten some real good tracks in the last in the weather really good net good news on all three major projects okay anyone else any questions okay so at this time what I would like to do is just point out a couple of items on the consent agenda I believe you have a copy of it in your folder uh page two um as we do each month we are approving professional development for staff members we're approving their registration fee
012travel expenses some of it as you can see is still online but a lot of it is becoming more and more in person as as time goes on a couple of transfers Carmella tufano High School social studies teacher uh was transferred to the middle school as a full-time social studies teacher uh Wanda parent who was filling in in my office for a maternity leave will be transferred to the high school effective this Monday October 3rd and will be a full-time secretary at the high school with Mr Pinto's staff a couple of um salary classification changes you know that staff members who as per contract move from one category to another with that is a pay increase Susanna Pacer is moving from ma15 to ma30 uh we we approved most of those last meeting but um
013this was one that my office missed so we're just putting Susanna on the list tonight uh we're just readjusting our salary at Ma 30 step 8. below that on page three we are approving as per contract with the CPA graduate reimbursement for this coming school year so these are all the amounts that have been requested for this coming year and these staff members once they show evidence of uh fulfilling all of the guidelines such as a b average submitting um tuition uh costs and so on and so forth will be approved or will be reimbursed the amount that is indicated on this printout so each year we probably get about 20 staff members that take advantage of this in order to take advantage of it as per contract you have to be a tenured staff
014member which all of these staff members are below that we have some co-curricular activities that we didn't get a chance to fill in at our August meeting so these are people that have applied for these co-curricular activities and as per contract the computation is listed also below that we are approving uh some additional coaches for spring Sports uh assistant coaches in baseball softball tennis track and field and again the compensation is as per contract um at the bottom of page five again as per contract with the CPA we are reimbursing staff members who take on a six class or staff members that teach in two different certification fields for example a math teacher might teach a science class a social studies teacher might teach a special education class as per contract there's an extra thousand
015dollar stipend for the Dual certificate of fifty five hundred dollar stipend annually for the uh six class and we're just readjusting salaries for those staff members that's in the high school and that's also in the Middle School continued on Page Six uh bottom of page six seven we are uh adjusting the salaries for our bus drivers that has to do with recalculating how many days bus drivers work during the school year we had calculated it on 208 days but they're actually working 211 days so we had to recalculate their salaries and uh based on the additional three days for the school year so although it's an hourly position we calculate an annual salary based on the number of hours they work per day and per week and then annually okay um then bottom of page
016seven I'm not going to read a lot of these page eight uh resolutions where we are we're pointing teacher aids these are primarily teacher aides uh who who are part of our special education program as you know in self-contained classes depending upon the disability you may have two AIDS in a class three AIDS in the class you may have a student that needs a one-to-one aid and um by the end of August we had filled most positions but there were still some positions that needed to be filled we're also appointing some lunch AIDS uh who help out with our elementary lunch program and all of our elementary schools and that's actually continued on pages eight and nine again primarily bus aides teacher aids lunch AIDS okay on page 10 uh about the fifth resolution down
017I just want to approve for Jacqueline Monte Carlo a classroom teachers School Number Four has submitted a request for four personal days and an unpaid leave from the 26th of September until October 7th we've granted that Luisa Meyer who's a classroom teacher aide is returning from an unpaid leave actually she returned just this past Monday so that is going to have to be actually adjusted could you make note of that Mr alfano that it's beginning September 19th it should be through September 20. 26th okay I think that was just changed on Sunday so it was probably my mistake that I didn't tell Gia so we can just update that the last resolution is we're approving a maternity leave for Joanna Hernandez who's a teacher rated number six uh effective November 21st she'll return January 3rd
018first resolution top of page 11 uh next Tuesday or this coming Tuesday October 4th will be our first staff and service day of the year we have a number of activities planned for the staff this coming Tuesday when we have an agenda uh which Mrs Calabrese will be putting together I will share that with the board and we'll we'll talk about some of the activities and programs that the staff took part in in our October meeting but for now we're just approving the fact that it's a half day session for students full day session for staff we are um recommending or we're confirming the outcome of a bullying incident as per state guidelines and then buildings and grounds on page 12. again fundraising for the most part rehearsals things like that which we do each
019meeting uh and every year that brings me to finance Mr alfano I don't know if you need to point anything out sure yes supplier and also a resolution regard to our long-range facilities plan projects by the year projects are and it will prioritize and figure out a surplus pretty much it okay before I ask for a motion to accept there are any questions from the board or the public on the consent agenda motion to accept yes except uh page four Kevin Shelley tuition reimbursement and Page Six stipend reimbursement uh stipend for Kevin Shelley Page Six yes okay so um just a reminder before I asked to close the meeting October 26 is our next open meeting and as I mentioned uh principal russos will be here with some of her staff members and also we
020will do a presentation of uh the Spring New Jersey student uh assessment scores uh at that particular meeting motion to close I'm sorry sure uh so for the members of the public at home I want to let everyone know this October 22nd we will be having a beefsteak dinner at the fire department which encourage you all to attend to the tickets are on sale now October 22nd which is great and uh excuse me when you say we who's we us and the members the Board of Education that's what I'm saying who's giving yeah okay I'm sorry and I encourage everyone to attend uh additionally I'd like to thank some of my colleagues who I've seen at uh events over the past few days and I'd like to congratulate uh Jerry delicio on a very long
021career we had his uh concert on Saturday a very very great person and I also want to let a lot of my colleagues know that over the past few uh weeks and months I've been able to speak with a lot of the residents and Fairview on cliffside and uh you know hear a lot of great things about our about our districts and uh any suggestions they have and uh I specifically come across a lot of members of the uh Arabic and Islamic communities and they wanted to bring to my attention that our neighboring city of Fairview uh has a policy I believe for some time now where uh they have their school days where every year there's a certain allotted amount of days where school can be closed uh they have chosen to recognize Eid
022as one of those days where in their school districts they have a closure and the residents have told me to communicate to you guys that they believe as a matter of continuity and keeping in Pace with our neighbor it would be a good idea for us the next time we put out a school yearly schedule that we also implement the same policy in relation to well that's something that we can discuss when it gets to the point where we developed the calendar for next year but if any parents have questions or comments they can call my office directly speak to a building principal and work through those channels definitely okay anyone else motion to close second thank you