001stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice mr alfano okay mr romaji i'd like to take uh attendance if i may please uh mrs abreu here mr sopano here this is fredo okay mr garcia mr madrew dr pantaliano here mr russia mr shelley miss tarabakia here mr ian here what time did the thing say all right give her a minute if not i'll call okay i just need to read a quick statement if i may the new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the rights of the public to have advanced 907 to attend the meeting of public bodies in which any business affecting their
002interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provision of this act the cliffside board of ed has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place there up posted in the offices of the borough clerk navarro library the borough rec department the office of the board of ed and the offices of school number three four five six and the high school on april first 1st 2022 and notices were forwarded to the reporters on the record april 1st 2022 this is an official meeting okay mr um dr severance how are you i'm very well how are you i'm doing well so um i just opened the meeting and uh we'll let we're going to let you um be first and you can give your summary of the things
003that we talked about as far as the long-range plan is concerned i did give the board a copy last week a print out of the powerpoint uh so they are somewhat familiar with it but um okay so nice having you tonight and uh go ahead all right thank you i'm gonna see if i can uh share the screen host disabled participant screen sharing oh boy so either you you have to either i think allow you to share or we could use yours okay so frank is working on that right now okay so in the meantime let's chat how is everyone good good very well good beautiful day exactly who do we have with us this evening and is everyone virtual or some people in the room no everyone is here with us at our board
004meeting uh we're streaming the meeting to the public and uh we have you on zoom oh you pay very well so you should be able to share with us uh oh yes okay all right let's see there we go perfect start at the beginning as the old song goes it's a very good place to start can you see that yes we can perfect all right well greetings everyone i'm very happy to be with you here this evening i want to just begin by saying how much i've enjoyed working alongside the leaders the faculty the board members the students of cliffside park to take a look at the work that you're doing and uh look to to see what plan you might create to guide your decision making on a go forward basis so we're just
005going to run it down quickly what was the purpose the purpose was to create a guidance document a plan that can be used to help make decisions to move the district forward we made a very deliberate decision to refer to the process as you probably saw the um flyers that we use we called it looking forward because we didn't want anyone to feel intimidated or that they didn't have something to contribute by calling it strategic planning to some people we feared that that would seem a little off-putting we wanted it to be very invitational and make sure that we had maximum participation so what was the process well we hosted a number of in-person input sessions with the board and community with faculty and staff and with student representatives from each school from grades three
006to twelve we also conducted a district-wide survey so donna was outstanding with her team to get that up and out there i then aggregated and analyzed all of the feedback and input and this evening i presented this to the board of education so um here's when i was in town uh here are all the dates that we conducted these input sessions with the faculty and with the community and here's what it looked like this is a shot from the high school where our faculty members were organized in rows facing each other where the design is intended to elicit and engage every voice what we want to make sure is that everyone feels heard that it's not the loudest it's not the most influential but that everyone has a a an opportunity to share their thoughts
007ideas input and understanding about what it means to be a part of the cliffside park school community so we have a couple of pictures there seeing everyone engaged in the process and so i will tell you that while the adults were interesting the students were amazing you have some incredible students they are articulate they are invested they are involved when they were offered the invitation to share their thoughts and feelings they did and so this is kind of just a shot of one of the students input sheets where you can see what i asked of the students is what would a school be where you would be most successful we have two columns one is a heart because i believe great schools have connections have relationships where every student feels known valued respected and dare
008i say loved on the other side is ways that teachers teach so kids learn and we wanted to hear from students about their experience in the classroom when i went to the elementary school it felt like a rock star they were like yay and again uh i mean the kids were just amazing um we talked with them in small groups they had a chance to share with each other and again they were asked the same two questions about heart and their brain how to reach kids through connection and teaching and learning and um we gathered all of their ideas and input as well i will tell you that i was particularly impressed at one of the schools where one of our little girls came with her list she was ready with her ideas to build
009a better school i think one of my favorite ones is an emergency snack cabinet baking class but but seriously you know ways to connect with teachers and ways to what they're learning so this information was gathered to extract the themes that we see from schools three four and five as well as school six and the high school so we um oh and this this one includes five and six i should say right the middle school as well as the high school um and if i was to uh describe the themes that were most recurrent what we would see on the side of the heart was that the students are looking for more opportunities for connection for a sense of belonging and being understood and really having an infusion of more joy and fun and and
010a positive experience in school both interpersonally and in the classroom on the right hand side when it comes to teaching and learning kids talked about their teachers and really wanting to connect to the teachers they want teachers who care teachers who are active teachers who are passionate about what they teach um they talked about what they learn and they want it to be relevant they want to have more opportunities sometimes when it comes to courses or electives when it comes to how they learn they want to be engaged they want to be they want instructional practices to really offer them opportunities to become active participants in the learning and the learning environment as well they talked about places where they feel they would be most successful at learning so this is a picture of the
011faculty again we had tremendous engagement um i don't think i've ever been to a place like goodside park where every single person leaned in and fully engaged so what people did after they collected feedback on the questions is they aggregated their findings and reported out to the group so the questions were the same when i worked with the adults in all of the schools as well as the community forum the questions ask people to share their insights about what they see as the strengths what they're proud of the areas for improvement what they might consider the weaknesses what are the opportunities for improvement what are our resources and assets what are the internal threats for example things specific to the district that may become obstacles to improvement and the external threats for example things like
012funding and you know things that lie outside of the control of the district so again all of that information was aggregated and analyzed and what was really interesting is that sometimes what people described as strengths also showed up as challenges so for example there was a real celebration of diversity in the district and at the same time an understanding that that presents challenges for example with language barriers with making sure everyone feels valued seen and heard so some of the same strengths sometimes showed up as an opportunity for improvement and it really made it a very fascinating and dynamic uh process so when it comes to the survey this was really impressive 370 people responded to the survey which is outstanding and you can see on this first slide who the folks were who submitted
013a response here is some information about if they have children in the district where their children attend and as you see there's a nice cross-section represented including people who do not currently have children in the district we then ask them to tell us a little bit about how long you have been a part of the cliffside park community and you can see by the pie chart that you have really a very stable community that over 50 percent have been in the district for more than 10 years what do you consider to be most important so the survey asks people to respond to these four things educational excellence improving technology communication and long-range facilities plan clearly you can see by the size of the blue that there is an interest in continuing to improve educational excellence
014the perceptions of the school district and the ranking of the district within the state those were some ideas that that came up so then we started to peel back a little bit and said well what priority do you place on these various um so the first was state assessment scores so you can see there the distribution and i don't need to kind of give away the ending in advance here but this topic had the most variation in terms of what the importance that people placed on assessment scores when we look at safety it shouldn't be a surprise i'm sure to anyone that safety remains a top priority social emotional learning there was a wide-ranging recognition that students have been significantly impacted even at times traumatized their significant life changes so there's a value on social
015emotional learning and supports art and music less so than social emotional but still important to many people when we ask them about athletics you can see the responses there we inquired about full day a preschool variation across the board in terms of facilities repairs and improvements that was something that tended to come up from faculty in a certain way from the students and the community parent and community outreach this was really a recurrent theme the idea of communication and community engagement so when we put it all together um what i did is i added the number of people who responded with a four or a five so high and very high when it came to the priorities that i just shared with you and then i ranked them so that you can easily see them
016in order so i'm not sure if there are any surprises there for you but i just wanted you to be able to easily see what the survey reveals when we go back to this first question the earlier question about the goals that are most important i did a similar ranking here in educational excellence communication facilities technology we then asked about the preferred method of receiving information because communication was such a recurrent theme we wanted to ask people what is the way that you most appreciate receiving information and it was interesting to me that they're like if you look at this as a pie the pieces of those pie um are really quite similar so there wasn't an outstanding you know overarching preference for any one means but we do see that the clickside park school
017app came out um oh rather a pardon me the website came out as a top uh source of information what do you value about the district this was something that was analyzed in the 370 respondents i looked for the recurring themes and this is what continued to come up i'll be quiet for a moment just let you skin those certainly things to be very proud of things that people said they appreciate that they value this small town feel even though it is um you know a more suburban urban type of setting where there's a lot of growth people still value the tightness of the community in terms of what would you like to see improved or done differently here's what people shared so after asking what they value and what they'd like to see done
018better or differently i then looked for comments that were identified in that open invitation comment section and looked for ideas that weren't represented in these games so comments that came up um were these not necessarily by a large number of people but they did stand out as unique so i brought them forward just because they were they were interesting i thought it was interesting that people did express an appreciation for this process and for being included some of the concerns that were mentioned are here some of the concerns that were mentioned inside park i have seen in districts everywhere i have been these include availability of subs concerns about new standards issues of just change and support for some of our of our atypical learners the children and their parents who need perhaps additional support
019i think it's important to end on a high note let's look at the compliments yay people said kind things they said the councils the teachers the administrators are great um even the superintendent got a shout out we love mr roman uh needle uh communication they were like yay we love mike um district and staff have managed the challenges of coded very well thank you to all and we're so proud to send our students here so certainly there was a great deal of recognition for the outstanding work that you're doing and still an interest in moving forward which brings us to where we are today i presented the findings to the admin team on the june 3rd i then came into the district and provided all of the raw data all of the information i've collected
020to the superintendent and to donna and we then decided on today's presentation and this overview to provide you some insight into everything that has transpired to date and the plan moving forward and from here the plan is to create a plan that will address the district's priorities um and so that's pretty much it in a nutshell um this is me this is my contact information i'll leave it up there if if any of you would like to contact me for any reason but i'll do a stop share and invite you to ask any questions that you may have or offer any of your own thoughts and insights well i had a question of the comments that you wrote sort of in a summary of basis there are some of them possibly just comments from one
021or two people or are they comments from a number of people they were they were um unique they were rather unique okay but they they they did show up and not fall they did not the comments and concerns didn't fall under the um those other two categories of what they value or what they wanted to work on so i thought it might be important to acknowledge them okay thank you tracy i found something interesting in the data that you just presented one of the things that was important to the the community was that the district had a higher ranking within the state but then if you look on another slide they talked about test scores and test scores were not given that higher priority in comparison to the other questions that you asked but i
022guess you and i both know that basically the ranking within the state is based on the test scores so it seems like those are contradictory in that we want to provide a higher ranking within the state but we don't value test scores which is what we're ranked on so you know you were the deputy commissioner can you give us some insight here yes well and and we talked about that as well when i was in the district with our kind of a post uh process debris thing um i i did bring up the interesting juxtaposition between we we want to be better but we don't want to use test scores as the as that indicator uh when it comes to to rankings there are some other perhaps some sats like this the the school rankings
023are based primarily on student performance on statewide measures like um the njsla scores on graduation rates on attendance so there are some other measures but i did find it interesting that there seemed to be a perception that we don't want to use test scores as the measure of educational excellence and yet we wish to be perceived as a rigorous uh as a as a high achieving district so that caused me to wonder what then what what metrics then are you using to assess um that educational excellence if if not assessment scores that are aligned to the standards and that measure student mastery so what what measures are you looking at so to speak so i i did find that an interesting and interesting noticing anyone else tracy if you could just give us a brief
024summary of come september then uh how you're going to be involved in working with us um administratively to set some goals yes so um so you know the greatest compliment is is to be invited back so i'm thrilled to be able to come back and work alongside the admin team to turn the priorities that were revealed through the process into a plan so the the idea is to create kind of two things one is a plan on a page something that can be easily um communicated understood uh and measured and monitored so we want to create a plan on a page that would be about a three-year duration i think that i think the day and age of a five-year plan is is is gone we've learned that the world can throw us a curveball
025at any minute i think the idea that we could forecast five years is probably not very likely but three years is something we can absolutely get our arms around so the idea is that i will come back i'll work along this the uh district leaders in teams to to create the plan on the page and then behind maternity leave and then at the bottom of page seven and then continuing uh we are uh updating the salaries for september um some effect of july first some except some in september uh staff across the district tech staff uh secretarial staff custodial staff these are all contracts that were previously approved last year with uh three-year agreements so we're just updating the salaries of those staff members and that continues through page on the bottom of page 14
026we're also approving staff members who are work working outside of the school day during weight room and intramural supervision page 15 we are approving tuition reimbursements at the bottom of the page you know as per contract with the cpa a staff member who has tenure can get reimbursed for tuition uh up to twenty five hundred dollars not more than fifty thousand dollars total and those people have provided evidence that they've successfully completed graduate classes and received a b and above and let's see at the bottom of page 16 uh this coming school year is our last year of a five-year 21st century grant for our after-school program so right now we have a tuition program for grades pre-k through three and in grades four five six seven and eight we receive a grant so students
027only pay 25 for the entire year to be part of that program and we are approving staff members in that program and a director and also psych supervisors as we have in the past and that basically brings us up to mr alfano finance which starts on page 26. i don't know if there's anything you want to point out couple quick guidance we are working on our year-end which is just the close of the year in 21-22 which also leads to our fiscal order which also leads to our opening of the 22-23 school year uh so a lot going going on talking back and forth across the current year and the new year which opens up i believe on friday i believe it's july 30th um this year is probably the greatest number and the greatest
028absolute dollar amount of summer projects we're taking on in regard to facilities as mentioned previously we're taking on replacing of roofs at number six school on the elementary side and high school masonry project and roof replacement we are taking on a high school office renovation at the high school also we are updating our sound systems at the high school for both the auditorium and the gym inside and outside and at some of our elementary and middle schools we're taking on the replacement of our floors with lvt and renovating two bathrooms at the school five and in addition at the high school we are taking on the installation of approximately 19 ac units which should complete the ac installation at the high school in total uh these projects are going to be in the three point
029two to three point five million dollar range yeah mr i just want to point out that once we complete the high school we're actually finished with our i guess it's been a four year plan of air conditioning every classroom across the district correct right so that was a big big job but and i'm glad we're completing it this year and the majority of that 3.2 3.5 million dollars in total dollars because it's going to be expended really comes from historical surplus and again i'd like to thank the board for all their support in regard to giving us the opportunity to use chunks of our surplus for our capital and facilities projects over the last nine years we've probably uh totaled somewhere between 21 and 22 million dollars in capital and facilities uh projects and improvements
030over the years i want to thank the board for their support and obviously mr roman gina awesome that's pretty much it okay uh any questions on the consent agenda before we i have comments go ahead a couple comments i'm sorry it's okay talking to me first of all i saw pictures of the volleyball team practicing in the gym and they seemed very happy to be in the new gym so thank you everyone who made that happen it was nice to see kids in there actually practicing and if you permit me a personal note i want to congratulate mrs murtagh on her retirement on behalf of the parents and many many many students that she's impacted in her time here in cliffside park i want to thank her and i want to wish her well and
031much happiness in her retirement i know that i had the good fortune of experiencing her as a secretary in both school four and school six and you know every parent depended on her and every kid loved her and i think that it's going to be a big loss to cliffside but i want to wish her well in the next phase of her life very nice anyone else on the consent agenda are any questions motion to accept i'll make a message i'll second it that was mr tarabak he was number one it was mr capano number two yep okay i'd like to take a vote if i may um this is a brew yes but i have kept to abstain on page 11 jessica foster and who was that mrs abreu i'm sorry page 11. oh
032jessica foster thank you mr bro uh mr capanna yes mr fredo's not here mr drew yes uh dr pantaliano yes uh mr tarabaki yes but i stay in page nine right now that's page nine correct okay thank you for that uh and mr yanuzi yes okay mr roman gino so moved okay so again i just want to thank everyone who might be watching the stream of this meeting for a great school year looking forward to september uh also just want to make mention july we have one meeting july 20th or wednesday that's correct and we'll also be streaming that meeting to the public yes okay thank you very much motion to close may i have a second if i'm