March 7, 2024 - Clifton Board of Education Meeting

001e Mr Shad roll call please M bassford here Mr brunak here Mr Kenova here Mr Mia here Mr Santiago here M siano here miss Suarez here vice president Danny ABS president Paris here we have a quorum thank you vice president Dany is uh sends her regrets she's ill today Mr kov commissioner kova would you like to read the mission statement sure the mission of the Clifton School District in an open and reciprocal Community Partnership is is to provide all students with a quality education to develop the skills necessary to become literate lifelong Learners who are responsible and productive citizens contributing to a Democratic Society and an everchanging world thank you the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right to the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the

002meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the Clifton Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be publicized by having the date time and place thereof posted at the city clerk's office Clifton Public Library administration building senior citizen Nutrition Center on cable TV in the local press on the district's website and mailed to presidents of parent teacher organ organizations this meeting will be tap recorded in accordance with policy 0168 um we'll open with is our student representative here this evening Mr Rose you got um start off like exude facy the on sorry okay um March 9th I'm just kidding 10th um March 9th at 10:00 a.m. to 2: p.m. subsequently all collected donations will be delivered

003and participants will have the opportunity to tour the shelter um Key Club and CA are set to host their Garden State equality workshop on identities and intersectionality on Wednesday March 20th at 700 p.m. via Zoom this Workshop is open to community so and it is also free of charge um the mechanical must things were finalist and they won their Innovation and control award last weekend at the New England first robotics event in Connecticut they competed against 36 high schools from Connecticut Rhode Island Massachusetts and New Hampshire our Clifton mock trial team is also doing very well they had a successful Pate County tournament beating pcti in the championship round in advance to the regional competition the team won their trial to the semi-final Regional competition and they were going back to New Jersey Law Center

004on March 12 to compete against the Park Ridge for Northern the Northern Regional Champions two members of the team have been accepted to the most prestigious M trial tournament in the United States Jenna and Veronica David will be representing the Clifton High School Mustangs to compete for one title of gladiator um our national social studies Honor Society has also raised an impressive $300 to date that will be used to purchase citizenships materials for anyone in the community who maybe need in need of resources um our academic kathon te won the super quiz at the New Jersey state championships they also qualified as a contestant in the National Finals where they will they will be competing n um virtually and our CHS Muslim Student Association would like to wish all who partake a very blessed Ramadan

005the MSA will be hosting an ifar where students can break their fast together on March 14th um at 6:00 p.m. in K3 see Miss Ibrahim one of my favorite teachers to purchase ticket okay now on to sports we would like to congratulate members on um of our bowling team for their accomplishments this season Sarah zeil uh First Team all County finished first place in the county in 33r in the state First Team all League Jamal Martinez in the honorable mention for All County and a honorable mention for all League Sam zel first place all County and First Team all league and delz razar for honorable mention honorable menchion All County and second Team all League Ryan Pierce also has um um honorable mention for All County in honorable mention for all league and for flag

006football we are about to start our third girls flag flag football season over 80 girls has registered to try out so please come and share them M at their first scrimmage on March 16th at 11:00 a.m. in the Clifton stadium and lastly um please come and come out to our spring production of Hello Dolly tickets can be purchased with cash at the door and Advance on their website Friday March 8th Saturday March 9th at 700 p.m. and March 10th at 1 p.m. will be the showings and more information can be found at Clon High School website um on Instagram page so please follow them at Clifton High School drama that is c l i f t nsor drama or email um Lisa POI with any questions um the cast crew Orchestra and directors look forward

007to seeing you at the show and I can say I usually do stage crew for the shows but it's always a very very good time so please if you guys are free just make sure to come out spread the word um but yes that's it for today thank you very much thank you Jada for keeping us up to date and uh special congratulations to the mock trial team on their uh Victory we'll move to uh student our student recognition Awards um first start with the Freshman Mr The Freshman commissioner mAh believe yes thank you so our freshman student of the month is going to be Andres Willam Marin our freshman grade student of the month has been in band since elementary school when he picked up his first alto saxophone when he's not in the

008band room he enjoys learning about the history in the classroom and plans on doing spring outdoor track this year Andres thanks his parents for all his support and raising him to be the person he is today with his parents and his strong work ethic he is Bound for success in the next three years here at CHS certificate of achievement this recognition is certified to Andes on behalf of the Clifton Board of Education and administration for CHS freshman St in the month March 2024 [Applause] congratulations see you see s congratulations that was freshman there you go up next is a a certificate of achievement for Jenna Jenna alur our sophomore student of the month is Jenna alur her favorite subject in school is history as she loves to learn about politics and our government she is

009on the mock trial team in competing in the mock trial World Championships this summer she has competed at Harvard Princeton and Yale and hopes to go on to win States this year Jenna is also on the varsity volleyball team which she has been on since the eighth grade outside of school she trains in Taekwondo and is a second degree black belt her influential and inspiring people include Dr McCoy and her family who are always there to support her at work and home let's please applaud for Jenner on the tour [Applause] con [Applause] Junior you got who's a junior it is my privilege to talk about the 11th grade student of the month Nicholas doctor our Junior student of the month is Nicholas doctor Nicholas is a varsity wrestler and is in the athletic Training Club

010he enjoys learning about history and the relations between events in the past he has really enjoyed Mr Rogers history class for two years now and it has reinforced his dream to become a history teacher Nicholas had to overcome a painful miniscus tear during his freshman year but he has learned from this process in difficult time along with Mr Rogers and his parents who have always supported him in achieving his goals he is right on track to successfully become a history teacher and coaching wrestling after college Nicholas I have a certificate of achievement for you up [Applause] here [Applause] see here thank thanks my little corner here so our senior student of the month is Mariana kada Moya Mariana is in Varsity swimming National Honor Society National Society of High School Scholars and is the vice

011president of global mentoring program and girls who code Club one of the most challenging experiences was immigrating from costaa and learning English from scratch when she arrived at CHS adapting to the American culture and educational system would not have been possible without the help of her friends and teachers like Mrs stag and Mr Stewart Mariana sister is also someone who inspires her to do her best and succeed marana's aspirations include studying computer science with a focus on cyber security and becoming the first person in her family to graduate from college congratulations [Applause] Marana okay we'll make sure that gets to her we will make sure she gets this stud employes of start good evening I have the uh pleasure of reading Diane gito I was asking Mr uh superintendent Robi how to pronounce the name

012because I sometimes the names are difficult but I want to make sure that it was correct so G uh Diane gero 10-month secretary at cila s uh the Clifton Early Learning educa Academy Diane guito is a team player she always takes the time to lend a hand whether it is to be uh to assist a parent support a teacher or help a student no request is too big or too small from the first day spear opened Diane continued to be an intrical part of the spear Community Diane demonstrates kindness and respect to everyone she meets Diane listens with compassion and responds with care whether it's a question asked to her she is always and has an answer to give and get the information for you in a timely manner now not only does she do

013the role of a secretary but uh she does much much more she serves as our tech guide helps keep teachers on track with the duties and she is also the chair of our Sunshine committee at sealer spear she knows all the students and the parents and assists them with arrival and dismissal every day she is always consistent positive and kind is Diane here Diane this clack is uh presented to Diane greo for outstanding service dedication and commitment to the Clifton public school learning community congratulations Diane to come up hide back there is there any other staff let's take one with the family then we'll ask the St to come up okay behind come on Mr Frank Mr Frank make sure Mr Frank's [Applause] here thank you Mr President Middle School level Gwen air Sanchez World

014Language teacher Gwen is always present in the hallway engaging with students and teachers her attitude and engaging personality have such a positive effect on CCMS students and staff Gwen is always in contact with the fourth to sixth grade teams to monitor their students progress it is a very Challen it is very challenging juggling all four teams she makes sure she communicates with the team leaders and her students Gwen will will let them know if she is calling a parent about a concern and we ask for any feedback about specific students as well as being so focused on her Student Success is also she is also a great colleague Gwen is always willing to help her colleagues translate when speaking with a parent she never says no she always finds a way to help for evening

015conferences this past February Gwen created a schedule of her availability to translate for the sixth grade teams her evening was filled with helping her co- workers Gwen is a tremendous asset to our community congratulations [Applause] Gwen I just wanted to say I'm so so grateful for this I just wanted to say really quickly I'm so so grateful for this award I really was not expecting it at all and I feel so blessed I really do to have worked in Clifton this is my 23rd year in Clifton I know I started when I was five um so I'm so so blessed to work with the amazing people that I work with at Christopher Columbus I worked 15 years as an elementary school teacher and I loved that job and it was a little scary coming to

016the middle school but I'm so happy that I have I have an amazing Community there my Administration is amazing I have the best department the World Language Department I'm so so happy our supervisor is amazing and K through 12 we have the best best teachers and I just want to thank everybody really from the bottom of my heart thank you so [Applause] muche Way Family any staff here come up for the second picture please we'll do a family one first another staff picture princip here Mr vice principal mning [Applause] uh next for uh High School is Joseph Finley mathematics teacher Joe Joe Finley has been a long-standing member of the CHS staff and has always put the best interest of his students as his number one priority Joe holds extra help and tutors lessons for

017his students on a near daily basis encouraging students with his passion and help beyond the mere length of a class period Joe is always positive during parent teacher meetings he's always treating parents with respect and is able to find something positive to say about the most difficult situ students always ready to assist a fellow staff member with dedication and understanding he embodies the best in what a teacher should be his tireless effort are an example for students to commit themselves to their growth and responsibility while also serving as a reminder for staff that passion is at the heart of our craft Joe come up we have a certificate for you [Applause] here I'm sorry let's correct sorry Joe feely Feely conratulations I don't I don't believe we have any committee presentations at this point we're

018going to go right to uh our budget hearing presentations on our preliminary budget folks there are no more um recognition tonight for staff or students we will not be insulted if you leave but if you want to stay for my exhilarating budget presentation you're also more than welcome to do that too board members have to St oh my goodness e which microphone are we using good evening board Commissioners members of The Cliff one Clifton Community faculty staff students uh those watching at home the annual budget is one of the most important decisions if not the most important decision the board of education is responsible for each year now I want to be clear the the budget is a Board of Education decision it's one of the things that really falls under the perfu of the

019board however a board would be irresponsible to not listen to the administration uh when crafting a budget for the next school year that has never happened here in Clifton um the board is always willing to listen to the needs of the faculty um and staff and the administration having said that it's important to know that as an elected official ladies and gentlemen you represent the students and the staff and the taxpayer and that's a very very important role that you play it's it doesn't go on notice that New Jersey is the highest taxed state in the entire country and part of the reason for that is our overr Reliance on property taxes to fund education tonight you are not voting on a budget I want to be clear tonight the administration is going to present

020to you what we believe are the needs of the district and you're voting to authorize the administration to send the budget to the county superintendent for approval the final budget presentation and vote will not take place till our May board meeting so in an effort to see where we are today where we want to go we have to take a look back and see how we got here and so I want to begin tonight with a brief history of State funding for schools in New Jersey take it back to maybe the elementary school maybe Middle School the first time you heard of this document called the United States Constitution which is the outline of our government in the United States and the founding fathers who wrote the Constitution were smart enough to include a little

021known Amendment called the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution and I say little known because you've all heard of the Bill of Rights and you've heard people talk about my first amendment rights to freedom of speech you may have heard from watching TV police dramas I plead the fifth which is the Fifth Amendment right to not self-incriminate but nobody ever talks about the poor lonely 10th Amendment but it's extremely important and why is it important in this discussion of school funding because ladies and gentlemen believe it or not the word education the word school does not exist in the United States Constitution but the 10th Amendment says and I'll read it verbatim the powers not get delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the states or reserved to the

022states respectively or to the people in simple terms basically when they created this document they said you know what we're not going to be able to include everything and in case we kind of maybe forget something important like education or anything we don't mention in this document is going to be left up to each individual State hence the reason why schools in every state in the United States are funded primarily through their state legislatures primarily through through the state constitutions and in New Jersey with a heavy overreliance on property taxes the New Jersey state constitution has a education clause which calls for a thorough and efficient education thorough and efficient anybody know what that means nobody does nobody really knows what it means which is why a debate over what equals a thorough and efficient

023education has been raging on for years and the ability to fund schools so that school districts can provide a thorough and efficient education is a constant struggle because what you believe is thorough and efficient may be different from what I believe it may be different from what our parents believe so once again in New Jersey the primary funding source for school districts are property taxes however in the 1970s the Supreme Court in New Jersey ruled that the poorer districts in our state did not have the tax base to properly fund schools and they told the state legislature you have to fix it so the state of New Jersey the legislature one of the things they did was create an income tax to help aid School District's budgets and just to give you an idea of

024the entire New Jersey state budget 40% of the entire New Jersey state budget goes to education almost half of the entire budget goes to fund the schools in New Jersey not only did the Supreme Court tell the legislature to fix it they said that to the legislature you have to ensure that you provide an equal educational opportunity for all students regardless of where they live and so the state's goal up until about was parody between rich and poor districts parody means equal the state wanted each town to treat students equally and by trying to equalize this has actually caused more problems because you cannot provide an equal education a student who grows up in poverty needs more than a student who comes from more affluent parents a district that is primarily full of students who

025who come from a lower socioeconomic background will need more Aid than a than a district of students whose parents come from a higher socioeconomic background not my rule I didn't create that that's life and so what what this idea of parody resulted in was decades of fighting between who gets how much money and this town is getting more money than this town and it's not fair and how do you determine what's fair so finally in 2008 the state of New Jersey the legislature passed the school funding Reform Act and this law was intended to fix the inequities in the state funding formula in doing so the philosophy of the state also changed where we went away from the idea of creating parity or equality amongst districts to the idea of adequacy that the state should

026provide adequate funding and the definition of adequacy means equal to the needs of the district so some districts need more money than others and that's where the idea of an adequacy budget came about and in New Jersey what that looks like is the Money Follows the student on October 15th every year ladies and gentlemen it's a magic number for for superintendents and school districts October 15th is the day we count up all of our students and we use that number to apply for state aid through something called the Assa which is the application for state school aid the application for state school aid is how the adequacy budget is determined factors such as elll poverty level and special education are figured into the formula so don't ask me how but the state of New Jersey

027has come up with a number for an a a regular average Elementary student the state says it costs $1 11,9 to educate that student so for every regular education Elementary student in the Clifton public schools to give them adequately what they need it's $ 11,9 according to the state and then you add in other factors like if a student is elll which we now call uh ml or multi L uh multi- language Learners or if a student has a disability and is classified as special education that factors in and it costs more money to educate that student so on October 15th we fill out this application we say how many students we have how many of them are multi language Learners how many of them are special education and based on that number the sum

028of that number is the district's adequacy budget so far so good you take all the kids 11,000 kids in Clifton each of those students is worth or excuse me not worth that's the wrong wrong word each of those students it costs a certain amount of money to educate that student you add up all those numbers and that's the budget the state says is what you need what we need to adequately educate our students then the state calculates how much the district can afford through property taxes and that's known as your local fair share the difference between those two numbers is the amount of state aid that a district gets my mark you've changed so dramatically so the idea behind the school funding Reform Act and the uh the the the law that was passed in

0292008 was that it it would be a fairer funding formula that it would provide students with provide districts with the amount of money that they need based on different factors which we know should be accounted for when educating a child however when they did the calculations in 2008 the the bill didn't pass because over 180 districts of the 600 or so districts in New Jersey about 180 of them would lose age would lose money and so the legislators from those areas obviously voted no so in an effort to get this funding Reform Act passed the state came up with some idea called hold harmless Aid also known as excuse me also known as um adjustment Aid so the 180 districts that would have lost aid the state gave them the money that the formula called

030for plus a the aid that they would have lost they kept getting that and they kept getting that every year until 2018 all the while a district like Clifton which historically was underfunded did not get the aid the formula was not fully funded why because all of the districts that had to get hold hold armless Aid the money went to them and you'll see a chart later on that it shows this more um more clearly so in 2018 the formula changed again in uh a law called S2 and what S2 did was it did two things it eliminated hold harmless Aid so those districts that were getting the extra money no more but not all at once a little bit each year until this year where the formula is supposed to be funded exactly how

031it was created and the other thing it did was it increased Aid to the underfunded districts like Clifton which is why when I show you the chart starting in 2018 you'll see that Clifton started getting additional state aid each year while other districts who were overfunded for many many years started losing Aid and they're the ones who are all crying foul about their losing aid but they had been overfunded for many many years so they were able to hire a a whole bunch of teachers a whole bunch of principes and administrators and all the people that they probably could have done without but they had the money so why not spend it but a district like Clifton and many others had to go without so the state aid formula to bring us up to adequacy

032is also built on the assumption that the Local District would raise the tax levy 2% each year by raising the tax levy 2% each year that gives you your local fair share the amount of money that the state says the Clifton taxpayers should be paying and now after this year's state aid increase the state formula is fully funded that means after this year we will not be getting additional state aid but we will be getting the aid that the formula calls for based on 11,000 students and based on all those other categories I mentioned earlier but the problem ladies and gentlemen is we are below our fair share because of multiple budgets with 0% increases so we will never be caught up to where we should be because of those 0% ta tax increases and

033I will tell you that that I understand the reason why previous boards did that finally in 2018 the district was getting additional money that it was due and and owed and so the the the board members at that time the board at that time felt well hey we should give the taxpayers a break and I get it but now it's come home to roost are there any questions about anything I've said so far cuz that's the history and that's how we got to where we are today anybody have any questions about that before I move on thank you Miss Warz I it's a difficult thing I you know to and not everyone understands it so I want to make sure we're all on the same page so that we can have fruitful discussions this is

034a number you'll hear repeated several times tonight I'm just going to say it and then you'll hear Mr sha talk about it later but this is um to keep everything we have today to maintain what we have now next year this is our this is our increase for next year okay so remember that number and then remember this those of you who own a house you know this already but each year you get a tax bill and that tax bill um in every city or town in the state state of New Jersey is divided into three parts there's Municipal Taxes that's your city taxes there's County taxes that goes to the county for the services the county provides and then there is the school tax which in every single town and city in the state

035of New Jersey it doesn't matter what town you look at it's always the biggest piece of the pie always schools are always the biggest piece of the pie however as you can see on this chart and the next one might be even clearer it's uh just numbers since 2016 Clifton has been hovering at about 46 to 40% um 46 to 47% of a taxpayers bill meaning the portion of your tax bill that goes to the school has been about 46 to 47 % again bigger than Municipal bigger than County but so is every other town but if you look closely that percentage is significantly lower than both the county and state average meaning we spend less on our schools than most districts in the entire state of New Jersey and that Gap guys it's not

036a small Gap it's millions of dollars it's millions of dollars and so that's where you get the idea that the state says we are not fulfilling our local fair share here's that same information in number form right the left column is the percentage of when you get your tax bill that's the percentage that goes to the schools lower than than the average in Baya County every year and lower than the state average what does that mean that means that the the Clifton Board of Education historically has been very conservative in regards to budgets has been very respectful of the taxpayers and even with being underfunded all those years years even all the underfunding we're doing pretty good as a district academically socially extracurricularly made that word up could you imagine had we gotten the funding

037that we were supposed to get every year since 2008 we're talking about $500 million and I know Mr brunak remembers that number because every now and then he texts me he's like hey how do we get our 500 million back so we talked tonight A little about an increase in in our percentage we're only talking about an increase in our percentage of the pi so you see 2022 47.4% and here's an interesting number guys remember last year we raised the tax levies anybody remember how much good net 2.4% but what happened to our share of the piie from the year previous look at 2022 our percentage look at 2023 what happened to our share anybody I'll decreased even though we raised taxes we raised the tax levy are part of the Pi still went down

038and then here's some other um oh no I'm sorry the next slide has some other uh towns that I could just show you what what they're doing um so this is the proposed tax levy um as the board knows and I'm not sure if the public knows but we are permitted each year to raise the tax levy up to 2% in fact that's what the state expects the state expects us to raise the tax 2% however in years where we don't raise taxes and we do anything other 2% the amount that we uh do not raise the bud uh tax levy under 2% is known as banked cap it's like you could put it away for a rainy day and so this year we have the ability to raise the tax levy 2% and we

039also have 2% of Bank cap from previous years where we did not raise tax taxes so we could raise the tax levy 4% and if we did that's what um the pi would look like so the percentage of the pi would only let go back only go up to 48.5% which compared to other towns now and we cannot compare ourselves to Patterson and posic because they their budgets are not relying on property taxes they get millions and millions of state aid several of the board Commissioners and administrators texted me last night an article about the city of pic getting a brand new $328 million High School completely funded by the school Development Authority which is a state [Music] agency $328 million just because here you go we can't do that we don't get that so

040it's not fair to compare us to pic and Patterson but you want to look at what other towns their breakdown Wayne they're at 55 we're at with a 4% increase we're at 48.5 Wayne 55% West Milford 58% Bloomingdale 55.9% Hawthorne 55.7% Pompton Lakes 56.7% Ringwood 59.1% these are all towns in our County and so as I mentioned earlier we'll never get back to where we should be one because of the underfunding from the state and two because of the multiple years as you can see on this graph of below 2% increases you'll see just the last two years that we raised the tax levy we were working with budgets now that that didn't increase we were trying to do the same thing with the same amount of money while dealing with more students while dealing

041with different needs and really guys the only thing that kind of kept us afloat the past couple years was the infusion of federal Esser funds because of the pandemic well guess what those are no more so I'm not trying to paint a dire situation we're good we are good but our kids have been short changed for a long time our district has been short changed for a long time and there are things that other districts have that we don't have because we didn't get the funding we deserved and because we didn't at least go to 2% even 1% had we gone to 1% each of those years that were zero that's a few extra million dollars that we would have for our students millions of dollars we're talking about and this is where the state

042says we are the state says that our recommended tax adequacy is 169 million that's the amount of money we should be getting in property taxes according to the state that's our fair share if we raise our tax levy 4% we're only at 153 million that's 15 million below where the state says we should be so I I guess the point is well I don't want to raise anybody's taxes I pay taxes too I don't pay taxes in Clifton but I pay taxes and I respect the board's uh regard for the taxpayers But ultimately at the end of the day I'm going to look out for kids and I'm going to look out for staff and right now based on our tax levy we're 15 mil below where the state says we should be so the

043administration's asking the board to raise the tax levy 2% and to use our bank cap and finally not to beat a dead horse but that's what that $510 million looks like the maroon color is the amount of Aid we got from the state the pink if you notice the pink starts getting bigger in 2018 that's the passage of S2 and then it goes the pink gets bigger every year which is why in those years the board did 0% tax levy increases until we are where we are in 2023 with additional pink but there will be no more pink and the red is what we're calling missing money it's it's the money that if the formula had been fully funded All Those Years and we're only going back to 2013 if we went back to 2008

044it wouldn't fit on the page it wouldn't look right and the point would get um that the point wouldn't be so clear but that red is the money we should have had guys and I can't even imagine what this District would look like if we had that money so at this time I'm going to turn it over to assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction Janina cevich to talk about what the budget priorities are for next year and our needs Janina thank you when question Dr robertto yes sir if we don't use that 2% Bank cap can we use it next year that's a very good question Mr Paris that 2% Bank cap will expire this year so that 2% we don't use it now we lose it forever and how much money is that Mr

045shahada 2.68 million 2.68 million that we would lose forever thank you for asking that question Dr yes sir did you say the current New Jersey state budget is around the around 50% for Education now too about 40% the current state not just in 1976 but to this day about 40% it might be probably more now thank you you're very welcome I'm happy to answer any other questions uh folks but I'm not going anywhere I'm going to sit right here actually I'm going to sit in my chair so I could to see Janina thank you Robert thank you Dr Rober toy Commissioners Dr Robert toy clearly presented how we got to where we are what I'd like to talk about today are where we need to go from here of our nearly 11,000 students 56% of

046them speak any one of 62 different language languages at home over 2,300 of them have an IEP and receive some form of special education services ranging from speech to fully inclusive classrooms with wraparound supports we have over 1270 multilingual Learners children learning the English language and then we have our general education population that especially since the pandemic has increasing needs in remediation of literacy skills of math skills and tremendous social emotional needs students requiring counseling School phobias communication concerns that may not rise to the level of special education this budget's instructional priorities focus in on our general education student needs as well as these specialized populations the first section of priorities we're looking at instructional support these growing specialized populations and increasingly complex needs that our students have require increases in special education this budget

047includes a social worker behaviorists counsel more full and part-time paraprofessionals bilingual and ESL support staff as well as general education intervention teachers and reading specialists in order to support our teachers our schools our students they need help working together we are asking for some more programmatic support additional instructional coaches to support our teaching staff so they can can best help our students and administrative intern and assistant principles and one more special education supervisor for that growing population from an instructional classroom perspective we're looking at additional special education classroom teachers as well as resource room and inclusion teachers I mentioned that we have 2300 students in special education at this time as of today there are still 152 students waiting to be tested by our child study team to see if they need additional supports we

048have bilingual and ESL teachers included in this budget our multilingual Learners have doubled and that continues to grow we'd recently this week had an education and special education committee meeting at that meeting I said that we had had students on Monday of this week by Tuesday of this week our multilingual Learners increased to 1278 and as of a few minutes before the school day closed the cue of new registrants who need to be tested for English language support services is now 22 more students and that's just increases that took place this week we're also asking for some high school elective teachers and our preschool program continues to grow although luckily the preschool program does come with its own pot of money but that funding from the state the peeg funding covers most of but not

049all of our preschool needs and it definitely does not address the space needs we have so I think I've painted a picture of our increasingly complex student needs all of these specialized populations in addition to there being more of these students special education bilingual ESL and preschool are all subject to class siiz limits based on various forms of legislation Ida guides how big a special education self-contained or inclusion class can be bilingual code guides how many students should be in a bilingual or ESL classroom especially for newcomers who are level one or level two English speakers and preschool Aid is Guided by early childhood guidance that limits preschool classrooms to 15 students for a teacher and paraprofessional all of these smaller classes require in most cases fullsize classrooms and that's something that's at a premium

050right now with the pre the special education increases at this time we're almost out of seats we have limited seats available in all of our self-contained classes yet there are still 152 kids who have to be tested that potentially could be up to if all of those students needed Services could be up to 15 more classrooms we think it's more like 3 to eight we need have increases for therapeutic supports and there's crossover much more crossover than ever before between special education ESL and general education we have more and more of our English language language Learners who are coming in needing additional supports in addition to counseling but also instructional differentiation in the form of an IEP in special education I just shared with you that exponential growth in ESL just over two years ago

051we only had about 652 English language learner multilingual Learners as I just shared with you that number has more than doubled and just this week alone is seeing a spike and for preschool expansion same thing more space needs we get the funding from the state but guess what like all funding it comes with strings attached the strings attached to preschool funding are that we must continually show growth to what they call the preschool Universe right now we are serving about 65 60% of our preschool Universe in order to get to 90 that's about just around over a thousand kids to get to 90% of our preschool Universe we're going to need 24 more classrooms there are no classrooms every single classroom space in our elementary schools is at capacity there's one little pocket where two

052classes will condense for next year and those have already been earmarked for special education self-contained spaces We are continuing to explore space the middle schools are bursting at the seams and the high school does not have available classrooms certain periods of the day so as we explore space options we are looking at non-public schools we are looking at Partnerships we're looking at leases we already have multiple partners ships for both special education and preschools with local organizations and of course we are currently leasing some buildings and looking at leasing others there is a lease component that is also included in this budget in order to address some of these space needs which group or what grade span will get those needs that will depend on the greatest need in this coming year but the needs

053are many we're not doing poorly we're not but we do need to continue to support the needs of all of our students thank you I'm going to turn this over to our assistant superintendent for business Mr shahada I got the title wrong right all right good evening Commissioners so this year we were awarded an additional 8.5 $5 million in state aid and this is how the state is telling us we need to allocate that money roughly $5.5 million for special education just under a million dollar for security and slightly over $2 million for Equalization Aid Equalization Aid basically is just for the growing enrollment so the total Aid that we received from the state y year is just shy of $99 million and here is an exhaustive list of how that money is being spent

054oh excuse me this picture was designed to illustrate the hole we have to dig out of walking into fiscal year 25 we are obligated to pay north of $13 million before we can even think of any discretionary spending which would include special projects or any expansion of programs now here in his in his exhaustive list of how that $8 million is being spent between salary and benefits it's a total of $9 million Charter School an increase of $3.4 million pcti $612,000 add of District private schools $92,000 contracted transportation $620,000 and County Special Services and state facilities $234,000 now I've taken the liberty of creating a list of what the tax impact would be from a 1 to a 6% increase however based on this budget presentation I've highlighted the 4% as you can see based

055on the average assessed Home in Clifton the 4% increase would be slightly over slightly under $17 per month or slightly over $200 per year year now this is what the 4% and the additional Aid gets us it allows us to meet all of our contractual obligations in addition the 23 24 2% has been strategically placed in this budget and allows us to fund Pope Paul for the next seven years with just this Mount alone also it is important to know what Dr Robert Mr Shad I'm sorry to interrupt can we just go back to Pope Paul because Janita mentioned the case for space you're mentioning Pope Paul I want to be clear that the Comm Commissioners understand that we're talking that about that as extra space um the 2% that covers Poole what does that

056tell me what that means the 2% is the $2.9 million that we got out of the 4% last year so the rent roughly is about $2.8 million with about 2% increasing every year so with that amount that we have put into the budget for Pope Paul it can fund it for seven years before we have to ask the taxpayers or the board for additional funds to continue the lease so as Dr Robert toy mentioned earlier it's also important to note that we have $20 million in expiring ARP eser grants this year so with our recent state aid notice indicating the flat trajectory and the anticipated Sunset of the saffra formula next year it is extremely unlikely that we will receive any additional funding until the governor in a new legislature imp excuse me Implement a

057new formula however we can easily be on the short end of the stick like many of our neighboring districts when the state is calculating how much Aid to give to a district it's comprised of a multitude of factors one of the main components is whether or not the district asked the local taxpayers for an increase the state's rationale is very simple if they don't need money from their local municipality they don't need money from the state ultimately we believe this budget allows us to build a strong foundation for years to come and helps combat any uncertainties with state aid now here's just a recap of the budget needs state aid increase the local fair share fixed cost to maintain the budget security requirements bilingual ESL enrollment explosion special education increases preschool growth and the need

058for space teacher and Par professional retention expiring Bank cap expiring federal grants and the prevention of Staff Cuts in the future thank you all Mr sh to thank you very very much well done I'd want to go back to to Pope Paul um space is one of our biggest issues and for those of you who don't know Pope Paul um was a high school for many many years in in in Clifton it is um while I think there might be a small program there now we have been in negotiations with them for for a while and we are very close to securing that building uh Miss kusevic can describe to you a little bit more about that building and and what it looks like and what it um what it can do for us as

059a district Janina yes Pope Paul has approximately 28 full-size classrooms and a total of 33 usable classrooms as well as a full gym cafeteria small Auditorium um and additional um Office Space in comparison to our current middle schools um this is smaller than Christopher and Woodrow um woodro does have 44 classroom uh usable team classrooms 60 rooms with small spaces uh Christopher has 47 full-size team classrooms about 54 with smaller spaces um but this could be nearly the size of so pop Paul would could Garner us a minimum of 28 full size and a total of 33 additional classroom spaces thank you Miss kusich and I want to be uh very transparent with the board um from the administration's perspective there are many uses for that building um we did a um a brainstorming session

060about six weeks ago um my executive team and I and we came up with no less than 19 different uses for the building um I don't want to get into that tonight but rest assured uh when the eyes are dotted and tees are crossed and we secure that building um what we're going to do is we're going to come to the board with what we believe are the top three uh uses for that building and of course then we're going to need your input um on what would be uh best suited but there's no doubt that we need that space we need that building and if you haven't seen it it's a it's a the building is in really good shape there's a a big piece of property there too there's uh there's athletic fields

061in the back and there's also a separate building uh which I believe hosted the um the the the diasis I always have trouble with that word the diasis offices so there can be uh and so there's other uses for for that um for that too so it's uh I'm very happy that that it became available I'm very happy that we're close to getting it it's just making the final decision of what we're going to do with it is going to be a collaborative decision that we make together so um I'm happy now to open it up to any questions from the Commissioners for myself Mr Shahar or Miss kusevic okay anyone question a couple of questions so just want to make sure I have this right Miss kusevic um so we have roughly now maybe

062with the people in the queue the students in the queue potential students 1300 multi- language Learners roughly right and then you said we have 3,000 roughly uh students with an IEP so like a third of the District of is that correct 2,300 with about potentially 15 00 more so just under like 25 20 22 to 3% okay and thank you and then um so in the last two years our multi-level uh multilanguage Learners doubled roughly um any just like high level uh number of of the increase of IEP students maybe year-over year is that so year-over-year you can't really do that because the students graduate students come back in but over the last let's say 10 years we've gone from about 1,600 to 2300 okay and um so we have the MLL students who may

063or may not have an IEP and vice versa and I assume there's a maybe some small percent that are both have both and are both right okay thanks um and then my other question is the uh saffra formula sunsetting um do is there some talk or or or an estimate of when they will have the new formula the state I being told it will not be touched by Governor Murphy it will be touched by who whomever the next Governor may be okay um thank you and then um I think my final question was okay so so the numbers here that you provided us thank you very much and um listen I just have to give you all Kudos you do a tremendous job year-over-year Comm communicating providing the background and sharing with the public clearly

064what the needs are and where we are right you be back um and so the the number here of 4% uh equates to 202 in the average uh property owner increase that's the dollars that they would see correct okay so this chart here has you know multiple percents which is great just to be clear that whoever's looking at that that annual would be the bottom line number increase to your property tax correct I just want to be clear because it is complicated it is based on the assessed value of the home correct right so that's if you're have an average Home in Clifton that $22 is what you'll see right now there is a calculator is that still on our website uh Mr sh so what what we are going to do is we're going

065to put we'll put a calculator on our website and we'll send something so that you can put in your um you actually put in your address and doesn't it give you the assessed value you would have to put in the assessed value of your home and it does the calculations on the background to tell you what your actual dollar amount increase will be and the assessed value can be found on your tax bill Mr Chad correct yep thank you thank you Mr Santiago anyone else any other questions commission Mahia I did have a question for um Dr cuch lovik um I know there have been stories of some other districts that it's been really hard to obtain bilingual ESL teachers when it comes to students who come from Russian and German um and I know

066right here you did include Ukrainian Turkish Spanish Arabic how easy will it be for us to obtain those um teachers with the proper credentials and to ensure that it's not via online instruction because I know a couple weeks ago we did have some students tell us that there are online instructions going on and I just feel when it comes to ESL and bilingual teachers we would need this in the classroom rather than online so it will be very difficult um so far we have been lucky we have been able to either find the bilingual staff that we need or we have grown our own we do turn to the community the current Ukrainian teacher that we have is one of the parents from our program uh we have been very lucky and able to in

067order to find people from our commity Community to fill these roles um our top languages in Clifton are Spanish followed by Arabic and the growing populations that need support would be Ukrainian and Turkish we do still have a large number of Polish speakers but we don't they don't need English language uh Services those these are these are families that are now generational here um it will be a challenge and while we would seriously intend to limit um and prevent any kind of online instruction um unfortunately that is a stop Gap filler while we try to grow our own continue to seek other opportunities work with the colleges work with um have Partnerships with the universities to perhaps we have a teacher who might be certified in in something else but they have a language skill

068to do the alternate route with them or support them through that college program we have um contracted with Kelly Services to be able to increase our number of substitutes to provide coverages while we're seeking out new staff um we're basically trying everything we can but this is not a pretty picture we had a team of people at two different major job fairs this week we had someone go down to Kane we had a group going down to Kane University and we had a group going down to up to William Patterson they left the group that went to cane walked away with a total of after a full day there would you like to guess how many resumés we GA we gathered at cane three three whole resumés after a day of recruiting I was going

069to say good guest D and at um William Patterson we came away with seven the education programs in our country are not putting out enough teachers to fill the current vacancies much less the vacancies coming in the next few years so I'm sorry for the long answer we will do are we are doing everything we possibly can so far knock on I guess for Micah we will we've been lucky we've had to use very very minimal number of class sections um in an online format but I have to say the one class section that is still left um has been extremely successful because that virtual staff member has integrated themselves so well into the community that they've even been recommending students of the month Janita that's long but well needed answer thank you for that

070I want to reiterate one more time to the commissioner that we have time that we have time we have until May the May board meeting to make a final decision tonight you are authorizing us to send the budget to the county superintendent for approval we could put zero we could put 25% now it doesn't matter they look at it to make sure that it's balanced and that it's formatted correctly then they just give it a a generic approval so that we could have our budget hearing in May so we decide tonight to send it with 4% that can change very easily um in in May when we formally submit the budget just wanted to clarify that again any other questions from Commissioners yes commissioner here so the reason I asked that is because I did

071know that in the legislator there was a bill to prevent online curriculum I'm not sure whatever happened with it if it's still lost if the vote was still going to be happening um but I that's something that I am afraid of I'm afraid that they get rid of that and then we have no options and then like you said it is very hard to fill in an ESL Certification um and with that said we would probably have to find find someone sponsor them to get and ESL sir and then um as the growing population of Ukrainian students and Turkish students keeps growing and growing we're going to have to make anou and again that would cost us a lot more money um I'm not sure if we would sponsor them at that point or if

072we would obligate them to go out on their own and get their own ESL startt um but that was just one of the things that quickly popped into my head um another question I did have in terms of the special education um I do know we are requesting more um services for them but I did want to quickly touch base on the service for semi I know we are enrolled in that where we charge the Medicaid how does that work in terms of the budget so for those who don't know Mr sh I'm going to ask you to give the number so maybe while I'm talking unless you have it right there uh semi is special education medic Medicare initiative Medicade Medicade sorry thank you that's a very different thing and it allows the district

073to be reimbursed for certain services for our special education students we do need parents to sign off on that and over the past several years um we've gotten our percentage of reimbursement up um to receive a a lot more because we were working harder to get those parental uh parental approvals parental signatures so I don't mean to put you on the spot of it but do you have that number in that big booklet somewhere I do I just need a moment to find it and correct me if I'm wrong that number um can only be used for special education or does it go to the general fund it go to the general fund however we try to infuse it back into the special education department so we'll get we'll we'll we'll get that number I

074I put them on the spot but we'll get that number for you any other question yes commissioner canola yeah um so first of all I want to thank you for for a very detailed explanation I mean I think anybody at home following now understands the full scope of everything that took place in the history um I know Clifton was a part of it because in 2018 we were the ones that were able to remove that formula and put S2 in place and that's the whole reason why we're starting to get this funding and uh a lot of signatures for that Mr yeah and and historically the reason why was because they were counting let's say Jersey City for instance let's just use one um had at the time five ,000 students but now had less

075students it didn't matter they would continue to get that Aid in perpetuity unless we made some sort of change so um I'm glad that swung in our Direction but as you mentioned that now comes to an end and so does all the Esser funding and so do all this other additional funding and and these counselors that we that we had here um so that downfall and looking at Pages um 11 and 12 here so you mention that 13,00 number is million 13 $3,950 number is the increased cost and then you mentioned if we do go to a 4% million is what we get so essentially it's just a wash right that's including pop Paul which is not in the current budget but that would include po which is a need anyway that we know 100%

076uh what I don't see here though is inflation and I know that everyone is talking over the past 3 years about how how things have inflated greatly um and that's another piece to this that I don't know how that's going to affect our the things in capital reserve or any of our projects in facilities or or anything even with the referendum right now which is going to increase um so that also worries me especially since we're not going to be receiving any new Aid unless something changes which we know will like likely not happen um so that's a a concern for me uh but the special needs positions that are put in here would that now allow us to service more special needs students in in District and not have to send them out then

077resulting in some sort of a savings um I'm going to ask Janina do you know that are the positions the special education positions um would it help keep more students in District save money that way also anytime we keep a student in District it saves money at the same time right now we are running out of spaces and there are some students who need to go out of districts because their needs are so complex that it would cost us much more money or we just don't have the services available for those students so there are some students coming up in this next year or two that we may be able to serve as but we can't because we don't have the room I wouldn't put it that way um the space so far we've been

078able to be creative and find the spaces by planning for additional space we should be able to keep students in provided that we have enough teaching staff to provide those classrooms because those classrooms do have limits on how many students can be in a self-contained class but an ie is very individualized so each time the child study team assesses a student we don't know at the outset will that child need a self-contained classroom which might have a very small class size will that child go to a resource room and then general education and just be one of the other kids in their regular education class will that child be in an inclusion classroom with two teachers so that um that's very fluid students come in needing more services and then slowly wean off Services others

079need increasing amounts of service so I can't exactly say it's that we we are we're going to there are kids that we can't service because of space we're not at that point yet we're trying to not get to that point and up to now again knock on for Mica we've been lucky enough to be creative enough and we do have waivers for what are called by the county substandard spaces we do have some classrooms that by the physical number of kids in that class it's exceeding what looks like is allowable but by adding an additional teacher or an additional parah you you're allowed to make those accommodations so we do use make use of every flexibility so that we're not excluding kids or putting kids into more expensive um and possibly unnecessary out of District

080placements you know we're we're our child study teams they're fully independent from us we don't make dollar and Cent decisions about the kids and Janina you you said it but I want to reiterate we're not there yet but what what good planning does is prevents us from ever being in that situation and that's what a budget is planning for the future and our anticipated needs now one other thing that I know was mentioned and I want to say like the previous or maybe the one before Clifton Merchant magazine they were talking about how there are many different like condos going up and many different buildings you know taking place I know the one up the street for me on pulson AV there is going to be like a 300 unit um is any of that

081sort of fig figured into here where if we have X amount of students where they would go yeah Mr kova do you remember when that project was proposed we were told that there wouldn't be any additional students I don't know how I don't how they figure that out but uh there will be no procreation allowed in those apartments um so you know with that now doing a thorough um demographic projection which would which which we can do which we would probably need to hire a consulting firm that that that does that specializes that and they can kind of predict housing patterns and Trends um we're anticipating more students but not significantly uh more depending you know depending if but there could be more development you know we we don't know okay there's more development Dr

082there is this continual development that's more and more um you know multif family type of development uh you know being erected so it it might actually be a wise investment for us to consider um ladies and gentlemen of of hiring a demographic firm to do that study they do like a 20-year projection kind of thing Dr Rob I did find the semi number sorry about that uh the revised revenue for this year that we received was $4,350 the projected revenue for next year is $4 53,9 that's great and in addition just piggy back off what you said I already reached out to some contacts um from other Bas throughout the state to see if they can give us a demographic study gentleman who can assist us with that or lady I I had another question

083about sorry you're right m I have a question are you done Joe one more question when we when we found students that had um we had been paying for to go either at a district or whatnot I know it takes like a year or two to for that to hit our budget would that would some of those be hitting in this budget too and where would they be I I don't have th those numbers Mr shad and I don't want to put you on the spot again I think what Mr Keno was referring to correct me if I'm wrong um when we project like PCT TI and they give us a bill we pay for students and then we find out those students aren't coming and we get a refund uh my my phone is

084on do not disturb guys I don't know what's going on um I apologize for that when do we get that refunded does it come once a year or how does that work for Charter Schools it is every three years for pcti it is every two years so is that in this budget Mr the refund we did receive a refund last year that was in the budget we have not received one as of now for pcti or Charters commissioner bass thank you president uh Paris you gave us a chart in the back of the the thing it said 02 and four this is a wish list this is nothing in concrete correct correct these are the needs that the administration felt um are needed to operate I I have to be very careful about how I

085wear this but I want to try to cuz somebody asked me today currently you are negotiating with certain bargaining units in the district if we pass the preliminary bu budget we send it off what if said bargaining units negotiate and it's higher than the percentage that we are going to ask for for the levy how do we how do we justify the balance do we say we decide miraculously tonight we the wand with 4% but maybe one of the bargaining units goes over that amount per year how do you make up that difference um is there there cuts to be made you have to take you know cuz you know you only have so much in your buckets right how do you balance the bucket that's my one question Mrs bassford you explain what you

086how you said it is beautifully explained there's only so many buckets so we can raise the tax levy 2% maybe 4% % this year because we have Bank cap so if somebody's getting a more than a 4% raise next year the money's got to come from somewhere where does it come from in a negotiation there would have to be a give back on something else in past negotiations there would be uh there was a give back on the um on the health waiver so the money that was saved there was utilized towards salaries so if there's going to be something that's more than what we raise the tax levy that money will have to come from some other negot something that we negotiate could it come from student services could it come from uh Athletics

087it could it come from anything in the district that we fund money for when the board is negotiating and let me be clear it's the board that negotiates with the associations corre the administration gives our expertise there's no way I would recommend to the board anything higher than that if we if we couldn't have the money and I would say to Mr shahada do we have this money and he would tell me yes or no and I would never make a recommendation to the negotiations committee to say yes to anything more that than than we know we have okay so um one of the other things I I wanted that uh just tell you Mr Kenova we can budget all we want we could wave our magic wands and our crystal balls and all my

088magic things that I do on on the download but if you have a couple of special needs students that come into the district and they have needs because it's their unique needs right an IP is called individual education program that can blow our whole budgeting Pro uh you know thought pattern right out the window okay today we could have everything fine and then next year we get five students that need to go out to an out a district placement that cost $500,000 a year plus busing they need a nurse and they need an eight on the bus with them right out the window so it's it's that's a that's a guesstimate and and then it's cular because we have people that go out and then we save that money but then we have more people

089coming in what I've noticed where I'm I've traveled is with covid the need for special education services has tripled or quadrupled in many multiple towns because of the lack of Education that children got what happened with some people got sick and things like that so that was one thing but that's not a it's not a it's not a a constant I know you're a techy guy so you have to have everything you have to everything level so I wanted to try to explain it to you the best I could I have people asking me will positions be cut if we go to a bargaining unit and say we don't agree and we go to impass we go to a mediator and they Grant these units a lot more percentage than we want to give them

090will it will there be positions that we have to cut that's what I'm I'm I'm concerned with under the current budget under what we're proposing and I want to be very transparent because I don't mess with people's jobs I don't want anybody to be afraid there are no plans to cut any positions even if you do not give us the 4% we don't anticipate any positions going away sure okay so Clifton is overbuilding that's what they're doing okay um I was against all of these things from the very beginning I was interviewed in an article and I told them it's something me and the council disagree with all the time they are putting in 80% of those units on paulon are going to be one bedrooms 20% are going to be two bedrooms that's why

091they say no oh there's not going to be any kids living in there I I have studio apartments with two children living in there you can't judge that nobody's inspecting these all the time I think that's going to be a big problem I think the um tax assessment although a lot of work went into it I think it's low um houses in Clifton are selling for record high numbers and I mean record high um house just sold a week two weeks ago $2 million house just went on a market today $3 million um 900 800 700 those are the averages right now that people are getting for houses it might be on the market for 500,000 it's going to sell for 700,000 it's an insane Market uh because people are desperate and they're over paying

092and that's going to hurt us in the long run and that's going to hurt this in the long run um I think everything was explained unbelievably well I really appreciate the breakdown from everybody uh the only thing that's concerning is the you know um the tax involvement and then it's just it's not just us it's the sewer it's the city it's everything that's going up and the only thing not going up is people's pay exactly and Mr s can I ask you a question in your profession Prof experience as a realtor I'm speaking selfishly now because I want 4% what's the first thing people ask you really about the the the town like what do they want to know well I mean that's the thing too even you know come back to when I was

093running nobody ever said don't raise taxes if you get in that wasn't something that was said to me because I think people want the best interest for the kids in the community and honestly what are you raising taxes for special education and Early childood Learning which are the two things that I said this is what I'm in for um and I see the need for it I mean the numbers in special education are are drastic um so schools right people want to know about the schools um but then again you people want to know about the traffic and that's something that uh where it's going to get even worse with all the overbuilding um and then another thing that worries me is the overcrowding with the overbuilding but that's uh something for another day um

094so that's the only thing that worries me is the property value values are going through the I'm looking at them right now they're just through the roof as we speak um has there been any discussion at the city level of a reassessment of properties currently happening as we speak oh an official reassessment oh yeah oh it is okay I didn't realize that and if you're not there to open the door they're just going to leave a note and assume that you upgraded or assume that everything's the same it's going to go 5050 when do they anticipate that being done that's going to be hard they don't that's going to be very hard cuz they have to assess every house in Clifton the last time they did it was you know even before that most houses1

095thank you in the 90 was the last time it was reassess number that's on the number that's on the city's tax assessor website from where I got the average assess home from was from 2010 and that is just published every year so I'm assuming this went up but I don't know I'm not this is the last time okay so the last time they actually went into people's houses and to actually look at the upgrades that was in then like early '90s that's the big problem we're having right now so if you put in new floors or a new kitchen or a new bathroom guess what your value went up your assessment went up which since the 90s I think most people did I know that date because it was one year before I bought my

096house in Clifton and the tax assessor came in looked at my house and tacked on another 1,500 $5,000 to my assessment which had just been assessed a year before so I asked logically what how can that be I didn't haven't done anything just put some paint on the walls and the answer was well was your assessment total full market value what you paid for it I said no said well you can go up to your full market value if you like so I said thank you I don't think I'll appeal that um but that that's how I no it's in my mind it's back back in 1991 was the last full assessment of the Town that's 30 over 30 years ago trust me I promise I will never question you on dates that's one thing

097I know you have can I make a request that we open the floor to public just on the budget we can certainly a motion okay let me let me just uh read my stick here uh this portion of the meeting is open to the residents and non-residents of Clifton for the purpose of addressing any subject matter pertinent to and or directly related to the operation of the Clifton Public School District residents and non-residents are requested to sign the register provided for this purpose and to State their names addresses and subject matter ments are limited to 5 minutes per person issues raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if in when appropriate the board asked that

098members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be resp responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New Jersey the board bearss no responsibility nor nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments in light of the legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments so with that I will open the floor to public recognition should there be anybody anybody would like to speak do we have an online today Mr sha we do but there is nobody

099here just me then I motion to close motion to close by second mission Mia second by Mr Bak going once twice three times for public recognition Mr ragdale thank you Elias ragdale um I do have a question I know at least the city does this are we able to see where things are going from the budget we have now um like the city for example when they when they do their whole proposing thing they show like what departments are getting what so I know we saw the tax that's being proposed and where that money would go sort of but can we see where the rest of the budget's going to go as well like student services Athletics whatever that may be I don't know if that's public information I assume it is um but is

100that usually given out how does that worked as well that is after the final budget when everything is set in stone the userfriendly budget is posted 48 hours after the vote on our website under the business office tab okay so you can see the previous one now okay yeah you could see all the budgets there and you can also just typee in New Jersey userfriendly Budget on Google and it'll give you every municipality broken down by county from 2023 to about 2010 and does that include what's being propos like next year's budget how much is going to Athletics for next year how much that's how much proposed for that does like is that accessible that is not accessible yeah because it's not official not decided okay thank you okay trying not to um thank you

101for having Donna Potch Clifton uh thanks for having this now so I can get home and watch the State of the Union um Chloe's watching it right now at a a watching party with the senator yes so um a few things uh one when you talk about pop Paul you're talking about Pope John Paul school or Paul 6 Paul Paul well it's the same building so Paul 6 okay I I just think if you I want to be yeah I just want to be clear that's the mean it's the one next to I want to be clear too M Pap because I'm not sure uh on Valley Road correct right next to St Phillips Okay so us who have been here forever it's we we call it Paul 6 Paul 6 yeah and then then

102it turned into a grammar school which was Pope John Paul and you are you also looking at the diois center there the school and the diois center yes oh okay okay so because I said I think I know like the oldtimers like me are going to be confused because we think of that building is Paul six so when it was a high school it was Paul six Paul six yes um I really came to talk about two things that w Really School related sorry um one is luren Murphy Scholarship fund we are uh collecting funds um to award a scholarship to a senior who's going to major in social work and we're just reminding the public that we are taking contributions you can mail them the checks are made out to the Lauren Murphy Scholarship

103fund um you can mail them to my house at 57 Delwood Road in Clifton um 07013 um we have our first event coming up on March 23rd it's at JK reality we're going to be having a reception it's going to be pictures with the Easter Bunny and we're going to be there's going to be plenty of food because Joe always provides plenty of food um please come please come ready to consume sugar um and I I hope to see a large amount of the community there um March 20 3rd so it's a day before Palm Sunday great day it'll be Easter Bunny you can get your pictures tap r your camera um and the other thing is we have some little free little pantries going up in town we have three of them we've been

104haggling a little over their location but we got that hammered out today um and I'd like to thank everyone who volunteered spots because I think we could put up about a 100 pantries now in town um but we are looking for groups to sponsor and I'd like to to thank the board for sponsoring one month for the food pantry and some of the schools have uh contacted me also about uh sponsoring but if anyone else in town would like to sponsor a p Pantry or any group we would love to see um some more participation uh we also have for those who are interested a pantry that's just for dog or cat or I guess lizard or or frog or whatever fish food whatever pet you have um because 's a large need for pet

105food um without providing pet food people will um be giving up their pets which is of course another problem which you know about space problems very mer um and otherwise just everyone thank you so much and good luck with your budget thank you Miss B thank you anyone else wish to speak seeing no one a motion to close motion to close motion to close by second by commissioner Santiago um Mr Paris are we still going to continue the discussion about the budget are there any other is there any other uh questions or discussion we can so I just wanted to briefly mention to the public that there is a quote by a famous philosopher that everything always catches up to you no matter what and I think this is evident in what we see here

106today I'll just read some of the previous boards their numbers that they had the first just going back to .98 0 0 0 2 and four along with the state's failure to fully provide us the funds that we need we clearly see that today that is evident that not just that we need to play a catchup game but it's in dire need you know when it comes to like you mentioned before jobs everyone wants to keep their job and I remember during one of these years that's when many of my former teachers did lose their jobs um looking back that was a horrible thing to witness um I'm there at my locker and then one of my teachers comes out of the bathroom crying and that was a horrible thing to see as a 16-year-old

107um and you know I I I get the reasoning why previous boards wanted to do a 0% for so long and refus used to go even that 2% that we needed to stay afloat and I get it I understand money but now we're just trying to play catchup now we're just trying to play catch up and I know we need that 4% um at least just to keep up with what is going on in this economy so I just wanted to briefly tell that to our community members out there that it's in dire need as well as the fact that like I said now we're just playing catchup we're never going to be able to fully fulfill that catchup number that we need and it's a shame and for me not speaking for anyone else

108I would blame the state and I would blame previous boards their members for not being responsible so thank you thank you commission Mahia anyone else like to comment yes commissioner SWS thank you I just I want to reiterate the Gratitude and appreciation for the thorough explanation um I reached out to uh Mr shahada earlier this week so I can get a real full understanding of our budget and um it really helped I I appreciate everyone's communication thorough explanation um I'm someone who is a processor and I need to process information and um this was really well not only well articulated but in a in it's a tangible way to understand where we're going and I agree we absolutely need the 4% um but so I just want to say um thank you because it really

109helps me understand and I hope those at home uh could understand the dire deed as well thank you thank you anyone else all right we'll move on to board committee reports I'm sorry Mr President we're going to have plenty of time in the future to discuss the budget before we vote on it right yes we don't for for this evening's preliminary budget vote thank you but no me ask you're asking if we have more discussion right about about prior to the actual vote there will be plenty more discussions potentially correct to May or prior to us voting preliminary this evening thank you that's my question to you Mr yeah yeah yeah yeah I I just hear a lot tonight it's it's I you know when I hear commissioner Mahia and I hear you know um

110commissioner Suarez it sounds like we're voting for the actual budget tonight so I just want to make sure the public is clear this this is what we got to send to the county by law yes we are voting on a preliminary budget thank you that is not the final budget final budget will be coming at our May meeting and there will be opportunity at the May meeting also to discuss that and for that matter at the April meeting thank you Mr President yes I'm sorry about this I forgot to mention this um another question going back to the semi to the semi are parents often left with trying to foot the bill by themselves or no just want to get that clear no right no okay all right thank you all right we're going to

111move on to committee reports and if we can start if uh Municipal Alliance commission shano are you ready to provide our minutes I believe so so the municipal Alliance met on February 22nd board members who attended were myself Mr Santiago Miss Danny and president Paris Administration was Mr Jenaro Mr shahada and from the city we had the city manager Mr volano councilman Cog councilwoman Pino and councilwoman sadra Kula meeting started at 6:05 p.m. ended 50 minutes later at 6:55 p.m. uh first thing we did was an overview uh we introduced ourselves um I outlined the committee structure and purpose to guarantee the safety of our students and their Journeys to and from school uh that we then went right into school safety crossing guard safety around the schools we learned all crossing guard positions have

112been filled that's prompting the city to explore the addition of substitute crossing guards uh concerns have Arisen regarding Brighton Road particularly during designated drop off and pickup times due to parking congestion um we are actively brainstorming solutions to enhance the safety of the students in the area which one of those was increased police enforcement uh Mr J Aro took the lead on traffic safety due to his extensive knowledge and eloquently addressed all issues and concerns brought by the committee uh very happy he was there for that traffic management was the next thing we discussed around the busiest schools which is another safety concern um lack of student utilization of designated Crossing areas administrative measures have been taken such as updating the bus routes for Clifton High to minimize traffic through specific zones um however due

113to the proximity of certain buildings the large student population options are very limited the city recommended heightened enforcement around seal a and the installation of electronic speed signs which are looking into uh pedestrian crossing lights similar to the one on Allwood at the end of Clifton a were discussed for cila A and B and they were determined and practical at Clifton High due to just the volume of students um City stated they are shortened on traffic officers however the city manager expressed his eagerness to help us find other Solutions in the meantime to keep parent informed we suggested sending out messages regarding increased enforcement near schools uh city manager will be drafting a letter and that'll be sent out by the assistant superintendant uh we then discussed the status of safe route to schools approved

114projects currently in the queue and the update on grants reveals ongoing efforts to address issues while ensuring compliance with safety standards joint meeting with the Boe is scheduled to finalize details we followed up on the road construction which is the last meeting that was had and we emphasized the importance of informing the us about construction and school zones to help parents plan alternative routes also discussed pilot programs uh those are numbering between six and seven Citywide there's a suggestion to implement a cost sharing model for any new pilots to offset per pupil expenses and we also decided that we need to meet more regularly so the next meeting is actually scheduled here on March 28th thank you commissioner siano any questions question for yes yeah the the pilot programs that were mentioned are those specific

115programs that that were brought up do we know what they are they did not we did we asked if there were any Pilots currently that were residential that would have contribute to students in the area and that we were told there weren't any currently that were that were residential okay so this is the potential to going forward okay we're particularly curi ious about the poent Avenue project if that was a pilot or not and that that is not okay any other questions okay um commissioner Mahia could you please uh read the minutes for our student liaison committee last meeting so the Clifton High School leison committee the meetings were dated for February 27 2024 time from 11: a.m. up until 12 P 12 1220 p.m. and there this was located at the JFK Auditorium in

116clipon high school some of the attendees included president Alan Paris commissioner Judith bassford commissioner Richard Mahia myself um commissioner tan Suarez assistant super superintendent of business Amed shahada um CHS principal ahed hamda um vice principal Chris Keegan and re Ibraham which is one of our teachers some of the students um I don't want to really name the students names is that okay all right um but we did have a bunch of students at our committee meeting those names will not be named right now um so it began with Mr hamda giving us a brief introduction with the board members um as well as students introducing themselves students shared things that are going on well in school um gym class is incorporating games um of more variety there's less fights due security Personnel increase bathrooms are

117cleaner and more efficient lines move faster due to to them due to the help from security along with this with this security has helped mov a lot of movement around the halls and traffic flow um the school feels a lot cleaner um students seem more organized safety new alarm systems are being um are more alerting students of the month posters athlete of the month stated a bit earlier to recognize the winter athletes um excuse me Mr hamda Mr Keegan started the day by greeting students enthusiastically at the door um review of last meeting's issues one of them included the homework policy um current homework is being assigned during long weekends and long breaks uh Miss bassford says that the um the board is reviewing this policy Mr hamda says he will bring it up with

118supervisors hopefully some shift away from assignment homework um being due immediately Upon returning from breaks Miss bassford pointing out how veteran teachers may be accustomed to previous work culture but they are addressing it with all teachers Mr hamda also brings up the cell phone issue and the addiction to the devices um one of the questions we did ask is do cell phones um do the cell phone Cubbies help the students some students share that it is up to the students to have willpower and not have their phone taken away from the teacher this helps with building self-discipline other students feel like the Cubbies really help with minimizing distractions a student shares how it helps to have phones during lockdowns um president Paris points out how students should not be able to use their phone during

119lockdowns to prevent the spread of misin misinformation parents will always be notified with important information Miss bassford pointed out how this can create Panic amongst parents and cause them to prevent law enforcement from doing their jobs as parents come to school to pick up their kids um students did bring up how Chromebooks can be distracting as well and Mr Honda pointed out that homework um Chromebooks are less distractive Mr Keegan also informed the students that Chromebooks are being tracked by Administration on what they search up and how they search it up uh Mr hamda also informed the students that there would be a committee made up of teachers and students to create a uniform cell phone policy uh that would be implemented in schools not just the high school um commissioner Suarez also asked the

120students what are the benefits of having having cell phones on your person uh many of the students agree that there are very little benefits is more of a convenience uh one of the students presented the issue of how difficult it can be to be to return to school after a medical procedure and then Mr hamda did address that that a list of required documents is available and the guidance counselors can assist with this issue another student brought up delayed openings emails that don't inform students of bus times um but Mr shahada did point out that every time it is simply shifted 90 minutes um whether it's the delay of opening Miss bassford also pointed out that it is on our district calendar and Mr Keegan informs students that during delayed opening the attendance policy is

121amended unless students enter school at unreasonable times and they are marked as cut rather than tardy uh another student asked why buses leave so early at the at dismissal time it's difficult to get the students from the bus from the largest point of school and this can be extended Mr Keegan did agree that times may be short but buses run on a tight schedule um Administration will notify gym teachers to dismiss students a little bit earlier so they can get to their bus on on Time Mr shahada pointed out that 56 buses are currently running on any given day and delaying the buses could have a significant impact on our elementary students um another student asked why the attendance policy doesn't get adjusted when absent due to sporting tournaments Mr Keegan says that sporting events

122take away from the allowed 16 absences only specific events are excused from those 16 the student also argue that these sporting events are required for college appeal and admission students are currently excused for college visits and commissioner swarz did agree and inform students that the policy will be reviewed and will place it on the next board agenda another student brought up the issue that the hockey doesn't the hockey team doesn't get enough equipment in contract to other sports like football um but Mr ham pointed out the point of how there may be barriers to students to pursue hockey which is an expensive sport at the end of the day um the student also pointed out that soccer play lers fundrais for a lot of the expenses that they do have and president Paris acknowledges that

123this concern and he will bring it up to the board for us to look at Miss basser did ask Mr Shada the budget details for All Sports which we did receive um and then I also brushed upon booster clubs that could be an option to cover some of the expenses as they have for some of the things that the soccer team uses um another student did bring up the issue of pass availability and how it can take time to wait for a student to return with a plastic haul pass pass um Mr Hamza says that you are allowed to ask your teacher for a pink pass in case of emergencies if you want to use the bathroom um another student brought up that many second and third floor BL bathrooms are closed which puts a

124load on the first floor bathrooms Mr Honda says that the lunch peers have a scarcity of teachers available to man the bathrooms many teachers have lunch SL lunch duties during those periods um and then another student did ask if there is any other way to adjust this since student are usually given the choice of entering um vital instruction in class or sacrificing comfort in terms of using the bathroom or staying in class uh Mr ham did inform the students of a new system being implemented to recruit and keep the substitute teachers which may alleviate some of the bathroom lines that we did go over our during our last board meeting um these bathrooms included Central Rings which will be opening up soon possibly it was supposed to be March 1st um not sure we have

125a quick update on that yet another thing would be imagine math a student did point out what is the point of having imagine math um students have been known to hack the system by purposely getting questions wrong in order to get easier questions on this um another thing is that math problems don't relate to some of the class content that is being taught and then miss bassard also brought up that this will be mentioned in our education/ special education committee um and finally quarterly Mr Honda notify students that there are now quarterly committees to help with this process and then we had our closing remarks by President Paris um thank you again to Mr Keegan for the minutes thank you commission Mahia very detailed minutes aren't they commissioner who yes very uh moving moving on

126to question oh I'm sorry questions from anyone I'm sorry was so thorough I can't imagine there question uh regarding regarding imagine math um I I got a couple of messages from some parents in recently uh saying something similar to this effect that some of the math problems do not relate to to the current um coursework so question is if the if the student is struggling in math in that respective section are they going to you know do they do imagine math as part of the as part of to get ready for for these tests or do they do it for extra credit or anything of that nature that's my concern because if the kids already struggling at math their issue is the parents the kids already struggling at math in their respective lesson and then

127they're told to do something in aagag of math that they they haven't even been taught yet then they're really going to struggle so I I don't know if this does occur but two separate parents told me that now I saw this on the committee report so I want to know if Dr Roberto or Miss cevich could respond to this so I make sure I get these parents Mr BR I I am aware of this issue this actually came up the other day uh when I was meeting with my student ambassadors um but Janina was able to clarify some things for me I'm going to ask M cevich to also uh clarify that for for us need please so imagine math um there are multiple Pathways within imagin math and it's used for different purposes at

128different grade spans the njsla SLS pathway is a pathway that helps prepare students for the standards that they're going to experience on their standardized tests in grades 3 through 8 the njsla test or in grades in the high school for Algebra 1 Algebra 2 and geometry students are sometimes programmed a pathway to most of the time it is to remediate and because the program is adaptive when a student M makes errors the program will adjust to support that students's learning and will then go back and keep moving them forward this idea of gaming the system yes there are kids who will just answer incorrectly so they get an easier pathway if that pathway is only reduced by one or two grade levels you're actually still practicing the same standard the kids might think it's easier

129but they're still getting the practice on that standard and it's not really gaming the system they might think that it's easier but they're still getting the same practice on the techniques and strategies to solve that type of problem even though it seems easier however if a child really games the system and goes dropping down lower and lower and lower and goes many many grade levels below the supervisors and teachers do review the report and they are supposed to be intervening to have that child then retake that pathway but that's usually for the the much rarer instances where they really just go wrong on everything to forcefully drop themselves you know by five six seven grade levels so a slight decrease is still providing support and instruction why are the pathways different from what they're learning

130so if you're assigned to a remediation pathway it will probably be starting off with what you are learning but may then deviate to the areas that you're missing so it will be two different math lessons but math is what's called recursive it builds on itself there also may be the times where you're seeing materials that are new or unfamiliar so if you're in the njsla prep pathway you might see questions that you haven't gotten to to yet and the system is kind of testing you to see are you able to answer this do you need to go back to something else so you may see things that are different there are again there are multiple Pathways that can be programmed teachers can create individualized Pathways for students based on their needs if your child is

131really struggling where they feel that they cannot answer and they're getting so many questions that they can't handle the parent really should reach out to the teacher because we can work with the student either to change a pathway adjust a pathway but also our teachers look at how much time is spent on the program and if a child is really struggling and you've exceeded you know 10 15 minutes and you're really struggling with questions just stop you don't need to finish it you stop you go talk to the teacher and we work with the teacher to get a pathway that will help support the child more or perhaps they'll adjust put them in a different Center during the school day or give them additional support to help them be successful the point is not to

132frustrate students it's not to fail students but it is to provide remediation as well as challenge for students thank you Mr Paris um so first of all I love this committee because I feel like like this student is our client right and when we're getting feedback from them we really know what's going on um but they mentioned about receiving notifications on school delays is it possible I think we use Blackboard connect right inside of there because we use it at the college too you could segregate into groups is it possible that we just allow them to enroll as a student group and we just disseminate information about like what was the complaint Mr kova that they didn't so on a on a delayed opening so let's say I'm I'm assuming you're you're a high school

133students here were referring to so let's say the mom and dad leave early 6:00 to go to work the the kid is 16 so that's fine they wake up in the morning they don't really know the situation they think it's 30 minutes after the 45 they don't really know they walk to school or whatever but if if they get a notification that says delayed opening your time is time for the high school is BL whatever it is I think one easy solution is they all have an email address we could include them in the email notification that goes out but are they checking email in the morning I'm thinking if they want to know are they looking for a phone call well that'll give me text message right like like parents get um I was

134thinking text cuz that's how students commun let me talk to M Mr Rose is our Blackboard expert on that let me talk to and come up with some ideas I'm sure there it definitely can be done I mean ask them it's it's not up to me it's just an idea ask them and see what they want really they um and then um we mentioned the bathrooms how they're not being used but didn't we just spend all this money to renovate the bathrooms I don't understand why they wouldn't use the bathrooms is there an issue with the bathrooms sorry I missed where's your bathroom I missed um Mr hamda told us it's a staffing issue he needs coverage to cover the bathrooms so especially during lunch is the biggest issue they have to rotate the staff

135around because don't forget the kids are going to lunch so the teachers and so is the staff so that's why we have a staffing issue so um we would you know we have to talk to a finance about figure out maybe we need to get some additional staff to cover actually um a discussion I guess years ago there used to be these people called bathroom monitors that was their sole uh so job and I don't know what they got paid I don't know what what the deal was with that but um you know I'm sure the teachers in L of having a duty I don't mean duty duty but their Duty bathroom Duty sorry um I think they would be very happy if somebody else had the their job was to be the bathroom monitor

136right I'm sorry a little loopy tonight I'm sure the finance committee can come up with something creative but um but do you guys remember when we had those positions yes I Absol it was just that that was just their job these dudes stood in the boy in the men's room or the boys room or whatever and I'm like outside at a table right no they were actually in there because a lot of dudes came in like they would smoke they would a lot of kids would smoke inside the inside the bathrooms spr Min little cologne way but this is not only an issue at the high school some of the middle schools are suffering too as well and that's a concern of Mone many of the residents so I think uh it has to go

137to finance to look at it because uh you know some some of our students have medical issues that they have to they they have to frequently visit the bathroom and some of our staff as well so it's you know you stand online and you don't want to be embarrassed if you have an accident but we we really need to look at this it's not not and as it is as it is I think 5 minutes before the Bell Rings during the walking and then 5 minutes after the Bell Rings is like you can't go to the bathroom at all on top of that right right yeah so that just adds complication to the issue but your body doesn't your body doesn't wait for bells I know I don't yeah let me see if we can

138find an administrative solution if not I we may be adding bathroom monitors to to the budget you're going to need that 4% guys so you you had or I I still I still have one more anyway we'll get back to you um the other one I had was and it didn't come up on on this report but CCMS they start at like 7:30 and they have the last period of lunch is 1:15 by the time they actually get lunch and eat it is 130 so you're talking about 6 hour period I'd be curious to know at your next meeting if you ask how do how how do they feel about that like are they getting hungry are they getting like like um you know on a low before they get into the ca cuz I

139know I've heard from feedback from students that uh that is happening and and snacks aren't really allowed we don't have like a like a snack sort of policy for for eating in classrooms and um I don't know it was just brought up so I don't know if maybe you could bring that back to the committee I know you said Middle School ours is just the high school at at the moment oh uhhuh but if we could expand it to the middle school that great the idea was to hopefully expand it um middle school students certainly need you know have a voice and would would appreciate you know lending that voice to us and they're certainly capable of telling us how they feel awesome so we can do that absolutely I got a question anyone else

140yeah yes so I really loved this part the phone Cubbies because that's a great idea so that's an optional thing so you have the option to put your phone away or keep it with you during class is that correct but um many of them mention it's my understanding it's a um that some some of the teachers are doing it and and some it's like a a pilot right program J right so at the middle schools um that's already being done where they put their back they put their uh phone in their backpack and the backpack goes at the front or safe corner of the room at the high school it is a pilot program and it is being done in some classrooms other classrooms had previously had rules such as that for either Cubbies or

141boxes um but it was not 100% of the building so this is piloting the move in that direction okay and uh once again like uh Mr kova said it's a great committee having the students having the Commissioners talk um another thing that came up lockdowns right so listen we're going into lockdown if a kid has low blood sugar and he passes out we're in lockdown right because we got to get that kid medical attention what is the repercussion if a kid goes on social media and says we're in a lockdown is there any thing stopping them from doing that to panicking the public having all the parents drive to the school in a lockdown not supposed to use your phone they're not supposed to be in not supposed to but let's say what if if

142they're in their safe corner and the teacher monitoring them it's going to be difficult for them to be on their phone in the event it does happen I would have a major problem with that I don't know if we have something specifically in the code of conduct to address that um but I think at the very least a conversation with that student explaining why that was a bad decision would be warranted um you know discipline is discipline but really we want them to learn from that that mistake that's a that would be terrible so that might be something worth implementing don't tweet out well not that anybody tweets anymore I'm sorry nobody tweets um don't put on Facebook Instagram Tik Tock wherever you are now that hey lockdown inciting a panic that's that's it other

143than than that good notes um yes we did we did address that with the students uh we all kind of gave them personal stories my story was that we had some kind of when my daughter was in high school so don't forget she graduated 2008 they had an anthrax scare at the high school and um little before uh Twitter little before you know Tik Tok it was Facebook and Myspace was very popular and it went viral and there were parents actually running to the school to grab their kids and they somebody tried to pull the kid out of a window of one of the lowest levels so I talked to the students about that's what I meant about how it causes a p Panic we as board members and the uh the public needs to

144know that um when they're in a lockdown it's the teacher in the room that regulates what they're doing most of them respect the policy and the uh code of conduct but we we try to tell the students that we're in in the room that it could cause a panic when you're tweeting out to your parents we get the all clear signal right when it's over but we have to maybe Shore that up a little bit with the communication to the parents it's just like the school around the school safety type of issue it's the PSA that comes from us that may be more helpful what we expect of the students and maybe what we expect of the parents goes back to you know Mr Mom you're doing it wrong remember the movie you know when

145the guy was pulling up the wrong way at dro and pick up you're doing it ROM I think the message has to come from us so we could tell the students Judy I know that movie but there are people on this de that were not alive when that movie was out I know it it was about a father that got laid off and he became a mom at the school greatest movie ever and he became the crossing monitor of the school and somebody came in wrong and he said you're doing it wrong but his message was that it was everybody's responsibility to educate the community so you you know maybe we have to go back to making letting some of the kids do some PSAs getting it out on 77 or 40 in the morning

146yeah I I will tell you this in my experience um as a teacher as a when we first started practicing security drills and things like that um as a principle in emergency situations our kids are at their best honestly in in true emergencies our kids never fail to impress me with um um their behavior you know sometimes if they know it's a drill you might have a knucklehead or two make do something stupid but but in general when it's a when it's a legitimate emergency um the kids always rise to the occasion that's been my experience all right moving on to uh technology and residency and security commissioner Santiago please thank you president Paris so The Residency security and Technology committee meeting took place on Tuesday February 15th and began at 50:1 p.m in attendance

147from administration were Mr Jenaro Mr doctor miss zenola Mr Mountain uh Board of Ed Commissioners and attendance were commissioner Kenova commissioner siano and president Paris Mr doctor discussed the residency investigations which have recently occurred it has resulted in Clifton Public Schools no longer paying for 16 char school students and two pcti students for a savings of $278,000 so since this was the first meeting of this year maybe a quick refresher um so and you guys keep me honest as usual so St uh Clifton students uh meaning students who live in Clifton who go and attend a charter school or pcti we fund provide funds for those students to those schools correct and transportation and transportation as well thank you so um so these students live in Clifton and during their time at these schools at

148some point they move they move out of Clifton and don't inform pcti nothing against pcti not coming for them just it is what it is and the charter schools and they don't inform them and it looks like the schools perhaps they don't look at whether the students still lives in Clifton or not so we continue to pay this and our Administration uh couple of years back now at this point um started doing their own investigations and so we continue to do that and we find that yeah there are students who no longer live in Clifton and still say they do or did say that and uh we're still funding these students so in addition to that three Clifton students were found not to live in Clifton and they transferred back to districts they reside in

149for a savings of $4 9,500 so since July 1st through residency investigations the district has saved $722,500 um real dollars back to us and um I'm glad we're continuing to do this kind of year-to-date count I ask Mr doctor to please do that and it's just good to see that number increasing um every meeting so thank you guys for your efforts that's amazing so Mr Dr discuss mailings and advertising will uh be going out to inform parents uh the registration is opened as of February 21 Mrs zenola discussed clarifying the language in the weapons policy 8467 to prohibit firearms possession on property even if legal without approval of the superintendent the use of Clifton High School as an evacuation site was also discussed for the boys and girls club after school hours had concluded missola

150also mentioned the call cost which would be incurred by Rec Department if security was required at all events this topic will have further discussion at Future meeting it was also explained that the security drill of the month was completed by all schools finally student pedestrian safety was discussed and the information will be shared with students in the near future president Paris shared child-friendly information provided by the Clifton times which will be reviewed for possible use again related to uh student pedestrian safety Mr Jenaro discussed country countywide meeting on March 14th where reunification plans will be discussed these are building based and district-wide plans which will incorporate the resources of other districts as well as pic County Commissioner kovera inquired as to some specific safety opportunities with our building entrances additional information will be obtained along

151with various opportunities to cover the cost findings will be brought back to the next committee meeting Mr Mountain updated the committee on various various security projects including the referendum he also explained updates to our Network which will be accomplished in the near future including Wan conversion and core Network equipment upgrades Mr Mountain also updated the committee on Chrome the Chromebook refresh schedule and discussed some network issues which are occurring throughout the district finally the functionality of board docs was discussed and the need for some specific notification adjustments moving forward the meeting adjourned at 6:05 p.m. any questions thank you thank you commissioner Santiago um we'll move to Athletics committee commissioner bassard please thank you um the athletic committee met on February 28th president was Dr Lucy Danny uh commissioner Suarez uh president Paris myself from

152Administration it was Dr ratazzi um Mr Mark Jero Mr ahed Shahara Mr Tom malany uh Mr Thomas Coto and Miss Nicole butell the the meeting started at 2:30 in the afternoon and ended at 3:15 the items of discussion was the team doctors um continuity of care the doctors of Academy Orthopedics broke away from nji a few years ago we were happy with the services provided by the doctors who broke off from noji and we continue to refer to them now that they are at the Academy nji has only has two doctors working for them while Academy has several we continue to receive positive feedback from our Athletics and their parents after they were treated by Academy Administration expect expressed that there would be no cost difference between the two practices the board excluding myself uh

153just for um uh transparency purposes a family member of mine was operated and recovered from one of the doctors so I abstained from the conversation so I wouldn't be in conflict and I will abstain on the on the agenda item as well was uh anous to move forward with the academy Orthopedics they asked um Mr shahad if uh to place it on the agenda for a full vote to send the separation letter to nji this is really exciting and uh commissioner sarez and I were excited about this we're adding an a female strength coach uh Administration expressed the need for adding a female strength coach we uh currently have one male strength coach four sessions fall winter spring summer and coach includ s football strength coach spring and summer we made a huge push to

154get our athletes in wait the wait room but the number of female athletes is much lower than the males adding a female coach would boost participation from the female athletes the committee was in favor of adding a female coach um uh py strength and conditioning 6:00 a.m. to 7: a.m. last spring the girls flag football program trained in the morning from 6:00 a.m. attendance was great in recent year as Al of Athletic program has been successful in order to improve on this success the athletic director recommends engaging the prey speed school three a mornings a week 6:00 to 7 a.m. bill pesi is widely known as The Godfather of speed I'm waiting for someone to come out with a music and a department coaches and administration of uh firmly believes that engaging in pry speed

155school would help to get our program over the top the committee was in favor of this pilot program uh but uh see if there is another funding source in the future the committee uh asked for a survey which went out uh to see the level uh of interest that there was and it was overwhelming I think it was 150 students did uh comment that they were in favor of it um the committee discussed funding sports teams a claim was made that funding is inequitable at the liaison committee we brought it back uh however after uh reviewing the budget the funding is Equitable it was a long discussion on that as well amongst all sports Mr Malay told the committee That Uniforms are purchased on a rotating three-year basis any questions yes commission here um So

156based off the team doctors basically what just happened is the one we were using before ran out of having enough doctors and the new one that we have now just has more no they separated they separating they started their a new practice the new new I'm sorry forget to that uh the new um firm or practice has more Physicians that that we can use so it would help the students get in quicker and be seen faster so just to make sure there was nothing wrong with the other one that we were using before correct no there's nothing wrong but a lot of the talent is what left right and the coaches and athletic directors uh preferred the services of the the ones that left um there was no cost difference at all to us on

157that and uh so we went with the recommendation of the coaches and and their satisfaction with the service so far okay um and in terms of the speed training is this this just for girls flag football no or for everybody everybody it's for all students yeah and it's uh the the athletic director was really excited about this because he said that uh no other school in northern Jersey off is this and and we requested something else that we could use it as a promotion that what we're giving you know when we do an open house that we have this new new Advantage for our students but he feels that with the professionalism of paresi the students will uh gain knowledge themselves on how to care for themselves when they're when they're performing in athletic events

158and that there'll be less injuries that well as well because it's it comes with a conditioning and training thing as well okay that's that's awesome if we could publicize that that'd be great yeah Mr Paris if I could expand on that um you know we talk about pcti all the time and no one here has an issue with a student going to pcti for a vocational education in fact I would encourage it but we're now even having to compete with pcti when they're recruiting our own athletes they're recruiting athletes out of our high school so any little thing that we can do to show uh even our student athletes said hey this is something the board is doing for you above and beyond and nobody else is going to do this uh the priesty uh

159name is that that God father thing it's true and the fact that the board is providing this service for perhaps up to 150 student athletes unprecedented and just incredible and the the the kids are so enthusiastic about it they're not happy about the time because they think they got to do it like 6:00 in the morning right um but uh it's just another thing that you know it's this this competition now is even incl that take our best our top students and now our student athletes too it's just it's unbelievable and they don't have to worry about a 4% budget they seem to have an unlimited budget it's it's amazing it's just we did agree that we would it was a pilot and that we would see how it works out and then we will

160survey I guess the clientele again Joe and see if they're that happy with it and then we'll we'll either expand or we'll as a board we'll make the collective decision what we want to do where we want to go with it it was uh they seem to be happy because like Tanya uh suggested a survey and it went out and he said it came back like boom so question president Paris so um I was going to ask that so it is a pilot program um just uh to see if there's another funding source in the future can somebody explain or expound on that um we was we were we have a grant provider um this is something new to to our district we don't know if the grant there's grants out there for this CU

161we've never used a service like this we ask for that um we we just maybe there's a company that wants to sponsor it uh something like that there's a lot we have a lot of generous so we'll look into if there are alternative sources of funding yeah because we we we don't want to take away from what we're giving to our students now we want to increase it and what if what if it does get popular that we have to increase it because we have such a need uh a population that all of a sudden explodes we have to be able to fund that so this is uh $118,000 now for 3 months right what if we decide to expand it for longer months it's going to be more money and we didn't budget that

162in the budget I forgot what you had said you said there's money for this but we have to think about the future right so so it's three months the rest of this school year apparently right and then so as we're evaluating this just curious to find out um you know you know obviously how many students take advantage it's open to everyone but how many do take advantage what are those sports that seem to be taking advantage just all of that right to evaluate after this yeah we we need a post survey sure um but also to the cost aspect of it we did discuss that and uh felt also that if we if we retain two student athletes in our district um that more than pays for the program but how would know if we

163retain two student athletes well that would be that might be hard to know um but we could ask that in the survey excuse me Mr uh uh president Paris um through you to the superintendent I'm sure data is going to be collected on this um from like how many which various sorts Sports the the ages of the students the the you know and also we can collect the data because if they don't leave Clifton we'll know that we're you know because some of the kids are saying you know I'm thinking about going here I'm going there if they stay then we know because because the coaches know who want wants to go so we can we can find out yeah it's very it's very early a lot of things to evaluate maybe ultimately even have

164our teams gotten better right thank you well that that was the original um rationale that Athletics brought to us on that this will take our teams to the next level the speed training is needed across virtually all all sports that's right I'm With You Got Run faster than the other team okay any other questions yes yeah so so on that metrics um if we already know which students we pay for to go to pcti we would then know which students left us to go for to pcti right and if you know which bucket they're in the athletic bucket I guess you could already you would already have that data even previous years know if the student if the students left um to go to pcti you wouldn't know if they went to other schools but

165you would know for pcti we wouldn't know if leaving eighth grade they chose pcti for well no you would because you pay them no but we wouldn't know the reason correct academics that's true that's true intervie although I bet you some of the coaches will you know especially if they know they have an eighth grader coming up who's who's has known athletic ability that they're being recruited um the coaches might know but listen that that was a that was a side thing that came that wasn't even thought of until the committee meeting and uh but it's a nice little side thing right uh we ALS there was something else that wasn't on here we also discussed about feeder teams and uh the only feeder team that we don't have is hockey it's virtually impossible to

166have a feeder team for hockey that was the other thing cuz the hockey was a big discussion on liaison team and most of the cost is equipment and ice time ice time is huge Allan 50k first wow so the other the other question I had was around the strength coaches are this is it going to so we have two weight rooms we have one in the high school and we have the new one we built at Columbus is this for both of those is this for like how do they schedule that with these coaches it's my understanding Mr kova that when the the newer weight room opens um that it'll be utilized for that for that weight room both correct male and female yeah so what happens with the high school weight room then um

167that's still going to be used for fizzed that's still going to be used for some of the sports that that practice there but when we when you see this state-of-the-art wait room everybody's going to want to be using that one it's it's amazing which by the way I don't know if there's an update in facilities did we do facilities yet not yet we're trying to get to well there'll be be that was Mr paris's Nice way say let's go guys let's go all right moving on to uh that was good thank you policy minutes from commissioner Suarez thank you president Paris um the policy committee met on February 5th 15th and the committee began at 4:06 p.m. in attendance was President Paris uh myself commissioner Suarez commissioner Mahia commission and commissioner Santiago present from the

168administration were Mr Jenaro uh Miss cus Janina please forgive me I'm working on this cich and Mr shahada uh board attorney Margaret Miller was also present the committee discussed the student represented proposal regarding homework policy 233 Zer based on student input a homework policy survey regarding assigning homework over winter break and religious holidays when school is closed was created this survey was shared several times via text and email with 12,690 stakeholders 1,796 responses were received from 946 parents 615 students and 221 teachers the responses from all three groups agreed that if homework were assigned over winter break or during a religious holiday when school is closed the homework should not be due immediately afterwards time should be given to complete this homework if it is assigned over three time frames bullet four on the policy

169states the number frequency and degree of difficulty of homework assignment should be based on the ability and needs of student and take into account other activities that make a legitimate claim on the student's time it is recommended that the policy statement to quote take into account other activities that make a legitimate claim on the student time and quote addresses this concerned concern and that after teacher focus groups meet the regulation associated with policy 2330 may be adjusted to reflect this clarification more explicitly the committee then discussed policy 8462 reporting potentially missing or Abus children and the application of this policy to board Commissioners the board Council stated the following based on New Jersey statutes and New Jersey Code it is recommended board members report suspected child abuse if they have reasonable belief that a child

170has been subjected to such child abuse when such conduct is witnessed at a school related event njsa 9680 imposes a universal obligation to anyone having reasonable calls to believe that a child has been subjected to child abuse to report it to dcpn Via telephone or other methods and the failure to report it is a disorderly person offense under the New Jersey statutes njsa 9681 States the following any person having reasonable cause to believe that a child has been subjected to child abuse including sexual abuse or acts of child abuse shall report the same immediately to the vision of child protection and permanency by telephone or otherwise such reports where possible shall contain the names and addresses of the child and his parent guardian or other person having custody and control of the child and if

171known the child's age the nature and possible extent of the child's injuries abuse or maltreatment including any evidence of previous injuries abuse or maltreatment and any other information that the person believes may be helpful with respect to the child abuse and the identity of the perpetrator Council recommended alerting policy to Encompass what a volunteer actually is Council believes that a Boe member is certainly a volunteer additionally this is not limited to Board of Education events rather any event taking place on Board of Education property Commissioners then spoke about NJ Bill 2421 freedom to read act in committee and when is an appropriate time to speak about it Commissioners believed waiting until the passage of the bill would be best the meeting was adjourned at 4:50 p.m. the minutes were recorded by Mr shahada thank you

172any yes commissioner brunak thank you Mr President was the current law for the obscenity for persons under 18 discussed regard prior to uh discussing Bill 2421 no it was not well the entire po thank you the entire point of me bringing it up to new business at the last meeting was to let everybody know there's currently a law in place for the obscenity for persons under 18 discuss so I'm humbly requesting this committee I I thought that would be part of it but it obviously wasn't I'm humbly asking this committee to put it back onto the agenda and let the board know if they believe there's anything wrong with the current law that's on the books commissioner bnia can you please clarify I just want to write it down so I understand this this the

173Senate bill 2421 is basically an addendum to the current law for obscenity for the persons under 18 discussed yes M B I'm going to direct my comments to the president which I'm supposed to through you to the attorney is it our role as board members to interpret law and give an opinion or are we supposed to set policy that we're mandated to set I'm just curious cuz I always because I always thought that as a rol board member we get the policy from the state and then we have to implement it through to the district but are we going to interpret law now I don't know how to answer that um you're you know you you make policies whether what's the committee to do I'm confused right I mean not interpreted law you know that

174that's obviously we're here to assist you in that but your your job is to follow the law and inact policies whether they're mandated or discretionary that that comply with the law yes commissioner BR thank you Mr President so this is about policy in new business at the last meeting I discussed the introduction of Senate Bill 2421 why was it put on the agenda for this for this meeting then if if that's the case it's not a law that was passed there is law so maybe maybe I'm asking the wrong question I apologize if I am do we have polic a policy and or policies in place regarding the current law for obscenity for persons under 18 that's a good question thank you I believe uh if you don't mind I believe it would be covered

175under the code of conduct that's where you would first find the policy but this is in committee it's they haven't put it in place yet so it's being discussed down in the state house you have a couple options Mr brunc you can bring it back to policy they can discuss it bring their finding to the board we can't interpret it but we can send you can either um say that you're for it or you're against it in a letter to the to the the Senate right we can we can send a letter of of support or um denial is we've done that before Danny haven't we done that before we sent things down pass resolutions and sent the resolution right right that that's on me I'm sorry wish BR thank you so would that last

176question would this go through the legislative committee or through the policy committee um I believe the reason the policy committee made the statement it did there is because it is it is not currently law right it is proposed law so under that definition I think it would go under legislation because it's pending legislation right so that's the PO policy committee basically said it's really not time for us to act on this or react to this since it is not yet law um and we're not creating State policy right we make we make our policies um so and I thought initially we were going to direct it towards um legislation since that's really and then legislation can craft a a resolution which the board can vote on decide whether or not it's something we want to

177uh send down a trend thank you thank you everybody um Mr BC I sit on the uh um I just got a letter from New Jersey school boards they put me on 7 so I thought I was getting kicked off the legis committee because uh 34 was moved but I will be meeting we we're meeting Saturday virtually I will bring this up and ask uh for Mr um pushman he is the legislative person director down in school boards and ask him if you want to reach out to him to talk to him about the policy that would be a way for you to go he's very knowledgeable Jonathan pushman thank you so so basically I just I just want my colleagues to know I I want the general public just to know the types of

178bills that they are they have been introducing well I'm going to ask you for more information and let him ask give us the new so so my main issue is what I want to know from basically the commit you know whoever whoever tried to submit this in the committee this bill is there something wrong with the language as currently constituted for the current law on the books that I I just referenced two or three times obset for persons under 18 can you are there issues can you do me a big favor can you send me an email and I will address it Saturday when I'm in thank you very much I will thank you president Paris may I yes so being on the policy I think maybe there was um so we were discussing the

179bill which is not a law right the bill freedom to read act and maybe that was Lost in Translation but since it's a bill we discussed as mentioned that a bill can change 10 different ways ways may never even be passed as law so we all just figured why enter into a discussion about a proposed bill that may or may not come to fruition now if you're talking about this bill is an amendment to a law and that's what you wanted to us to look up then that was maybe I don't want to speak for everybody but that's not what we were doing we were looking at this bill and said why you know start any kind of go down that road if it's not even a law or potentially close to a law that

180was the thinking and and the obscenity definition I didn't I didn't realize that's already law I I took took the Assumption because it was with that proposed bill it was also a proposal that wasn't something yeah I I I suppose I wasn't clear at the last meeting but there currently is so that's that's what I was exactly trying to explain while you know W with new business at the last meeting that the amount of money that's spent on these bills they throw they throw into commit is is absolutely outrageous that that was basically my point if there's existing law that already does a great job to protect our kids and shield them from from these types of things if it ain't broke don't why you know why fix it that's all I'm asking you know

181that's essentially what I wanted why I brought it up to new business because I just found out about it prior to the last meeting yes commission so I did have a few questions um one of them was relating back to the administrators findings on the homework policy did any of this go back to our student representative that ask the question was were the findings ever sent to no okay could we have that sent to him please um that was still in Mr Ham's hands okay um he has the results of that survey um and he is he was from the last meeting he is taking action as as far as implementing whatever changes we decided basically our policy over already supported many of the suggestions that came from the student the ason committee and that

182implementation obviously has to go through Administration and faculty and and that's what Mr HDA would definitely I was just asking because I thought we made a promise to keep him updated on the things that were going that were going to be going on with the homework policy um the second question is going to be um I love the fact that can I mention your name sure that allias came up to us and um recommended this policy to the policy committee to the entire board I love the fact that he's so involved within our school district and I love the fact that there are many students that are also involved I want to know if it's possible and policy to probably explore something similar in the Middle School realm as well I know we did have

183last year a meeting in policy where we did invite some of the middle school students to speak about um at that time it was the dressing policy U what they wanted to do what they wanted to see in terms terms of um what the they could wear to school um and many of them are very cognitive and they're very aware of what's happening within their specific Circle was in Middle School I wanted to know if there's a possibility to maybe find something to see if we could set up something maybe similar to what we have as our student representative from the high school maybe having something like a student rep from the Middle School especially because we are going to start implementing I'm sorry um implementing something for the Judiciary Committee and uh student liaison

184in the middle school so we can do something very similar that' be very greatly appreciated yeah thank you anyone else can we thank you commissioner Suarez I almost forgot where we started um commissioner Brak please Finance thank you Mr President finance committee met on March 5th 2024 those in attendance were commissioner Santiago commissioner Mahia president Paris and myself as well from the admin Administration Dr Rober toi Mr jenero Mr shahada and Mr Uchi number one iMac health insurance overview iMac Representatives attended the meeting and discussed 20 the 2425 premium increase as of now health insurance is slated to go up almost 15% approximately $4.5 million due to increasing costs coupled with the ailments of employees and dependents iMac will continue to try and negotiate renewal price with the insurance carrier the issue here is that

185the policy year hasn't finished yet so that's why negotiations are continuously ongoing current year projections from last year are approximately $33 million we are averaging 2% higher than what was budgeted claims are up approximately 21% fixed costs such as administrative and stop loss stop loss coverages are running as projected claim Spikes have been Statewide due to preventative care not taking place during the lockdowns pandemic lockdowns and now are catching up that is their belief here some of the increases driving the renewal increase some of the big numbers I will be going over is the impatient paid per member increase of approximately 96% total days of care 119% uh maternity days over 150 50% newborn days over 240% increase so congrats to all the parent uh to all the parents for having all the babies thus

186far this policy year it's absolutely wonderful these kids may have had the next person who cures cancer being born so congratulations to all the parents and the families uh of all the new births uh it comes at a Costa absolutely nothing is free preliminary budget review Administration in-depth review preliminary budget with the committee and administrate expressed the needs of the district and outlined how the new Revenue was allocated Administration also highlighted the increase in fixed costs that would be outlined during today's meeting for the entire board these costs are contractual or state manded obligations that must be fulfilled does anybody have any questions y yes commiss can um so I emailed Mr shado who gave me some information and and if you could share it with the board later just so they have it too

187for U The increased percentage in the utilization year-over-year um and if you look at this in the year 20 to 21 we had a utilization of 93.4% and the increase was 12 here we're lower we're at 92.2 I realized in the year isn't done yet but they're already at 13.2 so I feel like that's a high increase already um so I would definitely push back and see if we could get that lowered um I don't know how many does this go to this goes till June right July to June they run these numbers yeah we're not we're not done yet this is only year to date numbers correct so we'll get a final premium year we have they have to give us a final number 60 days prior for to implement the plan okay yes

188so I just keep an eye on this and if you could send that to to them so yeah um it's a good good idea to to just take a look at this and get an idea of where the numbers landed so you know about where we should be okay any other questions okay moving on I'm GNA give commissioner brunjak a break and ask commissioner Kenova to do facilities uh facilities met March 5th uh Mr Brun was president Mr siano myself Mr Paris Administration Dr Rober toi um Mr shahada Mr M lado uh guest attended were Mr oo and Mr Watkins meeting start time was 3:30 meeting end time it's not on here but I think it was like an hour um items of discussion referendum update epic gave an overview of what is taking place

189thus far in the referendum and what is taking place throughout the rest of the year wood Wilson Auditorium de demolition has commenced as of now the auditorium is set to be turned back over to the school in September so just in time for the start of school uh PS was at the waight room yesterday and cut the power so the electricians can in install the needed panels once completed PSG will be back to energize the panel following that Air Balance needs to take place and then could be turned off over to the board of ed for usage Transformers were for 13 were delivered still awaiting switch gears to be delivered in tiean connections package two air balancing is started the package should be completed by the spring in its entirety uh b& updates the administration

190gave the update of projects taking place throughout the district painting on our painting beautification update date School five was completed painting in the basement concrete floors and Fresh coat on the walls School two the following rooms received a Fresh coat of paint the nurses office three classrooms media center and hallway walls on the first and second floor School four is scheduled to begin this week on the second floor classrooms and beginning coordinating with the school principal stage curtain Replacements School 9 is scheduled for replacement this summer with a new flame proof curtains for their multi-purpose room uh burglar alarm system at the stadium we've ordered a new burglar fire alarm system for the waight room and restroom rooms parking lot potholes the potholes repair project has been projected to begin next week after the weather

191breaks school has been identified as are has been identified by our maintenance department cila a wooder Wilson and 16 signage for curbing your dog when slow down slowdown signs are being placed districtwide as the deterrent School 3 gutters were discussed maintenance is checking why they overflow capital reserve items Administration expressed the needs to use the capital reserve in the 2425 school year for the following items Stadium locker room locker room is outdated and due to the upgrade weight room and bathrooms in the stadium is best to complete the project with the locker room renovation stadium bleachers this was explored more than 5 years ago however due to the deterioration of bleach of the bleacher it's now leaking into the newly renovated bathrooms which will ultimately ruin it in time School 14 walkway between the trailers

192and buildings student and staff must walk through the elements to enter the building for the restroom and lunch gym installing a catwalker or something of that sort will allow students to get to not get wet for bit opening L3 CHS music Suite 229 big opening took place in um uh February 29th in the board of bed conference room the bids were as follows L3 was the lowest bidder at $420,500 the CHS music Suite lowest bidder was 1,734 1999 five use of facilities bright and Asylum last year the board rented this CHS parking lot out to brighten Asylum during the September to November the event was a massive success and administration did not receive any complaints and and would love to assist the community with allowing them to rent the parking lot again committee was in

193favor of allowing them to use it main Memorial Park Administration spoke with Debbie Oliver from the City recreation department and she was asking about main Memorial Park located behind the stadium the board owns a piece of of it and has been leasing it to the city since 84 the city currently does all the upkeep and maintenance of the field Debbie and the city are applying for Green Acres grants through the state and need the land owners permission to receive the Grant and to move forward seven short film shooting in the parking lot co- producers of the NYU Advanced thesis short film me and you are seeking permission to use school parking lot for a tie for a late night shoot the film features a 12 to 14-year-old main character in a simple driving scene with

194her mom the crew is a a small comprising of two actors and they plan to shoot from 6:00 p.m. to 2: a.m. driving at 5 mil hour on repeated route they assure that nothing explicit will occur will occur and won't be any identif any identifiable School logos or trademarks visible the filmmakers have insurance covering the location in the vehicle are willing to provide the necessary documentation for approval they begin they believed the location near Lexington Diner is ideal for their film which explores mother daughter relationships the board was not in favor number eight New Jersey unified law enforcement FC this group requested the use of the HS soccer field soccer fields however after much deliberation by the committee it was unanimously agreed that they are not permitted to use the field due to issues encountered

195with the groups and years prior thank you commissioner Canova any questions commiss here um yes I have a question when I have a few questions I don't know we want to go back i' say one then someone ask us to ter but one of them was with um in terms of w Wilston the auditorium being demolished and being built all the way in September do we have everything set on how are we going to replace like the concerts um and where we house the students persp special events do we have everything in place already Mr Shad can answer that no so they just finished their last concert uh I believe they do have one more in the spring but I I'm pretty sure Mr Jer has worked out something where they're going to use the

196high school in addition for large scale events uh they have the two gyms and the cafeteria so Mr Jagger and his team have come up with a I would like to say foolproof plan of how to accommodate all in any situation okay so will this dramatically affect the students who are there throughout now cuz I know most of it is going to be done during the summer and then maybe briefly during September is anything going to affect largely from now up until June no okay all right thank you yes commissioner Suarez thank you president pz um I was just curious about the decision to not approve the short film shooting um just for some rationale please I believe it was timing it it would interfere with uh the start of school time even though they

197started very early in the morning so we didn't want to have that happening at the same time that buses are coming and going and staff starting to come and Mr Paris I remember also with the referendum because they when the students are students are out that's when the referendum takes place and that whole area is filled up with different trucks and different heavy material moving in and we didn't want that liability it was it was timing and Logistics it wasn't the actual activity that we had an objection to thank you any other question yes commissioner here oh commissioner Santiago thank you president Paris couple questions so one the um the wait room um psng was at the weit room etc etc what's the status of the weit room when will that potentially be ready so

198psng was out two days ago they cut the power our people took out the panel they went back in put the panel in and then they re-energized it this yesterday so all said and done we expecting another two weeks so we can just tie in all the connections that we need to do balance the air and just do any final touch-ups before we do a ribbon cutting okay so I would probably over two weeks I would say two weeks but don't hold me to it okay that's that's the estimate thank you um capital reserve items so the bleacher stadium bleachers have needed work for a long time um concrete missing rebar visible if I'm not mistaken it's just been in yes we need that a long time ago so now um due to that deterioration

199water's leaking into our newly renovated bathrooms which look really good if you ever been in there um and so um just if you can you know um just share a little bit more about what you guys discussed um about the bleachers and potential TR my good um so we talked a little bit about the like you said the bleachers and and the rebar and how they would reinforce it um and there was some sort of uh a coding they would put on as well when they were done there was epoxy there was there was also a separate discussion about how much is it just to do redo the bleachers in general because uh this one came in around like 2.5 million I think it was and um it's just a question of how much is

200everything else like instead of just fixing this he he said the life expectancy was like 10 maybe 15 years but if you put in new bleachers how what's that life expectancy and what's the cost so we don't have that information yet but that's sort of the conversation and how we interpreted where to go with this thank you thank you very much um go ahead you going say I was going to say at this point the estimate we have is the architect's estimate it would still have to go out on bid okay so we don't know what the final cost is but that's the Architects estimate right now okay great um and then main Memorial Park so yes we do own the par right behind where the foret the name of the road is that goes

201right behind the stadium and all that right so um looks like they are looking to apply for a Green Acres Grant for land that we own not for nothing um is there a grant that we can look into or what was the discussion around that I mean listen there must have been some arrangement they they maintain right the they landscape the property I get it we I went back in the archives we lease this property to them for like a dollar in 1980 uh the deal was we can take it back at any point in time with the 30-day written notice the city has full rights to it they maintain it they ensure that everything we have in we're indemnified if anything were to take place uh for this grant the city reached out to

202Green Acres looking to I gave Dr Robert toosy the plans this morning I reviewed them everything seemed copesthetic so they're just trying to they just need the land permission to get access to that what what would they get from this grant what is what is it going to be used for ETC um I don't know offand I can get you that information she did fax it to me this morning okay thanks last one I promise um I had uh in the past asked about if we could pilot and this may have been discussed um opening the track to the public the track at the stadium there in a pilot it could be on a weekend for a couple of hours whatever it is just to try um does anybody know the the result of those

203conversations or what happened there if something that is feasible to try or not or can we look into that again in this meeting that didn't come up I love the idea you go to Brookdale Park and there's many people running the track and using the soccer field in the middle and everything and so of right even there other school districts that open it up but there's a bunch of re things right we have a custodian or do we need a security I mean just putting it out there um is that something we can revisit I don't have a problem with it whatsoever I would like to just bring it to facilities committee one more time just to think about those things maybe like do we need a custodian like hours it'll be open let's so

204let's make sure it's on the next facili agenda and let's make a decision on this because I know Mr Santiago has asked previously and I don't want to um leave it hanging out there I love the idea of someone has to be there open it close it right at the very least someone has to be there pretty much the whole time right there's a cost involved and we don't want it vandalized and we don't want people leaving crash and all of that so it's just just to preliminarily discuss president Paris yes facilities and finance cuz if we have to discuss money because uh with not only custodian you're going to need a security guard okay anyone else yes yes um so I did want to bring back something that um I've been told several times

205and I did bring up before the sandbags that were using to prevent the water from leaking into many of our schools um including School 16 which is brand um I like to say brand new because of the flood that happened unfortunately um and at school 5 especially because we have a brand new gym there and I do know there's been a lot of parents saying that the when it rains unfortunately sometimes the rain just does sleep through and then it goes right into the brand new gy they also I believe they use for their cafeteria um what can we do to help solve this I know other schools have this issue along with 12 16 17 and W Wilson and a note we briefly mentioned and talked about the leaks that are happening up in

206the stadium but what can we do for things that are happening within the classrooms how can we help deter that I will tell you that Mr Shad can speak more specifically to this but we have a really good plan in place now from the last storm that was coming and we didn't KN going for Micah have any issues with the last storm or last night either which was which was pretty bad so me do you want to speak a little bit about the that plan we put in place correct so our buildings and ground seems phenomenal they got these they found these um sandbags that are like a pound and then once they're hit with water they expand like 17 ft and they can go around different areas so we've been placing them around there

207uh school 12 specifically is in a massive flood zone so we put a whole bunch of those and we built like a canopy funneling the water down to the road so you know knock on for Mica um we have not had any leakage into the building so this is something that we Monitor and we meet weekly about and especially in an event of like heavy rain or heavy snow where we know there's going to be leakage and then my final question is something that's probably on all our minds right now is how can we also get the same Aid that Pake got I know for many of us is well hey they got a brand new high school I know we are in dire need of also having not just a high school just another

208school to help our our students our population that is growing immensely so what can we do to help you know maybe apply to something similar where we could deter those costs from us and from the taxpayers and have someone like they did um I'll let Mr shahada explain some of the finances too but in brief pic is one of the 30 or so previously called Abbot districts which were the poorest districts in the state of New Jersey um that through the previous funding formula when the state was trying to equalize uh School District funding poured tons of money into these districts um realized it didn't work but still to this day even though the term Abbot doesn't exist it's still one of those distri districts that receive receives state aid um we will barring something

209significant happening we will not be in that position unless the demographics of our of our district change dramatically um but Amed I know you have something to say about that correct so just for for reference and Clarity they received $328 million for uh a new high school they received for two years in a row Z doar in an increase in state aid while Pine received 54 million uh and to get to that formerly known as Abbott level it is all driven by the the demographics of the town and the free and reduced lunch application you have to be north of I believe 70% and we're more than that yeah so we're only at 52.4 I believe last time I checked so we're you know thank God ways away from that but there was used to

210be something called AB Abbot Rim money that used to come out and we were one of the Abbott Rim districts and we used to get extra funding that way so may get money from the Governor he uh the $75 million in SDA Grant that's divied up amongst all the districts in the state I think this year we received $268,000 that we're doing just odd job projects that we couldn't we couldn't fit into the budget so we do get some of that Rim money so I did want I did wanted to ask that because there were several people from the community who were asking me and telling me that former board members told them it was because we didn't want to give into classifying ourselves as something we are not um I just want to make

211sure if that's clear is that something we do negate to no I'm not sure I understand uh the question the the question that arose this the statement that arose erroneously so was that we we don't want to be one of these districts because there's some stigma attached to it and that's why we are not one but not not that our numbers don't make it if if um I I would dress like a ballerina and do a dance in public to get $328 million in in in state aid so I'm not concerned about any type of stigma or anything uh like that it's really based on the demographics of the Town based on things that we don't uh have control over um we are what we are right we are what we are you there's always

212been that rumor about Clifton didn't want to be something Mr Maha uh commissioner Mia um it it's we we are fortunate enough that our demographics is what it is and that our um our free and reduced lunch is lower because that means that our our children are getting fed at home and and we're lucky that we have people that have that money in their thing but if it changes then we will become it I I don't see that in the for uh the future but Dr roazzi I think we just came up with a new fundraiser the ballerina maybe we can make some money and get a school so that's it thank you thank you believe it or not there's still one more commission there's still one more committee report um I'll read it because

213I got to read fast okay um education and special education committee minutes uh president were Dr Lucy Danny our chair uh commissioner bassford commissioner Suarez and commissioner NOA uh Administration was Dr Robert toy Miss kusevic um Mr Jenaro uh Mr shahada and uh uh Miss hemp hemp our supervisor of special services and uh Diana Sula who's an intern uh we discussed the th the therapy dog initiative was discussed expansion of that program Mr jagaro shared the enormous Success With The District's first therapy dog chewy um he's primarily driven the program through individual and small group therapeutic interventions in conjunction with our counseling department uh as well as providing whole class and school-based and evening and weekend event visits and support of District programs um he presented two ways the district could expand the program both

214of which have been budgeted for in this coming budget the requests for the support for the program far exceed the current capacity with just one chewy uh board members president indicated that the administration can best determine which process Ed to be most effective in schools action was informational uh New Jersey Department of Education accountability status was provided by Miss Kus levich she shared that the department of Ed uh has updated its federally driven account profiles accountability is based on 40 categories for students on the njsla state assessments students are counted in all socioeconomic demographic categories for performance and participation in language arts and Mathematics as well as chronic absenteeism and graduation rate previous previously there were two levels of accountability now there are three comprehensive support and Improvement additional targeted support and Improvement and targeted

215support Improvement the most basic level is targeted support Improvement which can be entered or exited each year and based on only one area more information will be forthcoming about Clifton school 12 and Clifton High School in this new yearly measurement level special education update and program growth uh was provided by Miss uh and Miss cage began by discussing increases in referrals and increasingly complex needs of students referred to special education she shared that nearly all special education classroom sections were at or near allowable capacity currently 152 students are awaiting the child study team testing it's anticipated the district will need between three and eight additional self-contain classes in September Miss Hemphill then provided the following updates about the special services department uh bounce out the stigma Camp will be running again this summer details are

216to follow the extended school year will run from July 1st through August 13th special education parent advisory group meeting was held on February 28th with few parents and attendant and all the supervisors of special services an overview of special services department was given apparent interest survey was provided to parents and will be sent to parents of students with IEPs the next meeting uh meeting will be May 29th a discussion ensued on how to increase uh uh the uh commit the meeting's attendance Miss Hempel explained we use Peach jar and teachers who are in constant communication with parents share it with parents case managers share it and it is also posted on our website Etc it was recommended pamphlets be distributed to parents at meetings so they feel they have a support group and that the

217information is shared in the special service department email signatures the district has increased project unify event opportunities for middle and high school students there will be a basketball game which already was oh no coming up sorry on on March 12th with project unify basketball students from woodro and uh CHS we started recruiting for staff for next year via job fair social media if you know anyone looking for special education position please have them fill out an application on applet Trak that's our uh that's our application for jobs on on uh on our website many Clifton Mustang staff supported the Special Olympics at the Polar Plunge at Seaside on February 24th and they raised a great deal of money for this for Special Olympics um an elll program update and growth was provided by Miss kusich

218who shared more information about our programs for multilingual Learners with specific focus on the evergoing numbers she reviewed the continued growth and unprecedented increase in the number of Ells from 650 2 in October to 1,270 now that was October of 2021 to 1,270 on Monday of this week with eight new arrivals by Tuesday of this week and another 22 in the queue to be tested for ESL Services as of today in addition the district has to provide follow-up to support to 209 recently exited students who still require support the complexity of student needs keeps growing uh ml students continue to register on a weekly basis uh preschool program update and growth Miss kusich updated the committee About Preschool expansion the state uh Peg funds requir that the district continue to add classrooms to meet the

219full Universe of three and four-year-old students we currently have 65 preschool classrooms growing to 76 in the coming year with PEG funds in order to meet even 90% of our universe we will need 20 at least 24 uh more classrooms our public schools are at capacity the district continues to explore Partnerships in additional space uh next topic was budget and instructional staffing needs uh prek to 12 instructional needs for the 2024 25 budget or really highlighted in Need for specialized staff and space bilingual and ESL programs for elll ML students special education and preschool are all growing and all have class Siz capacity limits yet still require full-size classrooms general education students need additional intervention counseling support and services the current budget reflects increases in these interconnected areas teachers intervention Specialists par professionals administrative support

220and counseling social work and behaviorist service providers additional space through building leases continues to be explored and is included in this budget meeting ended at 7:50 any question missing we did this have a discussion on the students yes I apologize I just sent um an update um when I submitted these I had forgotten to include the four curriculum guides that were addressed which is a new AP Physics new women's studies new senior seminar new current events and I also addressed the imagin math however that's the same response that I gave to the question of the um of of commissioner uh brunak I just wanted know thank you here so the special education parent advisory group um is this available for all parents to join or is it only select few that are able to join

221I believe it's open to all parents open all parents I attended the meeting okay um I second you need to increase participation but it is open to all and all our staff was there that's something I want to bring up if we could maybe publicize that a little bit more cuz a lot of parents seem to not know about it um I did have um an encounter with was someone over at ShopRite which didn't Express this that there should be a parent advisory group or there should be a separate special education committee and I think maybe some of them just don't know that we do have this committee so is it possible for us to publicize it a little bit more that it is available yeah one one discussion um we had when I was

222at the cpag meeting not at our committee meeting um was to perhaps offer it in different languages um and that might encourage some parents to attend one of the issues why I'm sorry I'm sorry one of the issues with cpag is that the state regulation in chapter 14 only speaks to the fact that you have to have a committee they don't set any detailed parameters on how the committee has to be formed who has to attend how many meetings you have it's very very very vague I mean it's just you have to have a committee there are towns that have very involveed committee they're almost like an HSA they do fundraising for the special education department so what will park has an outstanding CPAC uh Community um I know we did have other members on

223it but there was some distension in the ranks and there was some miscommunication and we lost a couple really good members out of that Community um don't want to be involved anymore and I'm really a shame but my issue is that it's during the day when most of our families are working you know we have we have people in that um demographic that have two or three jobs because they're just trying to make ends meet to keep food on the table and the roof over their heads so I I think it's 6:00 last meeting started at 6:30 okay but well well what I was familiar with it was during the day but I I think it's just getting it out there it it's just you know maybe we need to hire a plane or something

224you know for with a banner I don't I don't know but um we have to we have to do better job at getting people involved we we did discuss this in Link at the committee so so so maybe I just want to share that I don't know that it's for lack of of trying I mean there are emails that go out there are phone calls that go out there are text messages that go out we have the teachers personally inviting parents to the meeting look we're a district of 11,000 students and if not for the people who came to our board meeting tonight to be recognized look who's here and I love you all for being here that's our friend from um Board of Education member of Jersey City how are you sir so I

225I don't want want to say it's for lack of people don't know about it you know what I mean I'm not saying we can't maybe do something different or better job but I think I think the word is out there well something has to I think uh we have to try some other means to will get him out Joe I didn't mean to cut you off I apologize well that that's a topic we'll put back to the uh the education committee to explore okay anything else can we okay moving on then uh We've did we did public recognition we need to adopt some minutes uh to save a little time I'll put 13 and 14 which are adoption of minutes February 8th and March 2nd together looking for a motion to approve second uh commissioner

226bassford and seconded by commissioner roll Mr sh Miss bassford yes Mr brunak yes Mr Kenova yes Mr Mia yes Mr Santiago yes Mr siano yes M Suarez yes president Paris yes motion carries uh Dr robtoy no report tonight Mr Paris okay I will save my comments to the end as well um I don't have any unfinished business listed and anybody yes Mr run yeah regarding Senate Bill 2421 one more time they tabled it last month the Senate education committee they tabled it last month my understanding is they're bringing it back up next um March 14th that's my that's what I was told I forgot who's who who hit me up committee members of this committee are uh chair chair uh Vin gopel Vice chair Shirley Turner other members of the committee are Senator Kristen curado

227Senator Owen Henry and Senator Angela mcnight thank you thank you commissioner brunak anyone else unfinished business okay moving on uh an expression of condolence um I will read it whereas on February 29th 2024 the community noted with sorrow the passing of Robert sep setino and whereas Mr sepentina had served the Clifton Board of Education and the children of Clifton faithfully and conscientiously for 42 years until his retirement in July of 2006 Mr sepano was a public school teacher who also taught the gifted and talented students he was honored as an outstanding teacher by the governor of New Jersey and received his Commendation of Excellence at prin Princeton University Mr setino was also the owner director teacher and choreographer at the Nikki Simon School of Dance in Pake park for 47 years I'm sure that was

228Nikki Simon I'm sorry uh now therefore be it resolved that this resolution be forwarded to his bere family to serve as an expression of the great Regard in which Mr setino was held by the Board of Education the Administration Employees and pupils of the Clifton public schools and be a further resolve that the contents of this resolution be noted in their entirety in the official minutes of the Clifton Board of education for future generations to pursue to peruse dated March 7th uh next month or this is it this month is women's History Month would anyone like to read our Proclamation for women's History Month commissioner swar thank you whereas American women of every race class and ethnic background have made historical contributions to the growth and strength of the nation in countless recorded and unrecorded

229ways whereas American women have played and continued to play a critical economic cultural and social role in every sphere of our nation's Life by constituting a significant portion of the labor force working in and outside of the home whereas American women have played a unique role throughout our history by providing the majority of the nation's volunteer labor labor force and have been particularly important in the establishment of early charitable philanthropic and cultural institutions in this country whereas a celebration of women's progress and contributions to this country since its founding this year's theme is women who advocate for Equity diversity and inclusion we acknowledge the vital role that solidarity and intersectionality must play in our fight for a better future therefore be it resolved that the Clifton Board of Education honors the contributions that women have

230made throughout history and commit to support efforts to improve opportunities for women and declared March as National Women's history month thank you commissioner Suarez okay we're looking for h a motion to uh approve items under B education Administration items number one through 15 motion to approve please motion motion by second commissioner siano second by commissioner brunak roll call Mr shot please miss bassford yes and I'm abstaining on B9 I'm In conflict that is a family orthopedic doctor that I used to Mr brunak yes Mr kova yes Mr Mahia yes Mr Santiago yes but I believe I have to abstain on B 11 is that not correct yes yes thank you abstain b11 Mr sio yes Miss Suarez yes president Paris yes abstaining on uh item 11 motion carries okay next section is Personnel um looking

231for a motion to approve items one through 28 motion I'm sorry 27 motion by commissioner Suarez second second by commissioner Mahia roll call Mr Shah Miss bassford yes and I abstain on U my name only and c21 yes to the rest Mr brunak yes Mr Kenova yes Mr Mahia yes Mr Santiago yes Mr siano yes Miss Suarez yes president Paris uh yes OB standing on myself on item 21 please motion carries next looking for a motion to approve under finance and Facilities items number one through 21 motion motion by commissioner bassford second second by commissioner Kenova roll call please miss bassford yes Mr brunak yes Mr Canova yes Mr Mia yes Mr Santiago yes Mr siano yes abstaining on F12 F20 permit 5098 cuz the council that I'm on the early childhood education runs that

232and F21 voucher 109 935 Tomahawk promotions because I do have a business relationship with him thank you Miss Suarez yes president Paris yes motion carries board member comments I gotta remember who I started with I think we start with uh Mr I'll I'll go I'll go it's fine he's got he's got a lot of paper I'll go commission sure um thank you to my friend Lorenzo for coming uh Lorenzo is one of my Island Miss for toys people we've become friends for a long time right Lorenzo thank you for coming to watch our meetings um thank you for all speakers that are coming out I want to thank Administration um and the Ba's office for an outstanding presentation on the budget it was very understandable to the lay people in the community um and um

233I know that you guys are very open open door policy if anybody has further detailed questions they can approach and ask um to the public for being very uh patient with us for getting this all together I appreciate you um to the schools uh 25 uh 14 17 8 and 16 thank you for inviting me for read Across America I had a blast I did something today I read um One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish and the teacher had an Adaptive device that when I read the book it made sound effects after certain keywords and it picked on my voice it was the best experience I have ever had because we had a ball in the classroom the kids were laughing I was laughing so thank you to administration of School 17 for

234allowing me that opportunity to experience what our kids get to do every day I really had a good time our schools are in clean perfect condition I got to visit a lot of places and I am just excited about seeing the conditions of the Building compared to other districts that I go in I used to go into or so thank you um in honor of my Heritage this is a a blessing may there always be work for you to uh for your hands to do may your purse always hold a coin or two May the sun always shine on the window pane May a rainbow be certain to follow each Reign May the hand of a friend always be near and may God fill your heart with gladness and cheer happy St Patrick's Day and

235happy St Joseph's Day to my friends that are Italian thank you CHR bord are you ready commissioner brunak or would you like more time thank you Mr President first and foremost I want to give uh prayers up to commissioner siano's wife whom had a a procedure earlier this week I I pray for her speedy recovery Ramadan Mubarak to our students and staff as well as the greater Clifton Community happy St Patrick's Day to all those who celebrate big shout out to the cast and crew at woodro Wilson Middle School for a spectacular production of The Adams Family and everyone from the administration and staff who helped make it happen finally a big shout out to Mara huig director uh Timothy Hayward who who I used to see at at some jazz clubs um absolutely wonderful

236he's he was the conductor at this a at this uh musical uh Cinderella and they did a good job breaking it down I went there with my son and uh again once again shout out to all the cast and crew and the staff and the admin that helped make it happen it was absolutely fantastic thank you very much everybody for your time and God bless America have a good night everybody thank you no comments tonight thank you Mia um I just want to say congratulations to our M trial team on such a high honor for winning and for going so so far um as well have a blessed Ramadan to all those who celebrate um congratulations to all of our winter student athletes along with our students of the months and employees of the months

237um I also like to thank all the schools who invited me to go out and read I had a blast and I also like to thank um Giants quarterback Daniel Jones for coming and visiting and reading over at school 12 we were in my old classroom which was very nostalgic and very qu I don't know how to say the word I forget but it was very surprising I walk in I'm like hey this is the same room I used to be in when I was in third grade so that was very that was very surprising right um also shout out to CCMS and willo Wilson uh Middle School on their musicals and plays this year um this Friday Saturday I believe is going to be the CHS they'll be holding there so I hope to

238see many of you there um and I also want to express that um in terms of the budget um that's a failure on the state and that's a failure on previous boards um it's unbelievable um the things that they make us try to do now try to play catchup um and I still can't believe they did that to us um but besides that thank you very much thank commissioner Mia commissioner Santiago thank you president Paris um congratulations to all of our students and our um employee Award winners um uh particularly want to point out Mariana kasadya who I read was senior student of the month um who as she put it uh learned English from scratch when she arrived at Clifton High School and she is on Varsity swimming National Honor Society National Society of

239High School honors girls who code Global so I just wanted to point this out as one very small example of a multilanguage learner we discussed a lot today and that's a testament to two teachers that she she pointed out but also our Administration and the resources that we provide as part of this budget um you know this is a product of all of that so um continued luck to uh Mariana happy St Patrick's Day to everybody celebrating Happy Ramadan sorry I couldn't go to the fenus lighting I was here um and um happy uh tomorrow is international women's day so happy International Women's Day to all of our our commissioners our staff um our administrators um you know International women's day is celebrating the social economic cultural and political achievements of women so so thank

240you all to to all of you for everything you do um go out and see Hello Dolly starting tomorrow at Clifton High School and through the weekend finally on the budget I just wanted to say listen um you know it's a preliminary budget right we have until May to to discuss and hash this out you know what we're charged with is um providing the best education uh at a cost that the city can afford that's what we are charged with um as uh board Commissioners and so we're going to continue to keep that in mind and um work on it through May thank you so much good night commissioner Siana thank you very much um happy women's History Month to everyone uh to all observing I would like to say happy fasting in Ramadan Mubarak

241congrats to all the employees and students of the month truly assets to our community uh you just gave out a little Irish blessing so I have one that I wasn't going to say but I always say it and I love it it's May your home always be too small to hold all your friends I absolutely love that I think it's the best one suits me uh thank you for the student update it's really vital that we stay informed um I'm going to hope to say this right congrats to sa Salah for being the first in school history to score a th000 rebounds and also scoring a th000 points amazing feat also to the CHS cheer team athletes and coaches back-to-back state championships I had an opportunity to attend the Cinderella youth Edition play what an

242amazing job by everyone involved in that I really did enjoy the show thank you to all the participants of the municipal Alliance it was really a great meeting and I see a lot of Hope coming out of that room um so School five I got to go to read Across America I read to a fourth grade grade class and I wish I could have done more I was invited to more but I had Family Matters and bringing up Family Matters I really want to thank the Commissioners that texted me and called me what every day twice a day and the administration for constantly checking on my wife um that meant a lot um that's a lot of love coming out of this room I appreciate it she's doing well still in the hospital hopefully we'll

243be home uh sometime soon and other than that I hope everybody has an amazing night thank you commissioner Suarez yes thank you um I've been on the board for three months so far so I just wanted to just kind of give an update to the community and um and and just I'm I'm one who reflects and I reflect a lot I Journal write every day um and when in these three months I had District tours um I had a 3-day training um that's a mandator training that we all must go to for those at home um board Retreats with one with together here um I had the pleasure of reading at several schools for read Across America this week I saw Cinderella the those children were wonderful so wonderful the um and I just want

244to express how proud I am to be a part of this clipon community um being a part of this team um at the district or rather at the Board of Education Retreat that um all people from all all over New Jersey need to go to uh I just want to let those who may not know Clifton is doing relatively well when we see um other districts and I I was really able to have perspective of of where we are and um gain appreciation for that and um you know I just it's been a real privilege I want everyone to know I do not take this position lightly I do not take anything for granted and it's a true privilege to be in front of those beautiful children reading to them seeing their smiles it's a

245true privilege to see the Educators we have in this District especially those um who've been here for years and decades uh our children are really in great hands because of your expertise the administration um who create beautiful School cultures I've been in schools for many years and I say this as an educator and not as a board member you can get a feeling of a school when you walk in um and every single time I've walked into a school and I you know there's an aist there I'm a board remember right so I I understand how they may um view me differently but um I don't see a pretense I see authenticity I see children happy I see teachers um really being able to do their jobs with Integrity um I see administrators who Truly

246Deeply care about our children here in Clifton and I'm really grateful to be a part of that so I just really wanted to share uh with the community where I've been for these past three months um and where we are as a team and I'm grateful for that um on then and that's all I have to say about that and then I also want to say happy National School social worker week as a previous School social worker uh their work is difficult and is often a thanless job so happy National School social worker uh week and for all our school social workers thank you for the work that you do um for those who observe Ramadan may peace be with you and happy women's history month thank you have a good night everyone thank you

247uh I just want to extend my thanks this week to all the media Specialists and staff and teachers that welcomed us for read Across America I had the privilege of reading at school 58 17 14 16 2 and n and the biggest privilege of all I was able to read to my uh granddaughter's kindergarten class and it was just wonderful um uh everybody mentioned the play at CCMS Cinderella was fantastic play fantastic pit Orchestra but I also just want to mention something that hasn't been yet the student artists uh that were on display in the building were absolutely marvelous and I just wanted to uh to thank those students and uh and the staff for for displaying those um congratulations to our Mustang Ben who obtained first place in the crew of Rex parade down

248in New Orleans uh at marra time um and a giant thanks to all of all of you here my fellow Commissioners on the board for your time at our board Retreat last week and even more so uh just for your professionalism the way you interact with each other um you just left me speechless and I I I really appreciate the time you gave up and the public should know that this board gave up four hours on their Saturday uh for really self-improvement self-development and uh I thank them for that um some dates coming up to Mark uh March 14th the Boys and Girls Club is having a great Futures Gala fundraiser uh that's a Thursday that's at the valley Regency at 6m uh on March 11th the Pake County School Board Association is honoring uh

249the unsung heroes of Bay County uh that's at 5:30 at on March 10th at Muhammad Ali School number 23 on Dayton Avenue in Pake and uh our high school will be represented there with the winner uh on March 20th the All City band concert is at CHS if you've never been to one you should get there it is a wonderful display of all that is instrumental music in Clifton and to follow that up the following week on March 27th is All City band uh All City strings also at CHS where you can see our wonderful Strings program in action from elemente through High School uh and as Mr Mahia mentioned don't forget the High School Musical this weekend it's Friday Saturday and Sunday it's Hello Dolly and a u happy Ramadan celebration um to everyone

250who celebrates this month thank you thank you thank you um new business is next anyone with new business Mr B uh thank you Mr President I just want to let my colleagues on this board know and uh to the administration and to to the public while we bust our tails off over here this board and this Ba's office and this Administration to get funding for our districts I want to let everybody know what the legislature in Trenton does they submitted these past these two bills over the past couple of weeks number eight uh the assembly submitted this bill a 2252 it appropriates $9 million to establish a New Jersey covid-19 vaccine Outreach commission another one uh Senate Bill 1970 permits minors 13 years of age to consent to behavioral healthc care services that's all I

251got Mr President thank you thank you Mr Brak anyone else M Mia um I did want to see about expanding the the middle school that I briefly mentioned during policy um as well as having their student liaison committee um if we can get that done by next meeting that'd be great um as well as helping um former student representative to the Board of Education from the Middle School see if we can get that done between the next meeting that' be great as well thank you okay we work with Dr Roberto on that we can schle something for a middle school meeting anyone else yes commissioner Suarez thank you um if we can put on the policy committee for next time we meet um our recess policy for our children in K or prek through 5

252um just to discuss what it looks like to miss recess time and um and just explore that policy to make sure our children are their play time okay thank you we'll get that on the agenda president Paris yes sir I just wanted to say thank you for the board retreat I wanted to say that in the comments um it was very valuable and it was a great idea and I look forward to more and it was great also just to be with my colleagues here kind of in a different context so thank you for that well since we're doing new business uh commissioner siano suggested to me if you remember the njsba rep had a variety of programs some were very short topics meaning like an hour or so uh commissioner Shan made a a

253suggestion maybe we could incorporate them into another meeting knock out three or four of those at a time um if the if the board is is willing um we need at least seven of nine people that participate in order to work towards our certified board status um in addition to our superintendent that's the the requirement so you'll be getting uh some polling information beond that okay you're going to give us information months good I I can do it earlier like we when we discussed it at the board retreat that we would do it a 6:00 meeting as long as I have advanced notice I can get move my schedule around I just you know I I need to post April something or other I got stuff going on so just okay well I'll send out

254a a a memo and take a little survey for time that works for everybody maybe we do it in the evening some evening for three or four hours we'll see we'll see but I think that's a good idea rather than kind of peac mealing it and our meetings are already so long to add another hour to them for the I think might be better to combine some things Mr President the Administration has to be there as well right for these things uh superintendent has to be there that's the only mandate is seven of the nine seven of nine member board and superintendent thank you and can I make a suggestion that we work on uh the goals and the stre the the mission statement because those were the two things that I think we wanted

255to to hit first right uh we have uh think strategic plan is it or and yes and and also a um that was relatively short I said superintendent um evaluation process review okay um next we we do have an executive session hopefully it won't take much long we're going to say how long 30 minutes 30 minutes we're going to say 30 minutes for executive session um so I need a uh oh we'll discuss um Personnel matters uh and and legal matters action may or may not be taken um motion to Executive moot hearing no agreements all in favor all right see in half hour e here yeah now I'm everywhere Mark Frank always be motion to approve session motion Sor motion second miss bassford Mr brunak yes Mr kova yes Mr Mahia yes Mr Santiago

256yes Mr siano yes Miss [Music] Suarez president Paris yes motion carries motion toour motion second second have a great night night