October 5, 2023 - Clifton Board of Education Meeting

001e like to open the regularly schedule meeting of the clion board of education for Thursday October the 5th 2023 if you'd all please rise for a salute to our flag followed by a brief moment of silence I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you roll call please Mr abrao here Mr aad miss bassford here Mr brunak here Mr Mia here Mr Paris here here Mr Santiago here vice president Danny here president Smith here we have a quum uh mission statement please uh vice president Danny the mission of the Clifton School District in an open and reciprocal Community Partnership is to provide all students with a quality education to develop the skills necessary

002to become literate lifelong Learners who are responsible and producti citizens contributing to a Democratic Society in an everchanging world the open public meetings act the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to have the to ensure that the right of the public to advance notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the clipton board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be publicized by having the daytime in place thereof posted at the city clerk's office Clon Public Library administration building senior citizen nutrition Center on cable TV in the local press on the district's website and mail to parents of uh presidents of parent teacher organizations this meeting will be tape

003recorded in accordance with our policy 0168 of course I don't have my thing up okay um just going to deviate from the agenda briefly I'd just like to um make a statement um concerning um uh some uh unpleasant accusations that were um alluded to last uh last board meeting um as I've stated uh being a board member for uh com coming to an end of 17 years doesn't happen uh with a um a tarnished reputation um people in this town know me they've elected me [Music] um it's very hurtful in this town when we start attacking people and we have no no proof no evidence and we don't bring that if if you have it you bring It Forward it's just amazing with all the good things happening in this town um we always seem

004to attack the negative never do people come up and talk about the positive this district has done many things that are positive and we continue to do many things that are positive the negativeness is not going to be accepted CED here you may think you know it all that you're going to bring somebody down because they didn't vote a certain way that you wanted them to vote um that you make threats that no matter what I'll do I'll make sure the person doesn't get reelected that was what took place last meeting on an attack of my character and I'll face you face to face be a man and face to face but how dare you drr D how dare you interrupt the progress of this district and waste waste people's time on lies complete and

005utter lies all because of one thing because somebody's wife wanted to be the board president that's what this was all about and when you don't get your way then you come in an attack as long as I'm sitting in this chair no one's going to attack myself or any board member here this board has worked very hard to give our district the Excellence that it has and we will continue to do so so don't think you're going to come here and disrupt things I guess you're hoping that I don't get reelected and then maybe we could you could get your way doesn't belong here doesn't belong in a public setting like this to waste people's time to had so many positive things last week with all of our presentations and come up with this negativeness

006and there no place for it we are here to work to educate kids bottom line it also amazes me board members go through a criminal background check every one of us have to go through a criminal background check that is required so again making accusations if you think that makes you a better person you think you're going to wear certain colors that make you a better person you do what you want to do but don't come to this meeting again and bring negativeness to the Board of Education doesn't belong here and shouldn't be here and my character speaks for itself last election I had said that 25,000 people voted for me I guess if I was doing something wrong it would have come up a long time ago wouldn't have no and if you're really

007willing to work with somebody as they said there's a whole another way of doing that so as I said last time not going to take any more time but we as Commissioners are here to do a job don't come here and waste our time and if you think you have something as I said bring it on because I had a lengthy discussion with the Department of Justice the FBI and the prosecutor's office so you want to continue to do these things they already know and a file has been made do not ever come here and hurt any of our characters this board puts a lot of time and volunteerism for you to come here to do something to undermine because you want to sit in this chair not going to happen and I'm sorry to

008the public that you had to listen to that and go through it thank you to board members for allowing me that time thank you wh there's trisuit so just in case you thought I was hiding behind my dog also I wanted her to come here tonight so everyone could see her she's not the rat girls in the back don't worry that's Triscuit all right we'll start with the uh we'll start with the agenda uh we're going to start with public recognition could you grab her yeah watch your step thank you okay thank you thank you you can't go out and say hi to everybody this portion of the meeting is open to Residents and non-residents of the city of Clifton for the purpose of addressing any subject matter pertinent to and directly related to the

009operation of the Clifton Public School District residents and non-residents are requested if they're in person to sign the register provided for this purpose all speakers are asked to State their names municipality and subject matter before they speak comments 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 it went appropriate your questions may or may not be answered by board members the board ask the members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when they are speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific ific legal rights

010afforded by the laws of the state of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will 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 okay we'll start with our virtual do we have anyone yes we do we have one person in the waiting room and that's m Tanya Suarez Suarez if you would unmute yourself it is your turn to speak you have five minutes thank you so much I appreciate that um good evening everyone my name is t suus been resident for five years in the Delana area I'm also running for clion Board of Education this November

011but I'm not here for that today I just want to be transparent about my role today I come to the board in the community as a parent recently I like many other parents and Guardians and tended my son's back to school night to meet his teacher and see what he's up to during the school day as always I was pleasantly greeted by the principal and his teacher his teacher decorated the classroom beautifully had created fun incentives for the kids to learn and behave and had a positive attitude about the way she cared about her children my son meeting the teacher and seeing his classroom affirmed my trust in his school and that he's surrounded by Educators who truly care about his overall wellbeing and with all the wonderful things I observed there was something that

012I found concerning that I know was out of the hands of this teacher and very likely out of the hands of this princial my son's school schedule is jam-packed from 9:00 to 3 having it heavily front loaded with math for the majority of the morning reading and social studies after lunch with only a spattering of five specials throughout the week I'll note that my son is seven and in second grade as an aside the fact that classes such as art music and world language are called specials devalues their worth and sends the message that those classes are secondary to a child's Learning and Development the reality is that such classes allow for students natural-born talents to emerge and develop giving them opportunities to be proud of what they can create and enhance and being eager

013to want to learn more but I digress with his schedule or rather within his schedule each day after his 30 minute lunchtime recess the schedule for 20 minutes according to New Jersey state law every Public School from fifth grade and below is required to give all students recess a minimum of 20 minutes per day on a full school day on shortened school days recess is not required his school is complying with the Mandate also it's important to note that the schedule does not seem to allow for transition time for anyone who has worked with young children you know that transitions can be very tricky and even at best most efficient transitions when walking through the hallways can take about five minutes so unless lunch is shortened by 5 minutes or the following period which his

014half happens to be reading is shortened by five minutes children receive roughly 15 minutes of unstructured play time during the 6-hour school day why is this important even though it's not academic learning free play for children is still learning and plays a critical role for a child's development through play children learn skills that are necessary to be successful uccessful academically for example children learn appropriate risk-taking through play which encourages this class participation for many children raising their hand or sharing something in the classroom is a risk because it's a chance that they not may not be called on or given an answer play allows them to cope with that and learn how to deal with it free play also allows for problem solving when children structure their own games with tag hide-and seek and even

015dramatic play they need to learn to negotiate and problem solve about who goes first how much time they should have and to take turns what they want to play together and so on these skills also reinforce reinforce other math skills such as sequencing and understanding time when we deprive children opportunities to plan their own imaginative Accord then we deprive them of practicing real life problem solving scenarios that will support their academic skills also especially since our young children are of the co generation many still learning how to interact with peers with school free play encour excuse me free play encourages social emotional well-being for all students whether it's being able to release and decompress from a heavy mning of challenging brain work or learning how to cooperate be compassionate with peers and learning how to

016cope with disappointment because maybe the game they wanted to play was chosen allowing children to free play for a longer period of time uplifts their Spirits gives them a chance to truly breathe and gives them okay Miss Suarez I'm sorry your time is up thank you thank you for uh calling in today thank you thank you sorry anyone else no one virtual okay no one else virtual motion please motion close V Mr abrao second by commissioner Mahia okay in person anyone wishing to address the board please come up to the microphone sign the register and state your name municipality in which you live and subject matter stay here anyone wish to address the board I'll start this when this is you can start it you sure yeah sir I don't know if I could talk

017for five minutes that's where my wife says yeah you didn't like that at all hope I did that right good evening members of the board and the Clifton Community my name is Joe sieno I am running as a candidate for the board of education on November 7th number four on the ballot having grown up in Clifton my entire life I am not only a proud resident but also a product of its Public School System 22 years ago I'm old education was very different my parents played a crucial role in my education advocating for my needs as I was a student who was diagnosed with ADD my parents fought hard for me to remain in general classes as I had a learning disability that did not impair my Behavioral or social skills back then your only

018choice was to be placed in special education I did not have access to the same resources tests or curriculum as my peers however my parents fought hard for me believing that I deserved an education on par with every other student although education has progressed since then I am passionate to ensure students are receiving the best support possible however I don't want this to seem like the Clifton school system failed me in fact I had a teacher who had a major impact in my life Vincent Farrell my eighth grade teacher at woodrill Wilson throughout my time with him he showed me unwavering support care and belief in my potential despite moments of difficulty as a student he stood by me and helped me overcome obstacles without his constant guidance and belief in me I would not

019be the person I am today it is important for me to express my Foundation of who I am thanks to my parents and Mr phell without their support in my journey I wouldn't be standing before you tonight I am running for the board because I genuin ly believe that my perspectives experiences and dedication will be valuable assets please know I am running my campaign as myself not running on a ticket also not accepting any donations if you would like to know more about me please reach out to me anytime on my cell phone which is 973 56314 49 again my name is Joe sieno I am number four on the ballot for Clifton Board of Education thank you all for your consideration and see you at the polls on November 7th good evening everyone uh

020my name is Joe Kenova I'm running for Board of vid this November 7th number seventh number seven on the ballot so lucky number seven my children are attending Clifton schools I did three and a half years on the board where we accomplished many things some of the highlights of we were the selection of the superintendent getting every child a Chromebook on negotiations where we brought all contracts current and settled ones that were pending for years getting a $50 million Revenue stream back from Clifton from the state passing a historic referendum and surviving the new Norms of coid so I've been engaging with people on Facebook with this Clifton citizens concerns questions of the week and the Clifton news and Community tag post for candidates but I just want to meet people who weren't online so

021I'm going to let you know where I'm going to be at for a couple of these events October 11th there's a Clifton Republican organization League of women's voters they have a board of ed candidates night at City Hall from 7:00 to 9: I'll be after afterwards there to meet with people and discuss there October 16th boys and girls Taste of Clifton I'll be there on October 18th the Palestinian American Community Center pack is having a candidat forum at 388 Lake View AV at 7.m on October 20th the Boys and Girls Club at St Peters Haven have a Tricky Tray I'll be at that event to speak with anyone the 26th and 27 I'll the 26th I'll be at CCMS and the 27th at school 3 I'll be the DJ for their trunk retreat but before

022or afterwards if you want to I could speak with anyone there on any of my thoughts or ideas uh October 29th at the Halloween parade now I know that mail and ballots have been sent out already and I know just a reminder that early voting is from October 28th up until election at the library on pav um so I'll be getting my lawn signs in next week if there's anyone that wants lawn signs please let me know message me on Facebook or reach out to me um and I'll drop it right off to you again my name is Joe Kenova and number seven on the ballot thank you thank you sir Keith bassard Cliff New Jersey I was going to go off to Speech but my daughter will finish it what I can first of

023all I was listening to this whole thing Mr Smith you can put your eyes down all you want last time last time last time I was here you made the thing comment Bring It On okay I don't have to bring it on and another thing is I'll come to these meetings anytime I want that's my First Amendment right okay you can make all the faces you want and another reason why I don't meet with you because anytime you meet with you you lie about things and I could prove it okay you could sit up there and take all the minutes you want and make faces you know what someone just did that up in the council area too and they're going to be gone soon too okay whatever the people want to say and vote

024the way they want that's up to the people on November 7th if you do get back on there nothing I could do the people voted that way okay you up here making all these speeches thre I had the stuff for you to see no one said it was definitely you okay you so choose not to look at it you did and it's still here in my hand so if you are interested and everybody can hear me now in the TV Land say I want to see it and I'll give it to you but you won't you won't because you know why just like you said you in touch with this law enforcement that law enforcement let me tell you some you could talk to them all you want but there's nothing to say except hey

025someone had something I don't know if it was me or whatever but your stuff did go to law enforcement that was here and whoever else I don't know but there is stuff here okay and they do have it and if they find out they can't find it fine they can't find who it was or they find it's somebody else it's somebody else I couldn't tell you I just brought it here because it was kids involved and what happened what I found this is given to me okay so you should say me oh Keith thank thank you you know I'm very interested what you have you didn't even say that that's what the normal person says okay you can make your clown face is all you want Jimmy let me tell you something okay you think

026you're running this District bring your dog to school six all day and people just refrain from making any accusations just you don't at school six go excuse me I'm the chair I I don't care what you are okay I'm First Amendment right enough no I'm not enough I have First Amendment right sir and I'm going to ask you I went to years I won do not have a one-on-one cons uh conversation I say what you want to say before here what's the difference say what you want to say and finish you're stopp at me and I want my time back you're getting nothing back go ahead oh I am Jimmy go ahead I will get my time back go ahead okay Madam attorney will you please advise him okay but I want my time back

027to plain and simple I want my time back go ahead am I going to get my time back sure we'll give you thank you very much okay I have a right to vote the way I want and say what I want okay whatever I say it's always in black and white it's here okay so you can't say to me that I'm saying something wrong I'm saying something against you when I said here Jim I'll show you I don't know about you and it's on the tape from last time okay you said you had all these people calling you and everything I opened that phone they won't give it to me until after the next meeting maybe okay your policy says that if you use any electronics that have nothing to do with this meeting or

028has something to do with the meeting I could see it your phone and your computer you had so if you want want to deny me I'll bring you to the right people in court and we'll take care of that you can do it and the lawyer could tell you too you could stop me all you want and try not to give it to me I'm entitled to it I didn't make the policy you guys made the policy here this is your policy so what do we do the policy is only good for children or other people or whoever you select even h h hi I policy by saying this to me bring it on comment guess what you violate your own Hib policy that you guys formed here not me so it's like okay Mr

029bassard we're not satisfy what you're saying so we'll use the policy the way we want to guess what you could do what you want right now cuz you know you're the board here but I have rights too and I've proven this before Jimmy cost me $10,000 last time but guess what I won so if you're going to go up there and say something about me tell me about come to meetings or something it's not going to happen because I'll be here to next meeting okay I will be here and if you do win November 7th God bless you okay and I won't be at any more meetings because it's a waste of my time then coming here but that's up to the people the voters out there so let's just understand that too and people

030you I'll say it again you heard me I offered to show him this stuff again he hasn't said to me Keith I want to see the after the meeting so you guys think about this stuff you can put a Blinder on all you want but you're dealing with kids everybody up there took an oath about dealing with kids and what's the best for kids these are children we're talking about from Clifton here okay I don't know who who did it I can't tell you who did it but you should be very interested at board as board members cuz I'll show you what I have too I'm not holding anything back I don't hold things back and when I talk it's straight thank you where that okay hi uh it's gonna oh oh yeah Anthony Dal

031Salvo I live in Clifton I've been here for the past 17 years some of you guys probably know who I am some don't uh it's tough to follow that up but um there you read something about the missions statement and it was to teach and make people their children to make them Pro good people of society and to teach them and to make them you know learn well I was reading about Governor Murphy's standard uh and with regards to uh informing a parent whether or not um you know gender identity with their children and that makes me very very anxious because in that there's a paradox there and it's a bit of an oxymoron because the school is going to have power over whether or not my child can tell me something or something should

032be going but remember your school no one gave birth to my son my wife did I am his father and last time I checked I think I know what's best for him more so than any politician or elected member would know some of the school boards out there and some of the cities have sued and challenged Governor Murphy's um new law my question is where does Clifton stand on it if you guys already spoke about it or whatever forgive me I'm ignorant of it I haven't had a chance to really look at it but where do you guys stand on it that's what I want to know because in reality last time I checked I feed my son I clothe my son I protect my son I will fight a grizzly bear with a toothpick

033for my son if he needs to say something he should say it to me there should be no law out there that says some school board or some teacher or some person who has nothing to do with the raising of my child has the right to withhold it my kids's got a snotty nose I want to know I don't need anybody to sit there and say oh the government says because when the government says there's a problem and you know what Thomas Jefferson said when the people are are scared of the government there is tyranny when the people when the government is scared of the people there is freedom problem is there is an undertone right now and there is a ground swell and people ask me all the time what is going on and

034I don't know I don't have an answer for them do I like it absolutely not now I'm rambling on I didn't prepare a speech I didn't I'm not running for a school board I'm not doing any of that I'm just a parent but I'm a concerned parent and you guys know even during coid I was very very active with regards to what people said what people did and I remember a lot of the school board meetings that were done virtually and a lot of the comments that were made and those people are filed away in my brain and I know who they are and how to take care of them because you guys really don't know who I am but the reality is I want to know where you guys are going with it if

035you're going to challenge it if you're not going to challenge it if you're going to amend it who's going to be doing what and that's it and I'm not running for Schoolboard thank you very very much a good night yep I'm ready Samantha bass for Clifton New Jersey I really did not want to have to come up here and I really didn't want to be saying this and my heart is literally coming out of my chest and I can't even tell you when the last time public speaking or anything made me feel that way very new to see I don't know if I haven't been here in a while so new to see security up here that seems very interesting to me you know I'm very disheartened to see what has been happening in our

036city first with the council meeting on Tuesday sitting here in the seats it it's the election seasons are getting worse and worse and uglier and uglier and I also don't know if people are calling 1 1800 numbers for lawyers not you ma'am I actually really like you I watched you on TV I think you're smart um but what law is and what people's rights are unless you threaten someone you can't ban them from a building you can't also interrupt someone when they're speaking unless they're saying something wildly inappropriate that someone's right right yeah I don't know where on the agenda I was looking five times to see where we had this very big opening speech and I understand you're upset but you want to talk about being appropriate that's not appropriate having a service animal

037run around here is not appropriate I know because I have to constantly tell people what to do with their service animals when they want to sneak them into residence Halls when they're not actually service animals and they're a rabbit okay I understand these things so we need not to we need to practice what we preach that's my message practice what we preach know what we're saying wow I'm like I'm disgusted disgusted you know I'm not even going to read this people can come and ask me if they want to see stuff but you can have a clean track record and it doesn't mean that you haven't done anything guilty it just means you haven't been caught and I hope that sits with people whatever the truth may be whatever it is it always comes out

038and finds a way just calling people social Med media bullies I've been a product of a social media bullying just for existing and having a last name do you know what that's like I know you know what that's like Richie you get it all the time right you post about it all the time just for existing I felt it last election when the Republicans wanted to say we don't need another bastard on the board that felt really good that I as a woman a young educated woman got that so we can make all these big Grand statements we can fight whatever we want to fight but if you and your character is not what you practice but is only what you preach that's garbage and it means nothing it means nothing to me and it

039means nothing to other people and I'll do whatever I have to do for the next month with other people who align with myself to make sure I'm practicing what I preach and I'm making that a promise and that's not Revenge that's not coming with vengeance cuz I'm not bitter whatever happened I'm just tired I want to be happy where I live and I want to be proud of where I live and I want to help the students who get a proper education because they are our future I see it on a daily basis that coming to college and what they need and their support so do whatever you have to do but I'm going to do what I got to do too thank you just wear mine higher ready good evening my name is Judith

040bassford I live on Mountain View Drive in Clifton New Jersey I'm not going to give you the number because Daniel LS protects me under that as you can see my my daughter hit the the subject a little I'm going to talk about something U sorry Danny I wanted to speak to you all summer and we just didn't connect social media is a very powerful tool used rightly it's great I can connect with my nephew in Hawaii my cousins in Florida people around the world but when it's used wrong it's it's wrong I can assure you Mr bassford has done his due diligence with everything that has come to our house it came to my house he has connected with law enforcement officials duy sworn from the state and the country and they are looking into

041it if he's wrong he will apologize he said nothing wrong but if he's wrong he will but I'm pleading with you if he's right what are you going to do about it that's on your neck not mine during last year's campaign someone from this board went around telling the community not to vote for my daughter and it's true it came back to me they said one mistake of a bassford is enough we don't need the other bastard so I have screenshots of everything it was coming back to me it was a board member and former board members as well now this is an issue with the service dog it's policy number 5337 service animals dogs individually trained to do work for a specific job or task benefits of individuals and disabilities in all areas of

042the district dog has to be leashed cat has to be leashed it has to It's supposed to stay with the person all time so board members are you the fact is that the dog comes to school 6 and hangs out in the Welcome Center for hours when the person that it is supposed to soothe bring emotional support to or empathy to is not with that person in fact recently Somebody went out to lunch and left the dog here without him the person how to go home with the dog because it was after business hours and take the dog home is that in your policy that staff takes care of somebody else's dog are you paying for that person what are you gonna do about it Dr Robert huzzy I'm I'm reading Keith's speech show by

043the way when you're not in the district the big joke around the community is Mr Smith will run the school system because he's here all the time he's in the building quite often staff have come to Mr bassford and complain why did they come to us they drop stuff in allps I don't know maybe they think that we have the gumption to do something about it we lived here for 30 38 years and never seen a board president disin volved in this running of the district every day two things I want to leave with you New Jersey ethics number three I will confine my board duties and actions to making policy planning appraisals and I will help to frame policies and plan plan only after the board has consulted with them who affect them not

044running the district confine your duty to making policy not living here not being here all day not taking up residents here none of that number two I will carry out my responsibilities not to administer to the schools but together with my fellow board members key word is fellow come to see that they are well-run start listening to the employees fellow board members start listening there's a lot more going on than you are aware of this is the beginning of an Ethics charge we spent a lot of money $80,000 in the past two years do you want more ethics charges police your own board thank you hey everyone um okay hi everyone I'm Cameron Hebron 61 George Russell way and I'm one of the potential commissioner candidates um I rushed over here as soon as I

045heard you guys were talking about the trans subject so as someone who has a lot of trans friends um New Jersey State's not the safe or easiest state to transition in also in general I don't think policing parents is a solution I mean of course if they commit actual crimes against their child like hate crimes against their child like you should police it but we should do more to support these families only 05% of New Jersey State's population is transgender and I'm tired of seeing both political parties use actual people as ploes for whatever power tactics that are happening I'm seeing it happen in Clifton New Jersey like back and forth not just about the trans issue but about other issues too I think these parents these voters deserve a lot more for their Buck

046if we're actually going to be calling ourselves officials you guys have a lot of power in in the sense that you guys have titles names and even institutions backing you you can make more informed decisions okay now time to get into the part about why I'm running and who I am I'm running on a platform of advocacy accessibility and accountability I've seen a lot of politicians not necessarily here but across New Jersey and across the country widely just Bank on accountability as a fun buzzword that they just throw around whenever they want to avoid touchy subjects however I'm holding myself accountable as an ally to various communities regardless of if I belong to the them or not I want to see people I want to see this District drive and school districts leading to my

047second part is accessibility school districts are a vital part of a community schools are expected to not by the voter but by the state they are expected to be a source of free child care as well as generally health behavior modeling this is something that we've seen the who report on decade after decade and and it's part of their sustainability goals and Healthy Living goals of 2030 we also need to consider accessibility as it relates to the infrastructures in our town when we're talking about accessibilities how are students with disabilities expected to get home dur during rush hour when we don't have adequate sidewalks thank you Mickey godette for bringing that up how are we expected to be accountable for students who are English Learners when we have a huge housing CR crisis causing a

048lot of the white fright white flight issues that we see at the council meetings um you guys are Commissioners the town respects you you are expected to stand up for whoever your constituent is regardless on what side of the aisle they fall on and I I have to give it up to Keith bassford Samantha bassford and Judy bassford we may not see eye to eye on every issue but I respect you guys you you stand by your morals you make it a point to be involved in the city and to take care of the city that you care for um yeah I I yeah that's all I got I was rushing from the train station so thank you do I need to sign or cool yeah I did so yeah anyone else wish to address

049the board seeing on motion to close motion by Mr Santiago Mr Abad drao our student uh representative here I didn't see her oh Elias you're going to take her spot right um good evening like I said Jay couldn't be here today because the tennis team had their state competition tonight um so I'm going to be filling her spot um on the subject of tennis I'll start with sports um on the girls tennis team I believe it was last week um annias Jenkins won her third County Champion um so she's a three-time p County champion and that was her third time in a row of winning that title um Saturday October 7th the varsity boys and girls soccer tournament um will go on the boys will be at the the stadium and the girls will be

050at the high school field um the the homecoming game will be next Friday come to see our homecoming court and support our Mustangs um and now news from CHS the Hindu Student Association will be having an event of cultural dance called Garba this will take place Friday October 27th at 7:30 in the lower gym all are invited to support and attend let's see the M team is doing well in our competitions um and the Key Club they thank the Clifton Education Association for two grants they received these grants will help with an event called key leader and the Key Club district convention um they also thank Mr O'Reilly because he recently stepped down as as an adviser but recognize him for his kindness compassion humor and fun that he so naturally brings with him everywhere

051um and he will certainly be missed um and that's it for the student report thank you all very much Mr Smith may I address sure Elias thank you as always for um for your report I just wanted to tell you I received your email I'm about 200 emails behind I haven't had a chance to respond but Elias has asked to um attend our next policy committee meeting which M bassford I don't have a problem with if you don't Mr Smith do you have a problem with that um so Elias it's going to be next Monday night I'll send you an invite 5 are we at 5 5 5:00 it's virtual okay um and Jade is welcome to come um and we'll talk about what you what you email me about okay thanks okay adoption oh

052excuse me we'll do U Miss verosa you're up next Miss Rosa you're up next is she not I'm sorry M SMI yes hello good evening everyone good evening Commissioners president Smith Dr Robos Central Administration I always like to start off by thanking you all for your time and um just as always your presence you're presently here for better on most days right so thank you all tonight um we bring you a very special guest let me cue this up real quick oh yeah this just it moved my queue as I was working on some there we are tonight we are celebrating a fantastic um a fantastic staff at school 11 our head custodian Mr Martinez Escobar in the past three years Mr um Escobar has changed the lives of not only our students but our

053staff at school 11 We Are Forever grateful for his service dedication and most of all his personality um I want to take a moment before um before I play the video that uh h team put together along with uh the help of Mr Michael mccy um and share my sentiments in Spanish for he and his family um Dr Rob president Smith would you do me the honor of um celebrating Mr Escobar with us oh I'm sorry wait I got to play a video first let's check that out as it's buffering [Music] Mato absolutely embodies the best of us and is the most rare of all of us here at school 11 the way that he cares for the school the staff and the students is the way that a person would care for their home

054and their family he pours so much love attention and effort to go above and beyond to make sure that this school is safe clean warm and welcoming and he makes sure that every teacher's need is always met and the way that he interacts with our students is also treasure Ed in that he is fatherly he is caring he is kind and he's a treasur gem at our school in every sense of the word we couldn't be more grateful and we couldn't be more excited to recognize and celebrate him this evening Mato is one of the first people we think of when we hear the word rare he greet us each morning with a smile and makes our health and safety his number one priority he goes above and beyond each day to help meet the

055needs of staff and students thank you for all that you do for us Mato your hard work does not go unnoticed thank you mat thank you Mato you are amazing at school 11 and we don't know what we would do without you thank you for being there every single day Mato we appreciate everything you do for us here at school 11 you exceed our expectations every day and we're super lucky to have you here tile what would like to say than you hi Mr Mato Jenny and I would just like to say thank you for all that you do for school number 11 we really appreciate it congratulations Mr Mato exemplifies being rare he always goes above and beyond to give us everything we need getting a building ready over the summer is no easy

056feat he did it with the construction projects and the referendum with a smile in his face Mr Mato thank you for always being rare and thank you for being my friend Hi Mr Mato um we just wanted to say thank you so much for everything you're doing for school 11 and our one example is how you're always enthusiastic and that um everything you're doing you're constantly doing it with a smile and it's something that we really appreciate because it just brings a smile to our face um and it just warms our heart that you're doing it with such gratitude so thank you very much hi Mr Matteo thank you so much for all the help that you give you're most definitely responsible you juggle so many things to help make our school great and better

057than it was the day before and even though you have a million things on your to-do list you never fail to help us out and remember everything that we've asked of you so thank you so much you deserve this so much the great teachers want to say thank you for all the amazing things you do you are respectful and that you continue making school 11 feel like our home you are attentive and that you come and take care of every need we have you are responsible you're always here every day you are enthusiastic because you always keep our spirits up thank Mr Mato is responsible because he always gets his work done I appreciate Mr Matel because he's nice and he keeps her school clean Mr Mato is attentive because he always keeps our classrooms

058clean I appreciate Mr mat because he works hard and he does whatever he need Mr Matel is respectful because he always greets us with a smile I love Mr mat so much Mr Mato is enthusiastic because he's always happy to do what we need him to do we [Applause] love I want to leave this picture up because this is exactly what school 11 gets day in and day out from Mr Mato as you heard every single person wanted to join his video When Miss Amanda rhods and Miss um shabby helped us out uh with this with putting the footage together everyone wanted to congratulate uh Mr Mato and look at the kids so we talk about our kids right we talk about relationship building and we talk about the importance of all of our stakeholders

059I thank you for allowing this platform to exist on the pbsis level because check this out he is living that rare dream um and so thank you so much at this moment I would like to ask for your support and helping us hand out the [Applause] [Music] certificate thank you think es to school 11 that the support of the faculty were here tonight so let's take a picture together and then I'd like the whole team to come up picture and then like thank you I'm gonna get one more with this just to be safe thank you two questions one why does Miss shabby have so many posted notes on her guest who was the student that was in the video five times come on up oh it's a big okay um Dr um trying to

060get Dr Dany and the P I'm so sorry the person in front of Dr Dan yes I cannot see you I cannot see you yes I'm so sorry no it's not everyone gets in the picture and Dr Danny if you just move a little bit to nope this way there you go I'm directionally uh inadequate here there we go and then I'm going to do one with there you go and one last cheese three two one thank [Applause] you on behalf of the uh Clifton Board of Education we thank you and say congratulations and it shows in your hard work and your dedication um as all of school 11 uh we're so proud of all of you and um because of that I know you want to stay for the whole meeting so no you

061could kindly if you would like to leave you're you're welcome to do so now thank you awesome y absolutely all right we'll do the adoption of the minutes of September 21st do I hear motion to approve uh motion by Mr Santiago second second by Mr abrao any discussion roll call please Mr yes Miss bassford abstain Mr brunak yes Mr Mia yes Mr Paris yes Mr Santiago yes vice president Danny yes president Smith yes motion carries Dr vosi ready yes thank you Mr President good evening Commissioners members of the community faculty staff uh students that just one of my favorite things to hear um to hear about a wonderful employee Mato is a a hard worker he's one of our go-to guys uh when we need something done you just couldn't ask for a better employee

062and it's so nice to be able to honor uh him tonight um speaking of honoring employees um next month at our October next two weeks at our October 19th board meeting uh for the first time the Board of Education will be uh honoring employees of the month so um we started a nomination process we had over a 100 nominations for the month of October uh there is a uh committee made up of a variety of uh employees who selected uh a winner uh an employee of the month from the elementary level employee of the month from middle school an employee of the month from the high school and a district employee of the month so at our October 19th meeting we will be uh honoring and recognizing those four employees they will be getting notification

063tomorrow um that they that they won this award so looking forward to that a lot because I me the best thing we do is honoring employees and and recognizing kids it's the only reason why I really want to be here to be honest with you um so I look forward to that I got to give a shout out to the wild mustangs the wild mustangs is my intramural softball team um we started the proud to say we started the first ever one Clifton intramural staff um Sports league and we started this week we had uh over 60 I think 65 employees sign up and we're playing a very very intense level of co-ed slow pitch softball it's not really intense um but we had our first game Tuesday uh my team played today and although

064uh we lost it fun was had by everyone and that's the goal of the uh of the entire league is for staff to go out have fun meet new people and and to bring uh staff members from all over the district together so it's been a great success so far uh go wild mustangs like to invite um the board members and um our middle school students and parents next Wednesday excuse me next Tuesday October 10th to the annual Clifton High School open house uh starts at 6:00 ends at 7:30 um and while the event is targeted for our middle school students and and parents everyone is welcome so it's next Tuesday October 10th 6th to 7:30 please stop by to see all of the great programs that Clifton High School has to offer from academics

065to all of our clubs and activities to all of our various Sports and I've said this before publicly I I will say it again if you live in Clifton and you have children that attend our schools when it's time for high school you need look nowhere else because Clifton High School has everything that your child could possibly want to study want to participate in or could hope for um so please if you're unsure um come out check it out ask questions our Administration will be there our teachers will be there and find out what Clifton High School is really about I have a message from Dr capy the principal at school 13 who wanted to thank uh the administrators and board members that came out to the Centennial Celebration this past Sunday uh 100 years

066of school 13 and hundreds of people um were in attendance including alumni going back as far as the 1940s um Dr Capi said it was a wonderful experience to see the impact that school 13 has had on the neighborhood and community and for our staff and students to connect to their history she specifically wanted to thank miss kusel levich Mr Mr Jenaro Mr Smith Mr Paris Mr Mahia Mr abdrabo Mr bronc and Mr Santiago for uh stopping by at school I want to give a shout out to school 15 couple things going on uh School 15 counselor Mrs Duarte will be hosting a bullying workshop for parents of students in G grades K through uh two Workshop will help parents learn about the Hib law and ways they can help their child's social and emotional

067development School 15 will also have its first Hispanic heritage day October 11th where staff and students alike will Adorn cultural Garb uh or shirts to represent their native countries and finally pbsis is off to a great start at school 15 um with the school 15 fund run on October 20th students will complete laps to raise money for pbsis to be used for academic assemblies fun activities and schoolwide giveaways their goal is to raise $5,000 and if they reach their goal the following teachers will be pied in the face Mrs Schwarz Mrs Cruz Mrs sud sudal Mrs Macaluso Mrs Saba Mrs Betsy and Miss pcel kids would love that so I'm pretty sure they're going to reach their goal um that concludes my report for tonight uh Mr President we do have U presentation from Miss

068kusevic uh on our state and local assessments and I just want to inform the board I do not have anything for executive session tonight however on October 19th at our board meeting we will have a a couple things including a uh a grievance hearing and I'd like the board if you can discuss possibly starting earlier that night and meeting in executive session at 6 PM Mr Rose just tell me what you want me to say ition Education Foundation yes I did actually mention at our last meeting the Clifton Education Foundation will be having its 25th anniversary um Suare on October 11th at Pizzeria Uno on Route 3 in Clifton from 5: to 9:00 p.m. uh you show up and I think you get 25% of your bill goes directly to the Clifton Education Foundation I

069hear there's also a talent show going on that night uh I've been recruited to uh to come and play my guitar and sing but uh I don't want to scare the people away so I'm probably just going to go and eat pizza October 11th 6 excuse me 5: to 9:00 p.m. at pizzaeria UNO thank you uh Mr President that concludes my report okay we'll move on um I'll hold the my announcements till late uh we don't have any first reading uh so J janito you're up next good evening Commissioners ladies and gentlemen um I'm here this evening to share with you a combination of a statutory requirement of presenting our another portion of our state assessments um but then showing you a more robust picture of our local assessments and District highlights this evening's presentation

070will include an overview of the njsla or the New Jersey student learning assessment the dlm dynamic learning Maps in-depth look at our local assessment data and finally some of our district actions to support our student learning this presentation represents the hard work of all of our content and District supervisors who work so closely with our amazing teachers across the district and all of our support Personnel helping to ensure that our students receive the best access to all of our curriculum first we're looking at njsla and DM and this is the statutory component of this presentation the JLA program assesses students in language arts and math in English language arts we assess all students in grades 3 through 9 in mathematics we assess our students in grades 3- 10 and then we have end of course

071Assessments in Algebra 1 which could be in 8th grade or 9th geometry and Algebra 2 the njsla is measured by performance band where level one means not yet meeting grade level expectations through level five which is exceeding grade level expectations what we see here is an overview from grades 3 through 9 for language arts where we see that the vast majority of our students in the past spring performed at levels 3 through five in mathematics we see an overview once again the vast majority of our students are performing at levels 3 through 5 in grades 3 through 8 Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 but what's really notable is that in Geometry 100% of our students who took the geometry njsla scored level four which is meeting the standard this portal that I have um posted

072up here was sent home to all parents together with their individual student reports of how their students performed on this Statewide assessment the dynamic learning map is a similar State assessment that allows us to measure 1% of our students who are the most severe we may have students with very severe developmental disabilities and they do represent more than 1% of our district but we are allowed to allow 1% of our students who need the dynamic learning map to take the dynamic learning map this is an assessment in place of njsla for students with severe cognitive disabilities it is an alternative to njsla English and math and science what we see here is an overview of how our students in grades three through 11 performed we see a lower number um attaining at Target or advanced

073in seventh grade our general education students dip in seventh grade that's a typical dip for all assessments and we have the same thing for our most severe students um and in 11th grade as well this is a very small portion of our students who are are in self-contained classes who require uh very large amounts of support in all areas now we're going to move into our local data our local data pains paints a much more realistic picture of what our students and teachers are doing every day all of our local assessments are either made by teams of Clifton teachers measuring what we are teaching in our classrooms in Clifton or online assessments that are adaptive and measure what our students are capable they measure where our students come from and how they are growing against

074themselves this is a far more realistic measure than our state assessments which tend to look at different groups of students from year to year our local assessment measure our kids against themselves so we're starting with literacy in kindergarten we use a um assessment that we call our Clifton literacy green card this is an authentic assessment that looks at students reading level letter naming fluency high frequency in trick words as well as rhyming and we see that from the fall to the spring our students average reading level goes from Level a to Level D they go up about four reading levels in kindergarten the biggest growth that we see is their increase in their use of rhyming words which is a key indicator in Reading success when we move into first grade we also see our

075students making significant strides here our average reading level at the beginning of the year is Level D and growing to level I which which is a solid end of first grade reader and once again we see our students growth in letter naming fluency rhyming words nonsense words um sentence dictation as well as site word recognition once our students are in grade two grade 2 through 8 we utilize the star Renaissance star reading assessment what we see is from year to year our students are maintaining growth [Music] of their reading level in second grade and here we see grades three through 8 the light purple is our students in marking period one of the previous year and the dark purple shows the growth um in the second year and we're comparing two years of data from

076marking period 1 to marking period 4 what we're showing is a increase from marking period 1 to marking period 4 but our students are holding steady at their reading levels at every grade from 3 through 8 now this is the one I really like this shows that our kids read we utilize not only paper books which we'll talk about in a minute but also a lot of online reading where our students in grades K through two use a program called Raz kids where they find books that are at their reading level or just above to develop their skills while they're reading online in grades 2 through 8 we use a combination of programs called Mayon reader and Accelerated Reader to build their fluency so in K through 8 our students read 48,6 books that's an

077increase of 56,000 from the previous school year and these are just the books that we measured through our online system our language arts is focused on four major areas reading reading foundations language and writing we just looked at the literacy Green Card which is an in-house developed assessment that focuses on our students reading strengths and looks at Mastery of foundational reading skills in 2 through 8 we showed the increases in the star reading benchmark our language arts our teachers are supported by a language arts supervisor K8 and literacy coaches who provide job embedded training and make sure that our teachers are able to implement the programs with Fidelity for all of our students the most exciting piece is that we now have book vending machines which um we presented a few times last year um

078we now have a book vending machine in every single prek through 8 building this was done in collaboration with the PBIS program and PBIS rewards and the purpose of these vending machines is to get books in children's hands is to motivate independent reading and clearly by the number of books our kids have read some of it comes from those vending machines but some of it also comes traditionally from our school libraries and we can see that at the high school from the previous year to last year we went from 6,500 books circulated to 7 6700 at the middle school we went from 7,800 books circulated to over 9,000 and the elementary school stayed solid in the 80,000 in terms of books circulated through student hands now we're going to look at one of our high

079school assessments we measure our high school students writing on a yearly basis and what we see here is that 995 5% of our students passed the writing quarterly with a 70 or higher um in 2122 and 91% passed that at the same level in 2223 our area of strength in n9th grade is citing textual evidence to support claims and our area of focus is developing claims and counter claims to support arguments in 10th Grade we see that we went from 82% of our students at performing at a 70 or higher to 90% of our students performing at a 70 or higher again textual evidence is the area of strength and our area of focus is clear and coherent writing um with developed organization and style appropriate to the task in 11th grade 94% pass the

080quarterly um with a 70 or higher in 2122 maintaining approximately 90% the following year again the strength is that citing of textual evidence and our area of focus is applying the knowledge of language to understand knowledge functions in different contexts and finally in 12th grade we went from 92% of our students passing the writing quarterly with a 70 or higher um to 98% last year um this area of strength here was writing arguments to support claims and the area of focus was that application of language in different contexts our 11th grade English Language Arts students made great strides on the njpa um in 2122 only 22% of our students showed to be graduation ready on that new assessment while it was a new assessment it was also given right you know in the midst of

081coid last year our students went up to 72% graduation ready on that assessment now that assessment has its issues um it's a new assessment it's untested but that's still an enormous leap for our students um our n9th and 10th grade teachers were working on a lot of um professional development with our literacy coaches last year to really help support student writing which was one of the areas that was most challenging to address during the coid shutdown and the learning loss that aligned to that um and we also had a professor from St peters's University helping support our teachers as well so that they could provide the the best instruction to our students now we're looking at our just our overall language arts quarterly from 2021 to 2022 and we see that in each grade level

082um in grades 9 11 and 12 there's growth significant growth from year to year and grade 10 held steady up in the 9s it's time to transition to math in math we can show we see from kindergarten through fifth grade if you look at the light green to the dark green that is the growth from the placement to the post test and you can see that there's growth at every every basically every grade level from placement to post the end ofe test is not uh which is the um I'm sorry was light green to Yellow the end of year test is the green the dark green and that one is only based on growth from marking period 3 to marking period 4 our grade three students are still the ones who are um suffering the

083most in terms of coid loss in math and we are implementing more small group instruction and have applied for a grant for additional math tutoring for grades three and four and if we are unable to secure that Grant we are planning to retool some of our Esser funding to give those additional supports here we're looking at three-year longitudinal data and when you go back to the middle of the pandemic to now we have definitely made strides in closing that achievement Gap and in grades 6 through 8 we're looking at similar growth growth from our district placement test um to the fourth marking period from grade six through grade 8 and grade 8 algebra we're using um in terms of the um highlights in mathematics we're using imagine roboy in grades 2 through 8 to incorporate

084coding in small group instruction we added defined stem to grade two previously it was only in grades 3 through 12 we're leveraging our imagine math program which is the Adaptive program supporting student learning our coaches support our teachers our Middle School teachers are continuing to really focus on those student Le stations to allow for individualized practice in the classroom um and our math team is supported by our math content supervisor and our math coaches who provide embedded coaching again to ensure that our teachers are able to implement all of our math programs to Fidelity to support our students in terms of content our math strengths range from number recognition to fractions to place value and our areas of focus have multiple areas including understanding the equal sign um scale factors and systems of equations among

085others in Algebra 1 we see that 49% of our students passed with a 70 or better in marking period 1 increasing to 55% um by marking period 4 our Algebra 1 area of strength is um deals with linear and exponential functions um as well as polom and our area of focus deals with creation of equations and rewriting expressions in Geometry we went from 50% of our students passing with a 70 or better in marking period 1 to 62% by marking period 4 the area of strength is informal Arguments for formulas um and identifying different shape uh dimensional shapes and our area of f Focus are congruence and similarity criteria for triangles as well as multif figure transformations in Algebra 2 we went from 44% passing in marking period 1 to 74% of students passing with

086a 70 or better our area of strength is using it was rewriting expressions and explaining the steps in problem solving while our area of focus was the domain um of a function to its graph as well as functions defined by an expression and here we have a highlevel overview of Algebra 1 geometry and Algebra 2 the dark blue being where our students started in marking period 1 to the purple with where we round up at the end of the year in marking period 4 to support our students we are providing a free imperson after school um Support Program 5 days a week at the high school for students in Algebra 1 through calculus and we are incorporating data support and coaching to support our teachers um across the board our AP results at the in

087math in the math department at the high school in most cases exceed both New Jersey and Global averages um 100% of our students in computer science AP scored a three or a better and that exceeds New Jersey average of 72% of kids and the global average of 68% in our computer science principles AP 73% of our students scored at a three or better which exceeds leads New Jersey's average of 67.6% and the global average of 62.5 and in calculous 60% of our students scor a three or better um although we don't exceed the New Jersey average we do exceed the global average and now we're looking at our imagine math data and you can just see the beautiful blue trajectory going from where our students were in their first Baseline Benchmark at the beginning of

088the year in Imagine math and you see that steady growth at every grade level using this adaptive program now this shows the opposite this actually shows how we are shrinking our learning gaps utilizing imagine math so this program adapts to our students needs and their own level and it really keeps them engaged I just want to go over a few numbers with you last year in Imagine math our students in grades 3- 12 uh our students completed 32,0 952 lessons which represents 12, 87355 to math problem solved in case to two our students earned 462,000 points that they can redeem within the program and in grades three plus this is what was presented um in the video about imagine math last spring m757 734 points were earned by our students those points can translate into

089fun stuff in the in the games in the program but our students in Clifton took 21 million of those points and donated them to charity we were the SE the first highest charity earning District in New Jersey where our students took their own learning points that they could use for fun things like building their Avatar and buying game add-ons in the program and instead they they donated to charity we were first in New Jersey and 17th in the United States so not only are we supporting not only are we supporting math learning we are really developing their social emotional and Civic giving um concept social studies and math tied together isn't that great and finally we're moving into social studies I'm sorry uh science in biology our students went from 73% to 77% um in

090CP and 72% and to 79% in honors our areas of strength are developing and using models the inheritance of traits and then the crosscutting concepts of pattern scale proportion and quantity our areas of focus are constructing explanations organization of matter ecosystem Dynamics and stability and change in chemistry from marking period 1 to marking period 3 we went from 73% um of our students uh be attaining a 70 or better to 72.5 and in honors that went from 75% to 79.7% our areas of strength are planning and carrying out investigations structure and properties of matter and the crosscutting concepts of pattern scale proportion and quantity and our area of focus are mathematical and computational thinking and types of interactions in physics again 72% to 77.5% for CP and 70% to 79.4% increase in honors our areas

091of strength are asking questions planning and carrying out investigations Newton's law and the crosscutting concepts of patterns cause and effect and our area of focus is engaging an argument from evidence forces and interactions and finally uh system system models stability and change during the 2223 school year our mechanical Mustangs robotics team finished first in New Jersey we ranked first and qualified for and attended the world championship event in Houston and when we look at AP once again we are exceeding Global or Andor State averages 71% of our students scored three or better on the AP biology exam which exceeded the 64% average that was Global 91% of our students scored three or better on the AP exam which exceeds both 81% at the New Jersey level and 75% Global and although it was only our

092first year uh with an environmental science um AP exam half of our students did score three or better and we move on to history in social studies our students went from 79% proficient at the beginning of the year to 74% our strengths in history our political cartoons and content knowledge in American history 1 our um students went from 65% to 70 with strengths in data analysis graphs and content knowledge and in American history 2 we went from 58% proficiency to 81% with our main strength on content knowledge as well as geography skills our popular offerings at the high school include women's studies elective a senior seminar looking at Cross content topics and a current events in us and world history program we are participating in National History Day conducting handson history- based projects and we

093have many Club offerings our AP History results are as impressive as our other areas 60% of our students scored a three or better which exceeded both the New Jersey and Global averages and in the AP Psychology assessment 72% of our. 7% of our students scored three or better once again exceeding New Jersey and Global averages so what are our district actions to support our strengths as well as help remediate where we need to we continue to use State assessment data to drive instruction and we adjust our pacing as needed thanks to not only our Title 1 and two as well as local funding and Esser funding we have been expanding after school and summer programs we've been providing tutoring both in person and online either with our own teachers but also with tutor.com and imagin

094maath which do have a live teacher function in some of those online programs we are prioritizing reading foundational skills you might be hearing things in the news about the science of reading well Clifton is ahead of that curve we have been implementing foundations which is a multi-sensory structured literacy approach that is grounded in the science of reading in every classroom K through three all of our students K through through three receive this program daily this is a program that's based on the tenants of Orton Gillingham and Wilson Reading which are very strong Interventional programs and we use it as part of our daily reading instruction so we are definitely ahead of that science of reading curve that you may be hearing about in the news we are also focusing on writing we prioritize small groups

095in math for support we're leveraging Google classroom and Google drive this is our last year of Esser funding and we're trying to maximize uh this last year with the additional supports of counselors psychologists social workers and intervention teachers that we were able to hire through those funds we're prioritizing mental health through PBIS mindfulness and continuing on with nurtured heart as well as the additional supports that we've provided to the special education department we've extended our awardwinning impact program for 18 to 21 year olds at the high school which provides um a great transition for our students from school to the world of work and we've expanded our Twilight after school alternative program and our during the school day Aspire alternative program to support the diverse needs of many of our Learners and to wrap up

096our presentation we have our focus on the District actions in counseling we have we have seen over these very challenging few years a tremendous rise in the mental health and social emotional needs of our students so in order to address those needs and address the whole child we've been partnering with tricount Behavioral Services to support our own local counseling team and through Tri County we have three full-time and one part-time clinician providing therapy to our students students at school this allows our students to receive the mental support mental health support that they need without Financial um burdens on the families or scheduling burdens in addition to our building based school counselors we also have two social workers who provide small group support and this year we added an elementary level student assistant counselor or Sac

097to provide educational lessons on drug prevention healthy habits and other to relevant topics in elementary school n4s is providing student assemblies across the district on an as needed basis and we continue to partner with hackensac University Medical Center where medical student residents are providing Health screenings and after school programs for our students we are also continuing a Teen Mental Health First Aid initiative and this year we're exploring ways to expand that program not just during the day but also after the school day for interested students um we continue with our counseling and student service program there's an there are many online resources on our web page including a calming room and of course at the high school we have the teen center so as you can see there's an awful lot that we provide for

098our students um we have a very rich and robust program um and I'd like to thank you it's the through the support of our board members and our community um that we are able to be so successful with our students all of our teachers principals supervisors every member every employee um really makes our students be successful thank you any questions from board members Mr abrao go ahead Mr that's right I'm going this way okay uh M K thank you for the presentation to you and your team um so we talked about scaling and metrics and measurements between ourselves with that green card and we talked about honors and AP where are we and how do we measure with our um bilingual students who come in at a level where uh English is not English language

099is not their strong suit and do we measure and how do we measure I love to would love to see something on that level how they go from you know if they have their own green card and how they measure their own um with their own metrics and how their successes are compared to obviously these are great phenomenal successes that we have here and I appreciate that um so I'd like to see the bilingual ones um the basic skills where how we doing with those classes and what I didn't notice cuz we we talk there was a lot of AP and honors uh which is great phenomenal um the general courses and how do we measure there so actually this was this included everybody okay we don't necessarily differentiate um we can drill down and

100show you how our English language Learners be begin from um level we to level one all the way up through level five and exiting the program when um I presented during the summer about the weda assessment the access test that actually was showed our growth about how our students progress within that 3 to 5 years and then we also see how with the percentages of students who exit the vast majority of this data was general education we just differentiated out at the high school level that there is also that AP honors strand because that is really a fantastic Capstone piece but 90% of the data that we focused on was our general education students which include our basic skills students and our elll students and our special ed students okay thank you and then just

101the one other thing so you mentioned also about positions with err funds um I guess this would be a business standpoint into the superintendent uh unless you're able to answer how do we retain those positions once the SR funds are done because I and I'm sorry to interrupt but I just it just I don't want to see Sr funds go towards these positions and then we have to start letting go from a business standpoint because there's no budget line item for them 5 years from now four years from now three years from now yeah I can answer that so um as a result of last year's budget we began to implement Grant funded people into the budget and just held them as dummy placeholders for the interim expecting that these funds are going to run

102out in the near future so we already have them built into the budget and we're going to continue to do so next year as well or this upcoming budget yeah me many of the positions that were created um were Incorporated thanks to this board's um decisions on the budget last year um that doesn't you know some components that are funded by Esser are currently not represented in the budget but those are more of the programmatic things like things like online programs like tutor.com the extra summer school funding for to run an additional we know we're mandated by law to fund a um Extended school year program for special needs but we added special needs summer school through Esser for those students who are in special education but don't qualify for extended school year they're just

103above that cusp there's students who might not have lost um as much time by missing out on the summer and therefore because that's the criteria for esy is students who would regress in the summer these are kids who might not have regressed but still needed some support so thanks to Esser that's something that we put in through that right now is not built into our local budget and that's a conversation for this year's um budgeting um some of our extra Afterschool tutoring and some of those after school online programs are also things that although the positions may have been addressed in um this year's budget so that when Sesser funds run out these positions can um be absorbed and maintained but some of the programs have not yet been addressed to uh through you Mr

104President to the business office of superintendent um have we looked at some sort of scattergram projecting moving forward on these positions um if they're you know sustainable to keep I know you talked about from budget to budget but you know with these Esser funds obviously going from budget to budget it's going to be hard to retain a lot of these positions um it was had curiosi yeah so they are built into the budget fully so it's not on a budget to- budget basis they're in their just as I'm in the budget you know thank you guys uh janina's in the budget Danny's in the budget so we're built in for for the future so unless there is you know state aid or something that's totally out of our control that we can't foresee yeah everything

105is staying intact and we're going to work in the programs this year as as Janita mentioned awesome thank you yeah I do how many students are in the tutor.com program and what exactly does that do okay uh tutor.com was an additional tool that we we opened it up for grades 3 through 12 last year um we had about 7,000 students participating you know various lessons um but what it what it is is you're home you're doing your homework you're stuck you click the.com in our um waffle in Google classroom and it brings you to a vetted staff member in in a in a that that um is an expert in whatever area you're picking so let's say you're doing algebra homework you click Algebra 1 and within minutes a chat pops up you put the

106question you have and they help talk you through it not live it's not an interpersonal but through the chat function they provide support that was just that's over and above our regular human tutoring and other supports are we using that also in resource room combination it's open for um it was last year from 3 through 12 we found that 3 through 8 really didn't use it that much the vast majority of that usage was high school so this year we did scale back to just high school but it's high school for all high school students special needs um elll Jed it's on every single Clifton High School students waffle the Google Waffle when they go into their Google Classroom um so I want to understand this right it's not replacing any classroom time with the

107no this is they can log into it so there there they log into it after school if they want to they could log into it sometimes when they're in small groups one very helpful way to use it is when you're working in a small group the teachers working with one group and this group has a question they can click on that waffle and get some support because I was contacted by a parent saying that we have a um substitute teacher in the room and then while they're accessing tutor.com um I was a little concerned about that because to me we're not delivering instruction with a solid teacher there uh the teacher basically is in the room to monitor the room and then the te the students are ACC accessing tutor.com uh that's actually some that's

108a different program that's proximity learning uh which last um at last board meeting that was shared at the um from the education committee minutes we have a a couple of very shortterm leaves that we have been advertising and looking for teachers for and as we know we have a nationwide teacher shortage and with that teacher shortage that that is not a chat that is a live certified New Jersey teacher who be in between the Smartboard and the Chromebook but these are shortterm um while we're continuing to look one of these classrooms that has such a um a program um we the the department had found um finally found a candidate today and they should be vetted and put put through the process at the next board meeting thank you Mr brunak you have anything thank

109you so so some of these they said they're making great strides graduation about the percentage that's graduation ready and everything so what happens to the students that are not do they take summer courses do they need to retake these courses what what happens to those students so the NJ GPA is a new assessment um and that graduation ready statement um what that does is there are multiple Pathways to graduation in New Jersey it's not just that one GPA assessment that assessment tells us oh boy now in 11th grade or and 12th grade we're we're going to need to do some additional support so it may guide your pathway to a different math class or a different language arts class it may guide you to a different assessment that might measure your skills in a different

110way because we can still use things like the SAT act ASVAB and so forth to demonstrate proficiency it can also guide you into What's called the portfolio assessment process where you take a CL a smaller group class and demonstrate not on a test but through through your actual work and work samples that you're able to be that you are graduation ready and you graduate with that pathway we um our graduation rate is um well over 84% overall um year toe and that may sound low but keep in mind that that keep that the that percentage is affected sometimes by students who leave the district we have a we do have somewhat of a transient population um so that 84% of graduation rate is is really quite solid but the njpa just because it says it's

111a predictor of being graduation ready that is not the end all be all that these are the only kids who graduate so even if they are grad theoretically they they are proficient essentially in in in the subjects that they need to be they just may not have done well they just might not have done well on that test and there are many different ways that we can then um either put putting them in a specialized um Class A different math class A different assessment or these work samples through the portfolio process there are many ways they they can demonstrate proficiency not just a one-time exam maybe they had a bad day thank you uh commissioner May here um not much thank you so much for the presentation it was very informative have going back to

112um Judy's comment in terms of Subs have we looked into like getting our Tas into a bachelor's degree program getting them an emergency sht we're we're actually doing things like that right now in order to address the many um challenges that this Nationwide teacher job market is presenting we have our own District student grow your own program where we have high school students not only taking college classes but we have a Academy at our high school um one of one of our many high schoolies which is our future teachers Academy in addition to taking courses here in Clifton um there were opportunities for um a handful of students to already take education courses in the summer at William Patterson we have the collaboration with Felician where we are um encouraging many of our students to

113participate in those reduced price courses um and where um there is a program at Felician that allows a district and this is something that we're working on right now um to present um moving forward where we can help our par professionals gain a teaching degree um and and basically grow our own teachers that way and our staff have been very creative doing things such as you know reaching out to the community um we had such an influx of Ukrainian students last year um many of the we have a couple of Ukrainian Paras and coming up in a in a couple of board meetings because the person we have to wait for the person to be able to be released from their other District we're adding UK Ukrainian staff connected to the Ukrainian families right here

114in Clifton um so that's just one example of the many things that we're doing to address these concerns thank you I just wanted the public to know that we are doing things thank you thank you commissioner Paris uh thank thank you for a uh great overview it's great to see that we're making progress in most areas um if I remember correctly from the presentation there's a lot of information information here um the biggest learning loss that we believe is pandemic related was at third grade third grade math is what from the in math third grade math is one of the bigger challenges this last year's third graders are now will be receiving additional supports in fourth grade and that kind of makes sense because you know that they had a virtual year when they were

115kindergarteners that when when they needed the most onetoone face-to-face development of not just their their language and communication skills but also their their literacy and numeracy skills um the good thing is we're catching it and we're finding ways to address it so these were last year's third grade students and now they're getting some they're current fourth extra help in fourth grade yes thank you very much commissioner Santiago thank you very much Miss kusich um it's great to see the progress that we've been making I you know really like to see the 100% in the computer science AP especially um and uh you know but of course we we always believe in continuous Improvement and we know there are areas for for development um I was also going to speak about coid but I was really

116happy to see um the additional sack in the elementary school level as well as um the social workers so um I just I'm happy to see the trend moving in the right direction and I know we're going to continue to focus on um the areas that we need to thank you thank you Dr Danny yes thank you as um as well miss C so um you know uh just so comprehensive in everything um just really like a really quick question um I know that they had the literacy coaches at the high school do you also have like the math Co coaches at the at the high school I so what we've done is we've been hiring Consultants um to Pro or using our Middle School coaches to go up and that that's both language arts

117and math we would like to add um some you know District based literacy coaches but there have just been so many priorities that we've been able to fill that need with consultants and then just the other thing um this and University Partnerships sorry well that leads me to this other um just this the St Peters University like what what does that collaboration exactly look like um we're working with one of the professors there who's coming in to serve as a coach as a Consulting coach to provide in um support for in services for the teachers um and and and helping them Implement better um stronger strategies okay thank you thank you yes Mr kusich U fantastic job this is a wonderful presentation I hope the public understands um what goes into this um and how

118far we have come as a district um in many of these areas um specifically um I know many other districts have looked at that uh book vending machine and how successful that program has been with us and how they want to try and Institute it in their in their District do we have that vending machine in all schools every prek through 8 school um and actually it's been so successful that within the first couple of weeks of school they the coaches were running around already restocking the book vending machines because the kids just went at them as soon as they came home came in and you know it it's a vending machine that they keep the item it's their book yes correct so um again thank you for uh for the presentation tonight and for

119answering our questions thank [Applause] you okay Mr Santiago you have the residency uh report thank you president Smith The Residency and security committee met on Thursday September 28th uh in attendance were uh myself Mr brunak um from Administration Dr Rober toi uh Mr Jenaro Mr doctor and Mrs zenola Mr doctor updated the committee on resignations for uh registrations sorry for the district current registrations in the queue as of 928 were 58 with more than half pending for prek placements due to a large number of parents opting out of prek registration for our prek programs has been reopened until all spots are filled Mr doctor also updated the committee on residency investigations and last month four additional students have been identified as non-residents and removed from our district at a savings of nearly $50,000 three of

120the four students were found to be pcti students who were non-residents so these are students at pcci who say they are are Clifton residents and we investigate uh and found that they were not so um that's something that uh has been more recent and has been very successful um for our district Mrs anola introduced the issue of potential need for stairs at the back of uh end of the high school soccer lacrosse field this would be an egress route in case of a security or safety issue at the back of the soccer field the estimated cost was nearly 200 000 so the committee will continue discussions and seek other means for egress Mrs zenola also briefed the committee on school security specialist continued training and professional development which took place the past two weeks Specialists

121received training in verbal deescalation and safety restraint techniques for emerging situations these training sessions took nearly 15 hours over several days in addition one staff member will soon be trained in Verbal Judo and will be able to train our staff on various techniques and Verbal Judo is again verbal deescalation finally Mrs Nola provided an emergency drill update for the month of September all drills were completed with Fidelity and it was an opportunity for the administration to test some new systems and PAs which have had been installed these upgraded announcement tend to be less jarring than previous announcement within the building the committee also discussed security me measures on Mustang way at Clifton Stadium consisting of uh ballards being strategically placed to prevent vehicular travel which could be dangerous to our students and student athletes the

122committee also inquired as to an update on anticipated delivery of walkthrough detectors for events and the delivery should be in about 3 weeks due to supply chains the meeting was concluded at 608 any questions so um if no question go ahead sorry the the $50,000 on four additional students uh obviously just to kind of reaffirm and then ask my question so those are four students who reported that they live in Clifton but go to Tech now my question thereafter is is there any way I mean I'm sure this is very difficult to see how long those students have not lived in Clifton and whatever town they may live in uh let's say for example I don't know Patterson Pake whatever tooa um and go after that school district for those funds that we've lost do

123you know that answer Mr yeah Mr Santiago I don't there's really no precedent for that um You' actually have to um you actually have to go after the parent okay and it's uh I think right Miller and uh that's most likely highly uh unsuccessful I'm sure if it was worth the question yeah thank you so I I did want to if I can just want to make a comment um just to clarify uh kind of about our security specialist role so um you you may notice before school or after school when the students let out um everyone sees crossing guards right the crossing guards they come and they help the the students cross and they'll have the stop sign Etc and so the crossing guards are city employees they're not border ofet employees just to

124clarify that right um our security specialist they uh work on our school property now sometimes for example if a security specialist say at 3:00 or whatever time the school lets out they're at the corner right and maybe they see something half a block down I'm just making something up and you know they think maybe a student's in danger or there's some sort of issue they may go off and investigate that to make sure that our students are okay right um but that's something we probably would expect of anyone if there's a teacher who sees a kid you know we expect that they would go over or call somebody or something but um you know our school our security Specialists they do not uh direct the traffic they do not help anyone AC cross they're not

125that's the crossing guard's job which is a city employee not the board of again if there is a kid God forbid who fell in the middle of the street or something and our security specialist there I would expect that they're going to go and intervene but their job is not to act as a crossing guard that's they're not they're a board of ed employee and the crossing guards are city employees just to clar president Smith I follow up on that yes so to the committee to the superintendent so let's say go on with your theory thetical thought half a block down what is the liability perspective from our our safety personnel to how they can restrain or what they can do to help out from that extent without them being personally liable or the district

126can they go off for example and I'm going to take School 13 or whatever school I'm just trying to think of a big grassy area um down M H Avenue or down whatever street and to restrain or do what they can do what what can they physically do listen the the the truth is our staff have jurisdiction in our schools correct beyond that they really don't have any Authority having said that we would expect any employee um any reasonable person to do something to act in some reasonable way whether that be called the police um but if we start getting involved in breaking up fights and restraining students off school grounds that is potentially problematic um what we would encourage our staff is to do something to call the police and you know let the

127police handle it if somebody's life is in danger I think our our staff are going to step in and they're going to do something we'll worry about the liability later but we just have to act reasonably and and that's why I'm asking that because there's a difference between job description MH and what you should be doing versus something go something Happ happens a moral any person should step in and you know and either do something that's humanly possible um so I think you know we need to make that very clear to our security Personnel is listen here's your job descriptions but then if human nature kicks in where you got to step in you know we got your back they need to feel that you know if something happens they're not double guessing their s

128where okay that's not what I'm supposed to be doing but should I be doing it anyway it's more for them that's why I was asking that question okay anyone else else okay um any unfinish business hearing none let's go on to uh B education uh Administration um uh we have uh requests for ea2 and ea3 uh to be separate so we'll do a motion for ea1 and then ea4 through ea9 can I make a motion to have National principles month separate as well ea1 because that is very deserving second it okay ea1 separate so we'll go ea4 through ea9 motion by Mr abrao second by Mr Paris any discussion roll call please Mr aajo yes Miss bassford yes Mr brunak yes Mr Mahia yes Mr Paris yes Miss Santiago yes vice president Danny yes president

129Smith yes motion carries okay we'll do um motion for ea1 you want to read it motion motion by Mr Paris second by Mr abrao uh Mr Mah would you read it please we're asked through visionary leadership and tireless pursuit of success for each student Clifton's principles guide and support their schools each and every day in ways large and small and have proven to be key to the th the thorough and dynamic education that helps ensure a strong and prosperous society and whereas the New Jersey principles establish establishes the academic tone missions and visions of the schools collaborates with teachers to implement and maintain rigorous curriculum and set ambitions ambitious performance goals and whereas the American Federation of school administrators the National Association of Elementary School principles and the National Association of Secondary School principles dedicate

130each October as National principl month to pay tribute to the nation's principles for their tireless dedication to students faculty and staff of the schools over which they Pride now therefore be a resolve that the clipton award of Education recognizes and thanks our principales for their service and commitment to our district be a further resolve that we urge administrators teachers parents students and other forms of our community to join us in recognizing the dedication and hard work of these individuals okay roll call please Mr yes thank you to our principles M bassford yes thank you to our principles as well Mr brunak yes Mr Mahia yes Mr Paris yes Mr Santiago yes vice president Danny yes president Smith yes motion carries okay okay we'll do um ea2 motion second by Mr Paris second by Mr Santiago

131uh discussion okay Mr uh brunak would you read that please thank you president Smith whereas the United States Society for augmentative and alternative communication has Des designated the month of October as International augmentative and alternative communication Awareness Month and whereas the United States Society for alternative and augmentative communication defines alternative and augmentative communication as including all forms of communication other than oral speech that are used to express thoughts needs wants and ideas and whereas the Educators and families of Clifton Public School schools work collaboratively to ensure that our class classrooms are providing communication practices to effectively facilitate access to the curriculum and whereas Clifton Public Schools provides our students with highly qualified Professionals experienc in determining and implementing the most effective means of communication including alternative and a augmentative communication for our Learners impacted with

132severe expressive communication dis disorders and whereas research supports that there are no prerequisites required for individuals to benefit from alternative and augmentative communication access that alternative and augmentative communication users are presumed competent and given access to tools and instructions to allow learning regardless of diagnosis and whereas Communication in all forms is a basic human right and specifically is protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act now therefore be it members of the Board of Education resolved Clifton's Public Schools joins with the United States Society for augmentative and alternative communication declaring the month of October as International augmentative and alternative communication Awareness Month in Clifton public schools and encourages all community members and Clifton Public School staff members to learn more about alternative and augmentative communication highlighting the successes that alternative and augmentative communication users can have

133in career and life okay roll call please Mr abrao yes Miss Bradford yes Mr brunak yes Mr Mahia yes Mr Paris yes Mr Santiago yes vice president Danny yes president Smith yes motion carries all right we move to um uh we move to Personnel we have um yeah you're right sorry um ea3 I have a motion on that please motion second by Mr Abad drao second by Miss bassford uh discussion um Mr Abad draa would you like to read that please thank you ea3 uh Breast Cancer Awareness Month whereas breast cancer awareness month is a worldwide annual campaign in October involving thousands of organizations to highlight the importance of breast cancer awareness Education and Research whereas the National Breast Cancer Foundation reports that in 2023 an estimated of 297,000 men will be diagnosed with invasive

134breast cancer and an estimated 43,700 women and 530 men will die of breast cancer in the United States and whereas there are over 3.8 million breast cancer survivors in the United States that through advancements in prevention and care and through personal courage and strength have survived breast cancer and whereas breast cancer awareness month is an opportunity to unite all citizens in our community and the Clifton School District to prevent breast cancer fatalities through increased education and regular screening and whereas this October we recognize breast cancer survivors those currently battling the disease friends and families of a diagnosed patient and applaud the efforts of our medical professionals and researchers working to find find a cure and that now therefore be it resolved that the Clifton Board of Education would like to pay tribute to those individuals

135and their families and friends who have had to struggle with the battle against breast cancer and recognize recognizing the more than 2.4 million breast cancer survivors in the United States okay roll call please Mr Robo yes M bassford yes Mr brunak yes Mr Mia yes Mr Paris yes Mr Santiago yes vice president Danny yes president Smith yes motion carries it all right now we move on to uh Personnel I have P1 through p31 motion by Mr Abra second by miss basford any discussion seeing none roll call please Mr abrao yes M bassford yes Mr Brak yes Mr Mahia yes Mr Paris yes with exstension on number 13 Miss Santiago yes abstain on number one one vice president Danny yes president Smith yes motion carries okay next we have financing facilities we have F1 through F16

136motion by Mr abraa second by Mr Paris any discussion yes please M yes Mr R yeah I just wanted to point out to everybody F4 this is the comprehensive maintenance plan I I go over these expenses with a fine tooth comb there's a lot lot of money that goes in and out of this District approximately 267 million I did not see this before so I reached out to our Ba's office and Mr shahada and essentially uh this is this needs to be submitted to the county every year and what we we we have to show what we budgeted last year what the actuals were and then what we actually spent and what we're forecasting for the next year so this is broken down by building in every facility that the district owns and what they

137basically use is essentially the denominator is the square footage of each building so for instance so obviously the the largest building is is Clifton High School right that that the district owns so I believe it's yeah about approximately 350,000 Square ft as a result of that so all this information has to be gaed gathered just you know if everybody's taking a look at this uh and that's how essentially the budget is determined for each building uh and this is something that I haven't seen before so I inquired this is also something that's due on November 15th but it's October 5th so I want to shout I want to give a shout out to uh to them explaining this and other bills that I question in the past they've been very helpful with me I'm satisfied

138with the answers I've received thus far so just want to let everybody know that and give a shout out to Mr shahada and the Ba's office thank you very much thank you Mr President that's one okay any other discussion yeah I have a question f8 and F9 are there prices on that f8 and F9 is that additional work and why isn't there money in there so this was something that was brought to the facilities committee uh a few months back it's the exterior toilets the the addition at the high school for outside events and and for the students so we don't have to open up the buildings on the weekends um this was actually brought to the board twice I think we' paid the architect fees um it was pulled put back on approved and

139now we're going to go through the final project do we know what the price is though that's what I'm asking for yeah so the price did Mr sh didn't we approve the price on a previous is this additional I just want to no this is not additional so we have to submit this to the state okay so that's why so the price was on the previous one this is just a formality I can get the price for you no no no next time can you just note that because you know right first thing I look at when I look at a agender is the who what when where and why and one of the one is the the why is the money for me you know and I have to look at it and somebody

140questioned it and I wanted to bring it to your attention but just uh just like I asked with the use of facilities to put that we're waving those fees now if when we do something if we've already just previously approved then if you could just do that that would be appreciated not a problem and this is also just a to reiterate a formality because we have to enter into our longrange facility plans that needs approval by the board understand the other question I have is uh we were receiving updates on the grant program the we have a grant writer that does the grants and we were getting the cost of the grant per month versus the grant that we actually secured to date so we were like we were looking at that seeing if we

141were making you know keeping under what they were making and keeping in line with the with the business plan to um not exceed what we were paying them with what the grants were coming in and then people in the uh the community are asking me what kind of Grants are we getting so if we can have an update for that um maybe next meeting or in the meeting after that it's up to you guys the gr wrer the grant writer um um every the the grant writer that the board um appointed does send a monthly report to us Mr USI had been forwarding them to the board and that might be right we'll just make sure that those get forwarded to you and that's not a problem right thank you any other discussion roll call

142please Mr Robo yes with abstention F-16 Miss bassford uh yes I'm going to abstain on check number 245 51939 Heroes and Cool Kids it's related to Clifton against substance abuse Mr brunak yes Mr Mia yes Mr Paris yes M Santiago yes vice president Danny yes president Smith yes motion carries okay we are in October so Richie you're up first okay board member commment commissioner Mahia all right so good evening everyone I hope everyone's having a great night today I just wanted to you know briefly talk about some of the things happening here between some people um honestly I was forced to grow fast I was forced not to bicker with people not to fight and especially in public you know that's something that doesn't look good for us at all when you're bringing things up

143here that don't retain to board business in my eyes it's you may you may think something else but in my eyes it's a bit childish you know when I grow up I was told you know don't fight with anyone don't pick fights I was told by some board members here last year when I was running don't stir pot and you know it saddens me that when I want to say something or when someone else wants to say something it's bad but then when certain people come here and do it it's okay I don't think it's right at all and like I said before it's just a bad image on us I don't I don't want it see here you know I thought when the new group came in we were going to change the culture

144finally I said it before when I was younger watching these things was horrendous you know people fighting people yelling across it's awful and to see that happen again it's it's mind-blowing if I was in high school right now I'm going say oh I can say whatever I want I can say whatever I want and nothing's going to happen imagine the high schoolers the middle schoolers the elementary students watching meetings like this watching the fights it's a big no it's a big no it was said before here in one of the public comments last time we're here for the education over our students I'm here because I want to give students opportunities I didn't have going to school I went to college I saw things that people had that I didn't I was jealous I was

145scared I was nervous and I want us to give those things to the students that I didn't have and that most of us didn't have I'm not here to bicker I'm not here to fight with anybody none of us should be here to do that that's the last thing we want to do if it doesn't pertain to anything revolving our education we should leave it out of here go fight in the back room go to your house box it out I don't care it doesn't have anything to do with us leave it and that's all I want to say thank you commissioner Paris thank you president Smith um well big thank you and uh congratulations to the all our principles for uh we're celebrating principal month um you're the captains of our ships and uh

146from what I've seen so far on a on a very good path uh congratulations to Mr Escobar and I found it uh really enlightening to see the pbsis program extending Beyond just students and teachers and into into the staff and in this case uh someone who's very important to the operation of school uh 11 and so congratulations to him um and I also just wanted to add something on a more personal note to this PBS sis program uh which is positive behavior support in schools um I have a granddaughter she just started kindergarten this year and it's the first time I've seen personally the effect of this program on a student and she comes home from school as I walk her home she talks all the way home about her day and how I got

147a buddy Buck for respect and Bobby got a Bobby Buck for helping someone else and I see unsolicited how this program is impacting u a very young student in our system and her experience in prek and I'll say not in Clifton prek but somewhere else uh definitely was not like this and in fact she said to me uh second day into school that kindergarten is way better than prek4 was for her so um just wanted to add on a personal note sometimes we talk about it we see it in presentations it's not as doesn't hit home as much but it does impact our students and it creates a really wonderful learning environment um and we're starting that right right in the beginning of their school careers so congratulations to that to your team mros uh

148that's all I have then thank you thank you commissioner Santiago thank you president Smith um there's so many things to celebrate I mean we we we're we're naming a bunch of different things and there just seems like in the fall there's so many things um so yeah National principles month um thank you to all of our principles for all you do um Monday is Columbus Day Monday is um indigenous people's day um there's an Italian flag raising in the city on Monday um at City Hall uh and it continues to be Hispanic Heritage Month till October 15th if you haven't heard me a 100 times I'm Puerto Rican I'm very proud to be Puerto Rican I'm very proud of my family beautiful island beautiful people um but yeah we continue to celebrate um various Hispanic

149uh uh cultures and contributions um and you know from business to public service to health care to law to to military uh active military uh Latinos and Hispanics um active law enforcement and First Responders um education of course so you know always I'm always appreciative of all of our staff um but just want to say you know um happy hisp Hispanic Heritage Month to all of our Hispanic administrators our teachers our secretaries our staff um and I mean what a great example um Senor Martinez Escobar um you know obviously loved with um you know his his actions the way he approaches his job and the way he cares for our school so um graas to him um and I just want to make a couple extra comments um I want to clarify one thing you

150know um no one stops your child from talking to you no one is here stopping your child from talking to you right um it's 9:30 I hope your child is with you and um I'm hope you're hugging your child I hope you're talking to maybe they're asleep I hope they're resting but no one is stopping your child from talking to you I just want to fix that um the last thing I you know I want to comment on is you know when I was running and after I got on you know one of the things I said and it's it's one of the things that that that grounds me that leads me is you know if you put the if you put the students and the staff at the center of what you do in

151in our role if you put them before your own um their needs before your own right I've said it it's a public service position right we're here to serve and if you just kind of have that mindset I said it before I said it after I can work with anyone if you're about the school district and improving the school environment I can work with anyone and um in you know almost making it to a year here you know it's been going great um that's not for me is it is it all right so I just want to say you know what I'll wrap up is is just be responsible for the energy you bring that's what I'll say be responsible and accountable for the energy you bring thank you okay uh Mr Robert M rrao

152thank you um School 13 Centennial thank you to Jamie PBI and and HSA um Team um to miss capy uh Dr cap I'm sorry for your leadership and your guidance with working with them in that Community uh that is just an example one of the examples of why it is National principal month uh as well as M Shelby who came out um to support one of her own within our own school and the school 11 team for coming out as well for uh Mr Escobar um in a building from a a custodial staff to a PA professional to a teacher to a principal that's what makes that community and that environment of that building and you know I work in another district and I was actually taken back today I had a sodio staff who

153was in another building came to the main building to meet with me and all the teachers and students just flaunted all over him because he was missed um and that to me shows the impact it was show coincidence that he that Mr Escobar is being honored tonight but that was just a show me the impact of what any individual when you put a student the teacher the community of the school district first it shines the light on who you are and how you care and and what you bring to the table um so you know I I think all of our staff and Personnel our principles today is World Teachers Day happy world Teachers Day um oral teachers are are phenomenal I love this District I've grown up in this District class 2003 and I'm

154proud of it um and I think we should all be proud of what district we have um Janina showed sorry M covich showed great successes that we're having in this district and I think the sky the limit and if this is where we're set you know if this is the lowest part we're going to be moving forward I can't imagine how higher we can go and we can be as a district um and I Mr Z Salvo you mentioned actually uh commissioner Santiago took the words because I wrote it here um you know thatas policy 5756 if anybody's wondering what he's talking about and that's where the government dropped the ball on something where they told the school districts that it's mandated and then it happened to be not to be mandated uh and that

155was from the AG's office uh who came out and that's and that was very recent but a parent should be involved in their child's life but then we have a problem right where a child comes to school as a safe haven but yet they can't talk to their parents and I think instead of saying that parents should not be involved in their child's life the real answer is more resources within school districts Mr President may have a few more minutes where instead of saying that a parent should not be involved in a child's life or School District cannot you know tell a parent I think more resources for that child within the school district where they can go to somebody that they feel comfortable with as an adult but as M Santiago said nobody's going

156to stop a child from speaking to their parent about whatever issue it is but not all of us are fortunate enough to have that parent or parents or Guardian to go home to and speak to so I would really want people to be cognizant I get it listen from a religious standpoint I give you values and I'll see what you're talking about but from a protecting a child standpoint and a school district standpoint I see it as well and you know we just got to come with an open mind to protect a child first uh just a few more things I'm sorry school 11 homeless population um Dr Robert to um there has been conversation that under the bridge on Lake View Avenue has had a populated of a homeless population there and it's been

157impeding some uh parents from wanting to walk their kids to school under that bridge uh and around school 11 um so I think if we could take a look at that and work with the city on that I think that would be appreciative I saw a parent here who actually I was hoping she was going to talk about it but she left um so I uh so we could do that Elias amazing to the Key Club congrats to the mock trial team Mr van was my mock trial coach When I Was Here matter of fact I spoke to him over the weekend I wish him good luck uh when they were competing and to the tennis team congratulations and um let's just be nicer to each other we've seen what the city has brought this

158past week and it was awful and honestly we should treat each other better thank you okay Miss bford yeah a couple of things uh please look at the shrubs outside of school 5 they need a little trim it's a little overgrown um I was at school 13 I did not get there until about 2:00 uh this past weekend marked a very uh significant day in my life the loss of my brother so Sunday my family gathered together to honor my brother's memory uh we cooked his favorite meal I stood on my foot the whole morning because nobody in my house can recreate my mother's Apple frit is like I can or my brother could but together with my niece we we delivered the meal pretty good it's fried in Crisco it's all fattening it's like

159a zeppy with apples in it it's sinful but we did it and we honored my brother bill and his life and we funny stories so I got to school I my sister lives an hour away she lives in tuxbury so I had to rush home to get the Clifton get the dogs out and then get down to school uh 13 I didn't walk the whole building I walked downstairs I had the boot on I was just my foot was throbbing it was really just not a comfortable day for me but I did get around I didn't see much of the staff I did see some I picked up some some other Delicacies and brought them home so the um um Surf not Turf thank you very much for the soup she knows I love my

160um my clam Chow so she was good but um we did get to see it and I was very impressed with the what was going on I had the uh um the opportunity to attend the two Mustang statute um statute uh dedications at CCMS in woodro it was very nice to see everyone was there I'm glad to see Carol white is on the agenda and approved for volunteering the media center she is a a former teacher of my children's and she's great and um I know her service to the district will be very well received to the Gundam family on to the deepest on the loss of Tom my deepest sympathy you were an avid supporter of mine every year I gave you a t-shirt no matter where if it was from my team or

161whatever I gave you a T-shirt and you wore it with pride and and I I I can never thank you for your undying um Devotion to the word um what else um I just want to let my fellow board members that in my official uh board email I was received it was sent to me a cease and desist from Miss Rosemary penino I forward it to the superintendent and he forward it to the attorney in case there is a legal action against me as a board member so I just want you guys to know that um I did get receive so nobody get thinks that I was playing games uh my husband did text me a copy of it so that's what I spoke about at the city council and I also did disclaim when

162I was at the city council because when people get confused when we when we do things on social media and other things that we speaking at a board capacity that's why I disclaim I know Mr brunak you you got up and spoke and you disclaimed too but we we're supposed to because people get confused how we're speaking U Mr President may I yield my time some more time I I have to also let the public though that Mr shiita did give me the information on the renovation so thank you for the little note and and that information as well um I wasn't going to address it but I'm going to address it I want to thank everyone in the last two weeks that has reached out to myself and my family and I want to

163thank them and I want to say the one common theme that people know about me and Keith we see something we say something and we we we don't have a problem getting up and speaking if we see something wrong that was done wrong we try to we try to try to write the ship and to the person that said if you didn't know if it was right if you if you thought it was something really wrong and it was fake you wouldn't have done what you've done so thank you to the people that have supported us in the last two weeks because the comments that I've seen that somebody is going to own my house another commissioner on the board is going to own my house in the next couple of weeks that statement that

164Keith bassford read was approved by our attorney so if anybody would like to reach out to our attorney I will give you his name and you could speak to him direct I got up and spoke and read Keith's speech I didn't read it all there's a lot more in it I'm sure he'll publish it online on Facebook tonight however board members I said this before and I'll say it again when a fellow commissioner says something to you they bring up a you better check it out you better start taking notice because it's going to be a black eye or an embarrassment you should take notice we are supposed to police our own board we're supposed to treat each other nice and that wife of the man that spoke that comment was referred to me I

165wore red tonight because I didn't wear I read wore red the other day at the city council because we were wearing red because we were seeing red for what was being done in the community people are not getting answers they're not being they're not getting answers they go week after week after week and they don't get answers so we were seeing red so we went there some people misconstrued that that we were coming in colors I don't know what this color means to people I just picked it out of my closet because it was iron tonight and I didn't have to rush because I was busy working until 6:15 tonight it wasn't for any other reason but because it was already pressed so I wanted to St that M you uh that rumor I'm going

166to tell the community straight out you want to talk to me you know where I live you know my phone number you know my email address you know how to get through to me on Facebook I've been very vocal in the last two weeks about something because I was persecuted by three people in from 2017 to about last year on Facebook with face fake profiles to the point where I had to sit down my kids and explain something to them that was very inappropriately said about myself and my family it almost destroyed what I had in my home so when people point the finger three fingers point back at them so if I went off a little this last two weeks on Facebook I apologize to everybody in in the community but there was reason

167we were persecuted my religion was persecuted on this board my moral standings were persecuted on this board and allowed to be persecuted allowed Mr Kenova can attest to it and so can Miss B Dana beltron allowed I didn't take action I let it go but when you talk about my ability to serve my emotional my mental my my physical ability to serve in in executive session and it wasn't supposed to be because it's supposed to be a public thing I sat there in disbelief and when the person said to me called me a name regarding my religion my religion and I said yes I am the superintendent spit his coffee out because everybody thought it was funny I went home and I bowled my eyes out that night because I can't even believe what my

168religion is I can't even celebrate what my religion is because I was persecuted by people it's 2023 and it was all allowed in the back room so I have reason to be the way I am all the time because of what I went through for the last 12 12 or 13 years I have 14 months I have a countd on on my phone freedom from concern so I don't have to worry about anything anymore people call me all the time I don't know why they drop it in my lap I think it's because I say something I'm telling you to look at what's going on something is not right thank you uh Mr Brun thank you president Smith want to give a shout out to uh Jamie and the rest of the crew at school

16913 absolutely wonderful event saw a lot of my constituents over there and uh unfortunately my family was not with me at that time um but I was able to purchase some swag over there there so shout out to all the vendors who who helped fundraise for for that school 100 years is a long time and uh I bought some empanadas and they were off the RoR scale so I'm very thankful for that vendor as well uh big big thank you uh to laurianne Dave Rosalie Zachary and uh Henry D Simone for letting us know about um this this the severe communication disorder that we referenced tonight in in the um in the resolution and uh so Henry that's for you and your crew um but I'm I'm forever grateful these are wonderful neighbors of mine

170uh Ros Lee attends the same class that my son does and uh they are fantastic neighbors um but Henry's got he's got a challenging road ahead uh with this disorder so you know any issues she she lets me know so so far so good so uh thank you to to the district to taking care of Henry as well and also I had the honor of attending a praise full baseball game too so Bobby shout out to Bobby and Gabriella uh kids of all ages they were featured this past summer and particularly Ren uh Renzo uh Renzo was there as well and I was scared for Bobby's life he was pitching over there no no equipment and some of these kids they hit that ball I closed my eyes one time CU I thought Bobby was

171going to get killed the amount this is all volunteer people and it's absolutely wonderful all these students are special needs uh for the group praise they do absolutely fantastic work over there and I can't thank them enough and I I was very thankful I was able to uh stay there for for a while to see how they do that also this month there was um you know we're celebrating Breast Cancer Awareness Month uh sad to say that one of our graduates over here this this girl she she graduated with my wife back in 2000 um she fought like hell for close to a decade um you know sadly she passed away this week from metastatic breast cancer 41 years young two young kids like I got uh absolutely devastating so I want to give my

172deepest condolences uh to the RO and the catty shock family way too young and to all those people fighting out there and for those fighting I hope you continue to fight to all those still out there Mrs MSO wonderful to see you back on the outlet after you're fighting this deadly disease thank you thank you for your time and God bless America have a good night everybody okay uh vice president Dr Danny um so I would just like to say that you know um focus sort of on the celebrations the uh indigenous people's Day Columbus Day the um to the principles you know thank you Vice principles for all that you do um you know it was really nice to see um as Mr Paris said sort of extending out there to you know our

173um custodial staff and you know congratulations Mr Escobar on you know the smiles that you put on people's faces it was nice to see the whole school come out and really just support you um uh I I just want to conclude in saying you know that um I am so happy that I work with children almost you know like my entire day because they are so innocent e even as high schoolers I mean when they truly know that you love what you're doing and you're passionate about it it's the greatest thing in the world because like I'm glad I don't work with adults is what I want to say because they're they're just they make me laugh they make me stay young they can be upset with you in like just one second but then

174like you can talk to them and you can reason and they are really just something like sometimes you know out of the mouths of babes and you think to yourself like maybe there's hope you know because they're just so um you know they're just such a pleasure they're just so wonderful and I'm just so thankful as I sit here today as I watched the council meeting that I get to go in every single day and work with children and not with adults um because the that the that's the best part of the job it's just how wonderful they are and um if you're a teacher and you still want to go out to Dunkin' donuts and get your cup of coffee go get it because you know um I think that's so nice and when

175I went in to go get my coffee I said you know um thank you this morning I went and I said you know thank you really thank you for um just recognizing and you know offering cup of coffee and um I think that we can look to Children sometimes and maybe take a lesson from them their energy um their innocence their um willingness to you know get along with with others and and I had a guest speaker come into class and um this guest speaker is um an expert on um he wrote several books on democracy and he's talking about the fabric that is tearing democracy apart and he said it's like the polarization and the conflicts and everything and he says that though he has hope that this Young Generation they're less polarized and

176you know I I hope so because um from what I see like I said I have the best job in the world it's working with students thank you thank you um as always uh Miss Rosa and uh Miss kusevic phenomenal job on your presentations um people don't realize but you know we recognize uh students which is which is very important but our staff makes up you know such an important role in our district and it's because of our staff that our children do so well and Excel so I'm so happy about number one that we um recognize our staff in the pbsis program but that we'll be recognizing our staff uh on a monthly basis uh starting next uh meeting um on recognizing aming staff members um for their Great accomplishments and in doing that

177I know um there comes a um a difficulty at times because um sometimes staff or all the staff do not get recognized um obviously we have a very large staff and it's uh uh almost impossible to do it um in just one month um but we will be recognizing staff and um we want our staff to know um and Dr robit toi in in implementing this program you know how special they are to us and how important they are to us um I continually um uh commend our staff um and it's everybody it's it's our entire staff it's just not the admin Administration it's just not uh principls it's just not teachers it's everybody working together and we saw that tonight and in that uh clip on how the lives uh of children have been

178touched by staff members a custodian um who just goes above and beyond his duties um to make to be proud of his school um and to support uh the children in that school so uh staff members again uh we thank you all um Clifton the success of the Clifton School District could not happen without dedicated and devoted staff and um we're so grateful for all you do and we'll continue um to recognize you and to thank you um for all your accomplishments and what you do for our kids um because it's evident uh it's evident um I saw uh one time at somebody at the high school and they went up and thanked the um the cafeteria staff because they had a certain item that that person wanted to eat um and that staff member

179went out of their way to make sure that that was um available for them and how that touched the students life how that was so important of just a simple food item on how it changed uh that relationship so um you never know how you're um affecting or touching uh a child's life and um we're just so happy from for our staff members for doing such a great job um and here we are just in October and we see so many accomplishments um in our district in just this short time um so while we know teachers could go somewhere else to work and somewhere else to teach they chose Clifton and we chose them and that is something to be real proud of um you have to be proud and uh um appreciate the district

180that you're working in and um our staff members do that um I had a staff member a few years ago said you know I could probably go somewhere else and make more money but I love Clifton because of their Direction their goals um how everyone works well together and and that really that really said something to me that our staff are just not here to collect a paycheck that they are dedicated to what they do and it's evident in in every day on how successful um our schools are so um to all of our staff please continue to do the great job that you're doing um we see it we recognize it we know it and we will um we will hopefully be uh recognizing you in a public way for that um you know

181just take for example our security uh people you know this is our second year in going into the security program and again just seeing how successful this has been and how um our security people are just not bodies standing there um they engage they're devoted they speak to the kids the kids respect them and with that respect um there's less problems and it's uh it's clearly been evident in um the amount of incidents that have uh that are occurring now with our our security staff um a program that we didn't know how was is going to take off um just just has been so successful and um again because we have uh dedicated people in those positions that uh want to be successful they want the the school to be successful and for kids to

182be successful and um I I just thank them and appreciate them uh for all that they do for the district but specifically for making that relationship with kids and staff um it has truly truly been um progress um as you know this board took a little bit of heat when we decided uh to bring in uh security Specialists um and now people have been coming to us and saying thank you thank you for doing that thank you for putting Security in our schools and um we're so so happy and satisfied um to know that people are recognizing that so um and we'll continue to do that uh with programs that we run um right now um and I know we're going to get an update on it but um with Chewy our our uh emotional

183uh dog um has been so successful um the reports that we have that the kids uh when they visit are so happy to see chewy um they um behave and sit there when they're reading because chewy is there reading with them um and again a program that we didn't know how it was going to take off and how successful it would be um and we're so happy that it has been successful and uh we'll continue to uh improve in that area and um again Clifton is trying things like the vend the book book bending machine um when we first saw this we're like you know what what kids are going to do that what are they how are they going to go and get a book and out of a vending machine when they can

184just go to the library and get a book or their parent can buy them a book but watching a kid um earn that book by uh again they get tokens or um rewards for uh for things that they do and then they use that toward the vending machine and um just seeing how happy they are and then you know one kid I saw was just like I get to keep this book I don't have to return this is mine and it it has enabled our uh reading program to uh increase uh for our numbers to keep going up um and that's what these programs are um designed to do so I thank Administration for coming to the board and uh bringing these new ideas to the board and the board for taking a chance to

185say Hey you know this might be something that works let's see how it goes and um uh we're so happy to report that things are moving in the right direction so um at this time of the year there's so many uh activities going on um in our district so I encourage everybody to uh please look at the website um and go by your school and click on and see what is happening at that particular school or in the district uh because there is a tremendous amount of things taking place and we want to make sure that everyone is um um aware of them um this is a very busy time you have um a lot of activities you have the Trunk or Treats coming up um you have uh the big parade uh we have

186a big parade in October with the recreation department um and again seeing our band lead off that parade in costume um is something that you should all see and then of course in November as we honor our veterans with the Veterans Day Parade um so we have important things coming up um the district is progressing um we didn't get a uh we didn't do a full report tonight but if you notice in town you will notice that our referendum projects are starting to show more they're starting to uh get completed um I don't know what the exact number I heard it the other day but like I don't know 485 bathrooms have been completed um they're they're new bathrooms they're they look great um and we hope that uh the staff and the kids uh

187recognize that um this was important for us to be able to uh to upgrade those bathrooms uh some of them over a 100 years old so uh the public you beginning to start to see things happening in the district you'll be able to visually see it um and that's your referendum project that you supported uh so that we as a district uh could continue to progress um our our weit room down at the stadium is almost done it's going to be a state-of-the r Wait room something to be very proud of um I was I I wanted to inform everybody that I just found out we have electric at our wood Wilson uh complex we finally have electric um they were putting the final um uh touches on it by you know everything had to

188be marked and labeled and uh um so hopefully with the next few days it'll actually be um official um and um that facility again great facility to uh to be proud of so um a lot to be proud of in this District um in the uh academic Area sports and in the Arts um I know we have our mock trial team going to uh to an event um is that in November um but some great things happening in our district so continue to support our kids continue to support uh the fundraisers uh each School their their U home in school or booster clubs run these fundraisers and uh if there's any way you can support it um that helps that program uh do the things that they want to do with it so uh please

189look into supporting any of those uh those programs and um that's all I have for tonight um I just did want to uh pull the board um so we want to start our um meeting on the 19th uh in executive session uh we want to start around 5:30 um just for that that night is there uh any problems all right so so that he can adver uh Mr shahada could advertise it so on October 19th we'll start at 5:30 we'll open the meeting and then we'll go into executive session immediately okay Mr President yes uh just for the record uh it might be a little late I have my own work board meeting at 6 so good um I heard no okay um so Mr shahada you have to go ahead to uh advertise that

190on the 19th 5:30 um all right so any other uh new business uh commissioner Mia so I just can I bring up a comment and a question sure to you to the right so I like to thank Cameron for coming in today you know he came in and addressed um the issue that we heard at the very beginning in Public's um comments you know last year when I was a candidate I was very vocal about it as well and I was told by members of this board and of the previous board to sad to say be quiet you know don't s up pop so I have family members I have friends who identify within the lgbtq plus community and obviously when we were doing attorney interviews one of the questions we asked was how would

191you advise us in wanting to go against the State against the big boys um could you share with us what you told us at that time sure um I advised that I didn't think it was economically feasible um that given the way the regulations are written and I think it's kind of proven itself that yes the policies were found not to be mandated but the guidance were required to follow which is um respecting students privacy as to how they wish to um whether or not they wish to have their parents alerted to the fact that they're identifying maybe in a different in a different manner than their assigned birth that um we have to respect that and we have to follow the children's choices so my and I think it's playing out that you know

192these districts that are um taking on these actions are are incurring a lot of expense to fight and they're not winning them so you know certainly I said if that's something the will of the board to fight that's something we would certainly we we would do um but you know the way the cases are going I just didn't think it's it's you know a winning fight with that said you know the speaker did say he wanted to see what side people were on so if it's possible you know having a vote on that if not today in the next board meeting having to see what side people are on Mr Mr President I'm sorry since that is has some legal consequences to it I think that is a first discussion by the board in the

193back to understand what those costs are incurring uh and then we can have maybe a open conversation out uh to be transparent to the public if need be but I think there's a lot more than and listen I get where you're coming from that question and uh but I'd like to know you know what are the steps what are the possible fees to be incurred I mean that is a you know board attorney conversation that needs to be had and then we can have it at a conversation I'm not saying I'm against it or I'm for it but I need I need more information in order to have that conversation Mr President yes so so would this be reviewed within the policy committee is it is not okay excuse me Mr President yes this is

194the discussion for the full board the policy was passed so the full board has to weigh on on this in executive session because there's a legal ramification to it Mr abadu is correct so we have to have the conversation back there and then we can have full discussion on how we vote out here and and if I may I'm not saying to the public that you know we're hiding or we're taking straw Poes in the back but the public needs to understand that if this is going to cost us two $2 million to fight this that's $2 million we may not have or we got to take it out of books or curriculum or teachers or pensions or or funding uh you know Esser Esser positions that that we were talking about earlier so we

195need to know where that lies and at at what expense and what will are we willing to go to um or the other conversation is we repass policy one more time without the letter M on policy and we tailor it to how we want to tailor it to that's the other conversation I think those are two options through you Mr President to Legal is that Maggie sorry band sorry so so do so so if we want to go that route to rep policy one more time as Mr Bron said probably you know go through policy one more time with that just to review just to review take the letter M off since it's not mandated anymore was it 5756 earlier so the what I what I read online I don't know what how this is

196accurate or not I do know it's not a mandated policy um according to the position of Strauss as me at least in the article I recently read is that they classify policies as mandated when they believe the policy is necessary to comply with other state and federal laws so that's why they give it the de designation as mandated it doesn't necessarily match the Doe's um list of mandated policies that's what I read as Strauss as why Strauss asme uses the M for mandated policies when maybe that's not on the list so through you Mr President to the attorney um can you give us a board opinion um looking into it further this way we can bring it back policy look at that policy and revise it yes thank you I have a a quote request

197have you heard anything about the money that's been spent in other districts you have any like knowledge of that yet I don't I just someone another District asked the same question about it being a mandated policy or not and I just started you know researching and looking and and that's what I came across as to what why Strauss s May designated it but I believe there might be some information online I don't know the specifics as to you know the costs I know there was I think um I don't know if I I apologize if I misidentifying some of the the districts I know Handover was fighting I believe um mwan maybe there was a handful there yeah there is a handful so I don't I don't know what they were spending I haven't seen

198per se um any of that in the Articles okay because I'm I would be curious to see what the dollar amount is too because that's going to be a factor in making a decision okay Mr Paris yeah I W I uh was at a New Jersey school boards meeting uh week ago and one question I asked their attorney there because what I had read is that the state attorney case against those districts revising that policy was based on New Jersey anti-discrimination Law not on this suggested or non-mandatory guidance so I think it would be wise to see how that plays out because right now they have a stay all those districts to my understanding has a stay on implementing that Rewritten policy pending uh whether they can do this before or after litigation but they're

199going to uh at some point have a judgment come down and say yes this is in accordance with or not in accordance with the state law the state statute and that's what it's that's what it's based on it's not based on the guidance that was given by Department of Education his case against them is based on a state statute so why don't we just hold off until we see what the stay is going to yeah why don't you we don't put any legal money towards give the uh uh attorney time to investigate some of this um get back to the board and then the board can uh can discuss it and and move as we wish so with that said the public knows you know what our opinions are you know a lot of us

200ran before a lot of us stated what our you know our side is so in terms of that I'm pretty sure the public knows what side people are on in terms of the budget and how much money it's going to cost it's reasonable to say it's going to cost a bunch of money money that we shouldn't be taking out of people's salaries out of PE out of funds that we need for our school district it's reasonable to say that right I mean I believe litigation is expensive ha to yeah Mr Santiago did mentioned uh that uh some cases were already lost I thought you meant that they're being fought and and there there was the original that the policies couldn't be changed that the guidance was there you know it it's it's being heavily litigated

201for sure and I just you know the the guidance was pretty tight tied to you know statute and regulation so I think there's an appeal battle in getting it set aside but you know my crystal balls broken there too Mr abjo sorry Richie you said something about sides that bothers me a little bit and listen UMES sides sides sides who side is on what what side is on what I mean at the end of the day I'll tell you I think what I'm going to say and what bothers me out of it 5 5756 or whatever it was so I think the side would be protecting the student regardless right uh but what bothers me is is as we said earlier some of us stated earlier that if a nobody stops a student for speak

202for a kid from speaking to their to their parent right but if a kid's dress coded I'm calling your I'm calling your parent but if a kid kid seems distressed I think a parent or I don't want to say distressed that's the wrong term if a kid seems indifferent on certain certain things there should be a conversation with a parent because at the end of the day a kid comes to school as school could be seen as a Safe Haven area right but if there's problems at home and the kid is afraid to talk to the parent there's a responsibility on the school side from social worker to to to to you know dius 2 whatever it may be to understand what a child's home encompasses so you know if if a parent is if

203a child's afraid to talk to a parent that's something that that's distressing right so I think that that needs to fall where where a conversation needs to be had with Administration and a parent Hey listen kids come to school and this is for the administration do this kids come to school you know this is where they this is what their conversations this is what their thought process is this is where they lie you know kids afraid to go home or having you know struggling going home or has problems and it's it's it's it's being affected dayto Day within their schoolwork or their relationships with school or social aspects of school can we have a conversation the parent could say no right but a any parent that really cares may open up and say you know

204what listen sure let's have a talk I mean I've seen I've seen kids or I've been told about kids who have been kicked out of their houses you know over the past year from I can remember uh about stories because their parents don't see eyee to eye on whether it's transgender lgbtq whatever it may be you know I would never kick my kid out of the house regardless that's indifferent but but not too many parents think like most of us where it's protect the child because they are our child and that's important um but you know the sides part what you mentioned is what bothers me Richie it's just sorry commissioner Mia it it's just I don't think it's more to a side I think we're really on the student side it it's just the

205conversation and resource is what bothers me on this policy that you can't tell a parent or have a conversation with a parent I think that's a huge responsibility on the shoulders of the administration in school I mean if I'm wrong tell me I'm wrong but that's just my insight so y I think I miscommunicated when I meant size that's what I meant in terms of security and all that cuz if I'm not wrong Cameron can attest to this there's many people within you know the Hispanic Community you go out and you come out like you said before commissioner abjo it's not taken lightly you might be kicked out you might even worse you might get abused at home you might even be murdered so that is why I said sides in terms of safety yeah

206my bad just sorry my side my side is like you know who's are you against are you for because it's a big conversation in the public and I'm sure everybody else has had conversation whether or has heard or you know people who are running for certain candidates or that was a question that was asked and you know it's it's I think it that's just divice that's breaking that's dividing and I think that's not the conversation be having I think the conversation that should be having the question should be asked is how do we bring more resources to these students how do we speak with the administration to make sure those resources are are housed in schools who can they speak to who can they be safeguarded by because at the end of the day our

207job our job our community's job is to protect the child at all expenses So Okay so we've given the attorney uh Direction um she'll get uh some information for us and uh we'll bring it back to the full board okay any other new business okay we have nothing for executive right no sir okay motion to adjourn by Mr abrao second by Mr Mia any objection adjourn until the state get a ruling okay