001thank you take pictures thank you good evening everyone I'd like to call the regularly scheduled meeting of the Clifton Board of Education for Thursday November 17 2022 uh come to order if you all would please rise for a salute to our flag followed by a brief moment of silence I pledge to leave the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you please be seated roll call please Mr abedravo here Mr Awad here miss bassford here miss Beltran Mr Canova here Dr Danny Mr Paris here vice president Daley here president Smith here we have a camera uh Dr Danny is uh excused and uh Miss Beltran is on our way um Mr Daley would you do the admission statement please
002thank you Mr President 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 to become literate lifelong Learners who are responsible and productive citizens contributing to a Democratic Society in a never-changing world things act the New Jersey yelpa public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right to the public to have advanced notice of and attend and to excuse me 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 Clifton Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be publicized by having the date time and place thereof posted at the city clerk's office
003Clifton Public Library administration building senior citizen Nutrition Center on cable TV in the local press on the district's website and mailed to presidents of parent teacher organizations this meeting will be tape recorded in accordance with policy zero one six eight okay we're going to go into uh public recognition Europe right isn't that next oh I'm sorry did I go right no you're right you already want to do it after first right okay we'll do we'll hold off on the public until we did the presentations all right so we're going to move to um recognition and award presentations we have the students of the month uh so if you are here if you kindly when your name is called to come up and receive your award and if there's any family members that are here and
004wish to come up and join them and take pictures please do so as well so uh whoever has freshmen please four of them out uh Natalie yep I have Natalie okay Natalie's favorite favorite subject is social studies because she enjoys learning about past societies Natalie's favorite teacher at CHS is Miss Odessa because she really connects with his lessons and also finds him to be kind of funny Natalie finds inspiring inspiration from her older sister Abigail who has served as a role model and is currently studying to become a pharmacist Natalie's teachers said that she is eager to learn and always contributes to class discussions Natalie's a member of the CHS Anime Club uh her interest in this in the in the club is also her future career aspiration to one day pursue a career as
005an animator is Natalie here tonight no no okay we'll make sure that uh Natalie gets that uh that award all right next we have our sophomore uh sophomore Ryan Badu Ryan is a hard-working student who has been finding success in Mr iwa's geometry honors class and has always had success in math classes one of the most influential teachers in Ryan's High School career has been his history teacher Mr Henry Mr Henry who has set high standards for his classes and pushes Ryan to achieve His Highest Potential Ryan's family inspires him to be a successful student and are also supportive in his participation in the pre-med club and on the CHS lacrosse team Ryan's teachers are continually impressed by his determination and ability in his classes the certificate of achievement this recognition is certified to Ryan
006Badu on behalf of the Clifton Board of Education Administration for CHS sophomore student of the month November 2022 with sincere congratulations on your meritorious achievement with recognition by resolution of the Board of Education the desire to excel is to formula to a lifetime of success your efforts have brought distinction to you your family and the Clifton Public Schools congratulations Ryan is Ryan here Ryan they're such good students that are home doing their their homework so we appreciate that uh next our Junior please Junior Deborah I'm all Deborah's an ambitious hard-working respectful student whose main favorite class at CHS is English because it provides her an opportunity to articulate her ideas effectively especially in a world where word choice can transform the way a concept is understood Deborah credits her success in school to her family
007because of all their successes have motivated her and all of her Pursuits her family has inspired her as the youngest in her family she feels unfortunate to have the ability to see all of her family's successes as the president of the Key Club Deborah works tirelessly to improve our school and our community in addition Deborah is a member of tri-m a music Honor Society where she serves as the club's vice president and last but certainly not least Deborah is an accomplished member of the track and cross country team at CHS after Deborah graduates from CHS while she is still on this side as far as what she wants to do she plans to attend college and take a shot is Deborah here all right [Applause] congratulations sir congratulations your family picture now yeah yeah we'll
008do this one first yes okay yeah [Applause] all right senior yes thank you Mr President uh senior is Haversham Harrison shrimp Harrison's favorite subject at school is biology which makes sense when you consider that Harrison plans to pursue a career in the medical field once he graduates from Clifton High School Harrison enjoys learning about the anchorage's intricacies of life and its functions Miss Miller Hamilton is Harrison's most influential teacher because she stressed the importance of viewing people's messages through a more critical lens and was always there for him when I needed to talk to somebody Harrison is a member of the Student council's Association executive committee as well as the varsity Athlete on our cross-country indoor track and outdoor track teams Harrison credits his success to his peers he has been inspired by the successful
009and hard-working seniors from from each graduating class watching other students Supply themselves and contribute to the school's inspired him to do the same Harrison are you here today okay great [Applause] thank you congratulations congratulations what are we thinking about college next year I wasn't right in here but we're not sure where again okay see all right [Applause] getting about my foot if you just think about it the number of students that we have at Clifton High School which is about how many about 2 900 students and these students were chosen um out of all those other students for the great job that they do that is a tremendous tremendous task to complete and we're so proud of them and uh their families for for this great honor so please don't just throw that uh award
010uh in a box be proud of it hang it and remember that you're a proud Mustang always so congratulations to everybody this evening [Applause] um we do have some um presentations from um Miss virgosa so um if everyone would like to just stay for that and then if anyone of the students wish to leave after that these presentations please you're more than welcome but you can stay for the for the meeting if you wish okay yes sir oh sorry you're right I'm all confused tonight good evening everyone good evening uh thank you president Smith vice president Mr Daly Dr robertozzi Commissioners and Central Administration for the opportunity to present to you tonight's showcase school school number eight where everything is great especially the learning we are so fortunate to have a room filled with passionate
011educators families and students who really embody the one Clifton Community what you're about to see tonight is just a small glimpse of what school aid is doing with their pbsis implementation what happens at school 8 is magical this is their second year that they've been implementing so New Kids on the Block last cohort to be trained but nonetheless rocking it out like we knew they would tonight you'll see the full team the cares team and you'll see the cares junior team as well as their fearless leader principal Munoz and a special guest who helps lead the way at school eight but let's take a look at what's happening with the junior care team and the overall process at school eight [Music] [Applause] evening everyone Clifton Board of Education members Dr robertosi Mr gengaro Mrs kusilevic
012and District administrators my name is Mrs Munoz and I am the proud principal of school eight where learning is great I am very excited to share with you our pbsis team members and students ambassadors at school 8 we like to say we care when someone shows that they care this means they're demonstrating our school-wide pbsis expectations which are being courteous acting responsible being respectful and encouraging kindness at school 8 we use physical dolphin dollars to say thank you when we see students showing that they care these tickets can be placed in students classroom bins and use at our weekly Friday Raffles in our all-purpose room if a student's ticket is chosen at our raffle they can come up and spin our wheel of prizes our care team meets weekly and since we began one of
013our biggest goals has always been brainstorming ways to reach and incorporate our students in as many ways as possible we always believe that in order for our program to truly be successful that staff alone could not be the only driving force as Miss Adams just stated from the very start we want to get as many kids involved in our pbsis program as possible so one of the first things we decided to do was create our Junior care team to help run the pbsis program we decided that we wanted our Junior care team to consist of students in grades three to five because one of our expectations are acting responsible and we felt that the older students exhibit that on a daily basis once we discussed the role these students would play we created and sent
014our applications out to all of our students in the grades two to four at the end of last year the applications consisted of questions like why they want to be part of a team and what makes them feel like they are a good leader we also have the parents and teachers complete recommendations in supporting the characteristics of the pbsis goals our 2022 Junior care team consists of 12 students four from each grade grade level they are grade three Alexandra Carroll Jaden lastra Jacob Lazaro and Kaden Ruiz in grade four we have Lillian Abu Nazar Julia Capilano Carla Chung lore and Simon Coniglio and in grade five we have Patricia gorvasi Malaya Morrison Xavier Ortiz and Amaya Pereira our Junior care team members help us with many things they collect our dolphin dollar classroom bins for
015the weekly Raffles every Thursday before dismissal they help set up for our pbsis events such as our kickoff our mid-year refresher and reward socials they help announce our morning message and remind students what it means to care we participate in our weekly Raffles by choosing the winning tickets announcing the winners and or assisting with prizes they made sure to share all monthly pbsis events with their classes and the younger classes they are linked to this helps ensure that all fundraisers are promoted and helps to increase participation at our pbsas events work with other classes on Special Special Projects one project we are about to begin is having them teach each class or school song so we can add singing our school song as a new tradition to our pbsas raffle since our Junior care team
016does so much for our pbsis program we wanted to find a way to not only let them know how much they are appreciated but to also help them feel proud and recognized in the position that they hold so we created our pbsis Junior care team medallions we had a ceremony where these medallions were presented to them in front of the entire School so just as our school safety patrol get to wear their belts and display their position now our pbsis Junior care team members have these medallions to wear each day which represent the importance that their position holds in our school community one of the reasons I wanted to be a junior care team member is so that I can encourage kindness around the school and help my classmates what I really like about the
017program is how it encourages kids to make the best choices possible because I think that a music character like be responsible and be like on time to school and be respectful to like everyone in the school and be kind yeah um I think it's really nice because you know we get to stand out from other people and it makes me feel appreciated that we are a part of the GI care like helping people and um I just like being kind and um being good to people and helping people and make sure they're not being left out this shows us that this shows other kids that we are junior cow Dolphins we help out with the program program and if they need help you can just come to us really happy because now people can notice
018that I'm in the junior care team and it makes me feel special [Music] oh oh we are being we're also introducing to a a very VIP very important person at school aid Finley Finley embodies what everyone at school eight feels which is a caring approach hi Finley hi so we'd like to take a moment now and um first we'll um Finley if you can help us kindly we're going to first recognize the team so then the team could help us up with the students so um uh president Smith Dr robertozzi Vice President daily would you do this um the honor of helping us present the recipients with their Awards so first up Miss Wendy Munoz [Applause] next up Mrs Jenny Teigen go God 's Gods gotcha Miss Jennifer Manila [Applause] Miss Maura Porter [Applause] Miss
019Kimberly fosetola and Miss Brooke Adams thank you let's get a couple on this side next room over there wow okay hello Cindy it's always smiling come on all right Stephen thank you [Applause] so you can stay with me for the kids everyone else could sit yeah okay okay we're gonna recognize this student Junior care team who everyone's here to see so big round of applause for each and every one of these amazing students the first up Miss Alexandra Carroll [Applause] Jaden lastra [Applause] Jacob Lazaro [Applause] be careful okay please watch that step kindly please and thank you Kaden Ruiz [Applause] Lillian abuna sir [Applause] Julia capuano [Applause] Simon Coniglio [Applause] Patricia Gervasi [Applause] Malia Morrison yeah my apologies Malaya Xavier Ortiz [Applause] and last but certainly not least Miss Amaya Pereira [Music] [Applause] okay [Music]
020[Applause] yeah no she needs to there you go yeah alrighty thank you congratulations thank you very much yeah oh my God ready here we go perfect thank you um well I was just gonna say you're free to leave but uh I guess they got the message anyway right Miss ragosa as always thank you so much for your leadership in this program and to uh School number eight great job we're so proud of all of you and and what was the Finley and Finley thank you for making your appearance thought it was a there was a football game Miami Okay so I think I'm gonna do it before Junior uh let's go into uh public recognition uh this portion of the meeting is open to the residents and non-residents of Clifton for the purpose of addressing
021any subject matter pertinent to and or directly related to the operation of the Clifton Public School District residents and non-residents are requested if in person to sign the register provided for this purpose all speakers are asked to State their name municipality in which they live and subject matter before speaking comments are limited to five 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 and when appropriate your questions may or may not be answered by board members the board asked that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding the students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded
022to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of the state of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments in light of the legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments all right we'll start with uh virtual um call in do we have anyone yes hi we have Samantha Vassar dialing up foreign I can great thank you you're all set good evening everyone Samantha vasford Clifton New Jersey and tonight I'm not going to say please consider voting for me because I did that a long time it's the first night that I'm actually
023not sitting there so it's kind of weird to be virtual but I think I deserve to time off I need to say thank you to the 4409 voters my Village from outside of Clifton who supported me to thank that many people minus one because I voted for myself obviously really blows my mind the past year I've spoken about supporting others in our community and its entirety after several groups of people have said hurtful things about their existence although I do not experience that level of disrespect I understand the feeling of feeling less than throughout this election process I've been told I was a waste just like my mother been called names at the polling sites which really did happen because a bunch of people witnessed it head city council people do everything in their power
024to make sure I wouldn't get a seat at the table and that's just during the election though I am white which gives me privilege being a woman is often at times what people see when they look at me in my day-to-day life it's often hard to be seen but also heard possibly my thoughts and Views challenged me more which statistically speaking is because I'm not a man oftentimes I get mansplained or ignored because I'm not seen as equal no matter of my experience which ultimately leads me to have imposter Sam Drummond feeling less than I can sit here and list all the ways that past leaders in this room have made me feel including recently a teacher starting a rumor that I was going to the Board of Education meetings to physically fight someone instead
025of listening to understand you listen to respond and I can confidently say I ran a clean campaign without calling any other candidates other than I didn't see them sometimes on the campaign Trail why share this is not because of only my recent adversities I faced or the second-hand trauma of bullying throughout the 11 years people in Clifton causing me emotional harm that I am a product despite how Others May treat you when it comes to the greater good you don't give up and you keep going I heard people say last Wednesday they want to give up and I kept asking me how I feel and how disappointed I may be but I can tell you I've never been disappointed in myself during this process I woke up Wednesday after the election feeling drained but emotionally
026proud I showed up I spoke up and I stayed true to my values and not only did I have these people recognize that by voting or maybe because my marketing was so enticing tell me that you won't remember leopard print and cheetah print and pink signs all over Clifton but remembering that the 13 year old student that I met the Halloween event at the high school whose mom said she recognized me from TV she told me her daughter looked at me and she told her daughter advocate for yourself like her and that to me was one of the best things I could have ever heard and matters to me more than anything so that's a to that young woman her family all the supporters thank you for your belief in seeing me this didn't break
027me nor make me want to run away my impact and Mission goes beyond Clifton and that is who I am to the Core everything is either a win or a lesson and I can look back and say ace this lesson this was just my dress rehearsal and now that I know how the game is played this might not just be over for me yet I want to say thank you to Joe Canova for all that you've done and you will continue to do congrats to the new board members I wish you the best of luck and welcome to the real life circus as you know I'm an audience member often so I look forward to being in your audience so thank you again to everyone and one more point if I can make let's move
028election so that Board of Ed and city council do not overlap it was very tough to even be recognized when there were 17 other people running so that is my first suggestion I will make as now I'm not running anymore so thank you everyone and have a great night foreign thank you is there anyone else no motion to close uh calling by Mr habitravo second by Mr Awad we'll now go to um in person if there's anyone here that wishes to address the board please come up to the podium uh state your name and municipality and you have five minutes foreign good evening Jessica Farrell Inglewood Road in Clifton um I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to public publicly address the Board of Education regarding a health and safety issue my son attends
029school number nine last week we received a call from our school secretary stating he was having a health issue we received a call from the school secretary because we do not have a school nurse um we ended up in the hospital overnight due to him having difficulty breathing I emailed Dr Robert tozzi expressing my concern about the lack of a nurse in our building I thank you Dr robertosie for your prompt response I did get a response from him very quickly and I very much appreciate that um the response I received shared his difficulty with Staffing nurses around the district and you know the large amount of students who are medically fragile who all need a nurse during a time when there is a niche Nationwide shortage which I do recognize on Tuesday I received
030an email from Miss back the nursing supervisor she basically reiterated what Dr Robert Tosi said regarding the nursing shortage I was also told that if my son needed a nurse at school nine they would contact the nurse at School 14 and she would be the one to come and address the issue I emailed her back asking questions as to why School 14 was the best answer Sheila b is right on the same road correct me if I'm wrong but I believe there are two nurses that work at that building as well as it being the home base for Miss back the nursing supervisor so there are times when there are possibly three nurses in that building I mean no disrespect at all to any of those people I know they all work very hard I
031also know having worked in preschool myself over the summer how important it is especially when you're dealing with disabled preschoolers how important it is to have that staff there so I don't mean to say that they don't need the help I'm just trying to look at the proximity for those of us who live in town which is all of us we know what the traffic's been like around town I deal with the closure of Mount Prospect every day when I drive to and from work so for a nurse to have to leave school 14 to come to school nine it's not as simple as coming down Mount Prospect and going to down Brighton Road you need to go do a big loop around so that was just a question that I had that Miss Beck
032has not responded to me about yet so as a mom I was just coming trying to come up with a solution should there be an issue um I'm just a mom trying to come up with a solution not just for my own child but for every child in our district um I'm a mom who's thankful that my child now has a plan and hopefully will not even need this nurse he's on five different medications and in my opinion there should be a nurse there in case he's not feeling well um I have watched his principal his teacher and his secretary address this and jump into Play Take on the role of a nurse this week which none of them should have to do that's not their job I appreciate it very much um I want
033really everyone to consider asking themselves is this fair to our staff members our staff and our children deserve better it's a liability could potentially be considered neglect if there was a child with a health issue that is not properly addressed um I would like to end though on a positive note and send my sincere gratitude and thank you to Mr Rosati our principal Ms Heiser is our secretary and Miss frasso who's my son's teacher they've all gone above and beyond his teacher approached me yesterday and made a Google sheet which she shared with me where she's keeping track of when he's wheezing what time he's using his inhaler um so I can look at any point during the day she's you know a newer teacher to the district she's young she's not a mom yet
034and she's really stepped up and gone above and beyond and I appreciate that so much it's given my child who's very fearful when he really struggled able to breathe the comfort of feeling safe in school so I really appreciate that I also just want to quickly recognize our nursing staff throughout the district those that we do have I know are working hard and tires tirelessly and we very much appreciate that in my family so I just wanted to bring that to everyone's attention um I hope everyone's families are safe and healthy and have a very nice Thanksgiving thank you for your time [Applause] hi uh ladies and gentlemen board thank you for the opportunity to speak uh my name is Ryan Tate I live in Clifton uh right off new Briar Lane and I'm concerned
035about the same situation she was talking about so everybody thinks their kid is special my son unfortunately has a condition called hydrocephalus so which has required since he was four months old multiple brain surgeries and he has a shunt in the back of his head for life it's no big deal it's like a pacemaker as long as it's working it's working but when it doesn't let's just say you get a headache no big deal he gets a headache he may need to be going to brain surgery so previously we had Dawn Dawn was familiar with hydrocephalus she knew what to do so I felt comfortable having my child here at that at that school because she would know the difference between oh he's just not feeling well or no this is actually an issue and
036as a parent I'm sure everybody can understand that so now imagine my kind of shock and dismay finding out when I went to the PTO meeting that's the first time I heard that there's no more Dawn there's no more permanent nurse there's nothing there's just a traveling kid and you guys talked about 3 000 students at the high school imagine that more at 29 different locations it's kind of logistically problematic to me um and I don't want to make it just about my son like it's about all the kids my son's a special case but I mean you got kids they need help they need things so I kind of want to think about just put some seeds in your heads think about these things I just ask you like you don't have to but
037I kind of feel like this is opening up to a liability situation what if kids need emergency help that can't wait the 15-20 minutes for a nurse to come from school 14 maybe more than that I don't know maybe that's excessive but are they just going to sit there and suffer waiting for her to come over I to me that just what if multiple kids at multiple different locations we've got what two floating ones maybe that seems problematic as well um now and I also understand Mrs Rosetti's been jumping in which I love that about her of course she's going to do that she's not going to let them sit and suffer that's her nature but she's not trained for that nor should she be that's not her job she's make sure everybody's happy but
038how much can we ask of her uh and what if another problematically for less serious things while they're waiting for the nurse they're not learning and just like your guys's Credo you're committed to learning this seems like a hindrance it's time out of a classroom it's a wasted time to me and finally I want to focus not on the kids I want to focus on Mrs Rossetti how many principles have we had in the last four years at school nine buy my count at least four four years Fortune principles do we want to ask for a fifth because how much are we going to ask of our principles how much are we going to ask of our staff at what point do we consider you know what this shouldn't be your problem this shouldn't be
039your worry but Mrs Rosetti I love her she's like no I'm going to help I'm going to do it because I care so I really ask you guys please reconsider do what you can because these are our children it's not mine it's ours all our children thank you [Applause] my apologies on my name is royaponte I'm a I live on Albert Road right next to Market Street and uh if um uh the president may I I'm I have brain I have stage three brain character so it affects the way I speak so please take your time sir thank you so much all right ladies and ladies and gentlemen on the board I come before you today as an advocate for the community of school night in expressing our concerns with traffic safety currently there are
040minimal traffic safety signs around school zone in the area of school nine parents have noticed vehicles conducting violations that have at times been too close to call as far as incidents prompting parents business owners and community members to take action on this dilemma on October 27th of this year a letter including a petition signed by parents business owners and Community voice our Grievances and made recommendations to address this issue on Market Street and Brighton Road we understand that these two roads are essential for commuters to get to and from work to meet their doctor's appointments to shop in local business areas and most importantly to drop off their kids but sometimes I uh I feel like and I'm not exaggerating it's like a war zone when you see a car speeding down to try to
041beat a traffic light that is more than 100 yards from the crosswalk and if you're on Market Street you know what I'm talking about this situation has parents and pedestrians who utilize the crosswalk terrified to walk across the street due to the careless actions of these drivers although we have dedicated crossing guards who place their lives on the line for our children some commuters ignored the crossing guards that are holding up the signs while the actual children are on the crosswalk scary there are times when parents are relieved that commuters will obey the traffic laws when a police officer is actually directing traffic yes it's essential and it's relieving but we don't have the luxury of having a police officer in every corner during school year bottom line the community of school nine members want
042more traffic safety measures on Market Street and Brighton Road recommendations were made in the letters sent to you um which we feel the board and city council should consider and here are the recommendations having traffic signs equipped with flashing LED lights and audio notifications for for people who have special needs placing traffic pylons on areas where it says no parking so that the person that's on the crosswalk is visible to the drivers once in a while I'd like to see a patrol car maybe patrol around the areas doing drop-offs and Pickups to you know see if commuters are doing that and issuing some of this if necessary for those who break the law whether it's state or city ordinance lastly I'm asking for your help we are asking for your help to Advocate to the
043city council to maybe create an ordinance to reduce the speed from 25 miles an hour to 15 miles an hour I know I used to work as a police officer in Jersey City and we've done that before we understand that the board has no Authority or control in getting traffic measures or how Christian PD operates around the school zones still the Board of Education and Clifton PD collaborate to to provide a safe environment for our schools and our students we humbly ask you for your help to reach out to our elected officials police officials to get more traffic measures as soon as possible every minute that passes increases the chances of our children or residents be a victim of a motor vehicle accident implementing these traffic measures would be placing liability on the driver who
044will face consequences for their careless driving thank you for your time for consideration and I yield my time [Applause] good evening Dr Robert Ozzy Mr gengaro and Board of Education members while I cannot and will not speak for all of the Power Professionals in our district I am fortunate enough to have worked with some of the very best who have joined me here tonight and we are asking for your help to be clear I am not speaking about any specific school department or Administration this concern is district-wide as you may be aware since July more than 50 paraprofessionals have left our district a few have retired some changed in status however a large majority of paraprofessionals have left to join other neighboring districts these districts such as Montclair West Orange and Passaic to name a
045few have made our powers an offer they couldn't refuse full time which includes more money plus benefits no one can fault those who have left for the betterment of their families or financial situations however the large number of Departures have been felt district-wide we are well aware of the district's social media exposure to advertise the need for power professionals flexible hours be a hero yes there are applications and interviews and offers of employment while some do accept the offer of employment others do not and this does not help the shortage of power professionals we are experiencing the shortage not only affects our jobs as power professionals but it affects the special education teachers as well they have so much on their plate already the daily worry about staff is very upsetting I know I live
046with one morale is at its lowest I have seen in 18 years with the district and the stress level is very high unfortunately many individuals within our district do not understand the importance of a paraprofessional we are more than just a body to Shadow a student through a hallway we work with the most awesome students in our district our jobs can include but are not limited to the following toilet training feeding discrete trials arts and crafts dancing gym music behavior management and more and this can all take place in one day before lunch for our emerging vocal students and those without vocal language we must advocate for them and be their voice we are their support and comfort when our students are upset and experience emotions they don't understand all behavior is communication and we
047work with our students through these challenging times I cannot even begin to say what we all found ourselves doing during covid just to get our kids to attend to a screen it's all good because our students deserve the very best we can give them each and every day most recently we have had a large influx of agency paraprofessionals to cover for the shortages left by the departure of many of our district Paris this is a Band-Aid on the bigger problem and I ask that you please just take a look at the salaries paid to these agencies as reflected in the July 28th agenda for the same work that's being done by our district Paris the figures are disheartening something must be done to not only hire new power Professionals in our district but also for
048the power professionals that are still here every day it is not easy to come and speak before the very people who hold your job in their hands you can hear it in my voice however I cannot say bye and wait for somebody else to speak up as I said before we as paraprofessionals work with the most awesome students in this District they deserve the very best we can give them each and every day not all heroes wear keeps but just imagine how much we could accomplish with some additional help and support thank you foreign [Applause] can we get your name for the record please thank you good evening Dr Robert cozy board members um I initially came here just two name for the record just state your name for the record but Joanne butchnowski thank
049you I came here as support for the other power professionals that um I've worked alongside with for I'm going on 20 some odd years in the district um I just want to Echo what Miss Mrs marakovitz said morale is down you see uh the powers are dropping left and right and they're going to other districts that are offering them the benefits and the agency paraprofessionals that are coming in here um they're just bodies um you're putting an agency power professional in an ABA classroom who wants to learn but you're taking time away to have to train them to do these discrete trials to do the behavior modifications take care of your own and you wouldn't have to go outside to find people to fill your spots thank you [Applause] foreign and I live on Valley
050Road Clifton my intention was not to speak but after the moving expressions of parents and professionals I would like to impress upon you each board member I really don't know the reason or the marief that anyone will have to roam for a school board member or less is to make a mark to make something out of it as a person that has worked tirelessly for the last 50 plus years on education I know that education is the one thing that can be valuable to any human being regardless of age some get an education to become prominent famous wealthy others get an education to be more Advocate and to help those who may not have the proper help regardless of social economic condition race Creed language or even physical looking education to me is the ship
051is the portion of one's equipment that will lead you to success whether is Success on your own success to help others and I could not really sit there and see how tears come into the eyes of professionals who are trying to help perhaps your grandkids your nephews your friends education is paid through the taxpayers property owners business owners and all of those who contribute I think it's just fair and it's the right team to put a priority on education because this generation this generation is going to take an account of what has been done to them our generation is passing and with that I wanted to congratulate one of the youngest persons I have ever known or heard running for Board of Education and winning and that person happens to be sitting right in front
052of me his name is Richie Mejia and he's only 22 years of age I sincerely hope that he can make a difference on this board and for whatever is worth uh I wish that all of you will think twice and listen to what is being asked you almost beg because no one in the education field that is the one thing the Legacy that we give to those children and young people shouldn't be put asunder because there are other priorities politicians in the city government state government or whatever government they have another agenda but Board of Education members is to produce the very best the children under their care can be thank you foreign Elias Ragsdale president of the Clinton Student Union president Smith vice president Daly board members Dr rivertoz the administrators citizens uh good
053evening I'd like to start off by saying congratulations to those that have made it onto the board now um the fight to get on is over but a new one begins you'll be tasked with hearing the concerns of citizens parents teachers and staff of the district and especially students and you saw that here today students are the future and the reason why you're here students effectively can reap the rewards reap the efforts of the district via paraprofessionals VIA parents that are tasked also with supporting the students and with the employees of the district it's important that you hear and listen to all of us I've come to most know you I've come to know most of you that are running for board um and personally I'm very confident in your leadership the Clifton Student Union
054hopes to continue to work with all of you and I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving thank you [Applause] is there anyone else wish to address the board there's one right there Marsha Miller Clifton I am appalled that at the NJEA convention last week Friday November the 11th 11 A.M there was a promotion of drag queens called the drag queen reading hour drag queen should not be a part of our school system and our tax dollars should not be funding drag queen material at the NJEA convention the NJEA has undue influence on the school boards we should be promoting learning and academics that was last when our schools were I'm sorry that was lost when our schools were shut down the last two years due to covid and not emphasize drag queens and social issues
055it needs to be turned around to Reading Writing math and higher education standards since our standards have decreased over the last two years school has started and the graphic sexually explicit new learning standards are now being implemented in many school districts across the Garden State what's even worse the New Jersey Comprehensive Health and sex education standards are diminishing real education like math language arts Finance science along with other vital workplace skills necessary for a child's future so what is so objectionable I'm going to use one standard for eighth graders 2.1.8 Point SSH 0.9 the fine vaginal oral and anal sex the New Jersey Department of Education has been promoting sexual activity the grade school children for decades the Murphy Administration has now taken it to a point to overt sexual exploitation the above section of
056Standards does not even suggest waiting to engage in sexual activity the tone and content clearly make the assumption that minor children will engage in sexual acts including some that are Dangerously affecting their lives leading to lifelong physical and emotional consequences the above core idea regarding the vaginal oral and anal sex and its performance expectation the fine oral and anal sex that is age inappropriate and sexually exploitive the New Jersey age of consent is 16 years old in the United States the age of consent is the minimum age at which an individual is considered legally old enough to consent to participation in sexual activity individuals aged 15 or younger in New Jersey are not legally able to consent to sexual activity and such activity may result in prosecution for statutory rape the New Jersey statutory rape
057Lord is violated when a person has consensual sexual intercourse with an individual younger than 16 years old a close in age exception also known as the Romeo and Juliet law exists allowing minors between ages 13 and 15 to engage in sexual congress with a partner up to four years older the age of consent is raised to 18 if the older partner is a parent Guardian sibling or a relative closer than a fourth cousin or an individual with some authority over the younger party for example a teacher or a victim's boss the age of sexual consent is 16. 8th graders are 12 13 and 14 years of age schools are teaching detailed sexual and in some instances graphic content years before they can legally consent to sex and as described in what I said last time
058a minor is not capable of making these life-changing decisions until their mid-20s because of their brain development and Beyond teaching eighth grade there's sex is scientifically age inappropriate the elementary canal also known as the gastrointestinal tract begins at the oral cavity and ends at the anus the anus is biologically designed as an exit not an entrance this is its function and design teaching that the anus is sex okay thank you is there anyone else that wishes to address the board foreign things Marsha said yeah apparently last week when the kids had off two days for the teachers convention that's what the teachers are going down a trend to observe and participate in and it's you know and it was also an agenda and a flyer that was being circulated on the internet that had a
059whole bunch of uh left this ideologies that they were discussing and teaching to the teachers so I know we've been talking about days off I don't know maybe we you can discuss it later on but do we really need to have those two days off for the few teachers that go down there to learn about the the crap they were learning about I mean I like to say a couple of other words but you know I don't want to get thrown out by Mr Smith so um I mean it was disgusting with what's being floated around and what we're hearing from certain teachers about what's being taught they actually want to present that to the first and second graders and apparently they're planning to do it for next year in the schools and I know
060Clifton gets all nervous every time the state says you have to do something and there's no dialogue with parents to help out and ward off the state so I'm hoping that we're not going to implement the drag queens and other perversions like that Marcia says a lot of good stuff so I'm hoping that we have a meeting sometime in the near future but we can all talk in that beautiful Auditorium of yours um Italian Club I know it started one class in September my son loved it teacher was fantastic he said and then he was promoted and there's been no Italian Club so I like to see hopefully see an Italian Club before he graduates um the tennis courts are beautiful beautiful um and everything else she did back there was really nice so it's
061really good but I would really say somebody should really listen to Marcia and try to organize a meeting for the parents I mean it's not going away you just sent them on tax dollars I don't know how many teachers go down to the convention I don't even know if it's worth it to go listen to that nonsense with drag queens and uh and there's all a bunch of other stuff too 1619 project a lot of anti-American stuff then that was during Veterans Day we still don't have Veterans Day on the calendar listed just the word Veterans Day even if we're not going to have off it still should be mentioned hopefully you'll mention Christmas day in December sure I missed the robot tells you can do that as the boss just put the word in
062can read the agenda no I didn't I'm sorry if you did thank you but um so but it'll be nice to have those days back and a little respect for our history because that's what's lacking and also this time they spent on the drag queens and everybody we heard tonight here speaking about the issues that are important maybe if they weren't so inundated with that nonsense that they want to teach our children they would spend more time focusing on different kinds of opportunities so thank you take care foreign good evening to everyone my name is Lori lalama and I'm the president of Clifton Education Association which includes our power professionals so as you heard earlier we're hemorrhaging paraprofessionals and we read really really need them in the district and I know it's very difficult to
063find them but to listen to the words that were spoken earlier and they are they're the backbone for the teachers in the district so please come up think about it away so we can get them in for our students our special ed children they truly need them nurse shortage and I don't know if the public knows this but according to state law the districts only need one nurse per campus so I would advise people in general to send letters to their legislators and try to get that changed Clifton is doing impossible task right now due to the shortage so I would advise people who are nurses out in TV Land here to please consider coming to Clifton and be a nurse for our students all right I've been going to the NJEA convention for 20
064eight years the only time I didn't go was when Sandy hit and there wasn't anything down there and when I taught in Ecuador so I've been going there forever I must have 2 500 PD hours from being down there everything from every subject from the paraprofessionals from the custodians from the secretaries and there are people that do go down now the drag queen story I was there I was Manning the technology booth for the NJEA committee for technology because I'm on it so yes there was a drag queen Story Hour it includes inclusion and diversity for our children whether you whether you agree or disagree it's not on you or I it's on keeping the stories about the lgbtq Ia plus Community we have to have inclusion with our kids and with our staff members
065this is not on your eye and I would really like to sit down Marcia and Al and we can sit down and we can have a chit chat about what is going on so I just want people to understand that teachers do go down custodians go down administrators go down so if you have any questions on what went on down at NJEA convention I would be happy to answer anybody's question thank you very much [Applause] anyone else wish to address the board seeing non-motion in order motion I'm Mr Roberto second second by Mr Awad um Natasha my apologies I I wanted you to go before I wrote Tiffany I said Natasha I can't Tiffany see it says Tiffany right on my thing but I said Natasha yeah I'm sorry um I wanted you to go
066before public portion so I apologize I used to sit there okay Tiffany go ahead okay events going on the CHS fall play the ball the Bold The Young and the murdered opens tomorrow November 18 at 7 pm are the chances to see the show or Saturday November 19th at 7 and Sunday November 20th at 1. we hope to we hope you you could come out to support our talented actors and crew who have been working on the show since September tickets can be purchased online or out the door or you're able to scan the code here the mechanical mustangs from CHS are once again hosting the middle school middle school robotics tournament live and in person this is the first time since covert we have been able to host a tournament in person it is
067on Saturday in the exciting live rounds begin at 1 30 PM both CC both CCMS and Mojo Wilson Middle School will have teams competing is a free and open to public in the high school gymnasium from 1 30 until 4 30 with closing ceremonies at 5. the Mustang band's end of season Performance Event Under The Lights is Wednesday November 23rd at 7 at Clifton stadium in mission is free but we are accepting donations at the gate come and celebrate Thanksgiving with the band SCA in in the in the interactive Club are doing a winter coat drive students are able to donate new or gently use winter coats all coats collected will be donated to smile for charity students are encouraged to drop their coats at the media center main office and n307 they have until
068November 30th 2022. thank you and I'll also be leaving this here if anyone wants to go see the play thank you Tiffany appreciate that and uh thank you for sticking it out all right we're now going to um to move on um our superintendent would you like to go now I would very much say Thank you Mr President good evening members of the Board of Education members of the community faculty and staff who are in attendance tonight thank you all for coming out thank you to all of the speakers um doing my best to uh to listen um as intently as I could so that I can properly respond to some of the concerns so let me go with my my original notes and then I do want to address some of the things that
069were brought up here tonight so first um I want to take a moment to I can't believe that next week is Thanksgiving already so I want to take a moment to wish everyone in the Clifton Community a very happy and healthy Thanksgiving I am eternally thankful to be the superintendent of this great School District eternally thankful for um all that we have here in Clifton and all that we are going to be in the future I want to take a moment to congratulate the three newly elected Board of Education members Mr Mark brunsiak Mr Anthony Santiago and Mr Richie Mejia who I didn't realize is sitting here tonight congratulations I look forward to working with all of you for the betterment of our district and to make sure that our children have the best educational
070experience possible as we do for all newly elected board members we will provide an orientation sometime after the reorganization meeting in January highlighting the work of the administration and the role of the board member but while we welcome three new board members that means that three are leaving and that makes me extremely saddened three people who I respect a great deal and although this is not their last meeting I'll have a lot more to say next month at their last meeting I do want to thank Mr Jim Daly Miss Dana Beltran and Mr Joe Canova for all of the time and commitment they've put in over the past several years as volunteer members of the Board of Education um thank you so very much and and thank you personally for all the support that you've
071given me as as the superintendent and again I have a lot more to say in December but I will miss you on a personal note uh I was on the other end of this um last night my son the board members know I have four children two in high school two in Middle School please pray for me my my son Joey who's in eighth grade as part of a group called wingman and he was down at New Jersey school boards convention Judy was Miss bassford was there at the convention and he was there as a student leader for Dylan's wings of change and Dylan's wings of change is a non-profit Foundation dedicated to the memory of Dylan Hockley who sadly was a first grade student who was killed in the Sandy Hook Connecticut shooting um
072in 2012 and Dylan's father started this group called Dylan's wings of change um and the students are Guided by the butterfly effect how small changes can accumulate with massive effects how the flap of a butterfly's Wings might cause a hurricane and their goal is to create a world of empathetic leaders to make the world a better place and I just wanted to tell my son publicly how proud I am of him for being chosen as a student leader and representing our family and our values very well congratulations Joe and it's nice to be sitting on that side it was very nice no stress all right let me address a couple of the issues that that came up tonight first of all to those parents who spoke so eloquently about the nursing issue I hear you
073uh very very much as I just stated I'm a father of four I I get it I understand where you're coming from completely um doesn't help to tell you this now but the problem solves itself in a couple weeks when nurse Dawn comes back but we have we have not chosen to leave any school without a nurse it wasn't a conscious decision I can tell you that at any given moment of any day in this school district every school has a covering nurse that's on call and can be there and the event of a real emergency a nurse or any employee is going to call 9-1-1 of course it's best to have a nurse in the building um we are just facing not a Clifton problem not a New Jersey problem but a nationwide shortage
074of nurses we are hiring nursing Services we are paying nurses a starting salary more than we've ever paid before and we still can't get them because there's other districts who can offer them more money so it sounds like excuses and I guess in many ways it is but I don't want any parent to think that we're making a conscious decision to not have a nurse in the school I I promise you that we are doing our best and will continue to to do more um to make sure that there is a highly qualified nurse in every single building at all times it's it's a very very difficult situation right now um as from I think it was Mr Aponte who spoke about the traffic situation um something also that the board has been working on
075we have a municipal Alliance committee made up of board members who meet with the city council and the city manager and this was a topic of discussion very recently and I can tell you for sure there's an ongoing traffic study going on in several of our near several of our schools and there's action that's that's going to be taken we will bring the concerns forward but I want people to understand that this board only can only discuss things when we meet so when that letter was received I don't know what the date was October 21st or something this was actually the first opportunity that we got a chance to be together and talk about it in fact the board members just saw it probably within the last week when I emailed it to you uh
076nevertheless there is action being taken um it is a very serious issue it's and it's not just the school nine issue those of you who drive around Clifton know there's a traffic issue everywhere we go particularly around our schools and um I want to thank our Paris who came out tonight and and it takes a lot of guts takes a lot of courage to come up and speak before the Board of Education who is your employer but Lynn you never have to worry about coming up here and speaking your mind about something that you think is not right no one here is ever going to hold that against you especially me um I hear you we hear you we actually have something to discuss in executive session regarding the Paris um this is not something
077we're blind to something we're aware of um and you're not going to like my answer but there's no quick easy fix but there are some things that we're working on in the long term that will help and it sounds great to just say okay well let's just give all of our paraprofessionals benefits um that's about four and a half million dollars to just do that and snap our fingers and I would love to do that um even if it was two billion dollars we'd have to come up with two million dollars we have almost 300 powers in this District but we're working on something um and I'm not sure if if that's I'm not sure if that's the answer I'm not sure if people say for benefits uh or if it's raising the just raising
078the salary uh raising the salary because you're part of a union is not as simple as this board saying we want to raise your salary it means that we have to open up negotiations and to her credit um Miss lilama has been advocating for you we have met several times trying to figure out if there was a way to compensate you more without opening up the contract um but just please know that we hear you we're going to work on it we're going to try to come up with something if you have an idea please share it with us we'd be happy to hear it but anything that's going to involve money is going to take time and potentially negotiations but we want to help you because we know you are part of the backbone
079of our district so thank you for speaking up tonight and never ever be afraid to to come to a board meeting and speak up okay a couple other announcements as the board knows I do have a scholarship fund the Danny Roberts superintendent scholarship fund which is in memory of my parents last year the scholarship fund gave out 22 000 to Clifton High School seniors and one of our big fundraisers is coming up on November 30th where the Clifton Mustangs will host the Harlem Wizards uh I am not playing I will be coaching I almost got hurt last year coaching so I don't think I'm going to be playing uh the event is a fundraiser it benefits Clifton High School seniors tickets are on sale now if you go to our website um you can get
080the details and buy tickets it should be a real fun night it was a great time last year while covid was still pretty strong and we had a nice we had a nice crowd this week for the first time ever the district is acknowledging hunger and homelessness Awareness Week hunger and homelessness awareness week is a great time for us to connect with our community and provide resources that some of our community members might be in need of during this time our schools are collecting non-perishable items for Saint Peter's Haven and monetary donations will be given to the code blue warming Center in town this Center provides new clothing blankets and toiletries to at-risk and homeless citizens which we hope we can add to their collection if anybody has any donations they can be dropped off
081at your local school uh the counseling department also wants to thank Clifton against substance abuse for supplying all of our K-8 students with ribbons and pencils for Red Ribbon Week so thank you to Casa and I just want to highlight a couple other things that have gone on in our schools in the past month or so at school five November is all about citizenship students are learning to be responsible citizens citizenship is the chance to make a difference to the place where you belong and the school five All-Stars are showing their one Clifton Spirit by making a difference in our community they organized a food drive this week to benefit St Peter's food pantry St Peter's Haven in addition they are also supporting the code blue initiative school 11 wants to thank their Community for
082coming out for their trunk or treat they had an amazing turnout with over 300 families joining the festivities they raised about four thousand dollars to support events for their students and at school 16 the fifth grade students won the Imagine math Ready Set solve contest they were one of only 20 classrooms across the United States to win this contest and the only one in New Jersey their hard work towards lessons past earn them points that were tabulated selecting them as the top winners they mastered each topic and their hard work was rewarded with a pizza party Mrs de chellis is very proud of all of her students congratulations to those six School 16 fifth graders uh finally ladies and gentlemen just want to give a brief update on our referendum finally all of our referendum
083projects have been bid we expect the final two contracts they're on currently under attorney review to be awarded at our next board meeting and that will allow us to move forward with the next phase of the process currently our stadium and athletic field is underway in making substantial progress if you've been by Woodrow Wilson Middle School you can see that bid package one at the high school the South Wing bathroom renovation is coming along really beautifully haven't really knock them would have haven't had many issues at all that part of the project is set to be complete in the middle of December and then the contractor will move on to the east wing and be begin Demolition and construction there and although not part of the referendum I'm really proud to see say that the
084new Turf marching Field Band marching field is complete and new state-of-the-art expanded Tennis Courts at Clifton High School um if you haven't been do a drive-by check it out it's amazing and we will hold a brief ceremony in the near future to unveil um those projects which were paid for through Capital funds with no increase to the tax payer finally really finally on the agenda tonight is the district calendar for next year huh Christmas is on there Mr Dubois however um I did mean to put Veterans Day and it it it didn't make it on there so I do I want to make two changes before we vote on it tonight so we don't have to amend it next month I want to add Veterans Day although the committee and I think we all agreed
085that it's going to be a day of school we think that that's a day where children should be in school to learn about Veterans Day to learn about the reasons why we celebrate Veterans Day and we're going to make sure that um at the very least our social studies teachers but but most teachers will have some sort of Veterans Day activity but we want to at least note it on the calendar that it is Veterans Day and the other uh issue which I want to credit Mr konova for the idea we had the teachers we had staff coming back on Friday the Friday before Labor Day and the kids coming back on Tuesday we're going to switch that up and we're going to have the the faculty and staff come back on uh Tuesday and
086the kids come on back on Wednesday so that's the only change and I want to make that tonight is that a good thing okay that's a good thing so we don't want you know staff can have Labor Day weekend it just extends the calendar by one day but the calendar has three snow days built in if we don't use them we're going to be taking a couple days off anyway so I want to make those changes tonight so we don't have to amend it so the calendar that's on the agenda is going to be amended to to note Veterans Day and to change the first day of teachers to the Tuesday after Labor Day that concludes my report thank you Mr President thank you doc um because we have um another presentation um I'm just
087going to keep the president's announcement short there's uh so many things that are going on in the schools uh again not only in the schools but with our our Recreation Department as well um so if you would kindly just go to our website and look at the peach jar section and that's where uh everything going on in the district is posted by schools uh so there's a lot of a lot of things that will be coming up um over the next few weeks for the holiday season so I hope all of you will take a look at it support any of the fundraisers that are happening which help our kids and help our programs uh I hate having to switch classes all right we're going to move on to um I don't think I did
088minutes where are they oh number nine okay number nine adoption of the minutes of our regular meeting of October 20th motion by Ms basford second second by Mr Canova discussion seeing none roll call please Mr abadrabo he stepped away for a second Mr Awad Miss basford yes Miss Beltran yes Mr Canova yes Mr Paris yes vice president Daley yes president Smith yes motion carries all right we'll move down to number 12 uh first reading of policy uh so I have two four five two Community Education and uh five five one two uh is the Hib any discussion okay hearing none will move on um miss kusilevic this is uh your time for uh your presentation foreign by the way just to let everyone know if you're hearing uh beeping sounds and Rumblings happening they're either
089Paving the road outside or scraping it down or whatever so um those are some of the sounds that you might hear good evening Commissioners ladies and gentlemen um it's a pleasure to be back here again with you um once again talking about assessment so typically I just give two assessment presentations a year one that is the mandated required reporting on our state assessments and then one on our local assessments unfortunately the New Jersey Department of Education added several assessments this year and the legal requirement is that within 60 days of the fine um of the final release of each assessment cycle we must give a presentation so you've already heard me speaking about State assessments I've spoken about are NJ SLA Assessments in language arts Math and Science from last spring we've spoken about the
090access scores for our English language Learners and the dlm for our special needs students then the doe decided to Pilot the NJ GPA last year which is what part of what we'll talk about tonight but the majority of tonight's focus is on our local data data that we control data that is driven by our own Clifton teachers who develop our local Assessments in collaboration across each course so that we can see what our students are doing how they're doing in comparison to themselves to their peers here in Clifton and overall assessing the benefits and strengths of our own local programs and guess what I'm gonna have to after this presentation come back yet another time because njdo we added these start strong assessment again this year at the beginning so that's going to come probably
091at the next board meeting and then they're doing double dlms so you'll be hearing about that from me as well so this is kind of like the middle of our assessment series for this school year anyway here we go tonight we're talking about the NJ GPA local assessments and District actions so what is the NJ GPA the Department of Education decided to start phasing out a portion of the assessments formerly known as Park currently known as the njsla for algebra geometry Algebra 2 and English 10. those will still be required for 9th graders but 11th graders are now piloting this field test of NJ GPA as a graduation assessment the 2022 scores which I'm sharing with you tonight are exclusively a field test and in June the governor decided that this year's 2023 scores will
092also be a field test what we see here are our results on the English language arts portion and the math portion disaggregated by the various subgroups we released those isrs to our families those are the individual student reports those have been sent home and you can see there's a link to the resources for parents parents can create a portal and access all kinds of explanations and support components to this piloted field test now what we look at for graduation Readiness measures is not this field test but we rely instead on the more tried and true SAT and ACT if you look at our results here you see that our mean sat evidence-based reading and writing scores for language arts exceed the national average and it's the same for the mean s.a.t math score so 75
093percent of our students met that sat Benchmark for language arts and 60 for math once again exceeding National averages the ACT approximates averages in most areas across that assessment these measures are to us more accurate more tried and true and consistent for us to look at rather than the piloted field test of an NJ GPA now we'll be looking at our local assessment data we're going to start with our kindergarteners our incoming kindergartners so locally we do a screening for our kindergarten students what we see here is the Baseline score of our kindergartners who came in in 2021 after having been in most cases shut out of preschool for a third of the Year during the pandemic shutdown and then in the brown we see how they increased in the areas of letter naming fluency
094high frequency words and rhyming words from that 2021 year to the incoming group of 2022. our guided reading scores dipped slightly but they're still approximate when we look at our current at our kindergartners going into first grade we are seeing that comparing the fall of to the fall of 2022 our average guided reading level went from a baseline of 3.8 to a baseline of 4.1 what we see here is our star reading this is a normed assessment that is taken online by students in grades two through eight looking at our star reading scores we see that our students maintained their scale score growth all the way from 2019. so last year I spoke to you about this and here we see another example of it there's kind of a misnomer about pandemic learning loss there
095are some areas that definitely need support and growth but reading was one of those areas where our students have been able to keep their Baseline readings scores since 2019 so each year students coming in um since that time are starting at approximately the same level as kids from from 2019. the area that we're most proud of is looking at how we measure our independent student reading these are our K-8 language arts highlights in K through two our students use a program called Raz-Kids to serve and measure their independent reading and in grades two through eight they utilize myON reader and Accelerated Reader also to measure those those independent reading levels as well as independent reading amount what we see here besides the growth of students is the total number of books read in 2122 school
096year last year our students read 619 books in grades um K-8 that was an increase of 91 283 books over the previous school year of 2021. our language arts curriculum focuses on reading reading foundational skills language and writing we see from Arcata one data that our students grew in sight words letter naming alphabetic principles sentence dictation and rhyming words and as I mentioned before although the guided reading level fell slightly as compared to Prior years in grades K in grades one and up students did maintain their Baseline averages in grades two through eight the star Benchmark shows either maintenance or growth from Baseline in their Lexile scores um our language arts teachers were supported by both their supervisor as well as literacy coaches and thanks to our Esser funds we have been able to increase
097some reading Specialists for the duration of the Esser funding um and the most exciting part is that last year we began the rollout of our book vending machines in collaboration with PBS is to really motivate independent reading and get books into our students hands another measure of independent reading is our book circulation last school year at the high school middle school and Elementary School you see six over 6 500 books read at the high school 7 800 circulated at the middle school and 86 000 circulated at the elementary schools right now just in September to November of this school year we're almost halfway to where the circulation was last year at the high school we're about a third of the way for the middle school and we're also about a third of the way for
098elementary school so I think we'll be increasing the circulation total circulation of books this coming year now we're looking at our local assessments over the years the board has asked that we measure our students against themselves and some of these grade level spans we're going to be measuring them and that's what we saw with their independent reading levels when we look at our quarterlies we're looking at our writing quarterly from the pandemic year to the where we were remote for the majority of the year to last school year where although we were back in person we still had significant amount of quarantining as well as student masking despite that we see an increase of 84 percent of our students passing their writing quarterly with a 70 or higher um in 2021 to 95 of our
099students passing that quarterly with a 70 or higher in 20 21 22. for 10th grade those rates were 72 percent to 82 percent in 11th grade it was 79 to 94 percent and in senior year it was 89 to 92 percent and the majority of our areas of strength were inciting textual evidence and here we just have a different presentation of that same data now we'll be transitioning to math in math we see from the light green to the yellow across grade levels K through five significant growth from placement tests to post-test the dark green is the end-of-year test but that's not a drop in it in those areas the fourth grade end of year the fourth marking period end-of-year test was based exclusively on the material for marking period three to the end of
100the year based on our pandemic modifications for math grade 3 does continue to be adjusted that group of students were in first grade during the initial shutdown so we are still working to support some of their foundational mathematics skills for our third graders in grades six through eight we also see that significant growth from the placement test to the marking period three quarterly and once again that data was used to drive instruction and solidify areas of focus in marking periods two three and four we provided modified quarterlies for our special needs students for ESL students at scoring at levels one and two our and our at-risk students based on their IEPs inrs plan or ESL modifications overall our local data in math does show increases across the year and our curriculum Focus which during the
101shutdown and the 2021 pandemic year focused primarily on major content and supporting content we finally balanced it back to com to teach both areas and have shifted back to station learning our elementary and middle school poachers were providing support uh to our staff and teachers of the middle school started adding a whole new component of teacher-led stations the math supervisor and coaches were supporting teachers with Google meets and coaching visits as well as visiting all of our elementary schools um this was our second year of implementation of the updated envisions K five and six eight both of which started the year that we had our shutdowns and when we look at our K-8 highlights we see that our strengths are in the areas of major content and the areas of instructional Focus are in supporting
102content things like graphing a linear equation at the high school once again we are looking at our high school students based on their marking period quarterlies here we are looking at marking period one to marking period four of the 21 to 22 school year so this one is students compared to themselves 61 percent of our students passed with a 70 or better in marking period one increasing to 66 percent with a 70 or better in marking period four in geometry 74 percent passed with a seven year better in marking period 1 71 percent passed with a 70 or better in marking period four in Algebra 2 68 of our students passed with a 70 or better in marking period 1 and 74 percent were passing with a seven year better by the end of the
103school year we are looking at our algebra geometry and Algebra 2 marking period for data and we do see growth across um marking period one through four now imagine math is probably our most accurate tool imagine math adjusts to what how a student is performing while they're utilizing the program this is an online program that we have leveraged since the pan throughout and since the pandemic and this program has really allowed our students to focus on the skills that they individually need support on we have multiple Pathways for our students with imagine math either the pathway that supports their instruction following pacing and then there is the individualized pathway that modifies based on their own independent strengths and weaknesses what we see here is from the first Benchmark in dark blue to the third Benchmark
104in dark green we are able to see steady growth for all of our students against themselves in K through five and then in the blue through gray in grades six through eight in grades 9 through 12 we are looking at students holding steady across their time in algebra one Algebra 1 l e in the gray and geometry now this where we see scores going up and then down blue to green it's because this is looking at the proficiency bands what we're seeing is that we're seeing more students performing in advanced and the proficient man fewer students performing in basic below basic and far basic those are the direct those are the directions we want we want as the year progresses more kids in the higher bands and less kids in the lower bands and that's
105exactly what this is showing us so what is our K-12 imagine math analysis tell us well last year the students our students K-12 completed 705 330 lessons in Imagine math answering 13 million problems over 3 000 of our students in grades 3 through 12 utilized the live teacher function so while they're using this program that's kind of a gamified program it's almost like playing a video game they were able to access a live teacher if they found themselves struggling the really cool thing about imagine math is since it is like a video game so students earn tokens those tokens Can Be redeemed in grades K through two Four Points in the game little Avatar fixes but in grades three through twelve those tokens cannot not only be used for your avatar but those tokens can
106be used to donate real money to charity so our three through plus grade level students earned 193 million tokens and most of our children chose to donate their tokens to charity instead of just jazzing up their Avatar that meant that Clifton was number one in New Jersey and number nine in the United States for charitable giving through imagine math [Applause] we're using math to teach the whole child and look at that we're teaching Civics Through Math who knew now we're transitioning on to science in our science quarterlies uh we're comparing year to year um and in the 2021-12 school year uh 74.6 percent of our students uh were scoring a 70 or better in 22-23 it was 73.1 in chemistry we went from 74.8 into the 21-22 school year um for their Baseline for the
107first marking period to 73.6 in the current Baseline this marking period and for physics last March last year in September of 76.5 percent of our students um scored 70 or better and this year on our Baseline for physics we had 72.3 percent of our students scoring proficient how are we addressing our needs in science well we have brand new science resources k through eight this year two fully um stem integrated Hands-On science programs in elementary and middle school and at the high school we have introduced multiple new courses let between last year and this year AP environmental science introduction to Allied Health Professions Allied Health terminology Kinesiology and marine biology a great highlight was that last year our mechanical Mustangs returned to in-person First competitions and we finished within the top 10 of our region
108um the piece that I think is fantastic is our AP scores 76.9 of our students taking AP Bio scored A3 or better and that exceeded both the New Jersey and the global average for AP Bio and 80 of our students scored three or better on the AP Chemistry and that was also um exceeding the New Jersey average and the global average when we look at history we see we're looking at this time student compared to themselves last year's marking period one to marking period three in world history we see an increase from 71 to 74 scoring 70 or better on their quarterly from marking period one to marking period three we see 79 to 75 percent in American history one 69 to 72 percent in American history too our highlights in social studies include our
109focus on National History Day additional Club offerings including the psychology Club model un mock trials U.S history Club Academic Decathlon and our Student Union and once again here for AP scores while we approximate National and Global averages for U.S history one and psychology we far exceed um the national and New Jersey averages for U.S government AP U.S government and politics assessment so what are our district actions regarding our strengths and the areas that we still need to work on we have been utilizing these state and local assessment data as well as classroom performance to drive instruction our supervisors work with our teachers to take our local and state data and make adjustments to pacing make adjustment pivot whenever is needed provide interventions where necessary um and address our pacing we've been streamlining our pacing charts
110to give more time on a little bit fewer standards we thanks to Esser funding as well as local funding and the generosity of this board we've been able to expand before and after school Saturday and summer programs through the end of the Esser funding in 2024 we have increased online tutoring support through tutor.com which is available to all students in grades 4 through 12 right on their Google Classroom waffle um then they can just click and get help from a live tutor within minutes in every content area as well as we've increased the live teacher functions in multiple online programs we're prioritizing our foundational reading and writing skills Hands-On activities and station work and we're really leveraging those Esser funds to increase counselors psychologists social workers intervention teachers you see the district focus on pbsis
111looking at the whole child and motivating our students not just through the universal interventions that you get to hear about here when Finley the dolphin comes or some other amazing fun activity occurs but the real work of pbsis is the setting of the expectations and then creating and providing the tier two and tier 3 interventions through our counselors our social workers and our intervention teachers um we are still prioritizing mental health we do still we are still experiencing many behavioral concerns with students more so than ever before um it's going to take our students another year or two to catch up to their interpersonal communication skills that have been delayed as a result of the pandemic disruptions and then the masking through last March we are implementing additional supports for special education uh we thanks
112to Esser have some math and reading writing instructional coaches for our special education program we have a new preschool special education Master teacher an additional child study team and we're targeting special education reading support as well all thanks to Esser funding so when that funding Runs Out that's going to be a challenge and that's something we do need to consider as we move into this new budget is how we're going to sustain some of these extra supports once Esther funding goes away um we're also extending our 9 18 through 21 year old program providing community-based instruction ensuring that we're addressing all of our children from pre-k through those who have special needs in ages 18 to 21 allowing them to have some supported scaffolded transition into the workforce and again thank you to the lingering
113results of covid we really do have a lot of District actions focused on counseling um again thanks to Esther funding and title IV funding we are contracted with Tri-County Behavioral Services for two additional clinicians to provide support across schools and help families receive some of the mental help support families who don't have financial means to get it themselves we've added to social workers on the counseling side and one on the pbsis side to provide the needed Social Work support that also functions as a tier two or tier three intervention through pbsis our 10th graders are going to have the opportunity in March to become certified in Teen Mental Health First Aid so our students can help support one another and know when and how to refer their peers to help our counseling student service to
114have on the website are electronic Outreach virtual calming room are all all keep continually being updated with resources and our teen center continues to be a resource so as you can see we are trying to address our whole child pre-k through adults across our content areas but also for their social emotional and behavioral needs um questions any board members have any questions no see none oh I'm sorry um thank you Mr President uh Janina an excellent presentation as usual um I was going to have some of this discussion or make some of these things uh during my remarks but since uh you presented this uh this report I think it's I proposed to highlight some of the things um and you've mentioned it several times in in your presentation about Esser funds or or have
115an end life to them yes um and one of the things I'd like to um really address the parents in the district whose students are not doing so well now is the time for you folks to come to the district and ask your principal or your teacher if they need extra help whatever you can't be coming here in May calling the superintendent's office to say my my kids like graduating they're not you're falling behind here parents you need to step up and take responsibility we have the resources at this point in time and you need to take advantage of that you can't be waiting you have to know what you're what your child is doing how they're progressing and if there are issues now is the time to come not in in this late spring
116when there's uh issues going forward these funds will not be around to give the level of attention that's required you see all over the national news people complain well the kids weren't in school we had a pandemic I mean they make this political we had a pandemic uh basically the nation was shut down and half shut down and our children were not able to get into the classroom now they are and we are catching up and this district is doing a very good job in addressing those issues so the students do catch up it takes time to do that but I can't stress enough and I think Miss Bruce levied you underlined this uh more than adequately in this report parents you need to know what your child's doing if they have problems again you
117need to come to the district or come to your principal or your teacher and say hey my students having problems we need some extra help here it's there now it won't be there forever and and now is the time to do that so that's kind of an editorial but I wanted to really since this was such a great report emphasize that uh budgetarily uh the next budget will probably be the last budget where we have a significant increase in state aid the state will continue to fund uh Pre-K but other than that we're going to be flatlining so from not this budget but the budget after our budget is going to be very constrained and the budgets if you're going to have to have increases we may have to go to the voters after not
118this year but the year after or the year after that in order to get the increases to sustain some of these programs so that's and I'm kind of the budget walk here so uh but that's what's coming in and you have to understand that but Janina thank you very much for the very comprehensive and informative report thank you Mr President yes I apologize for the mask but I'm don't want to share the wealth of this lovely whatever I have going on um what are some of the resources that the district has to help students in need if they're having emotional Financial any kind of problems that they have what are some of the things that Clifton Public Schools offer so if you go to the counseling page you're going to see links for most of
119that but you can just reach out to your school principal and they can refer you in the counseling department we have as I said between the counseling department and pbsis we do have social work support we have our district behaviorists who are being deployed wherever we have students who need behavioral support we're leveraging the pbsis program to deploy some of those supports so that Universal tier is what every school and every student is doing for everyone but tier two is hey I need referral to a social worker hey I need referral to a counselor hey I need to referral to the basic skills program during the school day or perhaps after school tutoring that's offered in most of our schools some virtual after school tutoring or just utilizing some of the electronic programs like tutor.com
120like I said every fourth through 12th grader can address tutor.com from there Google Waffle um for just about any subject the president if you don't mind so if a student say middle school high school has has an issue instead of if in case the the teacher or one of the Professionals in one of the Departments doesn't identify that student and a student is struggling something's going on at the home you know they have crisis what can they do they can reach out to a counselor in their building the parent can reach out to the central office to our counseling department who can then help deploy um that assistance whether it be a social worker a behaviorist or some of our psychologists or counselors and we we advertise that we we don't keep that quiet we
121do we publicize excuse me Dr Robert do we publicize information to the students that they have supports in our buildings the the websites the website is consistently updated I'm sorry to interrupt the website is consistently updated um with all of the most recent information whenever anything goes out from the counseling department um they have all of the links to the various crisis lines and ways to to seek out help thank you very much for your answers and thank you for a very comprehensive report and your your voice is very soothing I'm sorry you should do infomercials um miss kuslevich the um I think it's so great in the 10th grade you mentioned that they get the first aid uh training is that um that's mental uh there's there's regular first aid training in our health
122program but they're getting Teen Mental Health First Aid where our students will be able to say hey my friend needs help this is where I've got to go tell someone um and and they can look for key words behaviors um cues and signals that their friends might be giving off that they are in crisis and then identify that so they can go ask for help say hey so and so is behaving like this they need help and just I think it's great is there a reason why we wait till 10th grade and not in ninth grade um this is a brand new Grant this is something that we just started uh the key TurnKey people at the high school which included all of our counselors Vice principals principal and High School nurses were all trained
123in this program on the PD day um on November 8th last week and they are now going to be rolling this program out in the 10th grade thank you thank you again for a great presentation thank you we look forward to seeing you for many uh other presentations sadly I'll have to come back for two more of State data I am sorry it's a requirement understood we thank you we know a lot of preparation goes into these presentations so thank you very much thank you okay we're going to move on to uh committee reports um [Music] policy Mr Roberto thank you president Smith policy meeting began at 307 pm on November 14th attendees were report president Smith myself administrative president was Mr Ross as well as our attorneys Gutierrez policy 2461 was recommended to be
124abolished as there is only required for private schools for students with disabilities Educational Service commissions joins your commissions Regional day schools and County Special Service school districts policy 5512 harassment intimidation bullying recommendation of adoption of the arrives revised policy with the changes that's proposed by stress Esme to remain complying with the changes recently made to the law the committee discussed the possibility of adopting a light duty policy deferred further consideration pending a review and recommendation by the board's legal counsel it is in its continuing review of policies the committee review the policies all adopted prior to 2015 uh number one is 2452 which Community Education the word shall will be replaced with the word may as it appears twice in the first sentence of the first paragraph and once in the second sentence of the
125first paragraph as it appears once in the first sentence to the second paragraph following policies are recommended to remain as they are with no changes and these policies will be remarked as reviewed with today's board meeting uh date in our policy book on the district website where the policies are kept and those are 2430 co-curricular activities 24 40 summer session 2466 needless public labeling of students with disabilities 2468 is independent educational evaluations 2480 alternative education programs 2510 adoption of textbooks 2530 resource materials 2531 use of copyrighted materials 2551 musical instruments and 2624 grading system the meeting was adjourned at 3 22 PM respectfully signed by Mr Lou Ross invites me ad Mr President um that I believe gets us past the 2000 series and the 1000 series and next step is gonna be a 3000
126Series you got any questions I know I've said it before um but there was only two people present from the board at this meeting and the other one is the same so I know I'm leaving the board but in the future maybe next time if you could divvy up the Committees a little bit better so that though everyone has like an opportunity to at least the other people that were assigned to that uh canceled out at the last I mean literally we were we weren't even aware we said where are you and they said I can't make it exactly so maybe like some sort of you can bring it to policy maybe to have some sort of check-in you know it's obviously not gonna be perfect but well normally normally I do and I send
127a text message are you gonna make it and the answer was yes you know it's not just that policy meeting I'm saying in general the next um the education was also only two members without you or the vice president just an observation is the president I have a question uh also can we get a list of what Apollo what committees are meeting during the month we used to get that we're not getting that anymore because if we have something or questions for that committee we don't have to wait till after the fact thank you yeah if I'm not mistaken um I don't know if it's coming from Administration uh that the agendas are coming out uh so if you have anything to add to that meeting the agendas are being sent out before the meeting
128okay um Mr Paris would you do education please sure thank you the education and special education committee uh met on October 18th at 3 P.M president or Miss Danny the chairperson myself Dr arbitosi MS kusilevich MR gengaro Ms Rotolo Ms Turi and uh as a guest miss rangosa the New Jersey quality single accountability continuum or NJ Cusack was first discussed Ms Kusa levich provided an overview of the Cusack process and discussed the timeline New Jersey Cusack steering committee will meet twice prior to submitting the self-assessment on November 15th the executive County Superintendent will lead the review to verify the district's self-assessment action will be taken by the board on a board of ed presentation from October 20th uh special education update from Ms Rotolo she indicated that her Department continues to work collaboratively with the
129special education parent advisory group or short acronym is cpag the next meeting is November 30th and will be held virtually the group won a grant from the Clifton Education Association for a pumpkin patch at the Halloween extravaganza on October 27th the district nurtured heart approached trainer will be conducting an overview training that for the power professionals on October 28th District staff and administrators are invited to participate in the training in November uh the referrals to the special education department have increased this year and the need for more special education interventions increase as well in 21 in the 21-22 year there were 585 referrals for special education evaluation to date the district is on track to exceed that record number the district is closely monitoring class sizes student needs the increase in referrals to special education
130the increase in Need for Behavioral interventions and training for our staff um ell program Ms kuslevich and Miss Banning reported that there has been an unprecedented increase in the number of ell from 652 in October of 2021 to over 1060 to date between Ells and ell refusals we have a sharp increase in Asylum Seekers and refugees the majority of these students are arriving from Peru Colombia Ukraine and turkey among others we've added multiple ESL sections additional staff and our monitoring enrollment in all the bilingual magnet programs we're reviewing the data and may need two additional bilingual programs in Turkish and Ukrainian in the 2223 school year uh topic of preschool expansion Ms kusilevich updated the committee About Preschool expansion the state Peg funds require that the district continue to add classrooms to meet the full
131Universe of three and four-year-old students currently have 60 preschool classrooms and will need up to 20 more in the 2023-24 school year our public schools are at capacity the district continues to explore additional space on the topic of instructional space in response to the expanded need for classrooms for special education ell students and preschool programs the district continues to look at maximizing space our K-8 schools have reached the maximum capacity for General and special education class sections as well as preschool and ell classes the district continues to look at multiple options including exploring the possible use of the former Pope pole High School meeting was adjourned at 3 55. okay any questions yes okay so with the report that we're getting from um the education committee which I just Googled in my I mean I
132searched I didn't get I didn't get an agenda I got one for policy so if uh maybe I'm not on the list I don't know um there was a there's a conversation about behavioral issues it keeps on coming up with the presentation in this I hope that in this board's next budget we put money aside for this because this is really going to be an issue in the next couple years we with the effects of covid and everything else going down how are we going to address this so this board coming in 2023 we have some serious issues and as Mr Daley had stated that we have some uh programs that we're going to ending funding on so you know financially yes we're great in great standings now but in a couple of years we
133you know we're in trouble because if the boat the boats the hole is going to get bigger in the boat and you know our fingers can't plug the hole much longer so I hope that come 2023 in January this board starts focusing more on addressing the behavioral issues of the students in this District because you see it across the board across the state when I was the convention most people were talking about their issues of having behavioral problems in the districts thank you okay any other questions on education okay seeing none we'll move on to uh unfinished business any unfinished business um okay we'll move on to um expression of condolence Mr abadravo did you read that please thank you president Smith excuse me whereas on October 21 2022 the community noted with sorrow the
134passing of Mr Frank T gashion and whereas Mr gacchiona served the city of Clifton as a councilman from 20 from 2002 2006 Sebastian lent his support to the city of Clifton serving on the parade committee that organized the Memorial Day and Veterans Day parades volunteering with Clifton's Avenue Flags supported the Clifton football booster club of which he was a member the Clifton Little League Clifton Major League Clifton Recreation Department other organizations throughout New Jersey now therefore be resolved that this resolution be forwarded to his Berry family to serve as an expression of the great Regard in which Mr gacchione served the citizens of Clifton be further resolved that the con I'm sorry that the contents of this resolution be noted in their entirety in the official minutes of the Clifton Board of Education for future
135generations to progress dated November 17 2022. second by Miss basford um anyone that did not know Mr gashion um he had such a kind heart he was always willing to help and um and his time on as a city councilman he was always dedicated to education um it was very important uh for him and for his children as well so uh Frank uh Frank was a a leader in the in the community specifically for veterans he was the chairperson for the Veterans Day Parade that takes place each and every year goes out and gets funding for that so that the taxpayer does not have to pay they get all those bans to come into the parade and all the groups uh participate in the parade but uh he was a founding member to the veterans
136parade committee and worked very hard for it so Frank will truly be missed in in that area as well any other discussion roll call please Mr abadravo absolutely yes Mr Awad yes Miss basford yes Miss Beltran yes Mr Canova yes Mr Paris yes vice president daily yes and president Smith yes okay we'll move on to education and administration Mr President yes just as a reminder uh if we can pull six seven and eight and then I skip those no before we vote on edge oh okay six seven eight need to be pulled before we go to the back gotcha in here right so we'll uh a motion to do ea1 and then 9 10 and 11. motion by Mr abadravo second bite Mr Awad is there a discussion for the school calendar are we that
137change isn't made here are we making that just on the Fly I probably have to make a we have to make a motion the changes I mentioned in my report right just to amend it to to include those items yeah so do we have to say that again or no yeah and the motion is anyone have an objection to that with the changes that the superintendent is going to make to the calendar we all know about the changes [Music] okay any other discussion roll call please Mr abidrabo yes Mr Awad yes Miss basford yes Miss Beltran yes Mr Canova yes Mr Paris yes vice president Daley yes president Smith yes ocean security uh just for the Public's uh uh knows that six seven and eight are uh student matters for executive session okay we'll move
138on to uh Personnel we have uh P1 through p41 motion motion by Mr drabo second second by Mr rawad Mr Smith yes Paul P 21 22 23 for executive okay 21 22 23 pulled for executive session uh those are um uh contract negotiation managers right is that the category yeah oh personal okay so those are pulled for executive session for personnel okay [Music] roll call please Mr abadravo yes Mr owa yes Miss basford yes Beltran yes Mr Canova yes Mr Paris yes abstain on 34 and 35. vice president Daley yes with the amendments president Smith yes excuse me I need to abstain on 34. sorry no problem okay make that adjustment sorry all right next we have finance and Facilities we have F1 through f11 motion by Mr avidrabo second by Mr rawad discussion seeing
139none roll call please hold on oh I'm sorry yeah I have three items that um they deal with the attorney's bills that I'd like to discuss in executive session it has to do with um a client privilege there was three entries I don't have questions on all right so just uh just those items yes we'll prove the rest yes I'm going to prove all of it I just have questions on what what what transpired there was a conversation I'd like to know about okay any other questions okay roll call please Mr abidrabo yes with the potential f-11 Mr Awad yes Miss basford Miss Beltran yes Mr Canova yes Mr Paris uh yes abstina 12. vice president Daley yes president Smith yes motions Carrie okay we'll move on to uh board member comments foreign Okay so
140last week was uh Dana so uh this week I miss basford you lead off no Dana went first last week yep foreign with me all right so congratulations to the three new Commissioners um for being elect commissioner elect you have a lot of work in front of you and I hope I'm an advocate for training and what New Jersey school boards has to offer take advantage of it it's a very very good resource for you to learn the do's and the don'ts and the rights and the wrongs and plus you get to meet a lot of people through the state and the county and you have a good resource with people from other districts that um have passion that other people don't understand why we're doing this but uh it's it's okay uh personal note
141um to the guession family um I was I was raised in a democratic family DieHard Democratic mom who instilled uh voting and everything like that so I I'm friends with Frank gacion for a long time and his family and he asked me to help him with his campaign this is Fast Forward years ago so he wanted me to vote for him and I said I can't vote for your your Republican at a meeting we had a committee meeting he made me call my mother and get permission for me to change parties just for the vote and then I changed parties the next day Frank was like a second uncle in my family um to Chrissy Joey skuch and Jimmy and Joanne especially to Joanne my condolences to all of you I know how hard this
142is Frank was a good guy and he always we just say everybody runs for a reason what's your reason and make sure your reason sticks that's what he used to say to me so God bless you and God bless you that you find it uh some peace through this very difficult time I have some questions about where the Student Art is I haven't heard anything follow up on that um to all the speakers your concerns have been heard by this commissioner I do not speak for the board I speak for myself but you have been heard by me I have questions for the superintendent I write down everybody what they say and I put little notes by them little stars I do follow up with him I drive him crazy but um I do not
143represent the board but I I speak from my heart and I speak as an individual I have questions about the nurses about the power professionals which are the backbone the backbone of this district and I know firsthand what a power professional can do and have an effect on a human being's life so I hope we find money for that we find money for everything else so I hope we find money for that um Dr Robitussin you didn't tell them about the fun part of convention about the wingman about the the ability to use your feet to move a can around the room and I'm gonna hope that maybe that we can have that team come in in January and do a team building exercise with this new board it was fun every time you dropped
144that can it came back two people to me so I'd have to pick up the can again and move it and it went about 10 times so you know I'm not as agile as I was young but I learned how to swing the hips to get that can over there but we had a lot of fun that day and the kids were amazing your son was amazing how he led the group and you should be very proud of your son and what a terrific young man he has developed into I hope the program can come to this District because they really were helping each other and it was about teamwork so I'd like to see maybe that come here um console condolences to the brunsiak family on the tragic loss of uh Mark's father-in-law um
145condolences to you and your family um let's see what else I have I have so much to hear uh Italian Club somebody brought that up so maybe we can look at finding somebody that can come in and and facilitate that so we can advance the Italian Heritage of that group because password I was told that we do perfect okay good I scratched that off the list I'm sorry I'm a little disorganized but with all the distractions outside that's what happens to the ADHD brain um I want to say something I said uh and it just bothers me that there are many different kind of peoples in this world as there are colors in the rainbow everyone offers value to our world it's about respect and celebrating our differences I was going to leave you with
146a Thanksgiving poem but I think that's the best way to leave tonight there are many different kinds of people as there are colors of the rainbow everyone offers value to our world it's about respect and celebrating our differences have a very wonderful and bountiful Feast on Thanksgiving if you got a lot give if you don't have a lot and you can give somebody else needs it I will be sharing whatever we have in my house and my house is always open if anybody needs a dinner come on over God bless you okay Mr Canova all right good evening uh first time we just want to give congratulations to school number eight um I want to give my sincere condolences to the Brunswick family on the loss of uh of his father-in-law um the nursing shortage
147and the power is an agreement with Ms bassford I think that you know those are things that we need I think we should find money for those uh so we should probably speak about those um someone mentioned School nines traffic's uh situation we I remember the last meeting I think we even presented it we spoke with the in the municipal Alliance meeting about things that we could possibly do they were putting up uh something that looked like a speed thing but it really wasn't it was going to determine how many cars were were driving in that area or something like that so there is something in the works um I don't know that that's really any more that we can do other than to provide maybe some some crossing guards or something else you know
148some but really that's more of a city thing so I would say instead of waiting for the next meeting because I only know I know we only met met like once this year instead of waiting for that meeting maybe we should just contact the city manager and see what we can do and you know report back to the board um so other than that I do want to congratulate everyone that got in oh the new Commissioners coming in Anthony Richard and Mark on their election at the board of ed while this is not the last meeting unfortunately it's my last meeting my brother's wedding is the same night I'm In conflict of the next meeting so I won't be here so while I love you guys he has an open bar and you don't so
149I'm just saying um but congratulations to everyone that won um this this position is a position to represent the town and guide the students to success while it may not be a paid position I promise it's a rewarding feeling to know that your contributions are helping kids succeed and to the people who didn't get on I would advise them never to give up failing is necessary in life and appropriate when you and appreciate it you appreciate it when you succeed I'd like to thank everyone who supported me throughout this whole experience well I want to thank the voters for my time on the board of ed thank you to my friends and family who are understanding of the time commitment and to what it is we do here so how did I get involved I
150have to rewind back to my daughter's attending school and I wanted to attend the Board of Ed meetings just to see as a dad I was interested in what was going on in the schools and I found out that my daughter didn't have a music class and I brought it up at a board meeting and it snowballed it to a bigger issue of a budget concern and I found out that Clifton had been underfunded by 50 million dollars yearly for the past 10 years from the state so at that point I created a website for our our community and petition our elect to our legislators and rallied with Clifton students on a martian Town Hall I joined other towns to petition the state for Clifton to get our fair share in funding that fight Was
151Won and it opened up a 50 50 million dollar Revenue stream to be phased in for us since that fight Clifton now has 115 million more in funding from the state going forward from that 26 million and this year 68 million and soon to be 76 million going forward at that point I ran for Board of Ed I didn't even think I would get it in because I'm not a politician I was just the dad trying to help a community and give my girls a great education and Future but I was humbled by the community who believed in me and voted for me in the first place I was ecstatic and knew that there was a long way to go but was excited for the challenging experience since a lot of what we do here
152power loves my job at Berkeley College our first order of business was to hire a superintendent and we knocked that one out of the park we have an amazing superintendent who changed the dynamic of the district his communication style is the right fit for Clifton he continues to put the right people in the right places to continue the path forward and I couldn't be happier with our choice our board reviews that reviewed the schools together to get an assessment of what we just needed and found that many were in terrible state our board reached and found out it researched and found out that a referendum was a way to get a discount where the state pitched in for our facilities projects so long as it was approved by the voters Clifton voters showed that our
153refs around them vote that our schools were priority by voting in a two to one for a historical referendum to get us back on track and take care of and take care of I jumped here yeah and I am the technology chair um mm-hmm hold on hold on okay um so as long as it was approved by the voters they they voted in a 2-1 historical referendum to get them back on track for our facilities we implemented many security enhancements most of which I can't speak about publicly but they make Clifton School safe and that's a top priority in the climate we're in at njsba I was attending the county meetings and interviewed it first and selected for njsba board of directors that was also an honor serving on the state level for kids in
154their education then we got hit with a global pandemic but there was always light at the end of the tunnel we got to go 101 with technology we learned how to operate remotely for both student learning and our meetings and parents got to see our American how amazing our teachers really are as a parent I was initially worried about sending my kids to middle and high school what I learned was that Clifton teachers really cared greatly about our kids um a mother tonight shared her story about a teacher going above and beyond the father about principles going above and beyond these stories are not unique our staff really does only all they can to ensure our kids are taken care of and and my daughters are currently attending school three and CCMS but the best
155feeling of all in this board is handing out the diplomas and watching the families so proud of their loved ones which makes this all worthwhile in the end each one of us strives to make our district better than where we left it we all bring something to the table a special unique skill that allows us a different perspective when looking at the situation at hand when I came on this board I said it takes a village and it does I'm proud of what we accomplished and I want to thank my fellow board members for your support as well as the board members I sort of served on this board with through my tenure they work very hard to ensure we are doing everything possible to ensure it could succeed while I may not be on
156this side of the the day is next year I will be just as active from the other side as I have always been if anyone needs my help or support in any way feel free to reach out that goes for the newly elected board members as well and much like me I'm sure you will continue I will continue to see all of you even Jim and Dana as people like us can never sit still but I wish you all the best in everything you do so what's up next in my opinion continuing evaluating our security keeping pressure on the state for our funding needs lobbying our elected officials for lunch to be included in school so there's no impediment to success retooling the mission statement to fit the district continuing relationship building within the town
157evaluate the space we have and we what we need to lower our classroom ratios completing all the referendum projects and coming up with something similar for our academics where we Baseline what we have and dream where we can be as we pave the road to get there I'd like to thank everyone for your your time and opportunity to serve it was a pleasure working with you have a Happy Thanksgiving Happy Holidays a merry Christmas and a happy New Year thank you [Applause] uh Joe well we know that you'll be um uh attending your brother's wedding uh for our December meeting um we will um ask you please to uh attend the uh the January 6th uh meeting um so [Laughter] so the board could officially uh thank you so um thank you I just wanted
158everyone to know that he won't be here for the December meeting um next Lucy's not here so Mr Parish here next thank you Mr Smith huh uh just a couple of uh activities coming up one was mentioned earlier on Wednesday uh November 23rd uh the Mustang band is performing there under the lights program at the stadium at 7 pm it's a free program um and it's a great one which kind of highlights everything they've put together this year on Saturday December 3rd at 4 pm the community band is having a free holiday concert at the CHS Auditorium um I think we're supposed to have a surprise visitor there too I won't say who it is that's uh Saturday December 3rd at 4 pm um congratulations to the school 8 pbsis team um thank you to
159uh Joe Jim and Dana I've only had the opportunity to work with you this this one year but I know the great work you've done and and the kind of time and effort and dedication it took um and you made this school system a much better place for your for your actions here and I I we'll we'll miss you sorely to our new uh board members congratulations and I'd like to Second Miss passwords comments that uh the New Jersey School Board Association uh is a great place and this is coming from someone who just went through a lot of training in my first year um also the county uh meetings you get great information expert speakers um it's very helpful to get yourself planted and and some knowledge under your belt to help Be an
160Effective board member so I would encourage you to take advantage of that um and lastly just a happy safe and wonderful Thanksgiving to everyone enjoy it with your family your friends um and we'll see in December thank you uh next we have Mr abujabo thanks president Smith uh I want to start out by saying congratulations to our new colleagues Richie Mark and Anthony um Richie since you're here being the first of many in various aspects and being youngest means a lot but also means nothing when you don't do anything with it and that what does that mean that means that you're going to have a lot in your shoulders in terms of what to learn how to process how to understand things quickly by hitting the ground running and doing the best you can for
161district keeping in mind that you're doing it for the district and for the district only so congratulations to you and good luck and I look forward to working with you um didn't know Joe's last meeting was today but joking um thanks for the service of the district you really did have the district at heart um not because just because your daughters are in the district but you really saw that everybody in the district really was really a part of the family and you you truly meant it and it was uh an honor working with you School nurses and paraprofessionals um salaries recruit and retain is important and finding the money to recruit and retain is is a hard process but the one thing I don't agree with is agencies in agencies of paraprofessionals Outsourcing and
162the super said that there's a long-term solution and I I trust them and I trust them and I look forward to hearing what those long-term Solutions are because they are the backbone you know hearing the father talk about his son you know being a split second away from er um and I'll say in a second why but it it gave me chills through through my spine because to be honest it's true and I hope we can figure a way to get one nurse per school and to miss Salama that's going to be on the legislative agenda and I'll talk about that in a little bit as well uh code blue the superintendent mentioned Cole blue who for who do not know what code blue is cold blue is a federal mandated um thing that municipalities
163have to have Patterson Clifton do have it uh and I know this because that is my day-to-day job where if there are that wasn't it so you if there are 10 or more persons who are homeless there is something called a point of time count at the beginning of every year and the count is to see how many homeless folks homeless people there are in your municipality Clifton has 14 foot 14 people who are known by name by the health department and because of that the city of Clifton gets funding from the government in order to have a cold blue Sanctuary place and that is going to be the old Recreation Center on the corner of Maine and Washington Avenue um and cold blue means when it's 32 degrees or lower or colder should I
164say the county calls for a cold blue where those Sanctuary places are to open up to make sure that our persons who are homeless have a place to stay and it's a warming a warming Center Patterson has it again Clifton hasn't so does Passaic and there's a couple of County as well so that's a little educational tidbit uh congratulations to all our students on the accolades and again that is because the backbone of the of the district who are our teachers and paraprofessionals you know I've gone a lot out of this district and I have the most up most appreciative appreciation for our teachers and paraprofessionals for what they do and they are truly our unsung heroes uh prayers to the Gaston family Frank was a true mentor to me when I used before I
165was on the board when I served Congress in pasqurell um we have coffee and you tell me a whole story about Clifton and I got on the board it became a little more personal to me and definitely was a true loss uh prayers and thoughts with the adabo Kiefer and brontiac family on the deaths of the family that actually happened on Election Day unfortunately an individual who was not making was making a turn and not seeing the bike of Mark's father-in-law um and unfortunately he's not with us anymore so prayers I was talking to Mark earlier today about this um the past few weeks for me have been pretty rough I found out my son's diagnosed epileptic um had his first seizure a few weeks ago and I want to thank everybody who did reach
166out to me um keeping my son in his prayers um it's not easy and that's why the father who spoke I can resonate the scariness of not knowing when that next thing is going to happen to your kid and that's why it's you know choked up here but that's that's why it's important to have a nurse within a school because I'm calling my kids school every day how is he today what's going on they yell at me stop calling but you don't know when that next thing is going to happen um so Danny I'm gonna say something but I know what it really is every child's your child and I know it already is and I'm not going to question it it's just a reminder uh legislative is to be determined I have phone calls
167out to our legislators for a meeting President Smith has made sure that I asked for one before the end of the year the nurses are on here Lori if there's anything else please do the superintendent and through Jim Smith other president let us know so we can put on the agenda sooner rather than later uh Joe you mentioned this and I put it on here it won't forget because uh lunch is for school for all um I know that's something that you've been big on I'll make sure to continue that stays on there as well Thanksgiving is people wish a Happy Thanksgiving but we don't forget our you know I'm gonna say this people are not gonna like it but it is what it is our indigenous people um what this country was based on
168what was built on built on literally who was built on but it's more important where we remember the sharing and giving when you pay it forward volunteers at Food Kitchen and sharing your time not just your food but sharing your time and the value that we give to our communities to our soup kitchens to the people around us the people who are less fortunate enough um to not have family to not have one another and to not share a meal together I take my kids to soup kitchens at least two uh during during Thanksgiving week um just to remind them that what it means to give and pay it forward so I ask that we do that with all our kids it's important it instills an embodiment of them of who we are as a
169country and particularly again what this country was truly built on thank you okay Mr wad no comments foreign vice president no did I miss somebody I'm sorry Dana I'm trying to follow it from this list misspelled John I'm sorry okay I just like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving um it's gonna be exciting in the schools because you're saying there's tons of um new immigrants coming in and that's one of the best parts of owning my Supermarket is teaching everyone how to make a turkey because so many people will be coming in even to the schools for the first time never experiencing Thanksgiving um so Thanksgiving is not always turkey so it can I own a Hispanic supermarket and the number one thing we sell is pork shoulder pernil um so that's what they said
170they give for Thanksgiving so it's like all different cultures coming together to make a Thanksgiving feast doesn't necessarily need to be the American style of mashed potatoes and turkey but they always want to have like something so we'll sell like tons of stuffing and a million turkey basters but they have no idea what they're doing with it you know it's the boxes aren't in Spanish or in Ukrainian or any other language so it's all the supermarkets or especially around here and other places are going to have to go through it and be like okay do not leave the bag in the turkey take the bag out don't put the stuffing in it's dangerous like it's just a very fun time especially for immigrant communities like Clifton is as well as where my Supermarket is located
171so I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving I obviously work Thanksgiving it's one of the busiest days of the year um because of the panic of the last minute things and what you forget and instructions and there's always someone that comes at 3 P.M and says can I get a turkey so we leave them defrosted so that we can bail people out of emergency turkey situations um so about the nurses um I was a frequent flyer in the nurse's office I don't know if they're still called frequent flyers but I was I was one of those um due to bullying and things like that it was just like a sanctuary to me so I really wouldn't know what to do if there wasn't a nurse's office because it's not just what they you know it's
172not just for a Band-Aid sometimes you just need to sit somewhere that's not the classroom for whatever reason um I don't I know we've talked about it before and um Finance but is there any way we could use EMTs to cover because if if principals are doing emergency medical I don't know how it would be different to have someone you know who's just an EMT trained um or some sort of Medical Training in general to to be at least a substitute for these types of situations um or if it was possible to move the extremely fragile students to a school that does have nursing staff because I couldn't imagine um I don't have children but I couldn't imagine sending a child to a school knowing that they're extremely medical fragile and knowing the only line
173of defense is the principal which I'm sure does her best job but if like this real type of emergency you know you'd hope someone would be there um I know the fire department is close by to school nine so at least that is helpful God forbid something happens but you know maybe we can look into because EMTs unfortunately are also used to being paid less um they only really make around 15 18 an hour um so maybe it might be a low-cost solution um to try and get some of those places covered also it pertains to the traffic um I don't Clifton did not go for this grant I don't know why um because many towns did it was called the street smart pedestrian Grant and it just came out um and it basically focused
174only on crosswalks and mostly around schools so they did one right in front of my supermarket and all day long a police officer would just cross the crosswalk and plain clothes and pull people over on both sides for a week so that really kind of reset the whole neighborhood to know okay this is a crosswalk this is what you do otherwise you're getting pulled over so they would pull over hundreds of cars a day and it was really entertaining for us because we would just sit and watch be like oh my God they got another one and West New York did it with a clown they had a guy dressed up as a clown and we had them walking back and forth so I mean you know it's it's not you know unfortunately we didn't
175get the grant but I don't see how it really cost too much money um so maybe something we can bring to Municipal Alliance to do at that specific crosswalk because it really has changed the environment in front of my Supermarket from one illegally parking and also using of the crosswalk properly just because you see people constantly getting pulled over for an entire week you pretty much capture everyone who would be using that road and it just kind of reiterates you don't know when this is going to happen because it's plain clothes cops on all sides and finally I would just like to say thank you to the Clifton voters even though we're all a bunch of losers up here um I'll speak more next meeting about my experience that I've had on the board and
176I'm really gonna miss that Joe isn't going to be here next meeting because he remembers all my passwords how to get out the computer on I'm gonna be like really lost next meeting um but don't worry though I even though I won't be on the board next year I'll still be staying engaged and I'll be using my virtual option that I fought so hard to keep all these years to make sure that it stays current even if I just pop on and say hello and that's all I have thank you thank you now Vice President Daley thank you Mr President um first of all uh to our student reps Mr Maxwell and Tiffany thanks for your reports they were it's good to keep us up to date and hear directly from the both of you
177um also uh congratulations to our newly elected board members um I say to pretty much everybody that talks to me about being on a board or something you really don't know what's going on until you sit in one of these seats because the information is voluminous and complicated and it does take some time to get acclimated but I'm sure you will all do your best and get up to speed as quickly as possible but it is a challenge um on the nursing and the Paris um we are well aware of the challenges that you all face and and me in particular I'm not too wordy about things but I'm very aware of it uh and also you just if you listen to this crucial average's report the need is growing exponentially in a very rapid
178manner so this is not only a present day issue it's going future how we address these and money is one component and contracts are another component and that in some ways it handcuffs what you know I mean you everybody's asked for raises and things like that uh and like I say unless those two components and they go hand in hand and I know the superintendent is working very hard and his staff and working uh with the Union to find ways to do things that could help out here but it is a huge Challenge and we don't have uh unlimited Avenues or resources to address it in a sure fashion that doesn't mean we don't want to address it but it's going to take some time and effort and some changes and some additional funding to
179get where we should be I don't think anybody on this board are are comfortable with the current situation in any shape or fashion but we I think we all understand that it's it's nothing we can just flip a white light switch on to correct it it's going to take several different things to happen before we can get where we need to get um let's see where he spoke with that again um my condolences to the frenzyak family um that was very tragic I heard of it on that day and of course I was very close to Mr gacchione for many many many years and um he and both not only him but his entire family so uh I was very close to them my wife and I so um it's it's still heartbreaking um traffic
180um when we need to be a partner with the city we don't have the jurisdiction or resources to do what needs to be done but we need to Advocate strongly with our partners across the street um things have changed over the decades when I went to school my my parents never ever dropped me off or pick me up my father worked and my mother didn't drive so no matter what the weather or the conditions once in a while my good friends parents had the opportunity I would get a ride in really bad weather but uh but now a lot of our schools were built many decades ago and they're not designed nor are the streets designed to handle traffic volume and this is not only particularly the Clifton you can go to any uh District
181in any part of the state that has is fully developed like Clifton is and it's like a nightmare around schools part of this is uh and I've witnessed this many times in many different places not just School nine some parents and people who pick up their children are really pretty um and sometimes inconsiderate and uh and and are not they don't help the situation let's put it that way so maybe we could do uh can coordination with the police department a little uh refresher to parents who do pick and those who pick up the children from school to understand what's what your behave that number one your behavior and what you can and can't do so you can't drive to the front door of the school and have the your child jump in the car
182drive away that doesn't happen it's logistically not possible both on school grounds or the way our streets are configured and the absolute volume that's increased so much in front of schools so uh and I think I'm a lifelong Clifton resident and we're all cooked in Residence here you don't want to be driving near a school when they're when it's when you're when they're coming into school or being dismissed it's a nightmare you you avoid that like when I try to avoid all the construction on the streets that are going on so we have to realize that's the environment and we also have to do our Behavior a little bit better than we do to help the situation um see um outside of that I've already spoke again reiterate parents I always said many many many
183times from sitting here your education to the children is a three-legged stool it's not just the teachers it's it's the parents and the student so those are the two components need to take take part in the education both of yourself as a student and the parent has a big responsibility here it's you cannot drop your child off at the front door and say it's all on them we we do an excellent job here in trying to educate all our students but the parents are an important component to the child's education and just that the parent needs to understand that so as again I said during the Miss Kush love its presentation don't expect uh if you're if your child has issues please bring them to the attention of the people in this District we have
184the resources at this time and don't think it's you drop them off and they're going to come out as Einsteins so they're all all these students many students have challenges all students really have challenges of one sort or the other and the parents need to take part of that with that Happy Thanksgiving and we'll see in December and also all the best to Joe I know will be seeing him off the board but uh he was a great addition to the board and I really enjoyed working with him and I'll say more about you Dana later on so you'll be here at the next meeting thank you Mr President uh yes um again uh wishing everybody a Happy Thanksgiving um just to take a few moments to reflect upon um what we're thankful for and
185uh in Clifton we are so uh thankful for so many things in our school district um starting from our teachers to our paraprofessionals to nurses to secretaries to custodians supervisors administrators we are so thankful and blessed to have a great group of dedicated people that are truly here for the kids and I kind of echo that same remark to this board has worked very hard over the last year to first thing we had just about every bargaining unit come before the board and we were able to settle our negotiations with each of those bargaining units that is a tremendous um a challenge at times in this board was very um trying to think of the way it were but um they wanted to make sure that our negotiations were done in a fair process and
186I think those that sat on the negotiation team can say that we were very fair and open to uh to every bargaining unit and it was a tremendous success to be able to settle each of those contracts when you negotiate it it becomes very difficult because we are caring people here and we know that our employees do a tremendous job and we would love to go out and pay everyone tons of money uh because of the the work that they do but that's just not reality and uh it takes no credit away from uh any of those employees um that they feel that the board is not helping them this board has done a tremendous uh work in looking at the budget going to Mr Lucy and saying you know where what numbers do we
187have what can we negotiate with what do we offer these groups and um each of us here and I speak as a board that we truly uh think about our employees uh when when we're doing these these negotiations um we truly want the employee to know that this board supports them um and we'll continue to support them so the paraprofessional issue yes it bothers it bothers us tremendously bothers me tremendously we know that those people are such hard working individuals and in no way do we not want to help them and I think Administration tried to do the best they can by going out to uh this ain't private agency just to fill positions it's not the answer it's not what this board wants but it's a temporary band-aid and um I know my dedication
188and I know the rest of this board will be dedicated into trying to find ways um to fill positions that aren't and every one of them are important to our district last year Administration came to the board and said listen we cannot get substitute teachers on what we're paying them and again there are districts around us that pay a lot more money on things because they get a tremendous amount more funding for those things um but the board was very Cooperative with the suggestions from Administration and we knew that we had to go out and increase the substitute pay and um I know that it has helped us somewhat um but we continue to strive and find ways it's just the way that the the world is in right now I mean um so many
189districts that I've seen and I spoke to people uh down at our convention um they can't get bus drivers um some groups down there had Parents driving buses because they couldn't get bus drivers to bust the kids um there is a you know a problem in uh not only in Clifton but all over to be able to find people for these uh positions um nurses you know what what nurses went through through the pandemic I'm sure was very challenging and many of them that I worked with when I volunteered here in Clifton they were there every week they were there helping the community and they're so important to us and important to um schools especially we heard some comments tonight about principles stepping in and yes that is not ideal and that's not what we
190uh would like to do so I know this board will continue to work hard to find ways to find funding and going to rely on heavily to Mr Canova Miss Beltran and Mr Daley because you Mr Canoa specifically you went out and found a way for us to get some funding when you first got on this board and we're going to rely on you that maybe you can go out and uh continue to do that work even though you won't be on this side of the the table uh to all my fellow board members that will be leaving um just because you're not sitting on this end of the uh of the table we know that your heart and your dedication is to Clifton and I hope that you will continue to support and help
191the education process and I know each of you will do that so I wish you all the very best I know we have one more meeting and as I said Mr Canova will invite everyone back on January 6th um but uh a way that the board can officially uh thank you for your service to the to the board uh so just to remind everyone on January 6th is our reorganizational meeting at 6 p.m uh here in the Board Room um to the new board members that were elected um I say congratulations uh I Echo the remarks of uh some of my colleagues here that um yeah you have a lot of work ahead of you um just to get yourself acclimated to the procedures and the policy that the board uh does is it is
192a is a lot and um but you have allies you have uh the administrators who will help you through any board member uh we'll be glad to sit down with you and answer questions or help you um it's uh it's going to be a new challenging um opportunity for for each of the three new board members um I tried to look back over the last 20 years and I didn't see anywhere where three board members were new you had two maybe at one time one another the Jim or Judy remember at the time there were three three new Lucy and Arlene agresti oh at the same time so and when was that what year 2011 2011. so yeah and you're a first term okay so it doesn't happen all the time but um again we
193welcome uh the new board members and with their uh with their ideas and and concerns um my condolences to uh Mark brunsiak and his wife Robin for the sudden death of Robin's father um you may have seen in the the newspapers or online that it was a terrible uh accident he was on his motorcycle which was a uh a hobby of his that he loved and enjoyed and um our thoughts and prayers are with all all of the family um as Mr Paris had stated about um the community band and uh our high school band and uh uh the under the lights and there's so many different programs that will be coming up we'll have tree lightings that will be coming up um so a lot happening in the district and in Clifton so I
194hope everyone will take a look at that and uh and get involved the presentations tonight again miss virgosa and mslevich uh again a fantastic job to uh to you I just hope everyone understands you know when this presentations are made it's just not you know pressing a button and and making it all happen they have to put these presentations together and it's a lot of preparation and we thank them for the time that they do that not only for the board but for the public to see so we thank you again for that and um I remind everyone that our next meeting is the seventh of December yes Thursday December 7th um at my room anyone know I thought it was the seventh sorry the eighth uh December 8th is our next meeting we only
195have one meeting in December um so uh that'll be our last meeting of the year I ask my Commissioners and all committees if you would get your committees to me one more time for the end of the year even if it's just a 15-minute meeting uh to wrap things up and and any other outstanding issues you may have so if you all could get those dates uh to me and to the superintendent and we'll send it out to the full board so everyone knows the dates that they're meeting and if anyone cannot attend the meeting if you please uh let the chair know or let myself know and we will fill that that spot with somebody that is not on that committee so if you can't make it please let us know and uh that's
196about uh well I have all right we'll move on to uh new business I have something yes um I have to make a correction I'm sorry to education I did get it but it went to spam uh the October meeting I checked while we were uh people were talking so I apologize for saying that um just wanted to make Rectify that yeah can we check maybe so it doesn't go to spam I didn't even I got it I gotta redo it I don't know what happened I had uh 3 000 emails at one point about three weeks ago I had to clear them all out so I was just swiping a lot um reorg what time is it do we have a special time because it's not usually set seven so six pm yeah okay
197and the other one is who is the designated Delegate for the state for New Jersey school board from Clifton because I'm going to be attending I'm going down with a group where we're going to the D.A for New Jersey school boards but um if anybody from the board's going then Clinton gets a vote um I'd have to look that up but I don't know and was a packet delivered or sent to the district if nobody else is going I wouldn't mind reading it and representing I don't think there's much on there did we know we haven't received anything but okay thank you but when we do thank you uh yeah because I'm going down with a group of people we're all gone now and also there's uh um the state is having its legislative meeting
198I'm I represent 34th so if you want me to bring anything to them uh I I'm more than welcome to do that yeah there was one thing I left out um my comments um Dr Danny's not here but um Municipal Alliance that's a um a committee where um board members in the city uh sit down and try to see where the city could help out in areas of Education facilities whatever it might be that committee met twice this year um and basically the last meeting was strongly about the traffic safety uh Traffic Safety at the schools so many ideas that you brought up people brought up to the microphone tonight they were brought up at that meeting talking about um we talked about the signs and the flashing signs around schools we spoke about with
199the city about putting in the street the the template in the street to say slow down school zone whatever can be done and we we ask the city if they could look into that so the first step that they agreed to do at any school that we feel there's issues they will put a um a sign up and basically that sign is also collecting information for the city so how fast people are going how many cars come through there one time and the city said once they get that information and evaluate it then they can implement it um into schools so into school zones so we we emphasize to them how important it is um that we we want them to be able to move on that um so I I just want the public
200to know that the board is working on that with the city um and the city manager told us that these are the first areas that they would start with those signs get the information that they need um and um and Implement things in the road or signage um if it warrants it you know the committee kind of just said you know why can't we just do it at every school and the city city manager said that's not how it it's done so um we're working with them and we'll keep the public updated on that um going forward so I wanted everyone to know that is there any other new business I have uh one item um I'd like to um with the board's approval um at our next meeting as everyone May well know our
201mayor of 30 30 plus years is retiring as the mayor and council person and um over the years our mayor has been very dedicated to education always supported things that we had in education um and I think it would be nice for this board to invite um the mayor at our next meeting and have a resolution prepared thanking him for his service and dedication that he gave to Clifton as well as to the educational process so if I could have somebody make a motion on that that would be great motion by Mr abadravo second by Mr Awad any discussion okay seeing none roll call please Mr abadravo Mr Awad yes Miss basford yes Miss Beltran yes Mr Canova yes Mr Mr Paris yes vice president Daley yes president Smith yes motion carries okay yeah of
202something else maybe when we reorg we can also have we still have a sit down with we they used to put this big little table and it was the board members on this side City Council on that side and we used to all openly remember Jim we used to do that those were usually budgets right yeah budgets yeah but like why can't we do that as an open board with all the issues that we're having around the city I think that would really because we all we all have concerns maybe if they hear it from the collective group maybe it'll have more power we could we could look into that for sure Mr Smith I just want to Second Miss basford because I feel like with Municipal Alliance from my experience of it is a
203lot is said so fast and I want to say two-thirds of the situations get swept underneath the rug and we kind of get ignored for example like the safety with school issues I don't know why you go to Montclair you go to other towns there's speed bumps literally near every single school if you can't afford to have a crossing guard or a police officer because you know resources are tight I don't think it's going to cost millions of dollars to put a basic speed bump at every single entrance especially by uh Market Street people do fly near Allwood and Market Street so I don't get why we don't have on each side of the road just a basic speed bump and we need to kind of hold them accountable because sadly throughout throughout you know
204if it's on Election season people are voicing you know their frustration everything goes election season come comes and goes people tend to quiet down and you know with all the voices I've been hearing for the past couple of years you know results where the selections results were one thing and sadly it's the same old same old and how do we expect to actually get things done if we don't hold them accountable and if you know they're not listening to the citizens maybe they listen to us face to face but you know I feel like a municipal Alliance meeting should be in person held either on our turf or their Turf and for us to have a healthy discussion and hopefully we can resolve certain things because what are we going to wait we're going to
205wait for God forbid someone to get hit by a car we have to wait for a life and death situation then everybody wants to jump on board and they want to start resolving issues because I know on our part all the commission is here voice their frustration a lot but I don't see the the urgency on the other side and we need to basically Advocate and basically not quite down till they kind of speak up okay so we'll we'll get in touch with them present it to them and see if that's something that they wish to do um and we'll keep the board updated on that all right any anything else from new business all right uh so executive session uh sorry guys but foreign the board is still an executive session uh we believe
206we're going to be about another 15 minutes so um if not I will come out and update you again in 15 minutes thank you Mr mcconey we're back foreign executive session to discuss student matters contract matters an illegal matter all right we need a motion on P 21 22 and 23. and the ba6 7 we can combine them an eight six seven and eight sorry Mr Roberto second by Mr Awad any discussion roll call please rabbitravo Mr owage yes Miss basford yes Miss Beltran yes Mr Canova yes Mr Paris yes vice president Daley yes president Smith yes motion to adjourn second Mr Robert second by Mr Awad eight minutes no objection Happy Thanksgiving