October 20, 2022 - Clifton Board of Education Meeting

001yeah maybe I can announce ask him through it's pretty good we're here if I call your name students we have Anna Monahan good uh Daniela yepez Chanel Acosta beautiful and Jose Gonzalez all right three for four beautiful good evening everyone and welcome to the regularly scheduled meeting of the Clifton Board of Education for October the 20th 2022. I'll ask if you would please rise for a salute to our flag followed by a brief moment of silence foreign and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you roll call please Mr abidrabo here Mr Awad miss basford here miss Beltran here Mr Canova here Dr Danny Mr Paris here vice president Daley here president Smith here we have a quorum um Mr Awad uh notified

002me that he wouldn't be here he has a medical issue and Dr Danny told me that she would be coming late somebody said she's here but um she'll join us shortly um mission statement please Jim you ready or you want me to do it all right anyone else want to read the mission statement 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 a literate lifelong Learners who are responsible and productive citizens contributing to a Democratic Society in an ever-changing world okay the open public meetings act the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right to the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies

003at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the Clifton Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be publicized by having the date time and place thereof posted at the city clerk's office Clifton Public Library administration building senior citizen Nutrition Center on cable TV in the local press and 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 um if I may before we start um just to uh extend our uh get well wishes to um Mr Keith bassford um Keith was in a horrific car accident and uh is has a road of recovery ahead of them and uh just let him know that

004he is in our thoughts and our prayers um oh gosh is our student representative I thought I started there you are come on up let's do you first okay starting with fall Sports the boys varsity football team last game won Northern Highlands 21-14 the next next game will be played against Union City at Union City tomorrow at seven girls soccer had a game today at Caldwell winning 1-0 girls varsity volleyball will be having their senior night tomorrow at 4 in the lower gym they'll be playing against Paramus Catholic come and support the girls cross country will be having their varsity Invitational on Saturday the 22nd at Garrett Mountain at nine in the morning girls tennis girls tennis next match will be tomorrow at 4 and the location is still being determined just a little reminder

005the CHS Halloween extravaganza will be taking place from 6 to 8 on Thursday October 27th this is a free and fun event that Clifton High School hosts for the children of our community there will be activities games and treats costumes are encouraged and bring your retreat bag treat bag to collect your goodies once again this is next Thursday October 27th so come out and bring your families to enjoy this event there will be a CHS open house for incoming 9th grade students on November 2nd so come and bring your students to see how amazing our high school is just a reminder that the Mustang robot Rodeo is Saturday October 29th at CHS 10 a.m to 3 P.M everyone is right to attend it is free and open to the public the fall play is coming

006up on the weekend of November 18th the casting crew are hosting an Applebee's Flapjack breakfast at our main fundraiser for the show I it will be held on Sunday October 23rd between 8 to 10 at the Applebee's in Clifton Commons tickets are 12 and can be purchased at the event your ticket includes a whole breakfast a pancakes scrambled eggs choice of sausage or bacon and a choice of coffee or orange juice the cast members are excited to be your service for the event please join us to help this help support the CHS fall play games Club is a great way for students with unique interests to join with friends and meet new friends outside the usual CHS social Gathering like sports and music club members get to enhance their stratic skills as well as social

007skills and have a lot of fun the MSA meets bi-weekly and caters to students by providing a safe space for them to explore their faith and identity while connecting with other students and making new friends the Phoenix magazine provides students with the chance to be published students and staff can submit an original work of art or a poem to the magazine for a chance to be featured the magazine is released annually every May don't hesitate to email Miss Abraham to submit a work of art they must the musty marching band will be hosting the 7th 75th annual North Jersey band festival at Clifton Stadium this Sunday October 23rd beginning at 4. it is the longest running festival of its kind in North America and the Mustang band has performed in every year since it began

008the festival features 19 North Jersey marching bands and it concludes with a mass per band performance of America of America the Beautiful performed all a thousand two hundred Baron members students are available from Mr stefanesky in advance for ten dollars or at the gate for 15. and last but not least come out and support your undefeated and number one ranked Mustang boys soccer team and they were complete complete complete with their records 23rd passe County Championship versus Kennedy High School this this the game will be played at psti this Saturday October 22nd kickoff is at 3 30 and always remember it's a great day to be a Mustang great job Natasha thank you very much for your report and uh you're free to leave whenever you wish to go thank you we now like to

009do our student of the month Awards uh so we start with Mr abujabo thanks president Smith freshman Anna Monahan and his favorite subject is history because she finds a study of the past very interesting and enjoys learning how everything's interconnected she had an amazing Hands-On history teacher in sixth grade Miss Virginia he made class both fun and educational in High School Mr nesky has me has been most influential to her and ex I'm sorry expertly teaches the importance of hard work and perseverance Anna finds inspiration from her dad his work ethic motivates her to be her to be my best best self even when she when life gets tough that's really right they share a passion for history and storytelling he encourages Anna to always see all sides of the story he loves to take

010their family on adventures always finds the best dessert places and as a member of the Mustang Mustang band majorettes and works hard to put on a great show every week she also takes private piano lessons which has been doing since since sixth grade After High School Ann is looking forward to her career in either Dentistry or Dermatology okay Anna come on up and take a picture Danny I'm gonna take a picture okay sweating Mom Dad Family come on up I'll go up congratulations congratulations guys okay thank you so much again congratulations please don't think I'm being anti-social I'm I'm not just not feeling well and um don't want to expose anybody to my germs needlessly although I tested negative for covid twice just say no but congratulations sophomore Daniela Jimenez yapez Daniella's favorite subject is

011English because she enjoys bringing characters to life and learns how to make how to look at things from a different perspective the teacher has been most influential to Daniella was her freshman year math teacher Miss love Lombardi she has been very influential because she created a space where you could make mistakes be wrong and just not understand something her creating a space like this made me not be as hard on myself when I do things wrong and let myself have a break Danielle is inspired by all women who work day in and day out to provide for their families daniela's tip to high school Success has been making a schedule planning on when to take a break do certain assignments and focus on something else so that everything can be done on time Daniela is

012currently involved in the CHS Human Services and early childhood Career Academy program and may possibly seek a career in that field foreign parents these pictures will be available on our social media you can go up and grab them congratulations congratulations huh they were right I can't I couldn't wait either all right next up we have Junior Chanel Nunez Acosta with the guidance of her teachers Chanel has learned that through that although assignments and tasks may be difficult nothing is impossible as a student Chanel has found success in CHS ESL program and now works as a member helping new students navigate the hallways of Clifton High School Chanel finds inspiration from her teachers Mrs K miss espinal Mr G and Mr Stewart she is also encouraged by her mother who inspires her and refuses to accept

013excuses Chanel is considering a possible career as a nurse is your family there no is anybody here with her oh yeah please is Jose here Jose Gonzalez okay we'll make sure Jose gets his certificate congratulations to all our winners um that the public doesn't know it is um an extremely uh difficult task out of all the students in their grades to be chosen as the student of the month so you should be very proud of your accomplishments and the great work that you do and uh on behalf of the Board of Education we're very proud of you and wish you continued success in your educational Endeavor so great job and uh you're all more than welcome to stay for the remainder of the meeting but if you'd like to exit at this time you could

014do so as well so get out while you can [Laughter] foreign okay we'll go to public recognition online first yeah let me just read the statement first okay this portion of the meeting is open to Residents and non-residents of the Clifton of the city of Clifton for the purpose of addressing any subject matter pertinent two 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 names municipality in which they live and subject matter before addressing to the board 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

015response 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 who are speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific 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 for any uh responsible and libel for any of their comments okay uh we

016ready all right we'll start with uh virtual calling we're going to Marita they're connecting to audio but it doesn't look like they're connecting that's the only person in the waiting room again okay gotcha we have someone else so I can let that person in and yes if you would please color person calling from the cell phone you're connecting if you want to unmute last four digits caller you're on the you're on the Clifton Board of Education meeting oh [Music] my God hi caller 7218 on a cell phone yes that's me hi you have five minutes to speak to the board am I on now yes you are hello good evening everyone um my name is Tom Kiefer uh 20 Nelson Street Clifton New Jersey excuse me I wish I could be there uh tonight but

017too much going on with the kids tonight just want to give a big shout out to school five family everyone in school five this year spread some positivity has been awesome and wonderful we've been doing so many things since the school started it's unbelievable mad love to the school five family uh with that being said it's a very important time the Board of Elections uh Board of Education elections coming up and I cannot stress enough for the public to come out and vote whether you agree with my stance or not you should still go out and vote we need more people to vote but if you're going to vote you've got to vote number one Mark brunsiak please I've known this man since I was in kindergarten he's more than the brother to me I

018love this man to death and he has every interest of our kids best interest in mind please vote for mark berenciak thank you very much okay thank you Mr Keever the person Marita is still trying to connect I [Applause] don't know if we want to all right now we'll move on anyone else that's the only person left okay motion is in order motion it goes motion closed by Mr Abu driver by Mr Paris for the uh virtual yes okay now we'll open up to uh in person anyone wishing to address the board you could please come up to the podium and you have five minutes foreign good evening everyone Mark princeack Holly Street Clifton just want to give quick prayers up to Mr basford hope he gets well soon he was well Dr Robert tozi

019um just want you guys I want everybody to be healed this journey I started this year in mid-june and I've had opportunities of all the residents of this city to share my life experience to benefit our community I spoke with all types of different groups in the community to ensure that other members have a voice and make an education and administrative decisions as a member you could be a conduit for the concerns and interests of teachers parents and all other stakeholders I'd like to help create stronger ties between the school board and other stakeholders as well I have a personal interest in preserving and improving the quality of our school system I believe in a quality public education for current and future students the school board must be the eyes ears and voice of the

020community I value government transparency greater accessibility in decision making and fiscal responsibility as of the end of last week I have stopped at over 3 000 residences in this city bringing an informed thoughtful conscientious and respectful approach to the process of decision making Educators and administrators lend their expertise to create the best environment and the opportunities for students parents students and everyone else in the community deserves the best service from these professionals no less should be expected from the board members it's November I urge you to vote for change thank you for your time and God bless America have a good night everybody thank you hi Clifton Chris D'Amato I'm running for city council number 13 on the ballot though Clifton is set up in such a way that there's minimal crossover between the Board

021of Ed and the city council I thought it was important to show up here and speak from the heart to our parents families teachers administrators staff Board of Ed and most importantly our students about what this upcoming election represents and why it's important to be here for those who don't know me I have a 15-year career in media and communication I'm the only city council candidate with a background in communication and the only city council candidate to dedicate a page on their website to education during my campaign I've had a chance to speak with uh some of our students about their biggest concerns and the two things I hear the most by far I want to feel safe in school and a lot of my friends are on drugs now why might this be the

022case I have a theory I think there's a feeling beneath the surface for many individuals in all types out there who can recognize this feeling even if they can't quite articulate it it's this idea that whatever you believe politically the last few years of American Life have represented a chaotic unraveling of our social fabric a disassembling of our national unity and an erosion of trust in our institutions leaders and fellow citizens loneliness and feelings of isolation particularly among Youth and elderly are at all-time highs this is embodied in all facets of American life it's there in the little moments when we hold our tongues instead of speaking what we know to be true it's there in the moments when someone chooses to pull out a cell phone and record someone's worst moment in their life

023to live forever online instead of using that hand to help it's there over holiday meals and cherished family time when we can't even agree on the definition of words or objective reality let alone come to some sort of middle ground or Mutual understanding and it's there in the tragic catastrophic big moments when you have someone who has their whole life ahead of them who can't take the noise the stress and overdoses trying to numb the pain it happens when a young person most often under the age of 21 decides the future of their life is so Bleak and devoid of purpose that the best option is to grab a gun and kill as many of their classmates as possible like many Clifton residents I've been watching these Board of Ed meetings this year with alarm

024and concern as the conversation becomes a bit more volatile watching slack jawed as we become more content to write each other off with labels instead of listening and understanding I know it is easier to call someone you don't agree with a name groomer bigot than it is to really understand where they're coming from and grapple with it in a meaningful way if elected as a council member I can't interfere with the day-to-day operations of the school system but my call to leadership in this community requires me to speak out there's many reasons I'm running our city has a flooding problem we consider the desires of developers over the needs of residents and working class families and we desperately need to upgrade our communication but I'm running for a bigger philosophical reason I'm tired of standing

025back and allowing the loudest voices of division in our society to lead the conversation I'm sick of us assuming the worst about each other and demonstrating the worst of ourselves this election needs to be about good decent reasonable majority of Clifton residents standing with me and saying we've had enough hatred we've had enough vitriol and we've had enough division I'm here because we the council and the school board are not separate bodies that exist in hermetically sealed bags we're a community we're a family we are one Clifton to the students and young people watching I hear you you're not alone you are loved you're cherished you have an amazing Community behind you and you have a wonderful future ahead of you you deserve to grow up in a community where the adults are setting the

026example and I refuse to park my keister on a comfortable leather seat at 900 Clifton Avenue and allow the conversation about your future to be dominated by extremists influences outside of Clifton and National media Outlets who profit off of this chaos which is birthed the biggest Mental Health crisis among children and teenagers in modern recorded history to the reasonable majority of any party I stand with you to our wonderful teachers I stand with you you will not be intimidated or slandered on my watch to our families you will be respected heard and considered always and I pledge to do everything I can to make sure that our kids are not only growing up with a great education but that they grow up in a safe free welcoming transparent and thriving city of Clifton please visit

027Christopher clifton.com and consider me for one of your seven votes on November 8th get well Keith thank you all thank you is there anyone else wish to address the board good evening members on the board and the City of Clifton thank you everyone for wishing my dad well wishes my name is Samantha bassford and here's another Shameless plug to vote for me 8f this upcoming election we only have one forum for the Board of Ed we're kind of like the stepchild this election so you got to take all the air time we can get last week I had an opportunity to attend a national comp well a regional conference for the Northeast Association for University College housing officers I posted snippets on my Facebook page but our own keynote speaker Dr Stacy Miller hit it

028out of the park when talking about housing professionals and their transferable skills specifically their leadership and skill set so often many times housing professionals are seen as either the rule monitors or arts and crafts people but there's actually a lot more things that we do behind the scene so it's something that I definitely want to highlight because I was like wow this is great and if you were to interview me this is exactly what I said so skills that I currently possess cultural and Intercultural competency human resource training hiring development supervision Union management evaluation termination restorative practice and Justice advisement programming Community Development conduct and accountability crisis management budget and finance critical thinking and problem solving strategic planning mediation slash conflict negotiation public relations presenting and public speaking facilitation instruction organizational Administration time and prior

029visitation management effective communication marketing counseling career and life committee task force collaboration how to be a mentor and that's just the skill sets now people often don't think about leadership and skill sets being separate and it actually is so here are some of these skill sets the leaderships that we have cultural and Intercultural humility which means I don't have all the answers when it comes to that and it's okay but I'm going to do my best to figure out how to do that tolerance for ambiguity an autonomy self-confidence empathy compassion moral and ethical Compass being transparent and forthright trustworthy Innovation creativity being well read and well informed teamwork and collaboration risk-taking decision making resilience open and receptive to feedback loyalty honesty authentic relationship building and letting going professional perfectionism which is you know something I'm

030still working on um so to me those are all check marks when I look at the board and the work that they have done and even you guys as a team because I view you as a team those are all check marks to me and making a good candidate for Board of Ed at this point you've probably only really seen most people on Ballot Box if I've done a roll call for who's been here every week I don't know what the attendance would look like for other candidates but I know I've been here the entire time if you are looking for a candidate who's going to be transparent who's going to be dedicated who's going to be a voice without having pressure from peers I'm your candidate I'm your girl even at times when I

031could feel discouraged in this campaign with the anti-basford campaign no one could take away my dedication what I've given during this election process and the transparency I've given to voters I've spoken out against hate even when it's not something that is against my identity do all candidates feel that every person with their entire identity deserves to be here we don't know haven't heard from them I'm an ally to all and I say even the things that you may not want to hear my intention in my heart is to give back with the to my community with all my resources my higher education experience being authentic and being dependable my signs may be pink and leopard print my shoes may be super shiny but it doesn't matter how I present myself because my work ethics speaks

032for itself and will continue to do so I cannot be more transparent for this election so once again if you want someone who's going to work the work talk the talk and do what's got to be done vote 8f Samantha basford for Board of Education okay thank you [Music] anyone else wish to address the board good evening members of the board my name is Stephen Cohen I reside at seven Richland Court in Clifton during halftime of the Clifton Passaic varsity football game on September 30th I was recognized by the board of education for my contribution to Clifton Athletics making that presentation that evening were president Smith commissioner abatrabo Clifton High School principal hamda and also with their that evening was Clifton High School athletic director Tom mullahey I come here tonight to express my gratitude

033to you for uh for giving me that presentation of that of that plaque it means a lot to me and I want to Simply say thank you uh in just the time remaining just a couple of thoughts struck me uh you know I I I've been to games here in Clifton I travel occasionally to games and one thing I recognize is that I I truly believe that our student athletes are ambassadors they're ambassadors from Clifton there's no government body here in Clifton you know in power to either nominate or to appoint ambassadors and I have a number of examples that I can share with you uh one uh being uh September of last year the football team opened up their season uh playing up in the Carrier Dome in Syracuse I was at that game

034and uh during the game uh I mentioned the player's name Donovan Swayze easy intercepted a pass two yards deep in Clifton's End Zone and ran it back 102 yards for a touchdown well back at the hotel that evening later that night all the families the players were kind of gathered it was a large open a communal kind of space in the hotel lobby but then there was the restaurant with television sets uh playing you know as you normally see when you go to a sports bar and what was the lead video that evening on the 11 o'clock news was the Clifton High School game and here it was Clifton I don't remember the final score but we won we beat the the team was Cicero North Syracuse and and you know there I also would

035mention you know when we're talking about ambassadors uh getting us off of the sports I need to include I think that Clifton Mark Mustang marching band um you know truly ambassadors uh you know one runs out of superlatives when trying to describe the band and uh uh you know I remember two years ago uh sitting at home in my living room uh watching the video the live stream of the band performing at the Chinese New Year's uh Day Parade or Chinese New Year's parade over in San Francisco and if that is an example of ambassadorship you know they spent a few days there they represent Clifton and um and so therefore that's one point I want to make just the notion of our our student athletes as being ambassadors the second thing is and I'm

036probably going to get a lot of heat for this but um you know we have a slogan here is the city that cares and you can't argue with that but I would like to add a little addendum to that and that is that it's also a city the Clifton Clifton is the city that shares and I not only for our athletic teams but we have so such a wealth of uh talent in the schools you know so when we go to see a production uh a musical or a drama or dance or our orchestras uh that's a reason for us to share and so therefore I leave us with that notion of uh you know that we're also not only a caring City but we're also a cheering City so I thank you very much

037yeah if I could just add to that Mr Cohen um uh commissioner Canova also was there that that evening to present you so that's all right no problem and uh uh well-deserved uh reward for all that you you do for Clifton thank you is there anyone else wish to address the board [Music] Marcia Miller Clifton the new education standards I'm continuing my objection to the unwarranted assault on the innocence of children the New Jersey Comprehensive Health and sex education standards are diminishing real education like math language arts finance and science along with other vital workplace skills necessary for a child's future these standards are objectionable so standard 2.5.1.5 pgd 0.4 explain common human sexual development and the role of hormones romantic and sexual feelings masturbation mood swings and timing of puberty onset I believe that

038the above section is age inappropriate for these 9 10 and 11 year old children parents not government schools should be the only adults teaching their children about sexuality and sexual health the brain is not fully formed until the mid-20s and Beyond it doesn't matter how smart teens are or how well they score on Sat or act good judgment isn't something they can excel in at least not yet the rational part of a teen's brain is fully developed isn't fully developed and won't be until age 25 or so in fact Recent research has found that adult and teens brains work differently adults think with the pre-frontal cortex and the brain's rational part this is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences teens teens process information

039with the amygdala this is the emotional part in teens brains the connections between the emotional part of the brain and the decision-making Center are still developing and not always at the same time that's why when teens have overwhelming emotional input they can't explain later what they were thinking they weren't thinking as much as they were feeling according to the University of Rochester Medical Center the health encyclopedia there were mutable multiple articles in scientific data showing that brain development continues into adulthood particularly in the areas of risk aversion with the prefrontal cortex so the justification for introducing graphic explicit sexual behavior is not only extreme but intensely harmful so why does the New Jersey New Jersey Department of Education mandate the instruction of masturbation to fifth graders how does an educator teach masturbation what is on

040a child's mind when performing the ACT what are the emotional and health consequences for your minor child what is the health value what is the academic value of this type of instruction standard 2.1.5 pgd5 identify trusted adults including family members caregivers School staff and Health Care Professionals whom students can talk to about relationships and ask questions about puberty and Adolescent health who is a trusted adult especially in our mind modern day hypersexualized culture the same culture that is influenced and infiltrated our schools through these education mandates the group of people listed in 2.1.5 pgd5 is a diverse unknown and perhaps unqualified group of people a healthcare professional may be an expert in cardiovascular care but woefully lacking in matters related to education especially about the sexual issues would you want your child asking the school

041custodian or their bus driver about these delicate matters do you know if you can trust your school staff to teach these important life-changing behaviors to your child the Murphy administration's push to sexual exploit New Jersey children is Extreme and a violation of the family whether or not you have children in the government school system as a responsible citizen you must respond and protect future Generations from this harmful exploitation okay thank you good evening my name is Lori lalama and I'm the president of the cea there's a couple things I want to touch upon we have a pride and fast Grant so the teachers and the kids that are listening um the Extravaganza at the high school we could help support next year Trunk or Treats throughout the district we can support so please reach out

042to Andrea Rock from school 12 and we'll be able to support that I think we have 72 thousand dollars in our fund so please any activities that the schools might think of please reach out to her so we can help um the ceas sent a questionnaire out to all of the candidates that are running for the Board of Ed we received one back that was it so as an association we are not happy that at least more than half should have responded and only one did so we're we are very perturbed and we see it as a smack in the face so for those candidates out there we would like to be able to sit and talk so um and the next thing sex standards do I trust my staff hands down do I trust

043the Board of Ed hands down do I trust the central Administration hands down I don't know of any teacher that's going to teach masturbation to the kids that's a lot of hogwash I am tired of listening to this and I'm tired of the family the international family watch that is supporting this they need to stop our teachers are the best our Administration is the best and we need to stop this I'm so tired of listening to all this nonsense this this really needs to stop I'm sick of it so please take a look at International family watch Coke brother because one's dead and we need to stop we have the best in the county and the best in the state thank you very much thank you Clifton Miss basford I wish Keith speedy speedy recovery

044and that you and Samantha stayed strong during this time um what Miss what Lori just said was very good about the candidates I haven't seen any kind of uh debate anywhere I don't have a computer so I don't have access to Facebook or anything but I haven't seen any debates or any discussion whether it's Board of Ed or Council so it's going to be a very strange election I hear something's coming up the 25th but I still haven't gotten any details so that is a sad thing I I also saw an email that there's going to be a zoom meeting on the sex ed standards um which was planned some time ago which might be okay but we've been asking for seven months straight for an open meeting just as you had with the safety

045um Committee in the auditorium which was very well presented and the open and transparent why we can't have it on this issue is is it's not I don't understand I would I also agree with Lori that you know we shouldn't be coming up here meeting after meeting discussing this because you're not really getting a full understanding and participation and dialogue back and forth where we would if we were able to sit and all open up and discuss it in more detail um Dr robitosi I'm very surprised usually you're very open on issues so I'm very surprised that you haven't tried to organize that I hope you will that's really what we we want this is very difficult and it's you know now the election everybody was told to back off till the elections everybody's quiet

046after the elections come it's going to be you're going to see it's going to go watch but um so yeah and then as far as what they're saying about trusted adults and sex ed you know it's not any there are organizations out there that are pushing to the right and using this as a political agenda that's true but what the state has given and Clifton adopted pretty much verbatim it is not I mean I know individuals who have moved out Marsha or daughter moved out of town went to a different Community she had two small children they're going to a different school system we're speaking to some Muslim friends they pull their children out of school not everyone but they pulled a couple out that were in in some you know areas that were they

047felt were dangerous they left the older one in they left and I took the other one out and they're considering the another young one so people are making decisions all over about this issue a lot more people are going to private schools a lot more people are homeschooling um we really don't have any information so until you have an open meeting it's really hard to judge this I mean to give to a a bunch of parents sign this form if you feel you want to opt out I mean on the basics yeah I would say I want to opt out but I really don't have a lot of details listening to Lori it's nothing that's going to be bad but I can't believe that so Dr robitosi I like we like to have an open

048meeting we can all discuss this in more detail Marcia brings up stuff every meeting Marshall were you ever answered on any of your questions no so yeah but have they answered you you bring up questions every single time do they answer them no so open in reciprocal relationship which you read in your mission statement uh you know and I'm not I'm just saying that we'd like to have open meetings on this and you can continue but I don't think we're going to stop I think after the elections it's going to get you know worse I mean I'm tired of talking about you know whatever so thank you um take care and we wish keep speedy recovery thank you okay thank you anyone else wish to address the board motion is in order so you know

049a motion to close bye Mr Roberto second second second by Mr Paris let's have the um adoption of the minutes of the regularly scheduled meeting of October no is that one right right really threw me off there um yeah we'll just have to adjust that so be the adoption of the minutes of October 6 2022. motions in order so almost by Mr avidrabo second bye Miss basford discussion seeing none roll call please Mr abedrabo yes Miss basford yes Miss Beltran Mr Canova yes Dr Danny yes Mr Paris yes vice president Daley yes president Smith yes motion carries all right now we'll have our superintendent's report by Dr robitosi thank you Mr President uh my report was very brief tonight because I'll be yielding my time for my presentation later but just two quick things I

050want to reiterate what our student representative said earlier please CHS open house November 2nd it's open to anybody anybody in the community who wants to know about all of the wonderful things that are available at Clifton High School you don't have to send your child anywhere else if your child has an interest we have it for them at Clifton High School so please come out on November 2nd at 6 pm to see what Clifton High School is all about and second um I just want to address for the board the the reason why most times we have a parent event that's done online because we have found that we get many more much more parental participation when we offer it um remotely having said that I have met with Marsh I'm sorry I forget your

051last name Miss Miller um Janine and I sat down with her for over an hour ants tried our best to answer our questions I'm happy to do that again at any time never never would decline a meeting with anybody met with Mr Dubois on various issues uh one other time so happy to meet I mean it's not that we don't want to sit around and talk it's that we want parents to come we have much better participation so perhaps what we could do is maybe we could do like a hybrid kind of thing where we have it online and we can have other people you know sitting in the room so you could participate but um and and I appreciate Mr Dubois speaking very highly of our security presentation but in the district of 11

052000 students I think we had 12 people come 12. so that's why we do it online for no other reason um thank you I'm going to yield the rest of my time for my calendar presentation later which will prove to be very exciting I'm sure thank you Mr Smith thank you um there are numerous and exciting things happening in our district those that do not know Clifton has their own app that you can download from the App Store so if you have not downloaded that please go and do so because you can get up-to-date information on all that's happening um around Clifton um briefly um this evening we had our groundbreaking of um the construction project at Woodrow Wilson Middle School that will be the um varsity baseball field as well as the girls soccer

053field and a clubhouse um so you'll see that project starting to take place if you pass by Van Allen Avenue and see Woodrow you'll you'll see that exciting time taking place um also briefly are project up at the high school the Banfield um if you board members if you have not seen it yet the Banfield is completed it looks wonderful and I was informed by Mr stevnesky that they had their first band practice on it the other day and they love it um just really came out great the tennis courts are in their final stages um they also look fantastic so uh yeah we'll have a ribbon cutting on that as well um I was told that there's a section of fence that is um not up yet 10 foot fence area is on back

054order um so I they won't be able to use the tennis courts obviously until that fencing is in but um the new the the fifth tennis court is not affected by that so they may be able to use the fifth Court um but in any sense um the board saw this Vision uh Clifton High School tennis was never to be able to hold a tournament because you need five courts to do so and uh by this board's vision and The Architects uh Ingenuity we now have five Courts at the high school and a professional um outstanding looking Banfield to add to it so um at some point we'll have a ribbon cutting for that so the public can see it but because of the support from the public and able to do some of these

055projects um you're going to start seeing a lot of great things happening in Clifton uh the Clifton schools that were part of the referendum that you approved so you may think that it's some things are taking very slow to happen uh some of it is slower than we wish but most of it is right on Target and uh we're very happy with uh the proceedings so I presume the public once they start seeing some of these great things you'll be very happy and pleased with it as well so um a lot of good things coming up um as our student representative said uh some things happening uh this weekend and next weekend um obviously our boys uh football team will play tomorrow night in Union City and uh you know come out and support the

056um the team the cheerleaders the band they all together uh put on a great performance for you and we're very proud of all of them uh for the great work that they do um and then on Saturday at pcti our soccer team will be playing for the county championship finals uh we wish them all the best and uh know that you'll bring the county Championship back to Clifton once again um and then the following Saturday I had spoken about this at one other one other venue about the robotics team they'll be hosting uh right here at Clifton High School it's really an all-day Affair and if you have not had the opportunity to see how talented our robotics team is please attend that on the 29th so again there's other great things happening um Dr

057robitosi a scholarship fund has the the Wizards coming back for a um another great basketball game um Miss Alama has her her staff already and practicing to play them um so I believe that's the 20th of November 30th of November uh so you'll see that information on the website under uh peach Char uh and I know that Clifton will come out and support um the scholarship fund because the proceeds from that directly go back to Clifton students so I know uh our community will support that a lot of great things happening in Clifton so please if you haven't downloaded the app please do so and um check the peach tree a peach jar sorry and all the other flyers are on the subsequent pages and parents receive an email or the community received an email

058as well okay uh we have some more time to to publicize that but um just wanted to make everyone aware of that it was a huge success last year so I I'm hoping that'll be a great success again this year um okay so let's move on uh so we'll go to First reading of policy I don't see anything [Music] uh next will be our presentation um by Dr rubatosi and assistant superintendent uh Janina kusilevich Dr robotos okay thank you who's on first sir which is at the beginning you see this good evening Commissioners ladies and gentlemen it's a pleasure to be here with you again this evening dim the lights and you start this with the soothing voice Janina sorry um this evening's presentation is about our state assessments what we're looking at is the

059New Jersey SLA we're going to have multiple parts to this presentation first we're looking at the New Jersey students learning Assessments in language arts and math then we'll be looking at science then dlm which are the dynamic learning Maps access for our English language Learners and District actions so we had a little break from NJ SLA during the pandemic but that assessment came back this past spring the njsla in English language arts assesses our students in grades three through nine the mathematics assessment is grades three through ten for all intents and purposes on their end of course Assessments in Algebra 1 for your eighth graders Algebra 1 geometry and Algebra 2 for any students in high school who are enrolled in those courses these assessments are measured on a five-point rubric for language arts and

060math and a four-point rubric for science what we see here is an overview from our grades three through nine English language arts the 2022 assessment is a new Baseline and we see that the vast majority of our students fall into levels three through five in math we see something similar the vast majority of our students fall in levels three through five except in the area of geometry here we are looking at pre-pandemic years and then leading up to our new Baseline so as you can see across all grades bands we're looking at the same grade but different students so we're comparing apples to oranges but even comparing apples to oranges we see growth over the years with a new Baseline for this school year now here we see the reverse once again setting a new

061Baseline for the students who are not meeting and partially proficient we see a similar Trend in math when you look at our multiple years pre-pandemic overall across most grade levels even though this is the same grade of different students we still see year-to-year growth and now our new 2022 Baseline and then the reverse for those students who are not meeting or partially meeting and once again the new Baseline for 2022. when we look at our cohorts this is where we pull out the students who have been in Clifton for multiple years so when we look at our students who start off here in third grade and continue on through eighth grade or start off in 3rd through 9th if you're in our cohorts we see our students growing against themselves in language arts year to

062year and we see the reverse Trend here but again showing that strength of when you stay in our schools year to year so the elementary and secondary Education Act requires that we disaggregate our data by socioeconomic demographic so here we're looking at the same trends that have been mentioned on previous slides but across our racial and ethnic categories and the same for math and we also need to disaggregate by program students who are in the social economic social economic demographic where they require free or reduced lunch our students who have 504s our English language learners special needs students and the general education population and here we're looking at the same breakdown by program for mathematics again just for the 2022 Baseline year finally we have our new Science assessment the njsla science last year was

063completely revamped it was given in grades 5 8 and 11. those are not the typical years that these assessments have been given we used to have one um elementary middle and high school but the um the breakdown has changed we've moved from fourth grade to fifth grade for this assessment this science-based assessment differs from the old njsla because the old assessment focused on memorizing content the new njsla is about applying skills science skills so here we have the four levels of proficiency our students at grades 5 8 and 11 and how they fall across those levels of proficiency the dynamic learning Maps are an alternative assessment for those students who have the most significant intellectual disabilities and how they perform in English language arts math or science this dlm has also been adjusted and is

064newly designed to hopefully be a more valid measure of what our students are able to do our students in dlm we had 115 students participating in this assessment and here is how they break down from the emerging level to the advanced level across language arts math and science and finally we get to our access for L's which is the English language proficiency test access for L's is an assessment that is given to all English language Learners whether they are enrolled in an ESL or bilingual program in the district or they have recently exited or they are currently refusing Services we still have to measure their English language growth and we also have students who are in both ESL classes as well as receiving services from the special education department this assessment measures English language Proficiency

065in the areas of listening speaking reading and writing in 2022 we assessed 873 students that included over 200 students who had either refused the program or were enrolled in Special Needs programs this school year we are on track to test over 1300 English language Learners when you include both those enrolled employee programs and the students who are either in and special needs program or have refused services so how are we moving forward without from our new Baseline well the new Baseline was set post pandemic so from here we have no place to go but up we're going to be leveraging what we see in this data to adjust our local assessments and to provide additional support to students we always look at our data and we make adjustments as needed throughout the school year we

066have been revising pacing charts throughout the last few years and our quarterly exams have been the local data which we use to drive and adjust our curriculum to meet our student needs so that our students can get everything that they need to attain the standards we are expanding Clifton teacher provided tutoring both before and after school you already see tonight names on the agenda for teachers who are willing to work in our tutoring programs and we will continue to add more teachers throughout the school year we're extending the use of the online tutoring support programs such as tutor.com to grades 4 through 12. we are prioritizing reading foundational skills in the classroom for those of you with students in grades K through 3 you might know that as the fundations program um and as we

067move up the grade levels we're prioritizing independent reading we're focusing on small group Hands-On math activities to maintain student progress and we're leveraging online programs such as imagine math which adapt based on our student needs we're utilizing our Esser funds to increase counselors psychologists social workers and intervention programs and we've of course prioritized mental health Readiness through both pbsis mindfulness and a large expansion of the nurtured heart program to give our teachers the tools to work with our students and assist them with self-regulation and participation in class and that is all I have about assessment but we have another portion of our presentation and that is right there but um a little present okay okay and of course for the first year out of a pandemic we're getting cusacked what is that Cusack is the

068New Jersey quality single accountability continuum this is the state's monitoring and self-evaluation system for public school districts in the areas that we're going to be assessed we must score 80 percent in fiscal Personnel instructional operational and governance we are a cohort one District meaning we are one of the first districts that were ever cusacked in the first year of 0708 and we have been cusacked every three years since then how does this work we complete a self-evaluation and then after that is submitted we undergo an on-site review by the executive County Superintendent based on that self-evaluation and the on-site review the commissioner of education issues a cusac placement letter some of the components to attain those 80 percent are fully in our hands and others are measured by external factors so we just reviewed those

069five areas fiscal management Personnel instruction operations and governance fiscal includes things like our financial reports our kafir the district's long-range facilities plan meeting the needs of different grants how the budget is handled how the budget calendar is worked out how we approve purchase orders and and follow purchasing laws and how we manage cash flow among other Financial areas in personnel Cusack comes and looks at the evaluation process at professional development the certification process our staffing practices position control and how we supervise and give feedback including professional development in instruction and program the first eight indicators are completely out of our hands they are entirely based on the state assessment presentation that I just gave the remaining areas up through area 16 are things that we have in our control which is our curriculum our pacing

070guides our materials and how we ensure that we are delivering instruction appropriately to all of our students the area of operations addresses things like Hib school safety School climate our memorandum of agreement with law enforcement comprehensive Equity plan Health Services home instruction transportation and how we report our data and finally we have governance the governance area assesses how our Board of Education performs it looks at board transparency and board performance so what is the timeline I'm starting this month moving forward through November we have a steering committee which is going to meet and then the subcommittees which are basically our district Personnel fill out the self-assessment in November that steering committee reviews the self-assessment and submits it on November 15th and then between January and March the county superintendent's office verifies that evaluation they come

071to visit for certain um things like a facilities tour and to look at our classrooms as well as review all of our curriculum and finally we are notified of our placement which we then report to the public so it's going to be another exciting year here in Clifton and with that um do you have any questions thank you thank you I read your performance I'm sorry I went into the back room um with board governess what would be some of the things that would make our numbers go down if we don't meet the criteria what what would how would our performance as a board affect that part of this that section um among the different aspects are things like um completing the superintendent's evaluation in a timely manner um completing your you know ethics training

072and all of the various trainings that are mandated um generally it's documentation but those are two that stand out okay thank you thank you anyone else questions for you miss goose levage vice president daily thank you Mr President uh Janina thank you for the as your usual excellent job um I just have an overall uh question slash observation I mean obviously we're coming off of the covet issues and uh every everybody's in education understands that didn't didn't help us giving the our students the best education not because of the anybody fell down on on the job but because that that hole where the personal aspect was taken away um we also have a another element and I don't know how we were able to track this but um how many trans and students coming in

073and out of the district which also you know if we had the student from day one we can do a much better job as they progress through the grades and obviously in every town and City you have the students that come and go in and out of town so I was like just like your gut feeling on how that impacts our numbers of course I don't I don't think at this point in time when we do yours when you have your assessment tests yeah it's going to be skewed because of these other issues that come across so could you give your opinion or feel on on those types of things sure um what I was I was able to show the one set of slides where we're measuring our kids who've been here since let's

074say third grade and then have valid tests for multiple years we see that upward trajectory of growth for those students compared against themselves but right now because there was a gap due to the pandemic there was a year of no testing then there was a completely different test thrown in that was start strong so it's not even included in this mix that will be a separate presentation um we're really starting from a new Baseline but I'm confident that once we have multiple years from that new Baseline those students who will be with us for a sequence of consistent years we see stronger growth than students who may go in and out of our district would you also think in just according to what you you've told us and I um it would take about another

075two to three years before we you really get that consistency back and have some numbers that would uh would better reflect how how well we're doing from these State assessments yes we do have our local data so later on this fall I will be presenting our local data and the growth related to our local assessments where we're really looking at kind of what our students did last year from the beginning of the year to the end against themselves how they do in some of the self-modulating programs like imagine math once again against themselves so we do have some data that we can show but if we want to look at State growth to really see a statistical Direction in either direction it will take two or three years um and one one final comment I'd

076like to or observation um sometimes you hear on the news that all kinds of crazy stuffing you really can't trust the news these days uh but there's a general feeling that that education has felt fell off the table nationally and I I think though some of those comments are really on a drastic side uh could you give your feeling in terms of those issues so I think the pandemic did have an impact on our students social emotional needs I think that although the masking was absolutely necessary for health purposes for things like interpersonal communication skills the ability to read faces even basic reading skills where you're normally enunciating and watching how someone is speaking looking at their non-verbal cues I think that has had an impact on our students learning and we are still focusing

077on rebuilding our students resilience we're focusing on addressing those still developing or slightly delayed communication and emotional regulation needs that's going to take some more time because if students aren't comfortably interacting with one another and feeling safe emotionally in a classroom they're going to struggle with learning so we are really still looking at the social emotional needs of our students together with their academic needs thank you Janine thank you excellent job Mr Smith thank you um this is this data is all our students right yes this is Clifton is there a comparison Statewide to how we're doing uh there are Trends Statewide this learning loss that we're seeing in this so I think we're kind of on par with districts that are similar of similar demographics to us thank you anyone else have any questions

078nope thank you again Mr salavich for a great presentation thank you it's okay is it a little icon right down there Janina thank you again for being our outstanding District instructional leader um always very confident when you're presenting and I was very confident that a board member could ask any question you'll have a good answer for them good evening once again Commissioners tonight the short presentation but in May warrant some discussion it's the superintendent's job to present a calendar for the Board of Education to approve but it's not the superintendent's job to create a calendar based on his or her own preferences and what they think it should be I'm my job is to give the board all the information necessary in order to make a good decision and so to that end it has

079become increasingly more difficult in the past few years to create a district calendar due to the number of holidays new holidays that have been added and meeting the 180 day requirement has taken us later and later in the school year to get some input on this issue I formed a diverse Committee of community members parents staff Administration and teachers to discuss issues related to The District calendar we discussed a variety of things I'm not going to get into everything that we discussed but we discussed the 180 day minimum requirement the number of holidays that we currently are closed for other school closures and the length of the length of the school year the group that I met with which again I believe was representative of the stakeholders in our community overwhelmingly felt that the biggest

080issue among several issues that the biggest issue was that our year was too long and one of the ideas that came up for shortening the school year was to eliminate any holidays that were not required to close for and because we didn't want it to just be from this committee it was recommended that I pull the entire community specifically on two issues the removal of non-federal holidays and non-federal religious holidays this discussion came up because we have talked about this school year this school year our last day is scheduled for June 24th the way the calendar Falls this year there are more religious holidays this year than we've had in past several years just the way the calendar fell for example next Monday is Diwali now we've been closed on Diwali for several years now

081but last year Diwali fell on a weekend so it didn't impact our schedule this year it seemed like all of the religious holidays that we've traditionally closed for have fell on a school day so it's extended our year and we looked at if we had been open for all those days we would have gotten out almost two weeks earlier this year and so that was something that was very appealing to the calendar input committee the reason why we have to meet 180 days is very simple if we want Aid we want state aid we have to be open 180 days that's the only reason and the Board of Education knows that we get a tremendous amount of state aid not as much as we deserve but we're almost there one of the things that the

082calendar and book committee wasn't aware of that religious holidays students are excused we had showed the committee that there are uh There Was An approved list um that the New Jersey Department of Education issues every year and on this list there are over a hundred and thirty different religious holidays not going to go through those but you can see everything from L Ron Hubbard's birthday if you're a Scientologist to um name a religion and it has the holiday and if a student or their parent requests an excuse day of school to attend religious observances it is one of the very few times that a school district must excuse that student to school excuse that student from school many of the the people on our committee weren't aware that you can get a excused absence for

083religious reasons so the the topic came up well if if we didn't close for religious holidays then we could get out early and students would still be excused and that's maybe something we should consider that is a very very drastic step to remove all religious holidays or non-federal religious holidays from the school calendar and I say non-federal because it's not lost on me that the only federal holiday that's also a religious holiday it's Christmas and it's also not lost on me that two of the major christian holidays Easter and Christmas schools have been traditionally closed for so by removing um non-federal religious holidays we aren't impacting those those holidays so we're just impacting all of the other religions and so my guy can't I can't go with this proposal to our Board of Education Without

084more information and so we decided to pull the community the poll was distributed on September 19th September 30th and October 1st through our community announcements newsletter it's posted on our website with translation instructions and it was out on all of our social media Facebook Instagram Twitter on at least two occasions September 19th and September 30th it was a pretty simple survey here are the results we had 1934 parents 915 staff members 261 High School students 19 middle school students as this survey was sent to middle school and high school students it was not sent to Elementary students 120 people who identified themselves as community members and 153 respondents who fit multiple categories for a total of 3402 responses to our survey that's a significant number but for the convenience of filling out a three-question survey

085online it wasn't as many as I would have hoped for question one was very simple the last day of school in this year's calendar is June 23 2022. previous school years Have Ended as late as June 28th would you be in favor of changes to the school calendar that would allow the district to close by approximately the second week of June as you can see the results are the total results are 2 547 people said yes we'd like to see the school calendar end earlier in June and 855 said no that's kind of what we saw with our smaller committee that's not overwhelming but that's a substantial majority of people want to see the school year end earlier then we get to the second question well how to do that excuse me I'm going to

086go back I'm missing a slide I have I'm going to need this slide up do you have the old one Sam excuse me one second technical difficulties thank you I apologize the second question of the survey slides just got moved was would you be in favor of a school calendar that eliminates school closures for all non-federal holidays and all non-federal religious holidays in order to end the school earlier and as you can see here although the yeses outweighed the nose 1928 to 1474. this is by no means a substantial majority of our community when looking at our staff member it's on our staff members it's almost even that half say yes we can do that half don't want to do that um and when we look at our parents it's it's a majority uh say

087yes but it's not an overwhelming majority and as the superintendent I couldn't in good conscience recommend a school calendar to you that eliminates um all non-religious all non-federal religious holidays with this kind of data I think that besides my forget about my own personal views this is not to me an overwhelming enough Community survey that says yes we are good with eliminating religious holidays to end the school year earlier it's telling me to find another way so here are some of the options and you have nothing to vote on tonight you will have nothing to vote on until our next board meeting tonight is for questions answers discussions and so I can get an idea of how the board feels so some options for next year's calendar I do want to approve the calendar in

088November if we made a calendar similar to this year with a February break like we have our last day of school would be June 21st if we created a calendar that removed the non-federal religious holidays and kept the February break so same exact calendar as this year but remove the religious holidays the last day of school is June 17th if we remove the religious holidays remove the February break the last day of school could be June 11th if we kept all the religious holidays and reduced February Breakers that was something the committee discussed instead of a whole week in February uh good which traditionally coincides with president's weekend just do a four day weekend if we kept the religious holidays February break becomes a four-day weekend our last day of school is June 19th it

089should be noted that each of these options includes three snow days which we do not have this year this year we have one snow day built in because it we were already going to June 24th now that could come back to haunt us depending on how this winter is if you just included two snow days in a calendar you can take all those dates and move it back by a day if you just included one and vice versa but remember at the end of the year if we don't use snow days those will come off either the end or we can choose days to close school some other considerations that were discussed and need to be considered a Columbus Day this year we had a half day of school for Columbus Day and a half

090day professional development I got one complaint so that seems to me that wasn't a holiday overwhelmingly this community feels that we need to close school for but that's something for the board to discuss and that's coming from an Italian Juneteenth our current calendar does not close for Juneteenth because when this calendar was made Juneteenth had not become a holiday if we end the school year earlier the issue of closing school on June 10th is not going to be an issue because we won't be open but the calendar input committee and this was another one that was pretty substantial amount of us thought that a holiday like Juneteenth a holiday like Veterans Day in a holiday like Columbus Day that it might be better to have school open on those days if we could ensure that

091students were learning something about the reason for those holidays another consideration for the future some districts this year started school before Labor Day when our buildings are fully air conditioned that's something we could consider depending on the year I'm not talking about starting in mid-august but it could have helped us either at a couple snow days or end a little earlier if we started like some districts did before Labor Day this year what other considerations are there for the calendar I received some very well thought out well-reasoned letters and emails from parents who were not in support of removing religious holidays for a variety of reasons we are one of the most diverse cities in the in the country and one of the arguments that I heard over and over again was not closing school

092on those days shows that we are not may show that we are not respecting other people's cultures other people's religion and even though if I were to say but students don't have to come to school that day they are excused while that does or has the the ability to ostracize a student why weren't they in school and then um making up that work that day right and so the input committee did say if we were to go forward with that that we would want to implement some sort of policy that there wouldn't be tests on those days or some kind of limit on the amount of of work and homework but I will tell you this tonight I do not have a calendar ready for you to vote on I Will in November I will

093not recommend I do not recommend unless you tell me otherwise that we remove religious holidays from our calendar I think we should find other other ways to reduce the length of the school year having said that I'm going to go take my seat answer any questions you might have and have a discussion thank you all right we'll uh go around starting uh over here Java anything uh Dr Robert Tosi thank you for the um presentation and thank you for also particularly seeing that there was only in the research of the data that only a couple hundred significant between the yeses and the no's in terms of the holidays that's that's not much um particularly that depending on who responded and and how they understood it if don't know which languages went out but that could

094play I could play a factor um I look forward to see what the calendar looks like I do have one in particular favor um and that is shortening the February break to four days that's mine personally because my biggest concern is as somebody who did not celebrate the traditional religious holidays and you know in our great country in our great City there were aspects where I had to as I mentioned the past take off a school and make up the work and particularly when there's exams you know I can make up the work but to take a day off mom I'll take myself an example for example to go to prayer in the morning have breakfast my family and my father telling me get to work you have to go study what's the point of

095me taking off then I should have just stayed in school you know the whole prayer part I did my religious part but spending the social aspect of my family and I agree there should be some sort of policy on that if we were going to do that route because that only that that needs to protect the student um and that student's grade could suffer and it's impacted me in the past because of that I consider myself a well-rounded student when I went to Clifton um so I put myself in student shoes now to understanding what they would go through so and I do thank you for this presentation because honestly before tonight I didn't know how it was going to go and I was ready to fight for it but I'm a little more calm

096understanding what you in the survey and your Administration put out and the feedback that you receive and what you have told us today so I do want to thank you for that and I look forward to seeing what the calendar looks like misspelled on anything um I'm in favor of removing the holidays that I think could be better taught in school um so I think the Columbus Day the Juneteenth the Veterans Day those can be um in school days so that we can you know maybe have the day almost completely focused on those those things maybe um you know especially Juneteenth since it is a newer holiday and most people aren't familiar with what that's about um to have like you know a lesson or even some sort of presentation come in specially maybe at

097the high school level um to talk about you know Juneteenth and how it affects people today and how it affects people back then um and I think you have to keep some of the holidays it's hard to pick and choose but I think as holidays keep getting added which is only going to keep growing we're going to have to make hard decisions in the future but for right now I think if we can save three days there and then do the February break shorter most school districts don't have the full week so I don't think it will be too strange to just have three or four days and if people still want to take the full vacation they still can you know just call out of school unfortunately but um you know so you have

098what is it 20 days sick days 18. yeah so I mean you know if they if they feel so if they want to take that break still they still could um but I mean if not we're gonna be forced to do like you know days in the middle between Christmas and New Year's um so it's gonna depend but hopefully with the air conditioning we'll be able to even start a little bit earlier because it seems like Labor Day is getting later and later I don't know if something's going on with the calendar but it seems like it's moving further and further into September so starting before Labor Day I know a lot of districts did this year so that'll be something to consider but I think starting off with these three and the February break

099will give us enough days to not start and so close to July 4th Mr canola um so first of all a great presentation um I didn't see one question in here though and that's the question of which religious holidays people observe so I know that we're observing now Diwali Eid and and Rosh Hashanah I don't know if other families observing the other holidays in addition to that because if we are talking about leaving holidays in then we really have to observe them from everyone that observes those type of holidays yeah Mrs Canova I was hesitant to ask that question because I wasn't sure how that question would be received um you know I mean I then that's the only reason why I was hesitant yeah because technically I would have to ask for all those

100130 holidays on the njdoe list you know yeah at least to get an understanding of the popular one no I understand yeah you know in order to to like you said we're a very diverse Community here so if we want to um if we want to cater to that and and have schools be closed and there might be areas where ostracizing I don't know who they are so that's the only that's the only recommendation I have is would be to add something like that um I know a lot of schools have removed the February break altogether the thing seems like a passe thing so I would be in favor of doing something like that to get us out earlier um I agree with Miss Beltran on on Columbus Day I think it was good getting

101in early the students learned about what it was what it was all about I would say the same thing for for Juneteenth and for Veterans Day we should we should have the students go a half day I think that's a good idea let them learn what these holidays are about um yeah but other than that I think I think I'm I'm looking forward to whatever you have Dr Danny well I'm sorry [Music] well because um you know when I think of like half day then I think um you know how much work will you get done and you know if you have students um alert let's say you do um Juneteenth like so if they're done if they were done in every single classroom I mean it's an overwhelming Juneteenth day then um like so

102I don't know how that would because we did that once in our school it was like a little bit of a disaster only because the students were like what Juneteenth again you know we just did that last class so I don't know I mean that's just an observation from somebody in the field um for the February break there's very few schools I know that keep the the full week and um I think that um maybe shaving some of those days and then giving some people um you know some where we have like the majority of our students that would you know maybe take off on us because I just know from my standpoint if we have so many students that are out for like the Muslim holiday I mean I you know if I have

10310 students and I have a class of 20 I'm just you know I'm not going on with that lesson for the 10 that aren't there I mean it may and then I have to reteach it again so um you know I might do something like an scl um you know the um like student um emotional social and emotional Learning lesson or something like that I just might switch right off the cuff if I notice that you know so many of my students are out I'm just saying so I don't know how many would be actually taking the time the day off and you know coming back so um those are just my things so I guess if I if I was looking at this if I had your position um you know I don't want

104it but if I did um I would probably look to you know remove some of the days from from the February break and then you know put in some of the holidays where they are and I don't really necessarily know if half day is is such a good idea at that point because now you're shortening it so you know that I really neglected to mention um because I I heard it but it wasn't really part of the presentation our parents in general hate half days especially our achieved New Jersey days and listen I understand why the counter to that is you know I achieved New Jersey days are the times we we to for training for our teachers there is so much professional development that our teachers are by law required to do each year

105and they don't have enough time and it to do it but I understand as a parent myself when that half day rolls up on you and you're like oh shoot I gotta get somebody to get the kids or I got to make sure somebody's home you might say it not as nice as I just said it but our parents don't like our half days don't like half days in general and to add my other my point that I that you know I was going to continue on okay yes but that's okay um is that you know when you say some districts some districts have started before Labor Day um but some have done the professional development like they do my district done the professional development so the teachers come in before the before Labor Day

106and do the professional development because sometimes like I know personally um a lot of our well I know a lot of the teachers union president well I mean that's something you have a discussion with but I'm just saying I know that um like many teachers I mean if you're teaching the whole day then you're exhausted and now all of a sudden you have professional development it's like what you know what I mean sometimes like I just found that um you know what coming in and you get a little professional development then they also give you a little time to set up the classrooms kind of nice when you have that and then the students come in you're almost like rolling and the students come in and they're like what you know they hit the wall

107but you're already like you're you're running so again I'm just offering my from you know being in the profession for you know over 21 years and just seeing it that way and seeing all the things and I know that it's a difficult decision that's why I say I wouldn't want to be you because no matter what you choose I mean you know you might have you know teachers you know whatever not being happy or parents not being happy or you know religious you know leaders not being happy or somebody so but I mean you can only do the best and you're getting input from everybody and you asked for input and so I gave it and for whatever it's worth and you're the ultimate decision maker and whatever you choose I mean that's what I'll

108go with okay Mr Paris thank you thank you Dr Robert tozi I think this was really very helpful I agree without trying not to be redundant here but the data certainly shows not an overwhelming taste for eliminating religious holidays and they're on a calendar I'm sure for a very valid reason I was on the board when they were decided to be put into the schedule but there must have been enough Community requests and involvement for that so I certainly would like to and agree that we should maintain those all the religious holidays seems like the only opportunity we do have is winter break whether we reduce it or eliminate it and a combination of maybe starting when once we have the ability with some air conditioning to start a bit earlier in the year so

109thank you sir thank you Ms bastard thank you I have to ask the question um how many staff members do we have in the whole District okay so we had 900 respond to the survey um parents I know we have more than 1934. so to me it's like we didn't even meet the need we didn't get to the whole client's help we didn't get to everyone it's a good sample but how can we do better next time to actually reach these people to get their actual input and that's what I'm worried about because we have more than 1934 in parents I'm sure we have a ton of them the high school we only had 261 we have a lot more than that and these are students correct all right and so we had 19 middle

110schoolers okay so the the half day lessons maybe we should start using you know a poll to teach them how to do a poll I'm not saying anything like that but for to only reach 900 staff members we're excluding you know almost 700 voices in in staff members and that could that could really change the the whole way this this comes out the the uh the results that's my question is my concern is that we didn't reach out to everybody um was everybody made aware of it like did um how did how did the server actually go out could you explain that little bit of process to me it was thank you mrsford it was um it was sent via our community email on September 19th September 30th and October 1st was in our community

111announcements newsletter then we hit our social media on two separate occasions September 19th September 30th that's Facebook Instagram and Twitter and it was posted on the main link of our website so I mean I feel like the people that wanted to respond had the opportunity I'm not sure I'm not sure what else you would do to get more but I'm open to suggestions no the reason why I'm asking is because at work we're all mandated to do certain things like I had to go on a emergency thing this morning we all had to answer a survey and like you know you got pretty beat up by the end of the day if it wasn't answered I would like to hear from the staff especially because they're the ones that live this we don't they live

112the of the holidays we have a very diverse staff it's changing when when I moved to Clifton years ago 38 years ago it was a very high population of a Jewish staff even when the police department the fire department and it's changed it's it's changed uh very diverse and I'm happy to live in a community like that where everybody's included but I'd like to see like go to the people that we serve what do you want my other question was somebody asked this to me and I don't know I couldn't answer it staff members that a teacher do they get other holiday do they get another vacation besides the vacation days that are on the calendar they a teacher gets 12 sick days okay and three personal days so if school is open on a

113religious holiday that they would celebrate they would have to use a person okay thank you because I I couldn't answer that question and I said if it comes up I'm gonna I'm gonna take the opportunity it might make you feel a little better Mrs best for about your first point before I finalize the calendar I ask um the union presidents of each Association for feedback on what they like which is how the February break was brought back that was something that just in my general conversations and something that the teachers really wanted back because so before that happens I'll ask you again as a parent I hated the February break but if you talk to every single teacher they needed the February break and so like that's really important because for um the mental well-being

114about staff members to take a couple of days off to reboot and regenerize and refresh their brain is really important so I'm not for that I'm for the teachable moment and every chance we get maybe we can't do you know every a whole day lesson but how that subject is affected by that holiday okay history would be all about Veterans Day and Juneteenth and also Columbus Day but economically in a math class how it affects the math of the world and stuff like that we could do not the whole lesson of the day but give a snippet in that lesson right and and I'm if but I would really I really want to hear from the parents and this to me is not a full representation of what we have in our clientele you know

115that's what I'm really worried about is how it affects them as well but more so the staff and the students I'd like to see more input but so how do we generate more in input or more with them getting involved in this process and it's a good start maybe we can do another one and ask again and see if the results change just for the heck of it I know it's a lot of work I don't I'm sorry but I I encourage everybody because if you don't use your voice it's just like going out on Election Day if you don't vote then don't complain okay so if you don't join the survey then don't complain Okay and like I said for the 700 voices almost 700 voices that we haven't heard from and is it

116because we didn't we didn't do our due diligence to get it out there and and you know how many parents um 1900 pounds I'm sure there's a whole heck of a lot that don't even know that there was a survey going on I got phone calls you're on the news you're in the paper you're on social media and I said just let the process take its course and we will find out I'm not and thank you for saying that right it's best for it to let the process play out because there was so much noise out there when when the reality was I didn't want to make a decision without getting input from the community and then by asking for Community input that caused the stir saying oh they're getting rid of all holidays so

117thank you for saying that you know here's another thing we do have a municipal Alliance but maybe a representative or two just to walk over to one of the council meetings and say Hey you know Clifton because one side of Clifton it's really amazing that there are certain people that watch this meeting faithfully and they don't watch the council meeting there's people that watch the council meeting that don't watch the Board of Ed it's we all know it we all know because we have all been there but maybe a representative too that goes over to the council meeting and say Hey listen we just put the we just slapped the survey up on our website we want everybody's voice on this please please you know participate it's going to be a lot of numbers but

118if you want this is going to be it's a hot button item I and I understand that I'm not for a limiting anybody's holiday um learning about other cultures like where I grew up in Jersey City we sell we live next door to a Jewish Community a Jewish family we celebrated their holidays they said they used to decorate our Christmas tree you know my mother would get because they would you know she would explain to them why we put certain things on the tree and it was a lot of fun to learn from each other that way and we were it was good you learn from other cultures by being exposed so maybe lessons of that why we celebrate Diwali why we celebrate Eid that should be the lesson of the day in one of

119the classes and we can pick out a subject that would reinforce that but I'm not for eliminating anybody's holiday how do you do it I don't know that's why we pay you sorry but that but um I would really like to see more more input from the the numbers that we have to me these are a little low and it's I'm not picking on anybody it's just that the clientele is a lot larger than this vice president daily thank you Mr President um Mr superintendent thank you for the report um the first thing we know without even voting on anything we're not going to make everybody happy that's for damn sure uh my first question for you uh under what do we contractually obligated to give off is uh I don't think the winter break

120is contractual however we do have the teachers convention time and that's been in by state law for quite some time and maybe the state needs to revisit that especially since uh when that law was passed we're not even closely as much culturally diverse in this state never mind this city so it's funny Mr Dilley bring up the teachers convention which I used to attend every year not as many teachers go now as they used to but it's funny what the what the law says it doesn't say you have to close it says that you have to allow any teacher who asks to go to the convention so we wouldn't you know it's one of those things where we wouldn't be able to open the schools if we tried the high school on those days but

121and then the NGA you could change the time of their convention if they wish to that's so that that's a dynamic it's it's not a too bad mouth or give anybody a problem but you know you got to look at all the options here and um you know that should be a discussion at the state level for that particular issue um on half days um besides being the parents um being a student okay you kind of love half days but really they were not productive you know you have once the student is in school you're on that track for the next six or seven hours so when you break that up that kind of disjoints the students uh uh education and and of course then you have your after-school activities and we have a lot

122of clubs and activities so that's curtailed so the school experience is damaged I believe from half days and I don't I don't do education but that that seems to be more logical um and I've told you on many many many occasions uh since we are so culturally diverse I think it's important that we have those teaching moments whether you have the day off or you don't have the day off uh just to send especially the students who don't celebrate that holiday and they're they're not in school you know okay they're gonna do whatever they're gonna watch TV whatever they're going to do so it's kind of a dead dead zone so um and you know to uh fahim's observation about um having to catch up some work because they've missed the time um that that

123would account for you from an academic standpoint of making sure the buffer around those holidays if you did them not to have any major activities where the test was needed or something like that so that's another challenge and opportunity for the district to schedule that the the thrust here is to make sure the kids are in school and they make sure we educate them and the culturalization is extremely important especially in our day and time for that to be part of our educational process so I'm giving you kind of my overview so um I I'm I I think it's very important to do to teach the cultural issues whether we give off the holiday or don't give off a holiday that there's actually some uh cultural significance to the day you need to have a

124piece of that they address that because our students need to understand that as they go into a multicultural world so I think that's important for their jump thing so you have a lot of challenges here um I I think you do need to look at the the winter break and other opportunities to to flip that out uh and then you know you you probably when for your teacher teacher development it's better if you have the the instead of a half a day to have the whole day for the teacher development so that the student is not and and then the teacher actually you also the same the teachers are in they're human beings we're all human beings we all learn you're better off when you have that train of thought and get your development whether

125it's for the teacher or for the student in a whole day rather than a half day of course you know you always think okay I gotta get out of here I got to go pay her dinner or I'm going to grab lunch and all that other stuff so um I'm not giving you too many suggestions here but I'm giving you I think I want to set a context for how how we get to this point so number one we're not going to make everybody happy number two it's a changing World we're gonna have to do things a little differently than we have in the past and you're going to have to think outside the box to get this accomplished we do need to shorten the time that that yeah to to get out of school

126especially uh in in the June time period uh that that has to be a goal that definitely has to be a goal uh and an end game when you ultimately decide when and where we don't have the calendar days so it's it's more food for thought than you know hard suggestions but that's where where my head is at thank you thank you so as Dr Danny had stated you know being in the field um you know teachers which people don't realize at some times you know they put these uh you know crowns and capes on teachers and and they deserve them but teachers are human beings and they're like anybody else um and that February break which uh was always part of of the school year from uh at least the 12 years that I

127had served previously um teachers needed that they wanted that um so you know I I don't know how you're gonna move around that they took it away for a while and it's back now but you know you just gotta think um I I know we all say it's a job um but teachers um you know doing do an exceptional job and they get burnt out as well as anybody else so that February break was a an opportunity because basically when they come back from the winter break up until spring break there's not many days that they have there so that February break was always an opportunity to give them a chance to rejuvenate themselves um you know I I speak to teachers in the Midwest and teachers in the South um just North Jersey seems

128to not North Jersey the Northeast seems to be the area where you don't start school till after Labor Day um the Midwest they start on the third week of August Florida starts on the third week of August um and they're out the last week of May so I remember being on the board previously and people all said you know we have our we have our summer houses down the shore uh people in the midwest don't have that so we don't want to come back in mid-august because we can still have two more weeks or so of of being down the shore so I I think it kind of balances itself out do you want to get out earlier and doing so you start after Labor Day if you want if you want to get out

129earlier you would start before Labor Day and I'd be uh I uh you know being not a betting man but I would bet when the results come out that people in the northeast of New Jersey would rather have those extra weeks in August and come back after Labor Day but that's a a great way to make up time is if you start before Labor Day and majority you know I shouldn't say majority I I just happen to know in the Midwest and in the South that they do that um and I was always impressed Ellie they were out by the end of May and wondering how they they did it um no matter what the circumstances are the the governor uh in governors in the past have instituted 180 days of education and I remember

130um somewhere in the 90s where we had um a tremendous amount of snow there was like five we were off five days in a row uh because of snow and um we petitioned the governor to give us a reprieve of the 180 days because of that uh that blizzard um and the governor at that time said no um and now when we went into the pandemic and had kind of the same situation asking the governor to to be even more lenient on 180 days and they said no uh so we're not gonna be able to pick up days there we we have to fulfill the 180 day obligation um again you're going to get all different opinions but I as a teacher uh could not stand those all-day professional development it just by lunchtime I'm

131like get me the heck out uh how many speakers are we going to hear how many slides are we gonna you know teachers are human beings I know we like to put them on this this pedestal and they deserve to be on the pedestal but they're human beings they get they get tired they get you know and how much are you accomplishing so having a half day uh professional development to me um so just everyone understands a half day four hour session counts as a full day of school okay so as long as we fulfill it correct am I right yeah so for our so we can bring the students in for four hours and then have some professional development um we get credit for the day so um I think one of the accomplishments

132of doing this Dr robotosi is is the calendar was always decided I think they used to do it two years in advance two years in advance you don't know you know and some people complain like our last meeting there was a back to school night like why are you putting back to school nights on a board night well that's because the calendar was made two years ago so I think eliminating that's going to help out um but remember as much as you can eliminate and do away with and whatever you still have to put 180 days in and um nobody nobody should be denied their ability to take off for whatever religious holiday they have um and I hear what Miss basford was saying on on the numbers um but I'm also inclined to say

133you know as long as they were all notified you know like shame on the rest of them that didn't respond and thank you to the ones that did um you know how many surveys can we do uh do we continue to do surveys until the numbers are what we want them to be um I I still agree that we need to make sure that everybody that wanted to complete this survey did are there people that didn't know about it uh you know I I don't think so I think your your office did quite a quite a good job of of uh advertising it um so it's not an easy thing and and I think the the the main objective here uh which somewhere out there in social media land and media land was that the

134Clifton Board of Education are a bunch of meanies and they want to take away religious holidays that first of all it hasn't even come before the Board of Education yet so that's a fallacy right there Dr robitosi not the Board of Education Dr robitosi formed this committee okay and to answer some some other people like or someone who came up about why don't we have more committees well you know you elect nine members of this board to represent you we can't have a public committee on everything that the board does you basically are voting nine members to this board to represent you and to to hear those uh concerns and items and are there times that we can invite the public in absolutely and this was one that Dr robitosi thought that he could do

135But ultimately it's going to become before this board to make a decision and we have to make the best decision for everybody and as Mr Daley said no one's going to be happy no one ever is happy you know students want to you know let's have more snow days and then now some places are saying that there may not be snow days anymore that stinks I used to as a kid remember waiting for that siren to go off that was the best part of of growing up right on that side you know I'm aging myself now because the siren has been gone for a long time but um you know you looked forward to that but you know I as as a board member will never agree to deny anyone the ability to take off

136their religious holiday um I just can't do that um everyone is entitled to that it's important to them and we as a district have to make sure that that never happens in my opinion um but again uh Dr robitosi is going to make a presentation to the board and say hey people with houses down in Jersey sure got to get back in the second week of August and we'll pick up two and a half weeks and we can have graduation much earlier or he's going to say invite me down to your house the last week of August and Labor Day and we could keep it the way it is so it's going to be a you know a tough place to go but but as far as that February break uh I have to tell

137you when years ago um I'm not saying now Mr llama but years ago the negotiators said we don't care if you give us a raise but don't take that February week away from us that February week was gold because they needed that break they do need a break now they want the February break and money but anyhow like uh Dr robotozy thank you for you and your committee um for bringing this forward and um I just hope you know as long as everybody got the information um and you know Mr llama could probably tell us you know as long as the staff was aware of it and they chose not to fill out the survey then that's their their decision to do so then we have to go by what the information that we have

138in front of us so um I don't know if another survey is in order but if anyone has um anything that they would like to input that they haven't done so far you could call the superintendent's office and uh tell them tell them what you think um your secretaries are going to kill me on that but um but no really you know if anyone has not had the opportunity to give their opinion um on November 17th we'll have our next board meeting you can come and do that you can email any of us and we'll forward it to Dr robitosi or you could call the superintendent's office with that information we don't want people not to be able to voice their opinion okay thank you again for your presentation and we'll move on to committee

139reports uh committee members we have a lot of reports here if you couldn't condense them and give a synopsis instead of reading word for word that would be wonderful um so we will start Miss Beltran would you mind doing facilities in Mr awad's absence okay hold on once again no no it's okay I just want to make sure I have the right one okay the um the facilities committee met on October 4th 2022 is that the correct one okay join me I just want to make sure because the title on top says the 11th but okay um so in attendance was for us Awad James did uh Jim vice president Daley uh myself and Jim Smith and there were multiple representatives from the administration we got a referendum update we um got dates based on

140the bid packages so one was opening on the 12th one is opening on the 15th of November and another one is opening on the 27th of um October School 14 parking lot the project is going to cost approximately 359 000 dollars there's savings from the budget that is going to pay for this or it's going to be 30 less than what we thought it was going to be so there will be some savings uh we talked about a potential property to be purchased uh we talked about a new sign for CHS over the gymnasium we talked about painting at TCMS and how this needs to be done on a schedule uh we talked about security protocols for the referendum we talked about the Banfield that um we said tonight that is completed um and we

141talked about the groundbreaking which also took place tonight um we talked about the CHS soccer field we talked about the bleachers we talked about the soft Bill field about maintaining it differently and we talked about a capital project for the next budget we talked about a lot of things in summary yeah if anyone has any questions questions uh from those minutes thank you for filling in there um Mr Paris would you do the student liaison for me oh okay sorry I'm putting you on I'm not giving you any warning here I'm sorry it's okay uh okay student liaison committee met on October 17th uh president were uh president Smith vice president Daly uh Mr Roberto um from Administration we had Mr gigaro we had Mr Rose we had Mr hamda and uh vice principal Keegan

142and uh several students um assistant superintendent Mark mcgow introduced himself and the Commissioners president president Smith explained the purpose to the committee and a chain of command vice president Daley and Mr vadravo commented on the election process and their experiences on the board students introduced themselves they brought up the following positive aspects of Clifton High School which is uh which were a lunch and poptonian Food Service cleanliness of the cafeterias future improvements such as bathrooms and turf dedication to teachers and coaches the variety of class offerings and clubs positive teacher connections and that students felt safe with the addition of security guards uh students brought up the following concerns the need for more advertisement at the middle school level to promote CHS programs uh they'd like to see more school merchandise other than athletic gear

143they were concerned about a lackluster Spirit Week participation and the availability of guidance counselors and increased hours increased focus on scheduling and the entire college application process meeting was adjourned at 1 15. that's it thank you Mr Powers any questions for that Mr Paris myself Mr Daly yeah um I I just like to add and I think all the committee members and I was extremely impressed by the dialogue from the students and um uh about their enthusiasm and the love for their uh the way they're being educated in the district um one thing that I took away amongst many things and I was very pleasantly happy to attend that meeting it was very uplifting that um I thought the students instead of talking to others besides talking to other students students should be talking of

144the parents of the students who may or may not come to the district and talk they talked they were the they would be the best ambassadors to promote our school more than our teachers not to say anything about that but to hear it from a student of that age and of that intelligence really goes a lot in my my view really went a long way of of selling this District more than I've ever heard from anybody and we all do a great job of doing that but when you hear from a student on the on the positivity and the thing and and it was just uh I was highly impressed any other questions nope um Mr Parish you got uh two uh residencies there security residency I'm sorry yes we met on Tuesday October 11th

145uh attending with Dr arbitosi Mr giancaro Mr Dr Ms Conti Mr Constantino from the board where myself is Beltran Mr Daley briefly uh and replaced by Mr Smith I'm uh please play Mr abujavo because Mr Dealey couldn't stay um just in a bridge version of the results of the meeting residency investigations eight pcti students were found and removed that means eight tuitions are being saved by the district um there's under 40 students pending and registration so registration is going very well we have a large increase in ESL population 300 over 300 from last year um we have 125 increase over last year of refugee students so our resources in ESL are both staff and space are being taxed uh that's that's a significant percentage increase over prior year um we had a review monthly security

146Jewel status um we had a brief discussion about Community safety night which was an excellent presentation by Ms Conti we were disappointed a bit by the number of we had in attendance but it was a very thorough and and uh professional presentation on our on the status of our security um last the board was very interested in checking credentials uh contractors subcontractors Etc uh so there's a discussion as to how we might be able to improve improve that contractors uh we looked at a contractors getting temporary identification directives as to where and when their staff could be could have access to the building all credentials and accessibility would go through either the day or night superintendent for workers the topic of background checks was discussed and forwarded to the board for further discussion a suggestion

147was made that we contacted the State Department of Education for guidance on what other schools have done with similar large projects and how they have handled things like background on contractors as subcontractors and Miss Conti will be reaching out for information thank you uh yeah just just to piggyback that um just so the public understands this and I like to uh thank Mr uh doctor um in his um professionalism and wisdom has made the process of forms being filled out and people registering and coming into the Welcome Center to be a much easier process and I thank him and I thank our two investigators three actually we have a part-timer now I heard um so our two investigators Mr Constantino and Mr Fieldhouse so it was Mr Paris had mentioned uh that uh eight kids

148eight students that do not live in Clifton where Clifton was paying the bill for them to go to those are PCC pctis uh the average uh uh amount of money to educate a kid in Clifton is fifteen thousand so do the math we just saved the taxpayers one hundred and twenty thousand dollars by removing those eight kids who do not live in Clifton this is a continuing process um it goes on quite often but that's real money savings to uh the citizens of Clifton um where a child lives that town should be paying the bill to send that child to bcti Clifton doesn't do it for everyone we do it for Clifton students so congratulations to the residency team um for for that great number anyone else have any questions on residency security Dr Danny

149um yes I actually had a um a few citizens ask how much is it if um they actually submit you know some tips that leads to students being removed so just somebody could reiterate yeah Mr Paris do you want to answer you want me to yeah um I believe it's still fifteen hundred dollars um fifteen hundred dollars will be paid out to anybody who can um bring information to our district of where somebody is attending school uh illegally um once that is investigated and proven um then the Bounty will be paid out so fifteen hundred dollars right now um and unfortunately we haven't paid out about the in a while um so if there's people out there want to make some some good money and and and help the people of Clifton um fifteen hundred

150dollars so Mr President Mr Nova um in here we said there was an influx of students that are that are now getting registered to Clifton do we know is that particular areas or particular schools we said we're you know we're busting at the seams is that a certain Dem like I said a Clifton yeah Miss Kusa Levitt you can comment on that but it was she told us it was spread across the industry yeah not any one particular School right do you concur yes because our our ESL programs are magnet programs so the students come from every school in the district and are bused to the magnet programs okay uh next it looks like um Athletics Mr Robert thank you Mr President um so board members president were Jim Smith Jim Daly and myself Administration

151with Mr gingero the assistant superintendent principal hamda and A.D Tom mullahey started at 2 pm and at 3 P.M first discussion was in Middle School wrestling initiative middle schoolers would meet at CHS at 5 pm on Mondays and Tuesdays and Thursdays with a coach so that's going to be a pipeline to the high school number two was the north Jersey officials recruitment Drive um Mr Miller explained that the recruitment drive basically um uh getting a 300 rebate from NJ njsiaa is all for anyone who successfully completes the training course uh offered by the sports official officials Association there were four sports update soccer boys are doing very well as first seed we could possibly have a home playoff game if Clifton wins uh the next game um soccer girls are struggling a bit with some

152injuries this season volleyball um uh should improve and gymnastics won two meets a season so we had a rundown with also sorry cross country as well won their division and Tennis girls as well so we had a rundown of all the sports the concession donations 400 each between three um Sports football cheer and band um or so that was discussed there uh tennis courts naming after Kiko takuda um that was discussed where Malay he would had a sign order similar to the sign that was already that was already there and with uh putting a plaque on the wall of fence and board members believe this already has a board resolution training room named after trainer Tom um someone something very similar so that's being taken a look at right now Mr Daley mentioned perhaps putting

153a plaque for Dave's um who was a football player uh at the locker room at stadium floor replacement this would be a summer project however we're in agreement that the floor needs to be replaced and it is quite old and the gym floor replace that was discussed is the one at the high school uh additional seating over CHS socket lacrosse field additional scene was discussed for CHS soccer Lacross Fields large crowds and additional baseball coach was discussed for this season and hopefully we'll see that on the upcoming agenda trying to summarize everything questions concerns yeah did anyone Miss password yeah um number four when did we vote to hire Jerry a private vendor for the concession stand I I don't remember seeing that on the agenda and who is this vendor there was never um

154a resolution to a hire any vendor it's not somebody the district hires that um done through the athletic department changed last year because somebody left or retired I'm not really sure to be honest with you because my question is that I'm seeing donations called money moving back and forth so my concern is that that should have been discussed with the board that because I remember the way they used to do it it was one person used to run it and then whoever showed up from the athletic different committees used to get a donation back to that commit to that club like football the cheerleaders so you had it as a parent you had to be from the booster club you had to go actually work that kitchen to get that money back so um I

155would like to learn some more information about this because what is this vendor making what are they you know what the charges are is it the same prices we used to charge like this money being changed so I would like more information about it and I think that we should know is who this person is and next year do we put it out to bid that's my question is because if people are making money on this shouldn't we have some kind of technical resolution about a bidding process if I don't know what I'll find out if I'm not mistaken isn't it yeah that's what I say if I'm not mistaken it's probably run by booster club so it's not really run by us uh and Jerry has been around the city again I have no

156attachment to Jerry I just because I'm on the committee but um uh I believe Jerry was hired he had his own place he does the the stallion soccer field over athenia as well he he does he's their vendor for the city over there and I believe he was looked to do something very similar as he does over there at the athenia soccer field um by the booster clubs by all three and I think the title says 400 each I believe it's 400 split between the three if I'm not mistaken um so I think we just need to correct that okay so my question is you you have to be inclusive to other people what if another vendor wanted to participate in this and give us a better price give us more money for a donation

157I just think that it should be yeah Mrs basket I don't disagree with you I just have to find out more information on that I would it's my understanding that it was a booster club function right of the booster clubs pick I'm not really sure let me get more information but they're still using our facility here's my issue okay understood Insurance somebody gets burned somebody gets hurt we pay for it I've had a long week with insurances so I'm learning a lot about liability and also about payout so my concern is that it should be if we're going to let this person use the facility it should be we could have another company XYZ company come in and give the Boost is a better deal this this was never see I didn't know anything about

158this this is a company that's using our facility it's just like a usage form everybody that uses our facility should have a usage form because I remember Miss Perkins saying that if something happens and we don't have a usage form that means we didn't document the who what when where why and that insurance won't cover it so that's why I'm going there thank you and I agree with besser as well because if the check is deposited into our threat account and split then it's coming then the school the district has has some sort of say when it comes to the money uh particularly if it could be is it coming to our account that's what it says yeah it says here checkable deposit in our athletic account then we'll cut the cut a check the

159football cheer and band like we try to find out this information so that so there so there is like the end so there is liability there and then we're doing it it's also the vetting process of the vendor that's coming in to use is if we're going into this mode of actually doing background checks on people does this person and his staff have to be background checked as well because the deal because not only the public is buying from them students are buying from them and if anybody goes near my kids every almost 11 000 or all-out kids I want to make sure that they have the proper credentials to be around our students Mr Malay will probably have that that information uh Jerry's catering is uh for the city of Clifton uh so I'm

160sure he's fully vetted already but we can get that information um and just how I I found out about this information um the person that used to run it and Jen algeri could probably uh fill us in a lot of stuff because she was involved with it um but basically the woman that was in in charge of it had to leave for medical reasons um and there was nobody to take it over um so they they put this guy Jerry's catering in charge um my question was what about the booster clubs that were getting money they used to have to work it and they all got a cut of it um I was told that they're still getting their cut but they don't have to work it so it was a win-win uh opportunity but

161I'm sure we can get that information for everybody my other concerns is that for the next time going forward when we hire somebody like this this should be a formal resolution on so we can vote on it foreign okay any other questions K uh Miss uh Dr Danny uh Municipal Alliance Municipal Alliance committee met October 13 2022 board members present were myself Mr Canova Mr abadrabo President Smith Administration present word Dr robertosie Mr gingero Mr shahada other attendees present from the city Side Mr Villano Miss Murphy Miss Pino and Mr Gibson meeting start time five o'clock meeting End Time 5 55 p.m uh first issue was water hydrant flushing can schools be notified the city manager said that he would ask the Passaic Valley Water to notify them and he'll notify Mr gengaro who will

162then notify the principals at the schools road work construction around the schools the city manager will work with assistant superintendent gengaro on the communications plan syllabi and CHS parent concerns regarding speeding reckless driving School 9 Market Streets feeding truck parking and failure to obey crossing guard reported the Board of Education requested signage to be placed around these location notifying drivers and children drivers that children are in the area of like Brighton Road Market Street Market Street School 9 area the city proposed that they really wanted to put out speed trailers to gather data information and then with that speed rate radar in the area they can give that information over to us and we can look at it and see that um you know if what what exactly is happening because you know by the

163naked eye somebody's speeding you don't know and at least this way it's like hard evidence um discussed Avenues taken to find more crossing guards the city stated this is not specific to these areas or school zones illuminated school zone signs when in session were suggested the Boe would like to explore the option of having signs that illuminate city is willing again after Gathering data and adding signs to necessary locations five better school zone signage marking requested existing signs are too close to school grounds the city manager will work with assistant superintendent gengaro on a communication plan security concern we didn't want to go into detail just because it is a security issue so Mr Canova brought up a concern that he had regarding the city of a City Concern that did affect our schools and

164the city has addressed the issue um you know I we didn't want to get into I just thought since it is security issue don't really want to go into full details but more details on file in the superintendent's office um new business the dead Tree near the new Boe parking lot the city will follow up with the county to remove the tree any questions I have a question um if we are we going into executive tonight okay can we can you guys discuss well because there's four members on this board that were on the committee the other ones don't know what it is yeah it's fine can we discuss that in exactly yes it's fine we just didn't want I didn't want to put it on the minutes and you'll once you know you'll you'll

165agree I believe any other questions Municipal Alliance I don't feel okay um we'll move on uh I don't see any unfinished business so we'll move on to education and administration I'm sorry does anyone have any unfinished business no okay move on to education Administration we have um ea1 through EA 11. motion by Dr Danny second by Mr abadrabo discussion seeing none roll call please Mr abadrabo yes Miss basford Miss Beltran Mr Canova yes Dr Danny yes Mr Paris yes before please vice president Daley yes president Smith yes motions Kerry okay next we'll go on to Personnel we have um P1 through p27 so I moved some move by Mr abadrabo so I Can Say Goodbye Mr Paris discussion I have a question I have a question I had a conversation with the superintendent this afternoon

166can you please tell people about the hiring process how this board doesn't get involved in the hiring process because um I think it needs to be heard superintendent is responsible for the day-to-day operations which includes the hiring and recommendation of employees to be hired superintendent develops procedures for interviews to take place the superintendent then makes a recommendation for an employee to be hired by the Board of Education the board votes yes or no and that employee gets hired the board is not involved in the hiring process um like that's pretty much it but who who do we hire you hire me right I'm the only one to hire our board attorney correct all right so um when you make a recommendation what is a board member allowed to do about that recommendation you you can

167ask for the qualifications of that person you could see their resume application you can ask what the job responsibilities are you can ask what the qualifications are for other people that have applied and why this person was chosen you could ask about the process um I think that's it thank you you can vote Yes digimo yes no or abstain but I'm the only the superintendent is the only employee you hire without my recommendation I can't recommend myself you can you did I can your resume yeah that's true thank you no worries Bob okay seeing nothing else roll call please Dr Danny and Mr Roberto right from Mr Robert Mr Paris yeah yes all righty Mr abidrabo yes Miss basford yes I'm staying on eight Miss Beltran Mr Canova yes Dr Danny yes Mr Paris yes

168vice president Daley yes and president Smith yes motion scary hey next we'll go to finance and Facilities we have F1 through f8 move it move by Miss basford second by Mr abadrabo discussion seeing non-roll call please Mr abadrabo yes Obsession seven Miss basford yes and abstain on check number two zero nine one eight six that's Heroes and Cool Kids that is a program run through Casa so I have to abstain Miss Beltran yes Mr Canova yes Dr Danny yes Mr Paris yes vice president Daley yes and president Smith yes motion scary okay we'll move on to remember comments sorry Okay so last week was Mr Awad he was absent so misspelgium keep it short tonight since it is getting later um I'm looking forward to attending a bunch of the Trunk or Treats I'm going

169to try and make as many as physically possible I know many are scheduled for the same night at the same time um but we're gonna try and make a an attempt to get to as many as we can um I look forward to seeing what the schedule is going to look like uh the calendar um I think we're really trying to do the best that we can to get the kids out of school earlier and I um I hope that everyone has a successful finish of the first marking period um I think we go to miss password next yes um good evening everyone um I have to say send out um my condolence to Tom zebra on the loss of his dad I know he attends a lot of our football games and he's always

170very involved he's a really good person and uh it's a really deep loss to him and I'm very sorry Tom my condolence to you during this very difficult time if I could be of any help to you just talking on the phone any support please let me know you you reach out to me when you have a question so I'm here for you ready Ribbon week this week a year is uh October 23rd to the 31st um and I I didn't see anything on the on the agenda but I know Casa donates the ribbons from um uh K to five so they're going to be doing that it's one of the people from our group make sure that the ribbons are always get sent to the district so I'm glad to see that's still going

171um it is breast cancer awareness so please everybody it affects both men and women get out there and and get checked because you never know um it's uh something that you need to uh do and take care of um I want to thank I just want to take a minute like uh you know when sometimes life just makes you stop and kind of hits you in very odd ways and this weekend we gotta good Wallop on uh what life is all about and what the importance of life is all about so um I was going to talk about the election and I had a lot to say but I have to I can't I just can't I can't bring myself to even go in there and uh you'll be hearing from me at a later

172date maybe at the other side of the street uh we had a family emergency this week um uh big Keith got involved in a really bad accident he has a fractured hip he had to have emergency surgery to have the hip replaced um I want to thank everybody for sending us well wishes all the support from friends family my brother my sister that really stepped up for my nephew from Hawaii was Consulting me in the hospital about the surgeons thank you Joseph I I don't know what I would do without you that late night phone call even though it was early for you it was late for me got me through a really rough night when I couldn't sleep but um by the next meeting you will know we will all know who our new

173colleagues will be so uh that's something going to be exciting for all of us um we know that we'll have two new faces here on the on this Deus and I look forward to working with everyone and uh moving this District in the right direction there are many community events coming up next week so everybody please drive safely please be careful about the children that are excited with the chunk of treats and Halloween and go out and support our teams any way you can buy a shirt buy a t-shirt get to a game encourage them on Facebook whatever you do just encourage them and everybody have fun and be safe good night um I do want to wish well wishes to to Mr bassford on this accident I hope he gets well soon Miss Alama

174I saw the that email you sent went to my spam so maybe that's what happened to the other individuals um but I I could send that back to you no problem um there are a lot of Trunk or Treats going on uh and I know they do still need to volunteers so anyone who wants to dress up their car or even just put out a table and some candy or be involved definitely reach out to your local HSA ptas they are in need of assistance so if you have any time or they are great events there's always entertainment there and so it was just fun with getting out with the kids good to see everybody dressed up it's kind of cool so if you haven't been to one definitely get to one but try and

175pitch and help out and uh just the last thing is just make sure you go out there and vote um you know that's that's the right that we have here in America and just make sure you exercise it thank you foreign Dr Danny uh yes I'd like to say um you know thank you to all the speakers and um really uh speedy recovery to Keith um and um sending well wishes uh prayers his way and to all have a safe and happy Halloween enjoy the holiday but be safe and everybody just look out for all the trick-or-treaters that are out on the street and that's all I have thank you hey Mr Paris thank you Mr Smith congratulations to all the student of the the month winners um just a reminder again about the north

176Jersey van Festival it's quite a quite a sight to see uh this Sunday and uh happy and safe Halloween to everyone thank you Mr abujavo I think president Smith uh godspeed to Mr bassford for Better Health uh Mr Cohen congratulations again on being honored hard work and dedication to this District he has done it with no ask for a thank you no ask for anything else and the man does it day in and day out for every sport I think that's the least we this District this board could have done and they did uh St Peter's Haven Tricky Tray is tomorrow Friday um and speaking of tricky happy Halloween stay safe and healthy this Halloween please drive safely it is very important to make sure when you're going around those Corners um that you're watching

177now for young for the Youth for our students who are crossing quickly to get to that next bag of candy um and sometimes it really isn't worth it so I think it's better just to park your car and walk where you have to get to and just enjoy all these Young Folks just running around the neighborhood so that's all I have vice president Daly thank you Mr President um first of all uh my prayers and best wishes to uh for Keith to Judy and Samantha uh I know that's very devastating and it's a tough uh tough road but we wish him the best and a full recovery I also like to congratulate Mr Cohn on his service and volunteerism that's what we should all be doing in our government in whatever way we can to

178uh to help support uh our citizens and one another in this country and last but not least um make sure you go out and vote it's the most important thing you can do as a citizen next to volunteering so uh please exercise your vote and also please take the time to do the best you can because press isn't what they used to be in getting any information on all the candidates that are running for all the various offices thank you um again my best wishes for a speedy recovery for Keith um also um condolences to the algeri family uh to Jen and Rob uh Rob is an employee of ours in our district on the passing of his father um I I believe it's uh the wake is tomorrow in uh in Nutley uh so

179uh Rob and Jen we offer our condolences uh to you also um a fellow a neighbor of uh Jim and mine um uh Vince Rocky colavidi um he was um very dedicated to um the fire department in Passaic and he was the head of special police here in Clifton so many of sporting events and such you probably saw Rocky there so my condolences to the entire colavini family um I remind everyone our next meeting is November the 17th uh we only have one meeting in November and one meeting in December November 17th and December 8th so uh please make uh make note of that um uh as many of you have said there are numerous Trunk or Treats coming up this is something that kids just enjoy so much um the ones that I have

180seen um have been just great events uh the hard work that the parents and the home schools put into these events to make these kids happy it's a safe opportunity for our students to be able to enjoy the trick-or-treat process so I commend all those that do it and if you'd like to be part of it you don't have to donate your car or your your time if you just want to donate treats we'll gladly take those and uh and if you do have the time and and can decorate your car very simply for for kids to come and trick-or-treat at that would be great any of our schools all of them are doing the trick-or-treats in one way or the other so if you can it's a great opportunity to support the young people

181in our district um numerous uh sporting events um and other events of the Arts that are happening over the next couple of weeks um exciting time for Clifton and obviously we we hope that you'll come out and show your support uh for Clifton kids um to all those that are involved in the election process on both sides we wish you all the best um I know some some of you will be so happy and glad when it's all over the election process is um a very tough uh period of time on the candidate and I just want to express my uh my best wishes to everybody that's involved in it um so years ago the Board of Ed elections um were held in May so it was much warmer and the polls were open from

1821 30 to 8. now they are part of the general election process so they are in November and they're open a full day from 6 a.m to 8 P.M so um please get out there will also be early voting dates I believe that whole week before election day um every day there is early voting early voting in Clifton I believe is happening at the main library um so if you don't want to come out on Election Day and you want to get your vote in early you can come to early voting at the Maine public library on PA agent Avenue so early voting absentee voting and physical on the spot voting there's many opportunities for you to come out and vote so please just take the time uh the the little bit of that on

183time it takes to cash your vote and to do your responsibility as a citizen in this in this country um I think that's all that I have I want to thank um Mr shahada uh for uh putting together this groundbreaking uh ceremony today uh did a wonderful job and um you know we're we're up and rolling uh gang on the construction process it's such an exciting time for Clifton um to be able to see uh the great things that are they're going to be happening in Clifton in the upgrades to our schools I'm a little upset and disappointed though um we were celebrating that we were the largest uh referendum ever passed in the state of New Jersey and we held that for a few months and we're very proud of that but um our

184160 2.5 million dollars is nothing compared to uh is it Red Bank Cherry Hill uh 350 million dollars so God help those taxpayers so um we are so thankful and fortunate for the residents of Clifton for supporting uh supporting our referendum um and you're going to be seeing the the great outcomes of that support so we thank you all for that and um that's all I have we'll move on um new business Mr President yes yeah yeah just uh very quickly um I'd like to ask you and the superintendent uh at the next meeting um if we could invite Mr Jeff Fisher here because we we talked in fact it was in The Residency report about the fiscal impact of pcti on this district and it's not too blade that's the school but it's really

185to shed light on how funding for that institution is and particularly how it impacts our pocketbook and I know the superintendent was at the school boards County School boards meeting uh where Mr Fisher presented so he's got a number of figures and if he can make a short presentation I mean we could do it you could do it but I think Mr Fisher's position uh from an outside from somebody not from Clifton but who's been involved with this issue for many many many years uh will help not only educate the board but educate the public as to exactly how that impact and how what the county and County does not do to help alleviate the impact on local school districts so uh Mr Daley yeah because he's a great reference resource because he was past

186president of New Jersey school boys and he was also past president of the county yes yes so I think he's an excellent resource he's been studying it for years yeah and and it's really very educational for everybody to hear what he has to say because he has the numbers and he's done this significant research and he's an effective voice so uh if Mr Fisher is willing if he could have met in exporting you're not for a long presentation but just to to expound it um again on residency and security um you know uh assistant superintendent Martin Garo he really um took this um area to a very high level where Clifton was lacking in so many areas and he did such a wonderful job of putting us at a much higher level where we can

187be able to find students that do not belong in Clifton schools and taking space from other potential Clifton students and costing the taxpayer is a great deal of money and um Mr giguero giving up some of his Reign um that's one area he had to give up and putting in Mr doctor has proven to be a tremendous move by Administration in the district because he's now taken it to uh to another level and just hearing the staff on on how easy it is to complete the forms and be able to get the information the department does a great job and I thank Mr gengaro for for implementing and Mr doctor for continuing um because we're not denying anybody in education every child is deserving of an education but Clifton students who live in Clifton should

188be going to Clifton schools not students who live in other towns we know everyone wants to come to Clifton because we know our our education is exceptional but that is the law and it is not the responsibility of the taxpayer in Clifton to pay for a child from another District to uh to attend Clifton schools it is not in our residency and um uh residency team will continue to do a great job to make sure that um that that process continues and just as we said to tonight just one area of eight students where we're saving the taxpayer a hundred and twenty thousand dollars that's just one area so Mr dugari thank you for putting us to uh to a much higher level and for Mr doctor for uh moving it even forward so uh

189I thank you for that all right any other new business all right seeing none uh we have uh two short items for uh executive session uh we have a student uh suspension uh update and we have the security matter that Mrs basford has to be brought to Executive session um action will be taken and I'm going to say 45 minutes tops um we already did the students well we forgot to pull it we voted on it but so we can adjourn okay so since the board already voted on that uh we'll hear the uh security issue of uh Miss basford and we will adjourn from executive session okay so I don't want you to can we just be waiting out what's the student matter in the back we're going to bring it in the back

190yeah I just want to know we're not coming back out here okay uh motion to go into executive session by Mr abadrabo second by Mr Paris seeing no objection I didn't even realize