August 25, 2022 - Clifton Board of Education Meeting

001i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america 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 russia mr abu drabbo here mr awad here mrs bassford here miss beltran here mr conover dr dan mr paris here vice president daley here president smith here we have a quorum um commission commissioner dr danny is um there was a death in the family so she won't be here and mr kanova is relaxing on vacation um and uh our attorney delise is not here tonight but we're very happy to have her replacement mr john cru thank you and welcome uh miss beltran would you read the mission statement the mission of the clifton school district an open and reciprocal

002community partnership is to provide all students with a quality education to develop the skills necessary to become literate lifelong learners who are responsible and productive citizens contributing to a democratic society and ever changing world 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 at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the clifton board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be publicized by having the date time and place thereof posted at the city clerk's office clifton public library administration building senior citizen nutrition center on cable tv in the local press on the district's website and mailed

003to presidents of parent teacher organizations this meeting will be tape recorded in accordance with policy zero one six eight okay we're going to start with uh public recognition oh you want to do it the other way okay all right uh we'll do our presentations first um is janine up first or we're gonna do doctors mike doc all right um um mr doctor will uh make his presentation first sorry good evening dr robert tosi president smith and the commissioners of the board of education clifton public schools will begin working with the sandy hook promise to teach students to recognize warning signs and threats and provide them with an efficient means to report concerns their mission is to end school shootings and create a culture change that prevents violence and other harmful acts that hurt our children

004we look forward to working with them to accomplish this goal the program teaches students how to recognize warning signs and threats in social media in school and in the community from individuals who may be at risk to themselves or others and say something to a trusted adult use say something anonymous reporting system or call 9-1-1 once a concern is identified by a student they're able to submit a tip this can be done through an app that all students grades 12 6-12 will be trained to use through the say something website or by calling the hotline once the tip is received it will be processed by the crisis center which is open 24 hours 7 days a week 365 days during the year the tip will be vetted triaged categorized and handed off to the appropriate

005professionals this can be school personnel district personnel or even clifton police based on the threat level finally once delivered to the appropriate team the tip will be investigated and handled the most common tips received by the say something system are vaping and substance abuse anxiety and depression cutting bullying and cyber bullying suicide threat and ideation and planned fights in school violence by working with our students and empowering them to help others we hope to to curtail these and other situations which occur in our young people's lives and provide them with the necessary support i'd like to thank jessica tremble and martin garrow who worked on vetting of this program i'd also like to thank amy keloge for facilitating facilitating our introduction to the program thank you one of the reasons why we just have the

006logo up and why i'm not giving too much detail is because of our agreement would say something because a lot of what we share we're going to be sharing with the staff and students first giving them the information because if we give too much information they might believe that the app is available right now or that they're able to go onto this site and put in a tip and unfortunately we're not logged into it yet that happens come september 12th when we train all of our students if anybody has anything any questions for mr dr dr robitosi mr doctor forgive me if you said it but what is the cost to the board of education for this program it's free of charge it costs the district nothing and this is an ongoing program they're completely

007funded from different grants that they receive and from fundraising and from uh corporations so it's no cost to us now and moving forward any commissioners have any questions mr albertravo thank you president smith that was actually one of my questions but the other question i had was are you able to walk us through the process of say something see something or see something say something as far as the student's concerned is concerned so a student realizes that something's wrong whether they're told of a fight that's going to happen or they notice that their friends cutting themselves or they have suicidal ideations they can go onto their app uh they'll be pre-loaded with a code so they can go right in and there are drop-down menus and they select the different uh items that apply to

008them they give whatever information they can and then it's sent off to the crisis center a live person will look at it vet the information and if they need to they will reach out to this person to see if they need to provide immediate help immediate help could be contacting the police if that happens after hours because a student says that they're going to hurt themselves what will happen is one of the district personnel mr dungaro myself ms tremble would be contacted to provide contact information for that student that it might be because this person might be talking about themselves they could be calling for a friend who they think might be in danger so the police may not have the necessary information we're on call 24 hours to provide that information okay anyone else

009if i may from an external perspective um let's say it's not internal an external a community member um hears something or says something or like we've had in the past where social media post happens is there an external factor to this or is it only internal they can go on to our website there will be a link as of the 13th of september that they would be able to click on and provide that same information anyone else mr doctor thank you very much thank you thank you okay are you next no oh i'm sorry miss rogoza good evening everyone um my name is paula ragoza pbsis uh director director pbsis coordinator for the district is what i meant to say director right so to be someday thank you uh commissioners thank you dr robertosi uh

010mr president smith central administration for affording me the opportunity to highlight what we're doing in our district with pbsis tonight's uh tonight's spin on it i wanted to uh provide for us a little bit of what we've we did besides uh highlighting particular schools uh staff and students but there's so many wonderful things that as a collective we're doing that i wanted just to give you a little bit of that what we did and what to expect next school year um but before i get into that i do want to share a little bit about what happened this morning this morning i had the privilege to present to our new staff that are entering our one clifton community and it is with the energy that that came out of that that continued to inspire me

011for what i wanted to present to you but more importantly i i got to tell folks that are joining our family how wonderful we are and what we're striving to do and as you'll see in the next three short slides it's evident that we are all even though um at times stressfully working together we're making a huge impact day in and day out not only for our community our instructional buildings but our state and on a national platform so all right the cascade of services that we saw last year uh broke it down into four different pieces first what our pbsis teams were doing internally you saw all of last year the different implementation pieces of the universal tier so we are all clear that all of our buildings are implementing universal tier we also

012saw that secondary tier intervention started to kick off with training and that's amazing in itself you all afforded us the opportunity to present at monthly meet board meetings those that message in itself provided so much um is so much not pat but so much uh strength for the teams because they realize that everyone is appreciating what they're doing that it doesn't go unheard that you are all rooting for them and that everyone in the community stands behind all of those um late hours that they're putting in so thank you on a statewide platform last year we were recognized and we were asked to present at the njpbsis community of practice forum where we got to present our district-wide implementation of pbsis from there we had several school districts asked to follow what we're doing here

013and that was pretty amazing to share next njpbsis as a state network also recognized us for all of our buildings met 70 percent fidelity which is the the minimum right for implementation what that means is that we're doing it and we're rocking it out we really simply are on a national platform we were invited to present at the center on pbis national technical assistance that all happens because of the hard work that my our colleagues our peers and our students are helping we did such a great job that we're actually invited to present again on the same district-wide topic this october in chicago it's with great pride that i present to you that information because when i joined the clifton family i knew the the hard work that went into everything that everyone did and

014i wanted to be part of that and here we are the other thing to look forward to this year is we we just finished um recording a podcast for the university of missouri on the educate titled the educators blueprint check it out pretty cool so they're they're so they're so happy to get our shared resources that they've asked us to record yet another podcast on our security end and what we're doing to keep our school safe looking forward to this school year we're looking for our universal tier to continue to sustain in all of our buildings and secondary tier trainings and piloting from the following um schools this is an at a glance of the projected training and piloting for our schools and how we'll move in cohorts you know hopefully we don't have another

015major traumatic event like a pandemic that'll mess up our timelines but if all goes as projected this is what we're going to look like in the end i want to thank you because without your support without our without our folks and our our staff our teachers our administrators and our students and the parents and families at home this doesn't happen i just get i just get the privilege to show you the outcome thank you all so much thank you again as usual ms rogoza for all your hard work and efforts i truly appreciate it now miss kusalevich good evening commissioners ladies and gentlemen it's a pleasure to be here with you again this evening um as we discussed earlier um in the year we said that today i would be presenting to you all of

016the topics in the pacing for the health curriculum so tonight's presentation is addressing comprehensive health and physical education but we're only focusing on the topics in the health curriculum k through 12. we're going to go through all of the topics and there had been previous conversations with concerns um about the cert specific lessons that are being taught and i'll be giving an example i'll be reading through a combination of lesson plan and script for a lesson in second grade a lesson in fifth grade and a lesson in eighth grade those lessons are interlaced with the pacing um so if you'll indulge me i'll be going through the pacing now now one of the main concerns that parents had was opting out and i would like to let everyone know that the opt-out letters broken up

017by the pacing topics for kindergarten first second third fourth fifth middle school and high school have been posted on our district website they're actually reachable through the academics section under health and physical education but they're also reachable on every individual elementary school and school page under announcements so parents can easily find the opt out letter to identify the specific lesson that they would like to opt out of at the same time to make it much more clear to parents when this lesson will take place these opt-out letters will also be posted in each of the health teachers google classrooms which is where they list what they're teaching that week what topics are being taught that week so just in case someone isn't sure if they want to use the opt out now they can just

018go right to that teacher's google classroom once the year has begun and they can see exactly when the lesson will be taught and they can always submit their opt-out at that time um the opt-out is really very simple you reference the letter and you send an email to your building principal okay so here we go we begin with kindergarten the kindergarten health curriculum topics we have eight lessons on feelings including types of feelings stress mindfulness empathy conflict resolution bullying and teasing sharing and caring for others respect four lessons on self-care and hygiene one on dental care and three on germs four on community safety community helpers fire safety home safety and personal safety for on nutrition including healthy foods food groups and healthy versus unhealthy food before we move into first grade i just want

019to explain that was only about 20 lessons that's because in the elementary school health is not a full year course the health teachers come in for about 25 to 30 minutes into each class about 20 times per school year or two marking periods first grade once again we revisit feelings there are eight classes including stress mindfulness empathy resolution bullying and teasing sharing and caring for others respect and family friend relationships three more lessons on self-care and hygiene including tooth care germs communication when they're ill and the importance of sleep and rest five lessons on community safety including community helpers fire safety home safety personal safety emergency situations and using 9-1-1 and medicines four classes on nutrition including healthy food groups healthy foods food groups and healthy versus unhealthy food in second grade we have seven

020classes on feelings types of feelings stress mindfulness empathy conflict resolution bullying and teasing sharing and caring for others respect family and friend relationships safety one class each on stranger safety personal body safety and personal safety three classes on nutrition healthy food groups food groups and my plate healthy versus unhealthy food and once again self-care and hygiene including a combination of dental care germs communicating when you feel ill and the importance of sleep and rest we have three classes on social health including relationships roles of family members acceptance of individual choices or expressions and stereotypes and then one class that addresses physiological terminology and systems and in a moment i'm going to share that lesson with you but the physiological terminology and systems lesson addresses body parts including penis vagina testes and vulva and the muscular

021skeletal cardiovascular and respiratory system so here's a sample of what that lesson would look like the goals by the end of this lesson students should be able to correctly identify multiple body parts including two parts of the male or female genitals they will correctly identify basic body systems including the muscular skeletal cardiovascular and respiratory system and they'll be able to explain why it's important to know the correct terminology for their body parts including the names for genitals this is part of a growing movement in schools and youth organizations to teach correct terminology rather than euphemisms so following the updated standards the pers the lesson would go something like this the classroom teacher would come in and we have some scripting in these lessons so that we can guide our teachers to exactly how to talk

022about the topics we're talking about so we'd introduce the topic hey boys and girls today we're going to talk about our bodies including parts that we all have in common parts that are different and parts that are covered when we're in public explain that it's important that everyone knows that their how their body works you need to know you have a body you need to know how it works and how to take care of it so we can all be healthy the teacher will do something simple like calling out important parts of the body while asking students to point to that part of the body such as eyes nose arms legs etc once students point to that body part you'd ask them well what does it do eyes are for seeing legs are for walking

023and running noses for smelling it may then go into a conversation along the lines of even though we all have a nose do they all look the same they look different we all have eyes do they look the same do they look different we all have skin does our skin look the same does it look different even though our bodies do the same things we can look different and then we would move into naming and defining the body systems including the muscular system skeletal system and so forth the new vocabulary to this lesson is identifying that there are parts that are covered by your bathing suit these are the parts that you don't show off in public these are the parts that you don't show anyone except your parents or your doctor and those then

024they would say well what are those parts well boys would have a penis or testes girls would have a vagina which is the external female genitals um the internal female genitals and a volvo which is the external female genitals it would be as simple as that moving on in terms of illustrations there was a major concern that was brought to us by a concerned community member about the introduction of pornographic illustrations we are not demonstrating pictures or showing pictures of the specific body parts the illustrations will be these are the parts that are covered by your bathing suit your bathing suit parts parts that you keep private and here we have the illustrations that would be used in class as you can see it's pointing to the external part of the girl's body that says

025vulva and it's she's covered up the growing area is pointed out covered up same for the boy and one major focus of this is the body safety rules that no one should see touch take a photo or video of the parts of our body that we keep covered by our bathing suit these are our private parts and then it goes into talking to a trusted adult if somebody tries to touch or view those body parts and that is it for the 20-minute second grade physiological terminology lesson now we're going to go back to our pacing in grade 3 we have 10 lessons on safety and community health these include emergency services like 911 police fire and poison control school safety support like the nursing counselor addressing the effects of climate change and current prevention protocols

026including pollution and recycling efforts community health centers water safety which includes swimming and lifeguards asthma and allergy care and prevention [Music] sun safety including skin exposure hydration and spf protection stranger interactions motor vehicle safety such as seat belts communicating safely through digital media and personal boundaries in friendships and then the third graders get 10 more detailed classes on nutrition and food safety how healthy eating habits affect wellness choosing healthy foods to create a balanced meal storing and handling foods meal timing meal frequency where to find healthy foods nutrition facts and food labeling food allergies food preparation nutrition goals and nutritional trends in fourth grade we go in more detail into systems there are nine classics classes on basic anatomy and physiology as related to health conditions and diseases students learn about cells and organs the

027circulatory system the respiratory system the digestive system the skeletal system the muscular system diseases which are infectious and communicable mental health impact on wellness and the medical professionals role in overall health then there are 11 classes on medicines and drugs this includes alcohol tobacco and other drugs students learn to identify tobacco-containing products such as e-cigarettes and vapes they explain the unhealthy effect of tobacco use they learn to identify alcohol containing products they explain the unhealthy effects of alcohol use they identify over-the-counter drugs and they review the use and misuse of over-the-counter drugs and that even over-the-counter drugs must be used with parental or doctors supervision we identify illicit drugs like inhalants opioids non-prescription cannabis and other drugs they review substance abuse disorders and the unhealthy effects they review assistance available for people with substance abuse

028they learn ways to say no to drugs and they practice common interactions with peer pressure so they can say no to drugs they learn about drug misuse and how that can affect their relationship with family friends and community then we have 12 classes on personal growth and development injury prevention sleep nutrition including food choices and healthy habits the importance of physical activity life management skills stress management goal setting self-image emotional health hygiene doctors visits including checkups physicals and blood work and dental hygiene including dental visits and then we have classes the three classes on adolescence which is the puberty social and sexual health the main lesson takes one to two classes and then there's one class on demonstrating ways to promote dignity and respect for all people uh the two classes that we normally would

029be done in fourth grade back in the day these were the classes that were taught boys in one room girls in another but it's been decades since well over a decade that we've been doing them together and the students learn about puberty physical the physical changes including the hormonal changes that cause puberty as well as secondary sex characteristics social and emotional changes and they learn to identify the health care professionals with whom these changes can be discussed they do learn about human reproduction and that ways pregnancy can occur but they differ and they differentiate between sexual orientation and gender but by definition only they explain the importance to communicate with their trusted adults about these topics now i'm going to go through a sample lesson plan with some scripting again to give the teachers an

030idea of how they're going to be addressing this lesson in but this was actually written by our teachers and this is how our teachers have been addressing this lesson up to now so the goals of the lesson are to describe the physical and emotional changes of puberty children are taught to anticipate puberty with positive feelings and to recognize that the timing of change is individual students will distinguish among the definitions of erection menstruation nocturnal emission ovum puberty and sperm they learn the purpose of bras athletic supporters and menstrual hygiene products they learn to distribute puberty facts from puberty myths and it is reinforced that being curious about puberty health in your body is normal and that you should ask questions and have conversations about it with your trusted adults so the lesson would be introduced

031and i'm going to give you some of the scripted examples that our teachers are provided with but which they then themselves have created so the lesson would start off usually something like is anyone feeling nervous today it's okay it's normal to be nervous sometimes when people are nervous they laugh it's okay to laugh because i want this lesson to be fun but you all know the difference between laughing with each other and at each other so remember we're trying to develop respect what is puberty puberty is the physical and emotional changes that occur in the transition between childhood and adulthood does it happen in one day no keep in mind these changes occur slowly over time why do you think puberty is important to learn about what happens to everyone it might have started already

032for some of you puberty can be scary but it's a lot less scary if you know what to expect the teacher will set up ground rules called group agreements and they'll set up rules to help everyone feel more comfortable with the conversation so boys and girls listening listening is important listen to me listen to each other make sure that if you're laughing you're not interfering with anyone else's learning if you have to giggle that's fine but pull it back together because if we're laughing too much we won't be able to listen and learn a lot of this lesson is just to demystify the conversation be respectful what is it like to be respectful in class some of you may have learned about puberty already and know more than others and that's okay just remember we're

033all learning together i don't want anyone laughing at each other making someone feel bad for participating you're all fifth graders you're mature enough to handle this i promise it's also important that we don't use words like gross or disgusting because all the changes we'll discuss aren't totally normal and saying that words like gross or disgusting could make someone feel bad about their body ask questions it's important it's normal to be curious about this stuff the students are encouraged to raise their hand ask questions as they go [Music] are there any rules that they'd like to add to the list then they're going to review the major changes that occurred during puberty this might be brainstormed as three lists or it might be a venn diagram again talking about typical development and reminding students that this

034is not the case development varies by student and they're going to compare what are the changes for females for males and what changes happen to everyone for females they'll discuss how hips widen breasts develop ovulation menstruation and vaginal discharge for males they'll talk about their shoulders broadening facial hair deepening voices sperm production erections and nocturnal emissions and then the venn diagram in the middle would show what happens to everyone during puberty everyone grows taller most people get acne sweat body odor pubic and underarm hair their genitals enlarge they develop crushes they become self-conscious their moods change and then the real goal of this lesson is this part and this is some of the scripting the teachers share with the students that it's really important to have healthy communication with your parents or another adult that

035you trust so that they can answer the questions you have about these topics at home the children are encouraged to talk to their family even if it might feel uncomfortable and the teachers do things like diffuse that by saying i have a secret for you your parents sometimes feel uncomfortable about talking about this too some of your parents might be even more uncomfortable than you and we encourage them to talk to their parents and we encourage them to talk or to another trusted adult in their life and that's it it ends with hey congratulations you've survived puberty class now what kind of illustrations or visuals would students be getting in this so here we have two very basic charts as you can see there are no body parts shown here they're very generic for the

036boy the poster talks about body size and voice hair changes skin changes changes with their penis what is sperm and the body shape for girls same thing body size hair changes skin changes menstruation breasts and body shape and that's it that is the fifth grade puberty lesson usually one lesson sometimes two but that's the whole that's the entirety of the lesson and now we're going back into our topics and i hope that what we're seeing and hearing from this is that even the health curriculum our comprehensive health and physical education curriculum is very wide from kindergarten through 12th grade the health portion is just a subset of that and the portion on sexuality is even smaller it's tiny in comparison to all these topics so in sixth grade there will be a series of lessons

037on personal growth and development including individual actions affecting health genetics family history responsible actions behaviors and development and health of oneself more detail on bodily systems skeletal system digestive system nervous system lymphatic system endocrine system cardiovascular system respiratory system and immune system emotional health including self-management skills mental health social health and emotional health personal safety hazards in personal space community safety healthy and safe choices and preventing injuries community health services and support including cpr health conditions and emergencies life skills training cpr with hands only traumatic stress and suicide prevention dependency substance disorder and treatment and they do spend almost two weeks learning about how to prevent dependency substance disorder and treatment in the areas of alcohol drugs and tobacco in seventh grade we have about a week on emotional health self-management skills mental situations psychological

038situations emotional situations and personal relationships once again we revisit drug alcohol and tobacco use and prevention with the topics of drugs alcohol tobacco substance abuse dependency vaping and peer pressure and then we go into nutrition nutritional wellness diet healthy eating meal planning calories health and performance unit on lifelong fitness what is the fit principle social and mental and physical benefits of lifelong fitness physical um performance and health status and then personal safety bodily autonomy personal boundaries bullying teasing and preventing sexual abuse we have community health services and support developing an advocacy plan personal health family health community health global health and pregnancy and parents what are the strategies of a pregnancy prenatal care pregnancy testing signs of pregnancy pregnancy options adolescent parenting and resources to assist with parenting now we move into eighth grade topics

039healthy behaviors personal health responsible actions emotional health self-management skills mental situations psychological situations emotional situations and personal relationships and here we have more detail in the area of social and sexual health healthy and non-healthy relationships communication skills friendships romantic and sexual relationships sexual behaviors consent vaginal oral and anal sex contraception and stds community health services and support including health conditions and emergencies sexual health services life skills training suicide prevention cpr and aed breast self-examination strategies to address health issues and health conditions diseases and medicines including genetics health conditions diseases and illnesses sexually transmitted infections including signs symptoms and potential impacts and abstinence personal safety including sexual consent sexual agency sexual harassment sexual assault domestic violence dating violence sex traffickers and exploiters all about prevention and personal safety dependency substance disorders and treatment the impact of

040drugs and alcohol substance disorders community health services and social and emotional well-being now i'm going to give you a sample lesson in the health curriculum when we spoke um earlier a couple of times already we spoke about the fact that any conversation about sexuality must by law begin with the promotion of abstinence so the lesson topics for this lesson include abstinence and sexually transmitted infections and sexually transmitted diseases teachers clearly state that abstinence and and teach children need to leave these lessons knowing abstinence is the only 100 percent effective way to prevent a sexually transmitted infection or a sexually transmitted disease students need to be able to correctly recall that there's a gap between when a person may know about versus start to have sex they describe at least two ways including sexually transmitted infections

041including hiv can be transmitted they need to be able to name at least one health care center in the area to which they can go for sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment that is affordable and available to them and this includes something like their pediatrician's office the lesson would begin where sexual abstinence is defined as refraining from all forms of sexual activity and genital contact including vaginal oral or anal sex an as abstinent person is somewhat children are taught that an abstinent person is someone who has either never had sex or someone who might have had sex but has decided not to continue having sex for a period of time again abstinence being the only 100 effective way to prevent an std or sti and the goal is for everyone in a particular class to

042feel that this relates to them and their life just like with the fifth grade lesson the eighth grade lessons include are intended to be respectful inclusive of many perspectives and allow students to see themselves and understand their own health and sexuality um some more scripting for the teacher is that abstinence piece that is it begins the lesson and it continues throughout the lessons the topics are introduced by explaining that contraceptives are a way to prevent the transmission of sexually transmitted infections and sexually transmitted diseases um if people were to engage in vaginal oral or anal sex there are many kinds of birth control that work but only if they're used consistently and correctly this means methods are used every time the way they're intended to teachers teach them that all methods may work a little

043differently but some protect for right now some for a short period of time some for a long period of time they review the types of contraceptives the teacher will [Music] use use terminology like we've reviewed contraceptive methods we've learned that some are effective in preventing stis and stds they're going to look a little closer at two ways which stis and hiv can be transmitted they need to be able to name at least one step that they plan to personally take to reduce or eliminate their chance of contracting one of these diseases as well as identify their pediatrician or other local health center to get treatment should something like this happen to them and again one they're reminded at the end and throughout that if they have any questions about the content of the lesson that

044it needs to be referred to their trusted adult now in ninth grade this is the same sexual um education curriculum that we've had for many many years and it is much more detailed in ninth grade we start with a unit on pregnancy and anatomy they review the email reproductive system organs and ways to keep healthy the female reproductive system organs the menstrual cycle and ways to keep healthy fertilization what is a fetus an embryo trimesters the uterus during pregnancy healthy stages of pregnancy stages of birth and types of delivery they go into social and emotional health relationships emotions bullying counseling depression grief and loss suicide prevention and trauma in ninth grade this is a full marking period that does meet five days a week they go into sexual health and std and stis in more

045detail they review bacterial stds like chlamydia gonorrhea and syphilis viral stds like herpes hiv hpv and hepatitis parasitic stds including pubic lys scabies and trichomoniasis the symptoms treatment prevention and myths and truths about these stds and sdis they review contraceptives in more detail than they had ever before including barrier methods like the male condom the female condom the cervical cabin diaphragm chemical methods such as spermicides hormonal methods such as the birth control pill birth control shot nuva ring ortho eva patch and iuds behavioral methods such as abstinence timing method and withdrawal method surgical methods such as vasectomies and tubal ligation non-surgical methods like as escher side effects effectiveness and proper use of these types of contraceptives they learn in detail how to um self-administer a female breast exam and for males a male testicular exam

046there are lessons on consent for to prevent sexual assault rape acknowledgement of the age of consent and laws related to consent and then we go into community health community-based programs and settings schools work sites health healthcare facilities and communities chronic diseases injury and violence prevention mental illness and behavioral health unintended pregnancy oral health tobacco use substance abuse nutrition physical activity obesity prevention now we're in 10th grade i'm not going to read every detail for 10th grade because that is exclusively driver safety and every topic that you see listed here tied to the standards is chapter by chapter the driver education safety book that is released by the state of new jersey in the dmv and it starts off with legal procedures and obtaining a license all the way to how to drive how to stop

047a vehicle buying and insuring a car two wheel vehicles and then four more weeks continuing on use of seat belts and safety safe driving road hazards highway driving driving in the city threat net recognition accident prevention etc and that is the 10th grade health curriculum in its entirety in 11th grade we go into nutrition eating habits personal nutrition health plans nutritional trends and the relationship between nutrition and physical activity then we have the unit on drugs and alcohol drug use and misuse commonly abused substances and health risk behaviors we go into first aid life skills training personal protective equipment responding to an emergency scene assessment medical emergencies environmental emergencies and first aid kit contents they go into detail on cpr and aeds including how to perform cpr on an adult child or infant and how

048to use an aed on an adult child or infant they go into common and chronic illnesses including common diseases and health conditions as well as social emotional health including relationships emotions bullying counseling depression grief and loss suicide prevention trauma and once again they revisit the female breast exam of the male testicular exam and go into community health community-based programs and settings school worksite healthcare facilities in their communities mental illness and behavioral health unintended pregnancy substance abuse nutrition physical activity obesity prevention they go into sec um with the consent education to help prevent sexual assault rape age of consent and understanding of the laws of consent they continue with relationships and consent they learn about healthy and unhealthy relationships sexual abuse relationship skills for boys and girls rejection breakups and moving on abusive relationships sexual assault

049and prevention again rape age of consent and laws of consent and then we move into death and dying communicating about death and dying practical matters related to death and dying and the funeral and related items and finally we are in 12th grade health just before graduation in community health they review community-based programs and settings schools worksites healthcare facilities and communities chronic diseases injury and violence prevention mental illness behavioral health unintended pregnancy substance abuse and obesity prevention they go over anxiety and stress once again managing stress addictive personalities anxiety and panic attacks depression and mood strings post traumatic stress disorder academic anxiety and over scheduling and stress they go into goal setting planning their future choosing a college joining the military living on their own paying for college skills and success working getting a job they

050go into personal safety once again we revisit the breast and testicular exams for cancer prevention and how to address peer pressure and social norms they go into social emotional health with emotions counseling depression grief and loss suicide prevention and trauma and lifelong fitness the benefits basic components body composition energy balance the activity triangle nutrition exercise fitness diseases wellness and sleep and we have now reached the end of all of the topics which our students will learn in comprehensive health and physical education with a focus on the health education component from gates grades k through 12. are there any questions commissioners any questions from commissioners dr robinsozzi miss lovage i just want to ask a question that i've been asked by you know some people and and we've discussed um in eighth grade why even mention

051the term anal sex why is it even in the standards because we have students who are participating in sexual activities in middle school and there is a misconception that anal sex is not sex so you will have students who avoid oral sex or vaginal sex but feel that anal sex is safe and appropriate for them to indulge in anyone else we'll start over here miss password um so the lessons are all broken down into categories and two weeks yes okay so um if i'm a parent that i want to choose like i'm going to a restaurant a la carte wrestling can i pick and choose can i opt out of certain lessons or i have to opt out of the whole curriculum you actually cannot opt out of the whole curriculum you can only opt

052out of individual lessons which is why we have the list of topics for each broken out by the grade levels where opting out tends to take place but have it broken out from k through 12 those are now on our website and a parent can send in and indicate that i do not they'll send an email to the principal saying i would like to opt my child out of the following topic and this is backed up with what is in the teacher's google classroom where they're going to show exactly when they're teaching that lesson as that reminder that you have sent in this email to opt out of this topic this topic is coming up this week and the parents will see that but the school will also have that on file of which children

053would then be opted out of that lesson and given an alternative activity okay so my other question would be to that is that because we have to teach these standards and they're mandated by the state of new jersey if a child doesn't take a couple sections or they uh there are certain things i have a couple questions but i'm going to give this four to my colleagues before i continue is what do we substitute for those lessons and how do we make it that they're able to get the credit for that curriculum that's mandated the students will be excused from the topic so they would not get a negative penalizing grade for missing a topic but they would be given an alternative lesson that is part of that curriculum usually something that's already been taught

054if they're in the upper grades they'd be given one of these you know probably an article in the area of health on a previously taught topic and have to do some kind of a response because it for in the upper grades most likely but not always they would be in the media center um and that's the perfect place to be you know on their chromebook and doing some reading an article and responding to it in the lower grades they'll most likely not be getting an alternative lesson but they'll get to do something like go on imagine math or go on um you know robotify in another classroom or in the media center or do some other activity mr paris did you have anything um miss belgium i um just for clarification the lessons that go

055on in the second grade those seem to be the most controversial um where were those previously um it's only a sing it's only a single lesson with four vocabulary words the four vocabulary words were not specified previously anywhere until fifth grade or where where was it prior they really never specified naming specific vocabulary words in the old curriculum so it would have come along in in fifth grade when you're learning about your body about your chan the puberty changes and then you'd hear about it again in eighth grade and into high school and the mandate is for it has to occur in second grade for like seven-year-old students by the end of second grade a student should be able to name whether they have a penis a vagina a vulva or testes okay okay um

056mr awad anything mr abu java thank you president smith mr slovers thank you very much for your um presentation um can you so when should parents expect or if they want to opt out at what point would they receive that is that before the school year after school year at what point should they could go on the website right now okay and let's play those devil's advocate a little bit let's say there's nothing on the state level now but if there's a majority of opt-outs does the district foresee i mean obviously we have to report the numbers i'm assuming and please tell me if i'm wrong who opts in who and who opts out number wise um we've never been asked to report that in the past okay so to you to to or through

057you are through the presence of the superintendent maybe schools love is going to answer this um do we anticipate to report these numbers who opts in who upset if we have a majority of opt-out versus opt-in we've heard of nothing not i doubt that's something that's even on the radar and the reason i mention is because a lot of people have been asking and obviously i've been throwing towards the superintendent because he's he's more knowledgeable than this but um the question i've been receiving or i've been hearing just in seeing on various places so what happens if more people opt out then opt in so people are asking well is there going to be an opt-out option that's not my pre-view and that's not your peer review no superintendents that's a state level that's just

058from my knowledge base am i wrong or yeah i think that that's that's correct i just want the public to understand to understand what the chain of command what the pecking order on this is from how it's being handed down and to understand at the same time um we cannot foresee the future we cannot foresee what's gonna happen opt-ins with opt-outs even if this is maybe just wiped out next year and the governor decides to wake up and say you know what didn't work as planned as i thought it would so i just wanted to confirm that thank you vice president daley nothing mr levitt you just leveraged thank you so so much for that uh extensive and uh a great presentation i know you took a great deal of time to present that so

059thank you again i'm very grateful to our teaching staff and our super our former supervisor nicole turi and our new supervisors um stephen vienna and all the teachers who worked on compiling all of the information and how it will be taught in pacing throughout the school year excuse me uh mr president through you to the superintendent can we get a copy of this um so we have it for ourselves and i have i have one other question i'm sorry can you explain to me in second grade what personal body safety means that really focuses specifically on the please do not touch my parts that are covered by a bathing suit it's that little poster that was that i showed an example of that no one should touch or see or videotape or take pictures of

060parts that are covered by the bathing suit and yes we will share with the entire board and this will also be posted in the health and curriculum the curriculum section of the website where we have all of the other presentations that we have done including the community presentations and there will be other community presentations coming up in september um with dates that are going to be posted on the website um if they're not already there mr president sorry one more thing um because mrs kuslov mentioned community um is that community presentation going to be like how we had a few weeks or about a month month and a half ago where we have in school and you'll see where i'm going with this uh we can try to do one in person we could i

061can speak to the the to rutgers and see if we can maybe do one of them in person at the high school and one of them virtually we do tend to get far far more parent participation when they have that virtual option um and the reason i'm asking and i asked superintendent this um i believe a couple days ago uh you know all your hard work your staff's hard work of putting this together and trying to discuss about what's happening uh in terms of curriculum and people are like well i didn't know i wasn't aware of that there is some sort of presentation being done whether it's virtual or in person have we actually ever thought going into the community picking a location or two locations on one on each side of town because it

062seems obviously that most of the people who are speaking out are our religious institutions whether it be a synagogue a mosque or a church have we decided to maybe pick one location of each on each side of town and maybe do an open house in coordination with them rather than doing on a school property that maybe we can do something within the community itself that had not been discussed previously but i would leave that in the hands of dr robertosi thank you okay again thank you so much for that presentation we know that took a great amount of time and we appreciate that thank you [Applause] okay leave this light okay we'll move on to public recognition this portion of the meeting is open to residents and non-residents of clifton for the purpose of addressing

063any subject matter pertinent to and or directly related to the operation of the clifton public school district residents and non-residents are requested if they're in person to sign the register provided for this purpose all speakers are asked to state their names municipality in which they live in subject matter before they speak 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 are responsibly forthcoming if and when appropriate your questions may or may not be answered by board members during their comments the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not

064be 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 and liable for their comments uh we'll start uh do you have anyone on uh we do would you like to start with the yeah let's start with that first we'll start with the those that are online certainly just so those that are here get an opportunity to hear them okay we have um lady esperanza hello hi how are you good how are you i'm pretty

065thank you so much okay you're uh you're free to address the board now you have five minutes tommy you have five minutes to address the board okay yeah yeah actually it's possible to speak with somebody in spanish um if not i can't try it but i'm like not too good to speak but i can try we have we have someone here that may be able to help you out okay oh i appreciate it thank you so much okay she was just joining us and she didn't realize it was public speaking is this um i don't know if this is motion to close the uh virtual second by uh mr uh motion made by mr arbor java seconded by mr wad okay now we'll go to uh those that are present if you would wish to

066address the board if you kindly come to the podium and you'll have five minutes good evening tom whittles president of clifton against substance abuse uh first i want to offer my condolences to the cowell family don cole was the councilman in clifton and mary colwell served on his board uh it's a great loss to the city don was a numbers a true true gentleman and he's what we sorely missed second is next wednesday night clifton against substance abuse will be hosting their second annual overdose awareness night at clifton city hall it's a candlelight vigil it will start at 8 o'clock run to about 9 15. i believe our our committee chair sent invitations to the board and we would like you to all to join us uh it's a night of remembrance and awareness for

067the lives lost to overdose and understanding how addiction affects everybody uh and on a personal note i want to thank dr robitazi for all he's done to help us put this together as well as jessica tremble and jennifer bergman who work very closely with our organization thank you and i hope to see you next wednesday night eight o'clock clifton city hall thank you anyone else was to address the board excuse me pardon me of course my apologies so thank you good evening everyone mark bernsach holly street just have a couple of questions about the presentation from miss kusalevich i want to know if the district could be more proactive in notifying the parents about these education standards and possibly reach out to them and send a blast email to them regarding some of the most

068controversial topics about that to be more transparent so so i'm asking the board for that maybe post it on social media because i i could say with almost certainty that not a lot of people still know about this and a lot of these questions have been asked about those and i think uh a lot of these a lot of these items that we've discussed in the past are referenced tonight and they're still in these you know within these uh standards that are being demonstrated for these grades also that the opt-out forms that a link be sent to the parents as well i i urge the board to consider that also my message to the students in the district the school year in clifton is about to commence and i would like to take the opportunity

069to wish all the students continued success education can be likened to a great canvas and this year i hope our students throw as much paint that they can on the canvas of their education i appeal to the students the parents teachers and staff to value and uphold the importance of motivation this year i have no doubt that most of our students will propel themselves into their education they will make the most of the canvas of opportunity that they are offered and they will achieve the goals that they aspire to attain to i have no doubt if they remain motivated in the classroom then they will realize their dreams education should be sound creative and innovative and clifton school district together with the parents and the students themselves will help make this a reality help four

070letters that can mean so much four letters that could be seen as dynamic planned action or as a plea i feel confident that the teachers in clifton high school will take action and help the students to achieve their academic sporting cultural and lifelong learning i want to take this opportunity to thank the teachers for their continued professionalism excellence and dedication it is your motivation in the classroom that will help to create a year that is ripe with opportunities however even more importantly the students themselves will have to take action to further their education i hope most of our young ladies and gentlemen too are beginning to realize that they cannot merely sit back and expect the greater school community to do everything for them they should realize the importance of motivation and be prepared to

071help themselves it is an appeal i make to our young children today i urge you to help yourselves as well make the most of the fantastic educational opportunities that you have throw as much paint as you can on the canvas of your education this year if you can do that then one day you will be in a position to respond to the plea of others who may need your help help four letters mean so much you must help yourself so you ultimately can help others each young lady and gentlemen in our district in their own way will need help you will need to help your family you will need to help the environment you will need to make a sense of the world when sense and reason sometimes goes missing you will need to help

072solve problems through innovation and invention and you will need to help turn indifference into action i believe this is our goal at the cliff i believe this is our goal as the clifton schools school years commences let's continue to work together to help each other to be the best for our families for the city of clifton passaic county the state of new jersey and our country thank you for your time and god bless america have a good night everybody [Applause] ray little clifton new jersey i was totally impressed with the new new things that they came up with tonight beautiful programs beautiful job beautiful presentation with the new curriculum but i am not for the curriculum and i think there's a lot of people not for the curriculum and i would like to know why

073we can't opt in instead of opting out from the ladies presentations she said we got things going on all over the place telling the people how they can opt out why can't we do the same thing to opt in give them the option to opt in let's see how many people really want this program the people i talk to don't want it so i don't know who you're talking to but if you read the paper on monday wayne does not want it belleville has already stopped it so i mean i don't know who you're talking to this is supposed to be the city that cares do we really care about these kids are we opening a can of worms i think we're opening a can of worms that's my personal thing what is the penalty

074if we don't do this did we ever find out superintendent that's a question sir we don't we don't have a question and answer period back and forth okay when you get back to us because the last meeting i came i was very disappointed because we got up we spoke and then after we spoke you spoke and we walked away like we were ignorant people like we didn't know what was going on but apparently one of the commissioners knew what was going on and he agreed with us so if he agreed with us he didn't know what was going on neither i didn't understand that and i understand there's other people on the board that don't want this neither so how does this work out they were ignorant to i guess because that's the way it

075sounded to me like we didn't know what was going on now tonight we're fully aware of what's going on god bless you people god bless america thank you anyone else wish to address the board the hello president the president smith uh commissioners dr patosi administration and citizens uh it's good to see you again this is a new school year um i am proud to say that i've been re-elected president of the clifton student union um so i just want to say that i'm happy to be back thank you let everyone know who you are elias ragsdale um i'm happy to be back and i plan on working together with you to ensure that every student has the best education experience possible and i just thank you for all you do thank you thank you good

076evening everyone my name is samantha basford and i'm from clifton new jersey although i'm not new to this room or this podium tonight i'm going to say something that i never thought would have come out of my mouth a few years ago tonight i'm announcing myself as number eight on the ballot as candidate running for clifton board of education on november 8th before i go into my background i want to get a formality question out of the way yes if you didn't know i am the daughter of commissioner judy bassford however that is not the only part of my identity and who i am i'm a proud first generation college graduate with a bachelor's degree in communication studies with a minor in dance class of 2012 and i obtained my master's in 2014 studying media

077and communications arts from pace university i attended grove hill nursery school school number five highlighting being on the toughest corner of valley road as safety patrol with crossing guard miss t and if you're from that area you understand what that means i attended woodrow wilson middle school and i graduated from chs in 2008 where i was on the varsity gymnastics team and a proud student of the cast program where i even hosted my own tv show on channel 77 before youtube was cool i consider myself a forever college student and a forever learner because i never left i work in student affairs since being in college being an r.a orientation leader student government senior president and the list goes on to say that i've had many leadership roles working with all different types of leadership

078styles would be an understatement just look at my linkedin page as i progress in my student affairs career i learn how to be a resource for both professionals and students participated in many diversity equity inclusion trainings learned facilities in custodial management property management oversaw multiple budgets worked with faculty and residents became helpful became mental health first aid certified trained others in conflict resolution crisis management implemented professional development trainings advised two multicultural sororities sigma lambda upsilon senoritas ending sorority incorporated delta sigma theta sorority incorporated incorporated as well as other student organizations and advocated fiercely for the buy puck and lgbtq plus community student success is a passion of mine i understand the student experience and the development they need for life beyond 12th grade these transferable skills i mentioned are a touch of who i am

079and i'm committed to anything i do with and ten percent i'm currently in my second position on the executive board of northeastern association of colleges and universities housing officers giving back and making impact on housing professionals in our region i work at columbia university irvington medical center as the assistant director of residential experience where i supervise a multi-general staff sorry multi-generational staff including three unions a mail room an athletic center six medical student ras and anything that happens to be community experience of the day i believe my qualities and background are unique as a candidate i seek to give staff faculty and students the holistic experience as i can hit the ground running in this position as i understand this commitment for me it's not just tossing my hat in the ring i'm an active

080member who comes to meetings observes and is consistent when speaking not because i'm influenced to what is said or what needs to be heard but because i truly believe it i stay very until each end of the meeting even if it's really late and if i'm not attending here i'm watching on youtube live just ask my nail tech who thinks this is a bravo tv show i want to make sure i'm a part of financial decisions today that are not going to be an oopsie in 5 or 10 years that make impact on another board because maybe we were rushing or there wasn't close attention to detail i want to make decisions in our district that are equitable and i don't want to see any students specifically students in here who film so upset and

081hurt because they're not accepted by the people who who are in this room i'm not being pushed by political party or an agenda i feel based on what i've witnessed in this room in public that i'm a strong woman who cannot only impact today or three years but impact the future of clifton i am authentically who i am if you watch this meeting or have had a conversation with me you know who i am and it's not my intention to otherwise convince you differently after all who wants to spend more forced time with their mom if you want to engage with me online tinyurl.com backslash sam bassword board of boe or just grab me on the go i hope i made it this far with five seconds to go so remember vote vote for the

082better basford on november 8th who graduated in 2008 and is number eight on the ballot any great good evening my name is anthony santiago you can call me tony i live in the lakeview section of town and i'm a candidate for the board of education i want to start by saying thank you to the board the teachers the administrators and the staff for all your work the last couple of years it's been challenging to say the least you had to adjust on the fly i'm sure at times you're even looking around for locus so i just want to say thank you especially to the teachers and staff again i just think it's not said enough thank you guys a little about me i've lived in clifton over um going on 28 years now my wife

083and i raised our kids here their the products of clifton schools they graduated they went on to college and graduated from college we were involved parents from the hsa to participating and supporting school events myself i've always been somebody who wanted to try and help and serve in any way that i can so i coached little league i taught ccd or religious instruction i was a member of the late few lakeview civic association before it dissolved i'm currently a member of the clifton ada or disabilities committee in the city which is a volunteer community my professional background is in human resources i'm also a real estate agent in town as an hr professional i've recruited various roles and i've led internship programs and management training programs so you know my background experience there i think

084can apply and help students prepare for the workforce as a real estate agent i work with buyers and i see that they are constantly looking for good school districts and i see how that correlates with property values and thriving communities people ask me why i'm running and sincerely the reason i'm running is because i care and i want to serve and i want to help the school district and the students that's the approach um i believe that the board and anyone in a government role should take is that of a public servant it's not a political job it's not a government job you're there to serve the public and all of the public one of the the issues facing the city is i believe spacing and crowding and it's been an issue for years since

085my kids were young i've seen and witnessed many catholic schools close and uh other entities that are not the school district or the city end up getting those schools and i always thought why you know they're literally schools with classrooms i i know that more recently we've obtained some of these schools and we're using them for pre-k which is great but now we have we would have pre-k to contend with right which is even more classrooms that you need and i just think that when those schools are available we have to capitalize and take advantage of those opportunities if i'm lucky enough to be elected to the board and represent the clifton community i want to get things done for them i know that being on the board i cannot do that alone as i

086do now on the disabilities committee i would work as part of a team if i want to change something or implement a new initiative or solve a problem i would have to do that with the rest of the board the board votes on things collectively i can't just do that on my own so um i personally am somebody who is collaborative i'm a relationship builder and i have to do that in my work experience as well as my volunteering that's a little bit about me and what i hope to bring to this to the board of education in the clifton school community i look forward to getting to know more people and students sorry i look forward to getting to know more people and students in the upcoming months and sharing more about uh where

087my position is on the issues my name again is anthony santiago i'm number four on the ballot for clifton board of education thank you so much for your time have a great evening [Applause] good evening my name is lori lalama and i'm the president of the clifton education association there's a couple of things i'd like to go over i would like to see people contact their legislators for the federal waivers for the child nutrition program we need to extend the usda school meal flexibilities for all children here in the state of new jersey president biden through the u.s department of education has put out the student debt relief and if you could go online you'll be able to see the program and see if you will be able to save money from your student loans

088next i'm here to combat disinformation and dangerous rhetoric in our district these claims are blatantly false but this hateful rhetoric also has the potential to jeopardize the safety and mental health of new jersey students our district provides a safe nurturing and inclusive learning environment for every single student in the district the resources here maintains the integrity and honesty of our schools janina kusalevich gave an excellent report tonight and i'm very proud of all the work that that janina does as well as our staff now um i just heard that wayne did not pass the curriculum i just reached out to my counterpart there and that's not true they passed it last week so i just want to make sure that people understand what the truth is and i just want everybody to understand what's going

089on generally in the united states most americans are unaware of a decline in individual liberty and the reason is obvious the decline rarely takes the form of sudden personal deprivations but instead takes the form of unnoticed erosion and thus we've come to regard whatever state we are in as a normal condition leonard reed so i really want the public to understand that we have phenomenal teachers we have a great curriculum staff and most of us here are parents and we wouldn't do anything to jeopardize our students and their welfare thank you very much [Applause] anyone else wish to address the board marsha miller clifton i'm going to promote a book it's called battle for the american mind uprooting a century of miseducation by pete heggseth this was on the bestseller list for a number of

090weeks i think it's worth looking into i'm expressing the need to reject the new sex education standards for the 2022 academic year we need a resolution being not to teach these new standards the option to opt out does not work because the new sex education standards is sprinkled in throughout the year it's a misnomer to opt in or to opt out by the way it's extortion to cut funding to the schools if they reject the new sex standards we need transparency not the way these new standards were erected in the middle of a pandemic according to dr meg meeker a pediatrician for 32 years and teaches at michigan state is opposed to the new sex standards she states the disconnect is striking to separate the child from the parent the parent is the child's advocate

091not the teacher or the school system the child is forced to choose between the parent and the teacher great psychological damage is being done the child will doubt their ability to form opinions and damage their psyche and damage their ability to reason teaching sexuality at early ages is traumatizing we need independent hearings on new sex education standard mandates these standards are putting tremendous pressure on teenagers to identify as straight gay or bisexual not who they are as human beings but puts emphasis on their sexual being this misleads them and psychologically damages them genetics is an actual science genetics is a predetermination not cultural intuition irene erickson a researcher stated there is no evidence to support these new sex education standards and no medical data the transgender trend is skyrocketing by social influence why are we

092normalization normalizing a sexual agenda between children and teachers a change needs to be made to protect the children and this goes along with megan's law as governor younkin of virginia stated in education everything through the lens of race we need critical mass we need critical history we need critical science not indoctrinating our children we need to have faith in education not politics in trenton parents and teachers need to be united as of tuesday 17 plus schools have rejected the new sex education standards and many more to come if you support the sex education standards for new jersey government schools academic year you are destroying our schools and you should resign tonight thank you anyone else to address the board seeing none motion closed motion second hi mr abu dravo second by mr awad okay we'll

093move along we have adoption of the minutes of our uh regular schedule meeting of july 28 2022 motion by mr abu drabo second by mr awad discussion seeing none roll call please mr abedrabo yes mr awak miss basford yes ms beltran yes mr paris yes vice president daley yes president smith yes motion carries you ready to go yeah yes sir okay okay our superintendent will now have his report thank you mr president good evening commissioners members of the community faculty and staff tuning in from home i apologize for my phone ringing earlier i have my uh i usually have my phone off and i have my children on do not disturb but they have the emergency breakthrough so if i don't answer the first time they call again and it rings so it's okay everything's

094great got a lot of kids everything's okay but thank you um i have some prepared comments in my report but i i certainly want to answer uh the gentleman's questions sir thank you very much for um for addressing the board tonight you asked if i remember you asked two questions one was about the possible penalties for the district not following through or not teaching the new sexual education standards and then um why don't we allow parents to opt in instead of opt out so this this the second one let me take first because i actually know the answer to that the reason why it's an opt-in versus an opt-out is because there's a statute there's a law that allows parents to opt out and i just like to read you part of that statute there

095is no there's no mention of an opt-in in the law the law says and it's new jersey statutes annotated 1835-4.7 any child whose parent or guardian presents to the school a signed statement that any part of instruction in health family life education or sex education is in conflict with his or her conscience or sincerely held moral or religious beliefs shall be excused from that portion of the course so that is the opt-out provision of the law and we can't have parents or students opting out of an entire curriculum however a parent can opt out of a particular lesson a particular piece of instruction about one subject and as you saw tonight from miss kusalevich's presentation i think the the items that were deemed controversial are maybe three or four 20-minute lessons throughout the whole entire

096k-12 sequence i mean in like 20 minutes in second grade and maybe another one lesson in fifth grade maybe another lesson in eighth grade and if a parent deems that that is in contradiction with their moral beliefs or they don't think it's the school's job to be teaching that and we're going to make the opt out readily and easily available but we cannot make it an opt-in the second question is is a little more difficult because when you ask what is the penalty for a school district if they do not teach the standards the only thing that the department of education has publicly stated and i'll read the quote i have a quote from the department of education's communication manager her name is laura frederick who was quoted as saying districts that do not teach

097the standards will be penalized for instruction and program in the appropriate curricular area what that means is every three years the new jersey department of education evaluates school districts through a process known as cusack just so happens of course that clifton will be cue sacked this year and there are five categories that we're evaluated on and one of the big categories is instruction and program so for sure what would happen is we would be penalized under the instruction program requirement of cusack which would mean the district would be put on an action plan the communications manager goes on to say we we can't speculate excuse me so the nature of the penalty might vary we couldn't speculate because it would be a fact-specific issue and the severity of ramifications could vary as would be the

098case for other statutory regulatory violations so it could just be that or it could be that in addition to what our biggest fear is and what has been uh threatened although it's i've never seen it done i don't know if it's ever been done a withholding of state aid so that specter is always out there that hasn't been publicly threatened in particular to not teaching these standards but that is always an option that the state has i can't see them doing that but it's an option so sir i hope i answered your questions to the best of your ability to best of my ability um and certainly if you have any questions you want to meet with me you can call my office we'll set up a meeting yesterday i was proud to welcome over

099a hundred new staff members to the clifton public schools at our new teacher a new staff orientation at clifton high school we had a motivational morning for them to get them excited for the new school year later on that day they had a wonderful lunch in our high school our brand new high school cafeteria the kitchen area and they got to see the you know i told them that they've never seen a kitchen like this in any high school ever and it's true they were overwhelmed at how beautiful our kitchen is there's the stations there was an asian chinese station there there's a mexican station that we call chipotle uh clifton chipotle there's a pasta station a substation and they got to experience what the students are actually eating on a daily basis now normally

100most schools if i said we're going to feed you what we give the students most adults would be like no no we're good you know all right we'll get something we'll go out on our own but it was so good they were so very impressed um and it was just a nice way to welcome them into the clifton school district mr smith was able to be there and welcome them mr paris was able to be there miss miss judy basford was was available to be there and the support from the board of ed was nice to see to see you there today they learned spent most of the morning learning about our district safety protocols also about harassment intimidation and bullying our counseling procedures learning about pbsis our student database real time and and they

101had a variety of curriculum updates tomorrow they'll be going to their home base where they will participate in psyop training that's sheltered instructional observational protocol thank you just gonna lean over to my curriculum person make sure i was doing well and they also received cultural awareness training which i think is not only necessary in a place like clifton i'm just so happy that we do it so we we provide all of our new staff some cultural awareness training let them know that some of the students that you have in your classroom from different cultures you need to be aware of it and i love yesterday when janina gets up and talks to the new staff she speaks in polish to them for the first couple minutes and she at the end she asked him so

102who's happy to have a job here in in clifton and about five people stand up out of a hundred i'm just like oh and then she starts speaking english so none of you really want to work here and then everybody stands up but the point was that on your first day of school if you're a teacher your first day of class and you have this great thing prepared and you're welcoming your students and you're enthusiastic there's a very good chance in clifton that you're going to have children in your class that don't have don't understand a word that you're saying and that's something that you need to be cognizant of something that you need to be conscious of and i think it was it's a great way to welcome i thought you're going to bring

103out the spanish too because i'm giving your secrets away janina speaks polish fluently spanish fluently english we're working on she's doing pretty good so welcome to our new staff all of our staff will return next thursday september 1st and our students first day of school for our students is tuesday september 6th tomorrow principals will be sending back their welcome sending out their welcome back emails to uh all of the parents with building specific information about you know the obviously that school starts on september 6 but what doors to go in through and all that stuff student schedules will be available for parents and guardians to view on our parent portal on monday august 29th the letters with login information for newly enrolled students were mailed already on august 19th so a new student gets a

104letter mailed with their login information parents who've already had students in our district have their login information if they lost it or they forgot it there's a mechanism for them to reset their password and so a parent logs in they're able to see their students schedule see their students bus stop the times and they get to sign off on all the millions of forms that we all used to sign on the first day of school now it's all done electronically 90 of it is done electronically also we're going to do a big push to remind parents about the meal applications for the last year and a half maybe it was almost two years due to the usda waivers all students receive free lunch that waiver has expired so we want to remind parents that students

105will not be getting free lunch unless they had qualified for free lunch in the 1920 school year but only then they get lunch free for september so they have to reapply and any parent that didn't have free or reduced lunch excuse me it's only free now there's no more reduced any parent that didn't may apply so we're encouraging all families to apply the it's on the parent portal it's i believe much easier to fill out the application now than ever before so we're encouraging uh parents to to apply it's going to be a little complicated with remembering who was you know free in 1920. i want to reiterate what mr whittle said earlier about next week's candlelight vigil uh i will be there all albeit i might be a little late i have an appointment

106um but the vigil is organized by casa mr jingaro we'll be uh speaking we'll have some members of our some student members of our band playing some music and uh it's it's the international overdose awareness day to remember those who have died without stigma and acknowledge the grief of the family and friends left behind so please i hope board members can join if you can and anybody in that community is also welcome to join [Applause] i don't get a chance to talk to all the board members all at once so while you're here i need you to give me some feedback on what you want me to do with all of the things that we had in this room prior to renovating it if you remember we had a couple more than a couple we

107had several shelves of plaques memorials congratulatory letters and things like that and right now everything's sitting in boxes upstairs the idea that administration had but i really don't want to do this because this is your room this is the board's room was to put a display in the welcome center upstairs and display all those things we could display some down if there's some things that you want displayed down here we we could do that but if anybody has any thoughts please tonight during your comments if you could address that to me and give me a suggestion or if you're okay with me taking all that stuff and doing a nice display up in the welcome center some of that stuff is very um old but that's history and that's stuff that we want to keep

108we want to display for uh for future generations we give a brief referendum update since our last board meeting um we've been preparing to send out the final two bids for our referendum projects we have sent out bid package 2a and 2b that is the woodrow wilson middle school baseball field with the field house and the clifton high school stadium weight room in addition when we award those projects to the vendor we will have a groundbreaking ceremony that all members of the community will be invited to an update on bid package one that's the clifton high school project the asbestos company has been working all summer at clifton high school in the south wing remediating eight sets of bathrooms and that was finished on schedule on august 19th if you've driven past clifton high school

109you may have noticed that there's new trailers outside of the building and those trailers are host housing the contractors and the contractors supplies we decided for all the supplies that are going to be needed to renovate the bathrooms we didn't want due to supply chain issues we don't want to be ordering them at the last minute so we ordered them and those supplies are going to be stored in containers on the clifton high school campus and the other trailers are actually for the workers to utilize so if you see them that's what those are there for the asbestos removal at school 4 in school 11 has been completed and thankfully all the air sampling came back and was reported good the bids for the stadium and the athletic field bids 2 a and b were

110opened on august 3rd and there is a resolution on the agenda tonight to award the contract thankfully the lowest bidder came in at 17 below our budgeted amount which is almost 800 000 dollars in savings we're very very grateful for that that's another 800 000 that we can use for other projects we believe that the baseball field they're still telling us the the new varsity field at woodrow wilson will be ready by the spring not the field house but the field and weight room construction will take place during the fall so as not to interfere with football season we're looking to conclude all of the bidding in the near future and have all of the projects beginning shortly at the suggestion of or really was a reminder of miss beltran who reminded me last week

111somebody went on the website and didn't see our referendum page and i had told the public and i had told this board that we would be updating that website to keep abreast of what's going on so that website is now up and running it is updated and every week every two weeks we'll have pictures of the projects we'll have the progress of the projects and everything that's going on with our referendum so everyone can see the progress that is being made we'll also be putting that on our social media platforms too for people to see if anybody has any questions about that or anything please feel free to ask what's up drama dr robertos the only one other thing you didn't mention um or maybe you didn't i just glanced over it uh can you

112give a update on um the tennis courts and the banfield yes please um a lot going on at clifton high school right now despite the asbestos removal the uh if you've driven by the back where the new banfield is being um constructed they're moving really fast and i think they're actually ahead of schedule the turf has not been laid down yet but do we have an idea of is it next week the turf is going to be laid down next week which is great um i actually had a conversation with miss lucas yesterday who's the principal of school too who by the way she said the band's very happy at school too they might not want to come back but i said well i think when they see their new field they're going to want

113to come back so there's that and then along with the tennis courts it's progressing do we have an anticipated end date of that project guys anybody know at the top of their head by let's say november to be more realistic by november that project should be done and that's moving lightning fast that's my report for tonight commissioners if you have any other questions i'll be happy to ask them answer them dr rotozi if you could just give a brief update uh or if you wish me to do it about the tent removal and stuff that's gonna be done i'm i'm happy for for you to do okay mr smith so as everyone knows uh clifton high school um graciously uh housed the vaccination process um last um winter into the spring and many of you

114may see that big dome that was in the back of the uh the high school um that dome that that big dome has been taken down the city will be utilizing that at their uh garage and um the city will be uh paving that back area where they had to sink that tent in about 13 feet in the ground and um so the understanding is once the um macadam and everything that's laid for the banfield and the tennis courts um after that's done then the uh the city will come and do the uh the back area there with the paving uh regarding that president smith is it going to be a uh pave over are they gonna do a rip out and reap and revive i don't know i don't know i i presume it's

115going to be a rip up because most of it is ripped up okay just wanna make sure thank you okay uh just briefly um there's gonna be so many different things going on in the district um so the best thing to do is to go to our website you'll see everything that's happening in our district and especially to the peach jar section where they post all the things that are going on um in the district so um as they mentioned uh next week with the the casa candlelight vigil then um august 30th 12 pm to 1 30 is the police the community policing division it's called cops and cones come chat with us in the clifton community policing division free ice cream treat uh they ask you to register that'll be at school 12 uh

116from 12 to 1 30 on august the 30th that's always a pretty neat uh event where the kids get to uh just meet the police and then they get uh some ice cream so uh i know last weekend um i attended the uh car wash at woodrow wilson um and i think there's car washes going on just about um every weekend at that location so for five bucks you can go and have your car washed by our kids and um and the parents that help them out uh and that that helps them in their organizations uh tremendously with the funds that they raise so they don't do the inside just the out um so if you get an opportunity um just about any weekend if you if you pop up to uh woodrow wilson i

117believe it's 9 to 12 and you can get your car washed um i was given this uh flyer there's a pancake breakfast sponsor supporting our high school cheerleaders uh it's at applebee's on route 3 on september 18th 8 a.m to 10 a.m so hopefully we'll get this on the on the website as well um and it's 12 per person and you can go and have some good pancakes and support our cheerleaders on september 18th so there'll be a lot more information coming all the sports programs will be starting so our band has been practicing and working very hard as we mentioned over at school two uh preparing for uh the opening season uh which is thursday uh september 1st is our opening football game normally we're on friday nights but that is a thursday night

118opener and it's a quite a different event than some of the commissioners might be telling you about that in their comments so i don't want to give it all away but it's a pretty exciting event um that you'll you'll really want to get to so the only thing i want to uh emphasize on that and again other commissioners will comment um the normal ticket purchasing like you come up to the gate and you get pay your three bucks and you come in uh for this game that's not being handled that way you must get your tickets prior to coming to the game so they expect a very large crowd um we are playing east orange the uh the team that still i mean the uh team that won the uh uh last year um so

119it's a rematch against them uh so we anticipate a large crowd but you can't get tickets the day of the event you have to purchase them prior um and i understand that's going to be put on our our website and all of our social media outlets i know samantha will do a great job on getting that out there so please make sure you look for that i don't want people to be disappointed um and come to the gate and they can't get into the game because they didn't purchase their tickets this organization that's running it with all the exciting things they're handling the tickets so again others will tell you a little bit about it going forward and all the sports programs will be getting over the next couple of weeks so we hope that

120you'll go out and support our kids and go here are uh and go here and see our fantastic band that will do a great job as they always do and our cheerleaders as well uh so please go out and support our kids so that's it under the president's announcements all right we'll move on if i can get back okay uh next we have uh first reading of policy yes all right so um i wish we could just put those up there is there is there a way we could put those up on the screen um from our agent from their agenda can you could you get the agenda on there on the board the burdocks yeah it's easier than me reading them all there's quite a lengthy amount of them you got it it's item

121number 11 sam so again just just to remind the board the uh those that have the m next to them those are mandated policies you know i just wanted to see the so i don't have to read all of them uh mr smith just a small comment um on page 21 of the large document that they're not going to see um hsa is spelled h-a-s just because it's one of the bold always the autocorrect always does you have to pay attention to them okay which one did you want upstairs well i have a correct number 11 uh first reading of policy it's number 10 number 11 on mine i was looking at your size i'll refresh august 25th right yep right above that right there here yep one more one first reading there we go

122now i'll just stand here and scroll if you want is that what you want yeah if you could just move it up uh just to where they list the policy so the public could see those policies i don't know if we'll get them yeah we should be able to get them all in there yeah i can probably what's that so again uh where you see the m parentheses that is mandated policies all right so any discussion on first reading mr um um mr ross is here this evening as well to answer any questions we may have on them uh vice president daley thank you mr president on the quorum issue um it it it details if we don't have a quorum you wait certain amount hours to if it doesn't seem to address and maybe

123i'm wrong because i did a quick read and maybe mr ross can opine on that if you know that the members are not going to show why don't why can't we have the ability to resist the meeting at that particular time yeah that's great don't play the drum or something is it mandated okay where was that it's a policy zero one six three quorum and the way it's written it seems to you know you wait certain amount of time yeah right but if we know the members are not definitely not showing why can't the meeting be called at that time i'd have to look through that just to to make sure this was more the changes here prior compared with the uh with our products yeah i mean if we don't know if the members

124are showing i i would get that but if the president or the secretary knows that we're not going to have a quorum for whatever reason uh we should be able to call the meeting at that point we can make that change if we could send that back to policy the changes here were more to address um the conflict of if there's conflict with one or more board members there's a doctrine of necessity the change but you can always have the other caveat yeah but we could always uh amend that okay that's not really a substance changes it's just a clarification that could be it yeah yeah yeah so you know you don't take it back to policy you guys can make that come back for a second reading with that yeah yep you can make

125that change is there any other questions on any of the policies for mr ross i'm not alone or mr uh abu drabo chairman no okay thank you mr rose thank you you're welcome to stay or you can get out actually actually all right thank you stay with us for yeah thank you um all right we did 11 right up okay so we're going to move to uh board committee reports um and we'll do policy mr abu drabo president smith thank you mr ross always thank you for aiding us on this committee uh minutes of the august 15 2022 meeting the policy committee began at 3 10 pm attendees where president smith vice president james daly myself as chair person and commissioner dr lucy danny administrators present with dr uh daniel robertozzi and lewis ross esquire

126also president where was jordis gutierrez esquire from the law office of adam gutierrez and not door uh the following pauses are being put forward for adoption with no changes as recommended by esme number one 143.2 high school students representative to the board of education which is mandated number two 163 quorum inserted number inserted five to indicate the minimum board members of fort quorum number three fifteen eleven board of education website accessibility which is mandated 2415.30 title one educational stability for children in foster care which is mandated number five three two seven zero professional responsibilities number six five five one three care of school property which is mandated number seven five seven two two student journalism which is mandated policy 2415 every student succeeds acts as a mandated policy with the only change being the selection

127of both school-wide or target assistants on page two policies 24 15.04 and 2415.50 through 2415.57 are presented with proposed additions as per district and school-based administration policy 2416.01 postnatal accommodations for students is recommended for adoption with the added highlighted section policy 5517 school district issued student id cards is recommended for adoption by indicating that the policy applies to middle school and high school students policy 80 8550 meal charges outstanding food service bill was requested to be put on the agenda as it is a mandated policy with the recommended selection on page one bylaw 174 legal services based on recommendations at the last meeting the committee proposes the following change in language for the previously proposed paragraph three any board member who wishes to speak to or contact the board attorney must first advise the board

128of education president on of their intention to contact or speak with the board attorney the board member may advise the board president via email booking phone communication excuse me or a text message if the board member is unable to reach the board president via the above methods then the board board member may contact and advise the board vice president via the same communication methods if they are unable to reach the board president or by board vice president they should then contact and advise the superintendent or designee in his or her absence followed by the ba or the designate in his or her absence policy 2432 school sponsors publication is to be abolished as per staff's esme is most of the information this policy has been incorporated into new policy 5722 which is included for first

129reading policies 3216 and 4216 dress and grooming and 10167 public participation in board meetings will be further reviewed at an upcoming meeting excuse me as discussed previously the policy committee will review existing policies to see if they need updating or changes we begin with the 1000 series and will progress in numerous numerical order the committee review the following policies all adopted prior to 2015 and recommended no changes to be made to them number one eleven hundred district organization number two eleven ten organizational chart number three eleven twenty management team number four eleven thirty staff liaison committees number five twelve ten for superintendent relations number six twelve sixty in capacity of the superintendent number seven thirteen twenty duties of school business administrators board secretary number eight 1330 evaluation of school school business administrator number nine 1331

130evaluation of board secretary number 10 1350 inc in capacity of school business administrator and board secretary number 11 1400 job descriptions the meeting was adjourned at 4 37 p.m respectfully submitted lou ross esquire any questions several quick comments yes dr robertosi i just uh want to point out and i want to congratulate the board you see that it is now mandated that the board has that every board of education in new jersey has a student representative and clifton has been ahead of the curve on that i mean way before me so that's i think that's something to be congratulated on mr ross if you could just explain what the committee is doing with the policies yeah yeah going on yeah just briefly let the board know that okay thank you it was the recommendation of

131the policy committee to start a review of all our policies going forward starting with the 1000 section obviously the bylaws are more for board purview but this would be more to go from the 1000 section that administration can opine on as well or advise and we'll just basically go through and i'm looking at the ones and bringing forward the ones that are that have been no changes since let's say prior to 2015-14 along those areas so it's not to re-adoption it's basically those are the ones that we've looked at there's no recommended changes on these so we're just you know going forward and to progress through if something needs updating or changing then at that point we would bring those recommendations to the board yep thank you any questions no yes one question oh i'm

132sorry allen okay thank you paris thank you um when when you um when we review these older ones and there's no changes uh in the policy manual will it say um that it's been revisited or whatever the right word is uh reviewed and have an updated date on it so that we go in the future we'll know the last time it was looked at we can do that if that's the uh the wish of the board i know at the reorganization meeting every year all the policies are re-adopted by resolution um this was sort of a review the ones that they're going to be changes we would that would have a new adoption date with those changes the others it wasn't my intention but again if the board wishes oh absolutely if the policy committee

133wishes you to keep track of things no if i may that's that was the whole point the whole point was to have its original date of adoption and then when it was renewed so that's the whole point of actually going through the one that one series and so we could do i'll have uh the the business office then just put you know adopted the original date re-adopted correct we did actually discuss it during policy so okay but excuse me a re-adoption requires a vote right correct you just want a reviewed by reviewed by correct or another word other maybe better than review review is good lots of views last review that way you don't need a two two votes again yeah i mean the idea is that if all of us are not here tomorrow

134the next set of set of board members can just pick up and move forward and know when it was last touched and don't know the date correct it was reviewed and you know it's sometimes you find a you know as miss beltran found the grammatical error but sometimes you find something that should have been omitted and for some reason it was kept in there so that's the whole idea of doing this right and a lot of them that are not mandated do go back to the early 2000s absolutely um and there have been a lot of changes obviously from that day to five and just the rest of the board as well the standing meeting i think it's every second monday so i think uh september 12 six is tuesday yeah september 12 at 3

135pm will be our next meeting so if there's anything that want to be put forward uh particularly if you happen to go through the 2000 series or the next set of series and you said hey you know what can you guys pay attention to this we just let us know please yeah we're still in the thousand seconds i'm sorry a thousand series yeah so i i credit the uh the committee because you know you don't have to do this um it's extra it's going to be extra work but i think it's important for the board yet okay mr president yes i'm sorry mr haley yeah just one quick thought further from mr ross amending the uh the policy it you should also have in there uh who who calls it i mean if the board

136president is pre is there or the vice president if not you don't really have a presiding officer then it should be the board secretary possibly to make that call if if we know there's not going to have the show so just to clarify the procedure there of course somebody says well who's going to call the meeting you should have that designated in the policy understood okay anyone else all right um residency and security mr paris uh the residency and security committee meeting met on thursday august 18th at 4 p.m uh president or mr jingaro mr dr ms conte mr constantino mr rose mr mecca myself ms beltran mr smith and mr abhijava mr doctor began the meeting by introducing introducing miss conte and explaining her history within the district while mr gingaro followed up with

137her experience dealing with school security and her role moving forward mr doctor discussed the lower number of residency investigations during the summer the department is quite busy now dealing with registration however registrations have been manageable and parent wait times for registrations have been reduced considerably mr jangaro discussed the monthly security drills for july and august and explained that although it is summer if students are in the building during any point of the month a fire and emergency drill must be performed this was accomplished during the summer summer months and all drills ran smoothly mr jingaro discussed the meeting that he and miss conte had with a former threat expert for law enforcement who volunteered to share some of his expertise the meeting was very informative and mr gigaro stated that he and ms conte would

138utilize this person as an informal resource for security issues ms conte discussed the trainings that the school security specialist will be receiving prior to the start of the school year and additional trainings that will occur after all school security specialists will receive cpi aed and cpr training prior to the beginning of school and additional trainings will occur throughout the school year and next summer mr jagara discussed the fact that he and miss conti will be presenting information to the community concerning security and how it affects clifton public schools this will be a detailed presentation but will not disclose any sensitive information concerning our security plans the committee was provided with a presentation concerning technological advances which could be utilized for district security the committee agreed to have the presentation made to the committee and clifton

139police to see what their thoughts are on the technology mr paris inquired as to grants which might be available for safety and security it was explained that while grants do become available from time to time our ability to obtain them is minimal however we still apply when we are qualified to receive a grant thank you any questions thank you mr paris okay uh we'll move on uh any unfinished business i don't see any uh 15 uh expression of condolence uh mr abu drabba would you read that please thank you president smith express of condolence whereas on august 20 2022 the community noted with sorrow the passing of mr aiken and whereas mr mcgraw had served the board of education and the children of clifton faithfully and conscientiously as a highly respected head custodian in various

140elementary schools for 23 years before his retirement in 2015. now therefore be resolved that this resolution be voted to his bereaved family to serve as an expression of the great regard and mr mcgraw was held by the board of education the administration employees and pupils of the clifton board of clinton public schools and be a further resolve that the content for the resolution be noted in their entirety in the official minutes of clifton board education for future generations to peruse dated august 25 2022. okay motion by uh mr avigrabo second second by mr awad any discussion roll call please mr abby drabo yes mr awad yes miss bassford yes ms beltran yes mr paris yes vice president daley yes president smith yes motion carries um as um as mr whittles had said before um the

141city lost um a former councilman someone very dedicated to the city um just an outstanding person um by uh by don cowell um and our doctor danny on the board is uh dating don's son so uh we'll have a resolution prepared for next meeting while miss danny could be here and read the resolution so i just wanted everyone to uh to know that and uh we uh we send our condolences uh to the coal family um on the loss of don i keep losing this okay next we'll move on to uh education administration we have uh e wait a minute let me look first ada's no okay so we have ea one through ea 13. motion by mr abedravo second by mr awad any discussion seeing none roll call mr abaddraba yes mr awad yes

142miss basford yes miss beltran yes mr paris yes vice president daley yes president smith yes motion carries okay next were um p and p 12 are pulled for executive session those are personnel matters okay so uh we'll uh we'll have the rest of the group uh minus p9 and p12 worship what's your pleasure [Music] mr paris any discussion seeing none roll call please mr abu drabba yes without standing on a p-39 name only mr awad yes uh upstating on p miss passport yes uh standing on p-39 name only miss beltran yes mr paris yes i'm standing on p-32 and p-39 my name vice president daley yes statement on the friday president smith yes and abstaining on p39 my name only motion carries okay next we'll move to oh i'm sorry yes i'm sorry we have

143dr rutozie if you could thank you mr smith uh thank you for supporting my recommendation tonight we have two staff members who are being appointed a a new vice principal at clifton high school and a new um leave replacement vice principal at woodrow wilson so maggie why don't you come up first good evening president smith commissioners dr robert tosie mr levitt mr granger gingaro sorry a little nervous um i wanted to thank you all um for giving me an opportunity and putting your trust in me to serve our clifton public schools uh in my new role as the woodrow wilson's interim interim vice principal years ago my husband and i chose clifton to be our home not only because we fell in love with the community but because we wanted our children to attend clifton

144public schools we have wonderful staff members who are dedicated and our children and our students have so many opportunities to grow and thrive i'm also starting my 16th year working here for our wonderful public schools i've spent 14 years teaching third and fourth grade at school 13. the last school year i worked with keita too's staff as one of the elementary math coaches and i also worked as one of the coordinators for ic program for the past two summers i feel very fortunate to work in such a supportive environment all of the administrators principals and supervisors with whom i had a privilege to work with in the past years have played a pivotal role in my career as an educator and educational leader i'm very grateful for that i'm looking forward to working with woodrow's

145amazing collaborative team and i'm eager to contribute in whatever way i can to our schools and our students success i'm also looking forward to working with woodrow's students administrators and staff as well as all community stakeholders to make this truly an amazing year for our students thank you again for this opportunity it's a great day to be a mustang and as they say at woodrow mustangs are all in thank you again sam is that mic on didn't sound like it was it is okay basketball player good evening so um i would i want to first start off by thanking a lot of people oh my name is james kozier i'm going for vice principal at clifton high school i want to first start off by thanking principal honda principal gaba principal yeager superintendent dr robert

146tosi assistant superintendents mr gingaro and mrs kucilewicz i've been practicing all night for the insightful and thorough interview process i truly enjoyed meeting with all you discussing your mission and vision for clifton and how it can best support you in that process your passion for clifton and the students is is inspiring so thank you for that i would also like to say that i am truly honored humbled and ecstatic for this opportunity to be able to work in a school as high highly regarded as clifton is really a dream control i've been a part of many different schools within newark public schools and some charter schools but clifton's special 15 special so i'm truly again humbled honored and very excited to get started i can assure you that i'm going to do everything i can

147to be the most effective administrator and help our young people in clifton uh and finally i just like to close out by saying how special place clifton is to me my wife and i we found our first home here in clifton um years ago uh we had all three of our children living in that home in clifton we developed some pretty wonderful memories met a lot of wonderful people and just to be able to come back to clifton and serve the community is just an honor and i'm very excited to be a part of it congratulations thank you and uh to both of you welcome to clifton and we wish you all the best success in all that you do we know we know you do a great job for our kids so congratulations all

148right we'll move on to um financing facilities we have f1 through f7 motion motion by ms basford second by mr abu drabo discussion we're seeing none roll call please mr abedrabo uh yes but abstaining on list bills number two mr awad yes miss bassford yes i'm standing on number one please f1 miss beltran yes mr paris yes abstain on d6 six i'm sorry can you repeat that uh staying on six six vice president daily yes president smith yes motion scary okay well next move to uh board member comments dr danny was first so she's not here so mr paris here next thank you mr smith covered a lot of ground this evening thank you to mr doctor for the presentation on the say something application and program i think this is a wonderful opportunity to

149up safety in our in our system and get staff and students involved um also to miss ragosa congratulations especially on the national recognition and actually the point where we're an example and teaching other districts i think that's fantastic um to the to mrs kusalevich thank you for a very thorough presentation on the health and phys ed standards i've every confidence that our staff will be able to present the content in an age-appropriate way i'm also very confident we'll have a strong opt-out message delivered to parents and the ability for them to opt out anytime during the year they seem necessary and i would just like to make a comment to one of the speakers or several actually over the past few weeks that have referenced what other school districts have been doing resolution wise i've

150gone back and read those resolutions and there's so i've read about 12 of them out of the 599 districts that are in new jersey none of them refused the standard most of them talked about the curriculum that they saw online that some people found inappropriate and that they would not adopt that curriculum and that they would be making their own this is exactly what we're doing here in clifton um and i just wanted to uh to mention that to the public that out of almost 600 districts uh about a dozen or so have made any kind of resolutions but they nobody has rejected to stand there nobody has said to my knowledge that they will not teach uh to the learning standards the state learning standards that have been presented thank you uh mr abhijava

151thanks president smith um i just want to start off by the letters that were given to us dr robert tosie um just recently can we also include ld 34 and ld27 the new ld27 which is the subway mckeon and senator cody this way we're able to include them on there will be clifton's new reps coming in in the new district yes i'd be happy to i i thought i'm happy to talk about it now but i thought maybe we could do this in new business okay that's fine um the international overdose awareness was spoken about august 31st 8 pm at city hall for the vigil uh then you know i've been really uh contemplating the past few weeks of how flag raisings have been happening in our clifton it just shows how how great and

152it translates or what our student population is all about and how diverse clifton is so that is just phenomenal school starts soon um hoping to get out of summer mode and back into school mode uh i know our teachers are phenomenal getting back into that it's more of the students than anything else because there's always that lagging gap um there was a calendar input committee that just happened and i want to thank all the stakeholders uh teachers well hopefully we can get more teachers involved and students involved but to stakeholder parents who are in the district either with students currently or parents of former students of the district i'm going to agree with them if we can see something coming out with the opt out kind of just put it out there instead of just

153putting it on our website just letting people know and more more importantly it helps us debunk the myths that people are thinking about with the information that we're presenting and proposed or presented today uh i'm no don't know anybody else but i'm excited for september 1st sam thanks for putting out the stuff today i saw that about the football game that just made me more excited and also allows people to know that you're getting what you pay for the ten dollars that is paid for i know it was ten dollars then this saturday was supposed to be 17 with the fees thanks to dr robertosi going back um uh some of the administrators and mr malahi i'm making sure it's ten dollars till the day of so that's seven dollars that we get to save

154in our pockets if somebody does forget to pay the day of are going forward too um dr apotozy the awards and plaques i think that if we can um put maybe the past five years up and then have them move into perhaps the trophy case or something upstairs and then just rotate them out as we get more i think they'll allow also the people to know uh what this great thing you know what our community thinks of their our district excuse me um car wash as um uh president smith spoke about but the cheerleaders one person smith is going to be seven dollars for the car wash and ten dollars for the trucks on september 10th from 9 a.m to 1 p.m over at woodrow and before my last comment mock trial i'm very proud

155of mock trial going over to maryland as a mock trial alum myself for chs i am very proud of them matter of fact one of our students was here today who's on the team and i know he's very excited as well um so good luck and go get them um and last to don and mary well to mary john tim and our colleague lucy danny i was over at the wake yesterday and our prayers are with you anything we can help of be with you please let us know and i'm sorry one last thing a quarter legislative meeting in october want to have our fourth quarter meeting with our legislators we still need to do an ld27 but we do need to do an ld 34 legendary district 34. saw something giblin yesterday and uh

156kind of give a quick heads up and one of the things on there i wrote down are the register waiver meal programs uh lori so thank you okay mr awad no comments tonight okay miss belchon okay um mr dr roberto sorry um i would say for us to hang at the very least down here forever the board member of the year plaques um because those are kind of rare there is only one every year so i mean worst case scenario we have like a hundred plaques down here but i i doubt we'll get one you know every year um i think those are important too hang even if like if possible we can go back in time and get the photos of the people who have won in the past so like maybe a little

157picture of them and their plaque i think that would be nice for the walls because that's something that you know is rare um so i've been saying for years in the finance committee and now as the chair of the food service committee the importance of free and reduced lunch uh it's extremely important for our students to have at least one good meal a day and many families who would qualify simply do not understand the forms or afraid to fill out the forms there's a lot of stigma around the forms people are afraid the forms are going to go to some sort of child services investigation there's always rumors about anytime you have to fill out some sort of form stating your income it would be greatly appreciated community members could also reach out to legislators

158including federal registrators because the usda was who was paying for it which is a federal com a federal organization so hopefully they'll extend it like they did for the summer uh we're getting kind of close to the deadline but even if they don't i'd be interested in maybe taking it to the committee to see um if there was a way for us to pay for the other half because i know about 52 percent um is covered already so if we could figure out some way of covering the 50 percent i'm just not sure how many students actually do eat lunch if there's we have a percentage of how many students bring from home maybe we could figure out it might not be another 50 it might be another 25 or something like that um so

159i'd like to discuss the obviously the hot button issue um i asked the question about the second grade and personally i disagree with the second grade teaching um i personally feel if i had children i would be opting out of that portion the other ages i feel are appropriate but having to use exact scientific words that young to me is too young um if god forbid a child water to be solicited for molestation the attacker in my belief would be not using those scientific words and we'd be using more socially accepted words um so i think that the training that being offered to the students should be done at all grades even maybe younger than second grade um but be used in terms that the child maybe might be more used to because they might

160not even really realize if someone says as like a like a fun term i guess to say like you know touching of their body parts and then they might not correspond that to the words that are being taught so if someone says can i touch your something and they only they learn school vagina they'll be like oh they only asked to touch my muffin or something like that you know it's it's just i think the training is very necessary i just think the words um possibly belong more in a anatomy discussion versus a sexual discussion um i know some people are going to disagree with my opinion and honestly my opinion doesn't really matter that much because i know we're going to be approving this curriculum but if i were a parent i would be

161opting out of that portion um so that said i would just like to wish the staff and students a fun and safe start to the school year um hopefully this will be one of the last that will be hot uh because with the referendum hopefully by next maybe next fall most of the schools will have some sort of relief for that and have a safe labor day everybody okay miss bassford yes good evening um i would like to thank the band for the lovely drumsticks and i don't know i this is from the athletic department it's for the zone six i believe this is a thing that it goes around your wristband so i'll add it to the multiple bracelets that i wear that's your ticket to get into the game next week i i

162don't know what it was it was i think there was nothing there was nothing with it nope no it just was in the thing so i'm thinking it was something aware all the time so it's fine um thank you for giving me the opportunity to attend the new staff orientation it was good to see the many faces in the audience that they're all excited for the first day to school good luck to all the candidates that are stepping up to the plate i'm glad to see there is an actual election and not a free pass so bravo to everyone that put the name if anybody wants to get on the ballot i believe you should be on the ballot and let the voters decide whether you're worthy of sitting in the seat that's just my

163you know so anybody uh it's only 12 signatures here it's 589 on the other side of street which i think is ridiculous but um if you want to put yourself out there i think you deserve to to to run and and try for the office so good luck to you all i look forward to listening to all of you in the future and you see what you have to say um with sad passing on um august 27th my condolences go out to the enclave family on the loss of laura she was a teacher at woodrow wilson and clifton high school for 20 years and she was also an njea member so condolences to her family condolences to the colwell family and also to lucy i spoke to you last night when i saw you um

164and to john and the rest of his family my deepest condolences to the loss of your father it's a it's a hard loss and don was a very outstanding member of this community and to mary who served on this board my condolences to you as well and to dr tim and the grandchildren this is my personal view and opinion i do not speak for the board thank you to casa for the 31st i will be there i will be helping as with anything i can uh regarding the standards i would like to speak if with the permission of dr robitazi to uh mr kuchilevich we teach in um in the um curriculum of the babes program not to use the word secret it's a dirty word because when you say to a child i have

165a secret you said you're telling them that's okay to have so when that was up there i had a really hard time looking at that so if we could get a presentation beforehand either digitally or in hand my neck is like wrenched because i i can't see over there i can't see any of them and poor alan thought that i was staring at him all night but if we could get that it's really it's really rough to participate i had a lot more questions about that i'm not comfortable with the words in second grade as well i do agree with miss beltran's opinion on that i don't feel comfortable with some of the things and then when i ask the question about what personal safety is in second grade um i i i'd like to

166hear more of the other curriculum on that um what else did i get oh uh regarding the um the board member of the year the board member of the year was uh started in 2004. miss marie hakim was the third recipient passaic county actually has two recipients we're the only pers we're the only county in the state that has actually two um i sent the actual digital um article that new jersey school boards has of miss hakum it's a beautiful article it's three or four pages long i hope that you frame that and erect that in the boardroom because that is a board member function this is our boardroom i think the board was given a couple of trophies uh for actually board participation of different things they should be down here the student stuff

167should be up in the welcome center that big thing with the hands up in the welcome center um and the other thing is welcome back to school good luck to all the staff students and the um the teachers and parents take your time around the schools remember you may be late getting into the school stop park block away and walk quietly into the school the double parking somebody's gonna get hurt so please just go slow and when you integrate into the school around the schools please that life you could say save could be one of our students by double parking blocking traffic rushing please take your time so big deal you late it's the little things that matter in life right the little things getting your child and everybody else's child into school and the

168parents and the teachers and the staff safe please take it easy so you're late who cares thank you and good night vice president daley thank you mr president uh like to send my condolences to the coal family uh i know each member um very very well and it's uh it's a loss don's losses that lost the community but we remember his legacy too which is important that we take some solace in that um on on the issue of the boardroom it's pretty sterile in here to say the least uh and i think we could with all the stuff we have and even if you rotate some of this you know some of the stuff should be in it could be in here and some in the welcome center uh the fact that we just displayed

169this stuff shows our history and and our commitment and the individual contributions that have been made by various staff members and board members to to the sport uh we have a great district here and we have a lot to be proud of so you not only need to show what's currently going on you need to show how we've come here so uh we can get into the details later but we need to uh spread the information for lack of a description on on the curriculum um i do still do have some questions on the um on the certainly the lower grades but but we need to look at something and i and i like to piggyback on what mr paris said you hear all this stuff and unfortunately society jumps at the first thing they

170hear and that's that's the fact you need to be patient you need to listen no matter whether it's this curriculum or the other stuff and you need to do some investigation so if you look at the miss kruselevich did a great job with the presentation and it gives you a perspective now you might not be happy with everything but certainly what was came up in in social media and a lot of it at the podium here was not the case and so you need to be patient you need to evaluate it and uh i would also like to see uh and and opt in rather than an opt-out but i know that's not the law so we can't deal with that but it's up to the parents too i always i've preached on this for

171for as long as i've been up here you're right you're the student's education is three-legged stool it's the teacher it's the student and it's the parent the parent needs to be engaged if you're you're for your child you are you might not know how to teach or have all the information that our teachers have but you're there to be guidance and to support your child so parents get more involved look at the website there's a lot of information there's a lot of information about a lot of things you need to be more involved if you have questions and then you wouldn't ha but it's a it's very important that you're you listen and get down to the details and then you make your decisions from there um again uh i wish everybody a good labor

172day and opening of our schools and a safe year and a productive year for all our students and i know our kids as they usually do great stuff during the year and that will conclude my marks for tonight thank you um miss uh rogoza mr dr miss kusalevich um a lot of time and preparation go into these presentations and um we thank you for uh getting the information to the public and uh putting together these presentations we we hope that the uh the tvs would uh would help um uh the two here uh intended to be the big one big screens so that we could actually see them um but if we did that you'd be hitting your heads on them and uh right is that correct maybe we had to move them because of

173that so uh you know maybe we could do something but i understand what you're saying but that would have been big bigger tvs than the original uh plan but it is kind of difficult to see so uh let's see what we can work on that um we hope the public was able to see uh you got some of the big big screens uh uh on your area so uh we hope at least the public or but we we have to try and do something about that um you know those people that did not know don cole don was one of the first council people to reach out his hand to show me the way of what politics was about what clifton was about i spent many nights in his living room stuffing envelopes handing out

174sponges and wooden nickels he was very famous for the traditional wooden nickel um and it was funny at the at the wake i was actually uh speaking to his grandson max and uh i i was told max is uh nine years old going on 50 and if you spoke to him he he really was very intelligent and anyhow he was telling me about all the the great uh giveaways that he saw of his grandfathers um in in his basement and uh after each one that i said the max said yeah that was the good one that was the best one and uh it was just a great experience knowing don he was very dedicated to this city and um those of you that may not have known don he was a a big guy when

175don walked into the room you knew don was there um but not so much because he was a big guy in stature because he had the biggest smile don always smiled and it just made you feel better as a person so um clifton lost uh lost a good a good friend and i'm just fortunate that i got to know don uh and to call him my friend and uh we know donnie's in a better place now fishing with the lord and um uh condolences to his family and as i said next meeting we'll have a resolution that dr danny will be able to to read um someone else that that uh passed away in the city um mr ed plascon um if you're a city of clifton person and you go to bagel places and

176ed was was always at um a bagel place or a coffee place and he made it his business to come over to you and speak to you and tell a joke uh share uh share a cup of coffee um and talk about what was happening in clifton um he was one of the the biggest um spreaders of the great things that was hap were happening in clifton so uh to the placecon family uh thank you for sharing your dad your your your grandfather um and an outstanding clifton resident that passed away we send our condole i send my condolences to the placecon family to dr robertosi and miss kusalevich and um specifically in my comments here to um mr gengaro um i sure hope that we videotaped that presentation yesterday and that we could get

177it on the website so that the public could see what a phenomenal job our assistant superintendent did to motivate and to welcome our new teachers and staff um mr paris i know you were there to the end um the drumsticks were part of his uh presentation and just imagine all the new staff members taking direction from mr gingaro who had let his hair down so to speak um and put a cowboy hat on and was ready to rock the hall and to get all these people in the hall excuse me in the auditorium um following his directions with these drumsticks when i first saw him like where are they going with this and he just did such a tremendous job of of motivating people um it just truly was a a great um welcoming to

178our new staff and being able to hear the staff all say you know this by far was one of the best experiences that we had teachers that have come from other places said wow clifton really you know does things uh in a wild way and uh i know mr giguero is uh exhausted today but he did a great job and i wanted to commend him and commend dr robitozzi and your entire staff um for such a great job um and to end the end the day the first day to end the morning session um again you got to see the video dr robitosi gets up uh with the band um the mustang what do you guys call yourself the administration administration um so it was a bunch of administrators uh that that played some tunes

179and our own superintendent there was uh was on the guitar and i gotta say the administration uh group did a phenomenal job so i hope we'll see more of that going around the district but it really just motivated our staff and um for them to be able to come up and say thank you and and they had a great uh first experience um that made it all worthwhile so congratulations to you and your and we welcome all those staff members and we welcome all of our teachers and our paras and our bus drivers and aides and everyone back to the system uh including our most valued asset our students as i've said numerous times we you're always proud of your teachers and you'll always back your teachers but as mr lama will probably agree with

180we have the best teachers by far not maybe not only in the state but probably in the country they're very dedicated and devoted uh employees and um i'm proud to sit on a board um that has employees of of that magnitude and that dedication so uh please extend my uh welcome to each of them and to wish him a great year and we'll be hearing a lot of great things about our students and our staff and that's what makes one clifton all of us working together for the betterment of educating kids and uh that's all i have for tonight thank you we'll move on to uh new business no problem [Music] uh new business you want the uh yes mr smith if i may i just wanted to discuss every i was able to i

181emailed you earlier but in case you didn't check email before the board meeting it's a copy of a letter at our last board meeting the board had asked made to draft a letter that we could send to our legislator legislators um asking for an extension on the usda free lunch waiver or and or you know a universal free lunch for everyone so the letter was drafted here i will be personalizing the letter to specifically each of our legislators but i wanted to get any feedback or just at least we don't need a formal vote are you okay with it do we have a consensus that we can send this i have just realized i want to add one sentence and i want to add to this that to please also see and close the copy

182of the resolution that we passed tonight um and i'll include that with the letter does anybody else have any other feedback nope that's great um should we not send these to our federal uh legislators because that they're the ones that yeah yeah so uh pascagral and senator menendez and senator uh um yeah so yeah yeah tell me who i'm sending it to you that's not nice we don't know what prove this hernandez escarado [Music] pasquale menendez booker hernandez and then if i can add to that that's i was going to add too um we should send it to the governor's office and not just to anybody in government but we should be to a senior uh legislative director if you want to give me that name and email address anyone have any of the board

183have a problem with that anyone else we want to add the chief of usda there you go that's good somebody mentioned the state um committee chair for education uh yeah culpable pal yeah he's been he's been very responsive this summer meeting with a lot of school board members so he's really interested in someone's got higher aspirations if this is something that we unanimously uh agreed to is it appropriate or would it have made more impact if we all had signed this is it bored that's what i was wondering myself and that's why at the very least i wanted to include the resolution so when the board secretary does an official resolution it includes all the board members names um but i also don't mind saying that this letter is from the administration and the board

184right and the entire board if everybody's okay with that i just have one more ad not names but into the letter um i mean we have the best data that we can possibly use and that is our pickup lunches during covet and what those impacts had in terms of uh in terms of what those lunches you mean how many meals how many meals yeah we do have that information and we should use that i mean data's power and if we can use that and add that to support these 50 52 all these other numbers particularly mentioned coven and pandemic related um for the waivers i think mentioning those numbers at least a one or two liner in there giving quick stats or an addendum to the letter as an attachment i don't have any problem

185with that is everybody good agreement have those numbers objection and then just to continue what mr paris was suggesting i'll have this come from the board what you will have the certified uh we'll have the resolution certified resolution but so the letter itself though do should it be from me and members of the board of education well we'll include the resolution so maybe you just write the letter okay that's just how i say it do you want to write with that okay okay good thank you all is there any other new business all right um and then danny i'm sorry really quick you have ld 34 and 27 on that right okay we'll go over it mr president you need a resolution at this time a clarification uh i also have a contract matter contract

186matter okay um so we're gonna meet an executive session for um p9 and p12 which are personnel matters i'm just trying to get a legal opinion if mr paris is exempt or not well that's the resolution that we could just especially whether he can come an executive session or not yeah yeah that's right you just pass a resolution to go into it yeah yeah that's fine um and then uh a contract matter for mr daley um i'm gonna say uh action will be taken um so we'll come back out here and i'm gonna say a half an hour um and we're gonna hold to it so uh motion to go with executive session any objection seeing none okay hopefully we'll be back in a half hour and uh just if we can get a clarification

187from mr paris so john i have roll call back from executive session please mr abedrabo mr awad here miss password yeah here ms beltran here mr paris here vice president daley yes president smith uh here you have a quorum uh if i could find it a motion to approve p sorry motion second p motion by mr abu drabo second by mr awad uh just so the public knows we uh discussed uh these personnel matters um and a contract matter an executive session all right roll call please mr abaddraba yes mr awake yes miss bassford yes miss beltran yes mr paris yes vice president daley yes president smith yes and we thank uh mr john crew for being here this evening uh we must tell you when derelice is here we're past midnight so you you're

188you're welcome to come back now i can't wait to tell her motion motion to adjourn second second any objection meaning is adjourned you