June 23, 2022 - Clifton Board of Education Meeting

001all right mr mcconney we're ready to open mr paris thank you okay good evening everyone and welcome to the regularly scheduled meeting of the clinton board of education thursday june 23 2022 if you all would please rise for a salute to our flag followed by a brief moment of silence i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america 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 abdrabo mr awad miss beltran mr canova here dr danny mr paris here vice president daley here president smith uh here we have a quorum i am so sorry miss basford [Music] um miss dr danny uh will not be here this evening it is her graduation at the school that

002she works at so she had to be at graduation so uh she apologized she would not be here uh i heard from both uh mr abu drabo and mr awad that they are running late from work but they should be here shortly okay yes yeah appropriate for you i'm just going to read it just okay just save some time do you want to read it here i'll just do it uh our mission statement of the clifton school district in an open and reciprocal community partnership is to provide all students with a quality education to develop the skills necessary to become literate lifelong learners who are responsible and productive citizens contributing to a democratic society in an ever-changing world new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right to the public to have

003advanced 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 board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be publicized by having the date time and place thereof posted at the city clerk's office clifton public library administration building senior citizen nutrition center on cable tv in the local press on the district's website and mailed to presidents of parent teacher organizations this meeting will be tape recorded in accordance with policy zero one eight the board will uh take a motion to executive session to um discuss the superintendent's evaluation so moved by mr vice president daley second second by mr canova roll call please miss bassford yes mr canova yes mr paris yes vice

004president daley yes and president smith yes uh please note for the record that mr paris uh is uh will not be coming into executive session due to conflicts that he has okay uh we hope uh the board will be back at uh 7 p.m uh to uh start our regular uh schedule mr president yes just want to know for the record that misspell transfer oh yeah okay so you're officially a record okay [Music] all right let's go [Music] okay the board of education met an executive session um to discuss a personnel matter um roll call back from uh executive mr abedrabo here mr awad here miss bashford here miss beltran here mr canova here dr danny mr paris here vice president daley here president smith here we have a quorum uh dr danny um is

005um she is a school teacher and her school is graduating tonight so she had to be at the graduation and apologizes that she is not at the meeting tonight okay we're going to start off with public recognition this portion of the meeting is open to the residents and non-residents of the city of clifton for the purpose of addressing any subject matter pertinent to and or directly related to the operation of the clifton public school district residents and non-residents are requested if in person to sign the registered provider for this purpose all speakers are asked to state their names municipality in which they live and subject matter before speaking comments are limited to five minutes per person issues raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments

006will be considered and the response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate your request may or may not be answered by board members 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 be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of the state of new jersey the board bears no responsibility nor will 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 okay so we'll start

007uh do we have anyone on the uh calling they're calling it out there is no one in the um in the okay motion to close the virtual motion i missed our okay we'll now open the public session uh for in person if you'd like to address the board please come up to the podium and address the board you'll have five minutes thank you good evening everybody mark brunsiak holly street clifton this is in recognition of the high school seniors about to graduate clifton high school congratulations congratulations graduates tomorrow is a great day it's a day to celebrate with your family and friends a day you've been waiting for since you entered kindergarten those 13 or more years ago for some it's waiting to get out of school and forge ahead with your life for others

008of you high school graduation is just the next step in your education you're headed to a community college a university an apprenticeship training or possibly enlisting in the military to the daunting task of preparing for the career you want to pursue but for all of you as you return the caps and gowns you're wearing tomorrow and take your tassels and diplomas home remember this the diploma you receive today essentially is your insurance policy with the premium paid in full by your hard work over the 13 plus years the value of that policy depends on how much effort you put into your education and what you do with it as you go on use it take advantage of what it offers a multitude of studies show that your high school diploma is your passport to a

009potential of higher earnings and protection against tough economic times it's not a guarantee but it will always be an asset your diploma also represents an education system that attempts to ensure all young people here in clifton even the neediest have access to the same experiences that have shaped you and me in education and exposure to the diverse beliefs and traditions that drive an ever more independent interdependent and complex world and a chance to experience the joy of learning take those experiences with you keep close the student and teacher friends you've made at clifton high school and do well wherever you go and in whatever you do you've earned your passport use it well congratulations again to each of you and i wish you continued success in the years ahead thank you for your time and

010god bless america have a good night everybody [Applause] thank you anyone else wishing to address the board let's go to tv my name is nicole zaretsky i'm a certified school nurse at school 11. good evening dr robert tosi members of the board of education fellow members of the clifton community as i said i'm a certified nurse from school 11. i'm here tonight along with several other certified school nurses from various schools within our district we would like to speak to everyone regarding several issues that have been happening to the nurses within our schools there are a total of 20 schools in this clifton public school system educating nearly 11 000 students currently we have 20 20 certified school nurses in the district however there should be 24 26 if you count our floating positions there

011is a discrepancy because there's been a trend not just in clifton but of hiring non-certified school nurses we understand this is due to the nursing shortage these non-certified nurses however have not been trained and educated in the same manner that the certified school nurses have been in order to become certified we have taken two years of additional classes completed 21 additional credits completing nearly 90 hours of clinical experience we have trained not only in our certification but we have received an educational endorsement when we were hired to work with clifton this was a requirement while we understand these new nurses they are intelligent they are very caring and they are kind however they're non-certified they need to be trained by us the certified school nurses however with the trend of the nursing shortage these nurses

012are commanding a much higher salary they are coming in sometimes fifteen to twenty thousand dollars more a year than the certified nurses that are currently employed in your district we are certain that everyone would agree that not only is this not right but it's also insulting to your nurses that are already employed we would also like to point out that non-certified nurses are not legally able to perform certain tasks that we the certified nurse can we are essential members of the inrs 504 teams coordinating health screenings and assessments and accommodations we complete mandated reports in timely manner we have repeatedly reached out to the administration in the union with no avail we are exhausted frustrated and left feeling unappreciated sometimes the bottom line is teachers would not be hired counselors would not be hired child

013study team members would not be hired without certification and proper credentials so why would we want this for certain for non-certified nurses when you hire the non-certified nurses at higher steps and salaries it's very disheartening and also demoralizing it is for this reason that six nurses have left the district or are leaving the districts in the past six months the resignation of these nurses there have been a lot of voids in our district in one school no nurses were available so the elementary school nurses were put into a rotation where they had to cover the schools then leaving their elementary school uncovered for that day this left a burden on the secretaries and the principles to make decisions that we would make if we were there yes it is very important to actively recruit and

014fill the empty positions left by the nursing shortage however it's more important that you fill these positions with qualified school nurses who will be able to educate and provide the same type of highly skilled care that the current certified school nurses and the certified school nurses before us provided the students of the clifton school district and the families of the clifton community that they have all come to expect we would like to end on this note it is most important that the members of the administration and the board of ed focus their attentions on the retention of your current certified school nurses this would make the clifton school district more attractive in retaining your highly qualified certified school nurses in the city of clifton we thank you for your attention [Applause] good evening everybody my

015name is wendy scradato i'm a certified school nurse for school 12. i've been there for 23 years i live in clifton my whole life my i raise my family here myself and my children are all products of the clifton public schools we constantly hear about one clifton but as school nurses we are starting to feel clifton divided one clifton should mean clifton is a family and a team we feel divided because we have staff members that have been true to clifton and have been practicing nursing in the clifton district for years in this room alone with the few nurses that we have there's over 200 experi 200 years of nursing experience and education and skills uncertified nurses are starting at a higher step and salaries causing discontent and a mass exodus of skilled certified nurses

016as nicole said before six in the past six months that's going to leave us very short come september my colleagues and i here are in support of nicole's comments and we all agree we urge the members of the administration the union and the board of education to reconsider earlier proposals as way of retaining certified school nurses thank you for listening [Applause] good evening uh al dubois clifton um first thing i like to bring up is the children now use their chromebooks a lot and i don't know if he's already looked into this or not i just wanted to bring this to your attention has there been anything done about their uh the strain on their eyes uh are you hearing anything about kids maybe having because they do go home they do homework and then

017they do their other stuff so i was just just a suggestion if if there is maybe have them at the end of a period that's pretty intense especially if they're using the chromebook the whole period to have their cup to take a minute and cup their eyes i think that relieves some pressure but i'm not sure and i'm leaving it in your hands i just wanted to mention it because it looks like it's going to be the trend of the future i saw the clifton merchant magazine and it was excellent and it's it really does represent what we have here is a lot of beautiful things in here written and it is true a lot of it is true and let's keep striving for this um president smith you have a nice picture in here

018happy birthday during this month i'd like to bring up the mission statement real quick it says in the mission statement we have an open and reciprocal community partnership and at the end it has we're lifelong learners who are responsible and productive citizens contributing to a democratic society in an ever-changing world i i mean if you have time sometime in the near future can you review this statement and maybe add in there and i know you don't want to add certain um phrases like god and country but maybe if you add it in there just the general thing of the pledge of allegiance because in the pledge of allegiance it talks about what our country's the republic and it mentions god because it's just too vague in an ever-changing world and a democratic society means that

019our children are really just pawns for whoever may come in and decide to make whatever changes are necessary and sometimes they have to make a stand and say wait a minute i have beliefs and i have to hold on to these beliefs at least the pledge of allegiance if it's incorporated in there or something else i mean you know you have time to reflect on that can make it where there's some kind of a solid belief in something um the other thing i'd like to bring up is the resolution that you are going to adopt tonight for the lgbtq uh there's some good statements in there that are that are definitely needed for any any person no matter who it is but there is a lot of exclusions while you're recognizing a certain group of

020individuals you're also excluding other individuals who may not think so much in the terms of their beliefs especially people who are of a certain religion so by do your resolution which gives it a whole month that you're going to incorporate programs and classes and indoctrination you might want to include in there you know about there's other people that we also need to be careful of and respectful of also at the same time who may feel and if somebody's belief conflicts with somebody else's belief well then you're going to have to figure out how to resolve that in the most peaceful way but it does exclude other avenues two meetings ago vice president daley brought up about the budget and he had stated that there was a he wasn't happy with the way that meeting had

021went and that there was a a lack of public trust and i believe he was addressing the board members ms bashford also brought up at the same meeting that there's no transparency amongst the board members so you have two board members who are pretty much on the same level of saying that there's issues i would love to hear more about that transparency public trust i think those are important issues to be discussed i mean if there is a mal administration going on we and i'm not saying with administration i mean with the board members i would like to know more about it but it's hard to when you're sitting back here and there's a discussion going on one person on this side says something the person on that side says something votes seem that they're

022saying good stuff and it's a ping-pong match you know you don't know who it would be nice to have meetings where we can sit and reflect and hear more about it but i do have a concern about all that i was at that budget meeting and the way it was presented the last minute the way it went i agree with you mr daly that there was an issue there but i think you should go further and miss bastard if there is no transparency i'd like to hear more about specifics of where there's not transparency thank you [Applause] good evening my name is jan hagen i'm from roxbury township in morris county i'm here to talk about the sex education and uh a little bit about the budget i was here a couple months ago when

023you guys had that budget meeting and i find it i found it actually quite interesting um the teachers had given a presentation of the sex education that they were gonna um the curriculum that they were using and at first i thought the response was appropriate showing you know highlighting i think sir you said you had young children you didn't like uh vagina and penis used for uh first and second graders i agree okay i don't understand why that has to be done but let me ask you are you comfortable with a lesson for your young daughter your fifth grade daughter on masturbation does that make you comfortable that doesn't make me comfortable okay um do you want her to start thinking more about sex than she does about playing soccer or swimming or math why

024do we have to highlight these things for such young children are you comfortable with advisors telling your daughter how she can get an abortion without you knowing about it when she's in high school throughout the presentation there were recurring themes the first one is that children have been taught this for 10 years we've been teaching this for 10 years oh really well guess what now everybody knows okay enough why have you been doing this the second point raised the hair on the back of my neck okay they mentioned that if children kids in the school are uncomfortable with what's going on there's a trusted adult that they can talk to who is this trusted adult okay uh who determines that they are trusted i'm sure that 99 even 100 of your teachers are wonderful and

025that they really have the well-being of the children at heart i'm sure they do okay but it only takes one across this country 135 teachers and aides have been arrested and charged with sex crimes just in 2022 okay uh or a year or so ago there was a a substitute teacher in nutley that was arrested for masturbating in front of his high school class okay the school board let him back in two months ago that man did the same thing and was arrested again so you know we can't trusted adults the only trusted adults are the parents we would like you to stay out of the children's bedroom it's the parents job to teach morals not the schools they are not your kids they're your students okay i wanted to touch a little bit on

026the budget because i was really surprised i was here at that budget meeting as well and you talked about the esser funds which really surprised me i i was i didn't know you would mention them you said that you got 11 million dollars in esser funds um actually it was 10 million 249 i believe i have the print out of all the esser funds for the state of new jersey all right of that 11 million dollars give or take you said you spent six million dollars okay where's the other five you didn't mention that okay uh new doors and windows that's really good where um did you tell the tax taxpayers in this school district that there's that was s or two funds that 10 million dollars there are also s or three funds that's

02723 million dollars have those funds been allotted who negotiated these allotments what are the strings attached to these funds you knew you were getting more in federal as for funds it's not state funds it was federal funds you knew you were getting more and still you raised their taxes two percent you're going to get another 24 million in closing you may think ma'am you're gonna have to end your comments now your five minutes are up thank you oh okay thank you well thank you it's not just these five people that keep coming and talking about this it's a statewide movement thank you [Applause] good evening marcia miller clifton i will continue to bring forth the next five points of the harmful effects on children from the comprehensive sex education standards of 2022 number 11 teaches

028abortion and contraception presents abortion as a safe or positive option while omitting data on the many potential negative physical and mental health consequences may teach children they have a right to abortion and refer them to abortion providers may encourage the use of contraceptives while failing to present the failure rates or side effects 12 promotes peer-to-peer sex ed sexual rights advocacy may train i'm sorry may train children to teach other children about sex or sexual pleasure through peer-to-peer initiatives may recruit children as spokespeople to advocate for controversial sexual rights or to promote abortion undermines traditional values and beliefs may encourage children to question their parents beliefs and their cultural or religious values regarding early sex sexual orientation or gender identity may instruct children that they have rights to confidentiality and privacy from their parents may teach

029children about accessing sexual commodities or services including abortion without parental consent may instruct children not to tell their parents what they are being taught about sex in school and 15. referred children to harmful websites materials or outside entities may also specifically refer children to planned parenthood or affiliates or partners for their lucrative services or commodities examples are sexual counseling condoms contraceptives gender hormones sti testing treatment and abortions etc i continue to urge you to reject the 2022 sex education standards for september garwood jackson montague and many towns are more to come to reject the standards it is a iologic ideological not educational along with race-based gender fluid curriculum it is indoctrinating our children and misleading them by graphic sexual material this past saturday i was out in the community i wound up speaking to an

030arabic gentleman about this issue and he said he and his wife are appalled about these new sex education standards and i asked him why will you not speak forward what about your community his response to me was because i will be called racist and i will be blacklisted so there is such a fear today in our community and in the united states that people are not speaking up because when they do they get knocked down and they get called names and it's really out of control and we as a community need to speak up and there are people on this board that i know do not agree with these standards and i wish they would take a stand within themselves and their community to come against this because this is not appropriate for our youth

031thank you [Applause] good evening samantha basford i'm coming to you today not as judy basford's daughter but a clifton alumni and a citizen of clifton what is pride and why do we celebrate it lesbian gay bisexual and transgender pride month is celebrated annually in june to honor the 1969 stalwa stonewall riots and to work to achieve justice and equality up in equal opportunity for lesbian gay bisexual transgender and questioning americans now i need some audience participation in this and i hope people feel comfortable especially the young people raise your hand if you know someone who is lgbtq in this in this room raise your hand if it's someone who's close to you someone you know raise your hand if you know someone who has been bullied because of their sexual identity and their gender orientation

032exactly so why do we make why is pride important visibility is crucial to fighting shame and social stigma marching in the face of threats and violence pride events inspire celebrations of difference and show that lgbtq plus communities will not be intimidated and will continue demand equality that is why there is a resolution about pride in celebrating if you notice the hands in this room many of them young high school students when i was in high school maybe there was two to three people who were out openly but they couldn't be when i was in high school in 2008 because they were bullied somebody might have faced physical harm and now you see students who are in this audience and even adults who you may or may not be a part of the community who feel

033this shame and the embarrassment of even having to hear these comments at the board meetings of what sex education is going to turn someone into being queer that's not how this works you don't choose to be hated you don't choose to be bullied you don't choose to have a threat to you because you walk into a restaurant and you want to sit down with your loved one but you cannot that is why we celebrate pride and as a cis woman which if you don't know what that is that's probably part of the problem because you're not educated enough to understand what i am saying to you educate yourself don't be ignorant because yes we may be scared of what teachings can do but it's really what is in your household and the hate that is

034actually coming more forward than it is protection thank you [Applause] well good evening my name is lori lallam and i'm the president of the cea before i start i want to thank the board that showed up for the dinner that was very kind thank you again we had a good time more than two years ago clifton public schools along with the remainder of the world experience an unparalleled change during the covet 19 pandemic amid the many adjustments to our lives our schools shifted from in-person to virtual learning amid so many social distancing guidelines that changed every day when you decide to work in clifton public schools you couldn't have predicted on pending your years of training to figure out how to reinvent the specific practices that you've adopted and honored the transition was unexpected uncertain

035and unfamiliar turning to a new virtual environment menu had to contemplate and learn instantaneously and you did this with elegance courage and resolve within a couple of days you revised your job expectations to new platforms and technology tools that you beforehand had no knowledge of using you reached out to your friends and colleagues for guidance and support as well as foreign personal networks within the school community to make sure our students and their families felt understood and supported but your hard work and perseverance made solid contributions to clifton public schools through late evenings reinvent what our district should look like we have passed the largest referendum in new jersey we have received the sr-12 and three funds which are the arp which has provided many improvements to our district we still have work to do

036we need to understand the acculturation and the assimilation of this community look at our similarities and respect our differences connections and networking are important but it must be done through collaboration negativity tearing down one another hinders the betterment of such a wonderfully diversified district as a school community we have so much to be thankful for coming out of a pandemic we had pillars and committees and voices were heard which made such a horrible situation seem more tolerable to get through for all of these reasons and more i want to thank you the clifton public school community for going above your call of duty thank you for creating as much as possible the environment of safety and regularity during these past two and a half years thank you for communicating with the staff the kids and

037their families beyond your normal working hours thank you for your selflessness empathy patience and perseverance in addition congratulations to the class of 2022 as denzel washington said dreams without goals are just dreams they fuel disappointment you only live once so do what you feel passionate about it take chances enjoy your summer thank you very much [Applause] anyone else wish to address the board uh motion by mr abedrabo second by mr awad okay next we have um some great presentations to our senior students of the month so if we start with miss bassford and then we can just work our way around good evening this award goes to senior jada rivera jada rivera has participated in many extracurricular activities at chs including pre-med club heroes and cool kids national honor society and yearbook jada also volunteers

038at the clifton animal shelter her teacher mr giordano has been the most influential because she has challenged her academically but is also supportive and encouraging jada's role model is her mother because of her strength and guidance jada is a jada will be attending valley university for biology with plans to become a pediatric orthopedic surgeon so this award goes to jada rivera is jada here [Applause] no jayden not here okay we'll get that to uh thank you thank you mr paris yes i'm presenting to jaylee borcello jaylee burcello's favorite class while at chs was cast with mr mcconney and when she attends the university of new hampshire in the fall she plans to study communications jaylee enjoyed being an intern for mr mcconney this past school year and credits him as being her most influential teacher

039because he ensures his students are successful inside and outside of his classroom additionally jaylee's parents have been very supportive and a big influence in her life by showing her how to become a better person jaylee is motivated hardworking and respectful student who is not only successful academically but also extremely involved in extracurricular activities both inside and outside of school congratulations jaylee jaylee here no okay we'll get that to jaylee mr canova uh next up we have senior michael corpus michael corpus would like to thank his parents for teaching him the values of hard work and inspiring him and his siblings to be the best they can be michael's favorite subject is math because he likes how he can apply what he's learned to the real world and also has motivated him to study accounting at

040montclair state university this fall michael's favorite teacher at ces may have may have been mr lester and mr orlando because he learned critical thinking and respect for people's opinions is michael he turned here tonight congratulations michael we'll get that too okay tonight i have the honor of reading about kevin arroyo moreno kevin royal mourinho is a member of the boys cross country team indoor and outdoor track team and has earned multiple all league and all county awards kevin has also served his community and volunteers his time at the keystone program at the boys and girls club kevin thanks his older brother for being a positive influence in his life and also acknowledges miss fabricant for all her support uh kevin will be attending pccc next year and then plans on transferring to a university kevin

041aspires to be professional bodybuilder is kevin here [Applause] please thank you congratulations [Applause] so okay next we have a uh special presentation um recognition an award presented from the women's club of allwood scholarship dr robertosi thank you mr president is miss fran powers here tonight ms powers would you mind coming up to the microphone as the board may remember at our last meeting um we had one of our wonderful clifton parents come up and she was very upset that her daughter wasn't recognized at this local scholarship night so we wanted to uh we found out what happened and uh you know we apologized and we reached out to miss powers and miss powers uh is here tonight to give um the recognition that uh emily deserved in the first place so miss powers i'm going

042to turn it over to you to present the all wood uh scholarship well i'll look at you but um this old women's club is 90 years old not me but and every year we we'd have fundraisers and different ways to bring in money and we give it away we support the school system we support people in need saint peter's haven there's a lot that we do and it was brought upon me to give these awards out that we give every year uh scholarships for various things uh only uh emily is one that that i miss them all because of a family matter i could not make it so i wanted to give this to emily now oh along with a check because she was chosen for us by the counselors at clifton high school um

043i can read this and i think i'll do that dear emily ciao silagi you received three hundred dollars from the women's club of olwen scholarship from allwood based on your academic achievements your gender and residential neighborhood you should be proud of receiving the scholarship or award show that you appreciate having your achievements acknowledged by sending a letter of thanks that's to us uh we wish you the best of luck um emily's going to keen university in september and this is uh book money or money for her to uh to use whichever way she is her education is she here yes you please come up [Applause] thank you so much i got to see and hug them all i tell them all i'm sicilian i hug i don't think emily but i missed it all except

044please oh yes i'm just representing the home thank you so much i'm so glad to have the opportunity to do this because you know this is it this is my only chance i haven't seen the other ones they just got the checks it was also nice meeting you thank you thank you thank you just stand right up there i'll take a picture with all yes go ahead watch your step yep watch your step mom you too good mom pictures will be on our social media so you can grab them thank you congratulations [Applause] okay next we're going to have um recognition and award presentation to the clifton high school unified club mr gengaro if you'd like please um mark we're struggling with this here it's not loading mark it's not loading sorry i can't get

045it i can't get the browser to open it's shared with me the certificate is not letting me open any browsers i don't know what's wrong with the machine it's something that eric has to troubleshoot okay why don't we just uh we'll just read them again thank you ladies and gentlemen the board of education our commissioners of course our superintendent and on behalf of coach carla rodriguez who could not be with us this evening as she is with her friends families and colleagues celebrating her retirement but knowing carla i would venture to guess that at some point in fact multiple times this evening as she's celebrating the successful career that she has had her heart and her thoughts are with us this evening as we honor and recognize our student athletes so i was for the

046opportunity and privilege to read this on her behalf on the weekend of june 10th through june 12 2022 the special olympics new jersey was finally able to resume summer games competition at the college of new jersey where athletes from all over the state come to socialize celebrate and compete over the course of the entire weekend summer games provide many of the athletes with independence confidence and the opportunity to build lifelong friendships this is just not a sporting event but a coming together of friends and family filled with endless smiles laughter and memories for the past nine years i carlo rodriguez has had the opportunity to coach and mentor many of these young athletes from grade six and up through high school and even a few into college when i began this program back in 2013

047i could never have imagined how being part of special olympic play unify would change my life for the better this program has not only become an important part of the lives of so many of clifton students and families but has nestled itself in the hearts of the coaches and the coach in the clifton athletes the following clifton high special olympic athletes lorenzo ahmadi leila carrasquillo jason hinton and david mondina as well as former clifton students alexa petty and michael shimabukuro competed in track and field events renzo ahmadi won a gold medal in the men's shot putt leila carrasquillo won a silver medal in the women's 400 meter dash and fourth place in the standing long jump jason hinton won a gold medal in the men's shot put with a throw of over eight meters and

048fifth place in the men's 200 meter dash david mondia won a silver medal in the men's shotput alexa petty won a gold medal in the woman's 400 meter and the silver medal in the woman's 800 meter in a rainy downpour and michael had an incredible performance a gold medal in the men's 200-meter dash leaving competitors in the dust and the men's running long jump he almost jumped clear out of the pit it is clear that our athletes are not just excelling in their respective sports but their social skills as we the coaches and families watch them congratulate and encourage their fellow competitors if you saw the pictures you would see that this program culminating in summer games builds confidence teamwork and truly brings out the best in all of those who are lucky enough to

049be there i could speak endlessly about the lessons that i have learned and the moments that have moved me to happy tears the sport activities have led to a community for not just the athletes but the athletes families and all of the coaches there are so much more to this initiative that competitions and shiny clinking medals if i could leave you with one thing i would say get involved and be ready to be motivated and amazed so on behalf of the board of education coach rodriguez and the entire one clifton learning community we would like to celebrate honor and recognize the student athletes with these certificates when i call your name please kindly come to the stage and remain here until all athletes are called up i'd also invite our our superintendent and board of

050ed commissioners to come forward too for everybody come on should hand it to them we just got the thumbs up from renzo so we are ready our first student athlete laila carrasquillo [Applause] david mondial [Applause] congratulations [Applause] jason hinton some of our student athletes are actually celebrating with coach rodriguez at her retirement party and last but certainly not least the man the myth the legend lorenzo ahmadi [Applause] you want families in the picture you want parents you want to go in the picture thank you [Applause] it's a good thing i checked yep there we go thank you and as our commissioners are making their way back to our seats and before we turn the board of education meeting over to president smith uh one of our recognized student athletes would like to say a few

051words for coach rodriguez it's all yours [Music] my name is laila cara i am a student at clifton high school and i have been in clifton's autism program since kindergarten i love school and my school community my teachers and coaches are like family to me today i want to say that even though i am so happy to be here i am so sad that my coach mr rodriguez is retiring mrs rodriguez is one of the best in education that clifton has to offer she has been michael since 2016. mrs rodriguez introduced me to special olympics and has changed my life mrs rodriguez and special olympics has instilled me a desire to improve to listen and to learn i know when i work hard i succeed especially makes us taught me a lot much more than

052i can ever say i am afraid that when mrs rodriguez leaves that miss cutler the other best coach in the world his killer will not have help my coaches are special people they believe in me they encourage me they challenge me they accept me and all my teammates the way we are they make me a better person and athlete it takes a special person to be a special olympics coach because the special olympics and the two best coaches in the world my family and i have friends who are like me and i feel accepted i am saying all of this because i don't want to lose my coach and the special olympics too mrs rodriguez who want me and all of my friends in the program to keep going and to never give up representing

053our families ourselves the best special olympics in new jersey the clifton mustangs i cannot think mrs rodriguez and ms keithler enough they have made me a better person and i prayed that the clifton board education continued the special olympics program so generations of students like me can experience clifton pride my teammates and i love what we do from practices to competition and this is so important to all of us it is a huge part of our lives thank you for your time and for listening [Applause] great job uh to all of you for the wonderful job that you've done all year long with your coaches and for that great great presentation tonight so congratulations to you to your parents and to your coaches for an outstanding season congratulations [Applause] okay next we're going to do

054the recognition award presentation to imagine math national school excellence award who's doing that one take care very nice good evening commissioners ladies and gentlemen i'm so excited to be here today to introduce one of our highest performing imagine math teams and in order to do that i would like to bring up aaron's muta our supervisor of mathematics k through eight and mr dan savarese from imagine math so that they can do their magic with our amazing school three group thank you good afternoon everyone imagine math is our adaptive program for mathematics that we use in the district for pre-k actually through geometry we have 9 000 active students on the program as we speak i'd like to say that imagine math is like the guided reading for mathematics what it does is it takes a

055child from where they are and teaches them math on their own level for each individual child and it differentiates for that child based on how they're answering questions or how they're going through the program we have all subgroups of students on the program so special ed esl they're all on the program they're all working at their own level um we have done some truly amazing work this year in all our clifton schools um we're going to talk about school 3 and their national award of excellence but we also have woodrow wilson and school 2 and they are both beacon schools for imagine math to give you an idea of how well the kids did this year they take three benchmarks one levels them and then they take two more throughout the year to gauge their

056growth on the standards of the state of new jersey and then it adapts the kids started benchmark one at a 21 proficiency rate they ended with a 40 proficiency rate across the district from pre-k through geometry that is huge growth i would like to thank the administrators the teachers the parents and most importantly the students for all their hard work their diligence their buy-in and their support to make this program succeed and help the students learn at this time i'd like to introduce dan savarese who is our rep who's going to tell you a little bit more about what we've done in the district thank you good evening everyone thank you for having me thank you to dr verbertosi for the invite um today was a great day selfishly as a former new jersey teacher

057and administrator i got to hang out some really cool kids a really great teachers and and spend some time with them at school three and see the great work that the department and ms park has done at the building uh the school of excellence is not something that's given away lightly uh out of the thousands of schools in the country uh there's only 280 schools that have received the award that school three did and it's a combination of innovative use tremendous growth but also engagement um with the platform and as mr voter said it's it's a combination of leveraging a tool to help drive instruction but also that instruction your teachers are providing is top notch so we're really just proud to be a part of it um one of the things i'd like to

058add is i spoke to the students today selfishly i like to talk to kids whenever i can uh we talked about one of the biggest and uh best things about imagine myth and i know dr robitazi loves his part too is students can donate their points to charity so your students they gain thing points as they're doing the program and they make the conscious choice to say i want to donate these think points to charity so i spoke to your students today and i said your conscious choice to give to charity help clothe students help clothe kids they've helped students combat bullying they've reached out and supported some of our veterans and things like that so all these different charities your students have contributed to last year uh clifton was obviously number one in the

059state of new jersey in terms of charitable giving and number 21 in the country when uh when we look at a country all in charitable giving imagine math we'll have some updated numbers he's got to found his face because i already he knows i spoiled it for him um as of this year clifton is still number one in jersey but you went from number 21 to number nine in the country in terms of charitable giving for imagine math so that's just it's wonderful it's wonderful and uh you know it's it's it's great to see the students make that choice it's a conscious choice and imagine learning is approaching one million dollars donated to charities on behalf of students in the nation so clifton is a huge part of that uh it was such a great

060day thank you for letting me be a part of that uh and i just like hanging out with the kids they're cool so this is the time you want to buy ice cream we're all biased for yeah sure sure but uh i'd like to thank this park too for her leadership in her building uh leveraging it engaging everyone with the staff um and the fun thing part was you know the rumor i'm not gonna say who was saying the rumor that i traveled from all the way from texas to be here today i told them i traveled from exit nine on the turnpike to come up and see them today yeah what's that yeah a little bit and if we can have ms park and miss krasinski um and any other school three representatives please

061come up i'm gonna put up the banner come on step up that way show off the banner so we can have a nice photo op i'll go up there with him in just a minute i would just like to thank each and every one of you who are here tonight and all of our clifton school number three teachers and students for this amazing achievement there you go better better thank you [Applause] so for the um last time as a graduating senior our student representative andrew will give his final and last report andrew [Applause] good evening everyone and for my last report i want to bring up the people who will be giving the next report in september so please tiffany alone come join me i am truly ecstatic to officially introduce the public and board

062of education the student representatives for the 2022-2023 school year senior representative you already know is tiffany guerrero tiffany has already frequented board of end meetings i've missed uh serving as a junior representative this past year she's also one of very few people to ever serve a position on also the junior student council this year she was the recording secretary that's not something we usually allow but just speaks to how incredible tiffany is she's also a football manager and member of the cheerleading squad very active in our community the junior representative is a new face here lillian shaw [Applause] this coming fall william will also be serving as the treasurer for the clifton student union and as vice president of girls learn international two great organizations at clifton high school she's also a member of the

063tennis team here's in cool kids key club pre-med club and athletic training club truly congratulations to both these fine students something i want to note as far as records show this is the first time that both student representatives are young women from clifton high school [Applause] and truly as i pass the torch over i wish you nothing but the best as you take on this incredibly important work [Applause] now i have my final words uh before i graduate tomorrow first a huge thank you to president smith dr robertosi all the commissioners of the board principal mr honda and student council association advisor mrs van saters for their unwavering support since i took this position in october i've been amazed and humbled since day one at the level of trust you're willing to place in me

064however i also want to thank another incredibly important group that's a student's chs without them i would have no position my classmates my friends even the kids i've just seen in the hallways and never spoken to before that point for helping me with my duties though i may have faltered along the way i strive to be vessel for your voices the issues and celebrations i've discussed are not just mine they are all of ours finally i have a call to action not just for tiffany lillian here but for any student that may watch this any point tonight or in years to come you have the most important voice in your education you are the most important thing in the classroom never forget that if you want something changed talk about it talk to your teachers

065talk to your vice principals talk to your principal come here to advocate for yourself talk to one another as one of my very favorite teachers has said for years organize for power and never give up change is entirely possible as long as you work together communicate and take charge if i've learned anything this year is that you're capable of fixing so many more of the problems in our schools than you realize no topic is too big take them on head first and never step down thank you so very much for your time not just tonight but for every night you've been here since october i truly appreciate it [Applause] mississippi andrew i cannot emphasize enough how enjoyable it was to have you each and every meeting here representing the great students of uh clifton high

066school um you were right on target on on everything you brought to us you were passionate you were articulate and just a fine young man that i know we're going to be reading a lot of good things about in the future just so everyone knows a little bit about andrew besides his student government he is uh one of the best tuba players in the state of new jersey and has played for uh the mustang band all four years he was here uh and i've just been told he won a spot in the new jersey all-state wind ensemble tuba section [Applause] on top of that those are his extracurricular activities on top of that he kept his studies up and he is in the top 10 percent of his graduating class andrew is attending the eastman

067school of music in at the university of rochester and um i know you're going to do great things there and i'd just like to present you with this uh plaque of our appreciation uh for your service uh so in appreciation for your dedicated service as student representative on the clifton board of education for the 21 22 school year we extend our sincere congratulations for a job well done and wish to acknowledge your personal and academic excellence as well as your leadership qualities and wish you continued success in your future endeavors the clifton board of education june 23 2022 congratulations andrew there you go thank you so much congratulations get a nice picture of mr smith you want to come up and get a picture great thank you [Applause] and lillian and tiffany welcome and and

068continue and you know uh you'll do we know you'll do great things because you were taught by uh andrew who does everything so great so thank you okay if we could move on with the business part of the meeting with adoption of our minutes of june second meeting regular meeting so moves to move by mr kanova second by mr abedrabo any discussion or amendments seeing none roll call please mr abadrabo yes mr awad yes miss basford yes miss beltran yes mr conova yes dr um mr paris yes vice president daley yes president smith yes motion carries okay now to uh turn it over to our superintendent for the superintendent's report thank you mr president good evening commissioners members of the public faculty staff i can't believe that the school year is over tomorrow it's our

069last day of school for students and our high school graduation is tomorrow at 3 p.m at clifton stadium and thank god the weather is looking good a little warm but i'll take warm over thunderstorms any day tomorrow there will be 654 students marching on the field and receiving their diplomas of the class of 2022 21.9 percent of students plan to attend two-year colleges 49.7 percent just under half plan to attend four-year colleges four percent plan to go to trade or technical schools one and a half percent plan to go into the military and another 23 percent are going into the workforce or undecided i think i'm still in that category too i'm not sure what i want to do when i grow up and that's okay because who knows what they want to do with

07017 18 years old right i want to publicly congratulate our valedictorian abigail loeb who will be attending harvard in the fall i drove by there one time and our salutatorian uh mariam rukaya who will be attending nyu in the fall i had the opportunity to have breakfast with these two young women a couple weeks ago and to say that i was just impressed is is in complete understatement um just amazing amazing human beings who represent clifton um you know the best of the best uh represent us very well i'd also like to congratulate kyle vellis who was recently named uh for all of passaic county the passaic county coaches association scholar athlete of the year yeah congratulations to kyle kyle kyle was a three sport varsity athlete um and one thousand points a thousand point

071basketball player was our quarterback and our our point guard on on the basketball court on top of all that i think is i didn't look at the final gpa but i know one point i looked at his gpa it was like 98 something so four years all four years yeah amazing just a great student so congratulations to kyle on that scholar athlete of the year for all of passaic county i also look forward to celebrating with the class of 2022 tomorrow and i'm really excited that tomorrow about 450 students are signed up for project graduation and as you may remember project graduation will be taking place at the american dream mall and it's going to be really a fantastic fantastic night i'm so excited for the kids um i want to address something from earlier

072tonight i normally don't uh address public comment unless there is something that um really is just a you know easy to answer and something like that but um you know two of our outstanding nurses spoke up tonight and um listen i have a tremendous amount of respect for our nurses tremendous amount of respect foreigners particularly both nurses that spoke tonight nicole and wendy love them they're amazing um so because of my respect for them i'm not going to get into all of the reasons why just giving extra money to us to certain employees is is problematic it's very difficult and i personally have spent countless hours along with laura la lama and union leadership my executive team trying to figure out a way to do this and to do it the right way but i

073do have to clarify something for the public i want to make sure that the public understands that we we're hiring qualified nurses that are rns registered nurses means they have a college degree their nurses many of the nurses we've hired have uh you know numbers of years working in hospitals the the people who spoke to are absolutely correct they might have a school nurse certificate that is that is true the problem is when we hire when we post for jobs for school nurses there aren't any out there and it's not a clifton thing it's not even a new jersey thing it's a national thing we cannot find school nurses so our options have become leave a building vacant or hire an rn and for us the choice was easy and supply and demand comes in

074into play when it comes to salary so it is a real complicated issue um and i i know it's words but i just hope that our nurses understand we have been trying to figure out a way to um to help them and i'll leave it at that but i want our parents to know that we have qualified nurses in our buildings i'd like to give an update on our referendum i don't think i did one at the at the last board meeting but since our last board meeting our team has continued to meet with our construction management company epic and our other service professionals as we prepare to send out our bids for our referendum the state comptroller has delayed things an awful lot but i'm happy to say that just today our attorney and

075architect met with the state comptroller and finalized the details in bid package number two in addition packages three and four will be going out shortly and from what we heard after this meeting today with a comptroller we're anticipating a quicker turnaround than the first two bid packages so the first bid package was clifton high school that was approved and we've completed a successful bid cycle the final price came in at twenty three million two hundred and thirty three thousand dollars which is slightly higher than what we budgeted for initially in the referendum however much cheaper than what we anticipated after doing a cost analysis earlier this year so we're actually very pleased with that price and had a big sigh of relief when we saw we were very concerned that with the lack of supplies

076with inflation that it was going to be much higher the bid is currently under attorney review uh just to make sure all the documents meet the requirements of the specs and uh simultaneously our attorneys are reviewing the second and third place bids just in case there's something wrong with the first bid and finally a real important piece of news on the stadium and the athletic field scheduling these two projects are time sensitive and they're also two of our very public projects people the ones that people tend to ask you know when is the field getting done nobody's really asking so much about the air conditioning except that one day it was 100 degrees so we've determined that it's in the district's best interest to take these two projects the stadium and the athletic field out

077of the the bid projects and to bid them separately our professionals believe that it'll allow us to get a much fairer price and it will allow us to bid immediately without having to wait for the state comptroller which as you know has delayed our other projects the reason why it doesn't have to go to the comptroller because it doesn't meet the fiscally the amount of money that's required for the state to to review it um and speaking of extracting projects we uh we bid out the boiler here at school six and it was a project we felt that could be done to alleviate the workload for next summer and the bid came in at 280 000 which was 57 percent less than our anticipated cost so that extra money will be rolled into the remaining

078packages so that's kind of where we are if you have any questions about the referendum i'll be happy to answer them later on congratulations to our students of the month congratulations to all of our fifth graders who had moving up ceremonies this year i know several of our uh commissioners were at the moving up ceremonies um i'd also like to give a shout out to school nine that celebrated their 100th anniversary on june 10th that event was attended by several of our commissioners our mayor central administration many alumni i think there were five former principals there and many former employees were there to celebrate the students we learned from the students taught us a little bit about the history of the building and we watched them perform perform songs and dances and it was a

079wonderful event so congratulations to principal rosetti for doing an outstanding job finally i want to wish all of our faculty staff and students a very healthy happy and safe summer please be careful please read to our students read read read read read read i can't say it more it's the most important thing you can do for your brain read read on the beach read on the bus read in the park read in your room read whenever you can and please please please be safe have a wonderful summer and that completes my report mr president thank you uh superintendent um yeah i just wanted to remind everyone um that graduation is tomorrow uh starting at 3 p.m at the stadium those that are attending please try and get there early as uh the area will be

080congested um so uh and as dr robertosi said the uh weather forecast right now is looking good so hopefully uh it'll be a great afternoon for graduation i'm sorry okay so on our main page of the uh clifton schools website there will be a live stream of the graduation ceremonies so if you're unable to make it you can watch the live stream on our main page of the school's website the district's website okay moving along uh first reading of policy uh we have zero one three one bylaws and policies is there any uh comments or uh suggested changes okay seeing none we'll move on to we don't have any presentations we'll move on to committee reports and mr canova if you would take finance and technology please okay the finance committee met um mr daley

081mr abu drabo myself mr smith dr robert tosi mr john garo mr uchi mr shada start time was 4 30. end time was 5 27 items of discussion end of the year deposits mr uchi represent presented the tenant event new year's surplus that will need to be designated to reserve accounts prior to june 30th the actual number numbers will be calculated until after they it won't be calculated until after the audit of the fiscal year 21 22. anticipated additional revenues of approximately 430 thousand dollars because of the state finally released the alyssa law security grant reimbursement the district was approved for in prior years anticipated additional surplus in the appropriations of approximately 860 thousand dollars it was noted this is lower than previous budgets administration explained the following reasons as to why there was more

082spending this year hiring of staff new positions powers etc larger than anticipated retro from prior year significant increases in transportation routes specifically private schools special educational routes various maintenance projects including emergency projects boardroom renovation potential increase in extraordinary aid of 1.35 million recommendation by the administration and committee to maintain the 4 maximum fund balance and deposit all other available surplus into the cap reserve account current reserve accounts fund balance was seven million one hundred and forty thousand sixty eight dollars the maintenance reserve is seven hundred and seventy four thousand eight hundred and fifty nine thousand the capital reserve is now four million to seven hundred ninety five thousand three hundred and two this includes banfield tennis courts renovations school 14 parking lot expansion and chs hallway led renovations referendum bid one the winning contractor was

083paul auto building the bid amount was 23 million 233 thousand bid one a school six boiler awarded to united plumbing the bid amount was 280 thousand dollars st cathy's st john canty rates a 10-year lease one year would be 373 thousand 198. canty is 392 square feet so the annual rent for 22.23 would be 373 thousand 198. they also proposed a 2 annual increase which is consistent with the terms at sinclair's cla and we have advised the diocese that the those terms are acceptable subject to formal to bid approval of the lease any questions on that uh i i looked down to technology first and i read your name so mr daley was quite capable of reading those but um mr canova did a wonderful job in filling in i'm sorry mr daley so i'm

084just sitting would you like to read technology all right joe if you do technology all right uh technology uh board members president mr smith myself mr daily uh mr paris administration president mr jangaro and mr mountain meeting time is 505 to 5 35. items of discussion student laptops three thousand lenovo 500 e chromebooks with touchscreen capability will be ordered soon for all staff plus one grade level of students plus spares ecf funding will pay for approximately 80 and the remainder will be paid for with funds from our regular hardware budget item two summer projects mr mountain provided a forecast of summer technology work the tech team has begun replace and upgrade local data storage systems in addition to the large chromebook purchase approximately 300 windows pcs will be replaced air conditioning upgrades will occur in

085seven in several school server closets approximately 50 admin printers are slated for replacement depending on shipping timelines building lockdown codes are going to be reprogrammed to mitigate false alarm activation and work will continue on the referendum projects as well security camera upgrades everything has been ordered for grade 6 through 12 cabling has begun cameras are being programmed off-stage off-site and servers and switches are being installed and configured on-site as they arrive k-5 plans are being reviewed and orders will be processed as soon as designs are finalized camera equipment is currently available but network switches are showing a six-month leave time for shipment supply and chain issues continue to affect everything any questions thank you mr kenovan a wonderful job policy committee uh mr abuba president smith thank you the policy committee began at 3 08

086pm on june 13th attendees were board presidents jim smith vice president uh james jim daly myself and board member for assad wad administration administrators president mr lou ross prince brahman hamda vice principal uh principal i'm sorry vanessa gabba and andy yeager also president was john crew from agl and he is also a student representative who was presented who was asked to present to speak on the dress code policy one 5511 dress code the principals and middle schools in the high school presented an overview the dress code including violation statistics and main student concerns the student representative presented a slideshow outlining student concerns on particular items of clothing such as spaghetti straps shorts tank tops footwear and jackets the discussion was held regarding the purpose of a dress code and possible consequences the committee asked the

087principals to meet to review the dress code and provide any recommendations at the next policy meeting scheduled for july 11 2022 number two zero one three one bylaws policies regulations the committee review this policy and recommends the following edition be made to the policy and number five the procedures section the following language will be added after the first sentence all proposed by laws and policies must proceed through two readings as separate board meetings in order to be adopted unless it is under emerged circumstances as specified in the policy heron 7435 alcoholic beverages on school premises the committee reviewed this policy with no recommendation uh recommended action for change the committee agreed to read the policy to the board in public and enter it as part of the minutes policy 7435 alcoholic beverages on school premises

088reads as follows the board of education prohibits the possession and consumption of alcoholic beverage without the expresso and permission to the suit of the superintendent by any person in any school building on and on school property or at any school sponsor activity the knowing possession without legal authority or knowing consumption of any alcohol beverage by any person school premises is a disorderly person's offense the board will report to law enforcement officials and prosecute as appropriate any person appropriate any person who violates the law in this policy except that any student who possesses or uses or is under the influence of alcohol on school premises or at any school sponsored activity will be treated in accordance with the law and policy numbers 3218-4218-5530 school district employees who avoid this policy or are present on school premises

089or at any school sponsor activity while under the influence of alcohol will be subject to discipline which may include dismissal or certification of tenure charges as appropriate the discussion with paul 7435 will be on the agenda again at the july 11 2022 meeting if we can make that change it says 2002 please policy meeting to consider the similar process from other school districts and possible changes or amendments for informational purposes the following policy will review with no recommended action or changes number one zero 174 legal services and number two 7510 use of school facilities on the agenda for the policy committee july 11 2022 personal technology on the dais boe commission communication with the president with the board president excuse me and paul 7435 the meeting was adjourned at 5 15 pm respect submitted lou

090and ross esquire any questions mr president i have a question um so here it says all proposed bylaws and policies must proceed through two readings um so two questions one is i thought we always had a two reading standard of before any policy was uh before any policy was actually adhered to and the other one it says unless under emergency circumstances specifying the policy here and does that mean that we would be able to put a policy on the on the agenda and just enforce it at that point if it was considered emergency yeah so the first one um was just to reiterate it um um that we do operate under a um two uh two readings of policy before it's approved so uh we just piggybacked what some other districts were doing and just

091reiterated it the other one was i'm sorry was the question jim so says unless it is under emergency circumstances as specified by the policy hearing so two readings unless it's specified in the pilot so yeah so uh correct me if i'm wrong um gutierrez i believe it was um like we had for uh ko for covid on when we were um you know on virtual that we uh we did an emergency uh amendment to the policy to enable us to do that is that correct is that how do i interpret yeah that's what i would i would interpret it would have to be an emergency so that's why that was suggested to be put there and then on uh on item three for the how alcohol beverages on school premises now i know that during

092christmas time and then at the end of the year like now you'll see i'm sure tomorrow teachers get gifts from parents and i'm sure there's been and will be and has been alcoholic beverages given to teachers at times um and in addition to that um i'm not sure if it's something that we ever thought about or we will be thinking about but since we do rent facilities out i'm curious as to how that would work for i know i was at a uh an event the other day that was at a school um and at this school that's always happens and at the school um they had they had it they had a section there that was like gated off and it was only for people obviously we were 21 older and it was a

093beer truck and they had some other trucks that had food and whatnot so if we were going to entertain anything like this i would assume that this policy would need to be changed so i was just questioning like there are some things that we do now that we don't necessarily look back at this policy for so is this something that's outdated we need to change and keep current i mean i always mentioned at other other board meetings we need to look at all our policies and make them current this is one that i don't think is even being followed really to the letter right now so should we modify it now and say these are the things that we i think i mean me personally i would be okay with letting a teacher get a

094bottle of wine from a parent and saying here you know enjoy this in your summer vacation joe is exactly what i asked in the committee and we were told that that is a standard policy of most board of educations and that it was suggested it'd not be removed um did you want to comment you weren't there yet what's his name was there was this job if i could make a comment no dude please it is a very typical policy i've seen it in many many boards of it with many many boards of education um it says specifically without the express written permission of the superintendent in order so you know if there is going to be alcohol in the prop on the premises he has to be the ones who approve it um i i've

095never seen it in any situation and force where there is simply a gift you know an alcohol policy is enforced if there's obviously if there's drinking on the premises that's one thing um if they're selling on the premises it's a whole other thing also obviously simply as a gift i've never i've never seen it become an issue so should we add should we kick this back to policy and add something like if if both parties are legal drinking age or something and and there's an exchange that that's some if it's after hours we're in school's end in session or something should we should we look at this um i i think the caveat in here when we looked at the policy is that it's the discretion of the superintendent so uh you can modify the

096policy for a gift or something like that but if you want to maintain clarity uh i said the superintendent says if somebody receives a gift that would that would alleviate give that that situation the okay so somebody so the superintendent can declare under this policy that if somebody receives a gift obviously unopened and all that other stuff and most of the time if the student or the parent brings it to their not knowledgeable of this particular policy that no alcohols should be on the premises whether it's open or unopened uh but uh i think the discretion i mean if you want to put it in there but i think the discretion of the superintendent to handle that situation is the better way to go here mr abhijava i believe um so we already have a

097set up uh john john crew was on the uh our attorney it was at the meeting and he suggested that it not be uh it'd not be rewarded or removed just to keep it the way it is you run into many other issues so that's why we took his suggestion is this verbatim from sesame or is this something that we did on our own i believe it's the verbatim okay and joe just let you know this is actually we don't take it back to policy because it's actually gonna be back on policy anyway that's why i mentioned that we it will be on the agenda for june 11 2022. so if any um what did i say i'm sorry i wrote july but i said june um still in that june face um if any

098of the colleagues want to add anything on the agenda for policy please let me know um through the president um if you want anything on there so president smith i just have one thing uh besides alcohol like for example where do we have a policy when it comes to cannabis now that's legal you know i mean if someone could give a bottle of wine to someone i just want to know i just want some type of policy you know someone decides to give someone you know i mean now that cannabis is illegal in new jersey we kind of gotta have a guidelines because you don't want you don't want an exchange of cannabis from you know a parent to a staff member as a merry christmas here's your ornament type thing you know it's just

099because you know we we've got to kind of update with us time if i may take that one so um so we actually did discuss after you okay because we actually did discuss that um with mr ross and there is also on the the website of new jersey school boards of new verbiage um interest has made as well particularly i'm sorry not in new jersey school boards on cannabis uh in the school and that is something that mr ross is going to take a look at and bring to policy for the july 11th meeting so that is also on the agenda but that's something that we did find and i did forward um mr ross two policies that two current school districts in state of new jersey all are already using um from chavez may

100and we're gonna take a look at as well okay dr roberto you want to add something um smith i just wanted to i agree with everything that was said i just wanted to mention when mr konova was talking about you know we rent facilities and we do require any outside organization to get insurance but i saw our board attorney's face when he mentioned the beer garden and i just don't i would i would imagine derelice that allowing an outside organization to consume alcohol in the building would be a liability issue even if they have insurance right always that's odd mr president yes yeah if i have no problem discussing a cannabis policy uh but i think it should be a separate policy or not mix it in with the alcohol because it has different kind

101of patience it it is actually um i'm just trying to find my email to mr ross so yeah no it is going to be a separate thing it won't be condensed together um like i said there there is information that will be added onto the policy onto the agenda itself just for cannabis alone the only reason why i bring that up uh president smith uh because i know it's legally in new jersey but federally it's still not and because we're a public school system we kind of take federal funding i don't know how that can affect or not affect long term because we do take federal funding so we kind of gotta abide by them also just it's a sticky situation no pun intended uh and yeah that's pretty much it also there's um i'm

102not sure we talked about it i think a year and a half ago when the original cannabis law was signed that you're no longer allowed children can't be reported to the police there's all different uh policies around that so even though it is federally illegal in new jersey there are other rules that have to be followed even by the police um so i'm not sure if those are in our policy book or if they need to be i remember we talked about it a really long time ago but i don't remember what actually came about because i think even teachers in the union they're not allowed or you know in general you can't punish them anymore as long as they're not using like on campus but i'm not sure if we have that in our

103policy book just so it's clear for everyone because going forwards clifton isn't going to have dispensary but there are going to be dispensaries in the surrounding towns miss belchering absolutely uh correct the marijuana and parental notification stuff is not necessarily in our policy but it's in the memorandum of agreement that we sign with law enforcement's actually on the agenda tonight that i sign every year so that's part of that protocol in there it's still actually a law in new jersey now it's very controversial but we do have a policy covering any type of even if marijuana is legal there's still age restrictions juveniles cannot have the possession of it um staff you can't you can't be in possession of it on school property that that's in our policy and there's a difference between being under

104the influence and you know being in possession and then if the the the concern with marijuana is when if you suspect somebody's under the influence and a student or staff member and you send them out for a drug test they may return positive for marijuana marijuana stays in the system for a month so it doesn't necessarily prove that they were under the influence when you tested them so the policy says there must be other criteria you have to you know list the criteria of why you suspected they were under the influence so there is a lot i believe our policy covers most of it but we should probably do a thorough review with our attorney and make sure that we are covered yep okay anything else and just if anybody wants to look at the

105two school districts it's actually northern valley regional high school and galloway board of education are the two that were used as an example uh but the northern valley has them mixed together but going to what mr daley said we're going to make sure that all right we're going to come back to the board that cannabis and alcohol beverages are going to be too separate okay um any unfinished business uh we'll move on to education administration okay so we have um um ea one um is we're gonna separate that and uh mr abdul you asked to read that so we have motion on ea one motion so move by mr abu dravid second second by mr awad if you'd read it please thank you ea one pride month whereas it is the right of every child

106regardless of gender identity gender expression or sexual orientation to access free public k-12 education and the district welcomes supports all students and whereas the district recognizes that there are employees and educators of the highest caliber who are lgbtq plus and that all employees are valued members of the school community regardless of their gender identity gender expression or sexual orientation and whereas new jersey law prohibits discrimination including discrimination based on transgender identity gender expression and sexual orientation and whereas the agenda the district is committed to maintaining safe healthy and welcoming learning environments for all members of our community including the lgbtq plus community are those who may be perceived as such and whereas 8 lgbtq plus youth who find their school to be affirming reported lower rates of suicidal thoughts and whereas the month of june

107is an opportunity to celebrate the identities contributions of lgbtq plus community and whereas the first gay pride march was held in june 1969 to commemorate the stonewall riots whereas the celebration of pride month is rooted in a history of resistance and struggle for equal rights as guaranteed by the us constitution and whereas by recognizing pride month we affirm that supportive school environments substantially improve the mental health and school engagement of lgbtq plus students and whereas by recognizing pride month we support policies practices and curriculum that honor and respect the lgbtq plus students staff and families and whereas by recognizing pride month we reaffirm our commitment to a supportive environment that promotes trust growth and achievement for all students now therefore be resolved that the clifton public schools board of education proclaims the month of june

1082022 as pride month and encourages superintendent and all district staff to support lessons and activities that engage students in meaningful learning about the accomplishment of the lgbtq plus community and the experiences of lgbtq plus students staff and families okay comments president smith if it's okay with you um can we not replace but add and if i'm not mistaken lgbtq plus to add with lgbtqia to s plus to include all students um that identify and represent okay is there um the motion or in the second are they okay with that amendment i forget who was the motion though it was mister [Music] okay all right any other discussion roll call please mr abadraba absolutely yes mr awad yes miss basford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr paris yes vice president daley yes president smith

109yes oh she carries okay so we'll have a motion on um ea through ea 15. it's the moon by vice president daley second second by uh mr abhijabo discussion yes mr president yes mr canon um through you to our superintendent um dr robertos you you mentioned that on ea ii there was the uh memorandum of agreement but i don't see it attached here i mean i see the wording saying that we were accepting them away but i don't see the actual moa because you mentioned it was it was something you mentioned you're correct it is not attached um i can have that email to the board um as soon as possible but just so you know it is does change a little bit each year but it's a document that's signed by every school district

110in the state of new jersey with their local police department that just outlines the rules for how police operate in our schools this is really just authorizing me to sign it um but i'd be happy to share it with you tonight if you want we could pull it and that's fine that's fine but i'll make sure you get a copy thank you uh actually i have a question um going on with mr kanova said if we were to pull it how quickly can we get it actually i take that back i don't think we can pull it because i have to do it this school year well can we give it to the end of the meeting if we so we can get it emailed to us right now yeah actually we can um take

111it two minutes a standard document i can find the the website where we got it from and i'll share it with everybody thank you it's like it's a lot of reading material not to be able to read it tonight right you might be able to i have a question are the changes noted in there like italics or highlighted or anything like that because i have the one from last last year and um in order to save me time it would like would there be noted if they if they are not i will note them it was one minor i think it was only one minor change thank you okay any other discussion scene none roll call please okay mr abadraba yes mr awad yes miss basford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr paris

112yes vice president daley yes president smith yes motion security okay uh next we'll go to um c personnel we have a p one um through p 45 but we're pulling um no no uh is that the one we're calling 34 yeah we're pulling a number a 34 for um uh executive session contract matter so i moved second moved by mr abu dravo second by mr awad discussion seeing none roll call please mr abadraba yes with up standing on p11 and p40 mr awad yes miss bassford yes abstaining on p35 miss beltran yes uh mr kanova yes mr paris yes abstain on 8 25 and 33. vice president daley yes president smith yes motion scary okay before we uh move on to um to finance and facilities we have um two of our staff members that

113we just uh appointed uh dr robertosi thank you mr smith uh tonight we have appointed uh our new supervisor in our maintenance department and a new supervisor of phys ed and health so mo do you want to come up and say a few words [Applause] good afternoon everybody vice president daley dr robert tosi mr smith president smith and then all other board members i'd just like to thank thank you for this opportunity um i look forward to working with our custodial supervisor ryan mooney uh and expect to see uh hear of good things going on near future so again i'd like to say thank you and you know go clifton happy to have you though and our new uh supervisor of phys ed and health for the district steve vianna good evening everyone uh i'm

114cbn i just wanted to take a second um and thank everyone here tonight i know hiring an educational leader is a daunting task and you want to hire me for our students and staff just want to make sure we hear you yes i'm sorry i'm going to repeat start again i can i know it's a long night but i will i'll do that um again my name is steven vienna and i just wanted to say thank you again to uh everyone here tonight of course obviously uh superintendent dr robert jose uh the board uh the interview committee i have heard nothing but great things i will do my absolute best every day to make sure that we continue this tradition of excellence that you have here in this district i can't wait for the opportunity

115and i look forward to serving you all and i am certainly excited to know that i'm going to do my absolute best to make sure you're proud of the decision you made tonight so thank you for the opportunity and i appreciate it i'm already left okay uh next we'll move on to um financing facilities we have uh f1 through uh f28 so motion one by miss basford second by mr avadrabo yeah discussion president smith if i may um there was one resolution for the the referendum bid package one if we could read it into a record and have it passed tonight please it was in front of everyone when you sat down yeah i was just going to accept it but okay oh it's all right it's all right we can add it yeah there's

116two the boiler one is on here already um so the only one that needs to be read is the the referendum good package one the 23 million dollar one okay so um all right so we're gonna add uh f29 make that f29 that's the boiler one right it's the high school the three bids three big ones all right so uh whereas clinton board of education um advertised for seal bids for project number three eight four three facility upgrades at clifton high school on june 14 2022. all right uh in accordance with uh that advertisement a total of nine bids were received publicly opened and read aloud in the conference room at the clinton board of education located here at 745 clifton avenue whereas the lowest three bidders were a paul otto building for a 23

117million 223 000 of an s construction 23 million 988 000 and the bennett company for twenty four thousand twenty four million three hundred thousand whereas said bids have been duly received and analyzed by the attorney and architects for the clinton board of education whereas uh the pursuing njsa colon 188-18c the board of education shall award a contract to the lowest and responsible bidder and whereas paul auto building company located at 118 north avenue west in cranford new jersey is the lowest bidder and responsible bidder and whereas the chief financial officer has certified that sufficient funds are available for project number 3843 facility upgrades at clifton high school now therefore be resolved that the clinton board of education award a contract uh to paul auto building company in the amount of 23 million 223 000 for

118project 3843 facility upgrades at the clifton high school in accordance with the bid specifications as set forth in the bid proposal the board secretary of business administrator is hereby authorized to enter into any agreements to effectuate the purpose of the resolution subject to the advice and approval of the board attorney the chief financial officer has certified the availability of funds for this contract through the following accounts this resolution and contract once signed by all parties shall be available for public inspection at the offices here at the clifton board of education okay so we're adding that on as uh f29 okay uh roll call for the group don't move we already didn't read it right wait so i moved here bye mr daley seconded uh by mr paris any discussion roll call please uh i'm sorry

119just a quick discussion um for uh sorry for f2 for project red i know it reads um a thousand dollars department human services department human services and its mental health and addiction service division just make sure where the money exactly came from thanks okay motioner and second have any problems with those changes no okay roll call please mr abhidrabo yes with abstention on f27 f28 mr awad yes miss bassford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr paris yes vice president daley yes and president smith yes motion scary uh misuchi just uh i got abstain on uh 27 i apologize no problem okay uh next we have uh board member comments uh did you want to go uh miss bassford uh you're first but mr daley has to leave is okay if he went first

120no that's all right i don't really have any additional comments other than to wish uh all the graduates the all the best in their future and to thank all the staff and supporting our students and doing a great job and getting them to graduation and wishing everybody a safe and healthy summer so uh i do have to to leave because i have to get out extremely early tomorrow morning and i don't want to walk out in the middle everybody's comments i think that's rude so thank you thank you thank you miss bassford good evening uh it's been um what a whirlwind since we've last met a lot of moving up ceremonies a lot of different things going on in the district i was able to um get to a bunch of them so congratulations to

121every all the schools that i did not attend i'm very sorry but can't split myself into two i wish i could but they were very moving to see that the traditions still carry see some new traditions start but to see that some of the schools offered um uh citizenship in the presidential awards is very warming to the heart um the students were well behaved well-dressed um respectful to the guests and to the dignitaries that were there so with the staff so thank you to everyone that did a really good job on the moving up ceremonies um two songs celebrate keeps on humming and you can count on me i i can't get that i've been humming it all day because it's seemed to be and thank to thank you to um um assistant superintendent mark

122gianguero for being my uh my escort to most of them we met we met in the hallway um it was very nice to see him there and some of the other staff members that make the rounds and take the times to go to these events school nine's 100th anniversary celebration was really well done by the children it was every grade level participated from um the kindergarten to fifth grade every single student was involved it was really nice and to see some of the old principles there um some of the old brass i was a very moving and then they had all their um their their paraphernalia up displayed it was just beautifully done and i thank you for the invite um to the students of the month congratulations to senior emily theology i forget if

123i heard your name i'm very sorry congratulations to the unified club there was a former uh school five student in that group she's now in college so congratulations to her as well it's good to see that they still participate in the new jersey state summer games um congratulations to school number three for getting the national school of excellence um uh thank you to anyone that attended the pride flag raising to ray robitello for organizing it and keeping it great i have a i have a pride poem be proud of who you are who you've been and who you will become hold your head up high ignore the haters they are dumb you are you and you are beautiful perfectly imperfect except yourself as you are shining blight bright like a sonic superstar stand out from

124the crowd stand tall and proud your vibe attracts your tribe you are celebrated and loved who cares what they who cares what you look like or who you love shout this is me take me as i am and if they don't well don't give a i can't say it but you know what it means you are you you are beautiful don't shut yourself away or hide live your life in the light and do it with pride thank you thank you thank you to the graduating class of 2022 god speed and wear sunscreen good night and god bless each and every one of you [Music] thank you i forgot my list here uh mr canola uh good evening uh first of all congratulations to uh school three on on their success with imagine math um this

125amazing award to win they were the only school in new jersey to receive this award which i think is tremendous so my hat's off to them i know my daughters use this app they love it my youngest especially loves when the dog runs across the screen and bonks his head but that's just her um guitar student rep andrew you've done a tremendous driving job and keeping us informed on student matters you always bring us the news and topics on such as athletics community events and provide a boots on the ground view on these top issues facing student body so i appreciate your commitment to our students and our meetings and taking the time out of your schedule to be the liaison i wish you the best of luck in uh and all you do and

126congratulations to our news student representatives graduation day is tomorrow so here's the day that you've worked 13 years to get to so while you've finally gotten it to the point of graduation know that this is a lifelong process many will go into college or in the workforce but the learning never ends and continues on every day you should continue to learn new things and improve yourself remember where you came from and set your mind on where you want to go don't give up times may get hard but personal feeling perseverance will pay off in the end congratulations to all thank you uh thank you uh mr paris thank you mr smith uh congratulations and huge thanks to our students our staff our administration for bringing us back from the pandemic and back to pretty much

127close to normalcy again i know it's been a team effort and it's been a fantastic year special congratulations to the special olympians also to the imagine math team and what strikes me most the award is fantastic but the fact that we were number one in the state of new jersey number nine in the country and charitable giving i think speaks volumes about our students congratulations to all of them congratulations to to andrew and all the best for the future and to our new student representatives welcome congratulations to our new supervisors of maintenance in phys ed we look forward to great things and i hope everyone has a wonderful safe happy healthy summer and congratulations to all the graduates it's just the beginning of the rest of your lives uh just the beginning but thank you

128and uh have a great summer thank you uh mr abu dhabi thank you smith um excuse me so the somebody spoke about how i mentioned my personal beliefs in terms of you know what i would want my students to learn in any school any setting but it it also brought to my attention through somebody else who really taught me that it's important for students to understand their individual bodies to explain themselves if god forbid touched unappropriately to give them the ability to describe what is going on to them if god forbid something happened to them many you know many students and young children and i've come to to to realize and believe that that that is an important role it's not just what learning in the class you know and it changed my views a

129bit not just learning in the class what you know what a penis or vagina is but also god forbid you know let's if anybody remembers penn state if anybody remembers any other institution if anybody remembers anything throughout history imagine your kid being touched that way or threatened of being touched that way i would want my kid to come home say you know what mr so and so and and yes not everybody is trustable and not everybody is reliable and i won't want my kid to come home say you know what mr or mrs or joe smith or jane smith you know i didn't feel comfortable and it allows us to understand what they're trying to say no matter what age that's for my two-year-old my five-year-old and my seven-year-old play unified club uh special olympics

130congratulations um i understand mr rodriguez you will be extremely missed you and i have had various conversations you and i have had on either on our diversity committee or off our diversity committee you truly will be missed you are one of a kind our all our teachers are amazing but you are definitely one of a kind um dr robertosi heather cutler will need help that's all i got to say because these students have learned compassion empathy um you know it has created unity in the school understanding very across various uh student populations how to deal with one another no matter what each individual person brings to the table so i hope we can we can work on that emily congratulations from the women's club of all wood definitely deserve it that was an oversight a

131few weeks ago or last month and i think that's great well i love school three i love all our schools congratulations to them and i you know when school three came up and i'm like what sets them apart and honestly i can't think what sets them apart because excellence runs not only in the hallways of school 3 but in the hallways of every school across the district i may have some more time um tiffany and lillian congratulations rewarding the nurses as far as i remember when i used to work congress and pasquale there's been a shortage of nurses and doctors across the country for over a decade now and we're seeing it here at the school level it's on i know it is frustrating to see that more nurses are getting paid higher but as

132the superintendent said um the demand and we have to step up to it graduation school 11 and other schools thank you very much school14 had a beautiful graduation uh andrew mentioned three two things and i added a third for our seniors advocate organize for power and you are truly the stakeholders in this district you are what we are here for you are what the teachers are here for you are what the cea is here for you are what we as a community one clifton are here for and if it wasn't truly for that then i don't know what we are all doing because that is the importance of our stakeholders in the classroom thank you mr awad thank you president smith sorry about that um i just wanted to i was i was just going

133to speak about this in an unfinished business uh it just kind of slipped my mind um it's a question regarding you know the board policy uh about certain board members reaching out directly to the superintendent and as one board member loves to say circumventing the process you know uh president smith as a reminder to you know not just you all of us as well as a group you know i feel like you should be the one and it's the way the layout is you should be the one that we should be contacting to and not reaching out to the superintendent not anything against you uh danny i just feel like you have so much on a day-to-day basis on your plate running one of the biggest districts in the state i feel like you know

134any questions or any concerns that we have we should kind of be going to president smith to alleviate that uh strain on you and then i just hope moving forward you know as a board we can follow and abide by that uh second thing i wanted to discuss was i would like to see a policy on mental health you know miss bass read a couple meetings ago uh you stated that us as a board should get our head heads examined you know it's it was a disappointing comment to hear from yourself because mental health is real and as someone who serves on the city level casa mental health and substance abuse you know there are a lot of people dealing with stuff like this and you have advocated for it in the past about mental

135health and i just think a statement like that was a little you know distasteful uncalled for and because we have many staff members or maybe students in this district that are you know dealing with such uh mental health stigmas another thing was about policy for alcohol and i know we discussed this if you know we need to revise the policy to include uh about alcohol board members also i feel like you know we are the leaders of this district and we should lead by example and this is something we should take part of this policy um looking over the policy and according to our policy we have um we were advised that we should have been reported to the police because alcohol is not allowed in any school buildings in clifton the reason i'm still

136on the subject because other board members if it was vice versa would have never let this go and they would have been continued discussing it uh to the last strain and it just disappoints me how other board members are trying to sweep it on the rug and staying silent about the situation and a final thing is miss password i know you reached out to i believe the superintendent and to the president about an investigation against me because i'm speaking out of the actions that concurred in the past couple weeks during the education meeting and claiming that you did not know what you had in possession i think that's ludicrous and it's a waste of our tax dollars you know the district's tax dollars taxpayers money and it's funny how you want to file an investigation

137and you have filed investigations against two sitting muslim board members it kind of scratches my head on that that's all okay um miss belgium okay uh back to what this part of the meeting is about it's supposed to be about uh giving public uh comments to uh the students in our district announcing events it's not really a port of the time to be attacking each other but i guess some colleagues think that that's the appropriate use of this time um i'd like to say congrats to all the graduates the best is yet to come in your lives have a gr have a great time at graduation and project graduation unfortunately uh due to work obligations i won't be able to make it tomorrow but i'll be there in spirit and i really enjoyed watching you

138all celebrate at prom it was definitely a highlight of my of my month um a few other board members were there with me also we all had a really great time uh congrats to all the teachers who made it through yet another difficult year i hope you enjoy your summer break uh here's hoping we finally have a normal year next year i know now we've been saying this i think for maybe three years two years i'm not sure i've lost count but maybe next year we'll be able to keep it going uh on the path that we currently are on with relative normalcy and we can get all of our kids back on track have a safe summer to all residents and try and be mindful of the fireworks on the upcoming fourth of july

139um residents with ptsd children with autism and pets an addition of other people all struggle with the overload especially super late at night so if you are going to shoot off fireworks try and make it during the day or in early evening but the 4am firework shoot-offs are not appreciated by all the residents here in town and have a good summer everybody thank you i also like to thank um all of the schools uh for inviting the board members to the moving up ceremonies um they truly um were so enjoyable to see these students that have worked so hard with their teachers and principal and all the staff in the schools and to see them moving up is is a true testament to the hard work that our teaching staff does and hope that many

140of those students will remain in the clifton schools and do great things in uh in clifton um today i was fortunate to go to the uh school 11 moving up ceremony and um it truly was amazing to see these kindergarten students that are now first grade students and moving up the work that they did with their their teachers in the songs it just was so clever and so enjoyable to see that and i was there to support all the students but one student in particular is a is a lovely young girl who is now a first grader and as i umpire i have become to know her family and her very well and she's always so helpful in watching triskit as i umpire so victoria at school 11 congratulations and congratulations to all of your

141classmates to see so many kindergarten students now moving up and to all the fifth grade students throughout the district those moving up ceremonies as well uh were so rewarding and um to both the the high school and the two middle schools on their national honor society ceremonies um it was truly a pleasure to see uh students that are working so hard uh to make the honor roll and uh to be recognized by their school and their district so again congratulations to uh to all of them and to all those students tomorrow that will be graduating from clifton high school it's a wonderful day in the city of clifton where we recognize and congratulate students that have worked so hard over the years and this graduating class in particular because really two years of their school

142high school life uh was taken away from them and uh to be able to come back and um be great students and moving on to some great universities um and many many students also staying in the uh the trades area we know how so important that is to our world and to our country on having uh people that can continue to do work in the trades area plumbers and electricians and carpentry and all those areas they are so important to our society so um i i wish all those students the very best as as well and um and that's all i have for uh for today okay we're gonna move on to a new business i was sent uh one new business item um so um through uh the superintendent uh i received a uh

143request for a uh investigation into the allegations of the liquor in the boardroom on the dais and um i wanted to bring that to the full board so that you can approve it there is a dollar amount that would be associated to it so approximately if it was about five hours um so we'll come to about 775 dollars in that area obviously if it was more but roughly in that area so um a board member mrs bassford has requested this investigation and i felt that the entire board because there's a dollar amount here that the board should decide on that so um i'll open the discussion ms basford if you want to add anything to that i reached out to my personal attorney who represents me and he told me to and uh when there's

144an allegation immediately of any extent to this an investigation should have ensued i reached out to school boards they told me the same to get in front of it uh there was an accusation that is following my personal life to my personal life and they keep on happening every meeting the public knows what's going on they know the allegations i have a lot to lose both publicly personally and professionally and i want to i want an investigation where there's anything wrong done it was a gift it was given to another board member it was it was wrapped up and i want it i wanted to know a couple things so my attorney asked was it tested how did they know there was actually alcohol in that content so there was an allegation made it was

145a serious allegation that can affect me personally and professionally and i want to be cleared of it there should when there's an allegation there should be an investigation immediately done and that's what i was told by several attorneys thank you president can you say comment um is it really an allegation when 30 seconds later both board members admitted to it and confirmed it so what's the investigation for if they're confirming and saying yes it is well yeah i i think that's what we're going to leave up to the investigation um as i stated you know any board member that requests something i will surely bring it here to you and because there's a dollar amount in involved so miss password had every right to to bring this here and uh if the board wants to

146go through with it uh so basically the dollar amount um we would start out with uh our attorney handling the investigation and uh if the attorney comes back to us and feels that there needs to be a further investigation then we'll bring it back to the to the board but we kind of uh the advice that i got from uh school boards and our attorney was to start at that at this process and uh and go from there so again we're just estimating if if the if the time apps have to be more or if we go further into it um so i just want everyone to be able to be aware of that yes miss belgium um in my opinion i don't think an investigation is necessary um one being that i have admitted

147that i received a sealed alcoholic gift from a fellow board member so i don't think an investigation is necessary and i think now we're all clear on the policy that is not normally enforced um and even the legal counsel said herself that she's never seen it enforced um as long as it's obviously not being drank consumed yeah like a gift a gift being enforced as being a legal possession of alcoholic beverages um i think this is being taken further because of personal grievances between board members um so i mean if everyone wants to have an investigation and spend 700 and go ahead um but i think i think it's pretty much a dead topic as far as you know i'm concerned we pretty much know what happened um you know obviously i won't be accepting

148gifts any longer and i hope all my colleagues will also not be accepting gifts i guess um you know and it's if anything it the reason i think joe brought it up is that i'm afraid of a teacher using this as retaliation against another teacher now that we've set an example that this can be done so all you need is a grievance between two teachers one teacher's tomorrow sees a teacher leaving with many bottles in her trunk and all of a sudden now is a problem so that's the only reason i really think that the policy might need to be changes just so it isn't used as a weapon as it is being used right now um so that's that's pretty much my only concern but if you want to do an investigation uh that's

149fine but i will be voting now on it okay president smith yeah i actually second everything that uh ms beltran said um i think there's no need i mean listen enough is enough like that's it whatever happened happened we shouldn't continue you know pounding the pavement for what it's i told you so or i got you it really isn't worth in our time and i'm sorry i got my back to the public it's not worth our time nor is it worth the public's time nor is it worth the money nor is it worth the headache nor or is it worth anything else as i mentioned before we're here for the students they are the stakeholders that's what we're doing in the classrooms that's why we're all here we don't get paid for this we don't

150get health insurance out of this we don't get a stipend for this we do it because we want to do it it's simple as that and i think it's time just to wrap things up and move forward so i agree with everything misspelled tron said okay you know miss yeah just let me comment you know miss bassford has the right as a board member um i'm happy to hear everyone's opinion but you know i i felt it was fair to bring it here you have a board member that has uh questions and would like uh things looked into so um if if that's going to help um and and you know you did say you received from her attorney the advice to do that so if that's something that's going to to help um i

151you know that's why i'm bringing it here so i'm sorry that's all right uh because my family was brought into this as well it was a conversation the next day on a school playground that my daughter came down here to have a throw down with another board member two teachers were talking about my child you contact me you can drag me through the mud you can rip me apart i don't care but when you come after my kids that's it and when i spoke to my attorney who represents both me and my daughter for in the future regarding this she's a professional she has a impeccable reputation she doesn't endanger any lives of students she doesn't steal from anything she has an impeccable reputation you're mad at me you don't like me for what you've

152done and what you've done in this district and what you've tried to do to people come after me don't go after my kids but to hear that staff members are talking about my daughter that she came down here ripped her earrings off to have a throw down with another board member and it was funny because there's only board members at that time in this room that's disgusting that's my child who does volunteer a lot of her time for the district for the betterment of the schools and for the children and for their and she comes here to advocate for other for for positive things her words are impeccably said i'm not going to let it i'm going to stop it one way or another it's constant every every meeting at board member comments and it's

153always funny that other board members go before me i don't know how the rotation goes but i'm going to start going back and and looking at it it's always it's always an attack like you said miss beltran it's supposed to be made for comments to the public but it constantly gets done it's about coming after my family but when i spoke to my attorney he asked me was an investigation done was the content of what was in that bag tested and i said no and no so he told me to request an investigation because my reputation is on the line and it's constantly being challenged my positions are constantly being mentioned in public so it is hurting my life thank you president smith can i just make a comment yes mr samantha i think you're

154a wonderful individual and yeah let's let's kind of let's kind of yeah let's point of order for the um let's just keep getting i just wanna the only comment i wanna make was i've never mentioned anybody's family members and the record shows it that you're the one that stated that individual's name and brought that individual into the situation and the meetings have surpassed where i have never shifted my view or brought anybody into this situation because that person was never present and whatever gossip is being said by teachers that's between them because we all know what happened in that certain situation nothing happened one individual requested to speak with me it was late i politely said i'm not interested in speaking and we parted ways nothing escalated nothing dramatic happened that individual was actually respectful

155when they approached me didn't say anything wasn't hostile it was just a normal request to speak i just was not you know i think midnight almost at that time i was just not interested just wanted to go home and get some rest and that's pretty much it okay let's uh so that's pretty much it so if we want to drag family members in this just don't mention their names then because nobody mentioned any individual okay excuse me excuse me can't have calling out from the audience please okay is there any other comments on the new business item that was brought here there is no emotion at this time does anyone wish to make a motion to make a motion to approve the investigation oh that's what it's just a new business item you don't have

156to this password has requested oh i'm sorry his password requested an investigation right that's what i just said there's an answer as to whether or not it's going to be well that's what the board is here to do okay i won't enter if there is a motion i'll entertain the motion at this time make a motion to approve the investigation okay um approval for the uh investigation into the uh mentioned matter um with a uh estimated price tag of five hours 775 dollars no more than okay motion by ms bassford okay no second okay uh motion fails is there any other new business the superintendent i think you guys pulled the whole law enforcement yeah well it wasn't paul they would just get you he would get us the information he sent it to us

157i'm guessing we have to vote before we end no no yeah we already approved we just wanted to get you the information that's all yeah all right any other items for new business motion clothes second okay uh before we close okay the board uh will meet an executive session um on the following items we have a litigation matter we have a contract matter we have two personnel matters and we have a yeah that's the second personnel matter okay so litigation matter contract matter to personnel matters um action will be taken just to let the public know we will do those topics mr paris that you could be there for executive first there could be a vote afterwards concerning that if you'd like to stay for it it's up to you okay um i'm gonna give

158it about a 45 minutes in an executive session if it's more than 45 minutes we'll come back so a motion to go to executive session promotion by mr abu drabo second by mr awad any objection okay [Music] mr mcconney we're back tell me when you're ready okay gotta wait for the attorney i'm gonna take roll pull anyway right um yes um the board met in executive session for about 45 minutes uh to discuss litigation matter contract matter and to personnel matters we will have action on one item as soon as the attorney gets here so um uh roll call from back executive here mr drabo mr away here mrs basford here miss beltran here mr konova here mr paris yes here and president smith here we have a call alan you ready getting late oh

159oh is it the regular one no you have it i don't have it nobody i mean is it the regular c c 34 there's no there's nothing else does anyone have it open i can get all right motion to approve uh section 34 by mr avadravo second by mr awad yes any discussion seeing none roll call please on 304. mr abhijaba mr awad yes miss basford yes beltran yes mr canova yes mr paris yes president smith yes ocean to adjourn motion no objection being adjourned thank you you