April 7, 2022 - Clifton Board of Education Meeting

001april the 7th if you would all now 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 if we could again remember our friends neighbors and the people of ukraine in our thoughts thank you roll call please mr abedrabo mr awad here miss basford here miss beltran here mr kanova here dr dan mr paris here vice president daley here president smith here we have a quorum uh dr danny did notify me that she is not feeling well so she will not be here this evening anyone that's up can read the mission statement for me please anyone who's up the

002mission of the clifton 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 the open public meetings act the new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right to the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the clifton board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be publicized by having the date time and place thereof posted at the city clerk's office clifton public library administration building senior citizen nutrition center on

003cable 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 our policy zero one six eight okay we'll now do our um presentations of our students of the month for the month of april for clifton high school miss basford if you yes i have the honor of presenting freshman tristan rivera tristan rivera is our freshman student of the month his favorite subject in school is math because he enjoys being challenged intellectually and loves the satisfaction of getting something correct tristan's history teacher mrs petty has been very influential and also pushes him to succeed tristan also finds inspiration in his older sister and has always looked up to her in school tristan participates in almost every type of band and

004had a lead role as lumineer in our spring musical beauty and the beast and the certificate says this recognized recognition is certified to tristan rivera on behalf of the clifton board of education administration for chs freshman student of the month april 2022 with sincere congratulations on your meritorious achievement with recognition by resolution of the board of education the desire to excel is the formula to lifetime of success your efforts have brought distinction to you your family and the clifton public schools signed jim smith board president and superintendent of school dr danny robitazi tristan [Applause] thank you mr smith it's my honor to present to sophomore kimberly carazaz kimberly carazos is our sophomore student of the month kimberly credits her older sister for inspiring her to achieve in and out of school kimberly's eighth grade science

005teacher mr farrell influenced her the most and taught her how to be the best version of herself kimberly's older sister has always been reliable and has guided her in life and in school kimberly has managed to be successful student by having a positive attitude and learning how to manage your time effectively the certificate of achievement this recognition is certified to kimberly corazos on behalf of the clifton board of education administration for chs sophomore student of the month april 2022 with sincere congratulations on your meritorious achievement with recognition by resolution of the board of education the desire to excel is the formula to a lifetime of success your efforts have been brought have brought distinction to you your family and the clifton public schools congratulations kimberly [Applause] um [Applause] he's looking all right next we have

006uh tiffany guerrero tiffany is our junior student of the month tiffany purstit participates in many school activities including student council and junior representative for the board of ed and recording secretary she also participates as football manager and jv cheerleader tiffany's grandma inspires her the most because she's an intelligent caring person she's been able to help her through any tough situation and keeps her grounded and stable every day tiffany aspires to be a businesswoman in dreams of starting her own business she has already started talking college taking college classes as a junior in high school tiffany [Applause] [Music] congratulations to liam riley the senior student of the month liam is a member of the clifton high school orchestra pit band jazz band bell choir triam music honor society new jersey sympathy youth orchestra boy scouts clifton

007community band and is also a cello player for his church liam thanks his parents for always showing him the value of hard work and dedication liam's teachers have also helped guide him specifically miss miller hamilton and mr henry liam's future aspirations are to become a music educator and performer he hopes to one day teach music and perform in an orchestra and will start his journey in the fall where he will will be attending the college of new jersey to study music education and music technology liam come on up and your parents and your brother uh liam is a liam and his family are personal friends of mine and uh that's why i asked mr paris if i could i could do this um just a tremendously hard-working uh dedicated individual and if you ever want

008to be moved and uh hear his performance of playing the cello uh you will be in for quite a treat so no spare cellos and his brother colin is uh right here and he's coming up on the wings as well and uh and he has another brother aiden so congratulations [Applause] well that's gonna cost extra superintendent picture i know just think about the number of students that we have at clifton high school and to achieve the honor of being student of the month that is a tremendous accomplishment uh and congratulations to each of our students of the month of the month of april next to our our pbsis program which again is uh run by miss paula ragoza such a tremendous job that you do with this program the time and dedication that you put

009into it and seeing your efforts go forward in honoring the schools that we honor here at each of our meetings truly shows you what a what a great program this is and we have the right person in charge of running it so thank you for all your efforts and on that note you have the floor thank you president smith for that wonderful intro thank you vice president mr daley commissioners of the board dr robotozi central administration thank you for allowing us to once again get nice and cozy under these lights and celebrate our students to begin i want to wish the clifton muslim community of ramadan mubarak wishing you all the blessings of the holy month in april we celebrate world autism month clifton public schools continues the efforts to spread awareness and promote acceptance

010of students with autism tonight we recognize school 16 for the skillful and considerate way they incorporated the universal prevention tier of the pbsis framework in their aba classrooms we are honored to say that the clifton special education department and the school 16 aba classrooms celebrate the talents relationships victories hurdles and everything in between on a daily basis in a moment you will see the picture come to life as on how we make a difference for learners with different abilities through support and accommodations students with autism are making social connections with their peers at school that enhances their educational careers tonight we will also recognize student logan reyes logan is an exemplary student in one of the aba classrooms who has accrued the most class dojo points in his class he is a true beacon of

011the paws framework and we are grateful that we get to help educate such an amazing little human we are one clifton and it is my pleasure to show you one of the many colors in our clifton rainbow hello clifton board of education members administration school communities and friends i am mrs farbay school 16 principal pbsis stands for positive behavior support in schools and it is an initiative we started back in 2018 it was intended to improve the climate of schools using system-wide positive behavioral interventions almost every school in our district has implemented this at their own schools as part of our clifton one initiative i would like to take this opportunity to explain what pbsis looks like at our school together with our school community we developed our paws expectations pause represents who we are

012and what we stand for at school 16. the p stands for practice safety the a stands for accept responsibility the w stands for welcome kindness my favorite and the s stands for show respect at school 16 this may look slightly different in our aba classrooms but we are still using positive reinforcement to help foster and develop positive behaviors at the heart of it all we are still recognizing our students just in a way that works for us so come take a look i'll show you what it looks like [Music] we modify our pause program for our students in order to make sure everyone can earn their dojo points to spend their bobcat bucks and participate in school-wide activities students earn their dojo points through discrete trials completing their activity schedules and even as additional reinforcement

013within their behavior intervention plans students are in dojo points from their specialist teachers as well powers also play a very important role in ensuring that our students receive immediate reinforcement throughout the day and they also let their teachers know when the students earn their dojo what's mom's name movie good what's that name hurry up good what's your name what's your sister's name madness what's your brother's name tyler nice job give me high five hey logan what's this couch good what's this [Music] cracker very good what's up chair awesome couch dad you got another token okay what's he doing he is clean awesome and what's he doing he is cutting great job logan you earned your last token and you get here you got it nice job buddy slime [Music] we have our pep rally ms

014payton creates a slideshow to share with staff so that all students and staff have the knowledge of the pep rally activities beforehand miss payton also practices the pep rally activities during her gym class so that the students have the repetitive practice they need [Music] [Applause] most importantly every student earns dojo points and gets to trade in their points at the school store since waiting at the school store can be overwhelming for the students specific prizes are awarded to the students in the autism program typically based on their sensory processing needs students get to pick from toby's cart and they pick a prize that they enjoy every student is able to spend their bobcat books without having to leave the classroom here at school 16 we always show our paws [Music] all right guys you guys

015get to see the prize from the school store for earning your dojo [Music] let's boys let's go can i i won't have him in oh nice shot clean enough teddy bear thank you all right fernando go ahead bubble oh bubba nice job all right come on over kiddo we have squishy balls play-doh bubbles you will definitely you want to come on this side come on alan honey good idea [Music] [Applause] thank you school 16. thank you logan reyes so um dr robertosi president smith i'll call out the school the school team members names and they'll come up and then we'll call logan and his family up for recognition okay principal juarbe at school 16. [Applause] amanda marrow sorry maracovitz school 16 i'm proud kelly mccarthy [Applause] and last but certainly not least my favorite human

016here tonight logan reyes [Applause] congratulations real quick okay it's a clifton school district's certificate of appreciation for outstanding pbsis implementation is presented to logan reyes of school number 16 showcase student for april 7 2022. congratulations logan great job [Applause] yes thank you everyone congratulations [Applause] uh thank you to all of our uh teachers our students uh uh award recipients tonight um you're welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting and i i know you're probably dying tuesday but if you wish to leave this would be a good time to go but you're more than welcome to stay all right okay the the board is going to take a brief recess we have uh two board members that are just breaking their fast so uh we'll take about a um a five to ten uh

017break and um we'll be back very shortly uh roll call no no need no okay well in favor all right is um oh no i'm speaking um oh is yeah yeah um is okay the board would like to reconvene with our meeting uh all are present who were here before all right we'll move on to adoption of the minutes of the regular scheduled meeting of march 24th so moved to move by mr canova second seconded by mr abu drabo discussion seeing none roll call mr abhijabo yes mr awad yes miss basford yes miss beltran yes mr kanova yes mr paris yes vice president daley president smith yes okay uh our student representative is not here this evening so uh we'll go right into the superintendent's report he could do it who oh yeah he very

018easily could do it thank you mr smith good evening uh commissioners it's uh right still still going um i i can't believe uh spring break is upon us it's a really i think if you were to survey the faculty staff and the students they're all ready for this they're all ready for this break next week everybody needs it um but with that i do have to start off on a little bit of a sour note tonight to remind everyone that covid still exists okay and thankfully hospitalizations are down deaths are down but the actual virus is still around and in the last two weeks we've had 19 positive cases amongst students and another 10 amongst our staff those numbers aren't great in the grand scheme of things considering we have almost 11 000 students but

019we have to remember that now that the majority of people aren't wearing masks if you are considered a close contact you are required to quarantine for five days if you're not wearing a mask and the health department is requiring us to still do contact tracing and therefore um i don't have the exact number but if you look on our dashboard you'll see i think it was like 44 students we had to quarantine in the last couple weeks just a month ago our numbers were non-existent we actually went a couple weeks with zero cases so it's a concerning trend i think this break is coming at a good time we can kind of reset the clock but then again people are traveling and um when we come back there is a chance that we could see

020a spike so i would just urge everybody to just remain cautious um because it's it's not over as much as believe me we would all like it to be i would like to remind our seniors um and our parents of seniors that there are thousands and thousands of dollars in local scholarships available to clifton seniors one of those is the superintendent scholarship of which i'll be giving out this year several of those but there are many generous organizations in the city of clifton generous people in the city of clifton who have formed scholarships to uh in in memory of their friends or family members uh of graduates and it's embarrassing to say that sometimes i get a phone call i got a phone call last week that says dr robertosi we have a thousand dollars

021to give out to a senior and we can't get anybody to apply well what's the what's the requirement they just have to be a senior in high school and they have to be attending some sort of secondary school it doesn't have to be college it could be a trade school technical school and we couldn't get anybody to apply so i know our guidance counselors are trying to push it we're sending out emails and announcements but please seniors if you can get a thousand dollars your parents will be forever grateful it might only cover textbooks but believe me thousand dollars is a thousand dollars and there's much more than that and you just need to go on our website you can find that on our announcements if you need more information you can see miss springer

022at clifton high school read the fine print see where you're eligible for and put your name in the ring i'd also like to remind our commissioners and the community that pre-kindergarten and kindergarten registration is open online registration is available on our website and that's the fastest way to register your children for school if you don't have the capability um excuse me not the capability if you don't have the technological um equipment to do that if you don't have internet access you can uh come to our welcome center and you can register in person if you don't have um there is an electronic portion that you will have to fill out but if you can't do that from home we'll happily help you do that here in our welcome center so for pre-kindergarten students you need

023to be four years old by october 1st and for kindergarten students five years old by october 1st congratulations to our students of the month who are here tonight's always one of my favorite things to recognize those students as mr smith said you know almost 3 000 students at clifton high school about 730 students per class and to be recognized as a student of the month is a tremendous accomplishment that means you really stood out amongst your amongst your teachers so congratulations to those students finally tonight congratulations i want to congratulate two students from school 16 who were selected as the grand prize winners of the third annual healthy school lunch challenge which was sponsored by pomptoni in our food service company the students created their own healthy recipes following healthy food guidelines that were shared

024by pomptonian the students were lucy moe alum from fifth grade and martin camacho from kindergarten congratulations both of those students uh their their meals their recipes that they created will be featured on an upcoming menu uh in their schools and there will be a banner celebrating their achievement which will be showcased at the school so congratulations to those students it's a really wonderful accomplishment i do have a referendum report i think i'm going to save it for our next meeting it's a little bit redundant suffice it to say we've had some unfortunate delays through no fault of our own but um our plans have to be the final piece before we go out to bid is um we have to get approval from the state comptroller and that's been delayed um through no fault of

025our own so i'll have a better update at our may 5th meeting also a reminder to our commissioners on may 5th is our annual uh budget meeting where we will have a budget hearing and presentation thank you mr smith that completes my report thank you dr rubitozi um i have nothing in my report uh so we'll move on to uh number 11 first reading of policy we have bylaw zero one six seven we have bilingual and esl two four two three and bylaw zero one five five next uh board committee reports we have just says minutes policy uh policy you want to go first thank you president smith uh the policy committee met on april 4th uh the meeting began at 2 24 pm attendees were president smith myself board member dr lucy danny administrators

026president with dr robert tosie and louis ross the committee discussed the following policies and bylaws one two four two three bilingual and esl education the committee recommends the following language be added to the policy as requested by the njdoe which is students enrolled in bilingual esl english language services programs shall have full access to as feasible supported services such as counseling tutoring and career guidance these services should be provided by bilingual personnel who are familiar with and knowledgeable of the unique needs and background of the ells and their parents two bylaw zero one six zero committee of the whole the committee discussed this law this bylaw and recommends that it be abolished as the board currently operates under the divisional individual committee structure as per by law zero one five five and zero one six

027four it is further recommended to amend by law 015 by changing the last paragraph to read as follows committee meetings shall not be open to the public except that a majority of the committee the chairperson or the board president may open the meeting to the public and invite or appoint a member of the public with the consent and approval of the board president whose knowledge or expertise may be useful to the committee with the involvement and facilitation of the superintendent three bylaw zero one six seven public participation board meetings the committee reviewed the policy and suggestions made at the last board meeting and it is recommending the adoption of the policy with the proposed amendments as made and presented at the last meeting during first reading the committee discussed available options for members of the

028public to address the board if they do not have access to electronic devices allowing them to ensure that their face is visible during their comments the committee noted that individuals may email the board secretary with comments and or questions can contact the superintendent prior to the meeting or can email board members fourth at upcoming meetings the committee will be reviewing outdated and non-mandated by laws and bylaws excuse me and policies to amend as appropriate to bring them to date the meeting was adjourned at 3 pm respectfully lou ross okay any questions yeah i have a lot of questions um so the last meeting i brought it up to bring committee of a hole to the whole board to vote on it i was told that it would go back to policy and then we'll bring

029on not this agenda the next agenda instead you guys have decided to abolish a policy and not bring it to the board to vote well i guess we're gonna vote we can vote to not abolish it but i'm pretty sure i'm not super familiar with all the bylaws but i'm pretty sure you can't just abolish a policy without um going through the proper channels i don't think you can just put it on agendas to be abolished um i'm not sure if judy or joe saying you guys might know the actual there's nothing on the agenda tonight do you have anything to do it's on there to abolish it it's under administration it's a k i know b4 it says abolish or ea sorry and it says superintendent recommends i'm not sure if the superintendent actually

030he can speak for himself i'm not sure if he recommends abolishing this policy the word abolish is in the uh committee minutes as well mr smith if i may yeah i'm just trying to okay uh i think miss beltran's referring to item b4 excuse me i'm ea ea for abolishment of policy and i agree with what ms beltran pointed out regarding the superintendent's recommendation the truth is there there are times where the superintendent i don't want to speak about myself in third person there will be times where i recommend the policy change i i don't think the superintendent um has the right or should be making a recommendation to change any bylaws any board bylaws so that's um that's a mistake on the agenda that i would just like our board secretary to reflect that

031that should be the recommendation of the policy committee for other policies related to administration students things like that certainly i will make res uh recommendations but i don't even think i have the authority to recommend a change to the board's bylaws thank you excuse me so the verb should say by recommendation of the committee this should be abolished right because we we're in charge of bylaws superintendents in charge of regulation that's where the people get confused when it's a regulation it's not really the board's we you recommend that we do we're not supposed to have input on regulations but sometimes we get a little zealous than we do okay so uh miss beltran if memory serves america because i went back to the tape and you did talk about having the discussion of the cow

032meeting um this is through mr smith there was uh i know myself i'm opposed to abolishing any kind of bilo like this i think we should we're now in committee structure we run by committee structure we voted a long time ago i believe it was two presidents ago that we voted to stay in committee structure and but to keep the cow meeting on the books in case we ever had the need to use it and that's why we kept the cow meeting open like that um your suggestion last month was valid um i know myself i don't feel like i'm a part of a lot of the discussion um case in point i got the agenda after the meeting had met so my worry was like i had things that i wanted to ask because

033i'm sitting on a state committee and we're going over some different policies so i can't i couldn't bring it to the committee i'll bring it for next month to the committee but um by abolishing this i'm opposed to it so i'd like to hear the other input from my fellow board members because that's what i thought we were going to do i thought we were going to have a healthy professional discussion on the pros and the cons of the cow meeting well uh policy chair i'm a little confused you you put for forth a first reading of policy so it can't nothing can happen until second reading so that there should be nothing in there about abolishing anything anyway the abolishment doesn't speak to one or two readings if you read the policy it talks

034about two-thirds vote mr mr um paris has the actual wording yeah any any vote that um this is policy any resolution that's proposed less than 48 hours prior to a meeting shall require two-thirds majority of the vote of the board present at the meeting if there's an objection to consideration of the measure to bring the matter before the board so that's that's in policy right 0-164 um and if we did did do something at this point um it would require so we're under committee reports so we're question there's questions under the report of the chair so it's been brought to our attention that there is something under the dr robertosi under what was it the a4 yes okay so um we're gonna uh pull that motion i mean pull that uh resolution from the superintendent

035but it is not a recommendation of the superintendent madame uh mr president i mean yes yeah um when we get to the ea section uh i will make a motion because i think this is the way you're supposed to do it to to table that issue when we get to i don't think we need to these are questions in this part of the procedure but i i will make emotions pay for that correct all right any other questions on the report yeah i have some um so so the one question i do have about item two is where we're saying committee members shall not be open commission meetings should not be open to the public except that a majority of committee the chairperson or the board president may open a meeting to the public so

036for opening a meeting to the public doesn't that mean committee of the whole or does it just mean having the meeting in public and having the having it filmed and having it publicly available and then it goes on to discuss who can do that and invite or appoint a member of the public so i'm assuming we have a group and then we want to bring somebody in for their expertise and it's saying with the consent approval from board president um or from the majority committee and it doesn't mention the majority of the board so you may have the the minority the majority of the committee that doesn't want somebody but you might have the majority of the board that does want somebody um and then you also have unilaterally where the board president will have

037to be approved by the board of president president therefore just unilaterally can do what they want so i'm a little confused about item two and and how that's structured dr robitosi could you yeah mr knope i was there for the discussion i think um i think maybe we could have worded this a little better in hindsight i think the intent of the committee was not to open the committee to the public and have a public meeting but to open it to invite a member of the public to partake in the committee process meaning to invite somebody who may have some sort of expertise in the topic being discussed to be a part of the that committee that was what that particular line discusses and that that could either be done by the committee chair a

038majority of the committee or the board president that was the intent maybe it's not maybe it's not written well enough mr president mr president yes let me so the historian has to come out right because for two years ago we had a member of the public that asked to come to education we sat through three to four nauseatum long conversations and discussions about having someone here the superintendent was opposed to it wound up that we invited that person to education to listen and then the student union wanted to come that next time and same thing meeting after meeting after meeting they finally wound up coming they came in to the committee they met with the committee they asked their questions and as soon as that section of the discussion was over they left and they

039marched out the door that's how because it our our committee structure now the policy speaks to that if we need somebody of expertise we allow them to come in i don't understand what the what the problem is now from what i i think it is is that from the email that we got last week was that somebody wants uh somebody wants to be appointed to a committee um i'm gonna i did my homework and um only one other district in the state of new jersey has lay people i'm gonna use that word that title so we all understand what i'm talking about it's extremely unusual i'm concerned that an elected person would get too close to view the work of the board committees and that knowing that someone who is not subject to school ethics

040act is working alongside board of education committees members who are elected commissioners state elected commissioners oh by the way could squelch robust conversation and or divulge information to and amongst board members and the superintendent my other concern is that a lay person would know knowledge before board members excluding the members in this board to have that information we are a committee and we are a membership of nine we should be treated with the same dignity and respect as each other um respects and commands and that when we get the committee reports we read them to know what the committee has done having a layperson involved in a whole committee meeting to me would be very questionable i think it's treading on very um questionable areas i have to be careful with i was going to

041use a different word i got to be careful with that one uh but i i have no problem if a committee needs a representative okay miss bassford i think you said it but i think it's important to clarify the current bylaw allows it right right the current bylaws allows allows the committee um to invite a member of the public if the chairperson or a majority of the committee agrees what this language did was that it expanded that to the board president and to um i think that's all it expanded it too i believe so so the ability to do this already exists right but how we handled in the past we never just used to invite anybody to a committee without the board's knowledge we had meeting after meeting discussion of discussion because there are

042certain people that would say well why are you inviting that and who vets these people what where do you get their expertise like what do they send the resume in like i don't understand why we would need somebody we have invited people in the past to speak testimony on a certain subject like somebody that's certified in aba and that they've got they've gone through a certain treatment and they saw that it worked or it didn't work um but i i just to sit through whole committee and then what about confidential confidentiality that's another issue that i have a problem with and i don't like the fact is that a layperson will know what's going on in the committee before the rest of the board does that i have a big issue with because then it's

043you know we all ran for election we all went through the process if you want to if you want to do that then run for the board and get on like everybody else does and i have no problem with the person that mr smith had recommended i just have a problem with the process on how it's being laid out that's my worry mr smith may i yes thank you these are we are under questions of the minutes of the committee thank you so while um people are questioning the notion of having somebody from the outside what is not being asked is how long is this person male or female or whomever um how long will they be within the committee is it within a certain boundaries before the committee talks about certain aspects of the

044committee that's what you're not asking rather than assuming because a lot of people on this board were here a couple years ago and people who are against this now who actually wanted to see folks from the community on certain committees and boards so we can get a a background and a feedback from the community but the notion that that you're arguing against now is a little suspect to me but on that notion on that aspect the question you got to ask is how long is this person going to be within the committee is it with a certain few minutes are there going to be standards are there going to be levels of question what are they going to be entitled to to know and discuss is it are we going to ask questions about certain

045academics certain curriculums certain whatever it may be that their expertise is in that's the problem that we're not asking right now under this question of this policy on this committee you're asking the wrong questions and obviously you're targeting something and i'm not going to figure out what it is right now but i would suggest that you really look at this policy and as mr dr robertosi said this has already been in play all the change was is that there's a purview of the president on it so why the argument now thank you i would like to see uh if we could change the bring this back to policy and change with board approval put in there because i think that it would make everybody happier because they would know what's going on and it would

046be voted on in a public meeting the person's name would be on the agenda what they're going to come to discuss i'm sure there's going to be a vetting process on their expertise or maybe they're going to submit a resume maybe the policy needs to be a little bit more in depth um because it's vague uh but um we really in the past i can i can only remember twice having two people come to committee meetings and it was the student union and it was miss felder about an educational issue that we talked about for four meetings and i remember arguing that to allow her to come and she spoke and then she left mr president if i may um in order to put approval of the board this is a committee policy not a

047whole board policy so we're talking about committees so then we can should take this aspect and stick it in a different policy and stick it somewhere else we'll talk about committee policy the title of this policy is committees not approval of the board second of all as you mr president or the other the the superintendent working together should be able to figure out a structure on how to notify the board as a whole prior this is the person and this is why because it's saying either the policy chair or the board president obviously in conjunction with the superintendent have brought somebody in and necessarily i mean we have something the public has been asking for a long time for for a while now to be part of a committee and i don't even even got

048his answer yet and the more longer we hold this up i mean listen we've gone through the policies on different levels right now in the series and so many are antiquated they're old whatever past policy committees have done not to rip them apart but you gotta renew and you gotta update things to today and not sticking yesterday or the year before [Music] mr president yes mr perry yes um i don't really see any significant change to what was already listed as policy except that any outside expertise is either requested by the chairperson or the majority of the committee i don't see any reason why it needs to be changed i think some of the concern is that this person is appointed in some way and perhaps becomes a permanent part or a long-term part of

049that committee whereas i think the intention of the original bylaw is to bring in expertise and knowledge on as needed basis that the committee deems is appropriate and to respond to mr paris and i agree with you and yes but there was a recommendation from the board at the time that the president should be added to that language and nobody saw that that anything against it so like you said that's the real that's the only change so if so if there is real no change if there isn't any real change that means you've had a problem not you in general have had a problem with the policy under past sports on the past committees so why argue it now and that's my question the president is appointing all the committee members the president is appointing

050the chairperson of the committee i don't really see the necessity for the president to appoint people to join the committee the chairperson and the committee members have the authority under this bylaw to invite in any experts they need for knowledge so what is to be gained by by having the president i mean the committee members and the chairperson should be in agreement they that they on the expert that they bring in that it's that's useful and valuable to them i don't see any significant change here other than the president can appoint someone listen like i said i agree with you but the majority committee felt that their the president should be added sometimes when you're when you're voting on something in the majority and you're not in the majority then you just in in addition

051there is a policy 9140 that establishes uh citizen advisory committees that can be established by the board so if there is a need in a particular area to get even more expertise or more input from the public an advisory committee could be formed um that operates independently okay let's let's kind of stick we're on we're on the well this relate this relationship will bring you next of the policy committee uh let's just kind of stick to the to the subject here well none of us are agreeing i haven't heard anyone besides him speak up that they agree with this i think that's what we're discussing yes but under you're discussing minutes of a committee that's what the discussion is so we can table this and bring it back up a new business that would you

052like you could okay if everyone else agrees we can table this and bring it back up into business no i'm i'm just saying this is the way it's the structure is set up mr president i have a motion to table the minutes no minutes are not tapable not the minutes to the discussion question this discussion that you're not in agreement with we're going to move it to new business and then we can talk freely all right finance president i have a question about uh bylaw 167 because uh i have to go back to the previous committee um when we were in committee we we talked to the board attorney about the showing face no showing face so i went back to my minutes in my book and we specifically asked her if um do we

053have to force people to show their face and she said no and i checked with the other two that were previous on it and they remember that as well so what's can i can anybody tell me why the change what's the what's the motive motive on the change to make sure that we force people to show their face and is that legal that you force people to show them their face on a virtual uh apparatus who is she addressing the question too oh okay i'm sorry i mean i'd have to look i wasn't obviously part of the discussion i could check with him i could check with ms gutierrez on the conversation yes when we get to policy my recommendation would be to hold the policy until we get a legal opinion for reading one

054thank you now this policy was a part of first reading so should we pull that for now pending legal advice yes i mean the board could do that okay so motion to pull the uh first reading of zero one six seven if i if i may be able to do it and then not to belabor this but this came up at the last meeting the board's on i'm talking specifically about oh um 0167 with showing the face the board said bring it back to committee committee discussed it and said we still want to keep this as we presented it for first reading put it back on it would and there was a legal opinion given by miss gutierrez already that it was okay it is my opinion that it should go through first reading it's

055gone through the pers it's gonna gone through the policy committee twice already it's going to go back again and the same thing is going to be on next month it could go through first reading tonight but before it gets passed on second reading obviously a majority of the board would have to vote for it so my suggestion is you leave it as first reading tonight so we can come to a resolution at the may 5th meeting this could all been avoided if the agenda went out to everybody prior to the meeting woody would have went straight to the police none of this would have ever happened do you remember that it's lent no i'm going to be very nice that woody woodpecker i'm biting my time already went straight to the police none of this

056would have ever happened am i dating myself yeah very much so but this would have been my question about it woody woodpecker cartoon there was a guy who used to come on the screen and say if woody would have went straight to the police none of this would have ever happened oh you're thinking yeah okay that's your woody i would he was more bugs bunny guy sorry all right anything just saying any other questions like i was saying before i got interrupted it's very it's lent it's science that's what i apologize and i'm fighting back a couple of uh i'm fighting um please get me through this night um i got harassed last year about getting minutes uh agendas out before the meetings i remember being burdened at a meeting by someone and it's not

057fair if we're gonna have a rule a rule should apply to everyone a rule is a rule is a rule and but i would have policy minutes that's all right and i'm asking a question i asked the question but i was interrupted when i was trying to make a statement forget it no i i just want to try and stay on the organization of the meeting you're under reading of committee minutes no other questions okay finance mr daley thank you mr president um the uh finance committee of the clinton board of education met on april 5th uh president was mr albert roberto mr canova mr smith president smith and myself the from the administration dr robertosi mr jingal mr yusi and mr shahida uh also at the committee meeting was our insurance brokers uh mr

058barry morello tom yuko and mr joe morillo um meetings started at five o'clock and ended at 5 33 it was virtual items of discussion was insurance renewal i met with imac the district's health insurance broker and and discussed the rate increase for the 22-23 school year historical premium increases increases on losses ratios were discussed imac will continue to use the current claim data and competitive bids to receive the lowest premium increases for the medical dental and prescription coverage before the final budget hearing of may 5th 2020. i would also ask that these minutes be amended to include there was a handout with some information i think they should be an addendum to these minutes um as i think we all understand insurance premiums especially in the medical field is quite intricate and detailed um and

059it helps to for the board members to understand a little bit with a little bit more factual so um i would ask these minutes come come back at the next meeting with an appendix for the handouts that were given to the committee members at that meeting um if anybody has any dis i'd be happy to ask answer any questions in terms of uh the different how it kind of works if you you have that type of a question but we can have a full discussion because after our next uh at our may 5th meeting um i think all that board members are entitled to get information how this was handled and and and the insurance brokers i think are doing a very very good job that's not to say that but um i think it's

060a complicated issue and the board members need a little bit more detail mr daley i think there's a question of whether that um document is definitely can be shared with the full board yeah but not sure i think we have to double check if it could be open to the public okay we can check that in there that would need to be redacted or or or be uh redacted or we get a separate pack that's confidential well we will check on that we'll certainly share that document with the board but if anybody has any particular questions i'll see if i can answer it or okay thank you i know other items were discussed at the meeting other than to have a briefing by the insurance brokers on the cost increases okay um mr daley would

061you mind doing the facilities since you're here thank you mr president uh meaning of the clinton board of education facilities committee on march 30th 2022 uh president's at that president present at that committee was mr awad miss beltran and mr smith president smith and myself as board members at the administration attending was mr dr robert tosie mr jaguero mr yussi mr shahida mr maldonado and mr marcion also president was a personal servant reps attended mr watkins mr keenan and mr costello those were all in terms of our referendum those are the individuals who are working on a referendum project uh referendum update mr marcion have been meeting with uh with the cara firm epic and adhera to lay out a scope of work and phasing for the summer the first bid will be going out

062uh soon and package two will be going out before the summer packages one or three are complete for awaiting comptroller approval this is mentioned by our superintendent and his report from the state bids to be advertised all bids over 12 million 500 000 must be pre-approved by the state controller high school bid is package number one and because the scope of work the high school will not be used for summer school other locations have been secured a discussion about wwms baseball field all involved understand that this is a priority project the construction attorney is involved because of a potential easement issue will brief the committee at the next meeting i guess because it is a legal issue if the board wants more information when we have executive today uh i'd be happy to address that

063so that that that is an issue spoke about security throughout the referendum project as top priority uh tennis court's marching band renovation mr uh mr watkins discussed the bids they are going out next week the bid opening is scheduled for april 20th turf will be brought through the co-op to avoid delays uh b project to start over the summer marching band director understands that the project will impact its process practices during the summer and will develop an alternative plan that should be in there tennis courts will be uh five in total prior to this we'll only had four this allows clifton to host varsity tournaments um number three adding a piece of fencing at school 13 the fence added in the playground on the east-west to create a mini parking lot blocking off kids from

064going into near the staff cars there was an issue at the school because there's some staff of parking the same area where um students would recreate and we wanted to have a little bit of separation for the safety of both the children and the vehicles uh esther uh there's number four so two window door bids mr watkins discussed the window bids bids are set to go out in the next two weeks exterior doors uh for christopher columbus middle school windows are for schools one two three four five and thirteen softball fields and this is a key you saw it is esser funds which is money that comes from the federal government and we had done other schools previously out of our own funding but since this funding is available that's why the windows are being

065moved that this particular the project's being moved at this time number five softball fielder christopher columbus net and bleachers balls are flying and out and hitting cars fans are getting struck by foul balls committee would like like netting along the first and third base perimeters of the field that's just on the field that is closest to columbus will i correct that with mr smith because that isn't an issue at the other field the adjacent field discuss moving bleachers at sea ccms from the right field they're in the outfield right now bringing them close closer to the behind the benches uh e this administration will discuss today the concerns by obtaining obtaining quotes interviewing landscape companies and working with the coaches that issue has to do for those of members who have been on the board

066for a while we were asked by the people involved with the softball to have natural turf obviously that's a more of a maintenance issue than artificial turf than there was supposed to be a higher level of maintenance of these fields because of uh the whole project was supposed to have that so the administration is coming up to address the uh having that maintenance up to that particular level number six would draw wilson bleachers for a new and old gym a vendor through a cooperative went out with the director of buildings and grounds through mr shahida to get a quote for both gyms number seven custodial maintenance concerns administration noted that the schools are being clean however there are several open positions needed to be filled also with positions and needed to be filled the district

067is looking an additional shifts to other buildings on top of the on top of open positions attendance issues pose a bigger obstacle it is hard to find coverage at times and there is no substantial pickup of extra duties any given day 25 of the maintenance and custodial team are out which includes special cases as well number eight school three blacktops steps railing and gutter drainage loose gutters were repaired by the maintenance team stop overflow and the discussion also included gutter guards for debris going into the gutters number nine chalk drawings on the playgrounds um was this at a particular location or a universe i don't remember mr smith do you remember that yeah i i think it was a particular one of the particular schools anyhow maintenance can assist with this of course cps offers

068program for students with disabilities to assist with drawing lines in the summer new business discuss adding paid playgrounds to school that do not have them for equity purposes number 11 discussed additional parking at 14 in the back and add parking dimension timelines for ccms number 12 ramp built in board room to the back door can be removed and placed elsewhere if needed and next meeting will be on um april 26th anybody has any questions i'll be happy to address them mr president if i may yeah go ahead yes uh just to clarify mr daley commissioner daley's uh question about the if there was a particular school in mind um eleven was an example only because um i was speaking to uh dr arbetosi and president smith about playgrounds and schools that don't have any playgrounds

069or yards in schools that don't be playgrounds and what can we do um in place of or in lieu of until we figure something out so that's what the chalk was um do we just dr roberto's i know you came back to me and said that might be a need of policy or a superintendent regulation can you speak on that please yes uh mr abu drab i don't think we necessarily need a policy but we just need to set up some regulations which are actually in the process of being done just regulations to make sure it's consistent between the schools thank you and can you also let me know uh what the turnaround time would be if we did this and is that in-house is it inexpensive what's with the cost around his pro approximately

070i'm more than fairly confident so that's like 73 that this can be done in-house more than fairly confident have you ever heard anybody say anything like that i really don't know um but i i assure you i will have an answer for you as soon as i can just for clarification purposes through you mr president um this this is an issue because some of our schools are much older and didn't have the space that other schools allow so how do we address that and i think the administration is still looking into that because you don't have it's not a case of some schools don't have playgrounds there's not playgrounds like other schools these courses space particularly outside is not available so i think and i think that's been in discussion on this board for a

071number of years so i think the administration's going to take another look at that and come back to us with some some recommendations how how we address those schools who are deficient in play area no and i understand and that's why i was talking about the chalks and what we can do in lieu of i know school 13 also was one school that we had a question about of how do you how do you do it it's particularly when playgrounds are also being used as you know slash parking lots um so maybe we have to just create and expand some grassy areas to make an asphalt and utilize that as a playground or keep the grass half half but again i leave that to you i'm told by my team that that is something we

072can do in-house mr president yes uh there was mention of security so could we discuss that in executive session if you have an update on here so yeah yes we can but the i think the only thing we addressed that there was uh we wanted to remind the public that in the referendum where there was a con serious a considerable security component to the referendum and we didn't want to have anybody understand that what you're doing doors and windows what are you doing for security so i think that's that was the context of how it was raised okay but we can talk about anything in security thank you any other questions uh mr daily thank you for filling in there appreciate that okay next we'll move on to uh public recognition this portion of the

073meeting 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 direct directly related to the operation of the clifton public school district residents and non-residents are requested if in person to sign the register provided for this purpose all speakers are to ask to state their names municipality and subject matter before speaking comments are limited to five minutes per person issues raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate your questions may or may not be answered by board members the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically

074comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of the state of new jersey the board bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments paid by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments in light of the legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments uh will you have anyone waiting in the uh yeah we'll do that first do you have anyone in there we could come we want to do the other first vacuuming i think the vacuuming upstairs yeah it's fine i don't see any oh i do have somebody in the

075waiting room you want me to let them in how many you have one it looks like one okay they just popped off now so i'll leave it on and we'll go to in person yep we're going in person toward the end do you hear that yeah someone's mic's on please check your mics everybody it just stopped sorry okay we have uh caller on the line um can you hear me uh yes can you hear me yes uh you have five minutes caller yes thank you hello uh my name is tom kiefer good mr kiefer hello yes go ahead hey how you got how are you guys doing hi how are you listen uh tom keeper 20 nelson street um i have a question i was hoping the board can answer because it's a factual question

076about the um i don't house to put up with the sexual education that they're forcing on their kids i heard a rumor i was one of you guys can clarify currently that before they teach that class they send home a note and with that note you can opt out and if you opt out your child can either do recess or lunch is that a rumor or is that true i was hoping you guys can answer that for me right now hello hi mr key for the the board does not uh answer uh directly back to your your statements but uh a board member may address this later on okay well if that's the if that's the case where we can just sign out then i would save a lot of hot air right now for

077everyone and just say that's great and i would sign my child out because i have a huge problem with you with the new curriculum based on the website from the state of new jersey stating that starting with elementary grades one two three or grades two and above about teaching my daughter my son about sexual education um the words that they use are bad um it's kind of when you read it off the website it's kind of offensive and i i do not agree with it at all it's you are obviously personally it's a gamer you're going to teach i like it if i could interrupt you uh we just administration just informed us that there will be an opt-out form so you will be able to your form well that's wonderful because then i would

078just sign my child out because um i find it very offensive that if in elementary school you're going to teach a child about about sexual education that's you almost that's terrible um you know you need counseling for that there's no way you're young it's it takes away a child's innocence there's certain things that should be told in the home you you can teach you we should teach our kids how to do laundry how to make an egg how to how to do normal everyday things but there's certain things that you teach at home including you know there's very there's so many religions involved in the public school system you don't teach about god i'm not saying i'm religious i'm just saying you need to be tolerative of all the religions and there's a lot of

079them that are against this at a young age i get when you're in high school you're in puberty but when you're in you're in elementary school i don't even know i mean i i don't know how to say it but the girls don't they don't even start their menstrual cycle i don't even know if the guy if the boys know what an erection is about but you're going to teach them all these other things if you're going to teach them about sexual education it should be about procreating and i get the facts but some of the things that are stated on that new jersey website if you guys follow just don't make sense to me and i do not agree with it so i am very happy to know that you can uh opt out

080so i'm sure a lot of parents like myself will opt out you know it's it's just not okay but uh with all that being said i just want to end with uh a huge congratulations to all the students that you guys started with tristan and kimberly tiffany liam logan um i thought that was an amazing start and congratulations to all those students especially uh lucy malalam a good friend of mine she's amazing and uh martin for uh that uh contest a food contest very cool i really uh i like how you guys started with that it was awesome it started great and uh congratulations to all those students and uh thank you very much for hearing what i have to say have a good night thank you okay we have iphone caller um can you

081hear us hello iphone you're in the room hello can you hear us iphone are you in the room it says you're connecting to audio and can't hear us yet so all right uh we'll we'll come back to that we'll open it up to the uh the in person if that iphone uh person attaches leave it like this if they attach we'll we'll we'll deal with it then all right we'll open the uh in person if you kindly come up to the microphone into the podium good evening everybody mark brunsiak holly street clifton new jersey good evening everybody last time i was here i was describing the comprehensive health and physical education personal mental and health new jersey education standards at the end of grade five tonight i'll be describing some of the education standards for

082personal and mental health by the end of grade two this means that children seven six five years old can excuse me can be taught this because these are tiered education standards and if this is incorrect please somebody correct me so among these standards a grown man is able to tell our daughters again that are seven six or five years old to list medically accurate names for body cards body parts including the genitals other core ideas for skills and activities discuss how individuals make their own choices about how to express themselves discuss a range of ways people express their gender and how gender role stereotypes may limit their behavior now i'm going to start with one of the most egregious uh requirements over here and uh expectations and that's explaining gender and how gender role stereotypes

083may limit behavior why is the state trying to tell my kids how their behavior is limited because they are a boy or a girl when i've spent their entire life telling them that there's no limits for them you don't get to put ideas into into a child's head that they're there are gender stereotypes this is no longer a throwback to a time that i no longer live in lots of women including my wife have been breaking female stereotypes for years so that my daughter didn't have to deal with that we shouldn't be giving these antiquated concepts in a second grade classroom questions to the board tonight since one of the state senators in a neighboring district provided lesson plans that are going to be provided through uh through rutgers i believe miss kusalevich uh stated

084last meeting that it was from answer so please correct me if i'm wrong what will you be telling our children how their behavior is limited because they are a boy or a girl what is the definition of genitals that will be used in the second grade classrooms or earlier will there be visual aids when will the general public be able to see them and if anybody hasn't seen these lesson plans yet they're readily available online or i'm very easily accessible online so you can reach out to me and i'll send you the dropbox where they're at there are some very disturbing slides for age groups this young thank you for your time and god bless america have a good night everybody anyone else wish to address the board um elias ragsdale 121 maplewood avenue okay

085um to president smith vice president daily commissioners dr robertosi administrators good evening first i'd like to say thank you to president smith mr abu drabo mr awad dr obatozi mr gingaro mr hamda and miss conti for organizing the chs student liaison committee it's important for students to connect with district leaders like yourself so i thank you for your efforts in educating students on what the board does and how things operate i definitely look forward to the next meeting also as president of csu the clifton student union i've been asked to talk about the upcoming walk-a-thon the class of 2024 is hosting the walk-a-thon in celebration of mental health awareness month and it is to take place on saturday may 21st from 3 p.m to 6 p.m at the clifton stadium each lap will be two

086dollars and all proceeds go to the mental health association of passaic county we invite all of the community to join us and walk which would greatly support those suffering from mental illness in our community this is something the class of 2024 has been planning for two years now so it would mean a lot to see your support we're welcoming vendors who may be able to offer yoga arts and crafts or stress-free tips and advice qr codes should be posted on the district website in the near future where all information will be available as well as ways to register thank you great job thank you thank you anyone else wants to address the board my name is marsha miller i'm a clifton resident and i'm here to discuss the sex education standards i'm a cliftonite a

087woman a mother a grandmother and a concerned citizen i'm here to voice my concerns regarding the sex education standards for new jersey government schools in the academic year of 2021 and 2021 22 excuse me parents not only have a role but a fundamental role to be involved in the education of their children we need to have curriculum transparency which provides for closer scrutiny of educational materials for the school districts and we need to set term limits for the school board members and to protect the rights of the parents the 2021 and 2022 curriculum from kindergarten and on up destroys the nuclear family stripping parental rights erasing the neighborhood the family and erasing god this curriculum is sexualizing our children and it is not age appropriate bringing forth gender fluidity and gender identity confusion and gender

088dysphoria we entrusted the education system blindly assuming the children were being taught reading writing and arithmetic this sexual material is destroying our children's innocence and causing confusion they are extremely impressionable and don't need these sexual pressures put upon them we need to go back to the 2014 standards as excuse me as we as parents and concerned citizens need to come together to oppose this curriculum and make a positive change for our youth and their well-being i have three questions for the board but mr kiefer took number one so number two where can we review the curriculum that is being used in the fall of 2022 i do not approve of a zoom meeting in may and one to follow and number three what is the additional cost to the district for the curriculum changes thank

089you good evening uh al dubois clifton she was very good so it was mark the first thing i like to say is i was glad to hear about the tennis courts my son plays and i was sad that they couldn't have any home games so i was was one of my topics i'm so glad it's going to be done in the summer and then they can have everything for next year they have one thing clifton has is a lot of outstanding extracurricular activities in sports and the kids when i come on the grounds i mean they're always so united and together it's beautiful recent articles in the newspaper spoke about later start times another state mandate i don't know what they do down there in trenton they just sit around and think of ideas for

090clifton i don't think we need a new start time i think what we need and that would be up for everyone here to discuss alternate start times for 3 000 students to try to come in the same time this should be something worked out even if it's a half hour difference 20 minute difference uh it's just the frustration waiting in traffic getting to school late when it's not child or parents fault it's just too many other variables trying to get into a certain location and it's common sense and i don't think if we can do a half hour difference still work everything out for after-school activities and everything so it's something for your board to maybe discuss and try to come up with to make it better for us but the early start time what

091they're saying i don't buy that last meeting there was discussion about taxpayer segregation through the funding of charter schools are segregation schools charter schools should be abolished they are breeding ground for a privileged elite group of students usually utilizing taxpayer dollars for what purpose i have no idea that's something for you guys to discuss and fight for calendar update last fall i requested modifications to the school calendar i haven't seen anything yet however i was assured in december that modifications were coming so i hope to see something before next year when i get the calendar last meeting lucy danny stated we need to think about out of the box get creative find ways to get more things done there's been no italian american as far as i know for the past two years maybe longer

092covet made it difficult for a lot of things however i would like to see a club next fall and if you cannot find anybody i'd be willing to volunteer my time once or twice a month to be part to be the leader of the club for a while again volunteerism she's asking for creative ways that might be something for the board to look at even for additional types of services or programs more volunteerism lockdowns i've been getting notices in the email lockdowns lockdowns lockdowns there's too many lockdowns in 2022 and again it's state mandate i looked at the link and it says lockdowns even according to the new law states it could be harmful and traumatizing to students so maybe we need to monitor how many lockdowns we're having i don't really believe in it

093i remember when i had to do the duck and cover program in second and third grade and i know it was finally abolished by good catholics and good strong religious people and americans so something for us to look at but you guys follow a lot of state mandates so there's not much uh emphasis and umph there okay we need true dialogue with the board members to properly represent us mr albadrago's bringing up committees again it's very hard for us out here to understand what everybody's talking about because we're in the middle of a conversation and there's so many different sides and so many different complications that it's you know we're hearing it but we do need more committees and from what i was hearing is if you have a committee formed and established i don't

094see why you got to ask the board president every single time can we bring somebody in to discuss an issue for instance the sex education programs we need to be talking to people on this you guys can't handle that alone and you shouldn't have a right to do it maybe it should be a committee form where parents are speaking to a select group whoever that may be and then bringing out all the stupidities or all the concerns of how to make sure that it's properly being disseminated for instance i went to the site and page 24 and this i don't understand at all maybe you guys can look into this they have different sections so on page 24 they have a section lgbt and disabilities law how do they why would the state connect lgbt

095people with a disabilities law a board of education shall include instruction on the political economic and social contributions of persons with disabilities and lesbian gay bisexual and transgender people in an appropriate place in the curriculum of the middle school and high school students as part of the district's implementation of the new jersey student learning standards mr de barber if you finish up your statements please okay so there's just so many inconsistencies here especially what they spoke about that we need to form something and let's hopefully that will do it thank you good evening samantha basford clifton new jersey i want to start with commenting about the sexual education discussion that has taken place the past two meetings i have unfortunately worked with many college students who have been raped and sexually assaulted prior to coming

096to the college setting many times by people who are closest to them sexual education is not just about body parts and sex it is also preventative measures because it's not if it's not being taught in the classroom by an educator it's definitely being taught somewhere else every student has maturity and sexual awareness so sorry social awareness that is different sex educations help students not being taken advantage of and how to support themselves through puberty girls get their periods starting in third grade and may not know how to properly care for that and i'm sure that every cis woman in this room can agree when the first time you menstruate it is frustrating and it's scary we should not be shaming bodies i don't believe the law says what gender is teaching these classes and i

097would trust that the education especially in clifton would be appropriate that would support all students no matter if they are identifying gender or not i have concern about biases how do we ensure and more so you how do you as the board ensure that there's not only unbiases but there's ethical decision making when it comes to the committee structure that was brought up what is the point of having a hasa or electing any of you if we need to have others join when a subcommittee should exist on another level anyway last meeting there was an issue with committees and who sat on what and now we're trying to bring more people into the fold the word suspect was brought up and i think the finger can be pointed at anyone and anything i agree with

098mr abu drabo saying about asking the right questions but also if there's more details everybody on the board can be transparent in their policy updates many times i sit and often there's voting without full details people are rushed people are voting voting based on alliances or not there needs to be active listening to understand not to listen to respond a president is in his position to keep decorum this has nothing to do with who's sitting in the seat it has to do what is the ethical and the power what is ethical in the position of power and perception so if we are appointing people how do you ensure that is ethical those are the questions and the details that i don't think has been flushed out or at least said yeah in previous meetings it

099was brought up by um board members about being inclusive specifically by the women on this board with the exception of miss danny there's only three women on this board everyone on the sport has an identity that intersects but when you have women saying that there's a perception we listen to the women just like if someone says they're uncomfortable no one has the right to question another person's comfortability whether your gender especially when your gender gives you a position of power just like ethnicity has power as well if you listen to the board meeting the same board members are named and mentioned through connections to the community through board involvement this is something that should be spread out to every board meeting board member and i hope after last me last night's meeting this is being

100addressed tonight i missed the old days in the board meeting when ellen delash would be here and all the old-timers lined up to say their two cents that was when people really came together and cared to say about things instead of just complaining on facebook and i think the structure of a committee could hinder that because if we do something let's say like a forum instead of a committee there's no bias in who you are inviting everybody comes to the table and then maybe committees could just naturally form throughout that venue it would be organic there would be no perception issues of who's appointing based on what personal relationships and it just gets people back to interacting with each other instead of tagging all the board members on facebook because it's easy and convenient everybody

101needs to do their part in this town speak up act up be engaged you voted for these people for a reason yes but you also have to do the work the work doesn't just lie on these people and i think with the committee structure it makes the job too easy for the rest of the people who are out here who should be engaging in caring thank you good evening to all my name is laura lallama and the president of the cea i hope everybody's doing well i know i don't know who's going to be out faster tomorrow whether it be the kids or the teachers it might be even so um there's a few things i want to bring your attention to uh the american labor museum in haldon has donated class sets um class

102copy to all the fourth graders i went over to the museum and picked them up it's about the 1913 patterson silk strike and it's about four kids are the main characters and it's everything that they have gone through through the strike with their families so um if miss kucha levitz if you can give me a list tomorrow or after break i'll send a copy to each one of the fourth graders and also the libraries will get a copy so and i want to piggyback off of scholarships there's a website that when i give pd to high schools it's called fastweb it's oneword.com and it has about a billion dollars of scholarship money on it it takes about 40 minutes to fill it out and i always advise people to set up a special gmail account

103or hotmail whatever you like and it's only for those scholarships so fill it out if it tells you to type in ariel font 12 follow directions my daughter got four thousand dollars off of that site so it's an excellent site it's free nobody should ever get a letter that says for 12.95 we'll find scholarships that's a scam all right so i want to review our pride and our fast so pride this year we spent thirty three thousand three hundred ninety dollars just on pride activities and in our fast we spent the same amount of money throughout the district so we spent close to seventy thousand dollars for the kids the staff and the community so our last one of our last projects is the latin american institute which we have a meeting on with njea

104next week and we're going to come up with all of the classes that the parents can take they'll get breakfast they'll get lunch so it's it's a it's going to be the second time we're doing this the first year was virtual and this will be in person so once we have more information i'll share that with the board some of the things that we've done we've done the lgbtq workshops at night with the key club mad scientist event school 17 halloween craft fall craft night the grinch's party brainwashed game show family cooking night books and breakfast uh spring craft latino institute so these are just some of them i think there's probably about 70 of each program that we've done so we really want the community to know that their teachers really care about their

105kids they really care about the education in clifton and to make us a one clifton when it comes to that and the last thing i just want to bring up is i ran a quick survey the other night and discussing the raising of the taxes in clifton to the bank cap so out of the the group that responded it was should the board of ed raise taxes to the bank cap so the district does not lose any more money so yes was 90.6 percent and no was 9.4 percent then i want to find out see if they lived in clifton or not so um the majority did not live in clifton so it was 74 that said no they do not live in clifton and yes it was 25 percent and then the last question

106if you live in clifton do you think it's essential to raise the property taxes 75 said yes and 24 said no so i just want to give you an update but i really do think that raising those taxes are very important for the bank cap because i went to njea and they did a printout and it was close to seven million dollars that the district has lost so when we don't raise it we don't get enough money from the feds and enough money from the state so i really would like you to think about it because even though we have the money from esser and we have the referendum but it doesn't go into those same categories so thank you very much enjoy your break scene on motion or close motion closed by mr robert

107second by mr awad all right next we have unfinished business well how's this different than committee what what did the i'm confused here can we send it back to committee so why is it unfinished oh no i'm under unfinished it was disgusting new business last night everybody went to committee [Music] all right next we're going to uh education administration we have ea 1 through ea 12 and ea 1 is on separate miss password if you would kindly read ea one please yes ea ea 4 7 22 autism awareness month whereas autism acceptance month previously named autism awareness month in april aims to celebrate and promote acceptance for the condition that occurs in one in every 54 children as of 2020 in the united states whereas autism is a complex developmental condition affecting the patient's ability

108to interact communicate and progress has not one but many subs subtypes whereas driven by the fact that autism is the fastest growing developmental disability in the world the autism society hosted one of its first nationwide efforts of awareness campaign called national autistic children's week in 1972 which subsequently evolved into autism awareness month earmarked in april in autism awareness month was renamed autism acceptance month to foster acceptance and ignite change whereas the autism society deeply understands the need to foster awareness and acceptance to ignite change and a healthier lifestyle that through improved opportunities for people with autism it works every day to improve the lives of the affected individuals and families by using tools like community partnerships with the organization digital and print out resources along with events and referrals to spark empathy and inclusivity in

109general public now therefore be it resolved with the autism diagnosis rate increasing fast the clifton board of education would like to take these 30 days to celebrate the differences of learn more about and empower autistic individuals motioned by miss bassford second second by mr awad discussion roll call please mr abadraba yes mr awad yes miss basford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr paris yes vice president daley yes president smith yes mission carries and we'll go to ea 2 through ea 12. moshed by mr abhijava second second by mr awad with discussion mr president yes emotional table ea4 okay motion to table second second by miss bassford okay roll call on the table mr aberdrabbo no mr awad no miss basford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr paris yes vice president daley

110yes president smith no um motion carries five to three okay so we'll table that to policy right uh roll call on the wrist sorry i'm just not gonna change mr abu drabo mr awad yes miss basford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr paris yes vice president daley yes president smith yes okay next we'll go to uh personnel we have uh p1 through p34 so i moved it's a move by mr abu driving second by mr awad discussion seeing none roll call mr abu drabo uh yes but upstating on p-15 mr awad yes miss bassford um yes and i'm abstaining on p31 miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr paris yes vice president daley yes president smith yes mission security next under financing facilities we have f1 through f14 what's your pleasure motion to

111move it motioned by miss passport second by mr paris discussion seeing none roll call mr abigail yes with the abstaining on f 22 and f sorry f 13 f 14. mr awad yes miss bassford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr paris yes vice president daley yes president smith yes motion carries all right board member comments uh mr kanova you're up first uh good evening i'm gonna keep my my comments short tonight uh congratulations to all of our award members uh tonight uh scholarships is really the only thing i wanna talk about um i know that there are a lot of students out there that they may not know about them um and i'm wondering if we could do some sort of awareness campaign i know that they log into our student information system

112to get their progress reports and report cards and so do their parents maybe that's somewhere where we're gonna have some kind of pop up before they log in i know that we had asked them covered questions prior and other questions and had digital documentation on there that they could fill out maybe that's another place that if we identify them as a as a senior or even a junior then we can start have them look at these things and be aware of them um i know i know me personally i would love for my kids to get money for a scholarship i think every parent would um it's really just an awareness thing and bringing awareness to the district that we do have these these things and going back to miss la lama's point is there

113are scams out there and students do have to be aware of them so even if we had a little blurb there about you know don't pay for something that says it's a scholarship because it's obviously fake you know something like that i think there was something that happened a few years ago too that a student brought to our attention but just be something to be careful about but that's all i had wishing everyone a happy roam down a happy easter and that's all i had good night thank you next we have um mr paris thank you mr smith i'm also going to be short today congratulations to all the student of the month winners and also the pbsis school 16 team and and logan and just a reminder to parents who might not have attended

114last night's concert i guess or instrument demonstration i should say at the high school third graders this is the time when they can decide what instrument they might want to play in the future and just want to remind parents that that opportunity is there for them and that there's also a program which is supplied by the music angels for little to no cost for music instrument rentals so please take advantage of that it's a great great opportunity for your children and to everybody no matter what your holiday is you're celebrating and next week enjoy enjoy and may have a safe safe spring break next we have mr abu dhabi uh thank you president smith um mental health walkathon is on may 21st from three to six at clifton stadium um there is a scholarship by

115the class of 1982 that's offering a 500 scholarship originally their deadline was april 1st i know they had an issue with their portal so they've extended their deadline for that tonight is junior proms i hope all our juniors are having fun and being safe at the same time a few days ago most of the board received an email from a teacher from the district and talking about um [Music] a walk for for autism um and her team was called amanda's dream team through this permission superintendent i i was able to respond back saying that i would be more than happy and honored to join her team um particularly you know as an uncle of uh student um who's on the spectrum has been on the spectrum and still trying to find his own personal therapy

116ways which struggling with a little bit but his mom's doing a fantastic job with him um but i'll be out there walking with my children my family members if you haven't given yet i'm urging and i'm asking that you either join amanda's dream team or you give to amanda's dream team um you know we haven't had this in a while because of covid in isolation so i think the best way to go about this is to break open and give as much as you can um and also i've asked or i've told dr roberto if he can let his administration know if they can give and if so i'm willing i will match the money raised through my individual team page so hopefully people can give and not only will i ask for people to

117give but i also match whatever the total is raised uh for my own personal excuse me own personal pocket um we tell people happy passover happy easter and happy ramadan and i i extend that tonight to our community to our abrahamic religions but in order to to bless somebody a happy passover happy eastern happy ramadan or observe a certain you know peaceful religion or a way for somebody to spiritually renew themselves um to that religion and oneself um [Music] is a good thing but when somebody holds continues the whole hostility um while doing it to me it seems uh irrelevant so um when when you are observing i ask that you really look within yourself to renew your spirit renew yourself not only with god but with your community your family your neighbors that's really

118the true practice of what we should be doing and the last thing i wanted to say was so i abstained on um if i can just have 30 seconds sir thank you i abstained on the claim list um because my attorneys aren't here forward even forwarding hera and the reason being is because of uh 7600 a little over that that has cost uh the taxpayers money because of a couple false claims of ethics charges i received from a board member that's sitting here and it's going to continue to pick up and you know we all have the agreement that that things were going to be dropped and unfortunately um it wasn't and we talked about olive branches but people don't want to stick to their word so you know unfortunately it's disappointing that that's going

119to cost taxpayers money but that's why i stand thank you thank you mr rawad no comments tonight [Music] uh miss belgium i'll keep mine short too i just wish everyone a happy easter it's coming up um next week my supermarket will be having an easter bunny i'm sure there'll be other easter events going around town um i know there's an egg hunt um i hope everyone can enjoy some time and hopefully it stops raining by then so that everyone can enjoy some outdoor activities um i'd like to thank all the speakers who came tonight and i'd like to remind everyone too that came to speak that you can always email us although we don't respond personally but we do talk to dr robertosi about every email that we do receive so if you do have

120a concern you don't have to wait until the next meeting you feel free to email us and the emails are read even if you aren't responded to the administration will respond we unfortunately we don't usually get into discourse back and forth because this is responsibility of the administration to handle all comments and concerns but please do email us if something does come up because you're our eyes and ears out in the community we can't be everywhere and we can't see everything so if you guys don't email us and tell us something's wrong or something is needed we don't know um and that's all i have for tonight thank you uh miss password thank you uh good evening i would like to thank the um the visual arts teacher of clifton high for extending an invitation

121to us for april 13th to april 30th for the clifton arts center to see the annual student art gallery exhibit it's from one to four on those days i will try to make it uh to get there to see this wonderful display of the art from our students um mr through you mr president mr usi i need to explain stain on uh fogarty's uh bill because it involves me uh to explain to everyone i am doing my part pro bono so i'm not costing the district anything you don't have to have a lawyer you can do it on your own um i attended friday night urban school board i was got an invitation from ray penny from the state of new jersey so i went virtually on it there was an excellent excellent presentation i

122sent the information to dr robert tussie about um about dr uh javier godfrey's presentation the presentation was recommended by tamisha smith she is the vice president of finance at the state level new jersey school board it was really it would fit our district because it was diverse it was uh they're going to bring some of it to workshop so i highly recommend board members to getting there to go and view it but it would really fit because it talks about mental well-being and i know that we've had a lot of struggles through covid so um even he will come in and talk to you guys and give you a little fyi but it was outstanding uh a lot of districts are going to check it out maybe get more information on it yesterday i traveled

123down to trenton new jersey because i was invited to a um board member of the year honoree of the 2021 board member of the year um there are 17 in the state to hell from clifton 2000 and 2005 started uh with the first boy member of the year 2006 was marie haykum 2019 was myself um we all got together some people were virtual some people were in person but we welcomed the new board member of the year she's from chester new jersey she's an outstanding attorney she does a lot of things for domestic violence and and for people uh rights in uh making sure women are heard and i was just over i was overcome with uh such such awe of what she's done in her personal time to help promote safety of women it's

124really outstanding and she's well deserved um so i got to um see her and meet them we have a board member of the year that is 99 years old and she showed up virtual and her name is peggy and they just named the um softball field up at her in bergenfield but peggy usually comes but because of kovitz she didn't take the ride down with another person that goes and get them real we all pick each other up if there's somebody that can't drive down we we find a way to get them but we all get honored and we all talk to each other about what what it is to be a true boardman uh just one second please um it is uh um the holy time of year when three and it's actually an

125alignment of three different um um religions that come together at a time of year uh it's happy ramadan to the people that celebrate uh happy passover to the people that celebrate and a happy and blessed easter to those who celebrate as well thank you and good night thank you vice president daley thank you mr president um first of all there was a lot of pertinent topics that were raised today more than we usually hear it was a little bit more than social which i was glad to hear about uh i'll be very brief but uh just hit on each one of those on the topic of sex education um uh it's it's a very big concern of mine i've talked numerous times uh with the superintendent about that what uh what the state's telling us

126to do and what we think is appropriate um we're gonna have to work on that my my uh words to the public though is you come to this board meeting um and not say that we don't have a a concern or can voice our concerns but the real uh impetus for that is down in trenton so you need to call your senators and assembly people because they're the ones that control that much much more than we can uh we'll do the best i think this board has always shown the ability to push up against the edicts from trenton that are uh not in the best interest of this school district but they you know we only have a voice and we usually get slapped in the face and uh and we have to suck it

127up but but that doesn't mean we don't have a voice but you also have a voice and i would strongly recommend that you contact your state representatives because that's really where the power is and that's really where you can affect the change um with uh some charter schools were represent uh were mentioned and uh bond cap um the over a period of years that i've been here we've lost approximately because we're not funded correctly as long as when i've been here about a half a billion dollars in state aid that didn't come to this district we were short changed for many years 50 million a year and you just add that up if you look at charter schools and pcti allocations that come out of our budget that's others several 100 million dollars so um

128and this board i could say without without reproach here that this board has fought a lot and we've done the best we can to address those issues so the fact that we can raise another 7 billion out of the bank cap doesn't sit well with me because you're really penalizing the taxpayers of clifton and really it should come from other sources here and we should always continue to fight on that issue on the committee structure there is a lot of discussion that the board should have and just really kind of work it out a a lot of this is the president's prerogative and that's fine but how we get informed i think we should look at suggestions how we tweaked that because uh the the discussion at the last meeting was people don't get enough

129information it's not about who's on what committee as much it is how this information is disseminated and i'll leave it there and everybody have a blessed ramadan blessed easter and a blessed passover thank you thank you i have to say i'm i'm superintendent uh the students that were honored here tonight and the student who spoke so uh eloquently tonight uh did an amazing job and uh um that's why uh we sit up here as as commissioners that's why we put the time into it because of those students that you saw here tonight and so many more students that you don't get to see there's some great things happening in clifton schools and as miss lama said both students and teachers are looking forward to this break and i wish them an enjoyable and safe break

130and come back to us safely the city of clifton recreation will be holding their bunny hop on saturday at the at nash park and next week we have a first in the city of clifton our newly formed girls flag football will start i believe their home game is on wednesday so some exciting new programs starting for the girls um sponsored by the new york jets uh so a great program uh we'll be starting next week so if you're staying around town and have nothing to do please the sports programs and the arts and things will continue to happen so please go out and support them and i wish all of my colleagues and the public celebrating um ramadan uh passover and easter that you have an enjoyable and safe holiday and uh enjoy it with

131your family and friends and i remind everyone that our next meeting is um not in april our next meeting is may the 5th and that will be our final budget hearing as well so that's all i have for tonight thank you all right next we have a new business yeah i'd like to continue the discussion of uh abolishing the committee of a whole i don't know if any other um i know mr pirates had more things to say before he was um cut off from the um the other portion um so if you'd like to take the floor sure well i um miss beltran brought it up last time um i think one one reason why i hope we don't abolish the concept of the city of the committee of the whole and that we

132consider uh implementing that is i mean it's a it's a very time efficient way i think to address committee topics both for the administration and for the board it increases transparency to the public and provide some input during the public comments session um and it might rather than abolish maybe you need some revisions at this point as far as how it's conducted or when it's conducted or how we get there but i think it solves a bit of the concerns that were brought out last week as far as participation everyone basically participates in the committee of the hall the communication is i think improved in that regard uh still allows for discussions in executive session that aren't normally held in public um i think i'd like to i'd like to see us move in that

133direction if that's uh that's the will of the board but president smith if i may yes mr albert doesn't smith during our committee meeting what did you mention to us that um school boards mention mentioned to you when you asked them about going from committee to a hole yeah so while the board has the the right to do that they would not suggest ever doing that in mid-year that if the board decides to do that that should be something that is uh done at the beginning and not something that's done uh uh so that came from school boards yet so then can i i don't need it in writing that's that's just what they referred to me so in that case to cut this conversation you like it in writing we could you could ask

134school boards to send it right if i could finish please yes go ahead thank you so um i think to cut this short and so because we have executive session i know we have people waiting um then i would take off the abolishment off the table and revisit this again towards the end of the year in terms of if this board decides to go towards the whole committee of the hole since that's the recommendation from the school boards of not shifting in the middle of the annual year i think that would be a better suggestion that's my own personal opinion okay so they they pass the resolution to send that back right your table table that right so it'll go back to policy all right so policy can figure out from there okay thank you

135i'd um like to make a formal request to have it on the next agenda to let the board vote on it um i think the board is currently dysfunctional in the way the committees are operating so waiting the rest of the year is not going to be conducive to board business that's just my personal opinion i think we could put it to rest if we have a vote on it and the the board chooses to vote against it and we continue the path that we're currently on or the the board votes to change the committee format and then we can move forward in that direction okay anyone else yeah mr president just briefly on this as i mentioned before um i think we need to have a little fuller discussion about how we communicate there

136and i as i said in the last meeting there's pros and cons the community committee of the whole and so on and so forth and um i think we need to be did i i don't need to see the rush here because as you said the school board's recommended that we do this that when we commence our next full year we should have more of an honest discussion how we can better disseminate and communicate um there like i said there's pros and cons um a lot of the what i'm concerned about if you're only having a committee as the whole without committees information that's given to us by staff is is kind of compromised because then those individuals are kind of exposed and that's not our job to expose our employees that's under the control

137of the superintendent he's here to protect the employees and everything we do goes to and from through the superintendent so i think we do need an improvement in how we disseminate our information and get information so we're more informed but um if if we're bringing things to a vote let's spend some time and be honest and get a little bit more deliberate how how we're going to move forward on this because whether we vote this up or down is not going to solve the issue uh we need to think um more deliberatively about how we do this and again the president has certain powers and that's fine i'm not opposed to that but i think suggestions and input and how we can improve ourselves is more productive than voting things up and down at this

138point do you have any suggestions i will but i don't know i i yes i do have some suggestions but uh i want to give them a little bit of thought on my part before i share them and i'll be happy to share that with the whole board i do have some suggestions in mind but i just want to work some things out uh in my own head before i disseminate that information maybe we have a retreat that's focused on that that's good but let's all think of what we can do to improve it and so we can really have a solution here that we can all kind of buy into uh and that's that's what our goal should be here we should all need to buy into it and have it the most productive

139nothing is perfect we're not going to come up with a perfect solution but i think we need to put some effort into being how we can honestly be a little bit more deliberative and make a better make things a little bit better mr president yes ms pastor um case in point uh they had a liaison committee the people that are on that committee know what happened the rest of the board doesn't this is this is one of the things what i'm speaking about and um miss beltran spoke out mr paris spoke out that we're telling you have people in your in your group in your membership there's nine of us excluding administration is telling you that they're not being feeling included that's a red flag how do we make informed decisions based on information that

140we are not provided with if a board member doesn't have full access to all the information how is that fair how is that transparent how is that equal we talk about diversity in this community we don't even share the diversity and equality amongst board members so what examples are we setting as board members i'm in favor of committee whole because i'm always on the bottom end of the pecking order with getting information it's hard for me so i will be writing to school boards tomorrow i'll be writing to my field representative about moving committee the whole mid-year i will be writing to legal about that and i also will going to be petitioning and i would like to position this board before we move forward on appointing anybody to the this membership or changing that

141bylaw that we go down to the state and get an advisory opinion from the sec about adding laypersons onto the committee it doesn't cost any money they'll render a decision whether it's good or bad or they'll give you their their um decision based on ethics rules if it's doable or if we're treading on um dangerous waters so that would be my suggestion is to write for an uh ethics opinion i mean advisory opinion from the sec and um that's what i was going to try to get to before but we changed this discussion to new business mr president yes so i'm kind of on the fence here because i can see the point about you know everybody being in the same meeting at the same time getting the same information all at once um but

142on the other side i could also see how uh when we meet in subcommittees our administration is meeting with us and they're very candid candid about certain situations like i want to try this and see how this works and you know they may not say those types of things in public because they're feared that they're going to get some backlash on some new program they're trying to do or they're supporting or something um so i'm i'm kind of in the middle here i don't i don't really know which way i want to go if i can get some more factual information on that as you said pros and cons what are the pros and what are the cons in these situations like those are two that i could think of immediately off the top of

143my head but i don't know what other areas there are that it would be supplementary to to one or the other or negative to one or the other so in that case mr president if i may um so we're gonna kind of limit to one one everyone gets the comment on it once no this is just more of an advisory to everybody but when our next policy meeting is uh and the structure so our next policy is our policy meeting is set now every month the second monday of the month and to what mr daley and mr conover is saying if everybody can um email the president myself and dr robert tosie on their pros and cons and then we at the committee can go through everybody's pros and cons and make a list and

144take a look at it and then come back to the board and even if you any way to tailor it um well you know the committee should consider it and dr robert susie um what was the turnaround from when you called a policy meeting to when we had it oh that was the the problem with the with the minutes and then reason why the board didn't get the agenda in advance because i think we had about two hours notice from the time we realized we were gonna that we needed a policy committee meeting so you could so just i'm asking so you called it was about two hours okay thank you and i called it because i wanted to make sure um the board requested that the policy committee discussed this policy before tonight and

145i wanted to make sure that we could do it was really the only time that was available and did i did i not say to you we're gonna have a problem because some board members have an issue because they didn't get the agenda prior to hand you did thank you all right so if everyone would email the chair um can we put someone else on that committee since there's only two members sorry would it be possible to assign someone else to that committee since there's only two members represented there's only two yeah but the president doesn't count as the miss password right yeah so if she's opted out can we replace her i i'm not i'll take a look if you could consider it since there are vacancies open on committees she she did ask

146she did state recently that she would be go on any committee that i asked her to be on so i'm sure she would come back to it all right so please in the meantime uh send uh the chair uh and copy myself and dr robitosi your concerns your suggestions um so that policy can review this and bring it back to the full board at the next meeting and as a reminder it's the second monday of every month second monday something on the new business uh mr dubois brought up the fact is that they don't have an italian american club um through you mr president to the administration we do have a italian-american organization in clifton maybe you could reach out to them maybe one of their uh folk would like to spearhead an organization like

147that that would be a nice gesture because they'd love to do service above self yeah no of course to clarify we do have a club we don't have an advisor uh we had difficulty finding an advisor and that's typically a has to be a classroom teacher so you're um it has to be because of insurance reasons right so maybe if you put it out there maybe people will know maybe somebody else will step up because we have a lot of accountability told me that he's personally working on that because uh mr dubois did reach out to mr hamdan myself and so just ask another question so if the teacher if the teacher sorry if the teacher is not a high school teacher can that be extended to the lower levels middle school and elementary for

148them to be a high school advisor yes i'll do the lower levels or for logistical reasons we try to keep it a high school teacher but it could be extended to any teacher in the district so let me ask you a question just going piggybacking on that so my understanding you can be a teacher in another district and coach a sport right that's my understanding because we have one in basketball can that similar thing happen in terms of being an advisor as long as the board approves it as long it so technically you should really only be hiring an outside person when you can't find a current employee to do it and that's where i'm going with that if principal honda can't find somebody if if we so correct what you're asking is if we

149can't find anybody could we hire a teacher from outside yes as long as it's on an agenda recommended by me and board approved not an issue now my next question is in terms of outside um coaches and outside personnel i gotta double check but do we have to open up the policy a little bit on that on that in order to put in the advisor like a background check process these protocols i think that's already part of all of our policies what i'm saying should we revisit to make sure certainly take a look at it yeah that's what i'm saying yeah i know there is one already but i believe we are okay it doesn't hurt to ever take a second look for sure mr president just on a different topic last meeting was mentioned

150that we might possibly have a another meeting to discuss some budget issues whether we have the meeting or not one request i would have is an understanding dr robertosi presented that there was a the budget that was presented by administration and the one that was presented to us and the binders is quite different and especially and i think the rest of the board members would be interested in knowing what especially student-facing positions things like counselors interventional or classroom instruction special ed what student facing costs or positions were in the initial proposal and and is not in the in this proposal that we have currently kind of you know to make an informed decision on the budget i think it's important to know um what we are giving up so to speak uh so that's my

151request if there's a way to summarize that in some way um it would be very helpful i think in in making decisions on the budget what happened to you tonight about the sex ed uh are we gonna get a presentation on that so we can show the students because um twice in last meeting in this meeting the gentleman said when a man teaches my daughter i i remember very thoroughly that when my children grew up in the clifton public school system my son had a male uh sex ed teacher and then my daughter would have a female sex ed teacher um when did we change that or is that still the practice that we make sure it's delivered with care well yes it is still the practice we deliver with care it is not the

152practice that must be a male teacher or a female teacher um so and and to your first question mrs bassford yes um there are two online zoom workshops for parents and the community and they're online so we could have hundreds of people there that are being run by rutgers um regarding the standards and then we will also have a presentation for the board before you have to make any decision on a on adopting anything can the board members be invited to that presentation as well can we get a um invitation do you know those dates please because it would be yeah i think i ate it okay i have something else befo while she's uh i'll give her this five-minute jeopardy uh song um is this going through a citizen's advisory committee is that how

153you're doing this thing with rutgers is it did you form any kind of committee no no this is this is so let me explain this the best way i can so typically i would form a committee and i don't mean this to come out the wrong way if we had a choice in the matter right what we have a choice in we don't have a choice in following the state standards what we do have a choice in is the way our teachers teach to those standards right um which is certainly completely under our control but as far as the board adopting these standards and adopting curriculum not much leeway we have there so as far as a committee to gain input i think it's best for our parents in our community to hear from the

154experts first about what this really is because there is unfortunately doesn't surprise you a lot of misinformation on facebook and social media about what the standards actually are and what they mean so i think it would be best first to have those professionals give those workshops present to the board and then we can get feedback from what our community actually heard is going to happen i spoke about this personally that you have an outstanding male teacher in the high school and it was relayed to me by several of the young gentlemen that hang out with my son they wish that that curriculum was delivered at an earlier age because it would have prevented a lot of mishaps to them and it was done appropriately it was done with care and uh it was should have

155been delivered earlier that that's the one thing that i i couldn't stress more and he's a great teacher so um i hope that um your tea i'm sure you have a core committee that's working on this as well about how it's going to be delivered yes i'd defer to my curriculum expert so as was brought up at the last meeting these standards are going to be implemented in a developmentally and age appropriate manner our own clifton teachers are the ones who are working on developing exactly how all of these lessons will be delivered lessons will definitely be delivered as you said commissioner with care and in a developmentally appropriate manner i know that there are some controversies but i think we do need to hear from rutgers rutgers was contracted by the department of education

156to develop some of this work um at the same time as dr robert jose said we can impact how we teach these lessons um there will be two virtual presentations on may 19th and may 24th but our teachers are actually working on this curriculum throughout the summer they're going to be working later in the spring and in the summer because our teachers also need to learn the standards before they can then take those standards and develop the lessons to be appropriate for our students and and the other question i have is going to be delivered in in uh uh esl programs and also how are you going to handle the um the more impacted students the special needs students how is because it has to be delivered to them as well so i'm sure you're

157going to have to have team special ed involved in that as well to see if it's how they can handle it uh yes and no because all of our curriculum guides do have modifications already built into them for esl and special education students so depending on a student's programming the modifications that are in their iep would impact how they would receive those lessons but this is all done within the health the normal regular health and education class question i'm sorry the other question that i have is uh um i just went blank i just had alan i just had a senior moment like before um will will we be uh opt out can you explain that so people understand um there is an opt-out there will be an opt-out letter this is a letter that

158goes out we're following a state template which indicates which of these lessons on these topics families can opt out from uh parents will be notified when these will be taking place the letter will be going out at the beginning of the school year and parents will be able to opt out of these lessons could you send us a link to the state standards we're discussing here because i i only saw the 2014 ones i like to read through them different subject i mentioned about an advisory opinion do i have to make a motion to get the board to send down an advisory opinion about future behaviors of adding a layperson into committees do i have to make a motion i would thank you okay so i make a motion that we um charge the board

159attorney to write a request for an advisory opinion to this new jersey school ethics committee to find out um the implications of or the the if we're allowed to and what would the side effects be or the the ramifications of adding a lay person from the community appointing them to the committee structure um that's my promotion bye second motion in a second discussion i don't have any problem with anybody asking for an advisory opinion roll call please mr abu drabo he stepped away mr awad yes miss bassford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr paris yes vice president daley yes president smith yes motion carries all right we have um executive session we have mr president i had one more thing in the business sorry um if there was anything zero one six seven

160we talked about a little bit before and i just want to bring it up again here now uh we're removing inside of that we're removing the ability for uh people to call in by saying that they have to show themselves on the screen and i think when we discussed last time we talked about how somebody who's elderly who may not have access to a computer or smartphone or someone who may have some sort of disability it's easier for them to use their phone to call in and how on the city side they've they've used call in before and they had participation there and even just tonight we had someone call him so i just want to have a healthy discussion on why we're removing the video portion uh wait is one six seven is that

161on first policy first reading it is open discussion will come next week when we when next meeting when we vote upon it okay yeah first reading is just a posting i always thought that the first reading was to in order to that would discuss it let them bring any issues back to policy and then they re we do it again for the second one i didn't i didn't i'm not aware of that right we have something on first reading policy with the first reading you can't have a discussion if that was that yeah if that was the question yeah there could be a discussion okay on the first reading i know that's what we were told last time yeah so so for discussion we even had some of the discussion last time where we said

162that we wanted i i think the consensus was we wanted people to call in so then when we took it back to committee they removed that option so i'm just curious as to why and we said that we had some advisory opinion from our our lawyer that attended the meeting so i'm just curious what that opinion was and it was based on if anybody can recall i'm not sure if we could um you know again i know jim daly doesn't want to have like votes on everything but if we could bring it to a vote so that we could decide if we wanted to have it because i think we already voted on this before for allowing collins with phone i remember voting on it and then it went to policy and then policy removed

163it so i don't know if we could vote again and then i guess we'd go back to policy again but oh last last meeting it was tabled no no it wasn't last minute it was like way back when we first wrote the policy like i'm talking maybe like meaning it was table to five months ago like literally yeah we were in the high school um and we had this discussion about allowing phone calls not allowing phone calls allowing video not allowing this in general we had many meetings discussing this um so i think the the main issue that we're having now is if we're gonna allow phone calls to continue calling in and i think today we was our first phone caller and it went well yeah i don't i didn't see any you know

164yeah well i'm saying that we've haven't had an incident so that's i keep saying this but like i think we should wait until we have a reason to change what we already voted on that's my opinion you're asking for a vote on the first reading of policy i'm not going to allow it no you're the first reading they're changing a policy so i'm asking for a vote to see if we agreed to change the policy because we don't i mean i don't personally agree and i know other board members don't agree no then you're superseding the first reading of policy because you're going to be a waste of time but we can do that we can have it come in the first reason i'm just saying you're superseding why have first reading a policy well

165last time we were told we weren't allowed to discuss doing this i know that's what we were told so so we should ask always my name's that's why you have a first reading so the people can get their ideas and bring it back and forth and policy it goes back you shouldn't wait to the second one the second one should be where yeah so i guess we bring it back to first reading again well no next next meeting will be second reading i know some so are you sending it back to committee or not i thought it was table before we go back to committee is there a motion to take on me i think there was an actual vote to table that no no my point was not just as a superintendent i want

166to tell you about to respectfully tell the board that you've sent it back to the same committee already once it's come back the same way to send it back to that committee again is excuse me a waste of everyone's time i see your options as discussing it tonight and coming to an agreement and voting on some change that you all agree on or just letting it go to second reading and voting it voting yes or no after it gets shot down or not then it would go back to the committee again when we start all over again so that's why i was thinking if we had like either way we're not good good yeah absolutely i make a motion to say oh 167 to go back to its original language i'll second it i'll see

167how you can do that on the first reading of policy nope find out i mean the first reading so then right for when you come to the next meeting if you're gonna vote to approve or not approve the second reading yeah saying you're supposed to be first reading so that if i'm understanding to the attorney mr president so yes or no next meeting on this then you can motion because it'll go back to the original anyway it'll revert back to the original right if it's not so correct that's so let's just let the process hang let's go through the process that's it yeah i know we've done it in the past where we've changed the language on the fly that one time with jim daly again i'm sorry you tend to make speeches on second

168readings out when you're voting no it just it just i remember it happening recently with some policy i don't remember what policy it was yeah something all right so we'll get a clarification from their lease um and without but either way it's coming back second reading next meeting so so what let's go back to your first reading of policy first let's go what else was on first reading a policy tonight so you had zero one six seven two four two three and zero one five five all right so that's been through committee that's the recommendation it'll be back on the resolution next week as second reading of policy at that time the board can make a motion to approve it or deny it if it's denied it goes back to its original form anyway okay

169you all good on that but i had one question yep just for clarification because now now for my own edification i understand when we had a policy where we wanted to limit the discussion of board members and we changed it from five minutes to three minutes um we did that we did that on the fly it wasn't a second reading no it was definitely went to policy it was a policy but when it came out i remember i remember mr casper specifically said i was against it and then we took the consensus of the larger board whether or not i didn't even need to move forward or make the change and and we did it all there at once but now here we're we're saying it has to go to second policy so it is

170what it is i'm just trying to understand from my own edification mine too the decorum you have to you have two readings of policy i'm i was instructed at first reading a policy is the recommendation from the committee because two one two four two three is is um mandated so so that last meeting when we did that all on the fly that that wasn't supposed to happen so this is the way it's supposed to happen so i know i don't remember that as happening that way so i don't remember that happening but again until we get further clarification on that you have a first reading and policy on here tonight so can i make a real suggestion over here yep can you speak to legal and find out what the real answer is appreciate it

171yeah i will have her address everybody is first reading policy mandated or is that this boards in my experience most boards have two readings of policy however the board can vote to suspend that policy and pass the policy tonight the board could also agree that they want to change the language tonight for a second reading but you'd have to agree you'd have to have a majority vote and i love you guys but you don't vote on anything you we're taught everybody's talking in circles how can you vote on something that is listed as first reading of policy so you're so first you have to vote vote on that mr smith what i'm saying is they could vote they could make a motion to vote to change the language and then if a majority of the

172board says yes then you can do that oh okay i mean unless our board attorney tells me that that we're wrong i think that can yeah i mean i agree with that in terms of right the second emotion like if there's going to be a suggested alternative language and then that would be correct in the first reading of that policy correct and then the second reading would be what the board voted on tonight as the change correct okay what's that all right so there's a motion in a second to go back to the what was the motion original language roll call but that's i'm sorry that's i don't think that's an appropriate notion i'm not i'm not the robert's rules of order i'm saying if you can make a motion to add language or change

173so take the first reading and edit it reverting it for example supersede the first minute everybody agreed that okay i have a different one i have a different emotion i'm i'm going to strike my original motion i make a motion to strike the new the new language in 167 and go back to its original form that's the same thing it's the only way to do it it's the same thing it's the same length okay okay so we have a board attorney here so give us some direction we want to change the language back to the original no but if the suggestion is then to not to have the first reading and then if there's gonna be a vote on whether or not the proposed amended language should pass that would then come up at the

174next meeting for the second reason we are correct we're changing words but we're running it down next week that's it that's it i just want to know what's right well no well the thought was that if there's going to be some changes to the proposed language or another revision to the policy if the question is whether or not it should be approved as modified by the committee then that would be this is the first reading and then that would be the second reading whether it be voted yay or nay but if you're talking about now modifying the language not necessarily going back to the original language but adding some modifications to it can you pull an item in its first reading or no i'm sorry can you pull an item in its first reading okay

175i will make a motion to eliminate the verbiage that says end providing the person's face is visible during their address to the board as a modification i am modifying the existing i'll second mr uh uh motion i think the what we want to have happen here is to decide if we're going to let people call in or not that is the the crux of this you know i'm personally a fan of the phone call i think it works fine we haven't had an incident um other board members might feel differently that they're afraid of the what if so what could happen but i live in the present and i see that there's been no issue there was nothing about calling wasn't an issue about calling in was it yeah that's that's you're eliminating you're limiting

176the ability to use the phone that if they're not going to show their face they cannot use the ability to call in was showing their face right yeah so they can't call in zoom is calling in correct yeah they cannot use it like a landline to call a lot of people do a lot of older people do so that's basically what i feel like we need to do so last meetings it was table to policy policy heard it made a new policy brought it to first reading tonight now they want to supersede that process and make their own process it's hard to throw you into the bus but mr president if i may listen if if i'm understanding what the discussion is here there there was we had the ability to the citizens had the

177ability to call in uh there was always a discussion well could somebody call in and come in here and sit in a meeting well i i don't think that's a that's an issue at this particular point in time so the committee recommended that we eliminate that um i don't particularly agree with that i don't see the problem if there is a problem we'll go to uh change the policy but this is new we haven't had an issue i don't see the problem that we can't allow people to call in uh like somebody that doesn't have the technology of using a laptop or something to do a zoom or whatever they however they contact us i don't see the problem there if we do have a problem it's easy to address i mean if we have

178people that we think are out in the car calling on their cell phone and they're running in the building you know if we detect that that's an issue right now this is in its infancy uh where it's and everything we you do in life is an experiment to a certain extent so at this point in time i don't see the issue that people can't call in mr dale i'm not disputing one way or the other on that all i'm saying is as the chair of this meeting i have a first reading of policy in front of me if you're superseding that then let's do away with first readings of policy and just go to your second reading to approve it why are we i don't understand this you've always abided by presenting the policy from

179committee to the bird on first reading second reading you voted on it now you're changing that i i just well you we could still vote on next time i'm not going to support i don't care which way you want to you know i understand what i'm saying yeah i understand it because that was when i was here i was always told there's two readings of policy first the second the fact that it's out there and if the committee makes a recommendation if people voice it i'm not really for this if you want to wait to the next meeting to to vote it down that's the way the process is it's fine i'm just expressing my particular view of where it would end up in my in my head all right so let's do this if

180it's okay with everybody i will get a clarification from their lease on doing away with first reading policy number one and number two the worst case scenario is it's coming back to the board under that policy and you don't vote it you don't vote it in i i just don't understand why there's two readings of policy that bylaws speak to two readings of policy it's it's legisl it's parliamentary i believe you know but you're you're trying to supersede it no but the reason the reason for the first reading of policy is for discussion purposes is for the the committee of nine to come together and find out we like this we don't like this we want to add this we want to tweak this and then you send it back to the policy committee for

181them to to work the language in uh i don't like the fact is that you're stating that you know the floor is gray when it's really blue and you change that you bring that back to policy and they put the actual wording in and it brings it back for the second reading that's what it's that's how it's supposed to anybody ever watch mr mom when he says you're doing it wrong we've been doing it wrong well we may be this year number one but last meeting it was table to policy so policy did what the board asked them to do they discussed it and now they're making a recommendation and first reading of policy to me if you're telling me it's mandated i'm gonna i'm not i'm not disputing what you're saying i'm just saying

182it's pretty stupid so how could i read it so if we never like let's say policy comes out with a crazy idea you know something crazy like all the girls have to come through the left door and policy says okay that's law we're just supposed to let that read well there is mandated bylaws yes so this is that's like a dictatorship that we're creating here by policy committee the state the state mandates many of these policies on us we have no i understand saying this is one that's being invented by the like the committee and we keep not agreeing with what the committee is inventing so eventually it has to not go through the committee has to go to the board as a whole yeah well last meeting my notes as a board as a

183whole it was table to go to policy okay so policy date and the board right it's not agreeing with what the policy did yes but it's only the first reading of policy our bylaws state you have to have two readings of policy so you're turning something down that hasn't even gone to the vote yet because i don't know we have emotional on the floor we didn't even vote on the motion no i'm just i'm i'm ruling the motion out of order because you have first reading of policy you're voting on something that's on their first reading of policy well he's amending it to take out what the first reading says i amended it based on the attorneys mentioned that we sh we could have emotion made on a revision to what's in front of us

184and i proposed revision to that opinion from the attorney and what i could do is i'm gonna feel like i could just get clarification from miss gutierrez because if there was some you know prior advice obviously we'd want some consistency this conflict in the advice is honest and now i'm just like i offered to my fasting all day but yeah i lost me like 20 minutes ago and i'm trying to catch up no i feel like we're running in circles it's you it's just you um so based on so based on no consistency with legal meaning ms gutierrez not here tonight can we all please just say that we'll talk about this next week and if has to go back back to policy we'll go back to policy no it wouldn't go to policy or

185get voted just voted down let's let the process hold and then where does it go that's the question no it's going to come on second reading next meeting then it just goes back and it dies we're not going back to policy again well you're right any board has a right to do that but the superintendent is asking you please don't do that yeah anyway you pass a policy this year and then the board comes in next year and changes that policy that's the right of the board i i can't you can't state that a board can only approve a policy for so long right am i correct on that right if a new board comes in next year they could change this policy correct so what happens to the motion on the floor there's no

186motion happening because it ain't going anywhere apparently i say call the question for the motion on the floor i'm just ruling it out of order if you want to uh rule overrule me it's two-third tell me what's the motion seconded yes i'm following robert's rules as first reading a policy that they're voting on first reading a policy is not voted upon i don't care which way it's done but if it's done this way it's going to be this way forever so until we have an answer i'm ruling it out of order so through you mr president to the board attorney can we have an explanation on when a motion is allowed to be moved out of order by one person as the chairman of the meeting i'm following robert's rules yes and again i can

187try to see clarification from his goodyear's that way the issue could be resolved that way in terms of the consistent but how about that i want to answer about emotion because this could get some serious stuff going later on when we motion sleep is one person allowed to limit emotion out of order i always thought that most of its first second discuss and voted on it that nobody has a right to pull the motion because it's from the pleasure of the floor not under first reading of policy first media policy is never voted upon ever first reading a policy i disagree i guess motion to go to executive all right now let's what are we going to do okay fine no let's let's vote on the motion and if it comes back that it was

188wrong then we'll supersede it we'll suspend it i don't know what else to tell you if you want to wait for legal advice we'll wait for legal advice if you don't want to wait for legal advice i'll i'll let the motion go through if you give me a couple moments let me see if i could get in contact with me to get my security here's miss obviously that will answer the question about whether the motion okay all right so we have a motion on the floor in a second any further discussion the motion that mr paris brought up to change first policy mr awad no miss basford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr paris yes vice president daley yes president smith no motion carries five to three okay we're going to executive session

189to hear from our um our special ed attorney um no action will be taken so we will uh we will adjourn from executive session [Music] why is she she has a conflict happy ramadan sir sorry i couldn't hear you i'm sorry oh thank you you