001is oh is yes uh um foreign uh board members if you take your seat we like to open you can take as much as you want [Music] oh uh thank you okay we're just waiting for the cable connection and we'll begin that's all right okay is um oh um i like to call the meeting to order of the regular meeting of the clifton board of education for december the 9th 2021 if you'd all please rise for a suit to our flag and a brief moment of silence i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you roll call please mr abedrabo here mr awad miss bassford miss beltran here mr canova here mr
002daley here dr danny here vice president casper here and president here we have a quorum is it on now mr mcconney could do somebody look at miss basford's microphone when you get a chance thank you mission statement uh mr vice president casper the mission of the clifton school district in an open and reciprocal community partnership is to provide all students with a quality education to 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
003accordance with the provisions of this act the clifton board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be publicized by having the date time and place thereof posted at the city clerk's office clifton public library administration building senior citizen nutrition center on cable tv in the local press on the district's website and mailed to presidents of parent teacher organizations this meeting will be tape recorded in accordance with policy zero one six eight i remind everyone of the mass policy while in the building we ask that you please have a mask on if you are coming up to the microphone to speak you could lower your mask as well as board members if you're speaking to lower your mask if you show if you desire to do so tonight is a um mr vice president
004casper's uh last meeting here on the board of education so uh for part of this meeting i will relinquish the chair to uh mr casper to uh be the presider over the meeting and then i'll take over uh toward the end so mr casper if you could start with number seven and please address mr casper as the chair thank you very much mr president we are going to go on to number seven recognition and award presentations for the clifton high school december students of the month uh mrs baspet are you first okay who's first mr daley go ahead thank you mr casper i'd like to read the recognition for freshman aaron hatcher congratulations to aaron hatcher on being chosen as freshman student of the month aaron thanks his parents for inspiring him to be successful
005student he also thanks mr holland for having the greatest impact on his freshman experience so far she pushes him to be a better student through the hard work and effort aaron's favorite subject is biology and he is thinking about pursuing a field in science when he is older aaron [Applause] you got spotlight hey danny and who else well then he shouldn't do well in school especially in the first semester [Applause] all right uh up next is our sophomore mrs basford yes thank you this award goes to sophomore haroon hamdin congratulations to harun handen on being chosen as the sophomore student of the month herron science teacher mrs o'callaghan has been very influential to him because her teaching skills are phenomenal and she keeps him and the entire class engaged her room has improved his grades
006this year partially due to his friend omar who encourages them to study in the future her room is interested in taking advantage of clifton high school's college options right now he enjoys studying in the media center improving his grades and going to the weight room the certificate of achievement is given to her room m hampden on behalf of the clifton board of education administration for the chs sophomore student of the month december 2021 with sincere congratulations on your meritorious achievement with recognition of the resolution of the board of education the desire to excel is the formula to a lifetime of success your efforts have brought distinction to you your family and the clifton public schools signed a president of the board of education jim smith and superintendent of schools danny a robertazi [Applause] okay next
007up we have the junior all right i'm a little more embarrassing gabriella would you step up a little bit gabriella junior gabriella wilshere congrats to gabrielle lagos jack i'm being chosen as a junior student of the month gabrielle's favorite subject is biology she finds it fascinating to learn about the world around us and how everything is interconnected gabriella has been a violinist in the clifton high school orchestra for three years and she competes for the academic decathlon and loves playing on the girl's soccer team at chs her mom inspires her the most because she is kind intelligent and determined congratulations [Applause] hmm thank you congratulations [Applause] okay go ahead mrs miss danny last but not least is our senior student of the month senior miguel garcia congratulations to miguel garcia on being chosen as senior
008student of the month miguel transferred to clifton high school last year and during his junior year one of his biggest challenges was integrating into in-person learning for a senior year but he is proud to say that he has overcome his challenge and is now very comfortable with the school environment at clifton high school his future aspirations include going to college in order to study and major in computer engineering miguel credits his english teacher miss cuzio for helping him through some major parts of the college process aiding his goals in becoming a first generation college student congratulations miguel garcia okay um thank you university [Applause] for those of you just uh awarded a certificate this evening you have a chance that you don't have to stay during the whole meeting so um if you'd like to
009take a moment to uh leave otherwise you may stay if you like thank you [Applause] okay next up we are going to have recognition and award presentations uh miss paula raguzzo rygoza is going to do a presentation on our pbsis thank you it's louder than i thought good evening everyone [Music] president smith dr rotozi commissioners of the board central administration thank you for the opportunity to showcase yet another amazing school in our district that is currently implementing the pbs is framework tonight we're showcasing school 11 where being rare is part of being the heart of the community being rare at school 11 means that student staff and parents are respectful attentive responsible and enthusiastic so we've been talking about what pbis is you've seen a lot of the recognition but what you also have seen
010is the instructional pieces that go along with it which is the key component of the framework and school 11 certainly excels at it periodically throughout the year students get instruction on the expectations in the building right particular lesson plans are are designed by the rare team at school 11 and they're grade specific so that we're hitting off the developmental stages once they roll out their lessons as always they model for students the expectations and they reward through their rare points what this does for students and staff as mentioned in previous presentations is it's building that bond it's building those relationships that help promote those pro-social behaviors in the building and in our community finally students are assessed on the knowledge that they acquire throughout these lessons so let's take a look at some of their
011samples from school 11. school 11 has visual anchors or their posters that are specific they're location specific and staff often refer to them throughout the daily routine to remind students of what those expectations are as you'll note the team the the their location specific posters were designed in collaboration with student feedback through surveys and staff feedback so that's how you see the specific expectations by locations along with pictures to help aid all learners in this school 11 community what you see here is every single step of the way the rare team designs whether it's a presentation or a video they create the resources to help students understand what they're being asked and most often they use students themselves to help carry that message i want to play you oh these videos are helpful for beginning
012middle end of year or midway year instruction they're also helpful for new students to the community so when school 11 gets a new student they get to see the videos and know what the expectations are and they feel prepared to succeed this is one example what we see next is how students are assessed and or different ways that the that the rare team has provided for their staff to see what the students are understanding so drawings jam boards google forms are presented to students and most often they use things or pictures or videos that are relatable for the great bands so um peop uh interesting youtube characters or amazing youtube characters like the kid president or good old elmo make appearances in the delivery of the lessons as stated before i love this video they
013actually the rare team has the students as they've gone through the years they have a bunch of great videos but they've incorporated students just teaching the lesson all throughout so i do want to show you what that looks like hi my name is adriana and my name is nico and we want to talk to you about being respectful when you are respectful you are polite kind and treat others the way you want to be treated students at school 11 can be respectful whether they are leading from home or living ritually here are some ways that you can be respectful you can listen when someone is talking you can follow directions the first time you are asked and you can keep your cameras on during class when you are respectful you might even earn a rare
014dojo plate click on the google form to show how much you know about being rare at school 11 we are respectful the code number on the google form is 11. this was so amazing to see the kids get totally bought into it especially seeing their peers present to them what is expected it's amazing but the fun doesn't stop there so in order to instruct the students staff in the building have to be aware of what's happening so the rare team does an amazing job at turnkeying the information whether it's during a staff meeting or creating google slide presentations or having google drop-in sessions to ask additional questions the staff at school 11 feel prepared to promote these instructional events during the year so you see here the as mentioned at the top of the presentation
015the rare team designs these lesson plans gives them out and then along the way every time that something new comes up there's clear instruction for staff in the building what i want to point out is the um slide the the slide pasted in the corner in the right hand side corner what you see there is one of a non-rare team member a staff member out at school 11 went out of their way to create their own because they were so excited about all of the things that were happening and all the instruction that was provided that staff member wanted to make it particular for their class not only their grade but their class so that showed great buy-in school 11 believes that the fam that family support is key to the success of their framework
016and this is why they work in collaboration with the community family members parents guardians through various modalities the first thing they do is they make sure they have a pbis or a rare table at all of their back to school events of their hsa communications they they're they're working closely with the hsa to make sure that that that that flow of communication is happening what you see in front of you is the school 11 brochure and it talks to parents about what being rare at school 11 is school 11 has a parent manual for their pbis or rare framework which clearly and detailed walks the parent on the expectations the proactive strategies and how their reinforcement system works here is a a wonderful event that just took place with the hsa collaboration with the hsa
017on movie night as you all know we are very fortunate to have a district-wide movie licensing and the hsa and the school took advantage of this and made this a wonderful community event i thank you all so much for giving the opportunity for school 11's rare team and rare framework shine i would like to take this moment dr robertosi president smith vice president mr casper if we can kindly um uh present school 11 rares team with their certificate of recognition thank you so much from the bottom of my heart and our hearts [Applause] so miss laura to now [Applause] miss amanda rhodes thank you dr ronnie estrict principal of school 11. miss melinda de chalice [Applause] congratulations thank you thank you uh miss sam segda [Applause] thank you congratulations ms gina matano [Applause] congratulations and
018last but certainly not least ms sarah haycock post sorry absolutely um come on guys okay [Applause] the microphone you know i'm getting there all right our next topic is adoption of minutes so i'm going to need a motion please to second approve the minutes from november 19th on november 18th so i had a first from mr abadrabo and second from dr danny any discussion all right roll call please mr abadrabo yes ms fastford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes dr danny yes vice president casper yes president smith yes motion's carried okay up next we have dr robert robertosi with the superintendent's report thank you mr casper just give me one second good evening chairman casper mr president smith commissioners central administration community members parents guardians faculty and staff um i love
019recognizing staff and students that's just reinvigorating right that's that's the only reason why we're here right none of us exist if not for kids and staff so i love that i love starting off a meeting that way i'd like to update the board on as i mentioned previously had last several board meetings i'll be updating the board of education at least once a month on our referendum projects as you all know at our last board meeting the board appointed a construction management company called epic and right now the contract is complete our attorney is reviewing that contract once our attorney signs off and says that's uh it's good to go epic will begin their work once they're on board they will begin to attend our design meetings with our engineers and they'll be on site
020every day a team of eight people we have completed the walkthroughs for all schools for new pa systems and emergency notification projects we expect a quote from a state vendor very soon so we can get started on that decisions have been made on the baseball field at woodrow wilson middle school as per the recommendation of our engineers and architects the field will be flipped there will be a field house and the soccer field that will also be there will be bigger than the minimum size needed to have a regulation soccer game and that was a concern that some members of the community had uh our field engineers have completed about 50 percent of the documents on the rest of our projects we're awaiting a final coordination with our environmental consultant big part of this of
021any project in a school district is you have to worry about asbestos so um by the end of next week we'll be able to provide the board with a set of progress drawings which will show the scope of work at each school and how much if any uh asbestos abatement will need to take place on certain projects our security cameras we've completed walk throughs at ccms woodrow wilson middle school and clifton high school the big three what we like to call and that's for our security camera and our door access projects we held the final design meeting and received quotes uh from companies uh a cooperative company which means we do not have to competitively quote which is great and makes life easier for everyone we hope to begin that work really very very soon
022and even though it's only those three buildings to start it's important to note that all of the elementary servers and recorders are included in that project because that's where they'll be based they'll be housed at chs and the administration building we'll be conducting walkthroughs in the elementary schools in the coming weeks and i'm just real happy to see the vision start to take fruition start to come to fruition the public probably won't see anything noticeable until the springtime but there's a lot of things going on in the background now some some good news and some fun things from our schools like to congratulate the woodrow wilson middle school student council who along with their peers raised two thousand four hundred dollars for families in need students purchased feathers to decorate their grade level turkeys and
023the fundraiser was so successful that the students earned a pajama pant day right before the thanksgiving break so congratulations to those students that's a really fun idea speaking of fundraising i am eternally thankful to all the members of the community all the board of education members and faculty and staff who participated or attended the first annual clifton public school district versus the harlem wizards fundraiser basketball game which the the purpose was to raise funds for the superintendent's scholarship fund we really had everyone i talked to had an amazing time kids were so happy they were getting autographs from the players and the players were so friendly and so exciting and it was it was really really a great time it was so much better than i could possibly have anticipated thank you to the faculty
024and staff who volunteered to be on my basketball team i was the coach i don't know anything about basketball but i like to think i'm a good motivator and although we didn't win i don't think it could be blamed on the coach it wasn't it definitely wasn't the coaching thankful to say we raised four thousand eight hundred dollars in that one night for the superintendent scholarship fund so thank you all to uh who came out participate got a lot of things tonight guys but you know a lot of good things so please allow me the time i want to congratulate school one who continues to successfully implement the pbsis program as everyone knows this is a huge district initiative we showcase a school every month school one continues to do a great job with it
025and this month they're doing monthly teacher awards who catch a teacher doing something nice and i specifically like to recognize a student by the name of maya wiggins who is a second grade student in mrs rhino's class who worked with her mother to organize a coat drive she's a young lady that saw a need in our community as a second grader had the leadership skills to organize this along with her mom to make a positive difference in our community so congratulations to maya at some point in the future i think we're going to invite you to a board of education meeting and recognize you we're doing so many great things that school 4 this month school 4 conducted a toiletry drive for the women's safe house of clifton school for students and their families generously
026contributed personal care items to help others in our community and uh also at school four we have a basketball star i don't know mr casper were you part of the elks uh basketball competition so congratulations to camilla antonori in mr zeiden's fourth grade class who came in first place in the clifton elks club basketball shoot competition way to go camilla what'd she get for that mr casper cash i'm just kidding at school five the students had their traditional thanksgiving feast last month and it was in it was provided in recognition of their hard work organizing and supporting the thanksgiving food drive for saint peter's haven i know our board members and most of our community are aware but if you're not aware of the great work that saint peter's haven does to to help support
027the the hungry in our community and our surrounding areas and and school five really took great pride in making school-wide announcements visiting the k-4 classes to discuss the importance of giving back to the community and organizing the food for pickup so thank you to school five and thank you to all the community members who contributed to that school nine hosted a fabulous stem night where the clifton high school robotics team joined the fun with their photo booth and their dodge ball robot i don't think we're allowed to play dodge ball in school anymore i was always the kid who got hit and got knocked down first but i guess this is a robot so it's cool students in grades three through five participated in math activities throughout the night and ended the night walking the
028plank like a pirate so it was a great night for students and staff and some more fundraising school 15 students have done an outstanding job participating in the raise craze fundraiser it's a pbsis fundraiser and it has students focused on completing acts of kindness and i just love that to date they have completed over 150 acts of kindness and they've raised over fifteen hundred dollars and i know they're all really excited to win the ultimate prize the grand prize is they get to slime a staff member so that's pretty cool hence the reason why they're so motivated i would presume um and those are all great things and so on to a couple um more serious things that i'd like to update the board on and the community tonight on the agenda i have recommended
029to the board of education that we substantially increase the rate for substitute teachers custodians secretaries in our district we are struggling our teachers are struggling with a lack of coverage so that a teacher who gets maybe one break a day is oftentimes forced to give that up to cover an absent teacher's class because we can't get people to work for we just raised it a couple months ago to 125 and 135 a day so as a temporary measure to show our teachers that we're trying our best and that this board is trying to help you i believe the board the board will vote tonight to improve an increase for substitute teachers to 240 dollars a day for the county substitute certificate and 250 a day for the njdoe certificate this is a temporary measure through
030may 1st the reason why it's a temporary measure is for two reasons one we want to see if it works if it works we can extend it we can put another resolution on and extend it if it doesn't work we can stop it may 1st uh and then the second reason is it this is going to be paid for out of some of the coveted funding the additional coveted funding that we've received from the state and the federal government so depending on how long we have that and other budget priorities we're going to do our best but i hope our staff realizes that this board is doing their best to try and and and help because we know we understand and uh we're with you today i was really proud to um have with us
031representatives from the new jersey department of education the new jersey state police the passaic county prosecutor's office the passaic county sheriff's office and our local clifton police department who came to our district to provide technical assistance at clifton high school in both of our middle schools with security drills so the doe does this from time to time it's a it's a surprise they just kind of show up but it's not a gotcha the purpose of these technical visits are to um see how we're doing to do an after action on how we can do better it's not a gotcha nobody gets in trouble all right the important thing is you drill and if you make mistakes when it's not real you learn from it so that god forbid if something real happens you're a little
032better prepared so i'm happy to say that overall our schools did a really outstanding job with our security protocols we don't want to ever use them but i want to assure this board in our community that central central on down security is number one where we find lapses we fix it but i want you to know that our children are safe every day in school and it's because of our faculty and staff when i get the after action report i will share that information with the board a few days ago sunday night i sent out a letter to our parents and the community and our staff regarding covid and since i sent that letter out i've been hearing rumors and i don't like rumors but i'm hearing rumors that people think schools are closing and
033i want to be very clear that as long as it is my decision and as long as i believe that we can keep our faculty students and staff safe we're not closing so there's rumors i'm hearing things that i don't like to address rumors but you know it's becoming so pervasive that sometimes it needs to be addressed that the governor is going to shut down the schools it's not happening i would be shocked if that happens i don't anticipate that there will be a statewide shutdown i don't anticipate closing any of our schools however we have had instances where we've had multiple cases in a classroom where we've had to shut down individual classrooms but if that happens and when that happens our teachers are prepared to go remote on a minute's notice so when
034a whole class has to go virtual the teachers prepared and they're good to go let me be clear once again i am not closing schools unless the health department tells me i have to or the state shuts me down so i can't be any clearer than that having said that we have to remember that there is a pandemic going on and that this is real so in my letter that i sent sunday night i reported to the community that since the beginning of november there were 68 cases reported in our schools but 36 of those right more than half were just from returning from thanksgiving break now i sent that letter sunday night and since sunday night we've had an additional 30 cases in the district okay now we're a big district we have almost
03511 000 students we have 20 schools so yeah 30 cases is a lot and if they're clustered in particular schools or particular classes that becomes problematic just today our region the state our region of the state went to an orange transmission level which is the highest level which means now if you are an unvaccinated student or staff member and you are deemed a close contact the quarantine period changes from 10 days to 14 days and and i believe the entire state is orange don't quote me on that but i know we're in the orange which is the highest level please continue to follow the protocols we have in place it is very upsetting to me when i find out we have to shut down a class because a parent sent their child to school knowing
036that the sibling tested positive for covet or knowing that the child is waiting for a the results of a test please please we need your help we're being very very lenient's the wrong word but we're being very understanding about attendance if you're quarantining right that's the last thing you need to worry about but you have to think of other people even if you're not concerned about this virus yourself you have to think of others and while i'm grateful that the vast vast majority of cases and children are not serious they bring that home to their parents to their other family members to sometimes their extended family members who may have pre-existing conditions who may be elderly who are more susceptible so please this isn't no time to be selfish this is about protecting others i
037had a heck of a football game last sunday i want to congratulate the clifton high school football team on an outstanding season [Applause] what an incredible group of young men and leaders i've been in education now 24 years i was a high school football player i was a coach i was a high school principal i know a little bit about high school athletics and i've been to a lot of high school football games and that game sunday was one of the best football games i have seen in my entire career and i want to publicly congratulate the east orange team for winning that game in three overtimes but i would be remiss if i didn't address the fact that the game ended on what the the njsia called a controversial ending in which i was
038publicly quoted yesterday saying it was a travesty it was arguably one of the worst calls by a referee that i've ever seen but what compounded the problem because we know humans make errors even if they're standing in the backfield looking at the ball what compounded it was that in these state championship games we had the use of instant replay and although every replay i've seen from every different angle shows that it was clearly a touchdown the instant replay didn't overturn the call on the field and our boys lost the game on that play and i also want to be clear that even if it was called a touchdown the game wasn't over didn't mean we automatically won but the game should not have ended on that play so take nothing away from east orange and
039and there were a couple players who were very very classy after the game um but our boys it's just heartbreaking to me that our kids have to deal with something they work so hard for and because adults screwed it up our kids get hurt so we will honor our football team and some of our other outstanding teams our soccer team had an incredible season we've had some amazing individual accomplishments in track and field and we'll honor those students at the january board meeting and you'll have a chance to say some words about that but great job to the to all of our coaches and and all of our student athletes on an outstanding fall season finally mr casper i know tonight is your last board meeting and i just want to tell you that it
040has been an absolute pleasure to work with you on this board of education you were one of the original nine board members who interviewed me and ultimately hired me and for that i will never forget you i will never forget the faith and trust that you had in me and that i believe you still have in me and i just want to say that you've always looked out for the best interest of kids you've always looked out for the best interests of staff and that's all that a superintendent could ask for in a board member i thank you from the bottom of my heart i wish you all the best in the future whatever that holds for you but thank you for being an outstanding board member and supporting our kids i want to wish
041everyone in our community a happy and healthy holiday season our next boarding board meeting will not be until january 6 2022 which is our reorganization meeting and so uh we'll see you then thank you mr uh mr casper thank you dr robertosi uh mr president do you have any announcements oh yeah before i do that why don't we um why don't we let our student representative andrew give his report so he can leave a few wishes hello good evening everyone i have a few things to say regarding just general academics here at the high school this week there have been instant decision days for high school seniors where they can get an immediate decision from college admissions on their acceptance to city college and universities i'd also like to say for nhchs families present listening
042watching uh be aware that quarterlies are beginning the last full week of january i say this because i looked at the schedule and i was frankly surprised by it because it seems very soon and i think it's because of the winter break just please be aware of that so you can plan accordingly a few organizations here at high school are running holiday drives collecting items to donate the athletic training club has been running touring book drive donating the items to st joseph children's hospital the last day to donate is next wednesday the 15th the triad music honor society is running a toy drive giving the items to toys for tots the last day to donate is next friday the 17th and the interact club is collecting winter coats until next friday the 17th please please
043please do not donate if you are able to student council members should be coming to homerooms to collect the items if you have them which is what we did for a key club and decca's thanksgiving drive as of last night clifton high school performing arts winter concerts have officially begun uh the acquired concert slash dance recital was last night i was in the audience and i can attest that it was wonderful it was great i can also attest as someone who will be on stage for the next two that those will be equally great the orchestra concert is on tuesday december 21st and the band concert will be next january in 2022 on wednesday the 19th it's important to know for the band concert that we do not do standard tickets instead we accept donations
044for cold weather gear winter gear and now masks which are promptly taken to st peter's haven right after the concert i also think it's important to note that the annual holiday show for students at chs which is usually held on the last day of school before winter break the half day is returning this year it's very exciting instead of having upperclassmen in the audience like we usually do it's going to be live streamed i believe for students across the school and for the first time as far as i know the orchestra will also be included in the program instead of just our madcaps concert band and dance classes with the fall sports season now being over varsity winter sports are officially underway uh both girls and boys basketball had their first scrimmages this past tuesday
045swimming had their first meet on thursday the 2nd december hockey has an upcoming game next monday the 13th cheer has begun practice for their first competition which is going to be in the new year in january bowling played bergen county tech today i do not have an update for how that game went though but i imagine it went great indoor track has their first meet coming up on the 20th and wrestling has its first match on the 18th student council association has a few plans for the winter that i'd like to share we're looking at organizing a badminton tournament during the winter for students this is something that is still very early on in the planning stage but it's something that students like myself have joked about you know wanting a varsity badminton team for
046years should be very excited about i'm looking forward to it absolutely the freshman class seen uh student council officers are looking at organizing a student-teacher survey now that we are near the middle point of the school year to better gauge how to finish the year strong and i just want to say that i think it's very impressive to see these scots officers who were only appointed after the school year begun when i was appointed in october taking this initiative to do something for their class this early in their careers in student council and in the high school things great there are various gram initiatives that are being ran by all four classes as well as the sca officers most recently the sophomore class ran a holiday grant candygram fundraiser and soon we'll be running a
047hot chocolate graham fundraiser this is to uh not have long lines form across the school and still be able to do something for students and raise funds lastly i do have three general issues but most of them have either been discussed or are very near being resolved students as of today still don't have ids but this issue is being resolved very very very soon i mean very soon i talked with miss brown about it yesterday and he even advised you know not to even bring it up because it's that close to being resolved but i still think it's important to say uh there have been an issue or there is an issue but it's you know mostly being resolved by this point um because there's been an increase in anonymous social media accounts using closing
048high school name and talking about clifton high school events but while a lot of them i don't believe have been with have had ill intentions and have been known for the purposes of just having fun or promoting school spirit a few of them have gotten much nastier unfortunately um if you see an account like this i implore you to please say something you know report it on the platform email chs administration and tell them and to otherwise just ignore it now i will say it is very important to note that at least the account that you know i saw that spurred me to include this was very small it did not have many people at all following it so this is something that a majority of students do condemn and do recognize is not right
049but it still is worth noting uh that being said that account is also i believe by this point gone so it's great uh the last thing which i won't really you know stay on too long because i think dr roberto said it very well in regards to coven but it's something that students are talking about a lot you know i have heard the rumors uh even today about oh what are we gonna shut down you know how want a place about how long you think it's gonna be um but something i do think students do realize is not realistic that being said i implore students parents and faculty listening to please please please continue to be diligent in taking safety precautions and please continue to remind your peers to be safe as well i'm a
050student who wants to stay in the classroom and i firmly believe that i represent students who want to stay in the classroom so please continue to do all that you can so that we can stay in the classroom thank you and good night yeah so just to remind um everyone parents you should have received the the date of the winter concert dates for your child's school concerts will be starting next week i believe the first one is on december 14th and they run through december and some into january so please make sure you uh you get a list of those and [Music] any that you can get out to to uh be part of that would be great support for the uh students that are performing in that i again remind everyone to go to
051our district website to review the peach jar announcements this is what all these are where all the happenings are hap going on in the district uh through each individual school who's running a fundraiser so if you please go and look at that uh there are many different things going on that you would may like to participate in so please take a look at that and where you can support our kids please do so that's all i have for announcements for today thank you mr president we have one uh policy for first reading for this evening which is zero one six seven public uh public participation in board meetings next up is mrs kusalevich on presenting of reports from administration advisory committees and special committees okay good evening commissioners ladies and gentlemen of the audience it's
052a pleasure to be here with you once again as uh we go back to talking about standardized testing data we had a bit of a break from that during the pandemic but it's back so tonight we're going to be talking about state start strong assessments our local assessment data and then some district actions and highlights so what is start strong we never heard of that before we used to take a test called njsla and njsla is still there njsla and now start strong are statutory requirement mandate mandated standardized assessments start strong appeared during the pandemic what happened was in 2020 we were not able to take our regular nj sla assessment in that spring because of the pandemic shutdown the following school year after a year of disruptions this new jersey was granted an opportunity
053to not take the njsla in the spring of but to postpone assessment to the fall of 2021. instead of doing the normal njsla they gave us a baseline assessment called start strong is just one piece of data it's one point in time and it only looks at some content that should have been learned last school year it is not a comprehensive assessment so we're using it as a single point of data together with our local assessments which we will be discussing further start strong is scored in three levels of support it's intended to provide a baseline and predict which students may need strong support in level one some support in level 2 or less support in level 3. when we look at our language arts performance in grades 4 through 10 which are the grades
054that were tested by start strong we see that approximately 30 percent of our students may need strong support when we look at our math performance in start strong in grades four through eight we see a range of 42 to 55 percent students may need strong support in algebra 1 it's 72 algebra 2 only 34 and geometry 59 and when we look at the science assessment we see that in sixth grade 53 percent may need strong support in ninth grade 58 and 12th grade those are not the typical grades that we test science we typically test our science students in grades 5 and 11. now because start strong replaces the nj sla for this past year it's a statutory requirement to meet the esea or elementary and secondary education act mandates as such we have to
055look at our data disaggregated by our ethnic subgroups and when we look at our ethnic subgroups we see typical performance for our students throughout the pandemic we have been speaking to the fact that our typical average general education student maintained or improved whether we were in remote instruction hybrid instruction or in person in areas of general content but we also said from our local assessments that our special needs students required additional support and start strong supports that statement for our current english language learners the same holds true our current english language learners need more support and needed it throughout the pandemic but on a bright note our former english language learners performed the same or better than our general education population we look at our economically disadvantaged students we see typical performance in line with
056our general population however the group that needs the most support are our homeless students and 45 homeless students are represented in this data this last slide is a resource for parents and parents will be getting this link before the holidays start strong took place at the beginning of the school year and now what we see is we're going to be getting what are called the isrs those are the individual student reports those will come with a letter that includes this link if parents would like to go to the state website and look deeper at the results now as i mentioned start strong is a standardized assessment that is just a single point in time much more important and meaningful to us are our local assessments typically in a normal school year our local assessments would
057look at one child compared to themselves from the beginning of the year to the end of the year but the last two years have been far from normal the last completely normal marking period our students had was the fall of 2019 marking period one in 2019 so we're going to be looking at our data a little differently this year we're going to be showing in some grades and some subjects a comparison just looking at 2021 and how students did compare to themselves but in other areas we're going to compare what did that 2019 baseline look like compared to the 2021 baseline is it radically different somewhat different so we're going to be looking at some different perspectives on our local assessment and we're going to start with language arts and kindergarten so in 2019 in
058the fall of 2019 the last time we had a normal school year our kindergarten average raw score on the brigance assessment that we used to screen our kindergartners was 71. now two years later after a pandemic where this year's kindergartners had severely reduced impacted remote or no preschool our raw score is a 69. it's very close to the 71. our kindergartners are pretty much coming in very very similar to what they did in 2019 before the pandemic in first grade when we compare the fall of 2020 after a shutdown and when we're still starting off fully remote compared to this fall after we had a full semester of in-person instruction in february i'm sorry in the spring and now in the fall full day full-time instruction our data is actually very similar our first grader
059i'm sorry kindergartners came in and stayed pretty steady we see the same thing in first grade in foundational reading skills our first grade foundational reading skills throughout the pandemic have remained fairly consistent this is the part that i love the most this is our star reading data what you see from the blue to the yellow is scale score growth of students by cohort that means students in their cohort from 2019 to 2020 to 21. and we see from grade 1 through 7 steady reading level growth what does this tell us this tells us that in reading in the elementary grades our students maintained or increased their performance when we look at the high school we're going to also add in writing our teachers worked so hard they worked tirelessly going back and forth first from
060a shutdown then to remote instruction hybrid instruction finally coming back in person in a hybrid format and now here we are again in person full day and full time our in language arts our language arts supervisor and coaches worked throughout this last two years with weekly meetings helping our teachers modify instruction in order to help our students do the best that we possibly could with the situation that was given my absolute favorite part of language arts is always independent reading in the past we would just look at accelerated reader we're now looking at raz kids my on and accelerated reader throughout last year our students still independently read to 336 books that's pretty close to our non-pandemic independent reading that's very impressive in the high school we looked at our writing writing was the area
061that we were showing to be the biggest challenge for our students when however when we look at our 9th graders 83 percent of our 9th graders in 1920 pass their writing quarterly with a 70 or higher this year for the right i'm sorry in 2021 the writing quarterly was 84 so our writing data was still fairly consistent in 10th grade we went from 80 passing in their writing quarterly in 2019 to 82 percent in 2020 2021 in 11th grade we did have a dip and this was one of the things that we had seen just in the results of the writing that was being produced by our students we went from 94 down to 79 percent at the beginning of this year however the 12th graders remained pretty steady at 90 and 89. now we're
062looking at just marking period one you see 2019 2020 2021 there's that dip in 2020 but notice how 2021 marking period one at nearly every grade level we've recouped back to first marking period 2019 levels in language arts at the high school now we move to math in math we're looking just at last school year from 20 to 21 k to two and three to five from the turquoise to the purple we see either holding steady or an increase so this is looking at just mirroring what we thought our students maintained their major math content in grades k to two and grades three to five and when you look at grades six through eight at the top for general education at the bottom for our special needs population that we have shown to be struggling
063we still see growth or maintenance across the board now while this was happening we implemented the savas platform in k through 8 during the pandemic and we transitioned to the middle school to follow the envisions platform that we've been using in grades k through 5. so while all this was going on our teachers were learning new materials new methods to be able to target the needs of our students our teachers worked really really hard in high school we're looking at the 2021 school year in marking period one 76 percent of our students passed with a 70 or better going to 70 percent by the end of the school year in marking period four in geometry we went from 43 percent of students passing with a 70 or better in marking period 1 to 64 by
064the end of the school year a significant increase and in algebra 2 76 percent passed with a 70 or better in marking period 1 jumping to 91 in marking period 4. in math once again when we look at the multi-year comparison from 2019 to 20 there's the dip but we seem to be really gaining now and finally in math imagine math is a platform that really helped our students throughout this year if you look at this stair step increase imagine math is a math platform that compares a student to themselves and it is individualized based on how a student answers you can see from the turquoise to the purple at every grade level k to five our students increased and improved compared to themselves throughout the school year based on these individualized learning paths in
065middle school we all we see either growth or consistency at most grade levels and at the high school the same thing so here's another fun one imagine math was so popular with our students we completed 500 math lessons 59 percent of our students completed their individual pathway clifton students solved eight million nine hundred and forty nine thousand one hundred and four questions they participated in three thousand two hundred and sixty live lessons and these are live lessons that you access when you're doing imagine math at home not during your school day this is after the school day imagine math the company gives charitable donations based on how students do using their program clifton students were number one for that company's charitable giving in the state of new jersey our students really worked hard they worked
066hard with their teachers we need to thank not just our teachers for what they went through last year but also our students now science so in biology at the high school we only look at science and social studies at the high school because that's where we have our major local assessments in science at the high school in marking period one for 2021 74.6 percent of the students scored with a 70 or better and in 2019 before the shutdown it was 71 percent so they held steady our honors kids however did struggle and we did talk about this and last year we provided extra tutoring to our honors classes which is something we had never done before our honors students did struggle and they went from an 84.4 average to 70.1 percent it's not a huge
067drop but that is a drop for an honors student in chemistry the general population held steady from 2019 to 2021 but once again in honors we see a dip from 80 percent 80.5 percent to 75.5 and in physics our general population went from 81.6 to 76.5 but the honors kids pretty much stayed kind of close now some highlights in science this is a huge change pre-pandemic that was our first year that we reorganized our social our science courses biology became the ninth grade science by going from bio in ninth to chem in tenth that put far far more students into physics in 11th so as a result last year during the pandemic we had almost 400 students taking physics as opposed to the previous year where we only had about we had 147 taking physics
068we still throughout the pandemic were able to have wipro scholars and when we had a first robotics virtual challenge and when you look at our ap scores six out of 12 scored three are better in physics 11 out of 19 scored three at or better on the ap bio and three out of ten scored three or better on the chemistry exam social studies surprisingly remain steady when you look at marking period 1 of 2019 to marketing period 1 of 2021 social studies remain pretty static in world history in american history and in american history too a real point of interest though is our ap results the mean score on ap for clifton high school was 3.23 the new jersey mean was 2.80 we beat the new jersey mean and we beat the global mean the
069global mean was only 2.52 so percent of our students scored three or higher in comparison to 56.3 in new jersey and 47.2 global our mean score in ap government and politics was also a three beating the new jersey score of 2.97 and beating the global score of 2.62 and those scoring three or higher we had 57.1 percent okay new jersey was 61.5 but the global score was only 50.4 so our students okay ap is the advanced placement assessment which means students are getting college credit this is basically taking a college course here in our high school our ap program parallels and goes hand in hand with our other dual enrollment programs that take place with many colleges also here on campus or off campus now our data is mixed we knew this coming in but
070our students are learning and doing well however they still need support this first marking period a full day full-time instruction was very challenging for all of us because our students don't have the resilience and the ability to sit through attentively and focus a full school day in person like they used to do the being at home made it a little harder to learn and it's taken this full marking period for our students to adjust so what have we been doing and what are we going to continue to do well we're going to use that start strong data that we saw at the beginning but as one data point together with our other assessments and our classroom performance we're going to keep reflecting on our data and make adjustments as needed do we have to change
071something postpone a test cancel a test speed something up we're constantly working with the teachers and the supervisors to make sure that we're giving our students what they need we're expanding our before and after school programs saturday and summer programs through 2024 and now that our kids are building that stamina back we will be adding more before and after school tutoring we're prioritizing small groups in reading and in math leveraging the technology lessons that we learned last year using our essar funds for support staff like counselors and intervention teachers and finally we're prioritizing our mental health and readiness to learn through pbsis mindfulness nurtured heart and trauma-informed instructional practices we are going to continue to address the whole child thank you very much mrs kusalevich next we're moving on to just uh for any questions
072from the board before you move on any questions mr daly yeah uh thank you mr casper miss kristolevich a very impressive report um i do have a kind of a general question just kind of absorbing what was going on in terms of our students who are struggling is there do the students i'm trying to get a feedback if if the students really come forward if they're struggling or some are reluctant to come forward in that in that vein what's your take on on that aspect of those who are struggling uh mr daley i'll i'll give my take but then i'll definitely ask mrs kusalevich to give her expert opinion so you naturally have those students who are willing to ask for help and then you have those who would never ask for help and you
073know under any circumstance but that's the reason why we have our local assessment data so our teachers know which of their students are struggling not only do they know if they're struggling they can dig down into the data to see where exactly they're struggling what standards they might be missing where in the curriculum they might need extra help so trusting the classroom teacher to identify those students who are struggling to provide that extra help contacting parents and letting them know hey we're going to have a saturday program we're going to have summer school uh programs we're going to have lunchtime tutoring after school tutoring i think that's how we identify those students janina you hit it spot on the only thing that i would add is that self-advocacy is something that's difficult for some students
074but it is something that is taught in our special needs class you know our special needs students need to advocate for themselves and that's one of the uh tools that our teachers work with them on so that when they do um get declassified they're able to advocate for themselves and ask for help if anything that's probably the one group that learns the best to advocate for themselves and speak up when they do need assistance but what dr robert tosi said is absolutely accurate that's one of the reasons we really focus on our feedback loop from our local assessment data yes thank you for that and um no i understand about the the um more efforts being put into this over the past couple years and obviously during the pandemic was very difficult uh but i
075was just curious what your your folks would take it on that and you know i do understand dr robertosi that uh there's some who seek and some who don't seek and you know that that can be problematic um and and that that not only goes to our particular in our school system but that also goes back to the parents that if they have a student who's struggling i think it's incumbent upon them to push their child that they're responsible and they need to step up there even if they're struggling so but thank you for your information dr danny thank you miss kusalavich you always put together such a comprehensive uh data sheet for us to understand i was just curious in the local assessment data is that the link it information also that is included
076in that or that's something separate sure first of all i want to thank all of my con the content supervisors that work so hard with our teaching staff and they're the ones that help drive this they create a lot of the assessments in teams with our teachers and many all of our local assessment data does go into linkit and we use link it to help evaluate it helps us you know identify which standards and strands as dr robertosi was saying earlier so everything does go through linkit so linkit had that program uh that data management system helps us kind of cut and paste and parse this data into the groups and some of what you saw came from linkit some of what you saw is developed directly by our supervisors but all the student assessment
077data does go into linkit for reporting purposes um thank you um and just to basically um state that i am an educator and i have you know spoken to many educators in regards to the testing and you're in the classroom um and mr daley just to kind of point to what you were saying um as an educator i mean i'm going to say this and i mean but it's true if you're a good teacher i mean i really i look at the data but before i even look at it i mean i know the students in my classroom and there are many educators that i've spoken to and as an educator you know the students in your classroom and you really do know what they're already struggling with because if you are a good educator
078that's what you spot right away i mean that's what you're trained to do it's like a doctor who you know when the patient comes in they know with the signs and symptoms what they need so i do want to give you know kudos to teachers because again i mean the test is great and you can look at it but really you know good teachers they know from being with their students in the classroom they know very quickly what they need and i think what's good about the test is that it could it provides the additional funding to help the teachers with resources to help the students in what they need so it helps i think if i'm saying that right correct with providing the funding but um again our teachers are doing a great job
079and they can spot it right away and then what it is is through these tests because obviously you need to show some sort of data to the state for the funding that funding then is used by the teachers not through direct ways they don't get it but indirectly through resources to help the students but again it's really the teachers the front line who if a student doesn't ask for help as an educator you can spot those students if you're good you know it and i would say our teachers are very good and again it's if you've been doing this you know what the child needs and what's great is to have those resources to help put them there i'm sorry i just had to you know that was my educator cap going on thank you
080mrs bassford um is this in addition to other standardized tests that we're administering and how long does this test take what's the time frame on it so thankfully start strong was actually a brief test they were only one instructional period each for math language arts and science this was the state's way of making up for last year not having njsla in 2020 we got a federal waiver for the entire nation for that they didn't give it in 2021 so this was the alternative but it was only one period long per class however the full njsla is on task for the spring and those tests usually were you know two to three days for 45 to 90 minutes each for language arts for math um and two days of 45 minutes each approximately for science we're
081still waiting to see what the time frames will be but that was the typical njsla standardized testing so yes this was in addition to this year but it was in lieu of last year so we don't have to worry about like we we used to have to transport the chromebooks the carts around to do all these kind of testing so we're all good with the one-on-one so it makes everything a lot smoother we don't have to do sections anymore we can do it all at once this is fabulous that is the best thing if there was any silver lining to the pandemic it's that it it that and the board deciding to move in that direction really helped us go one to one all at once and now we can test anywhere simultaneously start strong
082was pretty simultaneous k to eight were testing fully simultaneously uh the high school was pretty much they were the first to go but a few days later the rest of them started that has never happened here before it used to take us a month to do the standardized testing moving those chromebooks and shipping them etc now is there going to be a way that you can because these two tests are so obviously different there'll be a way that you can actually compare them comparing this start strong to njsla is probably not going to be possible the start strong was a short subset of only some standards the njsla will be more comprehensive however the doe claims that they can make connections um the one thing that we can connect is we can identify which questions
083and start strong tested a particular standard and strand and then we can go and look for those standards and strands in njsla so those little individual connections might be able to be made to like help a student but to do a global comparison i don't see how that's going to be possible it's comparing apples and oranges okay thank you for a very comprehensive report as always thank you go ahead mr kenobi um so the first question i had is so first of all i do want to say hats off to you this is a very extensive report there was an area there where you said that we were responsible for the most charitable giving for the the product that we were using do we have any say as to what charities that that money goes
084to do our kids get to vote and say like that goes somewhere or is that just up to the company where they want to donate um the company does tend to target charities that are state-based but they it's up to the company okay um so the other question i had was how does this data compare to other schools so i know and somewhere in here you talked about the main data and how some areas we beat other other just in general new jersey and then the global section do we have a report that actually lines them all up against each other so we could see all the stats on one screen essentially uh not really because again this is the state has not yet re released any kind of state comparison on start strong last
085year start strong was optional obviously there was no njsla when we take njsla the state does release comparative reports where we can compare ourselves to the state average the only comparisons i was able to give to other areas was the ap exam which is given by the college board and that is a national exam so on the a the college board did collect and report out comparative data by state and by the world which is not something that um was done with start strong and the new jersey department of ed has not released any comparative data like that at this time and then the other question i had was um sort of in line with mr daley's question uh looking at this data now is there anything that we could pull from there that we
086know worked better in this pandemic that maybe we could continue on or are there areas that we want to look at and use this data to then you know change our focus and and mend the students somewhere else and drive them to success so our teachers and the supervisors principals our whole administrative and instructional team i think we all found best practices and we're sticking we're really holding on to some of those best practices some certain things on the chromebook are best practices utilizing the google classroom to a greater degree across the board is a best practice uh that the using the imagine math program that really showed and demonstrated success so that's another best practice that we're going to continue to do our reading programs between or as kids my own reader accelerated reader
087those were very strong so wherever we found best practices things that were working we're holding on to those at the same time there are other things that work better in person um that we couldn't do last year which we are leveraging left hands-on activities using manipulatives so we're trying to leverage our best practices and every year we kind of look at and evaluate as part of our curricular revision cycle and our redoing of our pacing guides where we identify you know what's working and what's not right and then the only other thing i'll say is that i observe that um to me this report just reinforces the fact that we need to be in person because looking at the data we do see a dip you know when we did come into covert and then
088we come back out uh so i would just reinforce what dr robert tosi said we're you know i think it's it's better to be in person and we just have to take steps to make sure that we stay that way thank you anyone else all right thank you mrs kusalavich next up board committee reports okay i'll start with the delegate assembly i had the opportunity to attend the delegate assembly on november 20th 2021 the delegate assembly is uh was held virtually this year and it's where the delegates of each school board in the state meet to decide on matters that have come up in resolutions that come up to the new jersey school board association this was one of the quickest meetings i had sat through for the delegate assembly and um they're the only
089resolution that we did have on this this time around was um approving uh reapproving sections 3000 and 4000 of their policy handbook and that was approved uh unanimously from everybody um that was in attendance um i don't know if anybody else would have any ques go ahead mrs basford do you have anything all right is there any questions on on the delegate assembly mr casper good head mr daley yeah um uh in the notes here about the uh controversy with the national school boards i think uh 11 or 17 states are pulling their dues from the national school boards association was there any discussion at the meeting concerning that aspect about the new jersey school boards association holding their dues from the national school boards okay so what was discussed on our end for the
090new jersey school board association um hold on let me look where i am here okay so the stance of the new jersey school board association is that we are encouraging our members of the public to come to our school board meetings to express concerns to us um as of right now we there was no talk about withdrawing from the new jersey from the national school board association but we are encouraging the public and the um parents and citizens to come up and and speak as they wish mr casper um to through university daily uh new jersey school boards association is not attending the january conference in 2022 i'm not going to use the b word but they're not they're not going and they're going in they're not going in protest thank you okay we have
091mrs bassford for policy please provided sorry the committee with current status statistics on the district's homeschooling students discussion was held regarding possibility of amending these policies if there's a significant increase in the amount of students being home schooled a request was made to the board's legal counsel to review the policy and to add and to give us possible changes should it be necessary in the future the committee also then discussed bylaw 0167 public participation and board meetings the committee recommends changes to the bylaw to allow for remote participation by the public the proposed changes would read as follows requests by the public to address the board at public meetings may be done in person or via remote means providing the necessary electronic communication technology is available during said meeting individuals addressing the board remotely shall
092comply with and are subject to all the requirements rules and regulations as stated in this bylaw the meeting adjourned at 5 35 pm and mr ross submitted the minutes any questions okay so i hope i get this one correct is finance miss uh miss beltran okay mr daley thank you mr casper um minutes of the finance committee for the clifton board of education was held on december 7th in attendance so was miss beltran mr canova mr smith as well as myself administrations in attendance with dr robertosi mr jingaro mr uci mr schiada started at 205 and ended at 240 and was a short agenda first item that was discussed was the audit field that which is an annual task for for our board and for our audit firm or it will continue with that conference
093to occur in january and is due to the doe in february meeting second thing was meeting with department heads for budgets will commence next week which is i guess this week next was the teachers sub rate will be increased to 250 50 through may 22 and and sub power rates increased to 15 an hour and that was mentioned in uh dr robert tosi's superintendent's report uh sodiums will go to 15 an hour without a boilers license and 18 with boilers and a license and that was a three dollar increase if anybody has any questions i'd just like to also add that the um the audit is progressing a little quicker than we anticipated or the firm who audits us was on site and pretty much completed the on-site work and it's just doing their uh
094in the process of developing their report mr dilley i have a question through you to the superintendent um that we're increasing the amount of the sub pay but there are people that do substitute for us and they have other means that they can't make a certain amount of money on a case-to-case basis would we be allowed to accept a person at a lower rate for the subpay because they they need to not make a certain amount of money because of a of a retirement fund or something else like that would that be available to those people yes i've had one person reach out to me and i think we'll be able to make those accommodations thank you mr daly uh miss beltran uh facilities please okay uh facilities uh president was um mr daly myself
095um mr abedrabo and uh president jim smith and from administration was dr robertosi uh mr jangero mr uc mr she shot though i always say wrong i'm ed um mr marcion and mr uh doctor it was also a short meeting considering um how long our meetings normally are we talked about the boardroom renovation which hopefully should be done in february the issue is pandemic related supply chain issues so hopefully our furniture will come in and we'll be able to be there in february we discussed adding nets for the softbar field on the file tortory to make it safer for people who are there the board council will be reviewing the epic contract which uh dr robitozi spoke about we have a window project going to be getting started for this summer we're going to be
096using sr2 funds for that the bids will be going out in april where we have we discussed the tennis court banfield renovation we're going to be using capital reserve funds and the bids for that will be going out in march we talked about the th kitchen uh timeline for the hvac which is the last step and it hopefully should be done over holiday break that was also delayed due to um some parts that they couldn't get in and that was pretty much all we discussed anyone have any questions uh not a not a question i might just uh two additions um they're both seating one over at the softball field changing it from the back the um hormone fence to the side and then also i think also discuss soccer seating as well for the
097sides of the goals so thanks i could have that added yeah i don't remember discussing that too too much in length but anyone else no okay thank you i'll take uh the food service and transportation uh present were myself mr daley mr abu drabbo and president smith from administration we had dr reportozzi mr jingaro mr rusi mr shahada uh ms nick mr doctor and mr rosenberg our meeting started at 405 when went to five o'clock items of discussion for transportation discussion ensued about where new buses purchased through sr2 funds will be held administration will continue to search for a long-term solution of a new transportation property here in clifton also administration will develop a plan for a short-term solution of uh housing our newly purchased buses items of discussion for food service there was a
098food service overview pumped onion presented a possible edition of alternate meal options for students with religious and dietary restrictions administration will analyze the cost per the contract and relay options to the committee also administration stated the final major portion of the kitchen renovation is the hvac installation which should occur during the holiday break does anyone have any questions all right thank you very much okay mr president okay mr casper thank you um i will take the chair back for our public portion this portion of the meeting is open to the residents and non-residents of clifton for the purpose of addressing any subject matter pertinent to and or directly related to the operation of the clifton public school district residents and non-residents are requested if in person to sign the register provided for this purpose all
099speakers are asked to state their names municipality and subject matter before speaking comments are limited to five minutes per person issues rabbi's member of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and are responsibly forthcoming if and when appropriate your questions may or may not be answered by board members the board asked that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded to them by the laws of the state of new jersey the board bears no responsibility nor will be liable for any comments made by members of the public should consider
100their 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 if you wish to address the board please do so at the podium in the center uh hi i'm donna popowicz from dalewood road and clifton the citizens of clifton passed a record-breaking referendum and it meant that taxes were going to increase but the people of clifton voted to make this happen because they deeply care about our schools and about our youth the citizens gave this board event a mandate to fix the infrastructure of our buildings adding ac and heating systems that will provide clean air and we will upgrade our facilities and the administration and the board have worked to make this become a reality by starting
101the process and hiring people to follow the process and ensure that everything is done correctly this was only possible because of the mandate of the citizens of this town this past year despite the overwhelming complete community support this board honestly has not been a happy place it's really apparent that there's issues among the board members meetings start late or an executive session as a power play to show us peons that we are peons let's take a look at tonight we showed up to showed up so i could make a statement i had other people who needed to make a statement it's nine o'clock it's two hours it took two hours to get to public session that's inexcusable in this town facebook has become the new independent prospector where board members throw shade on other board
102members this year we have delved into issues that have nothing to do with clifton schools which ended up with some really interesting public sessions but which also ended up limiting the time that i and others get to speak and even you as board members get to speak though frankly not all the board members get their time limited if you're sitting at home using your own timer you can see that it's time for this board to come together and address the issues that affect our schools i'd like to see some changes such as a much more diverse curriculum where teachers not just the ones who choose actually use the diversity books i'd love to see us moving more toward writing coaches and individual coaching just like they do in colleges this is one-on-one can't be done
103by the overburdened classroom teacher so i just want to make that clear we're talking about new professionals and new um positions there are so many other ideas and innovations which our district can initiate but only if we have the right leadership the board did an excellent job when they chose dr robertosi he is definitely the man to lead our district and now the board needs to step up and choose their own leader someone who can lead us through some new and innovative ideas the community has spoken and they have given their mandate through the ballot box in november overwhelmingly electing judy bassworth to the permission to the position of commissioner if you look at the election stats many of the votes from mrs bassword were bullet votes or twofers this community has sent all of
104you a mandate we have funded the infrastructure and we want to move on we want innovation it's time to work on other areas the community voted for mrs basford to be our leader and as the top vote getter the community issued a mandate that she become the next board of red president mrs badford's bassford has made our community a better place to live by strengthening our programs for youth families and as a community builder she has built the power and capacity to change our community and public policies for the better she's inspired and provided a vision for what is possible and yet week after week i sit here and i see her attacked every question she has is questions she has she has spoken over she is overlooked she is talked down to she is
105subject to mansplaining to the point that i really can't take it anymore i think i should be able to object from the floor every single time one of you mansplains an issue to her of which she is well aware on facebook she's called a witch now usually that's just a polite way of the b word but this person actually thinks she's a witch first of all which is practice wiccan which is an accepted religion in this country so if you're attacking someone and using the word witch in a derogatory term you are a bigot but more importantly the whole attack which continues to this day is ridiculous so you're saying this community elected people for this position who thinks that judy somehow has magical powers that she rode here on her uniform maybe she keeps
106bigfoot in the shed in the backyard i mean this is just ridiculous voodoo dolls aren't real people despite all these attacks from her fellow board of ed members and please do not think the community hasn't noticed the animosity you have towards her the negativity you show her the disrespect which no colleagues deserved and the outright nastiness despite your best effort to have miss bassford fail this community overwhelmingly elected her showing their beliefs and her abilities it's time for a change we want to see civility back it's time for the board to follow the mandate of the people not the decision of the group absolutely your five minutes have concluded is there anyone else wish to address the board and adhere by the rules good evening my name is lori lallama and i'm the cea president
107dr robertosi besides the wizards i want to know there's something called donkey basketball and i remember that from 1975 and that was a great thing to see people on a bat on a donkey playing basketball so you can still do that now for the springtime we can talk about that later i want to thank the superintendent and the board for raising the subpay that is so important and it shows the faith that you have in your staff they are overwhelmed past unbelievable belief my phone is on fire most days between text calls and emails they're asking what can they do how can they survive what why aren't there substitutes and anybody out there in the town of clifton if you are 21 years old and have 30 college credits please step up and become a
108sub because yours your teachers and paras and custodians and lunch ladies and everybody else they're exhausted and they are going to run out the last day of school and probably in their cars before any kids get into a bus it is really really really bad and i don't know as the president of my bargaining unit i don't have a magic wand for these people and they are working their butts off and they're doing a great job in their classroom for their kids so i want to reiterate what dr robertosi has said your staff is exhausted this has been very difficult not just here in clifton or not just new jersey but throughout the united states and covet is doing a bad job on everyone whether people believe it or not or think masks are important
109or not we need to take care of each other we have kids in the in the schools that can bring it home to their parents and the last thing i want to know is that abuelita is being flown back either in ashes or in a box and this is serious my kids my students are complaining they want to be they want to be protected at all times just like the staff does if you're going to have parties believe me everybody likes a party but maintain some sort of safe protocol when you go back into the building it has to be done i understand how difficult this has been on everybody but we need to look out for each other it's the end of the mimi me syndrome and looking out for one another because this
110has been so very difficult and any everybody and i really want to thank the board and dr robert tozie for all that you're doing and we sincerely appreciate it thank you and i wish everybody a wonderful holiday and i don't know how fast i'll be out but i'll be out pretty fast thank you anyone else wants to address the board mr smith scene of more propaganda for a public session motion to close by um mr abu drab second second by vice president casper okay we'll move on we have no unfinished business uh expression of condolence vice president casper would you mind reading that resolution please number 17. whereas on december 5th 2021 the community noted with sorrow the passing of mr robert bob sirlak and whereas mr saralak had served the board of education and
111children of clifton faithfully and conscientiously as a secretary for the special ed department for 10 years before retiring in 2009 contributing his talents for the betterment of the school the school system mr sirlak was a u.s navy veteran who proudly served the country during the vietnam war now therefore be resolved that this resolution be forwarded to his bereaved family to serve as an expression of great regard in which mr cerelike was held by the board of education the administration employees and peoples of the clifton public schools and be further resolved that the contents of this resolution be noted in their entirety in the official minutes of the clifton board of education for for future generations to peruse dated december 9th 2021 okay can i have a motion in a second please so moved i'm mr
112casper's second by mr avadrabo discussion i remember um mr surlak in my when i was originally on the board um very kind uh person very hard worker in the special ed department especially when the areas of special ed were very new he did a phenomenal job so my my deepest condolences to to his family roll call please mr abedrabo yes miss fastford yes ms beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes dr danny yes vice president casper yes and president smith yes motion carries okay we'll move on to b which education administration we have ea one three a6 motion motion by mr abhijava second second by mrs basford discussion seeing none roll call mr abby dropout yes miss bastard yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes dr danny yes vice president casper
113yes president smith yes ocean's next move on to personnel we have p1 through p22 so i moved so moved by mr avadravo second second by dr danny discussion i have a question about yes mrs basford are we bringing two of these into so the emotion has to be amended oh i'm sorry is any of this being mr smith i apologize i should have said earlier uh p excuse me 17 i think yes thank you piece 17 is for um executive okay uh mrs pastor which other one might you be no there's another issue but it's not a resolution all right so we'll remove uh 17 uh from that motion the motion or in the second and agree to that yes okay roll call mr abadraba yes miss bassford yes mr beltran yes mr canova yes
114mr daley yes dr danny yes vice president casper yes president smith yes motion scary okay next we'll move on to financing facilities we have f1 through f12 motion motion by mrs bassford second second by mr abu drabbo discussion seeing non-rockall mr abhijava yes miss basford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daily yes dr danny yes vice president casper yes president smith yes mrs carey all right next we move on to board member comments miss dr danny you are first tonight so first i'd like to say congratulations to the clifton high school football team on [Music] incredible play congratulations i would like to say congratulations to maya wiggins on being a young leader keep up the good work and hopefully hear more of the great things you do and uh finally i'd just like
115to say um frank thank you for your dedication for your time to all that you did with um new jersey school boards being a delegate and working diligently on that side to bring us information from new jersey school boards um you know personally i've become a friend of yours um and you're there for the children you care about the board and i'll miss you and thank you for your service and just lastly i'd like to say um wish everyone a happy and healthy holiday and a new year thank you thank you next we have um mr abhijava uh thank you president smith uh to legislative committee don't forget december 14th at 4 pm is our ledge committee meeting on tuesday if you can all send me concerns for a bullet point so we can send
116it over to the legislators by monday congrats to school 11 and thank you also to ms saragoza all the time for doing a great job chs music honors is collecting toys for tots and so is the power of one in the city the islamic center of state county has many toys that they want to give away so any organizations that are or departments or clubs for toys for tots for any purpose you can let superintendent know and he can put you in contact with the mosque clifton community band had an amazing event uh last week thank you to them for doing such a great job considering that many of our students are part of the clifton community band speaking of the band not only did our football team have a great performance so did our
117band during the beginning as well they have all year support all our teams and hats off to them for anybody that wants to know where all sports are going uh activity scheduler on your phone is easy to download easy to look at that's where all the sports stuff are on on the agenda there's the engineers tri-state average association of new jersey new york i'm sorry many of them are residents of new jersey many of them are on the board are actually friends of mine and i was happy to put them in connection with the superintendent for the 2 000 donation to the robotics team so hats off to them and thank you to them uh condolences to the sherlock family the miller family and commissioner i was not here tonight because he unfortunately his sister
118was six months pregnant and she lost her child and as well mr awadi say was rushed to the hospital fourth time in two weeks with back pain so that's why he's not here tonight um there's you know it's i said a comment um earlier some people don't like and i honestly don't care um the word propaganda during public session because that was just ridiculous um and honestly that's what leads to negativity in the city there's understanding what certain people are like and that's fine there's ways to look at and say somebody came out one two three four that's fine but i i called it for what it is um at that thank you mr smith thank you mr abhijava next we have mrs basford good evening um i'd like to congratulate the football team and
119the band for a great performance on sunday unfortunately things happen and people were screaming on my row um there was a gentleman behind us blow-by-blow description of the uh and i was glad that he was actually giving us his commentary on what was happening because it was making it easier for us to understand a little more um i want to thank the community for coming out and supporting the football team in the band on sunday it was a really great showing the stadium was pretty packed so i'm very grateful for everybody that came and journeyed their way down to rutgers thank you for mrs popowicz for your words although and thank you for the gift although there was a lot of misunderstandings you were able to articulate my feelings a hundred percent and i appreciate
120it and it was completely blown me away i didn't even know you were doing this so i'm i'm i'm a little shook up but to see that other people see it and to see that other people notice it is what makes me smile inside and that's something that nobody can kill is my joy from inside and i know that people appreciate me because i was ninth on the ballot and i came up to the front line was was enough for the community to tell me that they want me here for another three years so i thank them for that um christmas is going to be coming up in a couple of weeks so i want to say merry christmas and this is by gene k i still say merry christmas and i hope that you
121do too laws may change along the way but they can't change my point of view christmas is a sharing time of gifts loves joy and laughter a time for peace within our souls that's meant to last long after non-believers in christmas still look forward to the holiday a time to spend with loved ones in their own special way christmas music is beautiful sung in concerts this time of year appreciated by so many people a tradition they hold dear it's up to us individually to play to pass on good traditions to tell stories we believe in out living commercial transactions when i say merry christmas it's a loving thing to say as i wish you all well in all you do and a peace filled christmas day merry christmas to all and a happy new year
122thank you and have a great great holiday whatever you believe in enjoy the joy in the moment and bound in blue 002 proud of you uh thank you next we have um dana i'm sorry europe i can't read my list here no worries okay so i just like to say merry christmas and happy holidays to all celebrating any of the holidays that are coming up and the ones passed we hanukkah just ended um i feel sorry for our football players but i applaud you for taking a tough loss with grace i don't know if i would be able to take the loss like that i'm a pretty sour loser so um i really applaud you for not only you know using your voices through the newspaper articles and through videos i've seen but i'm not
123trashing the other team because it wasn't the other team's fault uh it was a bad calls by the refs uh frank we've had some good times on this board and i hope that you feel as appreciated as you are uh we're gonna miss you and um mr paris has big shoes to fill maybe the size of clown feet to phil but we look forward to welcoming him to the board but we're also sad to see frank go all right so now to what happened a couple minutes ago i'm not sure if the public could hear it or see it but mr aberdro to the the left of me decided to label the public's comments as propaganda he said and i quote i see no more people here to spread propaganda to end the session that
124is wildly inappropriate that is not robert's rules of order that is a lot of things in violation there but i mean that's something that we're we've come to expect from him um i take offense this statement propaganda is used to spread falsehoods nothing that the public has said tonight um came across to me as a propaganda um propaganda is used by communist fascists marxist nations throughout history uh he continues to mumble next me but as he said i don't care either um and perhaps you know people on this board need to start considering who they keep as bad fellows because you know the comments that are made are gonna be heard and one voice is one voice but there will be more that come and you know i i can only i can only applaud
125uh a floor everyone else um on this board to just you know think about it think about who you're seeing going around this think about who you consider as a friend and just hope that you know you can um you know influence them to act appropriately while at meetings and that's all i have to say and congratulations to judy's son who's a brand new police officer in jersey city now i have one more place that i can go out safely thank you mr kenova good evening first i want to congratulate our students of the month and and congratulations to school 11. i agree with dr robert tosi that that is the best part of this job is seeing people do well and be successful and it's the most rewarding mr casper so as you know
126a lot of time and effort goes into these board meetings and you put your whole heart into it you go to the ngisba meetings you do all your uh your certified board member you do all the work that you need to do behind the scenes um and i thank you for in our community thanks you for it um you know it's been a pleasure working with you you've been great to me to us to in all meetings very professional and i wish you well on anything you do and i just want to thank you for your service to our district but the last thing i want to talk about is the football game so while dana said that other students have been taking it well i'm pretty sour on this um so as a parent
127you try to teach your kids to be honest and if they do something bad you think they should apologize and you tell them that you know if you can't make this this wrong thing right you should unfortunately though i don't see that happening so where it's very clear that we did make that touchdown i i mean we saw the videos online i'm sure you did um i wish we could post them on our social media hint um but you see the football go over the line and the rules are as long as the the ball threat comes comes across that threshold that's a touchdown so whatever he did after the fact taking the ball and running it back play was already done so um in my mind what should happen was they should have reviewed
128that footage right there on the spot and overturned it and even if they didn't which they did not do and there was definitely a huge error there um what they should have done was after the fact review the footage that is being sent to them and take a look at that and understand that there's something that's wrong here now in my mind clifton is up six points um and we should either continue playing the rest of the game or if it is ended here then clifton has declared the winner now even if they don't want to do that i think at minimum we should share the first place championship there should not be a second place winner there should be two first place winners because to me i know what happened i saw the footage
129and we're in first place right now so on behalf of me i want to congratulate the team on winning first place unless nj saa wants to come here and talk at a board meeting and speak to the public on on why that is the incorrect statement you know i welcome them to come here and explain to the kids i think we should have our football team here if they come in and they should explain to the public why that is that they are not the winners so i just want to you know reach out my congratulations to them on the state championship wish everyone a merry christmas happy hanukkah that past happy holidays and happy new year thank you thank you mr daley thank you mr president um just to follow up on the football
130uh issue number one congratulations to the team and to the game as a whole was really a well-played game very interesting very skillful i think both teams in terms of how they played and conducted themselves deserve congratulations however with the screw up for lack of a better description i'm in agreement with mr canova should be a dual championship because clearly neither team deserved to lose that game because it wasn't played out to according to the rules and according to what the actual events happened on the field but i do look forward to celebrating uh with the the teams both the football team the soccer team when they're here at the at a board meeting and they deserve all the credit in the world and they should never need to bow their heads they should all
131be proud of what they've accomplished second thing i'd like to talk about very shortly mention at the next next delegate assembly whenever that is i would think whoever our delegate is down there should uh raise or put on have put on the agenda discussion about whether the new jersey school boards association can should continue to contribute to the national school board associations we can get into that at another time um thirdly i'd like to thank miss roberto robergozi rosa excuse me and miss kusalevich for fine report um we were criticized a little bit there's a little twix in between here um obviously those reports took some time to present as well as to put together and the public deserves to hear that as well as us so you know if you want to truncate that
132and then the public doesn't hear that and they may want to comment or follow up with a question they don't have that ability and that's after so uh i think we do the best we can under those circumstances these are reports are very detailed and they do take uh time uh next is um i'd like to wish everybody a merry christmas and a happy new year and those who have celebrated hanukkah which ended on the on the 6th wish them a great season lastly but not least uh mr casper you came here i didn't know you as men other board members from all the wall and um you've really added a lot to the board and to my life i've got introduced to a very creative caring person and i think that's the two words
133that come to mind is heart and caring and i'll always remember you and i'll still be in touch with you regardless because that's what you brought to my relationship with that i'll sorry i went a little bit over but i wanted to conclude my comments with mr casper's uh heartfelt congratulations for his service and to the board and to the city and to our students and staff thank you the chair granted you that extra time mr daley no problem uh next um vice president mr casper so i always like to start off with um thanking our retirees so donna crum thank you for your service um to our district i saw you were the only one on our list this evening i'd also like to send my deepest condolences to the suralac family uh you
134earned my thoughts and prayers during this time of loss i always like to thank our donors for making our district a better place for our students i'd like to congratulate our students of the month as well as our football team for doing the best that they did and making it as far as they did mr awad you are also in my thoughts i hope for a speedy recovery lastly thank you all so very much for your kind words these past four years have been such a great opportunity for me to work with you as well as our public and i thank you for your support through these past four years while i was on the board it was a great pleasure to serve you and trust me i will be back you will see me
135around and i wish everybody a happy and safe holiday whatever you may be celebrating this holiday season thank you thank you vice president casper to our football team and our band as a sitting board member and as a resident of the city of clifton i could not have been more proud standing in those stands i say standing because i don't think anyone was sitting maybe one person but i don't think anyone was sitting the whole game we were all up on our feet we were all cheering it was such a sense of community to support these young people and unfortunately at the end of any event you're going to have a winner you're going to have a loser it's part of the process of competing but in the process of competing there are rules and
136guidelines and regulations and when those rules and guidelines and regulations aren't followed there doesn't become a winner and a loser there becomes a group that is happy because they've been declared the winner and there becomes a a group who didn't win because someone declared them not winning by not abiding by the rules and regulations we are entrusted as commissioners we take an oath we abide by rules guidelines many of them are mandated many of them we don't have a say on and yet an organization like the njsia who runs the athletics for board of educations greatly failed and did a disservice not only to clifton but as well as to east orange it was such a well-played game it was going to be upsetting when somebody lost but did it fairly on the field clearly
137that did not take place now any of us when we do something wrong in life we admit to it we apologize we correct it and we move and strive not to do that mistake again the njsia has not done any of those things as of yet they have not apologized to both teams for getting it wrong they have not apologized to clifton for the travesty that they caused by getting it wrong they have not refunded money because they paid professionals referees and replay people paid them money to officiate the game that they messed up and didn't abide by their rules and guidelines and regulations if anything i would have expected at this point a public apology from the organization to both sides but specifically in clifton that is the first thing they should have done
138when they recognize their mistake and i agree to wholeheartedly with mr kanova mr daley and i'm sure many other board members agree immediately both teams should be re awarded the championship as co-winners because this organization messed it up now i don't know going forward what this board can do about being part of this organization i know and i don't mean any negative towards you dr roberto i know you're part of the committee as well as our athletic director and i know you voiced your displeasure at at the meeting on uh the other day but action needs to be taken immediately a public apology needs to be made and co-champions need to be declared i'm not i'm not asking to take anything away from east orange this wasn't their fault they didn't cause this neither did
139our kids did our coaches did our band and our band leader i i can't tell you how proud i was when we saw our band go on the field at the beginning and do the national anthem it just amazed me and it shouldn't amaze me but it just put chills to my spine how proud we all are of our athletes of our coaches of the band clifton was well represented and some adults who are paid money messed this up and they better correct it and now i recently found out and i'm sorry board members but i will extend my my time a little bit i recently found out that the new york giants sponsored that game and this saturday the new york giants are holding a parade in east orange to honor the champions i've
140asked dr robitosi to reach out to the giants to inform them of the travesty that happened and to see if the giants would be willing to come and do something for our kids who deserve it just as much again i have to reiterate i'm not sitting here putting blame on east orange at all it was this is not their fault but our clifton kids are seniors who will some of them may never play football again who work so hard to achieve this and yet a week is almost here and we haven't received an apology and admittance to their wrongdoing and the way that they can correct it is by declaring the co-winners i congratulate the players i congratulate the coaches the trainers the medical staff equipment manager and to our wonderful band and the band
141director and the co-directors everyone that did such a great job and to the fans of clifton that came out in great numbers to drive 40 minutes away when we could have driven 10 minutes to metlife stadium which is another thing that boggles my mind and should be addressed makes a lot of sense to take two north teams to bring them down and bring south teams up to play her it just makes no sense to me so like the national school boards i think we need to put the njsia on notice that we are not happy we are not accepting this and we will fight for our kids as long as it takes you know i thought about this being the last meeting before we reorganized and i thought about coming today and and listing um
142the accomplishments that this board made over the past year and this board accomplished a tremendous amount of things and i said to myself you know what i don't have to come out and do that this board knows what we accomplished the public sees what we have accomplished and we did this as a team each of us working together but somebody had to be elected had to be appointed by its board members to be the leader i did my very best throughout the entire year to be a fair open and compassionate leader and i know that i can hold my head up high as president that we accomplished a tremendous amount this year and i appreciate each and every one of you for the work that you did and for those who supported me as president
143and supported me throughout the year i truly am grateful and thankful to you and that those who didn't that's your opinion and your right to do so unlike the city council who elects their mayor as the top vote getter board of education doesn't operate like that so it doesn't matter if you get 4 300 votes or 25 000 votes the board decides on who will be their leaders and again i'm not going to sit here and prolong the accomplishment this board made but we as a board accomplished a great deal this year and the town should be very proud of those accomplishments it's a very hard night for me tonight to say goodbye to mr casper as a board member and no reflection on mr paris at all as the new board member but this
144board is losing probably one of the most hardworking energetic outgoing dedicated board member he worked so hard for the four years he's an educator has educator knowledge to bring back to the board this town loses a tremendous board member but i know there are great things in your future mr casper that this probably was a blessing in disguise but i thank you for all that you have done for this board for myself not only were we colleagues we are friends and we will remain friends and i thank you for the term that you filled as vice president for your backing for your assistance it truly is greatly appreciated and know that we will miss you but i know that you will not be far away and i wish you uh all the best in your
145endeavors so uh at this time if the board members would join me out front we make a small presentation to mr casper on our thanks for him for his four years of dedication i think all right so this is the uh sorry someone hold that box thank you uh it reads uh presented to frank w casper in appreciation for your years of service to the children of clifton for your leadership dedication and commitment to excellence as a clifton board of education member from 2018 through 2021 the clifton school district applaud you for your unselfishness devotion and loyalty the clifton board of education december 2021 thank you so much [Applause] we may have to do two lines in the back in the middle all right come on turn around all right no that actually uh lastly
146uh to wish everyone uh on behalf of the clifton board of education um all the very best for a happy and healthy holiday and may the new year please bring us a change a change to achieve so much better things a change in health and happiness and a great continued clifton school district thank you all i just have one uh comment to make it an elite legal maybe you can help us with this uh so uh in your p resolutions um on board docs p p 17 was pulled for executive session however on the printed copy um it is p [Music] because superintendent pulled p8 earlier in the day and uh they didn't get shifted so how do we legally do this mr smith just so just to be clear what happened yeah earlier um
147brought to my attention that i wasn't quite happy with it didn't have an amount of money it didn't have a it just wasn't clear enough i removed it but i must have removed it after the paper um was already go by what's on board docs so i i believe our official agenda is what's on board docs not the printed copy well they get this too it's on the podium so board docs was adopted at some point in time as our official so it would be what it is these were printed before the changes andy just turn on your microphone um so because let's as mike suggested let's just give these names so we've officially approved the termination but not the administrative leave no the termination of employee is what we're pulling for executive session but
148we've already voted on no we did not that's the one we didn't vote on yet it's just the numbers that are different so i think we're good as long as we mentioned number 17 when we went to pull it right so it's according to what we were all looking at was board docs we were i wasn't looking at papers so i'm just concerned that right but my understanding is that we said termination of them i just want to make sure we're legally doing what's right so andy on our official agenda p17 is the agenda item that we pulled for executive okay and p17 on the official agenda is the administrative leave or the termination determination okay so the administration voted that yeah i would you know what that would be my kind of my suggestion
149is just sort of he can't imagine it's voted on so you need a motion for reconsideration which you're allowed to do the same night if it's a correction and i would make a motion to undo whatever it is that we need to do and then vote correctly on the new item but we did vote correctly i just want to be clear the board voted correctly on everything on personnel it's just a number it's a number change with the accept but but there's actually no change because we no not to us right now to us we pulled p17 which is the correct on on the agenda board docs is our official agenda the board pulled piece 17 the termination of employee so everything else was voted on and approved and we pulled piece 17 for executive
150session my opinion i believe we are good it sounds like we're good if that's what we did then yes i i will make a motion to uh retire into an executive session to consider item 17 termination of employee for executive session second okay that will work can i add something to executive session well we don't have we we need to vote on the motions business or sorry yeah we're not yet we're not there yet guys sorry isn't it going like that i just wanted i just wanted to clarify this before we moved on so okay so we're good we're going to go by what is on aboard docks which is our official agenda okay uh roll call now there is no resolution because that's pulled for executive no unless i made a motion to go
151into executive strength i got it i got it i got to say out of order because we still haven't done new business yet oh i'm sorry not that i don't want to go to executive session but okay i will draw mine is there any new business on the floor i have one yes okay through you mr president mr daily the board of direct um the delegates assembly will meet again in may of 2022 so it would be the recommendation of this board to um to submit a resolution saying to recommend that we pull out the money for national school boards association so we have some time to write it right so i think that's what we should think about in january is sending that down as well so that it's may i looked it up
152on the calendar sounds good to me okay and also uh mr mr president may i just take a moment i i forgot to thank mr kasper for his board membership i'm sorry um that i omitted that before thank you for your county work you worked on unsung heroes last year you were vice president of the new jersey school boards association you got your certification and you were an active member and a valued member at the county level so thank you very much and also on the state frank for some reason always was able to get the motion in on the state level as well so he's on the docket that way so thank you frank good luck to you okay so now mr president i will yeah new business new business okay uh through youtube
153superintendent i have two things one thing is there is an individual this whole season uh during sports that showed up to every single event took photos never asked for anything did it on his own shared it with the booster club shared it online and i'd like to i guess make a recommendation to put a resolution together for mr stephen cohen who i think has done an incredible job not only this season but past seasons he doesn't work for the district he does it on his own posts on facebook gives it to the booster clubs does everything he can and never asks for a penny whether no matter what the weather is so i think that's the least we can do and the second thing is um you know the football team did did well the
154soccer team did well track other sports i think we need to find a way to try to start a new tradition in the city whether the giants want to do a parade or not do a parade maybe to work with the council on doing an all sports parade to celebrate all of our accomplishments in the district on the sports side and by sports side i even maybe even clubs as well mechanical mustangs they're doing phenomenal others doing phenomenal to show the appreciation and really not just give certificates to people up at these days but also you know be proud of them officially and publicly so thank you all right any other new business yes ms belchon i would just like to uh be able to talk an executive session about open claims uh insurance claims
155that are currently going on in the district we'll add that to executive session that's a attorney-client privilege all right now mr daly make a motion to go into executive sessions to discuss the items that were outlined by ms beltran as well as uh p17 termination of employee that's posted on our board jacques addenda second okay it was a motion by mr daley second by mr abu drabbo um the board may or may not take action may or may not take action when we resume um and we're going to ask the board to stay here for executive session and ask the public when we go into executive session if you wouldn't mind uh vacating the room um so motion for executive session roll call please mr abhidravo yes miss basford yes ms beltran yes mr canova
156yes mr daley yes dr danny yes vice president casper yes president smith yes uh yeah i'm sorry executive session should uh take about i'm gonna say 20 minutes it'll be longer oh we'll be longer i'm sorry because i expect questions okay so 45 minutes that fair okay the board will try and be back from executive session in 45 minutes we'll take a five minute bathroom break and uh we'll resume thank you public for uh for leaving and it prevents us from having to move thank you