001hmm yep good stuff this is the clifton board of education regularly scheduled meeting for thursday november 18 2021. if everyone would please rise for a salute 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 all right roll call mr shiatta mr abhijava here mr awad miss basford here ms beltran mr kanova here mr daley here dr danny here vice president casper here president smith here mr president we have a quorum uh accordance to the guidelines that are presented to us we ask that everyone here this evening to please have a mask on at all times board members and people coming to the podium
002you may lower the mask to speak and then when you're finished if you kindly please put the mask back on we thank everyone for your cooperation mr casper would you read the mission statement please the mission of the clifton school district in an open and reciprocal community partnership is to provide all students with a quality education to develop the skills necessary to become literate lifelong learners who are responsible and productive citizens contributing to a democratic society in an ever-changing world the public meetings act the new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right to the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the clinton board
003of education has caused notice of this meeting to be publicized by having the date time and place thereof posted at the city clerk's office clifton public library administration building senior citizen nutrition center on cable tv in the local press and on the district's website and mailed to presidents of parent teacher organizations this meeting will be tape recorded in accordance with policy zero one six eight okay we're now going to move on to recognition and award presentations we have miss ragoza rpsis district coordinator here this evening to do a brief presentation for the board and the public so paul you have the floor thank you is this can you is this on yeah i'm sorry i couldn't all right um so thank you thank you uh president mr smith vice president mr casper commissioners of the
004board of education dr robertosi and central administration for the opportunity to showcase the positive behavior support in schools framework during the clifton board of education meetings in the continuing effort to promote pro-social behaviors and provide students with access to an equitable learning experience we proceed to recognize the importance of positive relationship building between school staff and students tonight we highlight the ongoing dedication of woodrow wilson middle school their staff and students and their implementation of the pbsis framework this school year marks the ninth year that wardrobe wilson has been implementing pbsis over the years they have instructed students and staff on what it means to be all in which is what their pbsis framework is called the moment you walk into woodrow wilson you are magically transcended to an environment where one feels the support
005and empathy regarded by all what you're about to see is how a village grows and how it sustains throughout the years with the ebbs and flows of life to quote abraham lincoln i like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives i like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him we can all say we are so proud of the woodrow wilson middle school community mr bajica pbsis co-coach will take us on a journey on how students and staff relationships are built and maintained at woodrow wilson good evening everyone my name is mr bajica i'm a sixth grade social studies teacher at woodrow and i'm here tonight on behalf of the administration staff of woodrow wilson middle school at woodrow we say and believe that
006mustangs are all in to be all in we encourage everyone student and staff to be more ambitious respectful and empathetic these three core characteristics embody what we try to implement with our pbsis framework here at woodrow ambition respect empathy after the year we've been through with the covert empathy is especially important now more than ever and it helps us build a community together at woodrow to implement our pbsis framework we work on recognizing positive behavior reinforcing expectations often and rewarding good choices because let's be honest it always feels good to hear someone say thank you i recognize you i appreciate you as we recognize our positive behaviors in school we give out what we call mustang money to date we've already given out 209 thousand 235 points that means 209 000 positive interactions between the
007staff and students at woodrow we also have our all-in awards kind of like a student of the month program we recognize up to three students a month we have a golden ticket program which will be doing in december where each staff member gets selected one student who tries their best every day but maybe sometimes flies into the radar they might not be the loudest one in the room but they deserve the same recognition for their positive choices every day anyway and as we are in thanksgiving the holiday season we're also beginning a reverse week first week is where students are able to recognize their teachers and say thank you are two of our administrators speaking on behalf of this mr jagger our principal good evening clifton community i'm andrew jager i'm the principal here at
008woodrow wilson middle school and the thing that i am most thankful for good evening clifton community i'm andrew jager i'm the principal here at woodrow wilson middle school and the thing that i am most thankful for is the staff here at woodrow wilson reverse week is a very important part of our pbsis program it allows our staff members the opportunity to see what it feels like to receive mustang money here's what our students say about when they receive the mustang money and the opportunity to give this recognition to their teachers and staff these are our eighth grade all-in ambassadors here at woodrow our teachers reward us for a positive effort in the classrooms by giving us mustang money when i receive mustang money i feel really good about myself and i feel really appreciative that
009my teachers recognize my positive efforts in the classroom it's only fair then that we get to give nesting money to our teachers we call this reverse week reverse week is where we get to show our teachers gratitude and appreciation throughout the year [Music] last year when we did this programs reverse week we received so many beautiful messages from the students and those messages would get sent to their teachers and staff members just small little glimpses into how appreciative and thankful they are for the work our wonderful staff and teachers here do in clifton you were so supportive and helpful in this challenging time you made lessons so fun you are the best counselor ever thank you for helping me make my schedule today he's one of the nicest teachers i've ever had also he makes
010social studies better i never not feel like going to his class i think that's mine i feel like when i'm in her class i feel more open she helps other students out with work when needed and in her class she's so funny she teaches very well and is very patient she helps people a lot and never makes anything complicated i have many fond memories in our class we've read some of the best books i've ever read and we always had a lot of fun together she is so dedicated and cares about all her students this is how it makes our staff feel one of our sixth grade teachers mr giordano so with regard to our woodrow wilson reverse week within our pbis program i feel that there were certain comments and certain thoughts that were
011conveyed through students that i would not have otherwise realized for instance when we are done with a lesson oftentimes as teachers were unsure you know did the student really get the lesson was i was i really making an impact today and getting those reverse week emails just solidified that hey you know we are making an impact and we are making a difference pbsas reverse week is something the whole staff looks forward to every year when students send you letters of kindness just telling you you made them smile or they look forward coming to your class or maybe you're a counselor and you help them with you know a personal issue or a custodian getting thanks for keeping our building so clean and safe there is no greater reward knowing that the students notice and you
012are making a difference so this is from last year's reverse week students gave 785 messages to their staff and teachers and counselors each one a small moment but worthwhile because it just makes our day and our years so much better and we are currently in our reverse week now as we go into thanksgiving and we're so excited to see our staff and teachers getting that feeling of what it's like to give that that positive energy back to them and so in the spirit of thanksgiving and spirit of our reverse week i want to thank dr robert tozie our administration our board members because you probably don't hear it so often so thank you for your leadership in what you do to our administrators at woodrow thank you for all you do and to our clifton
013community thank you we have built something beautiful we have work to do but we're all in this together thank you mr bajica uh uh mr president smith would you do this the honor of presenting uh woodrow wilson middle school administration and mr bajica a certificate of recognition school district certificate of appreciation for outstanding b s i s implementation presented to mark showcase school for november [Applause] next we have our principal certificate of appreciation for outstanding pbsis implementation presented to andrew yeager richard wilson middle school [Applause] can you see it to the magic uh mr mankind joseph lincoln appreciation for your sis implementation [Applause] thank your you of appreciation for the pcs [Applause] thank you congratulations uh thank you miss rigosa for a tremendous presentation to the board and to the public we appreciate it so
014very much all right next we'll go on to adoption of the minutes for october 21st 2021 regular meeting so moved so moved by mr casper second by mr abu drabbo discussion seeing none roll call mr abhijava yes mr awad miss basford yes ms beltran mr canova yes mr daley yeah yes dr danny yes vice president casper yes president smith yes motion carries okay before we get to the superintendent's report i would like our um our student uh liaison here uh andrew uh for his report so that he could get home andrew hello good evening everyone it is currently a very exciting time to be a clifton high school student i want to tell you a bit about why uh the clifton high school varsity sports fall season is starting to wrap up boys soccer finished
015the season as parsee county champions advances state semifinal round the girl girls volleyball team finished the season at the state farm the state final semifinal round excuse me finished the season with a 14-3 record cross-country finished as paste county champions and lastly of course is our varsity football team if anyone is aware of the football game last week it was thrilling to say the least with the win over phillipsburg and the next game is tomorrow home at seven against east side it is looking to be an incredible game tickets have to be purchased online though for students it is three dollars regular admission is five dollars the winter sports season has also actually begun tonight uh hockey had its first game and won 6-2 but there are other teams that are starting tryouts and having
016interest meetings such as bowling and basketball i know that also the high school is starting to look at a girls flag football team which is very exciting after a bunch of other nearby schools started doing that last year the clifton high school drama department is presenting its fall play the greek mythology olympia ganza for three nights starting tomorrow at seven there's also another show on saturday at seven and there's a sunday matinee at 1 p.m general admissions tickets are 15 and tickets for senior citizens and students are 12 the clifton high school mustang band is bringing back their standalone show from last year under the lights is going to be on wednesday november 24th at 7 at clifton stadium ticker from information is to be announced this week sca has been working with deca and
017key club at the high school to collect items in preparation for thanksgiving there's still one more day to donate items if you are able to we are collecting cereal canned fruits and vegetables rice pasta soups and sauce sugar cookies snacks and jello crackers coffee and tea shelf stable milk and breads specialty items like individual pie crossword puzzles word games books and thanksgiving cards if there are any students watching who are interested in donating tomorrow is the last day student council members should be going to your homerooms to pick up items but they can also be brought to the media center or room g21 coast county school is also starting a chapter of the national english honor society applications were due yesterday i mentioned that to show you this is still in its infancy but it's
018a very exciting opportunity for students who are interested and i'm sure they will be doing great things lastly i do have a few things that i've been going around the high school i'd just like to address openly here and the first is the new lunchroom uh it was open when we returned from break earlier in the month and it has honestly been a hit with students especially all the new options a bunch of my friends and actually myself have really enjoyed those however there's one issue with it and it's just that the lines to get food are rather long they've been getting better definitely but for example the one day that i wanted to try out the food uh it took until 12 11 for me to get food the period ends at 12 24
019leaving a very short amount of time to actually eat uh however like i said it's definitely getting better the next is something that was brought up last meeting i know is still open and those are job openings across the district and i implore these openings to be filled by a more diverse group of people most of my teachers have looked like me most of my classmates have not i see this as an issue and i please please please ask you to consider this as you advertise these openings as well as while you fill them the last thing which is actually a question i'd like to ask is about the plastic dividers such as the ones on these desks i know that after a last meeting there was a survey sent out district-wide to staff asking
020generally opinions on them i'm not entirely sure but i'd just like to ask if there are any updates with that or anything that's been taken out of that that can be applied in the future besides that i thank you for your time i wish you all good night good health and get home safe [Applause] thank you andrew we appreciate your time and effort and uh being here uh to present your uh statements to the to the board and to the public and i know it's a school night so you're more than welcome to uh to leave and get home if you wish okay now we'll move to the superintendent's report thank you mr president just want to address uh our student uh before he leaves yes we did send a survey out to to our
021staff we didn't have a great response to be honest with you but of those that responded and i'm going off the top of my head it was really split it was there was no consensus either way so my administrative team my executive administrative team and i will be making a decision by the time we return from thanksgiving break and the thing is it can't be so you can keep them or not it can't be left up to the to the individual discretion of the teacher has to be a district-wide decision so we'll be making that decision soon as we evaluate all the things that we evaluate when it comes to covet thanks for a great report you took about five of my items great job good evening commissioners members of the community and public faculty
022staff and students pleasure to be here with you tonight as we get close to the thanksgiving holiday i think it would be important for each of us now to go around the room and say what we're thankful for no no no no good i just want to see if you're paying attention all right we'll save that for uh we'll save that for another time no not good all right i'd like to uh just have a few announcements to recognize some things some really positive things that are going on throughout the district that i'd like to publicly recognize october we had a couple of really great events a week of respect which different activities were were completed in all of our schools we had red ribbon week which is anti-drugs all of our pbsis schools had
023pep rallies you saw the great pbsis presentation from woodrow wilson middle school it's just it's really i don't know it's just it's just nice to see i'm a touchy feely guy i'm uh i'm uh everybody want everybody to be happy kind of guy uh and i just love that i love when students are happy when teachers are happy and you know the past couple years we haven't had too much to be happy about so it's nice to see that it's nice to see students and teachers recognized i'd like to recognize the school one hsa and principal romeo they hosted a pumpkin patch and allison armstrong and her husband brian armstrong worked together to bring mr armstrong's high school students from clifton to school one to share in the event and the high school students helped
024the elementary school students pick pumpkins and they took pictures with them and you know the elementary school students just felt really cool hanging out with the high school students and it was such a really great event and it's just an excellent way to celebrate one clifton that's really what what we're all about so thank you to the armstrongs thank you to school one hsa and to mrs romeo the principal school 15's full season of girls on the run culminated this past weekend with a 5k run on sunday 5k not bad not me either we had one of our students who opened up the event with the national anthem and our girls along with their running buddies did a fantastic job there's there's no elementary track team so this is just a nice way for the
025the girls to bond team building kudos to our amazing coaches who who run the program mrs duarte mrs vega and miss newman they've spearheaded this program thanks to principal lugenda dr legenda baton walker who has supported this program and it's really having a positive impact on school 15 and the entire community i'd like to remind the board and the public uh that december 1st there is a really cool event going on the harlem wizards will be meeting the clifton fighting mustangs on the basketball court yours truly will be the coach and i don't know anything about basketball so i don't know but i'm gonna make it look good kind of like what i do here at these at these meetings um but please come out it's for a great cause it's for the superintendent scholarship
026fund all the funds raised will go directly towards clifton high school seniors to help with secondary school expenses last year the superintendent scholarship fund was able to give out eight thousand dollars in scholarships with very little fundraising and we're hoping to at least double that this year and finally uh tonight uh two more things just want to give a uh update on the referendum which i i've said i would do at each board meeting tonight on the agenda there is a resolution for the board to select a construction management company the role of the construction management company is to be the eyes and ears for the board of education they do not work for the architect they do not work for the vendors they did not work for the contractors they work directly for the
027board they're the they are there to protect the board we're going to have a multitude of projects going on at the same time throughout the entire district at multiple schools this construction management firm uh will be there to ensure to the best of their ability that everything goes as smoothly as possible and that when there are challenges or issues they're addressed immediately so we're excited to get these projects off the ground at this time all of our all of the drawings are almost complete for our projects we anticipate going to to bid in january or february and shovels in the ground in april which uh is right on time with our our timeline that we said last year we knew it wouldn't be a year from the date that we that the community supported this
028referendum that we'd actually see some work getting done because a lot of stuff had to happen behind the scenes but it's coming sooner rather than later and it's very very exciting very exciting that our students and staff are going to be able to have upgraded and safe facilities and finally i want to reiterate what our student representatives so eloquently stated about employment opportunities our teachers are struggling in in many places due to lack of substitute teachers teacher may teach five classes then they're supposed to have a prep period supposed to have a a duty period and a lunch and and too many times they're missing their prep periods because we don't have substitutes to cover classes when other teachers are absent it's not good for morale it's not good for um you know everybody everybody
029needs a break especially when you're a teacher and you're teaching all day we need subs if you are interested in becoming a substitute teacher please come to our website you get a chance to work with amazing students i started my career as a substitute teacher you too can be the superintendent of schools starting at 125 a day it's not bad and the and the new jersey department of education recently created another pathway for people to become substitute teachers if you have 30 college credits and you are currently a student and you are over 21 i'm sorry over 20 at least 20 years of age you are eligible to apply for substitute teacher credentials so we need you you may just find that it is the career you've been looking for and it would be a
030great help to our district that's it for tonight mr smith thank you very much and happy thanksgiving to uh to all of our families to our entire community uh i am thankful to be the superintendent of the clifton public schools thank you dr rubitozzi uh in case uh i know board members know but in case the public does not know on our website we have a section called peach jar and peach jar is where all the events that are going around the schools are supposed to be posted in the peach jar so there's many opportunities of things coming up um in the next coming weeks that are located on peach jar so um instead of me reading through all of them uh if you would kindly just go to the to the district website and
031look for peach jar and you will see all the flyers of everything happening in the district and there's a lot happening some are directly from schools others from the clifton recreation department which is holding a door decorating contest there are other various things that you might be interested in they do the candyland in december and then many of the schools are holding fundraisers so food a school five is doing a food drive just quickly going through some of these for you many of the athletic groups are doing fundraisers for themselves for each of the groups christopher columbus is doing a mask sale and the key club is doing photos with santa and um decorating the hall so if you please go to our website under peachtree and you will see all the happenings that are
032happening in our district i'm glad to see so many active groups and i hope that the public would go out and support our our kids so uh take a look in there uh a big one that is coming up i don't know make sure it didn't pass yet is the uh the stampede through clifton it's this week right this sunday that's always a great event if you can run or walk in the event they're looking for both so just take a look at all the opportunities that are there for you [Music] that is where all the groups are supposed to post their flyers so they should be available to you there all right let's move on uh we have uh first reading of policy miss password do you want to read all those or we
033just want to put it in just put into record they're all mandated so they had to move forward all right so the committee met and these are policies that are mandated uh so uh we want to move these forward under policy so we'll have our second reading next week next meeting okay presentation reports we have none okay we'll go to board committee reports um i guess we'll start in order uh we had diversity and inclusion uh mr abhijava thank you president smith diversity english community meeting began at 1pm attendees or myself and my job with the chair and commissioner joe konova ministry assistant superintendent gina kuzlovic mr uh hamda the principal of chs uh mr thomas hewin who is the supervisor of the history department and mr david white teachers were mr la llama mrs
034carlo rodriguez mr john o'reilly and miss jacqueline turk four students were in attendance as well topics discussion number one new student members were introduced to the overall group under classroom or added to the committee in order to broaden the student perspective um and just to give a little clarity on that a little bit so various grades and levels are added so if a senior graduates a junior would pick up in that slot when they become a senior sophomore junior and so on number two wounded law was the primary type of conversation assistant superintendent gina kucilewicz explained how this new law may have an impact on how civics instruction is moving in the curriculum at the high school and middle school levels number three the committee discussed the importance of diversity equity inclusion dei in our
035curriculum mr celebs discussed the meeting that was held with the student representatives prior to the full committee meeting student representatives offered the committee different resources that they had gathered to enhance the current curriculum mr abedrabel asked about the results of the survey that was disseminated to high school students mr cybadro also inquired about future di surveys for our middle school grades mr abdul asked the administration to share the surveys with the board members or a presentation conducted for the board of education members number five mr white and mr q and discuss how diversity inclusion are currently woven into the english and social department the number six the meeting adjourned at 209 pm committee chair and myself dr robert tauzy and chs principal hamda will work collaboratively to determine the date and the next diversity inclusion
036committee meeting questions all right seeing none thank you uh next we have a policy uh miss password yes thank you uh the policy committee met on november 11th at 4 11 pm in attendance were vice president frank casper myself board members dana beltran and from the administration was luis ross the committee discussed the home schooling policy and requested that the administration provide data regarding the number of home school students in the district to be reviewed at an upcoming policy meeting the committee recommends abolishment of the following policies as recommended by straus ismae for those that don't know strauss's mate is the company that um guides us with policies that are updated and mandated and um they're like the clearinghouse of policies so we hire them up so the ones that we're going to abolish are
037policy five one one four eight eight one zero one six four eight one six four eight point zero two one six four eight point oh three the committee recommends the adoption of the follows following mandated policies as per straus may policy two four two two five one one one seven four three two eight four two zero eight five four zero six one one five point zero one six one one five .02 6115.03 6311 1648.11 1648.13 2425 and 5751 the committee recommends adoption of the following mandated policies with stated changes policy number 2467 retains the optional language on page two and inserts director of operations and special services on page three policy number 5116 inserts director of operations and special services on page 1. policy number 8600 delete the option on page 1 and the optional
038section on the top of the page 2 and insert the options section at the bottom of page two at the next policy meeting the committee will review proposed policies one six four eight point one and eight five five zero pending further recommendation we ended the meeting at 37 p.m and mr mr ross submitted the minutes there was um there was some concerns from i had gotten contacted by a community member regarding the abolishment of the uh holiday policy that policy is going to be in and implemented through a different policy so we're not abolishing it per se we're just abolishing that policy but it's being addressed in another policy and then um mr mr daily you had made some recommendations um as per mr ross he felt at this time we need to keep the
039wording the way it is because it's constantly being moved and changed because of uh the vaccines in covit so he asked if we could just be mindful of that and then we'll discuss it in another meeting further in detail any questions yes thank you mr president uh ms fastford thank you for that and thank you for passing on my input um i do have some issues there's there's a lot of discord in in not only in the district but in the country about vaccinating and testing and so on and so forth and we get constant mandates from trenton on a number of things and this is and directives and executive orders and and a lot of this is problematic um i i thought the the way the wording came down from trenton was a little
040harsh and we're not here to drop the hammer on anybody and um we are in a pandemic we're not in a post-pandemic yet we still need to be safe and secure as best we can and there's many options there's options everybody's preaching vaccine i've been vaccinated and there's others that feel they have issues with it for but we do have an obligation to make be safe and there is a testing option which is also purchases because we all know there's a case of many cases where people have contracted covert hopefully on a mild side even after being vaccinated so um the reason why i brought that to ms bassford's attention the committee's attention i felt it was a little stringent and i thought we had to soften the language and understand that you know there's
041many points of view out there however we do need to be safe and we do need to address the issues of the pandemic so as bizmaster pastor just indicated we'll continue that discussion going forward mr smith i i know that the vaccination and the mandated vaccination it's in the court it's in the courts right now so that whole thing is probably going to be on hold anyway that's so you know because we're we're being mandated at work to have vaccinations but what's being told now that it's on hold because there's a lawsuit going on about it to be continued any other questions nope thank you next we'll go to um finance mr daley okay now correct so mr daley would you mind doing facilities for me please the facilities also met on november 9th uh
042president where mr beltran mr canover and president smith and myself administration attending with dr robertosi mr gigaro mr yusi mr shahida mr marcion mr maldonado mr watkins who is our uh architect representative and mr keegan who's our engineer on several projects meeting started at 2 40 uh and ended at 4 55. the items of discussion was the boardroom renovation beginning election beginning the week of election day and uh i guess miss cheetah has that started officially yes it actually has started uh we're three quarters of the way through president smith has been there along the whole process and um i i'm assuming he'll keep you guys surprised as things go forward thank you very much for that commissioner's suggestion about ingress and egress were addressed about that facility and they're all now compliant as per
043our architect certification according to mr watkins we do not need to add an extra door to the back room of the executive area all we need to do is add a door behind the day is to stay within the fire marshal's guidelines and in the enlargement board our boardroom area we can fit about 170 in the room for public meeting wreaths construction began demolition on november 3rd the room is now empty we will begin to add the flooring light ceiling tiles mr marcion is securing the permits from city hall we foresee no issues involving moving forward as uh reese construction has already secured all the materials to get the project complete there will be a door there will be a door prior to entering the executive room and closing the bathroom and waiting areas that
044is now now where the executive conference room is the kitchen will be still functional for staff once renovation is complete we anticipate a reservation to take about a month that concludes uh facilities report if there's any questions i'll be happy to address them okay thank you uh there's a sec excuse me sorry there's a second page to that oh it is i'm sorry thanks joe oh there we go okay sorry um school six hallway was complete the staff was very pleased that's down on the lower level of the building for those who are familiar flamtonian opened the cafeteria for the whole school on november 8th for the students so far a huge success and we had some feedback from our student representative which is very good instruction manager was interviewed and the committee selected the
045winner to present to the committee award for a vote that will be held tonight it's epic the firm epic is on the agenda storm damage uh was assessed there was a leak in uh school four um there on 17 a water at some water infiltration at school five water infiltration uh leaking roof leak in school two roof leak in school 13 roof leak in number three ccms roof leak water infiltration woodrow wilson middle school water in the tunnel number nine uh had the water some water infiltration number eleven roof leak number fifteen water infiltration and number sixteen uh besides the all the other stuff went on there was some flooding in the parking lot uh all these were a minor concern and all have been addressed is that correct mr cheetah correct okay thank you
046ccms stadium parking again as in this finance report is 86 650 dollars and that increases some stadium parking in around columbus we spoke to our attorney our attorney on acquisition of a possible school at on valley road transportation hub demo as mentioned in the finance report was forty two thousand eight hundred dollars uh there was trees behind school 16 that were trimmed and cut down or removed that were the ones that were down that's all included in our arborist report it's also correct what's the sheet i'm sorry i didn't yeah on on the school 16 this is well done in accordance with our arbor at street fourth that is correct okay thank you which will wilson uh field stakeholders believe that flipping the field would be best for playing we discussed that a little bit
047more in detail and i think we're going to stay with the current configuration because of it would be best all the way around for for operational and accommodating spectators and that needs is that still the field right in other words it was designed the the original thought was to have the baseball field facing uh south to the to the north you know as the as your as the batter would face towards more towards the north the current is more to the south or southeast uh but it was this upon discussion the committee and the administration we decided to flip it back to where in a similar configuration that's there now it's not at the exact configuration but a little better this will accommodate both soccer and vase and baseball and provide some room for spectators
048and easier for the spectators and the participants to access the small field house that we have planned for that facility that will conclude my report any further questions sorry for the faux pas okay thank you uh president i'm sorry somebody yes hi me uh down here um first of all i want to thank the facilities committee for school 16. um you know it looks it looks great i saw as they were cutting it um the unnecessary trees that were dead and laying down and looked so much better for the students going there particularly for the residents who live right right um against that area two things mr daley if it's possible to take a look at uh for facilities two things but for one area the softball field in front of columbus we talked in
049the past about while it's a great field everything is awesome about it just two things are slightly missing one is nets for rape potassium foul area because there have been a lot of parents and a lot of folks who have been watching the game and the first thing as a foul ball goes towards the stadium wall is whose car is going to get hit and it's happened and i think a net would help our insurance company because i'm assuming if it's a softball we would have to probably cover it right for cars damaged uh second thing another thing that's missing is a bench a stance bench for the crowd to sit because a lot of the parents are sitting on the curbs are standing on the curb across from uh right in front of columbus
050across the way from over the street i'm sorry from the field and i only asked that about that now only because i think it's better to take a look at it now prior to the spring coming ahead of us so this way we can be prepared and not say we should have worked on it or thought about or talked about it i don't think it would cost much i don't know anything about any of that stuff so it's my recommendation to you guys i'll be happy to pass that on and also since you raised the issue with the softball fields we've asked the administration to address the the maintenance and to upgrade the maintenance contract probably with a new vendor because the people who are involved with softball wanted a natural grass field and that
051takes more maintenance a lot more maintenance and that needs to be done properly to maintain the quality of that that has been a little bit on the short side uh up at this point and we need to correct that so i'll add that to the committee's agenda thank you very much thank you mr daley yes mr spencer um through you to the superintendent um i had we requested some people from the community requested the wall school five to be painted because they put the new fence in they actually did a really beautiful job it looks so neat and tidy a lot of people were making comments on election day how it just sets the place off really nice so thank you to whomever was the facility person on that i think he's sitting in the
052audience thank you very much it looks great yes i agree with you it looks fantastic anyone else okay let's move on to um public recognition yeah there's still some committee reports oh i don't have it i thought i finished it oh i'm sorry i didn't scroll up uh mr kanova technology please uh the technology committee met on uh all the dates not listed there but the only board member president was data beltran administration we had mrs kuslovich and mr mountain the meeting time was five to five twenty the item of discussion was remote participation in meetings uh mr mountain reviewed the different options available for remote participation from the public and our commission's call and et cetera and depending on the format desired by the board the recommendation is to refer this to the policy
053committee uh joe do you know what date that was they just put november on that i believe it was the 11th it says november 11th on there no new yeah mine just says november it says it on the executive content on the bottom there it says technology meeting minutes november 11th 2021 pdf yeah on that but on the official minutes it just says november that's got to be corrected please to have the exact date on there okay no questions for mr canova we'll move on to public recognition 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 directly related to the operation of the clifton public school district residents and non-residents are requested if in person to sign the register
054provided for this purpose all speakers are asked to state their names municipality they live and a subject matter before speaking comments are limited to five minutes per person issues raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate your questions may or may not be answered by board members the board asked that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when they are speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the state of new jersey the board bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any
055comments made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments in light of the legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments okay anyone wishes to address the board please come to the podium in front of me at this time good evening my name is catherine morrison i'm a teacher at school 11. on august 6 2021 school 11 lost an integral part of our school 11 family diana max simoetz was a beloved co-worker teacher and friend diana made school 11 a better place diana was known to her students as miss mack when i walked in her room i would love to see the photos of her students on the wall miss mack really loved her job
056and the students at school eleven on monday the 22nd at four o'clock we'll be honoring her by dedicating a little free library outside of school eleven we would like to invite dr robert tozie and the board of ed members to this dedication we would also like to see students of miss smack there we will have books by the teachers of school eleven each book will have inspirational words on the cover to inspire children of clifton to read miss mack may no longer be with us but she will still promote the love of reading to the students of school eleven the plaque on the library will read in memory of diana max simwitz forever the heart of our school re we read to know that we are not alone thank you for your time and hope
057to see you there miss morrison could you please email me that information when you get a second thank you very much thank you anyone else wish to address the board good evening to all my name is lori lallam and i'm the president of the cea i just want to make a couple of comments now for the high school that they're going to do a female flag football i want to know that i was the original powder puff football player in 1975 don't do any math so wait i'm sorry what year old but anyway junior year and senior year i was the star kicker so i i played that very well and the boys they were the cheerleaders so keep that in mind that was a fun time back in the day i want to thank
058you dr robertosi for recognizing the fact that your staff works very hard and they really have gone above and beyond the call of duty and that makes them feel good because this has been very tough on the staff and my email gets larger and larger every day and it's not a complaint i wish i had a magic wand to take us back to pre-covet because this has been difficult on everyone and is i want to find out is there the policy on on vaccine and testing from strauss esme okay good all right just want to check but uh thank you again for for recognizing your staff because it means a lot to them and i hope everybody has a wonderful thanksgiving and i am thankful to be the president of this association and working clifton
059so that's my thankful mr president um can i just tell her what policy it is so she showed up it's first reading miss lama it's eight point thirteen okay anyone else wish to address the board seeing our most important man make a comment appreciate miss la lama thanking me for recognizing the staff but my problem and where i have mixed emotions is that i wish i can do more than just thank them i i know what it was like when i was in the clay when i was a classroom teacher and my last period of day was my prep period and i taught all day and then the principal or vice principal or somebody comes up to you and says i need you to cover this class and you're exhausted from the day you have
060your own stuff to do and that's been happening all too often and it's a bigger problem than clifton it's a bigger problem than new jersey it's a national issue there's a there's a labor epidemic there is a there is a national reckoning of employment in new jersey in the united states in what people will do for money and i'm open to suggestions i'm open to what can we do to get more substitute teachers what can we do to fill some of the regular teaching positions we have i need math teachers i need special education teachers so i'm open to it but what i will promise uh the staff is that we will work together to solve the problem it's not something i created it's not something you created but if we meet together maybe we're
061not going to solve this national problem but maybe we can come up with something that can ease the burden because believe me i get it i get it and i wish i could do more than say you know thank you and i understand sometimes that just doesn't help too much so i just wanted to say that thank you mr smith president smith yes i'm sorry really quick just uh dr robert toziz um have we thought about perhaps talking to certain universities institutions that have adjunct professors and to see if any of them may be interested maybe they don't know that hey i teach at a higher ed institution maybe montclair will ep community college and that may be something that we can bring in as substitutes you can't bring them as teachers because they probably
062won't be certified just a thought and idea okay we'll move along uh unfinished business we have none next move on to education administration we have ea one through ea seven motion what's your favorite second by mr abedrabo discussion seeing non-vocal mr alvarado yes mr wad miss patsford yes ms beltran yes mr canova mr daley yes dr danny yes vice president casper yes president smith yes morgan carey all right next we have personnel i'm asking to have a p15 separate so we're going to do p1 through p23 with a separate on p15 so i moved so mu by myself mr alvadrava second second by dr danny and discussion uh yes and i'm abstaining on p19 board conferences my name only thank you ms beltran yes mr canova mr daly yes dr danny yes i'm abstaining on
063p19 board conferences my name only vice president casper i'm going to vote yes and abstain on my name only on p19 and president smith yes motion carries okay now uh p uh change in employment status motion motion second mr avadravo second by ms basford um discussion um i pulled this separate because it's a change in employment status it's always nice to recognize our current employees that maybe uh are moving on to a new position and the board likes to recognize them and here we have um i believe four individuals here um who are having a change in employment status moving up in our district and we're very proud of our staff that does that so i congratulate all those that are in here and at the conclusion of this uh motion uh if there's any
064of those people here and wish to come up to the mic they can do so so let's have a roll call please mr abhijava absolutely mr wod miss bassford yes ms beltran yes mr canova yes mr davey yes dr danny yes vice president casper yes president smith yes motion carries um i believe i see mr maldonado if you like to come up to the microphone if you wish [Applause] good evening president smith board commissioners dr robertosi mr jingaro who's not present mr uzi ahmed ms kasilovic and all our clifton families i would like to take a moment to thank all you all very much for approving my appointment as the director of the building and grounds department thank you for your continuing support on the job that i have been doing and will continue to
065do moving forward my goal is to continue to provide a safe clean healthy school environment for our students staff and our community i'm very excited for this new position i want to thank my family with here present my wife inaudible my son eddie iii and jacob armani my family is the one that keeps me together from the bottom of my heart i want to thank you all for this opportunity and i will not let you down thank you all uh thank you eddie you are um a true hard-working dedicated individual and this board recognized that and we're so happy for you and know that you'll do a great job and we thank his family for being here tonight and he didn't mention uh his son jacob but jacob is one of our star football players
066that's going to be playing in that big game tomorrow night so we wish you all the best we wish you all the best and i know you have a little extra baggage there on your hand i'd like to recognize our superintendent's effort to give the board a pop quiz but he does i think he doesn't realize that we're his boss and not the other way around so but uh but to to his suggestion uh what do we need to be thankful for um we we need first of all we need to be thankful for you for uh you know superintendent for a while and you've more than exceeded i think our expectations and i don't i speak for myself but i don't think anybody on the board is going to disagree and and you've made
067a huge difference in the way this district is moving forward and we thank you for that um i'd like to also thank the administration and our staff and our teachers for their very hard work as you uh noted just a few minutes ago and um the other thing we need to thankful is in terms of the board is the board itself this is a tough time to be a board member and if you've been reading papers and watching news clips a lot of other boards have embarrassed themselves in their community and that has not happened here and i thank each and every one of us who are participating here at that board it's it's uh it's very important that as elected members of this board or any board you we represent the community and how
068we behave and how we act reflects upon how our community functions and i like to note that each and every one of us have done i think a very very great job in doing that in such a tough environment with so much controversy throughout the country so uh that's what i'm thankful for so i may take a few more minutes mr maldonado because she's just left like to thank him and all the others for their uh promotion um i'd like to thank our uh uh mr rugosi mr gozi on her presentation and andrew on his presentation and all those who spoke tonight and everybody in the community have a very happy and thankful and enjoyable thanksgiving under the circumstances it's not as bad as last year but it's not what we expect so but everybody
069have a great thanksgiving in the community thank you mr smith thank you mr daily next we have dr danny please um so what am i thankful for okay well i'm thankful for my family first of all because i think family is very important i think that thanksgiving that's a time we spend with our family and it's those moments that we always cherish [Music] i'm thankful also for people that come into my life that touch my life i think you know there's that saying that you know some people come in for a reason some first season and whatever it is there's always something that you learn about yourself you know whether somebody's there with you in a parking lot for just a few hours or something it's always nice it's always nice to to share moments
070with someone um and i'm also thankful for the clifton voters for putting their trust in me and it's truly humbling you know to be elected for fourth term to know that people do recognize and see that you care and that you really want to make a difference [Music] and on that you know i'd like to thank all those out there that helped me during my campaign run you know my family my friends relatives boyfriend and everyone that just played some part in in helping me and i truly truly appreciate it um and it was really a pleasure to talk to so many of the voters uh to hear some of the issues that they were facing in regards to districts some to hear about how pleased they were what the district was doing so it
071was just really nice it just sort of made me think about roosevelt's fireside chats you know would just be so it was just just really was a warming warming feeling talking to some and so i would also like to say condolences to the family of miss mack on the passing so sorry for your loss and congratulations i know he's not here anymore but mr maldonado and um congratulations to mr allen paris um on your win and you know i have to say special congratulations to miss basford because you know we were in it for so many years and you know we you know we're back on again for the fourth term so you know i mean you've been my running mate for you know how many years so i just have to say congratulations and
072i just want to say um happy thanksgiving to all and that you know may you share more good memories at the table with your family and that's all thank you mr abu drabble you're next thank you president smith uh first of all thank you to our wardrobe wilson middle school administration teaching staff for reinforcing positive behavior within the culture of woodrow wilson um it's great to see what our schools are doing um [Music] to help instill that proper behavior that many people lack open house night was phenomenal there are a lot of people who are walking the hallways and seeing who the robotics are the different clubs and some people some parents didn't know what we had in this district and i think that open house night was successful uh to principal hamda ms lusa
073lovich their staffs thank you kudos to you guys for doing a great job uh congrats to soccer volleyball across country you guys had an amazing season i was fortunate enough to watch about 95 percent of your games in matches and meets football everybody knows football is probably my favorite sport and our team is rocking it um it's unfortunate what happened to union but that's what happens we don't when you don't have a danny robert toesies as your superintendent and connected to open house night um i was invited that night to mechanical mustangs on a saturday morning that president smith and i went to and people don't understand what goes into robotics and mechanical mustangs and they it's phenomenal i mean it's not just academics but they are truly it's truly a sport and uh to
074monique thank you for coaching them you're an amazing asset to this district uh condolences to the um the family of miss mack and the school school love and family and also not to forget cheerleading in the band as well they've done a phenomenal job our turkey donation line i know a lot of people are inquiring about where to donate turkeys for thanksgiving i believe saint peter's haven takes donations it's a good asset that we have in our in our city congratulations to the winners for the election if i'm not mistaken i think mr paris is in the back congratulations to him as well he's hiding the back behind that mask so congratulations to all three i know i know so when i walked in i want to remind everybody i already bought my tickets but
075also to my colleagues on the board um just as a reminder to buy your tickets for the superintendent's fundraiser it's 15 a piece the contact on that is ms jen algieri she's done a phenomenal job with the foundation uh superstars foundation that he brought over for with him from linden again it feeds a good source which is scholarship for our students here in our district so they can move on and do bigger and better things so it's a reminder as well what am i thankful for honestly danny our teachers our family and the trusted people i've considered close friends and family for all the support and on that note on the with go bucks they're playing the giants monday night [Music] thank you uh next is miss bassford yes good evening congratulations to dorothy aldrin
076the 200 2021 passaic county volunteer member of the year she's a member of casa clifton against substance abuse she won the new jersey governor's council on alcohol and drug edition addiction it's a great honor for her for her grandparent group condolence to trina wanjenko's family class of 2012. she was an inspiration especially with her work in diversity and inclusion she was um an asset to the school and also an asset to the community in which she worked and grew what a loss to all of us as as human beings i have 10 483 reasons to be thankful and the staff as well but i want to talk to the community tonight i'm thankful for everybody in this room i am blown away by the 4 000 individuals who believed i still have three more years
077left in me um thank you for your support and faith you have proved that actions speak louder than words every election that i have run gets tougher and tougher each time you are the re you are you are my reason why your children are my reason why the teachers and the staff are my reason why the why i put my family through the ups and downs of being a commissioner but they understand my why my why is my passion for an equitable education for all and i will continue to keep my light shining even if it's not seen by others i want to congratulate commissioner danny who ran a campaign hard especially during the early election my family now has new inside jokes with you an everlasting image of you running through the parking lot
078of the clifton public library alan parrish welcome to the board look forward to working with you i look forward to ha to have your experience and vision on this board as well to those who didn't get it this time don't give up elections happen every year stay involved but most importantly stay informed to be the best you can be is by be staying informed for everyone who voted continue to stay active to our community so many people came to the polls that didn't know there was a board of education election which was very hurtful and troubling to me the dr drop walk was huge being active isn't just when election season happening it's being active and involved happens every day each day thank you again but i'm thankful for everybody in this room um whatever
079you do next week on thanksgiving say the prayer that you need to say to whatever god you believe in and what your grace is we have a saying in my house i can't say it here but um i'm grateful for everyone be safe be well and thank you 4549 of you i am grateful for all of you as well thank you thank you um ms beltran oh so i walked in at the perfect time with dr danny talking our doctor not whatever you know what i mean dr obertosi talking about staffing crisis so unfortunately i was late tonight because my supermarket which normally has 50 employees we're down to 27. um with 27 same as dr robertosi i still have to fill all my obligations to those 27 as well as the entire community we
080don't have the option like the school doesn't have the option of just closing down you have to learn to function with less people and with a holiday coming next week it's becoming harder and harder every day and it's hard on my employees the same as it's hard on the employees that we have here in the school district and i apologize for being late and i hope that this is hopefully the you know the end of the staffing crisis and maybe by december meeting i'll be able to be 100 punctually on time i have the plans every morning of being here on time and then by the time the afternoon comes around we've lost another employee and you know we have to be able to check out the families that are coming to my supermarket to
081buy food um and on a happier note i'd like to say good luck to our football team when i was in high school my football team won state championship all four years so i'd really like to go back to the stadium to be there um i hope we can all go i hope i'm not inviting myself i'm just saying that it would be nice if we were invited also i'd like to say that everyone have a nice thanksgiving be kind to the people that are working in the supermarkets every supermarket is short staffed when you go out on black friday there's going to be less people it's going to take a long time to check out there might not be all the sales that there normally are so just be patient with everybody you see
082out there everyone is working really hard right now um congrats to judy basford um dr danny i'm in allen paris i look forward to working with you guys on my last year here on the board thank you thank you mr kanova it's green yeah you want to do that hello oh there we go uh congratulations to all of our appointees tonight congratulations to our board of ed winners looking forward to working with all of you again um i was glad to see that there was nine people running so that shows that there is people in this this town who care and want to run a position that's non-paid position uh to improve our board and improve our our district and i'm glad to see that and i hope to see that in years to come
083i really want to see people involved in this town this the student representative mentioned long lines for food i did hear that as well from my daughters but not because there's long lines for food because they want to go to their favorite subject which is recess and it takes longer to get to recess um so there is longer lines i told them just to be patient you know there is a covered restrictions and people have to uh have long enough space and time between it just that it is what it is for now um december 1st basketball game i am looking forward to it uh danny i want to know are we allowed to play too with board members is that something we're allowed to do no that would be cool um there was a
084player want to see you there bring the family there there was a player that came to school three we had an assembly and the students loved it they were so engaged it was amazing and and i am bringing my family there so we'll be there anyway um but i do want to say happy thanksgiving to everyone use caution if using a fryer and frying your turkey make sure it's dry and not frozen um i've heard horror stories uh but the things i'm thankful for i'm thankful for the parents being involved i'm thankful for the teachers administration for caring for our children and nurturing them i'm thankful for the kids in our district who are working hard under these these uncertain times and difficult times and for our board for putting in the time to make
085this in this role to make this place better and i'm looking for forward also to tomorrow's games so go mustangs thank you thank you vice president casper okay on my second to my last meeting i'd like to first congratulate all of our winners nine people was tough and i'd like to congratulate the three winners this year mr paris congratulations i welcome you in january bassford dr danny good luck it was a great pleasure working with you the past four years um there are some of you that i've been working with a little shorter so um miss beltran mr kanova thank you so much for your continued service mr daley mr smith it's been a pleasure mr abdrabbo you won't miss mr abu drabo it's been great working with you as well i know and as
086always i'd like to re thank our retirees for their hard work and dedication to our district i'd also like to thank all of the donations that have come into our district it's always a pleasure to see that all the donations that come in to make our district a better place for our students and lastly i'd like to thank administration and and um my fellow colleagues here as you know i had lost my brother about two weeks ago so um i'm like i would like to take this opportunity to thank all the heartfelt condolences from the public as well as my board member my fellow board members and our staff has really meant a lot to me and it makes me feel better to have worked with all of you so i'd like to thank all
087of you on that one have a great evening everybody and happy thanksgiving thank you i am most thankful for this district to my colleagues i work with to the public and to our staff we have probably the best teachers not only in the state but in the country we have dedicated employees that when they're asked to do something they do it i cannot emphasize how important that is just look at our meeting here tonight we had to switch the meeting to the media center here it did not work out at cella b so the staff here had to regroup put this room together sound system and all that from the technology end everyone did a phenomenal job and i believe it's a tremendous uh setup here but this can't be done unless your you have
088staff that are dedicated to doing these things and i know many times we don't say thank you enough and i tell myself each day that when i go out and see our staff to see our teachers that i make sure i thank them i thank them for the job that they're doing i thank them on behalf of the district and i thank them on behalf of the students and that leadership starts at the top and while we sit here and say we are so thankful for dr robertosi and we are but he has a tremendous staff under him and this board dedicated to giving him that staff and now we have a district that is running so smoothly so i have to thank all of them as well this can't happen without everyone's dedication and
089support and to the public the public has always been supportive we asked the public last year to go out and approve a 168 million dollar referendum and they did it so we say thank you to the public and i know that this board will not let you down we will be starting on that referendum actually things have started in the motion especially tonight we approved our construction managers eight people full time will be dedicated and on site here throughout the entire project and many others in the background but eight of the employees from this company will be on site full-time dedicated only to clifton so all in all i thank all of you i thank my commissioners for the great job that you're doing i congratulate miss basford dr danny and mr paris for being
090elected to this board we look forward to working with you and i thank mr casper for his dedication his devotion to this district he truly worked very hard while he was a commissioner and i know that he'll continue to do great things in your life and we wish you all the best and we thank you for all that you did for this board i i wish and hope that all of you are blessed with good health and happiness this thanksgiving last thanksgiving was terrible this one not so good but we hope we're in the right direction we hope people are getting vaccinated we hope that in some point we'll all be together not so spread apart not worrying about how we're going to get the next teacher or the next driver to buy drive the
091bus some towns have parents driving the school bus we're not quite there yet so this town has much to be thankful for and i hope the citizens of this town are thankful of the job this board is doing because it's been a very difficult and challenging year and i commend my commissioners for the job they did on all their committees and keeping up with everything throughout this pandemic nothing has stopped but has worked harder and i thank our security team mr constantino mr fieldhouse and his entire staff everyone has worked so very hard so i'm grateful and thankful to each one of you and we look forward to moving on in the right direction so this thanksgiving i wish all of you to be safe to be happy and healthy god bless all of you
092that's all i have we'll move on new business anyone for new business no we have nothing for executive session tonight so motion to adjourn removed mr casper said goodbye mr abu drabo meeting adjourned thank you you