October 21, 2021 - Clifton Board of Education Meeting

001thank you okay [Music] thank you [Music] mike's oh thank you it is now uh commissioners are we ready too bad where'd it go there okay good evening everyone and welcome to clifton high school uh i'd like to open our regularly scheduled board of education meeting for october 21st 2021. if you all would please rise for a salute to our flag followed by a brief moment of silence i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you mr uc roll call please mr abedrabo here mr awad here miss passport here miss beltran mr canova here mr daley here dr danny here vice president casper here president smith here we have a quorum uh mission

002statement uh miss vice president casper would you please read 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 open public meetings act the new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right to the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the clifton board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be publicized by having the date time and place thereof posted at the city clerk's office clifton

003public library administration building senior citizen nutrition center on cable tv in 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 uh just to remind everyone uh by governor's order uh if you're in the building you're expected to wear a mask however the ordinance also states that you need to be three feet apart etc so this board on the dais we are three feet apart we have plastic barriers between us and we do quite a bit of talking so board members if you feel more comfortable not wearing your mask that would be okay if you get up to move around you would have to put the mask on visitors if you wish to sit separately from anyone

004else six feet apart and wish to take your mask off i would not have an issue with that if you're near other people then you must keep the mask on if you are not vaccinated you must keep the mask on so if you are more comfortable keeping the mask down please just sit in an area where you're not close to other people okay i think that will make us all comfortable abide by the regulations and again that's your preference if you wish to keep the mask on obviously please do and board members uh feel free to remove the mask but especially when you're speaking one of the complaints we got from the meeting last week is they couldn't hear commissioners with their masks on so if you are keeping the mask on when you speak

005if you would kindly just lower it while you're speaking and then put it back on thank you all okay okay we are fortunate tonight to have paula regoza our pbsis district coordinator with us and she is going to make two presentations as the pbsis showcase of the month to uh grade seven students from christopher columbus middle school so uh miss rogoza if you would uh come up to the mic good evening everyone thank you president smith vice president casper commissioners of the board of education dr robertosi and central administration for the opportunity to continue to showcase the positive behavior support in schools framework during the clifton board of education meetings the foundation of pbsis is based on daily preventative practices these practices include building and sustaining positive student and staff relationships in clifton schools staff

006provide students with praise specific statements paired with a point or ticket when students display these pro-social behaviors and follow school-wide expectations these daily practices amount to students feeling supported and loved tonight we highlight outstanding student participation in the pbsis framework or the champs program as it is called at christopher columbus middle school ccms utilizes chance points to recognize students for efforts and maintaining the positive landscape of their environment so james and joseph zuniga are twin brothers in the seventh grade at ccms both james and joseph were top champs points recipients in grade six and remain at the top five percent of champs tickets recipients in grade seven to date these ccms scholars have accrued over 250 000 pbis reward points since last year folks those are 250 positive interactions that they shared with ccms staff

007academic teachers yes big round of applause academic teachers cycle teachers and school staff admire their positive attitude and appreciation they both show in their school environment in their daily habits behaviorally and academically both students have fulfilled or exceeded pbsis expectations thank you james thank you joseph for your positive daily disposition and actions thank you christopher columbus administration pbsis team and ccms staff for leading the and demonstrating the champ's way so the video that you're about to see is a collaboration between mr uh mr genki and mr labriola over at ccms and mr mcconney and the ch and the high school cast senior three student interns so as you can see as you're going to see it's a great collaboration between the high school and the middle schools middle school thank you all for coming together

008to celebrate james and joseph suniga so commissioners i invite you to sit in the front row if you could kindly or wherever you want i'm sorry wherever you want the screen is going to come down and we're going to play this video foreign i could die [Music] it's a pleasure to speak with you today regarding james and joseph zuniga on a daily basis these two outstanding students fulfill our classroom and school-wide expectations well the school is a lot bigger we have a lot of a lot more activities and sports stuff like that and the classes are bigger as well and i'm more comfortable in my clothes um there are a lot more people that i get to interact with that i've seen before there are a lot of kids that go here that i that

009used to go to some of my old schools so it's definitely nice to um reunite with them so and there are a lot more clubs a lot more opportunities and activities that you get to embrace here last year and again and again this year these brothers were top pbis reward earners the champs team and the christopher columbus school family is very proud of them and their positive contributions to our school community they truly represent the pillars of our champs program and the pbis framework i feel very happy and it makes my day like just all the better because i know that these i won this because of how much effort i put into my work and how i how hard i worked and i'm i just feel happy for receiving the awards for my hard

010work it makes me feel proud i definitely feel proud of myself and how much effort i have been putting into the work that i do and to how i get along with people and what i do in the community and in the school and i love winning prizes oh the sixth graders love champs they're excited energetic once the kids hear that little ding they get excited and they want more and they want more and they want more so i cheer them on when they get their prizes and they're just so happy when they get to pick whatever prize from the box that they get that week we focus mainly on positive behavior and the children rise to those expectations it's really nice to recognize students that are constantly doing the right thing again it's a

011program that recognizes student behavior but not necessarily for doing something spectacular but for doing the things that are expected every single day and it's really nice for students to be recognized in that way because i don't want my students to change their authentic selves but maybe behave so they're the best version of themselves it's just fun for them it's fun for us i love watching their enthusiasm and i wish we had this program when i was in school [Music] [Applause] thank you president smith would you kindly join us in the front gentlemen would you kind us join us in the front we would like to present you with a certificate of achievement smile thank you beautiful congratulations one more for mom one two three thank you [Applause] is [Applause] uh [Applause] there we go thanks

012guys congratulations [Music] good evening ladies and gentlemen commissioners of the board it's my pleasure to be here with you today to discuss a brief presentation about state assessments tonight's presentation is very brief because it is really just a statutory requirement and let me explain why typically i present to you our state assessment data as well as our local assessment data and i will be presenting our local assessment data this fall but our state state assessments in 2020 the njsla new jersey student learning standards assessment the dlm for our special needs students for only one percent of our students and the way to access the assessment of english language attainment were cancelled as a result of a federal waiver due to the pandemic so that was in 2020 now the pandemic obviously continued with disrupted education

013throughout the 2020-2021 school year once again although we did not receive a federal waiver for njsla new jersey was allowed to implement an alternative for the general education population and our general special needs and ell students that is called start strong so right now these last few weeks our students have been taking a very brief baseline of language arts and math in grades 4 through high school as well as a very brief science assessment all less than an hour on in real time in class in school this was not a major testing however it served to fulfill the federal esea or elementary and secondary education act requirement to test students in those grades in language arts in math and at three grade spans in science what we were not allowed to postpone last year during

014the pandemic was the dlm assessment of the one percent of our most severely cognitively disabled students and the ell assessment for language learners our english language learners which is called the we to access the data that i'm going to show you is severely skewed data but we are required by this esea law to present it to you why is it severely skewed we were not allowed to administer it remotely forty percent of our special needs population even when we were back in the spring remained remote at home by choice over 50 percent of our el population remained remote by choice last year so this data that represents less than one percent of our special needs population and represents less than 50 percent of our ell students still has to be presented to you so that's

015what this evening is about so what are these assessments the dlm is an assessment that is designed to be more developmentally appropriate for students in grades three through eight as well as eleven and it provides a snapshot of how those students our most students with the most significant intellectual disabilities how they perform in english language arts math and science at the high school level how they perform compared to regular grade level standards if we're able to do this assessment in person with all of our students we show the growth that these students make so what we see here we see that at all grade levels except the high school those few students who did participate and as you can see the numbers are really quite low we're talking handfuls on five children at 11th grade

016seven children in eighth grade six children in sixth grade two students in fifth grade etc of all of the students tested with in all grade levels with the exception of eleventh grade their greatest strengths were in language arts their greatest challenges were in math in 11th grade that is flipped we actually showed greater strength of those among those five students they showed greater strengths in math than in language arts the access for ells is the assessment that measures english language proficiency of all of our english language learners we must assess all of our current ls those students enrolled in esl and bilingual classes as well as any student who refuses esl or bilingual services so our team of ell teachers spent a significant amount of time in the spring trying to assess our students and

017obviously in a socially distanced manner but they were only able to do this for those students who were actually present attending school in person so this is an assessment access for ells which is administered administered k through 12 we give it each year to show student growth and they show their growth in listening speaking reading and writing and how they perform from level one which is an entering or emerging learner who comes in probably with almost no language skills through level six students must remain in an english language learner esl or bilingual program once they've entered until they can exit at a level five we can't exit students below level 5 anymore but we can use multiple measures to provide support so what we see here we see that 246 of the students were not

018able to take the test because they were remote and this shows their um where they fell on the grade span so we have um 8.7 percent of our students were level one the majority of our students were levels two three and four um with three percent of our students attaining level five and less than a percentage point attaining level six but once again there was only one student who was tested who attained level six where this is this represents around three just over 350 of our english language learners and at this time this year we already are approaching 800 english language learners so that is all i just needed to i wanted to share this information with you as is required under the elementary and secondary education act and i would like to thank you

019if you have any questions um please feel free to ask i thank you all for your attention have a wonderful evening thank you no no we we we had around six something last year but only half took the test because only half of chose to be in person correct [Music] thank right okay we thank um mr ragoza and um miss miss kusulevich for uh those two great presentations okay next we'll have the adoption of minutes of october 7th 2021 regular meeting so moved second by mr abu drabble second by vice president casper discussion seeing none roll call mr abba drabo yes mr awad yes miss bassford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes dr danny yes vice president casper yes and president smith yes motion carries okay next we have our superintendent's

020report dr robertosi thank you mr president good evening board of education commissioners members of the community and public i want to update the board on an incident that was brought to my attention last night several board members reached out to me several members of the public reached out to me um about a social media post and normally we don't react to social media posts but um parent had made a post about a student who was being bullied and there was allegedly a video so again several people brought it to my attention i had already been contacted by the administration at christopher columbus middle school who were on it last night and while i can't give more details publicly i do want to share a few things tonight with the board this was not just a

021bullying incident this uh this video that i hope is is not out there but this video was was a vicious assault that made me extremely angry when i saw it angry first um you should know that the offender has been identified is being disciplined accordingly the bystanders have been identified and i have to say that i'm most disappointed by the bystanders the people who think it's okay to take out a phone [Music] and videotape something videotape an incident instead of not even intervening you don't have to intervene you just have to say something say stop don't videotape it and those other uh the students who video will be disciplined too the victim was identified he is not uh currently one of uh our students but he is a a young man from clifton and although

022he's not one of our students we will make sure that the student is receiving the appropriate counseling and any services necessary and the reason why i'm speaking about this publicly because it was a very public thing it was a it was on social media and again social media is not the be-all end-all but it was out there it was big and several board members brought it to my attention and i wanted to update you and i want to be very clear to the board of education to the entire community that i will not tolerate that kind of behavior in our schools or in our community and if it happens the young people will be dealt with accordingly and severely perhaps most importantly though we will also educate them and counsel them any assaults or bullying

023incidents in our schools or even outside our schools we are required to investigate new jersey has the most stringent anti-bullying law in the country i can assure this board i can assure the community that anything that is brought to our intention is investigated and it is dealt with i don't have to tell you what bullying can do to a young person threatens their physical and emotional safety and it impacts negatively their learning and i want to believe this is an isolated incident but i don't know but what i can tell you is that we are proactive in this district about trying to prevent bullying we have several programs in place including our pbsis program which you saw on display tonight these are evidence-based programs we train all of our school staff and we educate our

024students on what bullying is how to prevent it and how to prevent it from even starting in the beginning and it while it doesn't mean we're going to eliminate all forms of bullying i do want you to know that we are proactive about it and we are doing our best to um to educate our young people i want the public to know and i think the board knows this but let me remind you that we do have an anonymous reporting tool on our website i was having a conversation with mrs basford this morning who who actually told me that it might not be in the easiest place to find so we're going to put it prominently on our website so that any member of the school community any member of the entire clifton community can

025go onto this portal and report any type of violence intimidation or bullying and you can report it anonymously and and you have my word that it will be investigated so that's all i'm going to say about bullying tonight but i will say that i was very very upset from this video it really shook me to my core as a father of four children makes me sick and i will do everything in my power and my authority to prevent it from happening again on another note um i do have a lengthy report tonight and i apologize in advance there's a lot of stuff that i want to make sure the the board is aware of we have a uh our november break coming up uh starting november 1st the week of november 1st and there's been

026a lot of questions and concerns about traveling and whether or not people will need to quarantine upon returning from travel and what what i want to do is explain to the board what um i plan on doing and what the guidance tells us and make sure if you have any questions i want to answer them tonight publicly so everybody knows where i'm coming from as of today new jersey does not have a travel advisory it's no longer in effect it has not been since may that means you are not required to quarantine upon returning from anywhere in the united states in new jersey however the cdc and the new jersey department of health does recommend that you quarantine so it kind of puts a school district in a difficult position so it's not a mandate

027it's a recommendation and we know that we have many staff members traveling many hundreds of students traveling and so the decision is what do we do do we quarantine all these people do we make these students miss all of that in-person schooling do we can can i open a school with enough staff if staff members have to quarantine now you do not have to quarantine if you're vaccinated but we have a number of staff members who i respect are not vaccinated and we know all of our students 12 and under can't be vaccinated so in order to maintain a more normalized educational structure and continuity we are going to adhere to the following protocols after break we're going to be open for full day in-person instruction for all staff and students after all breaks had

028a couple parents email me saying they heard a rumor that we're closing let me be clear we're not closing unless the national guard comes in here and tells me we have to close i'm not closing schools our children need to be in school but because quarantine is not required for travel within the united states since it's only a recommendation we are not going to require it i am not going to require that it will impact too many students it will impact too many staff members however we will enforce the international travel quarantine and again this this is on the honor system so if a staff member or a student and their family are traveling internationally they're going to need to quarantine upon return and the quarantine is seven days excuse me i just want to

029read i don't want to mess this part up i want to be clear in what the guidance says what the sorry international travelers um most quarantined for seven days but they can return after a negative test tomorrow i will be sending a letter out to the community with all of the information so that everybody understands exactly what our protocol is so if anybody has any questions about that i do want to address that tonight right now because i do want to get that letter out to the community tomorrow all right on a more positive note we opened up school 16. let's go [Applause] they said it couldn't be done but through the work of of hard work of many many people we had a great re-opening on october 12th at school 16. it was heartwarming

030we had the woodrow wilson middle school band playing outside as the students arrived at school i mean the students faculty and staff were elated i visited that morning everybody looks happy and that's that's what you want to see when when you're a superintendent you visit school you want people to be happy you want everybody to be happy students have been in person for over a week now everybody seems to be reacclimated and just on behalf of the board of ed i want to thank all of our staff members and our community members for being patient with us as as we as we fixed school 16 to get it ready we really came together as a community as one clifton and i'm thankful that our students are back from this meeting on uh and every meeting

031after i will be giving an update on the referendum as this board knows last year april 20th this district passed the largest referendum in state history to improve the facilities in our district so i will be giving an update at every meeting next tuesday we will be interviewing for um construction project manager that's the company who will oversee all of the projects that are going on in the district there will be just too many things going on in the district for our own staff to do that and that was included in the referendum so we anticipate that the board will select a construction project management company at the november 18th board meeting last friday we met with all stakeholders at the woodrow wilson middle field regarding the placement of the football and soccer field in

032the field house at woodrow we're going to be adding a retaining wall there and drainage system to ensure the field doesn't get flooded after heavy rain and when we were selling the referendum for lack of a better word we told the community that we were going to be flipping that field and now that the actual real drawings have been done that that might not be the case just because logistically it can't work to get the size of the fields that we need we might not be able to flip that field that's still a work in progress we're still making decisions on that but i will update the board when we do our assistant superintendent mr jingaro and our director of maintenance marcion have been visiting all of our schools with our security camera company we're

033adding security cameras inside and around all of our buildings so far they visited all of our secondary schools and all but five of our elementary schools and we anticipate that all of our buildings will be visited and the preliminary placement of all cameras will be outlined by thanksgiving i want to invite the entire community to the clifton high school open house which will be held on november 11th from 6 pm to 7 30 pm also the clifton high school state of the art kitchen will be opening for students a soft opening next week and a grand opening the week of november 8th it is absolutely amazing board members got a little tour of that kitchen tonight it is a state of the art kitchen students will have multiple choices and i think they're going to

034be wowed i have received some complaints from parents about the lunches at the elementary and middle schools and i will tell you that those lunches will get better as this kitchen is now open and there will be more variety we haven't been able to serve hot lunches but when we come back from break november 8th i can guarantee you you will see a difference in the lunches that your children are eating we have jobs open if you are interested please we need nurses school nurses or registered nurses esl teachers math teachers paraprofessionals for preschool preschool special education teachers and substitute teachers just last week the new jersey department of education opened up a new pathway for people to become substitute teachers previously you needed a minimum of 60 college credits the requirement has now been

035changed it's supposed to be a temporary thing but we don't know that you can become a substitute teacher now with 30 college credits if you are presently enrolled in college and you are at least 20 years old at our last board meeting the board of education approved my recommendation to raise the rate of substitute teacher pay to 125 dollars a day so if you have 30 college credits you're a college student and you're at least 20 years old we have a job for you please apply online all of our positions are listed on our website on december 1st at 6 30 the clifton clifton school district staff will be playing a basketball game against the harlem wizards now i am not playing because i don't want to hurt myself but we have some staff members

036who will be taking on the wizards i think i'm going to coach and the proceeds of this event will go towards the superintendent's scholarship fund which directly benefits clifton high school seniors last year with the help of some very generous donors we were able to give out eight thousand dollars in scholarships to clifton high school seniors this year i'm expecting to at least double that and so if you want any information about attending the harlem wizards game against the clifton staff will be a great time december 1st 6 30 information is on our website and finally just a couple quick announcements some some really good student and staff news our very own mrs poland school librarian at school eight um who was the 2020-21 support staff member of the year has published her first children's

037book called sammy the sock it's inspired by her tale of the wayward sock and his adventures so the students at school 8 got right into it and actually held a a sock drive that benefits local homeless populations um working with an organization called socks for homeless souls s-o-l-e-s and we distributed them to uh people in need in new jersey and new york and school 8 donated over 500 pairs of socks students at school 2 15 and 17 will be running their sock drive next week so if anybody has socks you can drop them off wants to donate socks i think everybody has socks i hope everybody has socks but if you would like to donate socks please you can drop them off at school 2 15 or 17. clifton merchant magazine will be featuring the

038sock drives in their next issue in early november congratulations to the boys and girls cross country team who won the north jersey invitational at garen mountain on saturday our boys soccer team is playing in the county semifinal this saturday versus wayne versus wayne valley at 3 30. admission is 5 elena pepitone class of 2009 graduate of clifton high school is also written her first book she's an author and she wrote an author and illustrator of a new book called there is only one kind of special and that is you and she credits her book to living with cerebral palsy and the lessons she learned about having a disability so that book is available on amazon please support elena a former chs grad and finally i want to wish carla rodriguez seventh grade uh science teacher

039at woodrow wilson middle school good luck as she is running the new york city marathon you know i have a hard time driving 26 miles i couldn't imagine running for 26 miles my feet hurt driving so carla good luck that is just an amazing feat to be able to enter that competition i'm sure you will do extremely well and good luck sorry about the length of my report tonight that's all i have mr smith thank you thank you dr robitosi next we have announcements board members in the future if you have any announcements that you would like uh announced please send them to me so that i can add them to the list so i'll briefly go through the announcements that we have in the district the first is a sock drive school number 15

040will be collecting new socks to distribute to a wonderful local organization called socks for homeless souls they deliver the socks directly to the feet of homeless folks living on the streets of new york and new jersey [Music] so if you have the ability to donate some socks the drop off box is by the main office of school number fifteen october twenty fifth through october twenty ninth so please uh try and help out and get some socks to them various schools will be starting their trunk or treats um a very popular event so uh let's see christopher columbus will be holding their first ever trunk or treat on wednesday october 27th uh in the front parking lot at ccems um so it's always a fun event so if anyone has the opportunity they're looking for some

041donations of a candy so if you like to donate some candy you can drop that off at the main office of christopher columbus anytime before wednesday october the 27th uh we have next um sila a um is presenting a fall make and take night a sun catcher leaves that's going to be on november 10th here at clifton high school all star students are welcome to attend you must register in advance by the 29th of october uh all attendees will receive a kit with additional activities prepared by a young lady who is doing this as her girl scout gold award project so that sun catcher leaves event here at clifton high school on november the 10th um let's see we have that's the same one we have a seal a um has a 4h game design

042challenge have you ever wanted to create your own game now's your chance um so the last event for this is going to be on thursday october 28th it's a virtual meeting from 5 to 6 p.m and uh passaic county 4-h is partnering with us uh to bring you the virtual game design challenge as a family you'll be given the opportunity to create and play your very own board game you'll receive instructions and more information via an email after you've completed the registration process so seems pretty exciting if you wish to develop your own game as an individual or as a family organization in town uh the red hat angels um they raise money for the relay for life um and they're having a bruno's pizza fundraiser on november the 10th so if you could all

043put on your calendar for november 10th to order some stuff from bruno's the red hat angels get a percentage of that cut and that goes to cancer research so if you want to eat out that night please eat at bruno's here in clifton one of the events that's coming up it's uh very dear to my uh to me uh as i've been part of this program for many years uh vice president casper joined me last year i was the first year that the recreation department did it a salute to the veterans but we changed the venue a little bit they used to come and have a beautiful concert at the boys and girls club and they love that but uh with covet last year they made a um a food drop off so every veteran

044that was registered they would receive a meal and delivered to them and mr casper and i truly enjoyed um not only the feeling of of satisfaction of delivering something to a veteran but how welcoming they were how excited they were many of them took pictures with us and just really made us feel good so that's going to be happening on friday november 12th meals will be delivered to the veterans home between 5 and 7 pm if you are a veteran please register and sign up with the recreation department or call them and um on channel 77 on that day starting at 6 p.m they will be playing the 2018 and 19 salute to veterans concert that was held in those years so um it's a true a true appreciation to our veterans um they receive

045a hot meal consisting of sliced turkey mashed potatoes vegetables cranberry sauce roll dessert bottled water and a special gift that we give them so i again with mr casper will be participating in delivering those meals and i ask any veteran that is watching that they please uh register so that we can get a meal to you also in clifton our clifton students are very fortunate to be able to participate in the halloween parade and harvest fest that's being held this sunday at the city hall complex they first start off down on van halton avenue and move and parade into the complex it's all led by our wonderful mustang band and then there's various different events at city hall judging of costumes and other fun activities that are available so please sunday 12 15 pm it

046starts the parade will move up from urn avenue to city hall property where the judging and all will take place so if you have time to come out so many of our clifton students participate in this and it's truly a fun event i love seeing members of the band that dress up in costume and march at the same time and play their instrument it's really something to see in the event of severe weather the costume contest will be held at clifton high school gymnasium um and obviously the parade would be canceled judging will follow the performance of the mustang band here in our gymnasium and there'll be limited games available here at clifton high school if the weather is bad i saw sunday's forecast and it looks great so hopefully the harvest fest will take

047place and many of our students will take an opportunity to be part of it there is a day of remembrance candlelight vigil that the board and residents have been invited to um it is being held in uh east orange on main street east orange at 6 15 to 8 o'clock p.m so if anyone would like to be part of the a day of remembrance candlelight vigil we did receive an invitation to that i believe the board members have received numerous sports uh booster clubs that have sent you an opportunity to buy some spirit wear to the public i believe it is on our website as well so if any of you would like to stock up on some gifts for the holidays or just need some extra clifton high school items you can go to

048the website and order your items directly i know we received hockey and boys basketball over the last couple of days so if anyone would like to participate and help those kids in their booster clubs by buying one of their spirit wear items we ask that you support them as best that you can that is all i have an announcements is there anyone else that has something else that i did not add here very good uh mr uh president smith the only thing i would say is um we the only other announcement with the election yeah um yeah i was gonna do it under my comments but okay yeah i'll do it here um so everyone please uh remember uh we won't have a board meeting until the next time we meet so on november the

0492nd tuesday november 2nd is election day we ask everyone please to go out and vote however you choose your candidates whoever you choose who you wish to be represent the board or any other position that's on the ballot just please go out and vote starting this sunday there are ten event ten days that the um that early voting has been established early voting takes place at clifton public library and most of the days are 10 to 6. so the dates are listed on the pacific county election website i know this sunday is the first one the 23rd so there's 10 dates that you can go and vote early so if you don't want to vote on election day itself um you can do early voting president smith yes actually starts saturday not sunday oh there

050is one saturday i didn't see the first day all right so starts saturday uh the 22nd so there's plenty opportunities to vote um does anyone know mr casper when the mail-in ballots had to be in by the application for mail-in ballots are due the uh 26th 26th yes okay so if you wish to vote by mail you may do that as well um you have to get a application uh to send in and then they will mail you a ballot you will then vote for what you wish and then mail that back to them or i believe they they have dropped both points as well city hall was one last time so if you wish to rather do that you could vote by mail and obviously in person um at your polling place from 6

051a.m to 8 p.m on the 2nd of november but please you have so many opportunities whether it's advanced voting vote by mail or in person you know everyone has every opportunity to vote please take that opportunity and go out and vote we encourage everybody to do that thank you so much for that is anything else you want me to add on that anybody okay uh is that what janina just did number yes okay board committee reports um i sent an email out to the board um what i'd like to do in the future and we can discuss this what i'd like to do in the future is to post the minutes of committee meetings to the public and to the board as board docs comes out the board obviously will vote on the minutes at

052this meeting but the public will have access to see those committee minutes as soon as the board docks are released the same time that board members would receive those minutes we would discuss the minutes as they are posted and obviously if the public would like to question or discuss anything with that they could do that under um open comments and the board obviously would make their comments as they are as we discuss them so what that does is it post the minutes early as as board docs is usually released on monday so the public would have an opportunity to see those committee minutes give them an opportunity to read it and then if they wish to come to the meeting and ask a question about those committee minutes they could do that the way we

053have it set up now is we don't post them until tomorrow after the board approves it and then if anyone has any questions from the public they have to come back next meeting and ask it and they may forget some of the things they wish to do so trying to be transparent as well as not having to read through like tonight we have seven committee board reports so it saves us from having to read every one of those seven reports because the public and the board would have prior access to those minutes so i've received so many comments from people that they don't understand the minutes that are being read they don't comprehend them it's just a waste of time so posting them to the public i think would be tremendously more successful they will

054have the same amount of time to review those minutes as the board would would do so um i open it up to uh two comments president smith who said that right here miss uh dr danny um just one thing uh the student representative if i don't know if he has anything that he would like to read off yeah he's not we're next time oh okay so right now it's just comments on anything on the on the we're not reading them off today no we're discussing what we wanted what we would like to do going forward with committee minutes so i'm proposing that we post the minutes on monday as we get as we get them in board docks the public would be able to see them and then if there were any questions from the

055public they could come to the meeting and ask those questions about those minutes right now they don't get posted to the public until tomorrow after the meeting and then two weeks later they may not remember what they wanted to come and discuss on the minutes um it also is very rapid you know repetitious um tedious as we're reading word for word from the from the minutes we've asked everyone to kind of do a summarize of the minutes but posting them with board docs and giving the public the opportunity they can see them and read them they don't have to have one of us read it to them that's that's the purpose of that yes uh commissioner daley yes thank you mr smith uh i'm in favor of your suggestion the only additional suggestion i would

056make is that once the minutes are prepared by whoever the minute uh secretary is that that be given give 24 hours to the committee members to add or subtract so and just it's a limited window just a 24-hour they know it's coming and that way we can have a better attempt at having accurate minutes instead of editing about at a board meeting absolutely i don't think that would be an issue at all and the president smith super quick i just wanted to say that they were posted public this was the first meeting they were posted public oh they were posted for this is the first meeting they were posted on the public section of board docs okay so the public um today is the first meeting that we did post the minutes when board docs

057was released so you do have access to those committee minutes now previously it was always the day after correct mystery was the day after yeah we would post them to the website which we still will do uh the day after the meeting president smith yes mr abigail um also i want i would i like the idea where he's saying to give transparency to the public but also to be cognizant of that there are students on some of these committees and to be certain that their names are not written out before we release this to the um after release to the public to make sure either initials or id number whatever the administration decides to do with that it's because there's been some times where we've read off ie diversity our student committees and the student's

058name has been on there we have to remind uh to take them all off our change or whatnot so as long as that's done i'm cool with it but again the protection of the children the most important thing to make sure either id numbers or initials yes or just say two students who are there and nobody's gonna really know who the students are right um dr robertosi i'm sure could direct the um those that are writing up the minutes to not include names on those so that that's not a i'm sure that's not an uh a hard task to get it yes miss beltran um well i disagree because i think that not all the population has access to board dogs i think a lot of people do get their information by us reading our

059committee reports especially people who watch at home on tv and on facebook they don't necessarily you know have the board docs open at the same time or haven't had a chance to review it and even if i think we could shorten it and just do each committee chair writes a small synopsis of what was discussed i think that just informs the public a little bit more especially for those who only watch from home quite well taken mr granova yeah so uh to piggyback on what miss beltran said i agree with her um i know me personally my father-in-law watches this at home and he's blind he can't see so he's watching it on the tv he also doesn't use a computer so but he'll tell me he'll say what are they talking about with that

060tennis court where do they want to put it he'll know what we're talking about when we talk about facilities so um i think it's in a matter of like you said being transparent i think it's easier if we can read these things out so that people know where we're going in the direction we're going because as data said not many people not all people do have access to that but the other bigger concern and mr abu drabba brought up is the the minutes posted sometimes when we read through we may skim a couple parts and not read them and and uh check and change them after the fact because there may be something like a student name in there or something in technology that i see right now actually uh speaks to the way that

061we're going about a certain ai technology and it kind of gives an insight into our our um our views of how we're we're trying to maintain security so something like that would have already been public so in that situation we would have been able to take a look at it and then been able to modify it so unless we change the procedure unless we say there's a draft that goes to board of ed only first in the executive panel for a certain amount of days and then we give our feedback and then it goes to public i think maybe that could better help the process but i think we need something else in the in the middle there president smith yes dr danny um uh just to piggyback off of mr kanova i mean whenever

062i have my meetings i do always ask um you know dr albertozia you know i tell him make sure you send them to me first so that i can check them over and look at them so i've always been doing that so before they go out i make sure that you know just to make sure things weren't missed or something so it's like an extra set of eyes so um you know i mean i just assumed that all board members were doing that it usually does take place but um sometimes it's missed but usually it does take place the minutes are always sent to the chair first yeah i was gonna say in that situation it got sent to you personally but not the group if there's a way that we could put it in

063the executive only area as we always did so everyone sees it for a couple days and then move it forward to public i think it's better yep that's that's a good uh miss bassford i only have five uh reports on my board doc's not seven so i don't know if i'm missing anything i just looked at it there's only i'm sorry okay um i just did a quick glance i saw a lot okay so um i have to agree with miss beltran and mr canova i don't feel that this is appropriate not reading bullet points that we discussed um with all due respect mr smith you just went on for a half hour with announcements to the community that stuff can be uploaded on board doc so people want to see that as well if

064i'm not for limiting uh in case in point anybody that's blind uh anybody that doesn't have the technology if they're looking at the meeting on their phone they can't access board docs because some some phones are not um able to handle all that data at once they're not going to be able to read it i would just like if we can actually read off bullet points so the people know what we're talking about it's just it's not fair to the community to just pass this by because i have several questions this is really loud i have several questions about um two to the report so how is this gonna work we're just gonna say okay we have the we have the adoption of the uh committee reports any questions it could be a very uh

065messy that we're not all asking the same questions at the same time so that's just my thoughts i don't think it's a great idea president smith yes dr d um i i'm sorry i i did want to add that i do agree with um miss beltram and miss bassford i really do i i don't think it takes really that much time and i think just once we start talking i mean if if bullet points are stated and then they're just not stated clearly or some i mean i just think it's easier just to read it um for the sake of you know those individuals that maybe don't have this and this is their only way that they do find the information and then once if we're talking about it that at that point i do

066agree with miss bastard it might get messy like we have to go back to it and then maybe read the part to the public so i mean i i would just say for summarizing that i would just say it's just easier to read the whole thing i mean that's my opinion okay anyone else okay so we'll uh we'll review that and get back to the board on that so for tonight we will continue to read the minutes we'll start our facilities miss beltran i'm sorry before we do that i'm sorry i i apologize we have our new student representative here tonight um it took a while for for us to get a student representative so we're very happy that he's here and so i'd like to introduce andrew who was our new student representative and

067he'll give his report first as i'm sure he doesn't want to hang around good evening everyone my name is andrew seradsky and i am clifton high school's student council association's senior representative to the board of education for this year uh just to give you a little bit of an idea of who i am and my interests in the school i'm heavily invested and involved with clifton high school performing arts department i'm an active member of the mustang band chs orchestra last year i served as vice president of the triangle music honor society here at clifton high school and since the summer of 2018 i've been volunteering with the band at the ic program previously at the annex now at woodrow for this past year i'm also an ap honors and cp student and overall i'm

068just very excited to be here and look forward to the rest of this school year there are a few announcements with the school that i just would like to announce here as well and first one is in regards to clifton high school's varsity fall sports because all the teams have been doing exceptionally well boys football team is currently six and one the boys soccer team is 14-1 i believe they played today i don't know if they won or lost girls soccer team is nine and five as of today as of winning today and they're going to states girls volleyball is 19-2 cross-country is currently undefeated ranked number two in north jersey and girls tennis is county champions as of a few weeks ago but i still think it's definitely worth mentioning tonight i know it

069was mentioned earlier but i also would like to say that this sunday the halloween parade and mustang band is performing in that and then later that evening we are also performing in the north jersey band festival it's being held at clifton stadium for the first time in many many years information for ticket prices and actual times is all available on the mustang band's social media pages there are upcoming dates for college info sessions for coaching high school families with seniors there are two tomorrow for montclair state university and fairly dickinson university and then next tuesday october 26th njit and kane university are holding sessions zoom links for those are available through guidance at the high school it's currently being announced on the occlusion high school morning news show that the clifton high school avenue of

070flags is accepting two dollar payments to dedicate a flag if you have a family member or a friend family friend who's involved in the military but you do not need to be related to them that closely you could still dedicate a flag without being related to someone please return all forms of payment to wing offices by october 29th if you're interested in that the sca is working with pbsis to present an free screening of the night before christmas and that is going to be at 7 p.m on october 27th up at the band field here at the high school clifton high school students are invited to also bring younger siblings a key club here in clifton high school is also running their clifton cares drive and they are accepting non-perishable food and personal care products

071as donations lastly i do have some student issues that have been brought forward and discussed in the clifton student union meetings that i'd also like to address here the first in regards to walkers currently coastal high school students are not assigned blockers and the question is just will they get assignments at any point during the year i've discussed this with administration and the answer is no the reasoning behind it is in case of quarantine or god forbid having to shut down this way students have their items with them the next is lunch and a general feeling that it might be unsafe during the pandemic uh fact matter is that we cannot space out anymore um however that is something i'd also like to address a few points later the next is with plastic dividers on

072desks this is something that i know has been brought forth to administration here at the high school but i also like to bring forth here because it's a big issue among a lot of students and there's a general feeling that they're not only annoying but they inhibit learning and are just ineffective i know there's a petition that has been going around it's been signed by many many clifton high school students and i hope that the board realizes that it is something that we deal with on a daily basis they aren't clean as far as i know and overall just as someone who sits in the back of the class because of alphabetical seating it's hard to see past three rows of plastic dividers and to see the lesson and completely understand it and the last

073point is just for general cleanliness and the question is is it possible to have a requirement to wipe down desks again this is something that i did personally as a student who was here during last school year when we were hybrid and i personally believe that this is a great idea because we have twice as much class time and even though wipes are still available to students the vast majority ignore them i personally have not seen a single student take a wipe and wipe it down this relates back to my point about the lunch periods i definitely think at the very least there should be a requirement there uh i'm not sure if the tables are clean between periods i don't believe they are but i still think that they've always have students come in

074right down their desk throw out the wipes then get their lunch since that was probably the biggest place for cobra to spread i'd like to thank the board for this time and i wish everyone good health and good night thank you andrew we appreciate it um obviously uh it's a school night so you're free to exit as you wish or if you wish to uh stay you're more than welcome to okay so now let's start with board committee reports ms bell trump i just i just had a question oh i'm sorry you have a question so if i'm looking down this way i see reflection in multiple visors here so i'm assuming that's what the students see is is is using advisor something we can make possible as an option for students can we bring

075that back to education i don't even know where that would go is that something we could bring back we would go back to the superintendent okay thank you president smith yes dr dean um the school district that i'm in i mean we've abandoned the use of the divide the the around the student i mean if teachers want it um you can have it around you if you want if you feel comfortable but um we just abandoned the the for the students so i don't know logistically what it is though if it's like less than three feet or so whatever but i mean we you know we have kids sitting next to each other no dividers so just for just an fyi yeah administration hears that they'll they'll discuss it among themselves and they'll get back

076to the board on on what they feel should be best okay now miss belchov okay so i'm going to uh summarize what the comments said so the welcome center parking lot is now complete um the board room is under construction currently the hallway is completed as far as i know and the room will be uh being started on soon uh school 16 as dr roberto announced is open and some of the furniture is on back order but we will be getting it as soon as it does come in um there are supply shortages as everyone is aware the fence is school 5 was completed tonight we had the ribbon cutting for the new kitchen here at the high school that supplies for i think they said almost every school minus two of them so that's

077a big deal that is now open and it's going to be like a college style cafeteria the tennis courts at the high school we went over it actually in person there might be another minutes the next time it's going to cost approximately 1.7 million dollars with for the banfield and the tennis courts and we'll be having a regulation tennis court so we can hold tournaments in the future the hurricane ida insurance projects are on their way um and all of them are proceeding as planned any questions mr smith i have a question um the fence at school five looks wonderful and then you look down and you see this really um horrible looking little retaining wall maybe they can paint it with a nice fresh coat of paint it just it just it looks beautiful

078looks like you got a new i'm going to really date myself vinyl top on your car and then your car's all scratched up you know it doesn't it it really needs to just maybe a fresh coat of paint maybe the school colors and maybe an emblem or something like that but it really will do it much much nicer appearance for the front of school thank you i can't remember now is it painted now um it's it's a retaining wall it's made of concrete but the old fence rusted a lot of it it really looks it looks the crepit but i mean the wall is not painted now so it would be no they kept it they just put the fence back up on where they had it thank you anyone else president yes dr danny

079um is there just more clarification about the tennis courts with regard to the city and working with the city on that uh we've decided to move forward with our own um just so that we don't have any sort of scheduling con conflicts with the city and also we'll be on our own plan for construction-wise if we have to rely on the city we have no idea really when it would be completed and we'd like to have it done hopefully again with supply constraints by next season so that they could use it as the girls word county champions i think that's what the student rep just announced we hope for them to have a facility that they could be proud of thank you yeah so i think the committee agreed that we would rather have the

080tennis courts on our own property than at um a city park um and again we would have to pay for those additional tennis courts anyway so it should reflect that on our our own property so i think that's the consensus of what the committee did and our architect came out and showed us that we can get the five if not six courts on our property with a little redesign and putting a retaining wall uh after the banfield and then turfing the retaining uh the banfield so that's what came out of committee all right next uh we would have uh finance mr daley thank you mr smith just a few items first item was discussed was the renovation of the boardroom and the basement floor of the uh of the administration building um we don't have

081the quote numbers in here but the the hallway renovations are completed and that was done by a contractor and we have not yet started because we needed to do the hallway first on the board room and we'll get those numbers to you and i believe uh mr yusi can and advise us uh these are coming out of our standard budget mr uc yeah we're yeah we're going to be discussing that but yes it's just out of maintenance yeah so we have a facilities maintenance account so that doesn't affect additional money in the budget it's what's already been budgeted and available to us to do various items in the in the uh in the district as ms beltran said we talked about the tennis courts and she gave the number um and then where are our

082audit because the executive order from the state of new jersey and the governor that has been pushed back to february 22nd to have the audits complete and our understanding and the reason for that is that statewide the staffing for the door all the orders are uh not up to par so it's going to take them and the availability of of information uh is is uh not all there for the auditors so let me stand corrected we do have our information uh our business administrator with his team have done an excellent job so so we kind of know where the things are but you still have to go to an official independent auditor every year to get your prior years audited and certified so we cannot uh but we they have been pushed back to february

083they're usually available uh done by december and at least we make a presentation of that usually in january so what i can say on behalf of the board is when we do have that audit we'll have as we always do every year have that order report done in public from our order that concludes my remarks any questions any questions nope seeing none we'll move on to food service transportation [Music] got it frank okay like we had announced earlier we had our small ribbon cutting today for our new kitchen it will be open for a soft opening for our students starting on october 27th with a full reopening for our students when they come back on november 8th the school 16 kitchen is still under renovation there are currently grab-and-go lunches tables are set up for

084breakfast before the bell after before the bell and after the bell teachers and assistants get the meals for the students and then bring them back to the their classrooms through national school lunch program the district applied for sso allowed allowing us to get free breakfast and lunch to all students through a federal raver and we are looking into incorporating kosher halal vegan and plant-based foods under the discussion for transportation new buses have been purchased we are currently advertising for bus drivers uh we have six buses total that we had just uh purchased there is a possibility of looking into extending our space at the gr our current uh area for the garage parking vans and two buses were damaged during ida which are all um currently being fixed are there any questions on that topic

085okay i'll move on to education uh number one uh was already presented to us by mrs kusalevich which was a which was the esl enrollment and testing update as well as the testing for our special education students currently there were 800 hours of testing since july for our esl students because of a change to the new jersey bilingual code and due to requirements of the elementary and secondary education act testing can take anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes per student is per student in screening and documents review require a similar amount of time number two special education update from mrs rotolo a cpac meeting was scheduled on 9 28 discussing the role of the case manager there will be a next meeting the next meeting will be held on november 15th miss rotolo also shared

086professional development research pro projects in which the special ed department isn't participating in project wild from seton hall university is providing lessons to support writing in in selected speech and language classes as well as the brother the rutgers paraprofessional project is providing instructional support to our power professionals through dr robertosi his initiatives with felician college a professor and resident has been private provided to help support inclusion and resource room teachers at chs number three start strong which is the replacement for our general education testing tomorrow is the last day for the testing since our meeting we had 12 testings completed number four school calendar and holiday discussion dr robert tosi shared that a committee of administrators reviewed the care in an upcoming calendar to provide input a discussion was held about the njdoe list of

087religious holidays cultural holidays reflecting the clifton community were also discussed the one-page view of the district calendar was compared with the full calendar available on the website and further discussions will be held to help update our calendars are there any questions on that mr smith through you i have a question um the um can we get a copy of the uh the role of the case manager can that be distributed to the board because i'd be interested in seeing that also with the special education parent advisory group who is the lead parent on that group because usually it's a parent that runs it and i'm just curious if are we going to have a parent that's going to be a liaison to the community i'll find out mrs mansford yep i think that um if

088we got each got a copy of the role of the case manager that would help us when we get special education questions from people in the community as well so we can articulate it clearly to other people thank you okay seeing no other questions uh technology mr kanova all right so item one portable meeting streaming streaming options mr provide an overview of what could be done from a technology perspective in the event of a board event meeting being held in a location other than chs or the administration building from any location a meeting can be recorded by a single camera stream to youtube as well as broadcast to channel 77 and mr mountain will investigate microphone options for this item two remote meeting participation options mr mountain explain the difference drifting options available for remote

089participation from the public and or commissioners call and video call etc multiple technology technology solutions will be demonstrated to the full board on the upcoming meeting of 1021. board docs commissioners brought up a few recommendations for improvements to the software one was to force change notifications to be sent as resolutions are update and the other was to give commissioners the ability to bold or highlight on the text agenda mr mountain will relay these concerns to board docs item four security projects mr mountain provided an update as to the status of the bond referendum security projects camera upgrade walkthroughs have been conducted at chs ccms and woodrow wilson and project designs are being finalized camera walkthroughs for the remaining buildings are being scheduled for late october early november pa system walkthroughs will commence october 26th and

090project designs should be finalized and finalized soon after mr mountain and mr mikhail gower gave a brief overview of two artificial intelligence software add-ons that are available once the camera system upgrades are ready and complete so i don't want this is what i was referring to i don't want to discuss particularly what they are and that commences the technology minutes any questions nope seeing none we'll move on next we have our public recognition this person excuse me 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 are directly related to the operation of the clifton public school district residents and non-residents are requested in person to sign the register provided for this purpose all speakers are asked to state their

091names municipality they live and the subject matter before they begin 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 the members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of the state of new jersey the board bears no responsibility nor will be liable for any comments made by members of the public members of

092the 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 public recognition is open if you wish to address the board please approach the podium okay we're experiencing technical difficulties please stand by hmm [Music] how do you know if your soap actually stops [Music] good evening everybody mark brinsey at clifton new jersey i just want to uh thank dr robertosi for allowing me to speak president smith vice president casper and i just want to commend those two kids from christopher columbus who won the awards today for being such outstanding human beings high quality high character human beings to both of you guys the sky's the limit for both of you so congratulations

093well deserved and thank you to dr robert tozie [Music] uh to give us updates because a lot of the clifton moms have been complaining about the food i i've said something at least two times before this is likely at least the third time i mentioned something and uh these sound like wonderful moms and they are quite concerned they've alleged that one of the chicken patties when they opened it it was the color purple so that that's what's been alleged and uh they are quite concerned but the way you described it is that there's a soft open next week i believe and a hard open on on november the 8th so i'm sure everybody's looking forward to that uh just a lot a lot of complaints from concerned moms in this city so thank you for

094addressing that and uh your updates are fantastic so another thing i want to discuss was was kids safety because my understanding is that the city works with the with the district with the school district regarding crossing guards and things of that nature and this morning i got a frantic call from my cousin about a city employee in the front of her residence taking away a lawn sign in front of her residence because it was in front of the sidewalk not behind the sidewalk and just last week i saw on a specific intersection right by school 12 there was no crossing guard at that intersection of lexington and clifton at so shame on this city for complaining about where the lawn sign is this wasn't in front of a school building or any public municipal building

095in this city this is in front of her personal residence and they have a nerve to waste city resources like that for a lawn sign that's coming down on november 3rd so i hope that the city and and the board work with each other to ensure to guarantee that the major intersections near schools always have some sort of crossing guard and that they're continuously signs and and lines that are being painted for for the pedestrian crosswalks thank you for your time and god bless america good night everybody thank you anyone else wish to address the board good evening my name is lori lalama and i'm the president of the cea i want to clarify a situation that happened this past week so it had to do with elections and the candidates that's running for the

096board of ed i reached out to donna popowicz because i did not have anybody's personal email address so she sent the information my email to nine candidates eight out of the nine because since it's facebook you can tell when it was open and eight of the nine opened up my communication or hers with my information in the beginning four out of the nine contacted me i sent them the questionnaire and then email and email when somebody sends you an email according to the internet based etiquette or netiquette it is a lack of consideration to forward somebody's email to another person without permission now i'm not here with name calling or name dropping i'm professional but i really want people to understand what had happened now there were screenshots taken of it and sent to other

097board members that was not right somebody said that i yelled at another person the only time i've ever yelled in a school is when another kid set a kid's hair on fire in my classroom that has been the only time i have ever yelled i've never yelled at a kid i've never yelled at another adult so there's no chance that i've ever done that next the ce the cea has no favorites we are a democratic organization we will read the questionnaires discuss the responses as well as what has occurred over the past year and a half and the other forums what the cea wants to see is a well-informed cat well informed candidates who researched the same themes and had specific information especially concrete information not information based on personal ideas or emotions the board

098of ed position is one of the most important positions in a town the center to everything for students and staff board of members must take yearly governance workshops as well as other ones that are offered to improve one's knowledge in the realm of education and policy as a president of my association i have 12 pages of my transcript of everything that i have accomplished to be able to have this position i've worked hard and i only want the best with the kids and the staff and the board of ed members and i know that i would be happy to talk to anybody you have my number and if there's ever an issue i wish you would reach out to me knowledge is like money to be of value it must circulate and in circulating it

099can increase in quantity and hopefully in value knowledge has to be improved challenged and increased constantly or it vanishes thank you very much thank you al the wah clifton i had the privilege of going to candidate tonight this past week also and while the questions were somewhat uh i guess hard on the candidates because they were based on a lot of state mandates most of the answers you would hear or well the state is landing this and the state is mandating that and a lot of them were somewhat new types of ideologies or other complicated things however at the end they were they asked the candidates to give their comments and one that stood out in my mind was um bashfords she said that right now with you know with what's happened in the last

100couple of years with covert and the schools suffering with um trying to get education to the children the state mandated testing takes a lot of time away from everyone and she felt that it was specifically not needed or could be maybe waived or something so i that that stood out to me because i've been coming up here asking that the board or whoever again i don't know all the technicalities and so i you know just forgive me for that but who should write whoever down in the state maybe a letter maybe we can do something even this year because we have had a lot of setbacks with time and tell them hey this is not necessary one of the answers that kept coming up was oh this is a state mandated program so when they

101were asking about diversity and equity and inclusion crt lgbt and one of the mothers got up near the end but it was breaking up and she said nobody's talking about family and god and community or anything it's all these strange questions and it was i was happy with the meeting and and i agree with this lady here that the board is is something special because i was able to speak to five members and i've never spoken to anyone prior to that so we all met for the first time and it was so much different when i spoke to you as in person and how you sit up there and looks like you're ignoring and you can't comment because the legal has your hands tied and you were wonderful all five years were like wonderful to

102talk to so it really changed my attitude about years and i hope we can have dialogue again personally because that was great and i think a lot of people would be happy if there was a way of connecting with some of you again i don't know the legal aspects i'm not i'm not a big fan of state mandate or legality i had brought up my uh walden disobedience and i was going to quote from there but i i just figured i won't do it today but um i i liked what happened today how you've you know modified the mask a little bit made it more human mr robert jose i hope you stand by that we're not going to give in this time no matter who comes in there's enough of us in clifton to

103hold them off so we'll be behind you so i you know that that's great when you start acting like that i think that's going to affect everybody but you know that stood out and if there's something that we can do now for this if it does really affect the children or the curriculum that's up to you guys to decide but i think that was important and thank you thank you samantha basford so i wasn't going to get up tonight but there's been a common theme this week that's been driving me crazy and it's specifically about gender and norms there were comments made about people will graduate clifton high school and then start families you know that may not be always the case because of economic status i'm not saying anybody here but just regarding bored

104things and that only moms would be concerned about chicken patties when there are dads who are actively active and i think it's just an important thing to remember that not everyone falls into a specific silo because of their physical passing presence and i think we often forget that that just because i am a cisgender woman i dress like a woman that may not be who i what i identify with and i think that when we are running for positions especially positions with title with presence um that we remember that everyone is an individual and that they are different and it's okay for their differences and to be celebrated with their differences um and i know a lot of people on facebook are watching have been commenting and although this may not be a board specific

105thing it is a platform to speak so you if you are those individuals who have been negatively impacted by comments that have been made this week specifically that surround elections um i support you um i'm here with open arms i think there's many people in the community who support you and embrace who you are and your differences so um if those comments hurt you and they cause you to struggle just remember that there's other people who do accept you because you don't have to fit into a box you don't have to fit into a label you just have to fit into who you are thank you thank you almost there hi zuma mendoza clifton it's my first time doing this so i'm kind of unfamiliar with everything with the board but i'll give it a

106shot with all those special needs moms that have kids with special needs maybe it's only my case that is related but i'll give it a try my son right now he has you know our condition that he has epilepsy he was recently had brain surgery on september 13 and he hasn't been able to attend school so the program that he's assigned to be in at this point they claim to be that there's no school in clifton that has it available for him because of his wheelchair status they claim they're all of them they're on the second floor and they don't have access to that and they also don't have public transportation they don't have transportation available that could fit a wheelchair so i don't know if it's anything that is gonna be done by you

107know cases like this i refuse to believe that my son is the only one in clifton that uses a wheelchair i think there's more kids like this um you know i've been trying to get all the paperwork ready and everything to send it to school and see you know if it's any special accommodations but so far i haven't got the answers they've been discussing this with this case manager and um the supervisor as well i tried this week to get in contact with the um clifton uh board of education superintendent i got in contact with the assistant and she told me that i had to get in contact with the supervisor i have gotten in contact with the people and i appreciate everything that they're doing for my case but again i refuse to believe

108that my son is the only one so it must be an answer for me out there i just you know i wish i could just get in touch with somebody that had more answers than these people you know on the line like case managers or case supervisors that they're not able at this point to give me an answer thank you ma'am we're going to ask to get your name and number and we'll have someone contact you so you can discuss that with them thank you next i could i could okay thank you ma'am where the superintendent will have uh direct somebody to get in touch with you tomorrow thank you anyone else wish to address the board seeing no one else i'd like to make a motion to close motion closed by vice president casper

109second by who was i dr uh danny all right the uh we were going to break into uh executive session because uh we have some employees here that are are going to update the board so um i'd like to do executive session here however i had a request to do our uh ea 1 and ea 2 now before we go into executive session because those are expressions of condolence and [Music] so with no objection uh we'll do uh ea one right now and miss dr danny uh would you like to read that please yes whereas on october 13 2021 the community noted with sorrow the passing of mr james d st claire and whereas mr saint claire had served the board of education and the children of clifton faithfully and conscientiously as a highly respected

110high school science teacher for 35 years before retiring in 2006 and was a member of the clifton board of education from 2007 to 2010 contributing his talents for the betterment of the school system now therefore be resolved that this resolution be forwarded to his bereaved family to serve as as an expression of the great regard in which mr saint claire was held by the board of education the administration employees and pupils of the clifton public schools and be it further resolved that the contents of this resolution be noted in its entire entirety in the official minutes of the clifton board of education for future generations to peruse dated october 21st rest in peace mr james d sinclair questions or comments seeing none roll call please do we have a first and second motion we already

111did it yes sir mr awad yes miss bassford yes miss beltran yes mr canoba yes mr daley yes dr danny yes vice president casper yes president smith yes uh ea ii uh vice president casper would you read that whereas on october 13th 2021 the community noted with sorrow the passing of len chris and whereas mr chris had served the board of education and children of clifton faithfully and conscientiously as a highly respected custodian at school number three for 20 years before his retirement contribute contributing his talents for the betterment of the school district mr chris was born in [Music] lazern pennsylvania and lived in clifton for 50 years he was an air force veteran of the korean conflict he was a supervisor for the pantheon in passaic where he served where he worked for 25

112years now therefore be resolved that the resolution be forwarded to his bereaved family to serve as an expression of the great regard in which mr chris was held by the board of education the administration employees and pupils at the clifton school the clifton public schools and it be a further resolve that the contents of this resolution be noted in their entirety in the official minutes of the clifton board of education for future generations to peruse dated october 21st motioned by mr vice president casper second by mr abu dhaba was there any questions or discussion see non-roll call please mr abadraba yes mr awak yes miss password yes ms beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes dr danny yes vice president casper yes and president smith yes without objection i'll finish the group there uh

113ea 3 through uh ea 13. my motion so moves second who was that who's the first uh first by mr abdullah was second by miss bassford any discussion you know seeing non-vocal please yes mr abby driver mr awad yes miss bassford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes dr danny yes vice president casper yes president smith yes i guess we're moving through these pretty quick so maybe we can finish it before mr mountain comes up to give us a presentation uh we'll do personnel then that's uh p1 through uh p19 motion second motion by mr abdrabbo second by vice president casper any discussion seeing none roll call please mr abbey driving yes i'm standing awad yes miss bassford yes miss beltran yes mr canoba yes mr daley yes dr danny yes larry

114vice president casper yes president smith yes motion carries all right next we'll do uh financing facilities motion we have f1 through f8 we have a motion by uh mr aberdrabbo second by miss dr danny any discussion seeing none roll call please mr abadraba yes absolutely g7 mr awad yes miss basford uh yes to all i'm standing on f10 number four six three one i have a conflict with dance world academy thank you mr beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes dr danny yes vice president casper yes president smith yes just clarification i don't i don't see an f10 it it i i believe you might use the facilities right use the facilities for 4631 it was for the use for dance world academy my family has a long-standing relationship with those people so i'm

115abstaining no i just didn't see an f10 no i'm sorry that's all okay uh did i say yes yes okay we now have a presentation from our director of technology mr eric mountain you're up mr mountain i think the board can stay here we're going to see it on this tv okay i know me just waiting on a clarification for whether this is uh an executive session item or not please bear with us for a second okay so this will be a public presentation the board will remain in public for this so give them a second to set it up just wait one minute for everybody to come back because i know this was a couple people that just stepped down yeah let's just wait one minute is danny's back there where's mr awad is

116he back there he's here back there all right everyone's here okay so for the public's education uh the board is considering allowing the public to call in to board meetings and or video into board meetings so this is just a presentation to show us how each of these mechanisms could work so that the board could make a decision on that and then policy set up a policy on it so just for the public's etiquette this is just informational to the board to show us how each of these items can be done technologically want to use miss passwords uh microphone oh you have another mic sure so um basically what we have is the same zoom software that that you've been using um while we were on remote meeting schedule so i have an example here

117where there's two web call-ins which would work for the video call-in system and then um if anyone wants to call in uh you wanna call in there or give here i'll show you what it looks like if a caller were to come in when on a cell phone or other phone system all right so the zoom they would appear on this screen yes and then we would just take each person as they come into the to the to the zoom that's correct yes mr mountain let me know and i'll call in sure absolutely you can call right now so what i'm showing you here is that obviously this is the zoom meeting i'm stepping in front of my own camera here and on the right hand side that's what zoom calls the waiting room so

118you could have any number of people here whether you choose to call in or video in you can see right now i have myself i have public 2 waiting right now to come into the meeting and so as the uh host of the meeting all i would have to do is click admit and that person would be part of the meeting and on screen i believe one or two or three of you are calling right now the show 800 number to call in good so if they're calling in they're not part of the zoom they're part of something else nope it's actually the exact same system obviously they're not going to be on camera but you can see there's a cell phone caller right here and so if i click admit then that person would

119also be part of the meeting obviously just with the audio okay so somebody has to physically be administering this correct what you're going to probably have is i'm making up numbers anywhere between two and ten people on any given night so yes someone will have to go through and say okay public two you're up or eric you're up or cell phone and again one two three four europe etc and the people viewing channel 77 on cable they'll be able to view the zoom and view and hear the callers calling in the viewing is going to be difficult um they're definitely going to have audio we have confirmation that we have all the audio that we can tap into this system that system etc but the the camera shot itself how well it portrays what you're

120seeing on this screen or we could make it a bigger screen that would be no problem um but the audio will definitely be there they just for just arriving in the waiting room and they told me so i can mute star mute star and then if you were to speak then that audio would come through the computer here and we would pipe that into the the auditorium sound so which would also be broadcast on 77 and in the live stream yes yes i can hear you through here we're just not tapped in live to the the system here so mr mountain the the camera that you have on that laptop right now yep that's assuming that that would be the camera like they're using on us usually for for channel 77 and that's what would

121be fed to the individual on the phone is that how it would work right now it's just capturing a wide shot of you as a group we could reconfigure this i mean i i i had set up for a pre uh board of ed meeting i didn't know we were doing this at this time so we could set the shot however you prefer but right now it's a single shot coming out of here because this is the the computer that's running zoom so the caller would be able to see all of us and they would be speaking to us we would hear them through where the audio would be coming through this computer but we would pipe that into the auditorium and also on the live feed as well okay anyone else have questions yes

122legal please the derelicts so the caller that if a caller can when a caller call calls a member of the public calls everybody's going to be able to hear what the member of the public is saying that's correct yes okay great and um just to be clear somebody asked about channel 77 channels the people that are watching channel 77 what they can see is what's here on the on the on the auditorium on the stage so they would be able to see whatever is seen on that screen that's correct the channel 77 would capture everything as it normally does it's just i can't say that the how well it captures this particular image but certainly the audio would be there yes exactly okay so so channel 77 viewers will be able to hear whatever a

123caller says they may or may not be able to see that screen depending on where the screen is located that's obviously if the screen is right in front of us then they can see the screen yeah and just so the commissioners know we just had to set up before your meeting we could reposition anything you know put the screen over there there larger screen smaller screen whatever whatever you would prefer one more and just one more question just to be clear so right now it would be set up so that somebody could call in with audio but you said also that it could be set up so that somebody if somebody wanted to they could call in through with video yes okay so if i'm at home and i log in on a zoom meeting

124with video then i could be seen as a member of the public correct just as you all experienced for 12 or 15 months earlier it's the exact same scenario like we did right like we did during the during lockdown and you would let people in from the waiting room correct okay great thank you is it possible to take will we go to public comment to take the feed from the zoom and send that to channel 77 so you can see us on one side and the caller on the other so they can see both sides of that yeah we could hash out a couple of different things what what our primary objective was to make sure the audio because i believe that was the requirement for the audio to be so that the caller would

125hear everything and then those present and also watching the live stream would hear everything but we could hash out a couple of different video options and uh when a caller calls in is their phone number displayed it is on this particular screen but we can have that hidden so that it wouldn't be broadcast out to the public so the public wouldn't see it now the person who's going to be doing all this are they what's the word i want to use are they pre examining the people calling in to make sure when it's a legitimate call etc or we just anyone who's calling in file i'm in that's up to you um to be honest we've never done that through our you know 15 18 months of doing this remotely but the capability exists if

126you wanted to have someone in a quote whether it's a classroom across the hall um they could be admitting and pre-screening on a separate session uh it just depends on how much how much human power you want to put into this yes they're lease so that that's something for the board to discuss it would be the board can can make a decision through can create a policy and make a decision that callers would have to be on video or that there are different ways of doing this because this is all new this this type of hybrid um it's what we it's what we're calling hybrid meetings in person as well as virtual so it would require just a board policy to determine you know what the parameters are going to be are you going to

127just have callers without id are you going to have it on video only all of those things yeah if you think about it an in-person meeting somebody can somebody comes up here we don't we don't ex we don't look for identification to make sure that you know joe smith is really joe smith it's we take the word of whoever's coming up to the to the to the to the lectern and i think if you let me just um so i apologize if it's a little bit disjointed of a presentation it was just uh we wanted to present the different options that you have so um thank you for saying it that way i think basically whatever the decision is we'll we'll make that work um based on the purview of the board there are a

128number of districts in new jersey that are doing this as i was i was doing a presentation on this last night um at the morris county school boards association meeting and there are a number the most important people were you guys because you know you you connect with one another and and see all the different types of technology and and configurations that you can come up with but it's it's ultimately going to be up to the board to determine what rules you want to lay down on for on public comment if it's going to be a hybrid meeting as long as it complies with the open public meetings act right mr awad could you find mr abhijabo i'd like board members here everyone else is here could you go locate them uh on the zoom

129[Music] so when we did zoom when we were at home our zoom was on our our chromebooks but here it won't be it'll be on on that well that i'm i'm laughing because that's another layer of possibility okay everyone wanted to join in like you had before um that's that's doable what we were trying to do is consolidate to have one zoom screen for the you know the board to watch up here but what you're describing is also possible would there be any benefit to that though what well only because it's going to be very difficult to see a person on that screen from over there yeah and we can certainly do it if i can see it you can see it on your chromebook oh you know what i mean yeah this screen is

130here for demo purposes we could do a larger screen if that was and how about how about the people in the audience how are they how are they seeing this or hearing i'm hearing it obviously they're going to hear it on the audio but how are they going to view this do we do we have are we putting a screen out for the audience as well i mean i know you're going to say that's a possibility is it a possibility absolutely okay because i i think it's important the public that's here at the meeting also needs to see or hear what's going on and call in and vice versa so the people that call in are going to hear our comments via the zoom yes whether they come in with a with them in a

131picture or they come with them in just on audio that's correct yes wait so so basically we're basically we're we're on zoom doing it this way we are all on zoom so the person that's at home is just logging into a zoom meeting and sees us i could call in just like is that not the way it is that's correct that's absolutely correct yes so so i have a question is zoom staying open all the time never goes through the chair ever [Music] open the whole time because you said that they could hear us as a as giving comments later on in board comments but is it staying on the whole time cause i thought we were just turning this on to accept comments and then turning it down oh it would be on the

132whole time i didn't understand but i was missing that myself i was assuming this was only for the public comment session yeah i mean my assumption is that it would have been i was assuming that you're going to do it the whole time the live stream and channel 77 tv that's not going anywhere so that's still going to be there for anyone who's just watching my assumption was this was only happening during public comments which was mine so okay okay i was the only one thinking that that's another configuration you could have thought we don't have that no you don't have to you can do it you can do it a variety of ways okay are there any other questions from the board concerning this all right mr mountain thank you very much technology we'll

133discuss this at the next meeting and then make a recommendation to the board and then uh policy will also have to visit it to make up some policies on on this uh mr uh thank you very much mr smith yes mr robert in the meantime can we have policy meet to see what a policy would look like so when we do meet next time we have it in front of us i didn't hear the first part can we ask policy to take a look at this as we say let's wait for the next meeting this way we can look at policy and talk about at the same time rather than wasting meetings does that make sense well technology should should make a recommendation to the board and then policy would take that and make the

134policy from that because a lot of a lot of different questions came out here today that the the technology committee will have to present to the board mr smith um if technology brings it to policy we'll meet whenever we can we're pretty adaptable yeah okay mr smith yeah yes where are we mr daley and then i'll get you yeah just just a comment um uh first of all thank you mr mountain and your team there for for that demonstration um [Music] if the board decided to move forward i would like to see this as a pilot before we get into hard policy because you know i'd like to see it in action uh with you know let's have a maybe two or three months pilot and then we could get i get a better grasp

135because even though the demonstration i understood it to see it in action would be a little different and and i might have different opinions going forward so um if we do my personal opinion is that i would like to see this as a pilot before we move forward on a full-time basis i i agree 100 but i think even on a pilot we have to have some type of policy set up for it right now you could have guidelines absolutely guidelines there you go right and it's also going to take two readings right exactly mr smith yes i'm sorry sorry just one more thing i would have my my suggestion would be and i'm sure you guys have thought about this already is talk to some other boy there are a number of boards of

136education out there that are doing this talk to them so that you can get the pros and the cons from them because they have the real hands-on experience on how they've been on how they've been doing this is there uh at least in passaic uh county is their pacific school school boards meeting but i know uh mr smith i know that our attorney was presenting in morris county did you meet any boards that use it as a matter of fact i did last night i read the agendas and um and i can get you the names of the um the school districts that are bloomfield is one of them off the top of my head mine hill is another those are two different size school districts bloomfield is large mine hill is tiny um and

137there were several others that use um hybrid hybrid meetings and overall they were all happy that would be good for the board because we could we could actually see another boots on the ground they know what they know they have had the experience so can you you get us a list of that ones that you know yes absolutely i don't know if you have a round table coming up with passaic county supers anytime soon was last week school board state county school boards meeting anytime soon just had it okay all right so let's see what we can find and if we get a couple of schools that we could at least go and and view it'll give us a better uh better idea as mr daley said in a pilot maybe we can get some

138ideas from other schools to enhance this and do it right so um okay uh so we are going to go into executive session uh before uh board member comments because we have um we have a contract matter we have a personnel matter action will may or may not be taken when we return for the public i'm going to guesstimate um 45 minutes in executive session could be longer we hope to be back as quickly as possible um so a motion to go into executive session please so moved my vice president casper second by dr danny roll call please yes mr abu drabo executive session to go into executive session mr awak roll call to go on an executive session yes um just mr smith this is um um a comment maybe since we do have

139some guests here that we should do our comments before we go since they'll be close to midnight when we come back yeah we have employees that are waiting in for executive session that's why i'm going we had always said we didn't want to keep employees here later than then we have to so that's why we're going now that's the only reason all right no problem mr abhijabo you mr awad yes password yes ms beltran yes mr kanova yes mr daley yes dr danny yes vice president casper yes uh president smith yes okay all right if we get all five minute break if you need to go to the anywhere and uh where are we meeting yeah i don't know i think it's the same one that we had last meeting check one two two two

140check check check check one two two check check one two two two one two two two seems like it's better check check check check one two two two check check one two two two check check one two the board met in executive session to uh discuss uh contract matter and a personnel matter um at this time we're not doing any action correct okay this time there's no action we'll move on with the agenda oh do we have to take a roll call back okay i'm sorry roll call back from executive mr abbott mr abu dhabi mr awad here ms fastford not intentionally mr canova here mr daley he always forgets dr danny no he called you here vice president casper here president smith here i didn't hear my name called she caught he called you

141i but i didn't hear it because you guys are all talking i'm here okay we're going to start with board member comments uh we're starting with uh mr konova tonight uh good evening everyone i'm going to keep this brief tonight i just want to thank all our speakers everyone who came out our award winners tonight testing uh i just want to remind everyone that last year was a very different year than any other year so any of those numbers you saw i know me personally i'm just looking at him just to look at him i don't think they really count towards anything i did i think our students in our administration did an amazing job and what they had um so me personally i'm not even paying attention to them uh election now now's your

142chance to have your voice be heard so just make sure everyone you come out and you vote um if you've lost your mail and ballot make sure you get a provisional and make sure you vote in person so that your vote could count just because you lost your balance doesn't mean you can't vote so make sure you keep that in mind and everyone just have a happy and safe halloween thank you okay thank you mr daley you're next thank you mr president first of all i want to thank paulo rosago uh for the presentation and congratulations again to james and joseph zunigeri um also like to again about election day uh it's my personal feeling that this the country's democracy is at its uh most vulnerable it has in centuries and by reversing that everybody

143needs to get if you're eligible to vote go out and vote we need to shore up our democracy otherwise we're surely to lose it as mr franklin said we either hang together or we hang separately so we also like to i like to welcome andy to our board meetings as a student representative and get out and support our teams and that concludes my comments thank you thank you next is uh dr danny um once again condolences to the two families um especially the saint claire family that i am uh close with um thank you to all the speakers congratulations to both the zunga's children's on their pbsis accomplishments i want to again uh welcome to the new student representative andrew srotsky and just on closing you know get out vote and exercise your right thank

144you that's it thank you next is mr abu drabo um not much tonight but besides the fact that some people need to learn the word compassion and understand that a fight that took place and i i'm still distraught about it to be honest because to understand that one person is not from our school but yet others are whether from our school or not we teach our children better of how to deal with people using our fists or how to open our mouths i mean when we were younger we saw fights and we didn't know any better but we're learning in schools that that doesn't work hello oh but yet when you don't use that out in the real world it's like taking learning something in school and not using it properly in the real world

145it just becomes useless um and another part of compassion is you know i stepped out um because there was a young lady who is obviously was obviously visibly pregnant and there was no reason for her to move further than she had to because it's tough as it is when being pregnant some people don't know and i followed her out and i actually on the back of mr hamda's business card when he was out there i wrote down the superintendent's email because there's no reason for her to come back down here for an issue like that and some people have a problem with that um and if they do i don't know what to tell you um as a human being i'm gonna do that whether you somebody else thinks it's right or wrong because a

146young lady like that should not be coming down here that late and staying the whole entire time just because she has an issue with her child in school particularly when people are giving her the wrong information and our superintendent as i tell as i even told her is 150 reliable and easy to reach out to and contact and that should be the case she came down to the board of ed meeting we should be helping her and that's exactly what i did so i feel good about myself other than that that's the word of tonight compassion um and being human is just who we are and people don't like that don't tell you [Music] okay next is mr awad i yield one time okay next is uh miss bassford yes good evening dr robert tuzi

147could you please share that fundamentals of school board membership with the whole board please that bruce sent you all of us today um congratulations to the ccms students uh thank you to dr robitazi and the staff for the tour of the upgraded um cafeteria it's beautiful i can't wait to see the things that are going to come out of that also thank you for listening to me about to see something say something to put it more prominently on the website so people can go i'd like to see an intense training for all students staff administration and community on dei and bystander training after the what was witnessed on social media last night we need to take a look into everything from the bottom up the top down so we can we can be more effective

148as bystanders and what we should be doing as well don't forget to get out and vote uh good luck to all the hsa ptos ptas on your trunk or treats i know you have really good things planned uh missile llama it's all about roles and responsibilities and following the rules that's something that people need to work on my words to mr um got up and talked about what i talked about teaching to the test i don't believe that we should be testing every year i think it should be modified i know that a bunch of my colleagues from other districts are trying to use their voice to get those yearly tests taken away so we want to modify teaching to the test and make it spread out somehow so the teachers are not overburdened if

149anything we've learned from covet is what we are the stress we are putting on human beings as well um to the mom that came to the mic i know that the superintendent and the staff will be reaching out to you get out and vote on tuesday if you decide to vote early your voice is important everybody's voice is important i thank everybody for listening to me in the last couple of forums it was a great experience for me and for the people that came to came out i hope you learned something good night hey thank you uh miss beltran miss belchon okay i'm gonna keep it brief uh thank you for all the speakers coming out i'm really enjoying hearing all the different perspectives and i expect especially liked hearing from the school rep um

150in the past we've always heard positive things about the school but i like that he really took it uh to us and listed you know four or five different things that he sees and his fellow classmates see that need some change and i hope the plastic dividers really help because i can barely even see um dr robertosi from here with all the glare that's going on and the desk wiping as well i think that's uh that's something that should be looked into um in addition to that i was a victim of bullying when i was in middle school you know now i come across as a very strong individual you know strong women but in the past i wasn't always this way and um i was bullied to the point of violence in middle school

151um and back then it was handled a little bit different where everyone got suspended even people who are defending themselves or who were you know involved in any way and i think the whole entire world right now is kind of lacking empathy there was another attack this weekend in um a septa train in philadelphia that was horrific um attack on a woman and everyone just filmed it um and they for 27 train stops and i feel like it's even happening we're seeing it live here in middle school level that no one said anything and they film it and put it online um it's just you know it's something that's totally wrong with our society not just here in clifton and maybe you know there's there's probably going to be some sort of national trainings that

152are going to come out or you know expertise in the psychology world that could maybe help us uh to maybe change the world just a little bit here in clifton um the election is upon us so please inform yourself on candidates and make the best choices for you and your family uh the future of clifton is always at stake every time there is an election and that's all i have for this evening thank you mr canova oh you weren't already sorry you started mr uh vice president mr casper okay i'd like to welcome andrew to our deus here i hope we are able to work with you and the students in their school district to help help keep us uninformed and help us present to our students what they need in their classrooms i'd like

153to thank the daughters of american revolution for your generous donation i appreciate every time i see in the agenda that we are receiving all of these donations and i'd also like to send my deepest condolences to the sinclair and chris families for your losses my thoughts and prayers are with you during your time of loss have a good night everybody thank you i am first obviously would like to uh invite and thank andrew for being part of the board meetings another crew of people that i i forget to thank but i appreciate them so much mr mcconney mr mecca and your entire crew um you guys do an exceptional job uh each and every meeting and uh people don't see you you're behind the scenes so i just want to say thank you to all

154of you and i'm sorry it's a late night tonight but thank you for all that you guys do um the election please get out and vote i i wish my colleagues all the very best in the election and um i ask everyone to please make sure they get out and vote um i remind everyone that our next our next board meeting is not going to be here in the high school it will be at seal of b c l b is located on brighton road uh so our november meeting which i believe is november 18th right yes november 18th uh at 7 p.m at sea la b on brighton road if you wish to come to the meeting please come there not to the high school it will be televised as well and that will

155be our new home for at least november and december and then we'll update everybody after that on on where we'll be but uh the high school is starting to use this uh stage for their productions and uh assemblies and etc so uh we have to vacate uh and go to celebi all right so just to remind everyone of that and you know everyone uh halloween has not been halloween since the the covet started and this is going to be like the first halloween that the kids could really get out and go and but just remember to be safe we don't want to hear of any problems and everything on halloween but have a great halloween enjoy it and be safe and now that's all i have thank you motion to adjourn motion by mr abigail

156second by vice president casper any objection meeting adjourned you