October 7, 2021 - Clifton Board of Education Meeting

001[Music] do so do mr mecca are we good i'd like to call the regularly scheduled meeting of the clifton board of education to order if everyone would please rise for a salute to our flag followed by a brief moment of silence i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all please be seated mr uc roll call please mr abba drabo here mr awad miss beltran mr canova here i'm sorry miss bassford mr daley here dr danny here vice president casper here president here david mission statement uh vice president casper the mission of the clifton school district in an open and reciprocal community partnership is to provide all students with a quality education to

002develop the skills necessary to become literate lifelong learners who are responsible and productive citizens contributing to a democratic society in an ever-changing world the open public meetings act the new jersey upper public meetings law was enacted to ensure the rights to the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the clifton board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be publicized by having the date time and place thereof posted at the city clerk's office clifton public library administration building senior citizen nutrition center on cable tv in the local press on the district's website and mailed to presidents of parent teacher organizations this meeting will be tape recorded

003in accordance with policy zero one six eight i remind everyone order of the governor of the state of new jersey that everyone in attendance in a school building is required at all times to wear a mask i will allow when you come up to speak at the time that you're speaking to lower the mass down when you're done speaking to please put the mask back up okay so everyone please adhere to the rules of the mandate by the governor that mass are to be worn at all times while in the school building i thank you all for your cooperation i'm not sure i understand totally too bad oh just give me a minute i have to do this by manual here's my agenda okay we'll have the uh approval of the minutes uh mr president

004yes um just a question to from through to attorneys that mean also is that for public and board members it's just public for what matters mass yeah yeah all everyone has to be wearing a mask mr can mr mr canova you gonna wear a mask sorry when we speak yeah thank you all right we'll have um approval of the uh minutes of september 23rd 2021 regular meeting so i moved so moved by mr abu drab second second by vice president casper discussion roll call mr abedrabo yes mr awad yes ms passport yes mr canola yes mr daley yes dr danny yes vice president casper yes and president smith yes uh the superintendent's report dr robertosi thank you mr president good evening commissioners and members of the public i just want to remind the commissioners on

005stage that this friday night is our annual homecoming game will take place at clifton stadium kickoff is at 7 pm and the homecoming court will be announced at halftime it's also a great opportunity if you have not already seen our national anthem which has been performed in american sign language by one of our seniors kate lower during the band's pregame show and i believe this friday night we also have before the game the middle school band will be performing at the stadium on top of that we have a pretty good football game too with our undefeated clifton high school football team trying to keep their winning streak alive take a moment to congratulate a senior clifton high school student who i'd like to recognize at a future meeting anissa frazier who has made the special

006olympics team in new jersey and will be representing new jersey at the national games this june in track and field that is a tremendous accomplishment um if you you might have seen it it was on our social media there was a video of her opening the the letter and just a great honor and the fact that she's representing clifton that's exactly what we like to see in our in our young people so at a future board meeting i'll recommend that we um honor her as of today we have over 7 600 students who have taken the imagine math benchmark assessment these are assessments that students complete to they complete these assessments independently to develop their initial baseline for the imagine math program and the imagine math program the reason why we use it in our

007district is because it's an adaptive program which very simply means that it adapts to the level of the student and if a student is struggling a student gets a couple questions incorrect it will adapt to their level but then it works to build them up to grade level and it's been very very successful in our district so i'd like to recognize the top schools with lessons started and benchmarks taken this week christopher columbus middle school woodrow wilson middle school school 13 school 2 and school 11. as the commissioners know we have pbsis in all of our schools pbs has this positive behavior support system in schools and the purpose of it is to set school expectations for everyone and to recognize those students who meet those expectations so just to give an example in the

008first 17 days of school at school number five this year the students were able to earn a total of 11 625 what we call starbucks or school five called starbucks and each starbuck represents a student meeting a school-wide expectation so in other words it means that at school five over the first 17 days of school there have been over 11 000 positive and kind interactions between the all-star staff and students there so it's just a testament to what's going on at not just at school five but this is going on in all of our schools in some way shape or form very thankful to report that school 16 will be opening on tuesday october 13th correct me if i'm wrong i think that's the 13th the 12th so many people worked so very hard to

009make sure that the building could reopen and i'm just very very very grateful just wanted to set the expectations right our goal is was to open school so there are some things that you know we're still waiting on the gymnasium is not going to be complete but that'll be done we can you know would encourage students to go outside with their teachers as much as possible there was a two-month or 10-week back order to get new desks in the classroom so we borrow desks from all the schools so they're not brand new but all the students and teachers will be getting brand new desks so the goal is to open so not everything is brand new but i think that you will be very very impressed when you see what's happened at school 12. that's

010all i have for now i will have some comments later but thank you mr president thank you superintendent before we begin with public recognition i would just like to [Music] announce and to send our condolences uh to our uh our colleague fellow board member judy basford lost her brother this week and uh on behalf of the entire clifton board and community we send our condolences to you and your family on your loss we're so sorry for that thank you and uh our our business administrator also his wife lost the graham father so again we send our condolences to your family as well and it we are a family here at the board and uh when someone is uh hurting or loses someone we're all affected in some way so we uh we truly send our

011condolences out to all to all of your families public recognition this portion of the meeting is open to the residents and non-residents of clifton for the purpose of addressing any subject matter pertinent to and or directly related to the operation of the clifton public school district residents and non-residents are requested if in person to sign the register provided for this purpose all speakers are asked to state their names municipality in which they live in subject matter before speaking comments are limited to five minutes per person issues raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and the response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate your questions may or may not be answered by board members the board asked that members of the

012public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when they are speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by them and the laws of the state of new jersey the board bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments by made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments in light of the illegal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments is there anyone that wishes to address the board good evening everybody mercier with new jersey thank you president smith vice president casper dr our approach for allowing me to speak

013tonight i want to discuss the importance of holding why every citizen should vote voting is the fundamental right of any citizen that enables them to choose the leaders of tomorrow in this country voting for voting is 18 years voting not only enables the citizens to vote for political parties but it also helps them realize the importance of citizenship many people do not vote thinking one vote will not make a change but as a matter of fact it does a nation's political foundations are built using elections voting is a basic process that keeps the nation's governmental system working it enables the citizens to join to choose their own government it also allows the people to choose their representatives in the government purpose of every government is to develop and implement various policies for the benefit of

014its citizens it also enables the person with the right to question the government about issues and clarifications voting is the way to express the opinion of a citizen in the in the democratic nation voting is crucial to activating the democratic process on the day of the election voters won't just have the capacity to choose their representatives in the government for the following term they can also decide on measures that stem from something like security issues government authority to borrow funding for development projects and different advancement and also in some cases voting sheets on social issues writing to the right to vote energizes social awareness since it empowers political cooperation the citizens can follow the progress of the political representatives in the legislature the consistent process enables the general population to settle on educated choices about

015whom to vote for in favor of the following term every adult is given the right to vote irrespective of sex class occupation and so forth this is representative of uniformity and congruity it is also a fundamental right in which all citizen gets all citizens get an opportunity to choose who represents them every party that is competing in any elections announces and establishes various benefits and social reforms for their people some of these political parties may be deceiving with their initial reforms but can have the intention of corruption it's the responsibility and skills of the citizen that decides in which government is elected it is the right benefit and obligation to vote as a citizen of your nation and an individual from your society i'm asking everybody in this town to please vote this november 2nd

016thank you for your time and god bless america thank you good evening to all my name's laura lalman i'm the president of the cea i just want to take a few minutes out to say thank you to dr robertosi mr eddie maldonado because school 16 looks absolutely gorgeous i'm so impressed of such wonderful work for the students and the staff at school 16. so i want to thank the board and i want to thank mr usi and i want to thank dr robert tozie the other thing that i like to bring up are the plastic dividers that are in the schools maybe that could be discussed some of the classrooms some of the teachers in the high school really don't think it's useful because some of the kids are taller so if that could be

017discussed during your executive session i would appreciate it now the other things as as a president and i think most people know that dr robert tosie also gets screenshots of things from social media so what i'm looking at and i'm going to give a shout out to tova is before you post think is it true is it helpful is it inspiring is it necessary and is it kind how many starbucks from from school i guess that was school five would people here including out in clifton and teachers and students and the board how many would we be getting because i've been getting screenshots of different things from members from social media and it really is upsetting to see the negativity that's going on when dr robertosi first started here everybody worked so well together it

018was harmonious we stood up for each other we helped each other we looked out for each other we did the best for the kids and that's our bullseye here are the kids of clifton and whether whether you disagree with people but still look for the kindness the understanding the empathy i think we need to reflect on that and that includes you know everybody that works for clifton to go back and remember why we're here we're here for students we're here for their families and we're here for their community and i think we need to remember that because seeing some of the things that i've been getting it's just very upsetting and i'm not saying anything names or anything because i'm professional but please kids see this parents see it and i want us to work

019together to be a positive school district and as you know the hashtag is clifton1 so thank you so much thank you uh al dubois clifton these masks they're you guys must have gotten used to it because i never wear it so it's it really feels uh horrible for me and i'm wondering how the kids and the teachers feel about it i submitted a couple weeks back something regarding a citizens advisory committee forming one so that we can have and ideally a bunch of citizens to talk about this face mask covered future vaccinations hopefully there'll be a selection of individuals who don't think the party line because it would be an advisory or a had hoc committee or whatever committee so that we can get some things moving along the woman mentioned about the shields i

020did hear that there was a young student getting petitions for the shields in school i don't know the reason why but i did hear that that he didn't think it was necessary didn't want him i met a couple of teachers the other night at a church event and they were very upset because their father uh his arm swelled up considerably after a vaccination shot the other gentleman that was with her his parent died so there's just so much about this covid but there's only one side that's being presented and i it's not going away right away and i think this should be a citizen's advisory to meet discuss and whatever might pop up again down the line all of a sudden at least we can all be better well prepared for instance dr robert hosey

021had mentioned emphatically optional he said it pretty you know surely then the governor decides to change it three days later he quits why well from listening to the wayne's board event meetings and seems to hear both he's afraid of losing money well that's extortion that's criminal if you are afraid of losing money because the governor is putting a knife to your throat there's something wrong with that especially when he was in favor of optional masks i'm walking around every day the same way i have for two years i don't wear this matter of fact i work hard for the longest time saying i got a medical condition and through you mr smith i'd like you to ask your legal person maybe give me a response later i think you're allowed an exemption if you have

022a medical condition to come into any public building i don't think you can keep somebody out so i'd like to have that for me because i really would prefer not wearing this um but like i was saying you know it's unfair that he gave in so does the waiting board event because they're afraid of losing money that's extortion that's not right maybe if you had some citizens that had uh some meetings and discussed we could have went further we could have at least sent them a letter the governor asking him to rethink it or something but we've done nothing the teacher was in tears she um doesn't want to get the vaccine shot so she's afraid of what's coming down so there should be people discussing this now and be well prepared for what might

023come down maybe we should find out more information i'm sure if we gathered enough new jersey residents we we can do some alternatives to this madness so i'm just asking that we form some kind of committee whatever it takes you know i don't know if it's haddock advisory it doesn't matter to me as long as it's people meeting that think differently thank you your pen doesn't right okay see that motion or closed thank you motion to close by uh mr abu drabbo second second bye miss bassford okay all right we'll move along we don't have first reading of policy we have no presentations board committee reports we'll start with the just as they're listed residency and security um mr wad thank you president smith the meeting took place on thursday september 30th 2021 and began

024around 404 pm in attendance from the administration where dr daniel robertosi assistant superintendent mark gingaro michael doctor and mr vinnie board of ed members in attendance were myself as committee chair commissioner canova commissioner casper and president smith mr gingaro began by thanking the committee for the new positions and responsibilities of the director of operations and the head of themselves investigator and security assistant as they have already been a great asset to the district and the safety of our students mr gingaro provided an update on the bond referendum items jct cameras has conducted a walk through of the middle schools in the high schools and work should begin mid october we have inquired with a security company on various softwares including ai detection software which with 98 percent accuracy can detect weapons and slips and falls

025we have inquired as to the cost of the service and waiting on a quote finally the core bts notification system is being finalized and replaced and enhanced with current pa systems in the schools allowing areas where announcements cannot be heard to hear an emergency announcement work will begin in the middle schools and high schools due to the fact of the vast majority of our incidents categorized in our vvsa report occur at those three buildings next week jct cameras will begin conducting walkthroughs of the elementary schools they should be viewing two schools per day as is a through yet time consuming process mr gingaro updated the committee on the crossing guard shortage with 60 identified posts and only 30 crossing cards are available the clifton police department has had to backfill the positions with members of

026the traffic division cpd is aware of the issue and is looking for various options to attempt to resolve it finally mr gingaro updated the committee on professional development for all staff regarding security on october 11th the district p day district staff will receive specific focus safety and security training three presentations will take place throughout the day so staff members will be able to hear the one consistent safety message mr doctor also updated the committee on registration and residency recently the re recently the registration procedures and registration page on the district website have been updated this was done in an effort to make the process easier for parents and guardians seeking to register their children for school one of the changes was to provide a dedicated registration representative based on registering the child's last name mr

027doctor also updated the committee on registrations to date on august 10th there were over 1100 new registrations and address changes in our system to be processed as of september 30th there were only 141 the department is working to streamline the process of registration residency investigations and other department responsibilities to end with good news the residency investigations continue throughout the summer and in the school year in the past month our investigators have gone out to over 250 residency inquiries prior to the domicile investigators were utilized within the welcome center for customer service the registration purposes and security drills they returned to the field on a regular basis on september 15th conducting focused investigations of over 250 cases 13 of those cases were found not to reside in clifton and of those 13 10 have since been

028seized and saving our district over 275 thousand dollars i would like to repeat that with the hard work of mike doctor mr gingaro the staff vinnie and his entire team we were able to seize students that were not living in our district saving over well over a quarter million dollars the meeting adjourned around 4 47 p.m and that is all any questions mr president uh through you to the superintendent um with cpd being light as it is and us needing to fill the crossing guard positions i'm not a big fan of privatizing but is this something we should start looking at companies that can help us fill these positions or at least is there a crossing guard position that can help us to relieve cpd so this way they can focus on the streets in

029the city the safety of clifton i'm not sure if the clifton police department's looking into that but we we do not have any say in the hiring of the crossing guards they report directly to the police department um i'm not sure if that's even an option that they're looking at okay is that something that we can um i guess hint to them that may be an option i mean i i really don't know i'm not on the city side i just that just concerns me because if if cpd sorry echo the cpd is filling up those positions which lessens the amount of police officers on the streets in clifton um i don't know so there's got to be a solution well i i agree it causes uh you know multiple problems it's a it's a

030domino effect right so i know that we have been in discussions with the police department we will continue to be and i will be sure to mention your comments thank you any other questions okay seeing none um diversity and inclusion uh mr abigail thank you president smith clinton border by the diversity inclusion committee minutes of the september 28 2021 meeting the diversity inclusion committee meeting began at 1 pm attendees were myself iam abedrabo board commissioner dana beltran administrators doctor danny robert ozzy and principal ahmed hamda teachers lori lalama carla rodriguez john o'reilly courtney terry and jackie turk and two students were as well um in in the meeting and i'm sorry moving forward can we make sure we don't put the names of the students on here if it's released to the public just fyi

031topics discussion number one the purposes meeting was to discuss the goals of the diversity inclusion committee for the 21 22 school year number two professional development for staff was discussed cultural sensitivity training was discussed as an option for the staff number three surveying the middle school student population was discussed at the meeting number four curriculum was also addressed at the meeting the committee discussed the importance of diversity equity and inclusion in curriculum and with that being said the meeting was adjourned at 202 pm the next meeting will be on 10 26 1 pm okay any questions just uh yeah um the middle school surveyed in regards to so there will be a middle school survey going out um and it will not be as intense as the high school one to talk about gender religion

032culture um disabilities various of the includes inclusivity of students and how they feel and how they are accepted within their peers and their teachers the high school level did one but since our population of middle school students are younger this the committee of teachers and administrators are going to be putting one together to assess the same exact information but not too delved in because yet they're still at a younger age to help mr daly yeah i got a question did we generate this survey internally or did we use someone else's survey services we have um honestly the faculty members and administrators who are particularly the teachers who are on this are so um weaved into the issue of diversity inclusion that they've been doing it themselves yeah the reason why i asked because i've heard

033through grapevine and social media that other school districts have pulled in a survey from another organization that may may not be appropriate so my only concern was that we did it internally rather than externally no they're baking it from scratch they're putting it together themselves i think the best thing and i agree with mr daily is to keep it internal look at the data because obviously questions are from from the external aspects whether it's pulling from another district or another organization or another third party uh may be an impediment to the data we're looking at here in our district but again i want to speak very highly of all the faculty administrators and teachers they're phenomenal and they have resources at their fingertips and they're using them thank you mr president yes could we have

034could the board get a copy of what the goals are of the committee as well uh just internally thank you yeah i think dr robert tells you and i spoke about getting those goals as well and the resources that were shared by ms jackie turk for the board uh i don't know if that was done or not no we'll we'll get that okay completed dr robertosi did you want i'm sorry yes uh mr no not a problem i just wanted to clarify mr avadrab was absolutely right we definitely don't want the students names on on the minutes um so just so everyone knows this hasn't gone out to the public yet this is just for only you can see it so we'll make sure before it's public tomorrow that the students names are redacted thank

035you yeah just to add on to that committee minutes are not released to the public until we approve them here at the uh at the board level so uh they'll make sure those corrections are made tomorrow when they're released miss danny dr danny um i i do i do was the survey already put together is is it already put together to serve for the middle school or for the high school the middle school no it's being put together um we haven't discussed on a release date one that will be applied and released to the middle school but i believe if dr robertosi or commissioner beltran correct me for a mistake because commission belgium is on it as well we're going to discuss that at our next meeting at the end of the month because i

036i did attend something at school boards and it was something about a survey that you can give out so i wasn't sure whether you know maybe if you wanted to reach out to school boards to see if it was uh one of the classes that i attended and they had a survey and obviously um maybe use parts of it or something so that's why i was just saying because it was something i was looking to do at the school that i'm at so i could see if i can dig up that survey to find out where uh president smith that's okay with you i'll reach out to school boards um and the uh the full board will get a copy of that survey once it's generated as well so you'll be able to see that

037correct i think the plan was that the um the high school and the middle school was going to be disseminated to all the board members once they have all that information together so you could so you can compare both any other questions anyone else thank you thank you next we'll go to education and special education vice president casper the education special education committee was held on september 22nd beginning at four o'clock the attendees were myself board president mr jim smith and board member dr danny administrators included dr robert tosi mrs kusalevich mr gingaro and mrs rotolo all of these items that i'm about to read are all informational number one school opening update from dr robertosi and mrs kusalevich they had shared highlights of the district reopening students and staff were glad to be back

038in person the district was focusing on the social social emotional needs of students and staff as everyone becomes reacclimated to being in person full day full-time five days a week nearly half of the student population had not been in school in person in 17 months routines and expectations are being reset across all grades and schools the technology lessons and best practices learned during the past year are being maintained pbsis is being used to help students adjust to the new normal number two special education update ms rotolo thanked the committee for additional staff she was able to hire this year she discussed the extended school year in covid learning support programs from summer over 300 students and staff participated in the programs at schools 14 and 16. discussion was held about boys and girls club and

039school 16 students a behaviorist two special education teachers and five paraprofessionals have been assisting daily with a small group of special needs students attending at the location an upcoming cpac meeting scheduled for 9 28 was discussed the meeting topic is the role of case of the case manager and will be presented by ms chavez two child study teams have moved their home base to school six to increase classroom and small group space at sila b and school 2. the nj law 3434 about students that are 21 years of age was discussed number three start start strong assessment ms kusalevich shared that the district is preparing for the start strong assessment to be administered by october 22nd this assessment is a shortened version of the new jersey student learning assessment typically given in the spring due

040to the pandemic there was no testing in spring of 2020 this brief assessment replaces njsla from spring 2021 we will still have a normal a normal administration of nj sla in spring of 2022. start strong includes one 60-minute session each in english language arts and math in grades four through eight english nine and ten and algebra one two in geometry a sixty minute science assessment will be given in grades six nine and twelve the assessment will serve as a baseline to help the district target extra support for our students number four civic standalone course requirement ms kusalevis shared the legislation s known as laura wooten's law mandates civics instruction in middle school beginning in the 2022-23 school year options for course placement as a cycle class and the additional staff needed to teach this course

041were discussed additional staffing will be included in the next budget the district is awaiting further guidance from the njdoe regarding this topic prior to finalizing course design number five school 16 update dr robert tosi shared the building based updates to repairs to school 16 since the flooding the day the company hire to date the company hired has been working double shifts seven days a week excellent progress is being made with most of the cleaning and painting completed all hallway floor tile and many classroom floors have been replaced an update on a reopening date will be given in two weeks miss kusalevitz shared that students and staff transitioned as well as could be expected to promote instruction all teachers had already created google classrooms in preparation for a normal school opening allowing materials to be more

042easily accessible a small group of students were logging in to the remote learning from the boys and girls club books supplies educational material and replacement classroom furniture have been ordered to replace what was destroyed in the in the flood the meeting was adjourned at 5 pm and uh respectfully submitted by mrs janina kusalevich are there any questions mr ambadrava thank you commissioner uh almost exactly commissioner vasper commissioner casper um can you and if you don't mind uh and miss kusalevich share wooden's law with diversity committee not myself but with the teachers administrators only because wooden's law their the line is challenging a are maintaining a perfect union and establish establishing justice um and tranquility in school to see if we can somehow um uh weave that in with the work that the diversity committee is

043doing this way we can keep the education diversity in the curriculum thank you okay okay next we have municipal alliance dr danny municipal alliance committee meeting september 30th 2021 minutes board members present myself mr jim daley mr smith board president city council president councilman william gibson councilwoman lauren murphy councilwoman rosemary pino administration present dr danny robertosi superintendent of schools mr mark gingaro assistant superintendent and mr dominic valano city manager meeting time was from 6 pm to 7 07 p.m items of discussion number one tennis courts at tenerenco park there was discussion between the city and board officials regarding the addition of two additional tennis courts at tataranko park the city is planning on putting in three courts but there is a possibility to fit five full courts if the boe desires to contribute funds to

044the project discussion ensued and it was decided that the city that the board will let the city manager know within two weeks if there is interest in working together on the project board members will discuss this in the appropriate committees the approximate cost is one hundred sixty thousand per court parking lot edition at school number six number two there was no discussion necessary as the parking lot was already under construction at this time clarification was sought regarding future projects and the protocol that needs to be followed the city manager agreed to reach out to the county to remove a dead tree from the school 6 property number three school number 16 traffic flooding there was a discussion about a cut in at school 16 to help traffic issues during drop off time the city had

045looked at this a couple of years ago but this is a county road the recent flooding from hurricane ida was discussed and it was agreed that the city manager would have the city engineer look at the flooding issue and make recommendations on how to prevent this in the future mr velano also mentioned that the city could possibly use arpa funds for this type of project once the board decides what needs to be done we'll consider an all-encompassing project that would address both the traffic and flooding issues number four school 15 handicapped parking mr velano explained that the traffic division would have to look at the area and make a recommendation to the city council for approval of a new handicapped space number five chs trees trimmed and rode through the high school campus mr smith

046mentioned several trees on the chs campus that would require assistance from the city in order to trim them mr villano graciously agreed to assist the city manager confirmed that the road through the campus at chs is not a public street number six public session at meetings virtual call in public session at meetings was discussed as this has been a topic discussed on the board of education mr villano and city council members inform the committee that the city no longer allows phone callers for public session and allows five-minute public comment an exception is when the council votes on an ordinance and has to have an open public hearing number seven old business the school five bus drop off lane was discussed various scenarios were discussed including altering traffic patterns the board and city council worked together

047to find the most optimal solution the next meeting be scheduled in december or january any questions uh commissioner danny thank you um is have there are is there timelines on these uh on these points that are on the uh on the notes and discussion because i noticed the next meeting is december or january but school uh 15 and school 16 have been on discussion with municipal when i was on municipal um so is there a timeline attached to these when they're going to get back to the board so the tennis courts um i know dr robertosi did they get back to they said that um they would get back to you with the exact um figure on if we want to include two more courts at the park you know split so i'll let you

048uh yes doctor danny we oh your advice committee first and then facilities committee um we were going to let them know something but did they get back to you with the amounts the uh we have the approximate course okay yes okay um okay and then um for school 16 obviously it has to be just exactly what's so at this point it's bringing it to the other committees for discussion and then to the whole board to see if that's the way we want to go did i answer your question yeah and then also sorry and then also 15 and five um because five has been the discussion for for quite a while as well i know you're looking at you know the most optimal solution right now but obviously in terms of where the parking is

049when the kids play particularly on valley um i mean is there a timeline when that's going to be done or is that still in discussion right now okay so for three for number seven the old business okay so i i thought i'm jumping no i'm sorry i thought i heard three did i not hear three well you answered 16 already right school 16 so that's number three i i know that that was something you had mentioned you had you know yeah my my discussion of school 16 for quite a while has been the traffic but i think the most pertinent and that's on the list is the flooding because there are concerns of parents in that area that they may have to shut down school again because another item might come down the road at

050some point or another um so that's that's a big concern i know it is for for the for all the board members uh but it is particularly for all the parents in that area so at this point i mean as you see like they could possibly use the funding um you know arpa so i think mr smith i mean is is this um [Music] in maybe facilities to take a look at what it is that and then bring it back to you yes yeah with them yeah the items that that will go to that can go to the appropriate committees and most of them fall to facilities uh will be sent there um we asked the city to hold up on the tennis court uh till we got an answer from the business administrator i

051believe architects did go out there at the high school so we need a full report on that to the facilities committee and then the facilities committee will make the recommendation to the board of whether we can do it at the high school or do we want to foot the bill at a city park so that's the tennis court issue i understand your questions on the other things unfortunately uh well fortunately we've asked the city to agree to four of these meetings a year which is a drastic improvement yeah so in doing that we'll make sure that these items that have not been addressed yet you know at the next meeting what is the status where are they at as you know schools 16 and school 5 are both county roads so we've asked the city

052manager to ask the county to get involved so again putting a time limit to this isn't going to do us any good if the parties involved are not cooperating into it so and and that's my concern i'm sorry interruption that's my concern we've been saying those are county roads for quite a while and is it the county side that's lacking is it the city side that's not able to get the attention the county side that's the concern that's the worry because obviously we have no hand in it right now right because we there's three parties working on this but we are the most affected and we have no control over this so that so that's my biggest concern and again i'm not trying to create more work than the four meetings a year but are

053we doing check-in points between each quarterly meeting well from where our our facilities committee can be involved in it um the city manager offered to reach out to the county for us we'll do a follow-up if that was done if there was no uh movement then this board will have to decide how we want to approach the county maybe the superintendent would have to send a letter to the to the commissioner board and to the county administrator asking for a meeting of them those are some options that we have on the table but i think meeting more often now is going to keep these things current i don't think we're going to let them slip through the the cracks and let them continue and those that we can address ourselves in committee i think we'll

054do but you know some of those items we've asked the city to help us with trimming of trees and things of that i can't put them on a time table because they're doing us a favor um so you know those are some of the things that we're up against unfortunately um you know the i hate to make a statement that that is inappropriate but you know on on schools and and this board and the committees that you all are on we work diligently and quickly because students lives and students education is involved and i credit each and every one of you uh for moving quickly in your committees um i i can't answer for other boards or other entities um but i know that this this board does a great job in in moving on

055matters that we can control um but i think i think what i'm saying is that we'll keep them on task for what we've asked them to and make sure that those items that are not corrected or not brought back to our attention before the next meeting are addressed before the next meeting i guess that's what we can and that's my biggest point i'm sorry that's my biggest point is that as long as we know we can not necessarily skip or divert the council or the city side to get the attention of the county because city sides got bit they're busy too but as long as we know we got we got that we have that lifeline to the county if the city is unable to to attain the attention of the county that's all i

056want to make sure thank you um mr abraham i just want to like there's nine members and so that's why sometimes getting nine members all together on the same i mean you could imagine you know picking dates um that's why but um that being said i mean if something is brought back from the facilities and ready to go i mean we could you know try you know to move that to december definite earlier maybe the first week in december or something whatever we find out um we did talk about school number five quite a bit and um yes the county issue keeps coming up um and like president smith said i mean at one point i mean you know they they weren't planning on doing the tennis courts now they're planning on doing the tennis

057courts i mean we can't control that you know um but they're only planning on doing the three yeah but they were not planning on doing the five and now they said they were planning on it if we would want to you know so now we have to like shift gears again and and that's fine you know if we get together and we see how that is but we did talk about school five and trying to maybe come up with um something which um i don't know dr robertosi and um i know mr gingaro um were what came out of this was to try to maybe see how it would work maybe with a diverted traffic pattern take like the least cost effective way and see what would be i know that was something that was

058brought up and um you know see if maybe maybe we don't go the county road with putting a cut in we see like how that works um just because it was putting up a few signs and seeing how it would be to divert the traffic patterns so i don't know if um you know if that was in with administration um dr abratosi or um you know mr gingaro like if he started that ball rolling a little bit but we were gonna try that and see how that got us with school five first because it was the cause it was cost-effective and to see if that would benefit instead of you know trying where we're trying to get the county and you know we're trying to get the city to help us with the county i

059don't know mr um if that was if if i think you said it very well doctor okay so like that's what we were looking at is is put in something for five so where our hands are sometimes tied because we're dealing with the other side and so you know although we would like all these things then it's like we have to bring it to the committee here and then the committee here has to and then it goes back and then we have to arrange with the nine members you know to get together so you know what i mean that's that's the reason why but again if you just move on one thing we can take that back you know what i mean so i hope i answered your question you did thank you mr daley

060yeah um just the point of uh clarification or and a suggestion uh on the school 16 the the city manager did offer to have involved the city engineer in terms of the flooding issues so i think in the interim and to your concern my and i think everybody's concerned here i'm sure that the superintendent or mr jungarro somebody from the administration will follow up on some of these minor points to see where they are in between then and now and bring that for instance the cutting of the trees as your engineer engaged in this or things like that so between the administration two administrations they can communicate and say it's moving or it's not moving so and i think that hopefully that'll answer both your concern and the rest of our concerns that it doesn't

061just die until the next meeting mr thank you president smith um my suggestion would be to bring all the schools traffic issues to the safety committee maybe that we could come up with a non-cost well cost-effective way of doing it with traffic patterns you can't do that on valley road um they just changed the fence up at school five so the fence would have to be removed if you're going to do a cutting as well so um there's there's some things it won't be that much of a cut and maybe one or two buses would be allowed to get in there um because it's a short it's not as long as people think it is but um it's there's parking on both sides of valley road the county has to look at that maybe remove

062the count you know no parking in certain hours but i think this should go back to the security depart committee because you've got school 11 the traffic over every every school has traffic it's horrendous just to get you time your your commute around the city when school's not in session so you can get around the school areas so maybe if we can come up with some and then present that to the city council and then whatever has to be done with course and then non-cost i know school five they still do the drop off because when i pass there i i stopped by i'm stopped by the crossing guard i could see the parent volunteers out there opening the door so they moved that traffic around gillies and mountainside terrace it's the valley road it's

063people double parking it's got to be an aggressive it's got to be a bunch of different things so i'd like to see it go back to security and see if maybe they came up with some valuable um reasons to do it and that was one of the things that the city had agreed upon was that we could try and do a no parking on mountain view and gillies during drop off and pick up so that the buses would be able to back up per se on those roads for pickup that's what i was mentioning they were willing to try that um so we just have to coordinate uh doing a trial run of that first and then if it works then they would bring it to the traffic division to have a permanent no parking

064during those those times so they were willing to do that so we're just going to have to follow up and make sure that it is done we felt that that was the simplest and easiest thing right now to do because we could be talking about curb cuts i mean cut-ins and whatever for years to come so if we could look at a simple issue that could either help it or cure it um and that's just one school mrs basford as you said there's there's concerns at just about every school that we have so uh point well-being and we'll we'll work with either facilities or a special committee to do traffic recommendations to the city um going forward all right anyone on municipal alliance we really felt it was a very uh constructive meeting the city

065was very willing to willing to help us in many areas so i appreciate mr valano and the members of the committee for their willingness in reaching out and and wanting to help us so now we just have to make sure that it's it's taken to its course so i asked for the tennis courts to for the city not to move on that and i asked them to give us two weeks one because we didn't have the report from um the architects who came out to clifton high school so there's a possibility we could fit the fifth court at the high school so we wanted to know what the cost was going to be all that aspect to the board before we told the city yes or no on if we wanted to fund two additional

066courts at a city park so facilities will look at this next week we'll have a report from uh from the architect and then we'll share it back with the board and then we'll make a decision on that on how the board would like to proceed with that any other questions on that all right moving on um or my unfinished business okay mr daily inquired if a board of education meetings would be held in the administration building or in the orchestra pit area of the chs auditorium um just so the board knows and the public knows that our next meeting which is the 21st of october um that'll be our last meeting here at the uh the auditorium at the high school uh various different high school projects are starting one of them is the play

067um where this stage this room is going to be utilized um and there's other things along the uh the school year so uh our last meeting here will be next uh board meeting the 21st tentatively our best option right now would be to move to the um i believe the media center at clb and again we'll have more information for the board as we as we get closer to that but that's what we're we're looking at and then um depending on what we want to do with the um our regular board uh meeting room um to have a plan to get back in that area uh sometime in the new year at the beginning of the new year all right so um so we met with um technology people the building people here on what

068was the best way of trying to adhere to mr daley's requests um i know mr daley wanted to put something down below uh we felt it was a little too close second of all having the deus in one straight line um didn't prove to be um we wouldn't be able to see each other too well and i would have a difficulty knowing who was asking to be talked to talk et cetera so we felt that the assistants that were down there were not being utilized properly down below so that's why we moved them up here and again it's only for this meeting and next meeting so um some sedalia i don't know how you want to proceed with that well even if we do move back to our regular board area there's going to be

069occasions where we're going to want to utilize this facility so this current setup is i think a lot of us are not really happy with it so we have to find out something you know and i'm not saying that you know the board wants to meet here all the time that's the board's decision but there's going to be occasions when we're going to want to use this facility to have a board meeting because we might have a particular topic that's going to require more space so i just want to look forward to how we do that as comfortably and efficiently and more friendly than this this set up here because this is i mean we got a ton of space we don't need all this space for every every board members and i understand your

070issue and i agree with you that you know you got to have some visual context and but i'm sure you know there's enough of good minds in here we could figure something out that would work when we do have to meet in this building okay and uh oh beyond going okay so that's basically the concerns yeah where i'm who is that mr grenoble i'm sorry the other item that's not listed on here that i think we said should be listed here was the the option to allow participation remotely i know that's another thing we said he wanted to keep on here and talk about uh yeah i think we were going to get some legal opinion we were going to do some other things so delise was on vacation so so that's why i'm not

071sure why it's not under under here but under unfinished business but all right do you wanna or you wanna wait till the next to give us now where do you want to wait what's up to you okay hi so um in response to mr konova's question um because board meetings are in person it is not required that we allow public participation remotely but it's up to the board if it wants to do that if the board is in if the board is having remote meetings then obviously then it's necessary to have remote public participation but when the board meetings are in person it's the board's option to also have not only to have in-person public participation but the board can also choose to have remote public participation it's then just a question of the mechanics

072of it how are you going to do it because you'd have to be able to make sure that the public can hear you remotely like the public that's remote can hear the board meeting and that you can hear the public member the members of the public when they speak remotely so that's beyond the capacity of legal uh that's the tech that's technology so it's up to you all yeah the last last administration to put a resolution for next meeting and the board can uh can move and uh discuss and approve it for or not approve it for next meeting is that okay with everybody yep okay so you put a resolution on for next meeting mr smith yes on that issue i i want to make sure we're all advised uh by our technical people

073how that would be carried out and and what their challenges are so um i'm i'm fine with the concept but i'd like to hear from the technical aspect so if we we enter into that realm and you know the calls are falling off i don't want us to be embarrassed we have to be ready for our our staff has to be ready to be able to handle that type of issue yeah it was brought uh and discussed in technology but we'll gladly have someone vic the technology here to explain the procedure to the board before the board would vote is that okay with everybody mr smith yes and then policy has to weigh in too because if we change absolutely we have to put it in the policy thank you right so i guess we

074would would approve or disapprove the procedure and then bring it to policy for a policy on it so next meeting will vote on if we want to do it or not and then make the policies on it yes now one more thing please uh also take into consideration the different locations so whatever whatever the policy is going to be you're going to have to take into consideration if it's going to be here if the meeting is here if the meeting's in the board rooms if the meeting is in another place so wherever it is so that it's consistent so you don't have to keep notifying the public well this meeting you can participate remotely this one you can't it's best if it's something that's consistent i believe we we asked our i.t guy and he

075did weigh in on it because we asked this in policy maybe he could give us a demonstration as well and show us the equipment they're going to use so because i'm i'm a visual learner so i would really prefer that as well yeah so we'll arrange next meeting to have technology here so they could show the board on how we do this or how they would do it technologically speaking but they did tell us that it it could be done so the house and whoa we'll we'll ask for them to show us how how it's been going to be done mr alberta did you i mean um mr awa did you have a question yeah i was just the only question or concern i had was uh if we do choose to do allow people

076to speak virtually that there is going to be a camera as like people come speak to the podium here you can physically see and hear them so if you know sometimes with internet connections or just you know for any reason possible that you know as we ask we require people to state their name and address that we should be able to physically see who they are as they're speaking because technically if someone's speaking over and you can't really see who they are they could kind of lie of who they are and you know or speak on someone else's behalf as as that person you know when it comes to like identity uh that's just something to consider um besides that no that's all i had to ask okay so mr canova's request was just a

077a a calling not a not a zoom if i if i'm correct right yeah initially when we spoke in technology mr mountain had said it would be a lot easier to do just a telephone call and have the audience here as we hear um and just have a phone cue it is possible to look at other options if we want to go with a video route that you know that's an option we could we could definitely take we've done it through kovid so i just don't know about the how they would facilitate that but that's something we could take back to technology okay so maybe next meeting we can have technology give a demonstration to us on the various different ways and then vote on it the following meeting mr smith may i make a

078suggestion sure just so we're not spinning our wheels here and administration isn't investigating all these things do we know that a majority of the board wants this i mean could we is it i know a straw poll doesn't mean anything but do you do we want to go through all this stuff and then at the end of the day the majority of the board says no we don't want it i mean so maybe we can find that out tonight before we go through all these processes just my suggestion okay so um if i could do a [Music] a roll call of the concept of of having a either call in and or video call-in added to our regular board meetings is that something that you would like administration to uh pursue uh or not okay

079so if we could have a roll call on that so we can give administration a direction please so yes you're asking that you are interested in this or no you do not wish to have a call in or video conference added to the meeting at this time do you want us to answer or i'm sorry mr abedrabo yes only if it's video i'm sorry yes only if it's video okay mr rod no miss password yes proceed miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley uh since this is basically a straw poll not an official action but uh i i need to see the demonstration and how this is going to work uh if it works i would be in favor of it dr danny yes vice president casper yes president smith uh with mr daley

080again i would have to say not having the information ahead of us um uh i can't give a definite yes or no so i would abstain until we have more information okay so you're good thank you mr speaker majority mr uh president smith is it possible for me to abstain because that was the reason why i said no is because i would like kind of some type of concrete detail what can and can't yep that sure you can change your vote so we have successes and three upstands okay so administration has uh an understanding that the board would like to see this uh if possible so we'll have a demonstration at the next meeting of both possible ways and then um [Music] would the board like to vote on it next week or yes just

081to clarify the reason why the phone is suggested as the option is because in order to be on a zoom we would all have to be on the zoom too so that's what poses the difficulty that's why it worked when we were remote because we were all on a zoom meeting and so that's why the option but but again i'm happy to have you come to the next meeting and and explain the various options but that's the reason why the phone option wasn't right but they're doing this at school board they have one big screen set up for people that are in the room and you you you call in and you they can see you on the screen and you can see that you can see the live feed it's not a zoom it's

082just that the video conferencing it's it's done a little different there's a couple of different cameras so there's other options there's more than just a zoom or webex there's another option where the caller gets put on a zoom but you're seeing them on a screen and we're not on the zoom it did there is a capability of doing that okay so we'll ask mr mountain to give us some scenarios on uh a presentation next meeting and we'll uh we'll we'll vote on the following meeting after that mr president just add to that um i remember miss danny had brought up the fact that if any one of us for whatever reason would have to quarantine dude covet or some other reason that she wanted to explore that as well to see if we could virtually

083be in one of these meetings as well and that's another question we had that i don't know the answer to that either so if i made so that's another issue that that's a board policy that has to be adopted uh that talks about remote participation by board members whether it be remote participation by phone or remote participation by video so there's no definite as with anything legal there's no definite clear answer because taken to the extreme if you had all nine board members participating remotely you know you could possibly have um you know a speaker phone with nobody present and everybody calling in and that dilutes the whole purpose of an open public meeting but if you put some type of parameters where you know you participate remotely based on certain circumstances whether it's an

084emergency or some kind of medical then as long as you have a policy about it then you're okay so it's one of those it depends okay moving on we have uh education administration we have uh ea one uh we're going to do on a separate vote so do i have a motion for ea-1 moved by mr abu drabo second by mr canova awad sorry uh discussion oh i'm sorry uh mr abudraba would you like to read it please thank you president smith and thank you to administration for putting this on whereas breast cancer awareness month is a worldwide annual campaign in october involving thousands of organizations to highlight the importance of breast cancer awareness education and research whereas a woman living in the u.s has a 12.4 percent or a one in eight lifetime risk

085of being diagnosed with breast cancer and whereas the survival rate of women who have breast cancer is 98.1 percent when detected in the early stages can save lives and whereas knowing the risk factors for breast cancer which include age weight sitting injury lifestyles diet family history gender history and dense breast tissue can aid in early detection and whereas a breast cancer awareness month is an opportunity tonight all citizens in our community in the clifton school district to prevent breast cancer fatalities through wrist increased education and regular screening and whereas the october we recognize the breast cancer survivors those currently battling the disease friends and families of a diagnosed patient and applaud the efforts of our medical professionals and researchers working to find a cure and whereas there is still more progress needed in research now

086therefore be resolved that the clifton board of education would like to pay tribute to those individuals and their families and friends who have had to struggle with the battle against breast cancer and recognizing the more than 2.4 million breast cancer survivors in the united states personally absolutely mr rawat yes miss passport yes in honor of my sister survivor yes miss beltran yes mr kenoba yes mr daley yes dr danny yes vice president casper yes president smith yes in honor of all survivors yes all right we'll have ea 2 now through ea 7. so moved so moved by vice president casper again second by mr abu drabbo discussion seeing none roll call oh question do you have a question about number four is that is that the ones that we have are they on there i

087see 15. yes yes yes finally thank you roll call please mr avadrabo yes mr awad yes ms yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes dr danny yes vice president casper yes president yes next we have uh personnel we have p1 through p22 motion so moved by mr abhijava second second [Music] dr danny dr danny see even this way i can't see who it is discussion seeing none roll call mr abu drabo yes standing on excuse me sorry yes without standing on p16 okay mr awad yes miss bassford uh yes abstaining on 19. miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes dr danny yes vice president casper yes president smith yes next we have finance facilities we have f1 through f7 motion second mr abuba second by vice president casper discussion scene

088none roll call mr abedrabo yes mr awad yes miss fastford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr gayley yes dr danny yes vice president casper yes yes okay we just um we just appointed one of our new principals [Music] principal of school number four uh congratulations if you like to say something you're more than welcome to good evening dr robert jose president smith vice president casper board commissioners mrs kuslevich and all of our clifton families i would like to thank you very much for appointing me this evening as the principal of school four when you enter school four above the doorway it says today's treasures tomorrow is hope and i can truly tell you that in my role as acting principal thus far this year i know this motto to be absolutely true today's

089treasures our staff for which i am incredibly grateful to be a part of truly treasure each of our students as if they were their own children they value them for the unique gifts that they bring to the classrooms and to our community they instill in each child that they really are tomorrow's hope every day through our pbsis program as a whole school we build our students up by teaching them our expectations and acknowledging them for their hard work in being a school for star and that's what's going to help them to fulfill that destiny of being tomorrow's hope i would like to thank mrs rosetti for her support during our transition for all of my mentors throughout the district and all of the administrators who have supported me in coming to this point and finally

090my family who is here this evening my husband and my daughters for being with me through the journey as well there are so many wonderful things that are happening in clifton and at school for and i am very very grateful to be a part of this family thank you very much for this opportunity thank you so much we are uh so appreciative of all that you've done for the district in uh your role as a as a interim principal and i know that you'll do a fantastic job and school four is so lucky to have you as their leader we wish you you all the very best and to your family and your husband and your two daughters i know how proud you must be of your wife and your mom and uh we wish

091you all the best congratulations thank you very much okay so we're now going to move on to um and it's a good opportunity if you like to cut out to cut out before but you're more than welcome to stay but we know you have a a busy school day so uh please feel free if you wish to uh to leave okay board member comments i believe uh october is uh miss belchon i'll keep it uh short tonight i just wanted to extend my condolences to um commissioner basford on the unfortunate uh passing of her brother um although i'm i'm young i can only imagine um what it would be like to lose a sibling and i'm really sorry that you had to go through with that um in such short notice um other than that

092i would just like to say that i'm happy we're finally considering a virtual option um for everyone to be able to call in whether it be by video or by phone call i think it's great that the democratic process can be taken into this century where most people are home and able to use their phone or their computer rather than actually showing up places in person and other than that i'm that's all i have thank you mr kanova good evening first i just do want to say congratulations to miss mariji um i know that we've worked together at school three and she's been amazing there so i know she'll do great things at school for so congratulations um i also want to extend condolences to mrs basford and also our brother um i know brothers

093and family members are very close and uh unfortunately losing one is a terrible thing i'm very sorry cancer awareness and breast cancer awareness this is something that's very important i know it touches home for a lot of people we all have loved ones that have gone through this um and this is the month where you you reflect and you make you make sure that you go to your checkups you go to your doctor's appointments don't put them off make sure you're checking for these things because um early cancer awareness is preventative in many cases so it's very important that you get out there and do that um the tennis courts the last i recall uh we had him when we had a meeting they had said that we could do this either at the high

094school or we could do it at this field um and i don't know i know there are plus and minuses for for either one i know if you do it at the high school they could use it for their curriculum for the gymnasium um but also i had some questions around if you do it at the park how we would facilitate that in being like sentenced over to the public can we rent it for a specific time can we have certain meets at certain dates um the four to five courts was one thing that i remember mr mullahy had mentioned that we need so that we can be competitive and host meets so i think no matter what we do it's important that we at least have the four to five courts or whatever whatever

095the recommend recommended size or or amounts that needed to to host me so i think that that for me i think that's an important piece of it um and as for the uh the uh mask exemptions we do have within our policy um laid out all the different uh criteria for masks so i would just recommend you take a look at that and and i think you'll find your answer instead of there uh that's all ahead thank you mr daley thank you mr president um again i'd like to stem my condolences to judy on the passing of her brother i know no matter what age it's it's always tough especially when it's a family member so my deepest condolences again to mrs mouriji thank you and uh look forward to meeting you at some point

096in time we're kind of as board members we're not allowed to mix and mingle but i'm sure the opportunity will come and i wish you all the best in the rest of your career here at the the clifton board and at school fourth i just and in closing just ask everybody to support all the student activities both the athletic and co-curricular activities plays everything that goes on here the superintendent didn't mention the football game but we have many other sports so do what you can come out and support our students who student athletes and student [Music] co-curriculars who work so hard at what they do and that's a big impart big part of your education because it teaches social skills and other skills not just book learning so all the best for everybody and i

097ask the public to go out and support those things that concludes my remarks mr president dr danny uh yes condolences to um ms basford on the loss of your brother i again i i can't even imagine um you know sibling um so again just deepest condolences to you and also uh mr usee condolences to you and your family at this time as well i'm sorry for your loss and i would just like to say congratulations to um miss muriji i hope you have a very good year exciting um new position always a little exciting and hope the challenges um you know aren't too much because i know just don't know what to expect you know any other year you just say oh you know it's business as usual but you know there's just so many

098challenges but you know the best of luck to you and i'm sure we'll meet um and that concludes my remarks thank you and thank you to the speakers mr abu drabo thank you president smith um start off saying that there are three events going on that involve the election coming up close as a reminder clifton republican club on tuesday october 12th at 7 pm uh next week on tuesday at the elks um clifton is a community will be holding their uh virtual it'll be recorded and posted on their on their page and then uh to all the candidates the palestinian american community center sent out an email letters invitation went out today if you can respond to your participation that will be on tuesday october 19th at 7 pm so that's for the public to

099know for that that's going on um if we can take a look at the what miss la lama said in terms of the school dividers them being too short if there's something we need to change on that thanks to john beagle and his office for doing an amazing job and also keeping our school district advised this is an advisory um danny i think we receive our direction from the city health officer so to mr duvoise if we you know you might want to try the city council meeting since we take directions from them as well breast cancer as mr kanova said is dear to everybody in terms of remembering the awareness i had a relative who did not know she had breast cancer recently and is still in the process and just has surgery and

100she went for a different procedure and then that procedure was stopped because the day before a procedure she was told she has breast cancer so please prepare us for her and everybody else all the survivors anybody else going through it um from master position to a principal at school four ms mauricio congratulations tomorrow is friday night lights i think homecoming and also band night 7 p.m versus northern highland they definitely beat tech 34 to nothing last week all our athletes all our students keep it up great job uh dr robert tauzi is there a student rep if you can let us know on that and also prayers or condolences to miss basford and lost her brother i apologize for not making yesterday i had my own family issue i had to deal with yesterday and

101mr uchi of course sorry for your family's loss as well prayers condolences to both of you and your families and that's really about it thank you mr awad thank you very much president smith um ms bashford my condolences to you i apologize honestly didn't find out until today uh one of the many reasons is i actually had a death in my family um as many might have seen on the news recently uh a gentleman that is related to my mother's side was driving a fuel truck on in the mawa area unfortunately the truck tipped over in the morning and caused a really big fire he was announced that immediately something that we honestly didn't know till that evening tomorrow is his burial and something not common for us where we are not able to retrieve

102a body from the extent of that accident so as i like to say to you know the clifton residents and anybody that's hearing you know driving extremely safe sadly new jersey roads are really famous for their potholes and you know tight turns on exits i always practice wearing your seat belt and you know take all your safety precautions when you're out there on the road mr uchi also my condolences to your family you know i missed last meeting because thankfully my wife and i finally got a little bundle of joy you know it was such a happy week sadly it kind of you know things turned uh after the death in our family but you know i'm officially a father it's such a blessing i do miss sleeping um getting really good at diaper changes

103and bottle feedings and you know burping it's you know my wife was so resilient so strong and personally thank you to hackensack medical for a phenomenal staff something that helped us choose our little one's name her name is jenna which in arabic means heaven something you know my father taught me at a young age you know the status of a woman specifically in islam and our faith it says when you have a daughter she opens the door of heaven which is jenna when she becomes a wife she completes her husband's deen which is which means religion and when she is a mother jenna lies underneath her feet so what that means is when she becomes a mother one day heaven always lies underneath your mother's feet it's something to show you how the importance of

104a mother is to a family you know there's a saying which is it's your mother your mother your mother your father you know watching my wife and many people you know go through pregnancies um the sacrifice they do to their bodies you know the risk that they do uh giving birth and the journey only begins from there i see my wife as much as i would love to help and all that there's certain things that she can provide to uh the child that i'm not able to and it's absolutely beautiful and i appreciate my wife for everything that she's done and i would like to thank everybody that you know sent out their love and prayers for us you know mother and child are safe the baby god bless her is eight and a half

105pounds as she could tell she got it from her father she's a big girl and you know i hope you know as time goes on i get to you know send off this little one to these amazing public schools that we have in the district and you know i know i send out love and prayers to all the cancer survivors uh breast cancer and i wish our district extremely well you know moving forward thank you miss beltran um miss password i'm sorry thank you um i'm going to make a suggestion maybe we can before we actually speak we can have like an announcement section mr watt i didn't know that you had um i had spoken and then mr uh abu drabo spoke after me so congratulations on the birth of your daughter i wish

106you many blessings i think that maybe that would help us because then if we miss something we will miss it if we if some person speaks after us um condolences to mr usey and your family i know it's hard mr joe cedar he was always he used to come here to our meetings he passed away recently let's see breast cancer it not only affects men but it also not only affects women but it also affects men so um we we had a fundraiser at work today that's why i'm wearing pink um so my sister's a breast cancer survivor i know many people in red hats angels there's a lot of cancer survivor including breast cancer survivors so um we wear pink to bring awareness to this horrible disease and that hopefully one day it will

107be cured let me think what else i just want to say that i want to thank the board members president smith vice president casper commissioner abu drabo commissioner awad commissioner beltran commissioner konova commissioner danny and commissioner daly and central administration for the beautiful flowers that you sent for the memorial service yesterday for my brother i'd also like to thank dr obatozzi president smith and commissioner daley for coming i know it was far it was in bridgewater and my niece and my brother lived out that way so they my niece was handling the um the reservations so it was far for those of you don't know my brother was 72 years old and he and back in 1969 he served the country as a reservist in the in the u.s navy my brother was a pt

108engineman what we didn't know was that my brother received two bronze stars and one for valor which means you saved somebody's life he never told any of us he never spoke about his his harrowing conditions his his his um his his experience he never spoke about it my brother chose to become a very quiet man a very gentle soul but he was funny he was like a robin williams oh my god the man can make you split your seams open and he would he would just find a prop like the mask it would become a hat it would become an elbow sling he would just go off into these tangents that would just make you laugh for hours the last one he did was thanksgiving there was a uh we did a zoom we used

109to eat dinner and do a family zoom at thanksgiving because we he couldn't get vaccinated because he was having a lot of heart issues so we did we we were zooming a lot with him but he had this fan over his head and the way his camera was located it looked like it was coming out of his head so he became inspect the gadget on the zoom he just roll with it so when he had his heart surgery in april we got him a beanie and cecil hat for those people old enough to know what that is it's a hat with a propeller on it and we we had it at the hospital and then when he came to recover at my sisters what happened to my brother was he developed aneurysms and the doctors

110in the hospital said that would they attribute it to the agent orange that he was exposed to he had one in his heart one in his lung and two in the renal um tubes that went to his um kidneys so he went out he decided to hold off this operation for months and he took care of things that we didn't know he was taken care of he said basically his goodbyes to people his friends in new mexico when he went up to brewster massachusetts where my nephew lives and he he said goodbyes without telling us and we didn't clue into it but he was he was giving us things and sending us pictures and making sure we had articles and everything was in order well last thursday when we went when we got the phone

111call after five hours after the surgery he had passed away so me and my sister we met him in morristown and we waited for my niece and my and her son her husband to come and we just sat there in the room and the doctor talked about all the effects of agent orange on my brother so we decided to memorialize him last night because my brother didn't want a burial he wanted a cremation and i cannot tell you from the outpouring of food and cards and flowers and edible arrangements and fruit baskets and people planting trees and the amount of people that showed up last night for the memorial when the military came i have to tell you that my brother was blessed and when i got up to speak about him at the end

112because my sister couldn't do it she because my sister was his nurse she just couldn't do it i talked about my brother not having much monetarily but he had love and the love he gave to people he would give you the shirt off your backs he had a learning disability he had a hard time getting through school so he found the love for hvac my brother was a sheet metal worker he could make anything out of metal my nephew wanted to be the tin man one year so he was out of sheet metal and flex for it was it was painful to wear but the kid got the exact costume that he wanted the man was rich with love and the one thing that he taught me was say it don't keep it inside tell

113me what you feel that was my brother he was really deep but he was quiet he was a quiet man and he's going to be sadly missed by his daughter his son and his two grandchildren and another grandchildren by a second marriage who wasn't even his blood that he adopted to raise that was my brother he would take you into his house he would feed you his last morsel of food he would give you his last dollar and his last piece of clothing so rest well william frederick weimer you are missed you are loved watch over us watch over your grandchildren like matthew said it's not the same looking at the picture we can't touch pop-up so bless you thank you everyone from the bottom of my heart for my family's heart from my brother

114noradale my sister in tewksbury we thank you for all the support that you've gave us and for the board for giving the support mr smith i thank you for you you just your your emails were great and and so loving i really appreciate everyone sympathy and blessing and i cannot say thank you enough from my family so thank you and good night vice president casper i'd like to also start with my deep deepest consolances for the three of you um i'm wishing that better times can come but also don't forget to continue to sorrow for your families that you're missing on some good notes here this evening i'd like to thank all of our retirees that have put in there for their retirements i'd also like to congratulate our students of the month please continue

115to work hard and be well in in school i'd also like to do like to thank all of our people that have donated to the school district again because you are continuing to help the education of our students throughout the district going off of our for going off of what mr brunsiak was talking about before about voting don't forget there are three ways to vote this year the governor has passed legislation where we now have early early voting here in new jersey which runs from october 23rd through october 31st uh we have a spot here in clifton which is at the clifton public library on 292 pa agent avenue the hours are from 11 to 8 monday through saturday and sunday is 10 through 6. we also have a drop box located at 900 clifton

116avenue which is the city hall if you vote by mail if you need a mail and ballot is the application is due by october 26th if you're not registered the vote you can register to vote by october 12th and election day is coming shortly it is november 2nd and it will be from 6am to 8pm thank you everyone and have a good evening uh again starting you know out with um miss bassford and her family um seeing all those pictures of your brother yesterday my father was a navy veteran as well and so much of it hit home but i had asked you you know where did you fall on the line and you told me you were the baby and i was the baby in my family as well and sometimes the babies take

117all the the brunt of everything and um i didn't know your brother but i could just tell by looking at those pictures and hearing the love in the room that um that you looked out for your brother a lot and i i could feel that and you know this board we don't agree on everything but when it comes down to family when it comes down to a time of need i'm so proud to be part of a board that puts our differences aside and we remember the sorrow and the heartache that people are going through and the joys and the happiness and uh mr awad my one of my comments tonight was to congratulate you and your wife also um because we haven't had a meeting since you you gave birth so you know it's

118just great to serve on a board where you know sometimes we don't remember this but you know we're all people we all have our lives we all have feelings um and um to know that we could be there for each other in time of need um is is very special and important and i just ask that we remember that more often um and uh i think we can accomplish so much more um if we do that so uh but i'm i'm so thankful to be part of a board that um is able to recognize when there are deaths there's able to recognize when there are great accomplishments that happen such as a birth and uh all those those great things so um i'm privileged and thankful to to be on this board with each of

119you and as i said we ca we don't agree on everything and that's what makes us a democracy but to respect each other for each other's opinions is so important and you know i just walked away last night of knowing that you know that the sense of family that was in that room in the sense of of the younger sister that uh really looked out for uh for uh her brother uh was evident so uh i i know he will be missed and uh i know this board uh truly had you in our hearts and thoughts and continued to do so and and mr awad i'm i'm so sorry i did not know a thing about what had happened uh obviously if i did i would have notified the entire board and and uh but

120we truly extend our condolences to you and to your family on your loss uh loss in any way is is terrible but a loss uh the way that that happened has got to be uh uh terrible so uh our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family at this difficult time um and since uh my buzzer went off and i don't want to extend my my time much further i just i just want to give thanks to um administration to mr gingaro and and ahmed only been here a few weeks and and just the tremendous things that are happening in this district with such a great team uh dr robitosi that you have under your leadership it's truly showing tremendous things and one of the things that's going to be happening in the next

121few weeks is our district is going to have a state of the art nowhere else to be found in a school kitchen in our high school that our high school kids should be doing back flips over lunchtime on the offerings of food just tremendous i've seen the progress of the kitchen renovations and i'm told they're very close i believe administration will be getting uh some information about a ribbon cutting coming up soon and i know early in november the students will be starting their first time experiencing that great kitchen so that happened because this board cared about kids that this board and administration had the ingenuity to go out and plan a kitchen that was state-of-the-art so that we could offer our students the very best in in lunch meals and to put a company

122such as pomponian in charge of that uh who have been tremendous uh along the way is just the true credit to this district so i just wanted to put that out there to everyone be excited about this new kitchen coming that's one of the great things happening in our our clifton schools but i thank you dr robitozzi and all of the administration and staff for the great job that you're doing people can be so proud of the of the work that's being done here in clifton and uh commissioners if you did not know today our parking lot at school six was was finalized you can't park on it yet because the pain has to uh to dry a little bit um but to mr al martion and mr al maldonado and the contractor did a

123superb job i think it was less than a week from demolition to today unheard of it looks great so if you have an opportunity to take a look and that parking lot will service our new welcome center at school six so that all the guests will have a place to park in this parking lot so um the parking lot that our employees park in sometimes there was not spots available and people wouldn't have a place to park so now we've added this uh small addition to school six and just a great job it looks fantastic take a look at it so there's a lot of great things happening in in clifton this sunday is the athletic hall of fame dinner many of our our former graduates and athletes mr doctor one of our administrators is

124being recognized as is as his time as a volleyball coach here at clifton high school some of our coaches and our athletes uh will be recognized for their athletic achievements so that's this sunday at noon at the brownstone uh so a lot of great things happening in the district and i just wanted the board and the public to be aware of those those items okay so let's move on new business is there any new business for the floor yeah mr president yes mr canover uh so i have two items one is um i wanted to talk uh about section a meeting opening and where we have the public recognition right now it's position eight but at position 11 we read our board reports which is not available to the public so that would be the

125first time they'll be hearing it so if possible i would like to bring the public comment to the end of this section so this way the public can get a full understanding of everything that's going on before they get up and speak to us if he needs a second i'll second that because as mr konova mentioned if i may um even though the public has the agenda ahead of hand they don't have the the committee reports out of hand as well as i think that would be valuable to the public at least to hear the committee reports and then open up the public okay we don't really need a vote i think either the president or the yeah it's under the realm of justice i'll consider those recommendations here okay and uh just the other

126thing was the uh there was committees that that i didn't get agendas for and uh one that the minutes weren't posted for so if we could just make sure that everyone gets the agendas prior to meetings and after the meetings we get the minutes to those meetings committee committees you're talking mr kanova you're talking committees i'm sorry committees you're talking uh so the the diversity committee when they met we didn't get the agenda prior and uh the personnel committee but i didn't see any minutes on that i don't know if they're still being typed up i just want to bring to the board's attention yeah mr kanova is right because diversity actually i forgot to ask dr robertosi um to send it out and actually i asked them today if if um since if the

127administrator who typed it up if they typed it up and it wasn't sent out prior to the meeting so that's my fault on not following up earlier okay uh um the agendas are supposed to be sent out too uh i'm i wasn't aware the minutes are supposed to be sent out too is that a new thing that we're asking for because just the last meeting or so it was talked about new business that prior to committee meetings but the agenda gets sent to the whole board instead of just yeah no that's all that i that the understand are supposed to be sent to the entire board too no i i don't know well the minutes get posted on board docs and they're available right when board dogs goes live that monday oh okay so i'm

128not sending i'm making sure i just i'm not sending minutes to everybody that's what i just want to make sure i just want to do the listen we're going to do what the will of the board is i just want to make sure i know what that is um it's mr canova uh through you mr i think personnel it's because it's all confidence yes correct so i i think that would be a briefing in executive session there's no minutes because it's like an executive session type of arrangement okay and anyone is welcome to contact the president at any time or email me if you have any concerns on these things i'll be glad to answer them so that doesn't have to be brought necessarily out here at a board meeting you're free to do what

129you wish but i will gladly answer those concerns at any time if you address them to me so yes anything else for new business yeah it's just and i'm sorry i don't have any new business just a recommendation and i know you said well you can do it later but going back to mr kanova even though they are personal um sensitive information with personnel maybe if we send an email to the board prior so for example there was a posting today about approving a personnel position just put a confidential on there so at least board members are aware especially when we're taking a look at that that's just an idea we'll have a discussion with uh council on that and uh we'll come back to the board with a recommendation mr mr smith to mr

130aberdrabbo um we it's the superintendent's meeting practically when we get on that we don't know what he's going to talk about exactly no i understand i'm talking about post sorry post meeting not the agenda itself a post meeting saying hey this is what happened in personnel and confidential this way people know that board members know that it's not going out to the public but hey we're keeping you in the loop prior to a meeting even though it's on the agenda so we know what's what's to come down the pipeline in the future mr smith i have one more thing uh it's all business really new business uh delise was away on vacation uh that um notification to the public on the uh the verbiage about we can't answer a an email you had sent it

131to me can you please send that to the whole board so they can see it get it out if they want to use it they can use it if not because i i'm going to put it on my emails i just wanted to see what the rest of the board wanted to do all right we'll have it sent out to the whole board it's it's a recommendation for you if you wish to use it you may use it if not don't use it anyone else do we have executive we do not where am i new business no we have no executive session so i have a motion to adjourn motion mr abu drabo second by mr awad any meaning adjourned you