August 5, 2021 - Clifton Board of Education Meeting

001[Music] so do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] good [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] do [Music] good evening everyone and welcome to the regularly scheduled clifton board of education meeting august the 5th 2021 if you would all please rise for a suit to our flag and a brief moment of silence thank you roll call please mr abedrabo here mr awad here miss bassford here miss beltran here mr kanova mr dr danny here mr casper mr smith here we have a quorum the mission of the clifton school district in an open reciprocal community partnership is to provide all students with a quality education to develop the skills necessary to become literate life-long learners who are responsible and productive citizens contributing to

002a democratic society in an ever-changing world yes we are missing two members okay i'm sorry yeah but they're not here at the days so i'm surprised i'm having some technical issues new jersey open public meetings act new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right to the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the clinton board 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

003teacher organizations this meeting will be tape recorded in accordance with policy zero one six eight uh pleasure of the board do you wish me to wait for um i guess joe is the only one missing mr uh casper has a family uh issue so he will not be attending and um mr daley just uh lost uh his grandson a nine-year-old grandson uh so he will not be uh attending this evening as well uh is anyone else missing so so joe you want me to wait very late oh okay then we'll have to go on okay as i stated um earlier our colleague mr jim daly lost his grandson to cancer the other day tomorrow will be awake for him at um uh shook funeral home in cedar grove from 4 to 8 p.m so on

004behalf of the board central administration and the entire clifton community we send our condolences to mr daley uh his wife kathy laser daily and the storms family for the passing of nicholas very upsetting uh to see anyone pass but especially a nine-year-old child is it's tough so our thoughts and prayers are with his family okay number six uh recognition and awards um mr abu drabba thank you president smith recognition of lucy danny resolve that the board of education recognized lucy's dan lucy danny as a nj sba new jersey school board association second certified board member the board commends dr danny for her dedication leadership and vision as a school board member we congratulate dr danny on this great accomplishment congrats motion to approve by uh mr abhidravo so moved it is so i have a

005second second second by uh mr awad roll call please mr abedrabo absolutely mr awad yes miss bassford yes miss beltran yes miss dr danny yes mr smith yes okay adoption of the minutes of our regularly scheduled meeting on july the 8th so moved so moved by mr abu drabo second second by mr awad discussions corrections scene nine roll call mr abedrabo yes mr awad yes miss bassford yes miss beltran yes dr danny announcements we have none all right first reading of policy zero one three one the bylaws policies and regulations two four one two home instruction due to health condition two four two one career and technical education two four eight one home or out of school instruction for a general education student for reasons other than a temporary or chronic health condition assignment of

006extra duties three one three four three one four two non-renewal of non-tenure teaching staff member three two two one evaluation of teachers three two two two evaluation of teaching staff members excluding teachers and administrators three two two three evaluation of administrators excluding principals vice president assistant principals three two two four evaluation principles vice president assistant principal four one four six non-renewal of non-tenured support staff four five six zero point two bridge year pilot program 6471 school district travel 8561 procurement procedures for school nutrition programs present presentations from uh administration we have none oh do we have one no yeah no no we don't okay board committee reports um miss password with policy sure um the policy committee met on july 20th we began the meeting at 4 35 pm attendees were vice president casper myself

007board members joe konova and dana beltran administration president was daniel robertazi and louise ross esquire the committee reviewed and discussed strauss esme's recommendation to policies as well as required mandated policies the committee makes the following recommendation to the board bylor0131 section select option one on page one and insert board secretary on page two policy number one six four nine abolish policy number two four two one select option two and on page two and insert nine and twelve on page two policy number three one three four three one four two three two two one three two two two three two two three three two two four and four one four six adopt as revised policy 5460.2 adopt the new mandated policy policy six seven excuse me six four seven one insert fifteen hundred dollars in the

008option section on page three delete the option on page four and select the third option on page five which reads the superintendent of schools and the business administrator are for final approval of travel policy number eight five six one adopters revised the committee then reviewed policy number two four one two and two four eight one dealing with home instruction and recommends adding the following sections to the policies for quarantining students student plural and short and long-term student needs simultaneous instruction and other virtual methods of instruction may be used or provided by the district the committee then discussed public portion at the board meeting the committee recommends that the board adopt resolution restating bylaw 0164 and 0167 which were suspended at the meeting on september 17th two thousand twenty these policies are reinstate a reinstated the

009remote bylaw zero one six four point six will be secondary and only used if needed in connection with the bylaw the following questions were raised and discussed whether we should have one or two public portions should uh there be should there be uh placed a specific time so speakers will know when they will be able to speak and whether to change the length of the time that is allowed to address the board board member board vice president casper recommends only having one session with the five minute limit discussions were held on this in the recommendation from the committee that we have two public recognition portions with a four-minute maximum time limit the one would be immediately following the open public meeting statement and the second portion would occur immediately before board member comments speakers will

010not be limited to discuss only agenda items during either portion and may address any general pertinent to the district at either public recognition portion if the board adopts this proposed recommendation then bylaw zero one six seven public participate public participation rule number two will be amended to reflect said changes in regards to bylaw zero one six seven discussion were also held adding a virtual or remote option to the public participation during person meetings in-person meetings it is noted that some board of educations are allowing email questions to be provided prior to the meeting which then are read by the board's secretary it is recommended to discuss this during new business with the possibility of drafting a resolution to amend bylaw zero one six seven to provide a remote option to the public participation the committee

011again inquired about drafting an automatic uniform response for the board commission uh commissioners to our emails for the public the um the committee also discussed discuss the topic of public speakers yielding time to other speakers and will ask for an advisory opinion which then will be reviewed at the next policy meeting for possible recommendations to the board the meeting concluded at 608 pm and they were submitted by mr ross any questions thank you next we have education dr danny would you want to read those in for mr casper clifton board of education education special education committee minutes of the july 20th 2021 meeting special education education committee began at two o'clock p.m attendees chairperson frank casper board president jim smith administrators dr danny robertazi yanina kusalevich first thing imagine math three-year renewal janina kusalevich miss

012kusalevich shared the benefits and high level of usage of the online imagine math support program 8 343 students use this engaging program regularly with students assessing accessing 3260 live teacher sessions for additional support this well-regarded program has shown measurable student growth and is a valuable addition to the math curriculum a three-year purchase will be made in order to lock in current pricing and savings for the district action resolution will be on the august 5th 2021 boe meeting number two updates on district reopening for full day full time five day per week in-person instruction dr danny robertosi and yanina kusalevich dr robert tosi and miss kusalevich provided an update on the district's reopening plan for the 2021-2022 school year the district is preparing to open for full day full-time five day per week in person instruction

013on september 2nd 2021 the district will be following the most updated health and safety guidance from the njdoe njdoh and the cdc to be able to open schools in the most normalized manner possible additional basic skills special education and counseling staff and services will be provided to assist students with the transition back to a normal schedule before and after school tutoring saturday support programs and small group instruction will be provided to support student learning enhanced cleaning hand sanitizing stations three foot classroom spacing with desk shields and multiple meal locations are among the safety guidelines currently recommended detailed information and a link for public comment are posted on the district website and will be updated as guidance continues to evolve action informational three home instruction policy update yanina kusalevich ms kusalevich shared that with the expiration

014of executive order number 175 which allowed for remote instruction districts are returning to full-time in-person learning in order to support continuous instruction for students who may be required to quarantine due to covid19 the home instruction policy will be revised to allow for the online provision of home instruction services action informational number four masks dr danny robertozzi and yanina kusalevich dr robertosi and miss kusalevich shared that the district will be following the most up-to-date njdoe njdoh and cdc guidance for the return to school current guidance on masks being recommended for unvaccinated students and personnel was reviewed provisions for universal masking in areas with high transmission rates or when it would be difficult to distinguish between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals was discussed the district is awaiting further guidance regarding this topic prior to the opening of school

015action informational the meeting adjourned at 3 p.m the minutes were respectfully submitted by yanina kusalevich questions leave a comment mr smith if i may yes superintendent thank you dr danny very thorough minutes and just to update the entire board as of less than two hours ago it has been reported that tomorrow the governor will announce that masks will be mandated uh in k-12 schools beginning in september uh that announcement is supposed to take place sometime tomorrow but that's what the announcement is expected so of course we will be following that that executive order thank you facilities miss beltran okay the meeting took place on july 23rd it was attended by myself uh danny janina kusalevich michael usee eric tomovich and al marchionne from the administration and the board members were mr daley vice president frank

016casper and president jim smith we discussed the rfp for the construction manager for the referendum project mr usee discussed the con construction manager rfp template prepared by the district's architect um the advertisement will be in the paper tomorrow the sixth um mr usa will provide the timeline for the rfe process with the committee the second thing we discussed was an update on pending capital projects the banfield says tennis court slash weight room at chs the committee would like a recommendation report from the committee by administration on the next meeting the third thing we discussed was additional district projects that have been requested we could utilize capital reserves as a surplus for these the administration presented different options for us to consider the first one being school 16 playground replacement making it a preschool education playground

017the committee recommends looking into all elementary schools in the district to prioritize the need administration will look into other schools for further review and provide an update to the committee at a later time the second option would be a home economics room at chs um ms kushalevich reported that for the career technical education cte program of the district to expand this would be a first step to build a culinary program at the high school it would provide the framework for us to be able to uh launch this program in two to three years the next option would be a chimney repair it's school number eleven mr marcion would like to reach out to other vendors for additional quotes and put the project on hold the repair is not an emergency but is needed administration will

018provide additional quotes to the committee at a later time the next option is school number 15 jim repainted school number nine jim repainted concrete stone the courtyard needs to be repaired at another school the committee recommends reviewing the whole courtyard for additional work uh the following project would be at ccms third floor classroom flooring replacement various hallway flooring repairs on all four levels central office flooring replacement entire building ceiling repair repair to the stair threads and risers on the stairwells number the fourth thing we spoke about was the window replacement exterior doors this would be using sr2 funds this would take place at school one school two three four five thirteen this is originally budgeted for 2122 and all exterior doors at ccms number five uh chs kitchen renovation change orders mr marcion state the

019product is moving forward there's a hard time receiving certain equipment because of back order one change order related to electrical issues second change order to demo unforeseen to demo unforeseen concrete these changes are still within the baseline bid allowance estimated completion date will be slightly delayed and the cafeteria might not be completely ready for the start of school but a plan plan b isn't processed by pomptonians so there'll be no delay to the food service school number 16 trees administration has received an updated report from the arborist administration will provide to the committee for a review the results of the arborist indicate there is no financial benefit by the tree vendor however the committee will have the arborist attend a future board meeting to report his findings in detail number seven replacing and purchasing district

020vans and vehicle for maintenance maintenance supervisor is requesting a pickup truck the custodian supervisor is requesting a van purchase a box truck a purchase of a box truck is also recommended for the maintenance maintenance custodial department parking lot at school number six mr marcion updated the status that the city was requiring of letter of where the funding is coming from from the city's zoning board also they were requesting a district employee to attend the zoning board meeting to explain the purpose of the parking lot this meeting is to occur on august 26th the committee recommends reaching out to the district attorney to clarify on this a new flagpole has already been installed uh boardroom renovation project mr marcion uh stated a company provided drawings for different layouts for the placing of the dais is administration

021will provide estimates for costs relating to the different layouts and provide to the committee on a data later late additional items that were discussed mr daley brought up the fact that the ccms softball field maintenance vendor is not honoring the contract administration will investigate there is if there is no improvement the district would like to go out to contract for a different softball field maintenance team mr smith discussed the use of facilities administrative administration indicated that all requests must be approved by the full board at a regular board meeting prior to the use of any facility this is a standard process for the district facilities by any outside organization and the meeting took place from 2 15 to 4 15. any questions thank you all committees okay we'll move on to resolutions we're going to

022start with b education administration am i right you're right i'm sorry i skipped yes number 12 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 and subject matter before speaking comments are limited to five minutes per person issues raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and are responsibly forthcoming if and when appropriate your questions may or may not be answered by board members the board asked that members

023of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of the state of new jersey the board bears no responsibility nor will be liable for any comments made by members of the public should consider their comments in light of the legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments okay so if anyone would like to address the board the podium is here you're welcome to come good evening and thank you for allowing me to speak uh should i keep my mask on or should i take

024it off whatever you're more comfortable we just can't hear you so if you could uh either get closer and make sure it's on okay there we go thank you my name is howard cohn i'm from new milford new jersey i belong to the clifton jewish center and that's what brought me here it was surprising to learn of the presentations made on may 20th 2021 board of education meetings by two members and i'm here to comment on them those who viewed the statements of mr awad and mr abadrabo should research historical and current facts rather than depend on distortions and fictions presented in my opinion by both unlike mr awad i can recommend doing more than just a little research they depended i believe on the ignorance of their listeners to validate their assertions in 2005

025all israelis living and dead were withdrawn from gaza to israel buildings factories and infrastructure were left by the israelis for arab use instead of using them peacefully practically all were destroyed and areas were turned into terror bases smuggling in attacks had to be prevented causing land and sea controls to be put in place if gaza has become the largest open-air prison it is due to the efforts and policies of the palestinian arabs mr awad commences his anti-israel diatribes with a list of dog whistles they include humanitarian issues uncontrollable crises mourning many losses many children being killed apartheid style walls colonialism and billions of dollars given to the israelis to oppress words based on emotions to be accepted not well without questions we are told that arab children in school shouldn't have to worry if their

026house will be there when they return from school it's not appropriate to mention that the arabs were firing rackets at israeli areas at the same time that children were going to school if hamas and the others did not launch rockets and store military supplies in civilian areas those areas would not have been targeted by the idf it was ironic to hear the complaint that civilians were given short notice to leave their homes before they were bombed what other army in the world gives civilians and secondarily enemy forces a warning that the area will be a target we are also given the information that our police are sent to israel to learn quote abusive tactics unquote to bring back to the urban communities he also tells us that the knee placed across george floyd's neck was

027a skill taught by the israelis we also learned that we can also go on the internet to see how israelis can be viewed doing the same thing to palestinian arabs one can go on the internet to see what police forces in our area have done to israel for training and what seminars they have attended you will be surprised by the truth mr awa discusses the importance of education in being educated and manner conducive to bring peace and knowledge to the student unfortunately this is not the case with the education or more correctly indoctrination that palestinian children are receiving as found by the un and other government organizations we were told by both that the palestinian arabs only want to live in peace and live with their neighbors in peace the continued firing of rockets at

028israel and use of incendiary balloons is the novel way of showing it your board of education meetings should be reversed reserved for fostering and improving the education in clifton it should not be necessary for a member of the board to insist that a fellow maker of comments declare that the board has absolutely nothing to do with the comments made i believe that miss both mr awad and mr abad rabo were out of line with the targets of their remarks thank you very much for allowing me to speak and i hope everybody remains in good health thank you yes please thank you salaam alaikum everyone my name is salahuddin mustafa i am a 20-plus year resident of clifton my children attended the schools here let me say mr cohen it's a good day for you to

029come because unfortunately for you you actually do have an educated audience in clifton so let me explain to you why it is that we and when i say we i'm not just talking about arabs i'm talking about people of every background jewish people every ba every color criticize israel let me explain to you so israel today the so-called democracy in the middle east has today 60 official laws that officially discriminate against non-jewish people arabs who are 21 of the population of proper israel today have less rights than jewish people by law mr cohen today can go to israel and become a citizen within minutes my father who was born in jerusalem can never be a citizen of that state i can't that's discrimination why do we why else do we criticize israel this is a

030difficult discussion for me but let me give let me you have to feel how much he's distorting the facts when i was a young man out growing up here i did my family is fortunate we actually didn't lose everything like almost 80 percent of the palestinians in 1948 lost everything when they were ethnically cleansed from their homes my family is lucky we actually still have homes in palestine and we go back to visit as much as we can when i was going back as a kid to go visit i was humiliated at the airport i was humiliated by m16s pointed at my face door at checkpoints so i made a very difficult decision two years ago pre-covered i decided i wanted my four children to go to palestine without me i did not want to

031go with them why i wanted my children to experience what i experienced without me protecting them i wanted my children to go to the israeli airport and to be absolutely humiliated isn't that terrible of me that's what i wanted them to experience i wanted my children to see with their own eyes the race this is in israel they call the democracy the race exclusive roads that they because they were arab are not allowed to drive on or walk on i wanted them to see that and by the way they literally filmed it and showed it to me while they were there i wanted my children to see at the checkpoint to see if an m16 would be pointed in their face guess what it was so here i have to hear the distortions telling me

032that i or any person that supports palestinian rights that we don't have a right to criticize israel how dare he in this country i don't have a right to cr i have a right to criticize my government i have a right to call my president anything i want but he tells me that i can't criticize israel because i would be deemed to be anti-semitic sir nelson mandela would be would be considered anti-semitic if it was up to you nelson mandela is one of the greatest figures in the history of the world he's not anti-semitic i am not anti-semitic because i criticize israel how dare you bring that drivel to this city how dare you that is why we criticize israel so if anybody wants to come here and tell us that we're anti-semitic listen go

033back under the rock that you came from we are not anti-semitic we have jewish people standing behind us right here could you please wrap up your statements you're out of time i'll wrap it up by saying you did the right thing fahim you did the right thing for us you did the right thing trying to educate people on the truth don't be afraid you're doing it on your own time don't be afraid this is a free country and don't let the dribble that he's peddling stop you from advocating for human rights for palestinians and for people who are oppressed all over the world thank you thank you next uh excuse me sir this is not a back and forth uh comments i will hand you the paper that i read from and i wish [Music]

034i'd like to remind the public that this is public comment time on issues related to education for the clifton public schools and this is not an opportunity for back and forth um discourse thank you yes ma'am go ahead i'm sorry i might make it more easy there um my name is tova fry and i'm a member of the jewish voice for peace i live in west orange and um frankly i was really disturbed when i heard the previous gentleman who apparently is a clifton police chaplain also speak and he did use the words anti-semitism yesterday at the city council meeting and i listened to his comments there and i want to tell you i know what anti-semitism is my all four my grandparents were killed in concentration camps during world war ii that was intense

035anti-semitism my parents tried to come after the war to the u.s they each had a sister here already and you know what there was a quota against eastern european jews from coming to the u.s that's anti-semitism what happened is my family wound up because they had nowhere else to go they were not zionists but they wound up in what had just been declared israel by the british and the u.s colonialists and they wound up their penniless and some israeli soldiers put a palestinian family out of their home and gave it to my parents and that's where i was born that's that's colonialism that's ethnic cleansing that is what what zionism has allowed to happen in in the so-called state of israel i have a sister that lives there now on a kibbutz so-called left-wing kibbutz

036in the 48 boundaries um but i want to tell you that what's happening in israel where people are being forced out of their homes in jerusalem right now in shakjara in other neighborhoods that's ethnic ethnic cleansing what happened in gaza over and over again not just this time in may but back in 2014 and before that and i think 2004 and before that the bombing in gaza that is against all human rights and that is colonialism and what's what's happened with building the walls that separate the west bank towns where palestinians are only allowed on certain roads and and the um these settlers can can come into their lands and take their homes that is apartheid and so i want to say that what's happening in in the state of israel is not anything that

037i am proud of as a jew and i want to say not in my name don't ever say that what happens in israel is for the defense of jews because it is not it is not in defense of jews it is anti-humanitarian and i want to say that what the on two board members said in the in the board meeting in may is absolutely correct um that israel is an apartheid state israel is practicing ethnic cleansing and that i am not proud as a jew i am not at all proud of what's happening there at all and and that i um support on all the palestinians for what they are trying to do to develop their own freedom and to be allowed to return to the land of their homeland i was allowed to return

038there to visit my sister even though i had only been two years old when we left but why because i'm jewish frankly after i came back from that visit i denounced my israeli citizenship i even though it was given to me just because i was born in the so-called state of israel um i i denounced it because i want to have nothing to do with that state thank you uh before we continue i would just like uh our attorney to read our board policy as it's listed on public uh recognition so uh please darlisa if you could thank you mr smith board policy number zero one six seven public participation in board meetings the board of education recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of the public to express themselves

039on school matters of community interest in order to permit the fair and orderly expression of such comment the board shall set aside a portion of every public meeting the length of the portion to be determined by the board for public comment on any school or school district issue that a member of the public feels may be of concern to the residents of the school district public participation shall be permitted only as indicated on the order of business and board bylaw zero one six zero and bylaw number zero one six four anyone wishing to address the board at a public meeting may do so upon request during the public recognition periods referenced in board bylaw zero one six zero and bylaw zero one six four individuals shall limit their remarks to three minutes we've changed that

040since then regarding agenda items and five minutes for public recognition regarding general matters pertinent to the district while the time limit has may have changed the key here is that it's matters right regarding general matters pertinent to the district these periods may be extended for good cause at the discretion of the board president all persons receiving permission to address the board shall confine their remarks to those matters that properly relate to board of education business or which come under the jurisdiction or the authority of the board in any event that a speaker before the board becomes abusive or disrespectful or otherwise resorts to statements which may be considered discourteous or libelous the presiding officer may in the exercise of his her judgment summarily terminate the time allotted to the speaker there are the rest of

041the policy is fairly lengthy but i wanted to just make sure that the public is aware that public comment during a board of education meeting is intended to be for matters that are of concern um public comment are matters of uh related to the school or to school district issues and matters that are of concern to residents of the school district thank you okay next please if everyone could please sign the register that's on the podium when you come up to speak we would appreciate that thank you okay my name is bob mark and i'm here essentially to condemn in the first place the fact that matters about israel or what they call palestine or whatever have no business at a board of education meeting it doesn't impact upon the children or it shouldn't but

042the fact is that when they speak about such hatred i brought here a document which was sent by a muslim student in clifton one of the clifton schools threatening in writing to kill the child of a member of my congregation in writing on a social media platform this is what's generated by the hatred that's spoken about by the two muslim members here on the board of education aside from that i just listened just in time i came in i was trying to get in there was a cop blocking the engine for a time he said there was a gas leak in the building to people who have no concept of what's going on and i'm just going to address a few things because some of the wrong statements that were here are historically incorrect and

043absolutely false and just because this lady is jewish doesn't mean she knows one end of her body from the other for example apartheid i just heard that israel was an apartheid state no jew is allowed into any area that's controlled by the so-called palestinians yet in israel there are arab judges muslim judges policemen soldiers lawyers a supreme court justice doctors engineers and so on is that an apartheid state i don't think so it doesn't fit the definition of an apartheid state it's a misnomer people just try to manipulate the media or let's say gaza wants peace israel left the gaza 100 percent with no preconditions they left their homes there they left the synagogue buildings there they left public buildings there they left hot houses there so that the people that went there and lived

044there would be able to have a source of income within 24 hours 24 hours that's one day every hot house which was this to generate revenue for the gazans was taken down and the piping was used for missiles and rockets which were fired into the homes of civilians not military establishments but specifically homes and bearing children as a matter of fact more islamic children have been killed by rockets shot by hamas and by hezbollah than have been injured in any conflict by the israelis as a matter of fact they present the last hamas public presentation on an injured child they presented a child who was also killed in syria the same child same child was also killed in lebanon the same child was also killed in down into gaza and when it turned out that

045reuters which originally published the picture made further investigation it was an arab child killed by a an arab missile that never landed in israel it landed in the gaza strip do we love children well i guess if i love children i would certainly hide my weapons in a nursery school israel doesn't do that but the hamas does and we're talking about murdering children here these people saying they're worried about children let's look at the historical facts the historical facts don't represent anything that was said either by the two members here and by the way one of them i understand is under investigation for ethics matters by the way i don't want to mention his name but one of those two is and uh just because this lady is jewish certainly it doesn't mean she knows

046anything whatsoever unfortunately she's been influenced by media which is unfortunately inaccurate but i challenge anybody one of the members not abu dhabi the other one i can't remember his name said he would be happy to debate somebody well let me tell you i'd be more than happy to debate the man and when i do unfortunately i find him a new one if you know what i'm talking about i really resent the service can we please limit the comments to whatever you're addressing to the board okay i i think that the board should censor these people for bringing up matters that do not belong on a board of education they are generating hatred and that people with that kind of an attitude cannot properly serve all the children i happen to be the police chaplain in

047the city of clifton and when i swear people in i swear people in regardless of their faith regardless of their color regardless of their whatever it is i don't stop and say oh this is a muslim cop so i can't swear i'm in i can't be nice to him that's ridiculous and that's the kind of hatred here that's born in the middle east it's not representative of the united states of america it's sad and it deserves to be censored by the board time says thank you sir your time is up thank you ma'am if you i just want to read statement before you go please be informed that a board of education commissioner has the same rights to free speech as any other citizen of this country as long as they are speaking as individuals

048and not on behalf of the board it was made clear by mr awad and mr abu drabo that the statements that they were making when they made them were their own personal opinions and were not endorsed by the board of education the clifton board of education does not take any political position on any topic the board attorney made clear that the statements by these board members were their own and not statements supported by the board of education each board member is responsible for his our own statements and no one board member speaks for the entire board additionally so the public understands the board is also not authorized by the state law to take any action against a board member on this dais there has been prior case law on this topic and only the school

049ethics commission is empowered to take any disciplinary action against the board member on this day is clifton is a beautifully diverse community and the board of education is committed to ensuring that we remain respectful of one another regardless of differences or opinion the board is further committed going forward to ensuring that commentary for board members at boardman meetings be limited to issues that are related to the school district and its students i as board president have no additional powers or rights to sanction punish stop another board member from speaking additionally i have no rights nor any board member on this dias have any rights to remove a board member the only people that can remove a board member are you the people at election time or the ethics commission if they feel an ethics violation

050has been committed so i hope everyone understands that just because we don't like what somebody says the board cannot take action against another board member we are not a policing body i just wanted to make that clear to everyone ma'am i'm sorry go ahead thank you my name is emily filardo i'm also a member of jewish voice for peace i live in montclair new jersey i'm also jewish and i wanted to comment about how i think this is related to education i wouldn't be here if the remarks had just been made that that are we're discussing at the at the board meeting in may i think there's there's nothing wrong with those remarks i was concerned when i learned about those remarks being called anti-semitic by the rabbi at the meeting last night and to

051me the way it relates to education is that we it's a normal thing at a board of education meeting to comment about the loss of people through an illness to memorialize veterans right memoria some people make comments at around memorial day at that meeting right so comments about um those kind of issues are sort of understandable normal things that can happen so the way to me this relates to education is if we say that comments about a current event that was of such concern about the oppression and the horrible treatment of people in gaza are somehow different than other kinds of comments then that's setting a tone about what kinds of things can be discussed in a community and to me that is problematic for the education of the children in that community so to

052me policing those kind of comments or suggesting certain comments by a board member are wrong and others aren't if that's a problem that relates to education i also agree with the comments by those two board members that i think they was in their right to say it and i think they were saying things that are true but that's my that's how i would want to connect to education you don't want your board of education to um participate in closing down the topics that people in this community have a right to speak about and feel strongly about and who is someone to say that talking about veterans of this war their loss is okay but talking about the loss of civilians children in gaza is somehow different so that's the comment i wanted to make about

053the connection between that and education thank you thank you good evening everyone if i'm being honest i didn't come here tonight expecting to speak on this topic to respect to respect the statements made by the board president i will not go into the blasphemy that the extremely disrespectful gentleman made before me to put it bluntly and simply the so-called palestine is palestine it has always been palestine it is palestine and it will forever be palestine [Applause] good evening everyone my name is maryam muffler and i'm a recent clifton high school graduate from the class of 2021. i'm here today to speak to you all about the values that the clifton school district has taught me growing up and about how i am saddened and disappointed to see those same values disregarded by members of the

054public and by members of this board today in elementary school we learned the value of first honesty then courage and finally accountability these lessons built on each other as we move to middle school and later high school no individual is perfect and dakota cliche we are all human and we all make mistakes still we've always been taught that honesty is the best policy that communicating with others about our source of error is the only way to write our wrongs this does this honesty does not come easy i am sure it takes bravery to admit to our mistakes when we make them nonetheless it is just as important for those outside of the conflict to approach the problem with maturity and compassion it is no surprise that a lapse in judgment has been made by commissioner

055abedrabo around two months ago during project graduation still after hearing his public statement at the emergency board of education meeting in early july i found his transparency to be extremely admirable to admit to your mistake in private amongst your closest friends and family is difficult but to share your lapse in judgment to the entirety of your town takes true courage although i did not get the inter the opportunity to interact with mr abedrabo until he chaired the diversity inclusion committee my friend and i founded observing mr abdul through my high school through my entire high school career at board of education meetings has made it quite clear that he is an all-around genuinely and truly good person i have never seen him advocating against the entrance of our students or district once he chaired the

056committee i quickly learned that all of my assumptions were right from sharing extremely insightful tips on how to diversify our district to making the entire committee laugh after a long meeting it is with complete confidence that i can say that mr abu drabo is one of the most respectable kind people i have ever met watching the past two board of education meetings i was extremely disappointed to see that once mr abu drabbo admitted to his mistakes and even stepped down from his position as the board of education vice president members of the public and even some board members imparted some extremely negative and at time even hurtful words although mr abu drabo did in fact commit a wrong action his source of error was one rooted and pure and innocent intention the lessons i have

057been taught by this district are rooted in honesty courage and accountability mr abu drabba has been brave enough to embody all three after the project graduation incident now it is important that we show his effort the appropriate compassion it deserves mr abdrable is not the villain many painted him out to be he is someone who made a mistake and wants to rectify it please allow him the space to do so everyone makes mistakes but it is not our mistakes that define us rather it's the way that we handle our mistakes that are the truest testament of our character i wish this board all the best as it continues its agenda on the most important topic of interest as the new school year begins our students thank you all so much for your time thank you

058do good evening my name is ashley hernandez and i am a recent graduate from clifton high school's class of 2021. i am here today to speak with you all about my experiences working alongside mr abadrabo and how i am disappointed to see members of the board and clifton community disregard his genuinely good character and the positive influence that he has graciously imparted on clifton's youth during his term as board of education commissioner and previous vice president during the summer of 2020 my best friend mariam and i jumpstarted clifton's first diversity and inclusion committee though it was ambitious to start this initiative virtually during the peak of the pandemic the support of our teachers and administrators made our plan come to fruition mr abedrabo was one of the board members who supported us and served on

059our committee and his desire to promote an inclusive learning environment for all students of diverse backgrounds was evident mr abu drabbo's ideas were vibrant and demonstrated his unwavering commitment to serving clifton's youth even before having my first interaction with mr abu drabbo through the diversity committee his genuine character was obvious as he continuously advocated for student interests at board meetings i can firmly say that mr abedrabo is one of the kindest and most genuine people i have ever had the pleasure to work with when we look at mr abu drabbo's recent lapse in judgment at project graduation i believe it is very important that we also acknowledge the good character that he has upheld during his term and the true intention that drove his judgment based on his public statement it is clear that his

060mistake was driven by honest and innocent thought and what he believed would ensure the student's safety during the night of graduation although no safety concerns were present at the night of project graduation and all students returned home safely mr abadrabo still came forward and acknowledged his mistakes given his choice to come forward without provocation i believe that we should try to move forward from this mistake and heal as a district i am sure that all of us in this room have made mistakes in our lives at one time or another and we have all had to ask for forgiveness mr abedrabo has shown time and time again that he is a person of integrity and has shown that he prioritizes the needs of this district and our students going forward i wish nothing but the

061best for the board of education and the rest of the clifton public schools district thank you all for your time tonight thank you good evening everybody mark brunsack 20 holly street first of all i want to give my deepest condolences to the daily family i can't imagine the pain that they're going through so i want to extend my deepest sympathies to the family every meeting i come here to i'm asking for parents to get choices i want parents to have choices to send their kids into school five days a week to have the most normal life possible and i hear their their conditions that you're trying to bring back such as those students who already have the quarantine which are already stating that so you're ready the assumption is that students are already going to

062be quarantined even though dr robert trozy just said that governor murphy is just has just mandated that all all children in grades k through 12 regardless of vaccination status must wear masks now in class so how is it even possible that that the virus is going to be transmitted through a classroom i i mean it could be argued that it never was because we have been we've gone over and beyond above and beyond the cdc recommendations and still i hear no member here pushing back from the local government all the way to the federal government i hear nobody pushing back about supposedly the science that there has been and how do they even know that it's the delta variant these days the information per the cdc today the information may not readily be available the

063viral tests that are used to determine if a person has covid are not designed to tell you what variant is causing the infection detecting the delta variant or other variants requiring a special type of testing called genomic sequencing and due to the volume of covet cases sequencing is not performed on all virus samples so all the fear that has continued recently is based on estimates everybody in fact back in may president biden even said if you are fully vaccinated you no longer need to wear a mask july 9th associated press vaccinated teachers and students don't need mass per the the cdc says webster dictionary vaccination is a treatment with a vaccine to produce immunity against a disease or inoculation but here we are just weeks away from this and i know people are scared and

064instead of pushing back i still haven't heard anybody push back if they have please let me know i i'll apologize to this to this board i'm asking why parents don't have choices yet there are lots of parents out there that are still scared that they don't want their kids to go in school so i want those parents to have an option to keep their kids at home remote so they feel safe i think parents have an idea of what they know they think is best for their kids yet here we are again weeks from opening and this is all changing again so if you think that the guidance isn't going to change now it'll probably change several times and this is going on over 15 months so i'm asking this board to get baron's choices

065and uh i i still don't hear you know every day in the united states after 2019 the 20 20 numbers aren't out yet from the cdc every day in the united states 1800 people die of heart disease 1640 die of cancer 470 die by accident 430 of chronic lower respiratory disease 410 of stroke 330 of alzheimer's and as of today our seven day rolling average of deaths from covet in the u.s is 426. so how many how many times more of that are people dying of other natural causes right yet the the perpetual fear that still exists today and i get it i see people over here plenty of people unmasked plenty of people masked over here i want you to have that choice if you if everybody here feels safer with the mass i

066support you 120 100 120 you know and uh you know those who you know those who chose not to give accident those who chose not to get vaccinated so i thought are almost no threat of those of us who are vaccinated and yet they're ongoing targets of the left that's right mr brunsiak all right so i'm just asking as i come here all the time i'm just asking everybody to get parents options thank you for your time and god bless america have a good night everybody thank you [Music] samantha basford clifton new jersey i don't have a prepared speech today so i'm sorry if i stumble and ramble um but i feel like i'm sounding like a broken record about unity i talked yesterday at the city council meeting and i'm watching oppressed people oppress

067people we have history we have deep rooted racism in this country and yet we're still attacking each other in this room like i cannot believe i watch this woman who her right is to speak being belittled because of her belief that is not how we solve moving forward and making things better we live in america we have freedom of speech though i do understand my privilege and not everybody having the same privilege as i am but we are giving into systematic racism so i wore this sweatshirt for a reason today because this is what we should be doing we should not be oppressing each other we should be working towards something i do understand the opinion about certain facebook posts and things being talked i understand about that and maybe that's something that we need

068to learn better about that certain things will make certain people react to stuff i understand that and good people make mistakes everything i wrote on commit clifton community news i stand by that we have to make mistakes to grow and we have to give people the chance to grow and learn from their mistakes if they are willing to and if they want to now i did want to bring up about the mural and people are probably like this is not the city council meeting but there was a sophomore student yesterday at the council meeting in tears and that is where it does fall on us to support a sophomore student for those of you who have been here for a long time you remember mrs starensack she ran the peace garden most kind-hearted gentle woman

069you could ever met loved the peace garden with all her heart and made us all love it too i found a recent picture of me and my classmates class of 2008 outside of the peace garden that we had to work months to put this together i would like to see may's mural somewhere in the high school i think that it belongs here because it's a message of unity it does not have a racial undertone it's about what clifton is i feel lucky that i grew up in a place where i got to experience diversity but i never really understood until i was in college i had intergroup dialogue conversations i really sat with people to understand their upbringings understand their challenges their their ways of life and that is the opportunity that i see this

070district time and time again miss is that how are you helping not just educate on math science that's important but educating on life so that you go into the world you have different sides here able to have a dialogue conversation because you can have your beliefs you have your traumas that you experienced and yes a wrong is a wrong but we should not be sitting up here fighting one another without having more understanding and i really hope that this is not falling on death's ears and people are really working towards this we were in covid when we were sitting in quarantine all those people dying from covid they're not here anymore but we were lucky and we're here so what are we doing with our time what are we doing with our time that was

071given to us to reset to re to think to reflect i hope that this message is heard i hope that we can stop calling name callings of cairns and white trash in the parking lot to people i hope that ends today and i hope you're hearing me when i say that because we can do better we can be pre better and set that example we have an opportunity may gave us an opportunity with her drawing to do better and to be better and we owe it to that student that alumni and her friends who were bashed by other adults pristine people in the in the city from what i heard a whole doctor which i can't believe that we owe it to her to be better thank you good evening zelie thomas patterson new jersey

072my name is ellie thomas i'm a organizer and founder of black lives matter patterson an organizer for the black lives matter movement before i begin i want to condemn a couple of different things the gentleman that spoke earlier i think he said he's a police chapman chaplain i want to condemn his misogynistic statements towards that young lady behind me and also want to condemn his statements that he was whispering to her calling her a self-hating jew many of you may not have heard that but many of us in the audience continuously hear him calling her a safe hating jew and i want to bring up those two things because a very important reason the only statements that you have heard today that was filled with hate was from that gentleman nothing else has been hateful

073even people who was talking about palestine was not about hate and i think this is very important why we have to talk about education and why we have to talk about these different movements that's occurring not only here in the united states but all over the world many americans just a few months ago just heard about a destruction of a neighborhood that they never heard about before they heard about this town being bombed they heard about these buildings burning and the fire was just raging on because there was no firemen to put it out they learned about whole school buildings and entire school districts being bombed and children have no school to go to anymore they heard about the citizens from that area those residents from those areas being arrested and rounded up they heard

074about these things and i was wondering how come they never heard about this before how come they never heard about this incident before and i know some of you may be thinking i'm think i'm talking about palestine because that's what this whole discussion seems to be talking about today but i'm not talking about palestine i'm talking about tulsa oklahoma right tulsa oklahoma which just recognized this 100th year anniversary of the bombing of tulsa oklahoma which many of me know as the race massacre or the race riots and it's very important for us to know about this so we don't repeat history i'm a black person living in america i know genocide i know oppression i know apartheid i know what it looks like that's why i fight so hard to end it not just here

075in america but elsewhere i see what's going on in israel and palestine and that's why i with full confidence call it an apartheid state yes what the gentleman was saying about there are arab and muslim policemen and doctors in israel but we're talking about the west bank we're talking about this other um occupations where those citizens those residents do not have the freedom of movement those residents who are being um faced with harm and mr thomas mr thomas i would like to just remind you about the word policy that i have yes earlier i don't know whether this is pretty relevant that you're talking to about you know i mentioned it before even after the person said misogynistic statements you didn't end him right so please allow me to continue because this is about educating

076our people educating our residents because you also said that it is predicament to the members of the school district and this is something that the school district and members of the school district need to learn about about history why it's important for us to teach history why it's important for us not to um turn these corners because we've seen this all connected with the mural right that we are too afraid to confront racism we're too afraid to confront social injustice we rather just wash it away but we cannot wash away racism and think it's disappeared we cannot wash away or not talk about these incidences that's happening in the middle east and think because we're not talking about no more that is not happening we need to be able to have these courageous conversations and

077not what you do to me try to silence me or try to try to silence board members or try to silence kids in the school district who are passionate about these issues who are passionate about these causes and want to talk about these causes and want your support and when they see you saying things like this to me they don't feel they have your support and i hope that's not true i hope that you support all students of the clifton school district regardless of their backgrounds regardless of their positions i hope you support them and this is why it's very important for us to educate them so they be fully productive citizens in order to create the type of world that we all deserve to live in a world that's free from harm a world

078that's free from oppression in a world that does not try to oppress others because they are afraid to be oppressed themselves thank you i'm sorry that you took away my time but hopefully you will do to no one else thank you [Applause] good evening al dubois 62 elmwood drive clifton i thought it was going to be a simple night if anything though we have to be all grateful and thankful of what we've just heard here tonight with everyone i mean we represent right here in this little room practically the whole world you know in our own little backyard and the good thing is that we're all able here to talk and even you know express passion or whatever has happened but we're able to at least say it here and and share it and we're

079going to hopefully go home tonight in peace but that's not why i came tonight i came to talk about the safe schools program i went on the website i had read it and i had commented on the program never got a confirmation back saying oh you know your comments were received i called last week and asked what's going on about it because i go on the website i don't see any other comments not even my own as public records so that you can read what other parents might be saying i know my wife and i had asked several people to make comments on that document and what i heard was oh it's for private use of certain administrators board members and other people we're going to review it and we're going to implement what we

080feel is proper you asked us to comment it should be made public for everyone to read and i was not asked to be on any committee i would like to be on a committee part because like the gentleman said earlier mark we don't hear any other sides to this whole issue we're hearing one narrow side regarding covid that is propagated by the media and some distorted people out there and it's like we never lived life before i mean if you look at any of the news shows you're going to see that influenza was a hundred times worse than what we're experiencing now everyone here i don't see no face masks everyone had to come up they can't talk properly they're muzzling themselves we don't know if they're being affected by that they take it off

081germs are in the air um it's it's pathetic you go to a restaurant you gotta walk in with it but you sit down you eat and the waitress is back and forth all over the place so these laws that are coming out are laws to keep us controlled for the great reset the great this is a plan endemic i don't believe i believe very little about it yes people die but people people die anyway so you're going to die whether it's covert or this or that you're going to die they've blown it out of proportion and i would like to be on this committee if possible and i'd also like to see the public comments because nobody's saying anything about health about your immune system about all the doctors that have been silenced on youtube

082that have spoken other alternatives to this and i know for myself my child was in june it got very hot one day he had a headache he was the only one in the classroom because everybody was home virtual the teacher would not let him take off his mask and he had to have bad headache and he doesn't complain so if he had a headache that day he could have headaches other days cause of the mask whether it's hot or not hot you can't say oh well if the weather gets warm we'll go by that day because we don't know how it affects each individual each human being is different we don't know if they're trying to speak or articulate themselves and that thing on their face how is that affecting their learning ability how is

083it affecting their mind to just walk around i went to macy's every 10 feet you have to look at these draconian signs that tell you about watch your hands watch this do this scratch that it's pathetic then they got it on the air um it's sickening so you're only hearing one side of this i mean it's going to come and it's going to pass away and we have to be careful the media but we need some people that are saying things at the board meetings we're at these committee meetings who are articulating themselves and presenting another side to this and i hope i can get a call from someone letting me know what's going on but i like those comments made public i think they should be public i like to read what other parents

084had said and you know what's going on thank you [Applause] thank you um uh first i pray to the almighty uh king of the universe who's all places at all times that you should bestow upon me his wisdom that i may with god's help convey his message and and hopefully with god's help sanctify his name and we hope to bring peace to the world um my name is rabbi israel david weiss i'm from chestnut ridge new york it's quite close to here and i've been a visitor through many many years to the patterson clifton community and i really need god's help to be able to in this short time be able to convey my message the issue that we're here for with my colleagues my colleagues some of them and all the gentlemen he first

085said he'll speak but he's he decided he's a little afraid he doesn't speak english that well he's from palestine from palestine before 19 the 1948 area from the old city of jerusalem uh and he has stories to tell about how they the jewish people lived in the same courtyards helped each other babysat each other's children respected each other and there was total harmony as it should be and that is a picture of how it was throughout the muslim world that we have witnesses live witnesses still today thank god and there was never an issue of a difference of religion uh the in in 1947 the united nations came along and they decided to because of what was happening again the time doesn't does justify doesn't give us the opportunity to speak about all that right

086but what is important is that there's a statement from the united nations documents where the chief rabbi of palestine nothing to do with the israeli rabbinate or their chief rabbi that was a name that they took for themselves there is a community that was living there for hundreds of years which uh um which my colleague rabbi lefkowitz from that community and he said sitting in front of the united nations delegation in july 16 1947 which is their records we furthermore wish to express our definite opposition to a jewish state in any part of palestine again we furthermore wish to express our definite opposition to a jewish state in any part of palestine he passed on other chief rabbis yesterday was the anniversary of rabbi title baum who moved with the title of chief rabbi to

087new york and he's well known satma rabbi curious joel i'm sure you've heard of it it was his anniversary tens and tens of thousands of people went to visit his graveyard uh the uh the till today we have people demonstrating there's right across from manhattan brooklyn new york in williamsburg brooklyn there's the largest concentration of religious jews there's not one single israeli flag we all almost entirely our children my of people who survivors of the holocaust my grandparents were killed in the holocaust my father escaped from hungary when the nazis came there and almost all of my family was wiped out as almost all of our people yet and we give our lives for our religion we pay for kosher food for special clothing ex we pay for private schooling as you well know with

088large families yet we do not support in fact we demonstrate in tens of thousands of people here in new york in washington dc in the city of jerusalem uh against the existence rabbi i would ask that police whatever your comments are that they are related to the school district definitely related i um as you please give me the opportunity because it's it's it's crucial to hear this there's the um the they stand there at the cost of their lives even demonstrating against the existence of the state the chief rabbi had passed on rabbi title bam the next chief rabbi here we have is rabbi weiss he's not a relative of mine um and he he just went out to to how to where they're digging graves the zionists because they do not what zionism is

089the state of israel is a transformation from judaism as a religion to a nationalism there they they that's why the chief rabbi said we are forbidden to have a state we're forbidden to take the homes and steal from other people was forbidden to occupy another land in fact jews are forbidden since the the since the destruction of the temple according to jewish law to have our own sovereignty we have to be loyal citizens and every country will reside and pray for the well-being of that country at the cost of our lives we uphold these commandments because it's called the decree of exile we respect god's words till today jewish boys and girls who are become criminals in israel because they refuse to serve in the army because of our religious edicts because of our laws

090they get um just give me two please two more minutes they're getting beaten and i have pictures that's from rest from from this last month where jews are being beaten and arrested uh including the chief rabbi who i just mentioned we had tens of thousands of people greeting him and taking up he has respect yet they're being attacked because they stood up and demonstrated against the living of graves are we anti-semitic are we anti-jewish all right sir i'm sorry you're going to have to uh yeah just one moment yes let me just finish this record the point is that a person in regard to mr awad and um the attacks that they're getting you have to understand it would be uh it would be a total mistake to remove people who if they would not

091speak up for the rights of their families of human beings the dead bodies they wouldn't behave they would shouldn't be on the board thank you sir very much we appreciate your comments sir you're way over your time i'm sorry everyone gets five minutes to speak that is the rules okay so we can't extend it to anybody if anyone else would like to speak but each member gets five minutes we gave you plenty of extra time hello my name is daniel gaudette and i'd like to thank president smith commissioners and superintendent dr robert towsey it's good to see you first i want to give my deepest condolences to commissioner daley and his family on terrible loss terrible dr danny congratulations i'm very very proud um mr uchi dropped off a package with the drawing you might

092have already seen it once it should be on your desk it shows a plan bus drop off at school one way coming in from east 11th down over to marcellus an area we could drop off students safely and not double pack on either east 11th or marcellus i believe we should put some serious thought into this the traffic around the lakeview section marcellus in east 11th is very busy i spent the whole school year there with my daughter kindergarten dropping her off it would take us we get there half hour before school just to get a parking lot parking space close enough to pick up our daughter and then it'll take us another half hour to get home to bergen avenue less than a half a mile away something really needs to be done and

093i ain't saying that other schools in the district don't have same the same problem but this is one that i had a chance to visit look at give a great amount of thought and i believe it's a good design so if you could please look into it you can contact me any questions you have on it also i thought it'd be nice to give you the school zone safety strategies from february 21 from rutgers university and the federal highway administration i've gone through it there's a lot of good information here maybe some you already know maybe some you don't again i want to thank you for the ability to speak in your attention thank you so much thank you hi hi dr robertosi uh jen pagano avondale lab uh i just want to know what

094my kids school year is going to look like next year i just want to know are they still being six feet apart are there dividers where are they eating lunch i heard a rumor in june that they were going to be eating in the hallway i don't love that idea i've parents are questioning i'm here to ask that's all i want to know thank you okay superintendent would like to give a brief response to that pagano i i hear you during my remarks tonight i will be giving i will answer a lot of the things you just mentioned but we will give a more formal presentation at our next board meeting which depending on the board's vote tonight may be changed to august 18th so we know some things tonight again things change daily but

095i'll be able to answer some questions and explain what my expectations will be later on tonight during my comments mr smith uh before i start my comments and you start timing me i just want to clarify something that a lot of people have been getting up and uh mr lee's been saying about them talking you aren't on the board uh miss danny was on the board and mrs bassett was on the board going back years ago i had a some problem with the dallas tennis schools and i went to make comments about it i was stopped by the board president and i was stopped by the lawyer i brought the case to the aclu they found out the board was wrong they violated my first amendment so i'm just trying to say to you now

096and again it's not part of my thing i'm just telling you these people have a right to come up here and talk and say what they want you can have a policy all you want first amendment takes over it so you know do what you want me you know if it happened to me again i'd be in touch with the aclu again i stop anyone tonight other than for their time no no but what you're saying what they could say that's what i'm saying you can't stop people that's all i'm saying you could do what you want i don't know you know as long as it don't happen to me okay um now can i stop my time okay keith bassford from clifton new jersey you know a lot of things are said tonight about

097different people here the nationalities what uh what they belong to and everything you know i've been around the sport a long time okay and as you know the woman straight ahead from me is my wife okay and i try not to get involved the name board business of its board business but if it's family business it's family business you know the last board meeting i was a little taken back the meeting was over and my wife and me were outside going into our car and i hear a person say you to my wife white trash okay so being um older not stupid like i was young i walked away because i said i have other ways to take care of this this person's on the board right now it's one of the commissions we're going

098to see if he steps up and says it and plus i have a witness too you want to talk about things going on okay i read this facebook stuff too everybody has a right to own opinion what's going on but if you're gonna put some on facebook this is not the board's opinion this is my own personal opinion okay that's how you do it you know it's it's about time people start learning ethics up here it's not being done but i uh i made a promise because i haven't been up here for about a year or so but i made a promise anything that goes unethical anything that violates opera and everything and i know it does i will be following the complaint there's no question in my mind if anybody knows me i don't

099fool around now the person who said something to my wife because it's not the first time must think that uh oh mr bassman uh he's not gonna say nothing you know uh maybe he's afraid of me maybe he's this no so we're talking about an individual that everybody's been talking about tonight okay why is it the same individual that people have problems with think now do i have to mention your name or you're going to be a man enough to say something okay i'll mention your name mr wad this is my family you want to deal with my wife on a professional basis here whatever you have to do on the board i don't care my wife's not white trash my family's not white trash and i don't care you could make believe you didn't

100do it i have a witness and everything you could call your lawyer you could call your senator i don't care but one thing you're gonna understand there's a line of professionalism here and there's a line of respect for my family i hopefully you understand my words what i'm saying here this is the last time i want to say it just no threat or nothing okay like i said i have my own ways of doing things and doing things right so do what you want mr smith you heard me thank you good evening dr robert hozi and members of the board here my name is adrian palazzo i'm at 196 martin ave and i am a school 13 mom to my incoming second grader before i asked the main question that i plan to ask tonight

101i first just would like to say that personally i am actually relieved to hear about the mask mandate going back into schools as per the governor and dr robertosi i'm very happy to hear that you will be going along with his executive order because i as a mother of a son who is of elementary level who's still a part of the unvaccinated um group that is you know not eligible for the vaccine yet i personally feel safer about that with you know going back in with masks so which now brings me to my next question um so now that the bond referendum plan has passed successfully and thankfully um i just am curious to know when will uh you know the updates of the hvac systems be done especially now that it looks like the

102new school year is going to start off at least with everyone in masks everybody's going to also be in school for longer hours being that it's going to be you know full day five days a week i know this past school year uh the cdc's answer to ventilation was to have windows open and especially with our older school buildings with the hvac being outdated but now that the bond referendum plan passed and to my understanding hvac was like one of the top priorities on the list of getting done and a lot of these schools as you know very old i know school 13 alone is 100 years old and you know just wondering if when hvac is going to be updated and hopefully it's not going to be a year again assuming with with masks

103for however long hopefully it's not going to be a year where it's open windows you know with all kinds of weather i know that kind of got cumbersome as the school year went by between the hot the cold the rain um so just was wondering uh roughly if at some point you are able to state when hvac especially is going to be taken care of because i feel that is most crucial for all our schools um and considering that now it looks like mass are going to be worn through the day and i was basically here for the same reasons as this other mom here we just want to know the rest of the back to school plan and about how lunch is going to be handled so look forward to hearing what you have

104to say about that dr robertosi so thank you very much for your time thank you thank you good evening steve goldberg um [Music] clifton um first i'd like to extend my condolences to the daily family the horrible loss of the grandchild um you know i used to be a staple here at the board meetings i came here for about 15 years while my daughter was in school um i was very proud of the education she got i was very proud of the diverse group of friends she has and still has and loves them dearly matter of fact i had lunch with her today she's in third year in med school and uh i haven't been coming because you know i think it's you know parents of of children should be at board meetings and now

105i'm sitting here wondering am i even welcome here i mean i'm jewish should i be here do i have to denounce my homeland to be here because that's what you're asking me to do who else are you asking to do that whether the religion what other race are you setting that up with none only the jews that's why it's anti-semitism i have no problem with palestinians loving their homeland no problem let me love my homeland and if you don't let me love my homeland then why should i let you love your homeland that's what we're missing here you're setting up a two-tier system only for jews right now that's what you're doing so every jewish student now has to decide well do i say i love israel where half my people live do i do

106that can i say that what do i do every staff person who who who believes in israel who believes in 1948 the world voted on israel we talk about respecting the vote right respecting the vote 1948 73 years ago the world voted on israel so we have some jews who don't like israel i can bring in some arabs who don't like palestine there's an old joke you have two jews on the desert island how many synagogues do you build you build three one for one to go to one for the other two one to go to and one for both of them not to go to big deal you put some jews here who don't like israel wonderful and i have no problem with free speech no problem you can talk but again i have

107more problem with the silence when someone says something like israel is responsible for the killing of george floyd that is an anti-semitic trope plain and simple i i don't know i listened to the der chauvin trial i didn't hear that as a part of the defense i missed that part so where are we going here mazel tov by the way board of education when my child was in school i don't know they talked about education clifton wasn't the best school system but apparently you're the best school system in the state of new jersey you've got all the covert problems solved and now you're taking on the mideast problem and then after that you'll take on north korea and cuba and maybe you'll deal with china what are you doing where is this going to go

108we know where this is going to go we know it's going to be bring hatred it's going to bring violence it's going to bring division that's where this is going to go you know i i who was it samantha talked about that that mural you can say all you want you can say horrible disgusting things but the point is as a commissioner of the board why why would you want to bring the violence and the bloodshed and the destruction and the hopelessness from the mideast here in clifton why it boggles my mind it really it boggles my mind i mean i'm really ashamed of this school system a school system that gave my family so much that was time mister we felt we belonged thank you good evening everyone my name is dia mostafa i

109live at 111 washington avenue clifton new jersey you want to talk okay i'm sorry my name is moshe lafkavitz i live in monson new york in i will excuse myself my english is very limited and i'm here i need to express my feelings i was born in jerusalem my eyes and my heart is constantly there i love israel i love it i love earth as well which is the land of israel but i'm here to say that if somebody thinks that zionism saved the jewish problem it's obvious that they are the cause of the problem in not on not only they didn't save tools the problem of anti-semitic anti-semitic happening in the world today is because of them jews have lived in harmony with our arab neighbors my mother-in-law was a resident of the al

110city she always said that we lived in omni till design is a movement in instead it's inside it the the the situation and i'm only here to say to say that we aren't be i admire all the feelings of any any any any jewish person in any human being but zionism is a destruction for jewish people and physically and religiously and in ever in any in any way and we i feel very bad if somebody is expressing himself about about something that is related to his relative in his nationality that he should be blamed by by the fact we are affected by the zionism a government they in any aspect of religious that they are not admiring our people by themselves and i'm sorry to tell to tell it in front of of the open

111field but that's the fact in i hope that the better days will come if we live in harmony with our neighbors in our the the glo the glory of god will be revealed over the whole world thank you okay yeah again my name is diamond stefan from when you live in washington avenue in clifton uh first i would like to thank the board of education for the great work you do for clifton and um a member of the palestinian american community center and we offer our support for for the board of education anything you need from our community we are willing to help uh we are not here to silence anybody actually we are here before because we feel we are we are silenced we are there is a movement that trying to silence anybody

112that would speak for the just cause of palestine when commissioner awad spoke in may during the massacres and the war that was happening in gaza as a palestinian he had some emotions he had the right to express his to express it with the board and some people are trying to silence him my friend you're not the victim here please stop playing the role of the victim the whole idea here is silencing the discussion on palestine silencing voices that would speak the just for the justice of palestine and i hope that this does not translate into the clifton school system we love clifton we feel that we are a very strong part of it we will do everything to make it succeed but we want our children also not just our board of education members but

113our students in the schools to be able to express their opinions and their feelings about what happens for their family in palestine and that's not anti-semitism that's definitely not anti-semitism when you speak about a just cause about realities about facts that happen in the ground that's not anti-semitism there's a movement now in the united states that's trying to defy redefine the meaning of anti-semitism to include any criticism of israel and that's not just i hope and i pray that clifton stays away from these gains and that doesn't listen to these uh false ideas and to the chaplain here of the clifton uh police department i i don't know you i never met you but i i was sitting there and i heard what he told that young lady there and i just heard him right

114now respecting disrespecting this gentleman he called him an idiot he called him names he made yes he did sir you cursed that you cursed him and you called him sir this is not so this is not a moment this is not a moment for debates i'm just saying that this is this is you haven't heard the end of this and you will you're going to be hearing about us about what you did today thank you excuse me this is a public meeting to address the board not each other is there anyone else that wishes to address the board of education anyone else that would like to address the board of education scene on motion clothes by mr abaddraba second by mr awad okay we're going to try and do some uh school business now okay

115do we have any unfinished business president smith i'm sorry do we need a roll call on that one what to close the motion roll call no you don't need that where i come from all right we'll start um education [Music] administration ea one is a expression of condolences miss basford would you mind reading that um do a separate role call yeah please me too um august 5th um from the administration ea 8 521 expression of condolence public uh whereas august 3rd 2021 the community noted with sorrow the passing of nicholas gerald grandson of commissioner james daly whereas nicholas was a former student of school 14 until he moved to cedar grove new jersey nicholas enjoyed riding his bike playing video games playing all sports and watching the giants nikki loved his family and friends so

116much we will especially he will especially be remembered for his courage and his bravery now therefore be it resolved that this resolution be forwarded to his bereaved family be it further resolved that the content of this resolution be noted in its in their entirety in the official minutes of the clifton board of education for future generations to prove dated august 5th 2021 uh motion by miss basford do i have a second second second by mr awad discussion roll call please mr abhijabo yes mr awad yes miss bassford yes miss beltran yes miss dr danny yes mr smith yes okay well now we'll do uh ea2 through ea 10 motion motion by miss bassford uh mr smith it's up to 11. sorry no 11 is the bulk oh i'm sorry i know i used to always

117do that yeah the last one is the all of them all right so it's ea23810 we have a motion and a second mr wad discussion roll call please mr abedrabo yes except on ea too just to know on ea2 mr awad yes for all but for ea ii miss password yes miss beltran yes dr danny yes mr smith uh all but uh no on ea2 motion carries except ea too question question that is to re that is to re-establish our bylaw for regular meetings that's all that is um ea2 is yeah but part of the public session is part of we didn't we didn't change the bylaw to do anything on it it goes it reverts back to the three minutes on the agenda and the five minutes to the um open public meeting right

118the proposal of the committee was to talk about it under new business but uh my recommendation tonight would not be to do that unless the full board is here okay i i do think the full board should be here i mean this is really like you know just five yeah we're not i mean yeah this is just to to rescind what we did to suspend what we did uh back in september so until the full board is here it will remain the way it is and then the full board can vote but but i understand that we're still running under a remote policy from meetings so technically we have to give people the option to speak remotely i i'd have to see that that resolution wasn't saying here is to suspend bylaws 0-164-0167 so that's

119the entire by-law so if the public portion is in that by-law it's supposed to be to reinstate it not to suspend right but i'm saying we suspended it in september so it's the full bylaw because we in september we went with that remote vial off to do our public meetings so we suspended these two because they were null and void the committee recommended that we get rid of the remote one and bring back the old ones and follow with our regular order business right so we're going to have that opportunity to do that next meeting on the full board here right why don't we just make a motion to just pull the pull this and then this way the whole board can weigh in but is there other parts of 01640167 that are okay but

120don't deal with that it's just the it's everything it's all the regular order of business the other one's still in effect we haven't done anything with it so and we pull this and then we vote on the next meeting and we all have a healthy dialogue i i have no problem with that the motion and secular agreed we'll table this to the next meeting yeah i'll second it okay you have to roll call on it no right just motion the table it right okay so the group uh the rest of the group passed all right we'll move on to um personnel we have personnel uh p1 through p42 motion motion by mr abedrabo second second by miss basford discussion seeing none uh roll call mr abu drabbo yes and abstain on peace i'm sorry on

121my name only for p38 mr awat yes but also on uh p i mean p-38 upsetting my name roman miss password yes abstaining on p38 my name only please ms beltran yes dr danny yes abstain on p38 my name only mr smith yes abstaining from p38 my name only emotions carry motion carries wanna do that now i don't think he's in here mr gingaro uh the board has just voted to name you our new assistant superintendent of schools and if you'd like to say a few words congratulations [Applause] sorry we're just outside so excuse of my tardiness to the podium good evening president smith board of ed commissioners dr robertosi mr tisian miss kusalevich mr uchi mr thomasevich and ms gutierrez for all of those who still remain in the audience and for all of

122those who are watching at home as the old adage goes life's a journey and it's not a destination and my journey in the clifton public schools district has followed this course i began my career here in clifton high school as a teacher for students with disabilities in both the self-contained and inclusive settings i had the privilege in working with our student athletes as a three-sport varsity coach and in my final year at chs i served as our dean of student discipline i was later afforded the opportunity to continue in my professional growth as both an administrative intern and building administrator at the christopher columbus middle school which ultimately led to me assuming the role of our district administrator of climate and security which is an umbrella title for a whole host of responsibilities that i

123hold in the district including our school safety specialist our anti-bullying coordinator our pbsis facilitator our supervisor of registration residency and truancy and i was also given the herculean task of serving as the facilitator of the reopening committee during the covet pandemic and now i've been afforded the opportunity to serve as the district's assistant superintendent there are so many people in my life who have provided the support and encouragement to make this possible so tonight i'd like to take that opportunity to thank my family my friends my colleagues administrators our supervisors our board attorney our teachers our counselors our nurses our child study teams our secretaries the members of the custodial maintenance and transportation group our domicile investigators our paraprofessionals our food service providers our coaches our athletic trainers our 381 members of the reopening committee

124and to our parents who have served on hsas ptas ptos booster clubs bond referendum committees and most importantly our students and the players i had the privilege to coach who have all been part of this incredible journey for me this dream would not be a reality without all of you now they take take a few moments to personally thank starting with miss janina kusalevich our assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction you have been a friend and a mentor to me from the moment my administrative career has begun thank you for all of your guidance for without it i would not be standing here in this capacity it will be an honor to work alongside of you as your counterpart as assistant superintendent to mr tisian our assistant superintendent arguably the single biggest shoes to ever have

125to fill in this district when it comes to clifton public schools in the community you are a pillar within both as for as long as i can remember i thank you also for your support and guidance throughout these years and i hope i'm worthy of this task i hope to make both you and the entire teigen family proud in filling your shoes to the board of education thank you for entrusting me over these over this past several years with the responsibility of overseeing the safety of our students and our staff in this district i would like to also thank you for this opportunity and your continued trust and support in this new role of assistant superintendent for those of you who have worked with me you've seen the sign in my office that says failure

126is not an option i will not let you down but more importantly i will not let the students down and finally dr robertosi in the short few years that you have been our commander-in-chief you have made such an enormous impact on our district from the one to one chromebook initiative to leading us through this covet pandemic to the passing of the single largest bond referendum in state history and this vision that you've had you've had the option to select any one candidate to help you to continue to drive this vision of one clifton and you chose me to say that this is an honor would simply just be an understatement thank you for your continued faith confidence and trust in me i look forward to working collaboratively with you and helping you fly this ship

127as we finally jump to hyperspace as i said life's a journey it's not a destination and although the current destination is now the assistant superintendent my journey in clifton still continues i look forward to the tasks and challenges that lay ahead and once again i thank you all for this amazing opportunity above all else continue to stay safe and healthy thank you [Applause] uh congratulations assistant superintendent but um you know you're gonna have to um endure uh late hours as this board does so you better get used to that um he's not listening to me anyway anyhow um congratulations and just to recognize his father frank is here frank is a long time educator in our system and was head of the clifton teachers association for many years i had the wonderful opportunity to uh

128to work with mr frank gingaro and i have such great memories of your time here in clifton so we thank you for for being here tonight and of course um mark your lovely uh your lovely counterpart who uh who keeps uh christopher columbus in order um ms gabo we we thank you for being here as well tonight though [Applause] okay let's move on uh we have uh finance and facilities we have f one through f eighteen motion motion by miss password second by mr abedrabo discussion seeing non-roll call mr abhijabo yes mr awa yes miss bastford yes ms beltran yes dr danny yes mr smith yes motion scary okay board member comments today we are starting with dr danny thank you um i will keep my comments short i want to thank all the speakers

129who came out and spoke today we do live in a democracy where obviously you could express your views so you know thank you once again for coming out and speaking out that's what it's all about is coming here and whatever um is upsetting about what was stated um it is your right uh when you have your time at the microphone i would just like to end condolences to jim daly kathy laser daily and the storm family there just really isn't any words um that i can think of you know when you lose someone and cancer is just a really horrific disease two of my family members have died of cancer and it's just again it's it's a horrific disease and just to see people suffer and especially you know a young child to go through

130it and on facebook i would often read the um comments that the the family would put and in regards to nicholas and it's just amazing i mean the the spirit that he had and the fighter that he was and when i heard of this passing it was it was heavy on my heart and again as i said because when it's a child um so that's all that i have and i hope that students and faculty and teachers enjoy the remainder of the summer stay safe and we'll see you know what september brings it's always something new when it comes to coven 19 being an educator i i know it's like i don't know what it'll bring thank you next up is mr abu drabo thank you president smith um prayers and thoughts to jimmy kathy

131and the storm family thank god i can't say i know it is to lose a child but many of you some know that my daughter my sister passed away when i was younger so i kind of feel what he's going for or with what they're going through but as i told jim yesterday anything you need to the daily storm family please let us know while we don't always agree on everything we still have to give each other some human respect and decency to respect each other's families and what each other goes through so um if anybody's interested may you want to lawn sign that's been produced for ten dollars you can reach out to mr amar i believe all proceeds will go to saint peter's haven mr president if it's possible maybe the packet that

132was handed today by mr cadet if we can send over the facilities at least to be looked over and discussed through you to our chair commissioner beltran congrats to all our ma degrees our district personnel district doctor who is on our agenda dr uh blaine rosenberg and uh i don't know sometimes he looks like the the big show with his hair and sometimes i know he likes the undertaker but absolute congrats to our new assistant superintendent mark gingerow since i came on the board you hit the ground running in your current position since your new position doesn't start till tomorrow morning you're an amazing person you are you know the short period of time i got to know you over the past few years you stay true to your word you i know you always

133have goals and you hit them you hit your marks and i can't see anybody else that could be complimentary to our superintendent to make sure our district goes far and beyond what it already is so mark congratulations um i know you do you will do a phenomenal job um thank you to all our speakers the nordicarda jvp pack patterson blm and of course the venerable rabbi from the clifton synagogue rabbi bob mark we may not agree on points and views but a you are a man of god and i will respect you on that you are a human being i respect you on that and every person that's that's a citizen of this world has the right to speak up no matter even if we agree or disagree and on that note i have something

134typed up because pre-typed up because i watched the council meeting last night and it's going to go along with what was mentioned yesterday and it's going to go around two things and i'm going to thank may for the following two things use your voice and infinite possibility because that's what we as human beings have to focus on and it's unfortunate that we have to use our voices to compete to combat hatred and the lack of respect of a humanity of humanity so here we go anti-semitism should not be taken lightly because i believe every religion is peaceful anti-semitism should not be shrugged off nor should the word be thrown around to negate a viewpoint a few months ago i spoke about my experiences when visiting my family in palestine and again i'm using my voice

135i'm allowed to do that just like everybody's allowed to come to the podium and speak as well well i do not agree with the tax tactics of their oppressors judaism was never a type of conversation nor was it ever mentioned out of my mouth or the state of israel and you can go back because i made sure and i actually heard that may 20th reference meeting because they referenced it last night and made sure to what i said and neither of those were into what i said the current state of palestine has nothing to do with the jewish faith the holy land does belong to all abrahamic religions peaceful religions palestinians are not only a muslim but also the face of christianity judaism coptic and even jews why do i say that because the great

136rabbi mentioned for you to say that a muslim student wanting to hurt someone is reprehensible while that may be an isolated event that is one person that is one incident that does not represent muslims guess what that's islamophobe that's islamophobe i didn't mention a religion you did great rabbi you did tonight and last night just how all muslims are not palestinians not all palestinians are muslim that is something that is to be carefully thought about and that is why there needs to be more education to my point from back in may where if more funds were used towards education we'd have we would have a lot more in this district and across this country this is also why it is better to keep more funding in this country to be used for that education not

137funding foreign entities it's not about solving north korea solving cuba solving it's about any foreign entity and where our monies go outside this country what do we get in return besides lack of benefits for our veterans and the land and and the the i'm going to use this word the weakness of our education in this country whether it's about dii diversity education and quant and sam thank you and i i feel bad about that because i was on di committee at seton hall it's been a while i know and that's what i'm talking about in more funding to educate our communities educate ourselves educate our neighbors to understand where this new generation is coming from to understand about gender respect respected genders respected cultures respected ethnicities respecting thy neighbor do we forget that our children

138need to be taught not only to love and compassion towards all human beings but also understand that people make up this world in order to become better citizens of this world and we all want that for our children but what we want for our children as we grow up we forget we forget how to act at times and that is wrong i'm not saying i'm innocent i'm guilty of that at times we're all human beings we learn from our mistakes we move on and to the council member last night who decided to say he was disappointed in the statements that were mentioned on may 20th i would ask you to have a conversation with me about my personal experience before speaking out on something you have no idea about you have nothing but privilege you

139have no idea what it is and how it is to be treated the way people get treated today you have multiple privileges i'm gonna be honest i'm disappointed in you i once called you a friend guess what it's done and i know who you know you know who you are especially when i try calling today speak to you and you do not pick up my call done and honestly the fact that people speak on something they have no idea about how black lives are in this country how people get treated in this country and around the world yes all lives do matter but when a certain life is deemed lesser than others when they are brought up to that scale then we can talk about that thank you mr awad you're next thank you mr

140smith uh first and foremost uh my condolences to the daily family and uh heaven has gained a new angel and nicholas may he rest in eternal peace um also i just on another note mr mark gingaro ever since i've entered this district you have been such an amazing amazing uh person to work with on the residency and security committee your energy is you know it rubs off in such a positive way your you know your passion and your love for the students and for the district and for you know your vision and your goals i feel like you know another new chapter for you has opened and i wish you and your family nothing but positivity and greatness tonight was a little rough it was probably one of the roughest meetings i endured since my

141election and i know what i signed up for and i know what the city has and what the potential is um you know the past couple weeks you know an incident has occurred in our city when dealing with the art the mural and uh personally i reached out to the artist and i told the artist keep your chin up keep on fighting you are doing the right thing you are expressing yourself art has been attacked over many centuries by certain groups because it is a peaceful way of expression and that's something i applaud and that is something when we go into uh new business i would like to also discuss first if that's allowed mr smith um i have an idea and a topic that i i kind of been brainstorming and wrote down and

142i would love to present it hopefully you know for the future for us to discuss as a board um to my brothers and sisters of you know from clifton and throughout the state you know that came out and spoke um i will just want to state this loud and clear i love judaism rabbi ruiz i came and spoke he's been a friend and a mentor for many years ever since i was a child i used to hear him speak my grandparents grew up in a small village on the outskirts of jerusalem and caden i am the first elected official in my city ever in the united states or even in jordan where a majority of them refuge and i always get encouraged to always stand up and speak for the truth this is a beautiful

143city where 70 percent the majority were christian and jewish my grandparents were actually a minority in the city this is the city where john the baptist i call a city it's a village it's a city now it's a village where john the baptist was born the virgin mary had a well it is a very important biblical aspect where once you know many christians go on pilgrimage to the jordan river they used to walk by foot to that village to drink from that well my great was an islamic scholar that used to travel all over the world preaching peace his position in that village before enduring that journey for many centuries and he passed it down to his children and he goes back 10 10 generations before him he had the key to a cathedral as

144a muslim he had a key to the cathedral he would open up that cathedral every single day in the morning likewise that cathedral their priest had the key to the mosque he would also open up the mosque for the morning prayers many of you asked why am i bringing that up because it was taught on a cultural aspect as a palestinian you never ever divide to conquer when i mean division i mean saying that you are this faith you are that faith you are this shape color you were that shade color it was a unification that is something that's told all over the middle east a very very poisonous tactic is to divide and conquer by pointing out people's disabilities sexual orientations belief systems shade a skin tone whatever it may be that is a

145tactic that is also brought in our school systems all over the nation in our communities that mural means a lot to me for one reason it was just about unification and showing the beauty and the diversity and i spoke to may many many many times and i helped mr amar get those posters printed from professional contacts that i had i would always support my community no matter what and to samantha basford your words yesterday were very on point in your words today i would must say you're always on point and you speak to such a high standard and your parents should be proud you do not hold back from speaking and when you do you say in such a way that honestly it's inspirational and what you said today i had wrote it down that

146is something i want to share with my wife because words of wisdom sadly nowadays is very rare to all them that may think i offended them what i said and what i posted on my personal facebook is my personal opinion it's my personal experience many might not understand and i totally get that but no way no form no chance that i have any hatred or any ill intent towards the religion of judaism judaism is a beautiful pure peaceful religion and rabbi wise taught me many many many scriptures from the torah as as i've also read many scriptures from the bible the old testament i like to educate i like to understand people's point of views and what they're brought up to what i'm trying to get to is our city is amazing we do have

147to follow the model one clifton clifton does care but at this moment our city is struggling when we face adversity as elected officials either here or on the council we must stand up for what's right taking the easy way out and turning our chin the other way because it's a sensitive topic it's not excuse my language a sexy topic to talk about and it might affect our election it might affect votes it might affect people's opinion you might upset someone but the truth is the truth we are here to serve the people i will be vocal for all causes no matter what and if anybody tries to stop me let them be as is my god-given right as an american blessed to be born here it's an amendment and i will use it and i

148will speak on any topic that pertains to benefiting our district when it comes to the art mural like i said a new business i would love to discuss an idea that will give platforms for many many many generations of students to come and to the city of clifton just know i will always serve with the right intent and the purest intentions because as many know my daughter will be born in september and this little one is going to be going to this district and i want her to know that this amazing board even though we discovered so many times we always have the right intentions the children and i want to be able to give her and anybody else in this district the greatest education possible endless possibilities to basically thread and they're like dough

149thread and form them so once they do graduate they have all the capabilities of being a modern pure great citizen taking on collagen in their endeavors and giving back to their community thank you next miss password thank you i just want to say thank you to all the speakers who came out tonight i just want you to all know that i heard you and i listen i write things down i listen to what you have to say and i take everything into consideration french and guerrero it's so good to see you people don't realize the impact of generations that you've had on people not only your own child and the good things that come out of out of him but also the effect that you had on some board members children in this district some

150of the successes in this district belong to you and from my family so thank you it's nice to see you mark gengaro may the force be with you you owe me a movie that's a joke because we're big star wars fans um a while back i uh emailed the superintendent while he was away about the mural and about giving this young lady a platform in clifton high because she is a she is a graduate and i was wondering if that we could find and this is a suggestion it's my opinion if we could find some space in this building to her to put a smaller version in the hallways and maybe open up a new platform for people that have done have graduated and done things to come back to the community i was there

151last night [Music] it was very hard to watch what happened and uh as the mother and me i stood up at one point i could not stand what i saw but people don't realize when they put another person in a in an adversarial situation like that and she's so young that it was the people in the audience saw a different thing going on and that's what was upsetting to a lot of people that were there samantha basford i have two great things in my life and you're one of them you always amaze me every day every day the things that come out of you and the things that you do i may not be the richest person on this planet but i'm rich because what i have with you and your brother keep onward and

152up with sammy you got so much to give you are going to be amazing with what you're about to launch into okay um a couple of things um mr smith thank you for allowing me to read that that resolution for nikki storms for over the last 15 months there's been a group of people praying for him and although no words can take away the sorrow that the family is bearing may be comforting to know that others care there's a lot of people out there that have been praying for nikki and the family and i um my faith believes that god has another plan for nikki so that's what we believe in and we don't believe that this is the last we believe that we will see each other again one day and we will be

153able to meet each other and and and be together so i hope that your faith whatever you believe in keeps you through these very difficult days to kathy laser daily to jim daly and the storm's family my deepest condolences my deepest condolences to um adele gamon for the loss of her husband mike to steven tala who just lost his father and the rest of his family my condolences and i just found out somebody texted me former board member keith laforger passed away tonight so condolences to the little forger family as well that's it i have thank you good night okay miss beltran you're next i would also like to express my sincere uh condolences to the to jim daly and his family for their unexplainable loss i don't have children of my own but i

154can only imagine what they're going through i love to see how much public participation we're getting at these meetings positive negative it's appreciated in my mind my family comes from a country where if you were to come out and speak like this you would be jailed immediately um my family my father grew up in cuba my grandfather will be the last generation likely to ever have seen a free cuba we're fighting for it but we're more pessimistic than palestinians palestinians have a little bit more umph i guess into their fight than unfortunately uh we do but there's always a hope that one day we'll be able to speak like this at a deus or rise up in some way the school year this year is it's it's going to look strange again we're hoping for

155a normal year but it's looking like we're going to have an extraordinary year i hope we're able to continue in-person learning even if it has to be with the masks it's it's not ideal obviously but if they're still in school learning and we have the masks and we have um i'm sure dr robitosi has a lovely plan laid out of how to guide us through another year but i'm just hopeful that we'll be able to stay in person because i think the personal contact even though masked will be better than no personal contact through a screen i would also just like to say that although i do not always agree with the personal comments made by colleagues on the dais whether it be about current political issues covet issues you know even issues of when

156meetings take place etc i i truly appreciate that we're able to have these types of discussions relatively calmly and i appreciate that i personally don't choose to use this forum to express my personal views but other colleagues do and i think it's a good insight into people's lives you know if they choose to use this forum to express their personal views and have everyone in the town know about them then so be it other people choose to do it in silence you know it it's a 2000 year old battle that we watched rage out here my battle for my country is only 60 years long i hope art doesn't go for 2000 years but you never you really never know but i applaud everyone who came out and spoke on both sides of the issue

157although this forum i think i agree with them pretty much everyone probably agree with me is not the ideal location for such an argument um i do applaud that they're they use their right to do so and that's all i have for tonight thank you mr truman uh is everybody right uh it seems like it's the night of condolences and uh i surely don't like to have to send regards to families especially when one is a a colleague first mr keith laforgia who passed away tonight today keith and i were on the board together for i believe five years we accomplished a great amount and he was a great and dedicated board member i enjoyed working with him and i'll always remember some great times that we had on this board so keith i know

158you're in a better place free from pain and suffering and you will be missed as ms bassford mentioned a former board member and councilman steven towel lost his father and a dedicated veteran in our town mike gimon also was taken home over the last week then to get the news from jim that um that his grandson nikki had passed away and as miss bassford said it really hits it too hard and hits home we've been praying for nikki for so many years probably three i think it started about three years ago and i remember just a little bit over a year ago when nikki they take them back to the hospital where they were treated and when you beat cancer you ring a bell and i remember the day that nikki went in to ring

159the bell that he was free from cancer and he was so happy and so excited and then to turn around and be hit with it again and even stronger even more devastating just four weeks ago he went through a 22-hour surgery came through the surgery great we thought they got everything and cancer won but nikki didn't lose he had a great life when he was here he had a great family that supported him and loved him and he's home he's home can never be in pain again does not have to go through chemotherapy or tests and needles so even though we grieve god taking a young life at nine years old you have to know that he's in a better place free from pain my thoughts and prayers go out to jim and kathy and

160the entire storms family i know what a hard time it was to bury parents i can't imagine what it's like to bury a child so all the members of this board offered their support to jim and to his family and i thank the board for that and if anything kids parents when we talk about condolences and death if anything it teaches us is just to cherish the time you have together if we just stop fighting and get along and make our time here on earth the best that we could what a great place this would be and i'm sorry uh mr gingaro that on such a happy occasion tonight that we had such sorrowful news to to add into it but thank god that we have an opportunity to celebrate and cheer and thank and

161wish good luck to our new assistant superintendent of schools who has worked so hard for this district dedicated himself his time and his efforts and sometimes i i just look and i say mark how you got 20 things going at one time and mark going in every other direction but worked his butt off to make sure he accomplished those goals because he always told me failure is not an option so mark i know you're not going to fail i know you're going to succeed because you've succeeded so much already this district is going to be so great having dr robitozzi at the helm and you as an assistant along with janina but so much so much of this district has been set up and has worked so great because of the dedication and commitment to

162kids that mr teigen had for this district clifton would not be successful district it is today without mr teigen's hard work dedication and devotion and i have to tell you one one line that i had from mr teigen the other day and it summarized everything about him and about the district he said he was he used to be at christopher columbus and he loved crispr columbus and he wished he was back there with the kids that really stuck home with me he didn't want to be in administration he didn't want to be going up the ladder he wanted to be with kids he wanted to help kids mr teigen you did you helped many kids and we thank you for all of your devotion and dedication to clifton you made this district what it is

163today and we thank you for that devotion dr robitosi you're laying the foundation here to have one of the if not the best district in the state yes do we have obstacles to climb over we do it's just the part of the nature of education but if we come back and remember one thing why we're here for no other reason we're here for kids and if we remember that all this other petty stuff means nothing dr rubitosi thank you mr president good evening commissioners and citizens and those in attendance and those watching at home first and foremost i know it's been said but i have to give my deepest condolences to jim daly cathy and the storms family you are all in my prayers and i'm praying for you during this most difficult time and

164i'm just so sorry to to hear what happened but know that there are many who are praying for you nicholas many might not know but nicholas was a former student in clifton he attended school 14 and and his mom uh was a teacher in our district so a lot of people praying for you and your family during this time tonight was a lot i'm very emotional tonight there was a lot there's a lot going on here tonight trying to run a school district trying to do what's best for kids we're not going to solve the world's problems but we do need to listen to each other because that's where it starts and our kids are watching kids are watching at how how we interact amongst ourselves as the as the adults act the kids will

165act and so we set the example and so clifton is a beautifully diverse community that for the most part gets along really really well i think as long as we remember that we have so much more in common than we do that separates us that above all we are humans that we are meant to help each other that will be okay let's stop take a step back take a deep breath and remember why all of us are here none of us exist if not for children i don't have a job if not for children this board of education does not exist if not for children let's keep that at the forefront of everything we do of every decision that we make every single moment of the day our kids are watching now on to the

166business of the school district mr gingaro we got a lot of work to do my friend i couldn't think of anybody else to uh to be by my side as we forge through congratulations it's well deserved from day one you and i had something in common and it was about making decisions about what's best for kids not what's convenient for adults but what's best for kids so we got a lot of work to do but we got a supportive board we got great people around us and tomorrow we roll up our sleeves and we get going as i mentioned earlier tonight we're expecting governor murphy to make an announcement tomorrow mandating that masks must be worn at the start of the school year at least at the beginning of the school year by all students

167in grades k-12 and although i don't know if it's going to be part of his announcement that mandate will also be for staff members so that will be for everybody who will be in our schools including visitors although we will be trying to limit the amount of visitors that we have at least at the beginning of the school year the sad thing is just less than a month and a half ago i don't think we thought this thing was over but we thought we were moving in a good direction and we thought september was going to look as normal as possible and i i read today that um in the past month the number of cases has increased by 365 percent so we are still in the middle of fighting this but i want to

168make sure that everyone hears me tonight that we will be open if it is up to me five days a week full time there are some things that you're going to have to deal with that we all have to expect we're going to have to continue the mandatory daily symptom screening before school starts each day for staff and students we're going to have to continue the mask wearing whether we like it or not we'll make sure students have mask breaks i expect students to be eating in the cafeteria right now we're expected to keep students three feet apart in most places in our district we can do that in areas where we can we have other mitigation measures like mask wearing extra ventilation on top of the physical um things we're worried about with the

169virus we've been very much worried about the mental health of our students i'm very proud to say that we have now have a extra counselors at every school now every elementary school has its own counselor at the secondary level we've expanded counseling support with our own staff and contracted services to address that part of this because people are wounded mentally we're going to have a new before school elementary tutoring program we're going to have more after school tutoring in person and virtual but as of today there is no virtual option we do not have a virtual option for students if a student or a group of students or a class has to quarantine because they were close contacts of a positive coveted case then we will make arrangements for them to receive virtual instruction either

170on home instruction or through synchronous simultaneous instruction by their teacher but we're hoping that we don't have to quarantine entire classes if our contact tracing is good enough we're collaborating again with the boys and girls club to have before care and aftercare programs and options for our parents for those of you who aren't aware we still have our summer meal distribution program on mondays wednesdays and fridays at clifton high school christopher columbus and at school 17 from 10 a.m to 11 30 a.m that is open to everyone in the community everyone is welcome please come by again that's monday wednesdays fridays clifton high school christopher columbus middle school and school 17 from 10 to 11 30 a.m miss palazzo asked earlier uh about the referendum and um well she's not gonna like my answer but

171i would never tell a lie at least on purpose um and this is not news if uh those who were aware or part of the referendum we have been saying what the timeline would look like on april 20th the vote passed um and from april 20th we really didn't expect a shovel in the ground or any work to start until april of 2022 and you might say wow that's a really long time the truth is there is so much that has to happen from april 20th to april of 2022 for example um the selling of the bonds right so we passed this referendum what that meant was we were allowed to borrow the money so we don't even have the money yet matter of fact i believe mr uc today was the day that we

172had the bond sale is that correct yeah yes sir and the closing's going to be near the end of the month so by closing that means we might get some money by the end of the month no no i didn't think so i'm being i'm being sarcastic so my point is we don't even have the money to do the projects but what's going on while we're waiting for the money is the architects are doing all the official drawings once the drawings are done those projects are bundled into packages and then they have to go out to bid and then we have to get we have to pick the contractors by the lowest bidder we expect that to happen best case scenario december january so we're still on target but you won't see air conditioning or

173any of the other projects for we expect all of the projects that can be be completed by the fall of 2023 it's still amazing though that we got that done still amazing miss kusalevich is there any other major things that you can add to what we already know for the opening of school just so parents are listening one thing i will add is at our next board meeting which the board voted on tonight will be august 18th we will do a formal presentation for the entire community i will then communicate all that information out to all of our parents so we have an idea but everybody has to understand that as it has been since day one of this pandemic this stuff changes this stuff changes rapidly so we can tell you today what we

174think and what our plans are and that could change mr kusalevich anything that you would like to add to the reopening stuff i just would like to say that exactly what uh dr robert ozzie has been expressing we will be back full time full day five days per week while some things will still be odd a lot of the day will be as normal as it has been in the past students will be in their classrooms with their teachers middle and high school students will be changing classes yes there will be some mitigation factors that have to take place to maintain health and safety so that we can stay open hopefully every single day like we have in the past with extracurriculars and now with additional instructional support so that it should look as normal

175as it possibly can thank you miss kusalevich mr smith that concludes my comments for tonight thank you thank you uh we'll now move on to uh new business mr awad i'm sorry mr smith i just had something i just want to make sure i went back to the minutes of the policy meeting um it said that we were reinstating 164 and 167. the that's that was the error on the agenda it said so i want to make sure that goes in and then we will be cancelling 0164.6 so it's in it's on the last page this uh second paragraph up from the bottom right thank you so just that one part would be tabled mr watt thank you president smith um i would like to bring uh to the board of new orleans business uh

176something that has kind of occurred in the past week in our community dealing with on the mural with you know the state that it looks like the state will be removing it something that was worked on extremely hard by an artist named may and her friends they worked about a week in the heat thinking that they had the permission everything perfect for them to paint it uh president smith going through you to the superintendent can we kind of browse and think and brainstorm as a board an idea of maybe using all the tools and assets we have as a district to probably build or create a blank canvas for murals for students in the district to express them themselves through art and the most non-political you know something that is approved by you know the

177the board and the superintendent and staff uh i was thinking either on ccms property on the corner near paris paedav or maybe on the board of education property by the flagpole something you know where students current students from you know that are coming into the district in september and for future students something that they could probably use throughout the year different art projects having everybody active and expressing themselves it could be a really cool backdrop also that they can paint something towards the end of the year for graduation as they're coming into the stadium you know if it is placed by ccms it's something you know the community can look at and also it's a beautiful piece of art that people driving on 46 where we they are coming from other towns can see how

178beautiful and how diverse our town is and giving a platform basically for students to express themselves through art um like i suggested ccms by paige maybe outside i know we have assets in different classes like wood shop and stuff maybe they can pitch in and build we do have a phenomenal art department in all our schools in a secondary location maybe board of education property by the flagpole i just want to be able to give the students you know a chance that i didn't have growing up where you know we pay attention to what happens in our communities and we can use that as an educational point where we kind of speak with them and let them understand why certain decisions happen why certain points were made and you know mistakes happen we live and

179learn but we shouldn't be able to just suppress um art and suppress expression of our we should be able to basically uplift them and give them the platforms and the tools that they need uh to succeed so that is you know something if we could work with so why don't we uh police policy we'll have to put some type of policy together on that so why don't we send it to policy and facilities let them come up with uh you know just some guidelines and rules and then we can come back to the board and because my idea is to have something outside i just want to be clear something that it could be built outside to certain dimensions that you know everybody approves of and fits within you know the rules i was just

180my recommendation be like i said board of education property by the flagpole it's a busy road where people can appreciate the art or maybe probably jedi because it's a major highway on 46. i would like it more outdoor not for just the students to see for the community and basically anybody passing through our town to appreciate it because it turns out that murals under certain underpasses with state laws and stuff like that forbid it and as a community we just learned that recently so we want to basically take advantage of this and give art a platform and something that you know there has to be rules of what can be put and can't be put we don't want to offend or hurt anybody we don't want to make it political or religious or any aspect

181like that but something students can invest their time uh to to express what they feel should be up there uh and this is something we could start as you know a cultural thing in clifton uh for you know future uh graduating classes that they could take part in thank you yeah so that's why i have policy we'll have to come up some guidelines because not only for this one but going in the future where they can go what the guidelines are for it so policy and facilities if you would take that up in your next meeting uh mr abhijava did you have something yeah on the same i'm sorry on the same level um so um she was one of our students mayor was one of our students i just would like to recommend to

182through you to the superintendent since most likely she will be leaving for school i believe she lives on campus or does not she lives on her university's property um that we ask her to create some sort of sketch or probably replicate what was under the the bridge i know it's going to go to policy but at least we give her the opportunity to leave her footprint where it will not be erased to give her the opportunity to leave something where i mean it's not the only time she's done something it's her and her friends and her and her peers have done it across the city um but if we can leave allow her to leave her footprint and her peers footprints somewhere where they roam the holes of and allow her to at least put

183a preliminary sketch together she may not have to paint her or do anything she'll be away at school i'm assuming um but allow her allow her and her peers to do a sketch and also even if she wants to do this um so i don't think i don't think we've actually even approached her we being the administration meeting so if we can do that in the meantime one goes through policy i think just for the time sake so the administration will handle that aspect of it yeah okay any other new business yes uh the policy committee asked that we send for an advisory opinion about yielding time to other speakers i've never done that through the board i've done advisory opinions on my own so how would we go about doing that because we uh

184we just want to make sure that we are not missing anything well i thought we got an advisory opinion from the state attorney i think i sent that to everybody i thought it was my understanding that um kathy hello was sent to some information from new jersey school boards everyone got that right but it's i want to go down to the state and get an advisory opinion from them can we do that not the school board's attorney is state attorney i don't i don't know that there's a mechanism for getting an advisory opinion on it's basically robert jews of order i got i understand on robert's rules of order from the state attorney general's office but i'll look into what where where there is a possible avenue okay and also the the committee wants to

185know when are we going to get the automatic response for emails that's something that's the committee keeps on bringing up so that i i promised them that we'd address it at the next meeting i can work on that here we have it for the next meeting your next meeting any other new business oh yes a policy we have to set a date um i think we were on the second wednesday of every month now uh that would be the 11th of august being that we have work now to do with this so if if that's not good just let's we'll send the email out to the committee to see when everybody's available but i want we want to make it the second wednesday of the month and if all committees would please get the dates

186and we'd like to make a calendar for the rest of the year have the dates already in so everyone knows the dates and if you have to cancel the meeting for whatever you cancel it at least it's in the calendar and it's on um instead of last minute trying to get a date and find out who can make it or not just let's get a calendar made get the dates in and uh we'll work it from there okay mr smith just so uh the committee chairs are where tuesdays are going to be a little tough for me this year my schedule's changing a little bit but uh i can make any other night stay away from tuesdays if we can any other new business justice level check uh superintendent orbitals that you said tuesdays will

187be tuesday's really going to be a little tougher no good for don't try and keep away from tuesdays in this next remainder of the year any other new business all right seeing none we do have one item for executive session yes sir just one item all right so um personnel action may be taken [Music] we should be uh i hate giving a time limit because it never works out that way but um we're hoping that this will be a a quick uh um yeah i just said action may or may not be taken um so we'll say a half an hour shouldn't be more than that right yeah all right and uh so then we'll come back out uh after uh executive session uh do i have a motion to go into executive session motion

188second by uh mr avajabo second by mr awad roll call please abby driver yes mr awad yes miss password yes mr beltran yes dr danny yes mr smith yes okay where are we going same room a6 public we hope to be back shortly and a half an hour hope what are you doing danny foreign