001smoother no the bolt heads for the charm i learned from from danny danny came in it happened you just gotta rip it off and get it done you know it's funny danny when i was when i was in palestine i was talking about my son so i was like you know like before we left to come back i'm like just take it off my way what are you doing what are you doing in arabic so when i was and that was just when i got back here in october you know i thought about it me two months to think about it just take it off mr russia what what is uh is it sick what's the quorum five five five okay oh yeah majority right yes there is a very very strong yeah really gosh
002luckily it's kathy speaking then you know some other people i you don't like hearing twice on an echo everything's all set whenever you're ready okay we have a quorum so uh it is time so um i'd like to open up this um special meeting of the board of education march the 8th if you would all please rise for a pledge of allegiance followed by a brief moment of silence i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you everyone mr uc roll call please mr allah here here miss beltran beltran mr canola here mr daley miss danny danny mr castro casper here mr abu drabo here here mr smith mr smith here
003we have a car uh tonight um oh i'm sorry we have to do the um mission statement mr casper would you mind the mission mission school district in an open and reciprocal community partnership is to provide all students with a quality education to develop the skills necessary to become literate lifelong learners for responsible and productive citizens contributing to a democratic society in an ever-changing world mr smith you're muted who muted me not me uh reading of the open public meetings uh statement the new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the rights of the public to advance notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the clifton board of education has
004caused 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 local press on the district's website and mailed to presidents of parent teacher organizations this meeting will be tape recorded in accordance with policy zero one six eight uh tonight's um uh board uh retreat uh we are very happy to have um from the new jersey school boards association our good friend and friend of education uh miss kathy hellowa uh who will be leading uh the knights program kathy thank you so much for being here and i turn it over to you jim it's my pleasure thank you so much for having me um i'm not echoing too much because uh um
005that makes it a little bit difficult to follow the program how's my audio is it is it working okay audio sounds great it almost seems like things are being repeated okay okay okay um did you say that some things are being repeated jim is that on my end i'm getting like repeats of certain things i'm getting a little bit of that too i'm not sure about the other conditioners if they're hearing the same same if if it's intelligible yeah a slight echo lucy sexy sexy nice nice nice to see your racism i so suppose we can attempt it and if it gets really bad if we have to uh redo this uh you know uh another invitation at mr mountain do you have any suggestions yeah mr smith i think it's a microphone whenever i
006mute you the echo goes away so i'm gonna mute you now and then whenever you need to speak again just mute yourself unmute yourself now it can't be me because you i had my mic off and you were you were echoing and repeating so i don't think that was all right we're gonna give it a shot friends we'll see if it works um it sounds a little better right now but i guess things are we learning sounds good now thank you okay eric thank you so much for all of your help um wow i miss seeing you guys in person and not just because of the technical glitches but it's wonderful to just see your faces and to have been invited to participate in your board meeting which is a board retreat but the topic
007is going to be something that's not the most exciting thing it's it's school ethics but it's really important and uh i'm very pleased to be able to present it to you guys we've had some really lively discussions about this in the past at our uh clifton retreat so seriously i like a participatory session you know that about me um unmute yourself and just burst on in if you have any questions friends okay um i am going to be using a powerpoint um eric i don't know if you have access to that or if you uh need me to share my screen and click on through what is the best method for uh for our training tonight if you're comfortable with it you have access to share your screen so i think that it's a more
008natural flow but if you need help just let me know i'm thinking that could be a more natural flow too so let's give that a shot um and what the only thing that might happen is i may not be able to see the commissioners but we will see um okay we will see if we can do this uh do hang on memento friends uh i can't seem to i'm i'm assuming that you guys can see the full presentation right yes is that correct but you can see all the little slides at the side there which is something that i want to avoid yes and i can't get to my little there's a little computer next to the minus for your view and if you click on that it shows you know what it is joe
009i mean my uh on the top of my screen is that uh zoom menu bar with mute stuff video blah blah blah you can move that you can just move how do i move that how do i move you just grab your mouse and move it oh joe you're so smart thank you all right let's do this slideshow um let's see from beginning all right and i can still see a few faces so this is a win this is a win um thanks for that uh before i begin friends i do want to acknowledge um i do want to acknowledge the passing of uh former commissioner agresti arlena gresti i was very saddened to hear that she had passed um and i do i offer my very deep sympathies to you all especially those who
010worked with her um i remember working with her on the superintendent search and um i do remember very clearly i was so sad to hear because i do remember very clearly just um during that search which we'll never forget right that was a great experience for all of us um just how much you guys took care of arlene the the commissioners who assisted in that search um it was really very nice to be a part of that and to see that kind of dynamic um so please uh my please accept my my sympathy for for your loss and also i i do honor the good work that she did during the search and all the years prior so uh so thank you for allowing me to just mention her name at the outset but you
011know something i think it goes to to uh as i'm thinking as i'm talking and i'm thinking about you know the team that that that work together on that and how you guys all work so beautifully part of the thing about school ethics right um is that it really is a team effort school boardsmanship like the ethics act is a piece of law all right it's a legend it's legislation that we have to be familiar with that we're all beholden to and it more or less is a job description right and you will receive if you haven't already um an electronic copy of the school ethics act it's four pages it's very dense small type legalese and all that and it can be very daunting to try to get through that and to make sure
012that you are in line with it as far as your behavior goes at all times that's what we have to do but the good news is that school boardsmanship really is a team sport you have a lot of resources and your board president kindly invited me to come in and talk about it so i'm part of your team i'm not an attorney but i am very steeped in the school ethics act just by the very nature of the way i do my work so if you guys have questions you are free to run them past me i will do my best to get you an answer njsba has its own legal team it's part of your dues so if i can't answer something or you want an attorney's take on it they're there for you
013too your board attorney is an excellent resource um you would go through uh you to get to your attorney through your bylaws probably through your your board president or danny or mike depends on what your bible say but that's another resource your board president your superintendent your board secretary all great resources for you so it really is a team sport and it's not scary that's exact i often say it really is like a school board member's best friend in a number of ways um and one of the things and well and why do i say that well one of the reasons is it's all about holding the respect and the confidence of the people who put you on the dais so that's a good thing right um and avoiding that conduct that even looks like
014it's avoiding the public trust that's a good thing right but what i like best about it possibly is that it's a code of uniform standards for every school board member in the state so whether you serve in montague in upper northwest sussex county or cape may courthouse at the bottom of the state and whether you're on a traditional public school board or charter school board of trustees whether you serve in paterson or whether you serve in oxford tiny town no one's heard of all of all of the board members have the same job descriptions and we are all beholden to the same law that is a very very good thing friends in my in my estimation we are you know one town doesn't get special treatment over the other right so that's that's a very
015important point um but you know what besides all those feel good things about the ethics act you really um do need to pay attention to it not just because it's the law and it would affect your boardsmanship but um def you know dereliction under the ethics act might cause your cusack score to go down when cusack is a factor right so we have to make sure that you talk about the school the code of ethics every year um that you do your disclosure statements which just came out am i right mike i think they just released them like a few days ago yeah sometime last week yeah it was recent yeah whoo i was so excited when i saw i was like here it is it's march right but fill those out get them in
016right away or else your your district's cue set well we're not getting cusack this year but you know you just just make it a part of your you know of your wheelhouse you get that thing you fill it out you send it on in um and also if a board member is found to be in violation of the ethics act your cusack points go down as well and all of the work that the district puts in to make sure its score is good um it's just such a shame to see boards falter in this particular area but you guys aren't going to do that because you guys are going to get your wonderful ethics training tonight and so we can relax right um and i know a lot of you have heard this before so
017please forgive me and again if you have questions unmute yourself ask uh but we'll go through the basics and the school ethics act establish all of these things right so the commission itself the code of ethics what conflicts of interests are we're going to touch on all of that um the disclosure statements that i just mentioned and your training requirements because in the law it authorizes new jersey school boards association and only new jersey school boards association to provide your mandatory training and we'd like to say that school board members in new jersey are the best trained in the nation because the training is pretty comprehensive all four years your first four years of service you need to take mandatory training i'm not going to read all of this to you save this for your
018reference you're getting a copy of this powerpoint ask me if you're not sure um go on our website but i mean the basics are your first year gov one i think of two gov three and gov four and every time you're reelected that first year that you are re-elected you need to take gov4 again which is a legal update so hold on to this they're all online right now of course because of the pandemic but hopefully we'll be able to offer some in-person um you know offerings when conditions of the pandemic lessen and we can you know start getting together again um the ethics commission itself was established under the act and these are the people right that uh decide whether or not you are in line with the code of ethics right these are
019the people who do the job when the commission is fully staffed and it's a volunteer gig no one gets paid for it they meet regularly monthly they used to meet in trenton now they're meeting remotely um there's nine people on it when it's fully stabbed it is not right now it has not had nine people on it for many many years and i am going to be honest with you friends i'm not even sure who's on the commission right now i think there's like six people because a lot of terms have expired um and the governor appoints people to be members of the ethics commission um he can only appoint uh you know five from any one political party and you know school board membership is not supposed to be political but that's the law
020um and if he's going to appoint well nine uh there would be five non-school officials five people who have nothing to do with school board governance or school board administration five people who do not sit where you sit that is the majority of the commission so i think that that's very interesting to note at the outset that the people who are making these decisions as to whether or not a board member is acting in accordance with the ethics act um most of them are lay people right um two people can be school administrators and two can be board members one of those board member seats has been vacant since well before i started working at njsba i'm not exactly sure how long it's been since two board members have sat on the commission but i
021can tell you friends it's not today right there's still one board member on it and i believe that there is still one school administrator on but it's not a hundred percent clear the ethics commission does maintain a website that has a lot of information on it it's not the most user-friendly thing in the world right but you should visit it you'll get the address as part of your materials and you should spend some time on it it is very very interesting because on the website you will find published advisory opinions and ethics complaints that's how the commission does its work but there are differences between the two um advisory opinions are just that their advice right you're thinking about doing something your board is thinking about doing something you're wondering if you're conflicted or not
022or a fellow board member is conflicted or not you write the ethics commission it's just a matter of sending them a letter pretty much there's no form there's no money there's nothing like that and when they get the letter at their next meeting they'll talk about it consider your situation issue decide on what the right advice is going to be write your letter back and send it to you it's as easy as that um and it's never punitive even if the advice is well you are conflicted if you were to participate in a vote like that you'll need to step away something like that never any kind of punishment involved they give you the advice and they just trust that you're going to take it um and some of those are published on their website
023which is a good thing because when an advisory opinion is published then your your field service representative and your school board attorney and njsba legal and njsba as a whole kind of get a read on you know what those sec's interpretation of the code of ethics and the act itself is and we can offer guidance to our school board members that we serve so publishing it is a great thing um but it needs six yes votes in order to be published and for some odd reason i'm not exactly sure why there's not a lot of them that our that are published and right now i think there's only six people on the commission at the most so i'm not sure if we're gonna get too many more um in 2021 but we will see they
024are useful when they come through but only one was published this year and it wasn't even that illuminating quite frankly um ethics complaints are a different story ethics complaints are the ones that you hear about all the time right because that's when someone's upset with you that's when someone's mad and they're gonna file an ethics complaint they think you've done something wrong they're very convinced you've done something wrong so an ethics complaint is about past behavior and unlike an advisory opinion which can only be requested by a board member about themselves or their fellow board members right so only clifton commissioners can ask about clifton commissioners you can't ask about patterson you can't ask about wanaku you can't ask about verona right um ethics complains anyone can file an ethics complaint could be a fellow
025board member could be someone who works in the district could be a parent could be someone who just lives in town could be someone who lives five towns away and it's just reading a newspaper about you could be anyone and it's about behavior that has already happened and could not be corrected right because it's in the past and the other thing about ethics complaints is that they do carry a penalty if you are found in violation of the act and this is these are the penalties um ranging from least to most severe what happens is the commission determines what the penalty would you know what they think the penalty should be if they find a violation and the commissioner of education either affirms it or kind of adjusts it right so in in ascending order
026a reprimand is just a real simple one between you know it's just a letter between you and the commissioner of education saying that you've done something wrong and it always cracks me up to say oh just a letter from the commissioner of education telling you you were bad like that's kind of a big thing but it's not as bad as a censure because accenture needs to be read from the deus so that's a public statement that you violated the act that's pretty bad um a suspension is even worse because yes the commissioner of education does have the ability to take you off your board for a certain amount of time especially if the ethics commission has recommended that and in severe cases you could even be removed from service and there were two decisions this
027year where the sec wanted to see the board members removed and we'll talk about that a little bit later on tonight but again these are the penalties they are very embarrassing all of them not not good and the other thing about um ethics violations or ethics uh filings is they go on the school ethics website no matter what and once they're decided every detail every freckle every here is on there with the ethics advisory opinions those are scrubbed you don't know who's asking for them what district there are no names attached but there sure are with the ethics violations right um and here is how the commission did its work last year they drafted 21 advisory opinions so they sent out 21 letters with all sorts of great advice i guess but they only publish
028one of them as i mentioned um they heard they decided upon 28 allegations of school ethics violations 28 24 of them were dismissed right four cases were recommended to the commissioner with penalties two of them were my district's friends so i hope the next time i give this uh presentation i don't have to say that any of my districts were involved here but this year fifty percent of them are um mandatory training violations look at that center tab um out of the 5 000 board members or so who serve in new jersey 22 of them did not do their training on time 22 and 8 of them were kicked off their boards four of them were suspended right 10 got the reprimand but eight were removed this is a kind of a serious deal so
029do your training and don't do it on new year's eve our servers always go down i can't find somebody to help you if you can't access the online training it can be a real mess do your training as soon as you possibly can um uh advisory opinions before i get into this anybody have any questions i'm doing so much talking anyone got anything for me i have it on question kathy okay what you got okay so um since we had changed our election from from november to april and then back to november yes so our two cycles um we have uh four years on one you know one term now yes i'm taking governance for this year will i take it again if i'm elected in november i believe you will yes clifton is really
030ground-breaking in this way you really are um but but but the rule is first year of a re-elected term so keep it clean and and do it that way all right okay i heard a blip does that mean that someone is commenting because i am not good with comments did somebody comment and ask a question all right excellent okay friends yeah just unmute yourself i'm not good with ray's hands i'm not good with chat room very bad that way so but i love to hear your voices anyway so no shame in unmuting okay any other questions okay um here's the advisory opinion you can read it at your leisure um a superintendent basically wanted to promote his sister-in-law um from cafeteria worker to secretary and the commission said in very appointed language maybe really it's
031that's really the only interesting part about is the language they used uh the commission said nope that would be a conflict so it wasn't all that helpful but typically when you're talking about ethics violations here's where they come from the code of ethics so we're going to go through that there are subsections from a to j um on this and there's where you know this when people do bad things a lot of times it comes from not following the code of ethics and the first subsection we'll go through all the subsections briefly but the first one is the easiest really it's that you'll obey the law right state board of education tells you to do something you gotta you know you'll do it right quartz tell you you'll do it so a is easy b
032is my favorite okay b is the poetry and the law really and b is why you guys are school board members right um and i and if you don't mind i'm just going to read this out loud and it is that and this is a requirement under the law to think about this that you as a school board member will make decisions in terms of the educational welfare of children and you will seek to develop and maintain public schools that meet the individual needs of all children regardless of their ability race creed sex or social standing right children all children it's as simple and also as complicated as that but this is why you are here friends and this is why honestly it is my honor to serve school board members because all my school
033board members want to give back to their community right um and so do elected officials right but you're not on the town council you're not in the state assembly you are not in any other elected position other than being a school board member and your work is for children and that is an honor honestly um so b is clearly my favorite part of the law and it i will also tell you this friends it's kind of hard to find a violation of b but there was one this year so we'll get to that very depressing um c continues the job description right you'll confine you can find your board action to policy making planning and appraisal that's what boards do right they also communicate with their public but the commission doesn't care all that much
034about that policy making planning and appraisal that's what boards do and you will help to frame policies and plans after you've consulted those who are affected by them what does that mean does that mean you have to send out surveys every time you make a decision no public commentary will certainly take care of that but it's all about those three things and you do that with your fellow board members right and the jaw and that dovetails beautifully into d which um if you have not heard this before right you will hear it a million times and you deserve to this deserves to be shouted from the hilltops this is mighty important um but this also takes a while for people to understand it gets violated all the time but simply put it's not your responsibility
035to run the schools but to see that they are well run together with your fellow board members okay we don't do the day-to-day friends this is another reason why it's very rewarding to be a school board member because you're the right you're the 30 000 put you you are the what are our goals for our district what are our communities aspirations for our children's right what's the best educational program that we can provide for our children within our means that's why you're a school board member for the quotidian stuff that's what your administrators do right and this is why our boards can be can be made up of lay people right i don't have an educational background i i worked in banking right my whole life but i could be an effective school board member
036because i didn't have to worry about running the schools right i didn't have to and also the other key phrase here my friends is together with my fellow board members because nothing happens without a majority vote right that's together with your fellow board members when you are not at the dais and you are not taking action on agenda items you have no authority right it's all about the team it is all about the body it's never about just one board member right and that slides very beautifully into subsection e which unfortunately can i just real quick oh of course absolutely is that danny i hear you it's danny uh because you can still recognize your voice even after a year thank you well you know you know my feelings for you i think you're amazing
037i just wanted to to stop on that last one because you know that last one is every superintendent's favorite uh favorite one and uh we don't have that issue here in clifton i'm i'm so thankful because i've been in a situation where i've had that um but and i don't want to take away your thunder but do you have that slide later on with the light bulbs i do not have the slide with the light bulb but you want me to ask the light bulb riddle danny and see i love it i love the light bulb riddle because i think it explains really well uh the role of a board member i am so happy to give that and and for your public to hear it too because a lot of people don't quite understand
038the board members role right but the old joke is how many board members does it take to screw in a light bulb zero frank the teacher's pet got it right zero is a hundred percent right why not frank why doesn't why doesn't it take any board members to we need light what's going on with that oh my gosh i don't know how to explain this correctly but it's um it's the superintendent that carries out the day-to-day um taking care of the runnings at the school of the uh schools right right exactly does anybody else have another take on that because he's right there's another way of putting it right it's it's kind of biblical right it's up to the board to say there be light we don't change the light but we say let there
039be light and it's up to the superintendent to decide what kind of lighting to use so if he wants to use led if he wants to use fluorescent if he wants to use candles that is his prerogative the board's concerned with the light now danny may say i got a great deal on candles and we're using open flames and the board may say uh i don't know about that danny is that okay could you please explain to us why we shouldn't be concerned about safety or fumes or this or that and he will do that and he will explain to you that and after he carries out his program of you know lighting all those candles and putting all you know and making the district light nice and light um he'll come back to the
040board and tell you how it went and he might say you know what i've decided led is really the way to go the candles didn't work out for this reason or that reason or this reason so let's align our resources more towards led or he may surprise the board and the candles have a nice glow and they're great for you know meditation and social emotional learning has taken you know a few steps up in the district ever since we've used these candles you just don't know you have to trust your superintendent to work the lights right you just say we want some lights he does everything else and you evaluate his performance in that method and we're getting towards the um superintendent evaluation season so it's important for you to know that that you do
041have a say in how that worked out on the superintendent's evaluation but what you do not do is you don't go to the microphone and i'm so glad it's not an issue in clifton because you're right danny it happens in a lot of places right where a board member will say will pontificate over you know what kind of choices of lighting they want or what they think is best and that's not our call right thank god thank god i love dee um did i explain that to you you know did is that making sense to everybody i know i get a little cathy judy bassford yes judy hey could you could you give us a couple ideas of um what would be uh considered running the district the daily operations do you have any like
042small ones there are as many ideas as grains of sand on the beach right um one of those things that i that that pops into my head because i was researching this for another presentation today is the board member who demanded that the curriculum director um give him reports that's not you know that's not the board member's job if the board wants reports they may ask the superintendent for that um but board members do not talk to staff right as far as demanding anything or checking on that we have one employee it's the superintendent it's a super that's one example um there's there's there's a hundred million but i i could be here all night and we will tell and there are some violations as we go through the uh through the presentation from last
043year i believe too so we'll see those i hope that answers that question um e is another problem it goes hand in hand with d if you violate this one it's very very similar um and that is as far as the amount of times that this thing gets violated and that is that you know authority rests with the board and not with the individual so you can't go around saying i'm the clifton board of education yeah we'll get your niece a job oh yeah the board's seriously we're going to close that school or yes rezoning absolutely you know you tell me what you wanted to have done and i'll get it done that is an absolute violation of e again you have no authority when you leave the board table and no one commissioner makes
044decisions for the board these are agenda items that you vote through i mean board membership is very methodical friends it's a lot of steps and you know but that's that's the best way of doing it that's the way of doing it um f i probably don't have to spend too much time talking about because it's pretty evident that you're on the board to use your independent judgment right you can't be the wall carrier for anyone and certainly not for partisan political groups or special interest groups you don't use the your position for your own personal gain or the gain of friends or relatives right that's not good g is very verbose but i can sum it up in two words really and that's no leaks if something is in executive session it needs to stay
045in executive session if you have confidential information it needs to stay confidential and not just because you want to stay in line with the ethics act right or the code of ethics but because you're a human being and because when these leaks happen they damage lives and i'm not kidding you right so g is mighty mighty important um h i love h again it speaks to the reason why we can't have boards made up of professionals and and individuals from all walks of life because our educational leader will identify the best hires for us so we need his recommendation before we vote on a personnel hire right they need to be recommended by the superintendent okay only one exception and that's a danielson hearing um but other than that thank god those are very few
046and far between but other than that your typical agendas you're you know when you're voting to approve new teachers new principal new business administrator you need the recommendation of your superintendent hi i love i i is my favorite right after b sorry dan i love d2 danny but i love i because i gets you out of so many bad conversations you're at a cocktail party and pete and all of a sudden you see three parents coming at you and they want to talk about the coach right you're at church and someone wants to talk about their daughter's teacher on the phone all the time right whatever it is if this hasn't happened to you yet it is going to you can't take part in those conversations my friend you bet you rely on i you
047need to put support and protect the personnel the school personnel and the proper performance of their duties right and it's never been more important especially in a year like this one right so i've always loved i pre pandemic i love it post pandemic but i really love it now um rely on i which dovetails beautifully into j j speaks to the chain of command um and the chain of command for all those who are listening i'm sure the commissioners know this very well is you start if there is a complaint or an issue or a concern you start at the lowest level right so that parent who was having an issue with their son's coach right take it up with the coach if not then go to the athletic director if that doesn't work then
048the superintendent you work your way through the chain of command you do not go to a board member right away the board is the court of last resort and notice i said the board not a board member right and a lot of our public don't understand what we do as board members and it doesn't make them bad people and it doesn't make them bad citizens but we do have to take the time to educate them what that chain of command looks like because if they try to insert board members into the process beforehand they're really compromising the whole situation right and and you may even if it ever does come before the board you may have to recuse yourself and that's just a quagmire you don't want to be in um and notice here my
049friends that um the board will act on complaints at public meetings only after the failure of an administrative situation solution and what that doesn't say is only it doesn't say a popular administrative solution or a happy administrative solution or an acceptable admit it's a failure of an administrative solution so just because the solution does not exactly line up with you know you know kathy q parents you know wish list um might not you know it's still going through the chain of command properly and does not necessarily belong in front of the board but in the meantime in the meantime if and when you hear complaints because you will you do need to let your superintendent know and when i say let him know i don't mean that you call him and say danny i heard
050this i need you to get on it danny i heard from kathy mrs hello or she's all upset give her a call and find out what she needs danny follow up with me blah blah any of that business no you just let him know what you heard and then you back away and you're in line with jay if you do it that way okay if you try to take it any further than that you may very well be in violation of the code of ethics and the ethics act so those are all of our subsections i know i've done a lot of talking but i am wondering if there's any questions or thoughts on these things from my my friends here in clifton miss hello i do have a question hey joe what's up so
051based on inj so when we get a lot of times when people send an email to the board and they send it to the whole entire board and while i would love to reply to that i can't so i always just tell them forward to the superintendent and say fyi and and that's it what is the best way to handle those situations and how do you communicate back to the the person who's relying on you reaching out to you saying you know here's my situation laying out in front of the board how do you get back to that person without violating these these ethics that's a great question and you know what you certainly can get back if a person is emailing you directly right you joe right if they're emailing the entire board let
052the president handle that okay but if they are emailing you because they will right because they know you or an individual or this or that just explain to them why you can why it's not appropriate why you can't take any kind of action but you'll ask that they move through the chain of command you educate them on how to do things right but you're just not their guy and in the time you'll tell danny but you shouldn't on it even you really as a best practice not tell them i will let the superintendent know even though you have to because it's a code of ethics only because that gives a false impression that they're jumping the chain of command or that knowing that you're telling danny about things even though you're required to is going
053to bump them up the ladder you know if you pump them up the priority list that's not the case that's just the way it has to be done um and it does require some finesse you know it really does it may require a couple of tries if a parent or a you know constituent is asking you the same question a lot of you know often but that really is the best way to protect school board service does that make does that sound practical to you i mean i'm just wondering so kind of anymore kind of but i i have before replied back that um you know i'm referring to this the superintendent and forward it over now is that considered a violation or is that like you say that that's like a middle ground i
054don't know how else i would tell the person the person reached out to me so i'm getting forwarded over do i just reply back and say thank you like i don't even know what would you even say other than i'm sending to the superintendent no don't say yeah well first of all yeah stop saying i'm sending it to the superintendent to be quite blunt because that's not that's not good that's creating the impression that hey joe's my man i'll send it to him he sends it to the superintendent boom it's taken care of when that's not the way it's supposed to be right and i will tell you that also erodes staffs trust in the board because they're skipping over a bunch of steps right i'm a school principal why is this board member referring
055all my parents right to the superintendent that's not the way it should be done right i'm just kind of paraphrasing here what a principal might think um so what you would do is you would explain to the person look there's a process for uh for our district to handle these things it's your child's teacher um talk to the school principal if you don't make satisfaction from the teacher and they'll take it from there and if you don't receive satisfaction from the school principle then you elevate you know you go up the line and you command but typically these complaints are solved well before or the superintendent imagine if they weren't all of the things that go on in the school district the size of clifton right problems are getting solved every minute right every minute
056of every day thank god we don't have to to deal with them and it's not fair to give the public the impression that we do you know that's just not our our job description does that help at all does that help yeah it does it just the only piece i don't like about that is it doesn't like nowadays people love communication they want to hear back if i send an email to the ceo of apple because my device is broke i want to hear back you know thanks for your complaint we sent it to the customer service somebody will be reaching out to you or whatever the situation is just from a customer service perspective it almost makes me feel like you're just throwing them aside you know what i mean right well you know
057what joe you have to trust the system too you have to trust your district from a customer service perspective and um and i get what you're saying even though we're not you know this is this is a school district right so it's not really the same exact thing but i totally get what you're saying um your customer service is educating the people who reach out to you what a board member does and what the district's procedures are kathy i have a question yes i have a question uh judy bastard i don't know if you can see me i recognize your voice my friend okay my my question i i agree with joe because we have some people in this district that will get very antsy if we do not respond back to them but also
058depends on the situation if we if we get an email from a parent saying that uh a principal or teacher's been abusing their child i don't care what chain of command i'm sending that to the superintendent because he that has to go directly to him well you have to look the jay says any complaints that you hear you right bring to the superintendent no matter how small so really what i do is i say to the person thank you for your concerns and comments i you know i don't speak for the board nor do i take action on to for the board on on my behalf i said and usually i write that i'm forwarding to the right person or the proper authority whatever i wouldn't even honestly judy don't forward don't forward in my
059humble opinion your attorneys will lead you through this i'm not an attorney but what do you do what do you do if it's like somebody telling you that there's somebody being abused or a child being molested or something like that yeah well you have to comply with the law right and i don't know the law of hand so that's a great question for your attorney but for the more mundane things right like my daughter's teacher is on the phone all the time you know uh the bus is always running behind yeah we wouldn't even respond to this disgusting my kid's getting bullied all of that business right that is the kind of thing that board members don't get involved with at the ground level you just do i usually just send it to danny i
060say fyi because i you know it is it is because right now we are in a very sensitive we had a lot of sensitive stuff going on the last couple of months with uh the schools being closed and i think danny wanted to hear what was going on so i really didn't get one but we got one we got one about two weeks ago and i forwarded it to danny because you know i didn't know what to do with it and i just told the person i don't speak for the board i'm not gonna i can't answer you on this i don't speak for this group so somebody hopefully you know you will be answered it was all about the referendum it was about the referendum so that's danny so um yeah you know i
061i just said that you know hopefully we'll be able to address your concerns as a group that's it um well i'm wondering if it would be helpful if we kind of had a draft today a response a typical response that board members could use that basically outlines what you said you know i would appreciate that because i you know you don't know what they don't know what to respond back to people yeah and you know what that's a great idea and i will tell you this my friends um veteran commissioners remember tafari anderson right and if you ever emailed tafari he had an automatic reply that came back with a version of that right i don't remember what the gee i wonder where he got that from i am telling you i could probably d
062i don't know though my emails only go back like a year but um i might be able to dig it out and you could use that as a template i have it i'll forward it to you all right friends you may want to build off of that that could be a good thing to do i mean automatic response just i think policy might that might be a good thing for the policy committee to do you guys have a policy committee i think right that might no we don't we just fly by the seat of our pants some boards don't have a policy committee and they put their policies in front of the different committees you know a personnel policy in front of personnel or this or that but um that might be something in some
063ports have a governance committee instead of a policy committee but that might be a good endeavor yeah i think that's a really good idea just the short and sweet about you know that i've read your complaint here are the steps that that you can take here's what my role is as a board member uh and judy maybe we could bring that to policy we could draft it unless yeah unless there is any uh advice sometimes sometimes the board appoints a spokesperson too for their board that nobody responds unless the spokesperson is responding i i think the idea of having a dr uh uh a template for a response is really great that way everybody's saying the same thing um and the spokesperson for the board is the board president you know yeah absolutely absolutely thanks
064early for for so actually can we talk about that for a second so the spokesperson for the board is the board president but if we're in between meetings how do we then as a full board discuss with the board president what our feelings are about how to reply to specific emails how do you handle the communication in between in between board meetings um i don't see i don't see a disconnect there joe because when there's communication between board meetings i mean i think you're talking about emails and and people emailing you their their take on things or this or that is that is accurate yeah so so let's say let's go back to this other case where we had a something sent to all of us if we wanted to reply if we wanted to
065then forward that to the um to the board president and say you know i think whatever it is you know whatever the situation is um can we have that type of communication or is that not allowed uh that kind of you know and der lee's if you want to chime in here again i'm not an attorney but what i'm hearing here is um already the the email went to the full board right right so your board president is they're on alert right they need to respond to that person not you now you could certainly call about how how would they formulate their response not knowing what the other eight members are feeling um it's kind well i will tell you this it's it's uh it's i think it's fact specific but part of these things
066i suppose is just to listen to what your your constituent is telling you if the constituent is asking some kind of a question about action that the board has already taken or discussions that have been in front of the board then the board president can certainly offer that information but if there's something that the you know the emailer or the constituent or whoever's getting in touch wants the board president to kind of project like which way do you think the board's going to go or has or considered this or that then that um you know then the board president certainly can't say what the board is going to do or how the board is going to consider it i mean they can say look we're listening to you thank you very much for offering this
067up um you know this is actually going to be in a discussion topic on our next agenda or in a couple of meetings or whatever um but i i think you know just by the very nature of board governance being so methodical a lot of the times people will email the board president and the board with questions that cannot be answered at that time you know that will require board discussion makes sense and and and i hope i'm not talking out of terms early please you are um you are a very valuable resource in this area no i agree i mean if it's something that's that big uh that's that then it would require having a meeting maybe have a special board meeting to discuss it thinking you've got um you know that requires input
068from everyone um like you said it's very fact specific it depends on what the particular question is yeah and again joe you know like i said this is a report so if you're getting these emails and you're not sure what to do right call your board president you know ask for der lisa's input you could call me you could call njsba we will help guide you through these things it's not all on your shoulders right it it it isn't and it is it does take time to wade through these the danger in violating the code of ethics and the ethics act is it's not something to be messed around with we want you to keep your nose clean so rely on your team you know and everyone um kath uh robin meehan wrote the actual
069response years ago i'm deleting myself and back in 2011 so i have it i have to go checking for it i'll bring it to policy and then we'll we'll let it run its course terrific yeah and you know what i wouldn't mind it's probably in robin's files i could probably dig it up uh but you know what you you know my email address judy where pals you can send it directly to me no i don't know your email address okay thank you i had a bad day being snarky it was rough today i mean i don't know what's going on it's it's been a reward it's been a rough year it's been a rough year for everybody and i will tell you i mean it's just never been harder to be a board member especially
070with um you know the school reentry plans it's been very difficult and board members have been asked to do things um you know and consider things that really have them on the hot seat you know but like i said at the beginning and and unfortunately you know the ethics commission has been very slow to issue you know illustrative guidance in the form of advisory opinions i don't know what they're hearing you what they're deciding upon with their advisory opinions but any little bit would help really so in the meantime we rely on what we have right and what i said at the outset of our presentation is that this is the same for every school board in every district every charter so although you may feel like you know but our district is dealing with
071this right but it's this way in our district the ethics commission doesn't care they are going to decide on an ethics complaint for clifton the same way they would for frank itty bitty franklin township where there's more corn stalks than people by a long shot right it's the same standards for everybody so um just kind of keep that in mind and and and i hate to make it seem like you always have to be careful but you kind of do you know you kind of do but the good news is that you're not alone we'll help you you know we'll help you and the work that you're doing is very rewarding because it's for kids you know so you want to do it right you want to do it right i sent it to you
072danny and jim smith thank you thank you any other ques thoughts or comments or this or that from for my friends in clifton okay i know i'm doing a lot of talk but i appreciate the i appreciate your time trust me and we're already and we're already coming up on an hour so i'm sorry for him if you don't get to hear all of this brilliant presentation but you're going to get you're going to get a copy of it i just wanted to go through some of the things you know judy you were asking for examples before well we could talk about um this is like my everyone's favorite part of the presentation what bad board members did last year right um and there were a few examples that are significant um one is a
073person who just did not fill out her disclosure form right and she got a censure um but this one speaks to that whole reply all thing joe this is a real interesting one for you for everybody right so this one i forget what district this was oh yes i do east greenwich right in south jersey um a teacher who was also a parent in the district emailed the full board emailed the superintendent and copied the full board right and the email that she sent had to do with an item that was previously dis or an instance that was previously discussed in executive session in executive session during a board meeting now this particular individual was not part of executive session and i don't know what the email said i i can't remember what it was
074but she was just opining on the issue right but it was executive session material sends it to the superintendent copies the full board on it a board member reads this and has some thoughts right and has some thoughts so he uses the dreaded reply all button to add to the conversation and put his thoughts out in front of the superintendent on the board now veterans know that this is just very bad behavior on a couple for a couple of reasons one is you don't use reply all as a board member it is a violation of the open public meetings act because that starts a conversation and conversations be among a quorum of the border greater need to happen at the dais whether it's an executive session or public session needs to happen at the dais
075and reply all is the antithesis of that right so that's a problem but that's a sunshine law and the sec has nothing to do with the sunshine law right that's superior court but the reason why this is in my ethics presentation is because the parent slash teacher was still cc'd on that email was reply when they hit reply all the parent got it so the parent slash teacher was privy to discussion that happened in executive session confidential material so that's a violation of g and um and also the commission did note you're probably you're likely in violation of opmah but we're not that's not our bag but you are also in violation of g and you get a reprimand okay so avoid that reply all you may think you're doing someone a favor or you
076know it's good governance it's not trust me in that situation if they just hit reply and not reply all is that okay you're not okay that is okay that is okay whether or not that's a good thing is is you know kind of fact specific but that's in line you know the initial email went to the entire board and then you replied back to the person as long as you're replying to you know an individual then that's okay okay it's okay i mean it's probably not the best thing because if you want to have a conversation it may be best for the deus but again that's pretty fact specific so you know consider that but replying is all right and sending out you know emails to the full board that's okay there's nothing wrong with
077that one-way stream of information that's okay and answering back one person that's okay but not a reply all you know if if somebody you know any kind of thing that looks like a conversation is no good is no good derelies i i hope i didn't i hope i made that clear and that would be in line with your advice but you know please excuse me if i overstep perfectly no no perfect thank you okay thank you thank you it's good to have you here um this decision was out of lodi and this one was horrible right i'm glad that this um this was just bad um if you read this it's on the school ethics commission's website this was a board member who maintained one of those blogs right one of those you know about
078town blogs or what have you and this predated his board service he was at odds with a teacher in the district so he made lots of posts um about exactly what he thought about her and he used very um intimidating language she used profanity um put a picture of her house up and named her street it was awful right it was awful it was and although he said in his blog that he was not speaking for the board he did mention in his post that he was a board member so the sec found that um you know yeah absolutely that was in violation of the ethics act it was in violation of subsection c e and i and this person did get a six-month suspension from their board well deserved if you ask me um
079and he's not serving on his board anymore but he still does run the blog so there's that um this one is one of my districts this is montague and this was a 29 page decision very interesting which obviously i'm not going to walk you through but basically montague um used to send its kids over the border to port jervis new york for their high school agent for middle school and high school education um but at some point uh and it's a divisive issue in the community whether they should stay in new jersey or go over into new york right they had been doing that for generations but at some point the board petitioned the commissioner of education to change that arrangement keep the kids and the money in new jersey the kids would get a
080new jersey public school education which we know is superior to new york's um and uh you know the commissioner agreed it took a long time but that they started sending their kids to high point not everybody was happy with that and a particular individual was elected to the board she became board president and she real and her son was going to be attending high point regional high school she really stepped over the line she definitely wanted him to go to port jervis right um if you read through that decision you'll see a lot of examples of behavior that will really curl your hair including a violation of b right a violation of b that you will make decisions based on the educational welfare of all children right not just your kid not just your kid
081violation of b is rare but i will tell you this friends i worked with this board member and she's not a bad person she really isn't um but she went over the line and i think that this illustrates that sometimes if you have a particular point of view you can really or an agenda it's not always a bad word right but sometimes you can really go overboard and find yourself at odds with the ethics act so just be very careful um and this one is a local case you're probably familiar with this a board member in patterson the commissioner was offered a trip to arizona by a vendor board member said look i'd take the trip but you know what that would conflict me out of the vote i can't i can't vote for your
082products i can't even discuss them with my board so i mean i don't know you know why you'd want me to go to arizona they said oh just go it'll be fine you don't have to participate and vote just learn more about our products and the board member went and he did he recused himself from the vote and from discussion but that agitated someone and they filed an ethics complaint and the commission did find that board member in violation of the ethics act and like the prior decision like the prior decision that i talked about from montague the commission want thought that the appropriate suspension for this board member would be removal the reason why the montague board member was not removed is because it took five plus years for that thing to be decided
083and by the time it was decided she wasn't on her board anymore this decision the commission really did make no bones about it i mean they wanted to make an example of this board member they wanted to make sure that other board members don't think it's okay to take trips like this right like people are always offering up strips right but they wanted to make an example of this person and they recommended removal the commissioner of education disagreed he thought that that was too harsh and he amended it to a six-month suspension the board member is appealing it because he feels that he was conflicted for sure but recusal was you know would have taken care of that and that's what he did um so he's appealing the suspension he's suspended right now he asked
084the new commissioner of education if he um had to sit out his suspension during the appeal and she said yes so this is still kind of developing we'll see what happens and it's local so we'll see um and speaking of conflicts of interest um those are spelled out in the first section of the ethics act and here they are right if you need interpretation on what these mean rely on you know um your attorney um you know like i said njsba legal can kind of help you with that as well you may need to write for an advisory opinion but for if you fit the description under any of these categories right you can still stay on your board but you cannot participate in the discussion or the vote leading up to these agenda items
085and it's not just that in case there's a benefit to you but also a member of your immediate family right so a financial involvement for you a financial involvement for a member of your immediate family what's a member of your immediate family um your mom is not unless and your grandfather is not right it's only a spouse or dependent child who lives with you right so your dad is not a member of your immediate family according to the ethics commission but your dad your mom your grandma your niece they are relatives okay this is a very wide-ranging definition right all of these people are your relatives and the reason why we need to keep this in mind is because we need to determine when we're conflicted or not if you have someone belonging to you
086in the immediate family realm or the relative realm who works in the district in clifton you would not be able to participate in the hiring process for your superintendent which we won't have to do anyway we got one got a good one um but you also cannot evaluate your superintendent and you can't weigh in on his contract whereas miracles or anything like that if you have someone belonging to you who works in clifton for the clifton public school district right but um i have i have a question so the infinite relationship that i have that you and i always talk about is my second cousin i can really consider my first cousin even though it's not under there i is it safe which i do all the time is i put her down anyway just
087to be on the safe side better safe than sorry um i would you know what faheem i and and please forgive me for not recalling that um but you know what i would ask for der lee's opinion or an advisory opinion i mean because it said you know if you feel like you're conflicted then no one can force you to participate in a vote um but you may be missing out on some important you know matters of governance uh that you might not necessarily need to so you know talk to your attorney uh or ask for your attorney's input on that thank you since because that person probably falls under the category of other if you look at this slide right let me where is it this big relative thing guess what's not on here
088cousin right it's not there but a cousin could qualify as another and certainly a second cousin right or his cousin's spouse or this or that i will tell you it's kind of interesting what shows up and cousin has showed up in the other category before also an ex has showed up in the other category so it can be very fact specific you know you may want to write for an advisor opinion just to make sure you keep your nose clean but if you feel conflicted right and you have a real valid reason for that which it sounds like it does then you know then recuse yourself that's perfectly fine thank you no thank you and that that was um and it's and thanks for sticking around i'm sorry this is a little longer than anticipated
089um but so we we talked about this business right um but also where what a relative is an immediate family member is that plays into the collective bargaining agreement um veterans have seen this before this guidance has changed over the years but this is the most recent guidance that we have this came directly this chart came directly from the school ethics commission in an advisory opinion 8 24 17 you'll find it on their website and basically what it says is that if a member of your immediate family or a relative works in the district you're out of negotiations from start to finish but if you or a member of your immediate family works for the union in another district you're out at the start you're back in at the very finish right when the memorandum
090of agreement is reached all your salary guides are nailed down ever you know all the total compensation packages is agreed upon you just need pretty much what it translates to is it's the final vote most of the time you're back in you're back in if you do have someone belonging to you in that wide ranging right that big relative thing who works out of district right who works in cedar grove who works in uh manalapan who works in cape may then you are in then you're in but you see those asterisks right absent another conflict you might not be completely and you have to you know make sure that there's no other conflict the most here are three of them that the commission has identified in past advisory opinions the most popular of these is
091the heightened union involvement thing so if my nephew works in pompton plains and he is on his uh negotiations committee then i can't participate in negotiations in warren township as a board member right if my sister-in-law is the president of her union in verona then i'm probably out but get the opinion of your school board attorney to keep your noses very clean um also you should know that if the union formally endorses you then you need to sit out of negotiations for uh you know the net until it's until it's settled right the the round of negotiations that happens after your um after your election right so you're kind of out for a year but endorsement is interesting there was that case a 10-18 from from 2018 was where a board member was running unopposed
092he was a member of the negotiations team and the union wasn't too crazy about him so they offered him their endorsement and they offered him money knowing that if they gave him his their endorsement and he took their money that he would be out of negotiations for a while he refused it didn't need the money didn't want the endorsement but they endorsed him anyway no money changed hands and when i say they endorsed him anyway they sent out literature to their membership endorsing his candidacy right and saying what a great candidate he was so when he was re-elected and of course he was going to be re-elected because no one else was on the ballot um they came to and said oh we're sorry board member but you're out of negotiations you're conflicted because you
093know got our endorsement and he said oh no no no no no gonna write to the ethics commission and they agreed that he has every right to participate in negotiations that wasn't a valid endorsement but the decision hinged if i'm remembering it correctly on money like there was no money that changed hands so it's kind of interesting and i think you should uh keep that in mind just you know and you can read this on the ethics commission's website there's all sorts of interesting nuggets on that website believe me doctrine of necessity i'm not going to waste much time on that's if a quorum of the board uh or greater are conflicted on a particular item you have this for your reference i don't think you guys need to use it in clifton much if
094at all um but i did wanted to mention volunteerism because for many years um volunteerism just wasn't an issue right and school board members would volunteer all the time and i do believe in fact i saw on social media that commissioners went into the classroom and well into the virtual classroom and read for read across america day right that's volunteerism is that at odds with my board membership well not that no not at all and one time non-executive kind of things where you're a chaperone or you're reading at read across america day or maybe you're helping out on field day or participating in career day that's fine you can absolutely do that but some board members in the past stepped over the line an advisory opinion was asked for and written and it does you
095know and it's not a bad thing because sometimes board members do get a little close to violating d right when they're in the school all the time and they're getting too close to the to the way the schools are run so we do want to keep our nose clean um so um and not you know but up against the ethics act or the code of ethics while we're trying to do something good so your friendly field service representatives have made a seven question questionnaire before you go into the district to do some volunteerism whether virtually or in person after this pandemic is over ask yourself these questions right um am i giving any kind of orders or taking orders from students or staff am i going to be doing this very often um you know
096back in the days when we actually walked into school buildings would it look to visitors like i worked there like i am really enmeshed in this thing um that's not good and don't touch the district's money either don't touch it don't touch it now you can volunteer for the pto or the girl scouts or the rec commission or any other kind of volunteer organization that has its own bylaws and its own bank accounts it's not the school district so you can still sit on the pto executive board and support pto activities that's fine but what you cannot do is you can't um you know decide to institute you know clifton middle school archaeology club right i think that that would be a great idea my graduate degree is in archaeology i'd love to bring that
097to middle school students and start a club wouldn't that be great well yeah for a lay person but not for a board member because that starts to get to that thing where you're regularly meeting with students and giving them directions and in the school ethics commission's estimation that is at odds with your board membership so unfortunately you wouldn't be able to do that um but when in doubt you know ask for the input of your board attorney and you can always run things past me to begin with if you want um so i'm just wondering before i leave volunteerism are there any questions on that or anything else that i've talked about okay all right because that's kind of a letdown for a lot of board members i know but i think we're getting used
098to the guidance it's not a bad thing um interview committees the board has one employee and it's the superintendent right um but this and the superintendent owns the hiring process that being said um the superintendent may want to do an interview committee and may not um so someone asked for an advisor asked the the commission you know their advice on uh interview committees and at least two separate occasions and two decisions were issued they're up here and what you can glean from those is that the commission does not like interview committees at all you know it's these the decisions are very verbose they go round around saying that they're just not a good idea but the superintendent owns the hiring process so if he wants somebody on his commission committee he needs to ask not
099the other way around right not like oh yes you know i asked the superintendent he said yes no he needs to ask you right you might not even want it he probably doesn't need it but if he wants it he can ask for it however the ethics commission did put very narrow um definitions on what's acceptable and what's not i mean it's really kind of micro like there can only be one or two you can only listen you can't ask questions it's kind of i don't know why they just didn't say don't but they didn't so that there's the guidance on that what is also interesting though is someone asked years prior in 2010 if the board could do exit interviews and that decision was very succinct and it was a big solid no that
100that's a violation of d so it's kind of interesting to contrast these but this is the guidance that we have so um you know the bottom line is the sec does not like interview committees but if you're going to be on one it needs to be at the invitation of the superintendent there can only be two of you max and you can't do much just listen really kath kathy i have a question did the ethics commission ever give any guidance or any uh any recommendation in the decision on interview committees that also included members of the general public um i don't know if they were talking if how i don't recall if they mentioned members of the general public on that um you know again that's the superintendent's purview um so i don't think that
101that would really come into play um what they were focused they don't have any jurisdiction over members of the general public so they were really focused on board members roles okay i was just wondering because uh yeah i i don't feel comfortable being on any of these type of committees because we're first of all we're not employees of the district and it's just this whole legal thing so thank you i'm sorry well you know remember i mean your superintendent is the educational leader of the district so i mean what he sees the district's you know administrative needs are i mean you know let him do his j he'll do his job right if he feels like the district will be best served by having two board members on an interview committee and remember this was
102about an interview committee right hiring then he'll do it right then he'll do it so a lot of this honestly is just letting the superintendent do what the superintendent needs to do you know and let board members stick to their job description and it's good that it's spelled out um because sometimes the word ethics is kind of gray right it really should be black and white but it's it's very gray and that's why i really do appreciate every time an advisory opinion is published we just don't have too many of them but we do have guidance on interview committees interview committees okay so thanks for asking that judy um and that kind of brings me to a close on the material that i wanted to go over with you um and just some some helpful
103hints really is um just make a list of where all your family members all the wide you know net all your relatives where they work right because god forbid something happens and the integrity of your collective bargaining agreement is in question you don't want that right you don't want that friends i mean i trust me trust me i'm in a painful situation now with a board that didn't realize that they had a conflict uh when they were hiring trying to hire their superintendent and i don't wish that on anybody so i don't wish that on you for your collective bargaining agreements at all um and you know like i've been saying consult with your board attorney not directly of course you have to follow your bylaws and that means going through president smith or danny
104or perhaps mike um to get that kind of opinion but you know ask your board attorney if you're if you're confused right if you really need an answer you may wind up waiting for an advisory opinion and always read your school board notes because if there's something new or interesting or some kind of change or something that you need to be aware of that's coming from the commission or the state board or the courts um it's going to be in school board notes so um that is that is my ethics presentation but i will kind of wrap it up with this um you know uh every year there's all sorts of um you know commencement addresses that you hear and most of them let's face it are forgettable but a few years ago um i
105heard a commencement address from xavier university and the speaker talked on ethics i think this was probably during that whole enron business and he said 99 of ethics is kindness and that's definitely not in the law friends it really isn't you're not going to find that in the school ethics act or anywhere else but i do think it's it's a pretty good barometer and i do think that if we treat each other with respect and if we go by you know uh we have that do's and don'ts sheet that i that i sent to you all electronically just kind of look at that keep that in mind keep that on your refrigerator if you do that and you're familiar with the code of ethics and you're familiar with the school ethics law you're gonna be
106fine um it is you know it is a team sport i've said it before i'll say it as many times as as you need to hear it you're not alone um we're all here to help you because you know what it's about the kids at clifton and that's just a big honor for me to help you in your governance and i can only imagine i know your board membership is important to everybody here so um if if this presentation helps to protect your board membership then i'm very pleased with that um and that's kind of all that i had to say on ethics training tonight but i'm wondering if there are any thoughts or any questions or anything you guys want to put forward because i know it was a lot of one-way talking for
107nearly an hour and a half never a really good thing um and this is a lively bunch i know if i were here for in in person there'd be a lot of conversation going on so does anybody have anything these ethics don't apply to the state legislature oh jim hi it's good to see you i'm so sorry i could barely hear what you said what did you say could you repeat yourself yes i said these ethics don't apply to the state legislature no comment but yes this is a school ethics act yes a school but i know what you're getting at jim and i'm not going there yeah yeah it it it's it's a it's just for school board members and school administrators and the code of ethics is just for board members obviously so
108it's good to see kathy i have a question i'm sorry lucy say thank you sorry judy i just want to say kathy thank you but um i'm gonna go because you know always at night my arm is like the worst so i broke my arm so i broke my arm in my right i am so sorry and i and and i'm sorry if this if just sitting here listening to this made things no i had an ice pack on but you know what it's like at night i guess just from the whole day it just it kills me and it's like you know like right in the center of my i don't know they say that's when it's healing i have no idea i never broke anything i mean maybe my commissioners have some advice
109i don't know but i'm so tired i'm so tired of it hurting i'm like tired of hurting i'm tired of wearing this thing i'm just tired of sitting here i'm tired of everything i'm just tired i am so i feel in your voice lucy yeah i'm just i'm frustrated i'm everything i just want to like be in school and just doing my work and you know what i mean like i you know dealing with that aggravation but that's it you know but i i just like i'm tired of i'm i'm beyond like bored and and just in pain you know bored pain and that's it so on that note because i'm just gonna stop talking at this point i'm sorry judy and i'm i'm just gonna go okay oh that's fine no you know what
110it was good to hear your voice i'm sorry you're in pain you know what i hope there's better days ahead stay in touch okay thank you well you did a great job very comprehensive and thank you and um goodbye good night to all the other board members you know lucy okay take care of you good night you take care of yourself all right thank you bye-bye anyone have any other pains they want to share with us yeah you know i'm telling you i have a question i really have a question i hate hearing this stuff it makes me feel awkward it's so hard and with something like that i think people don't understand how much work board members do i really don't i really don't i have a question about social media was there any
111decisions made on uh like because we're all virtual so i have two screens going right now i have the agenda up on one screen i have i have the board screen on the other and you know we're looking back at what how do i phrase this in the right way um were there any ethics opinions on like um social media like us being live on this but also answering questions on social media at the same time um you know not that i know of judy the only advisory opinion that was published this year had to do with that conflict right um but i will tell you that um you know one of the cases that the that the sec decided on had to do with that social media blog right which was pretty vitriolic if
112you don't mind my saying so that so that was almost obvious right again not the most helpful thing i think if you read that and those blog posts it's like clear like this is just not you know the way of going and that you need to go um but i will also tell you this um i was talking to one of our attorneys today um and he was opining that the ethics commission does have a lot of cases before it now that have to do with social media and and behavior on social media they have not made those decisions yet um they are not public yet i do and i've been if i if i got what john was telling me right i think that they are complaints i don't think that they were advisory
113opinions so eventually those are going to get published we'll see we'll see um and thank you because any time that we use any other kind of like like i said i have my two computers going one has the agenda on it and one has this because when i had to read my minutes for a policy or from another committee or we have to take a vote i can't use the one application on one device because it doesn't support it's not enough memory my worry is that um any time we use anything else such as our phones or um if we answer something or if that's creating an uh another person being in a meeting and if we're answering social media posts while we're in the meeting that would actually be creating a dialogue with other
114people because you're now responding to a question that somebody that didn't come to the public in this type of venue so i'm i'm curious i i when you get them if you see any opinions on this stuff i'd be really interested in why and reading that because that's one of my it's one of my big worries yeah watch your school board notes you know as soon as those things are published it's going to get into school board notes right um and social media had i mean they're kind of behind the times man we've been having issue you know questions about social media for a long time for a long time but i think just by the very nature of the pandemic and the fact that so many meetings are online and accessible to the members
115of the public and um the the things that boards and superintendents are deciding upon are so um critical like the reentry plan and you know virtual learning and hybrid learning and in school that it does open the door um to behavior on social media that needs the ethics commission's attention so we'll see what happens we'll see what happens thank you kathy and sorry lucy i cut you off before i don't think lucy's with us anymore i think she's uh she's you know resting at home rightfully so so um any other so but thanks for offering your thoughts judy i i appreciate i'm wondering if anybody else has any other thoughts i wish i could see everybody i'm so sad i can't see you all is there is there any other board members that might have
116any thoughts or questions for kathy we don't want to uh we don't want to prolong uh this if everyone's done kathy spoke for a very uh productive yes mr awad yeah i just wanted to ask one question i'll just carry out uh i'm just a little curious uh miss kathy uh first and foremost thank you very much for the great presentation i just had a small question as just as a new board member that's still you know kind of picking up the learning as i go uh is there any uh rules or regulations when it comes to ethics when it comes to like family members or uh friends or community members that kind of basically uh speak on behalf of uh people on the board that they said this and that or causing confrontation or
117questioning what's going on policy and stuff like that oh my goodness yeah what a wonderful what a wonderful but but sad question if you don't mind my saying i'm dealing with this in another district okay and it's here's the you know it's a great great question um the the school ethics act applies only to school board members only to school board members um so family members spouses cousins you know kids of school board members um you know anyone belonging to your friend this or that they're not school board members they're not covered under the ethics act right um you're not to violate g so if you were to give confidential information to a family member and they take off and run with it then that's a violation right you need to use your independent judgment
118so i mean it you know but as far as as eight as i believe it's um f goes you know that's more talks about political organizations and partisan organizations and um than individuals so it's it's messy it's messy um unfortunately and i say that unfortunately because this poor board that i am dealing with um in another part of the state um is having real issues with family members inserting their business into the board on social media by the way um and although i can't you know no one can file an ethics charge against this board member's wife or whatever um it's really damaging the work of the board it's awful um and it's not a violation of the ethics act it's not a violation of the ethics act but i did tell that board member
119um you know and i and i hate to like to air dirty laundry i almost feel like i'm doing that but i'm not telling you what district it is and i serve like 69 of them so you won't be able to guess but you know i said you know you got to tell your wife to to knock it off you got to tell her to stop it you know your your fellow board members are not taking kindly to this you know remember it's a team sport you're all in it together it's a pandemic you have to work together even if you disagree and this is not helping this is making things a lot worse a lot worse so i don't know if that answers your question and if you have follow-up questions please ask me
120but um when you talk about family members getting involved in board business it may not be something that can be addressed under the school ethics act or the code of ethics but it is very bad for board business um you know and i'm saying that as someone you know when when my district was looking to close a school right or thinking about it because the enrollment was declining you know my husband would go to all those board meetings right you know that's okay he's a member of the community he wants he wants to listen i get it you know and uh and quite frankly when i got home from board meetings the last thing i wanted to do was keep talking about this stuff so that's okay but i couldn't let him insert his opinions
121into my work you know it's my independent judgment that got me on my on the dais that's what my constituents want my independent judgment not his you know so although i must say i thought it was like a little bit of a funny visual to have kevin at these all these board meetings you know he could do it but he was he he was good he was he was good he didn't do anything that um that compromised my ability to work on the board and certainly nothing you know that would have me violate the ethics act so sorry if i went a little long on that but does that answer your question is that illustrative at all no it was perfect thank you so much oh you're welcome i'm never perfect but thank you for
122saying that all right is there any other board members have any questions if not um i would like to open this to public recognition i believe mr mountain told us we don't have anybody but i will read the the statement anyway this portion of the meeting is open to the residents and non-residents of clifton for the purpose of addressing any subject matter pertinent to and directly related to the operations of the clifton public school district residents and non-residents are request are required uh to state their name and municipality and subject matter comments are limited to five minutes per person issued raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate the board asks the
123members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded to them by the laws of the state of new jersey the board bears no responsibility nor will be liable for any comments made by members of the public should consider their comments in light of legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments if anyone from the public wishes to speak and has a question um for miss hello we'll take all the public comments together and she will answer those that the best she can when all questions have been
124asked okay and mr mountain excuse me i just want to add that the link for anybody who does want a public comment the link can be found on our website okay the link can be found on the website we'll just give a few minutes to see if anyone will come in but right now mr mountain is telling us that it is empty um kathy uh on on behalf of the board i'd just like to take this opportunity while we're waiting to see if anyone from the public comes uh to thank you for taking your time um out of your schedule i know when we were going over dates i don't envy you with all the responsibilities and dates that you have but your job is so important to us and other members of other boards
125of education so that if we can all get on the same page education will run much smoother so we truly appreciate taking the time to be here in clifton i will be asking you again to come back possibly uh once we know we could be uh in person for uh some some time that we would like to have a board retreat uh not just on ethics um and so we'll be asking you to come back and you are a friend to clifton you're always welcome here and we truly appreciate all that you brought to uh to us tonight um just the public to know that uh ethics is not a fun subject it's it's not um it's not a a real entertaining uh topic but so necessary for us so uh we felt this was
126important to um educate um and i think miss basford you were you were very um uh influential you you you've asked for one of these um uh ethics training and i thank you for uh bringing that four four right to uh forthright to the board um because i think it was important and that was one of my goals that we did this as soon as possible so i'm glad that we were able to get this done so i i thank you for that and we may need a refresher course down the road and uh i know you'll be more than happy to come and do that but i think it was also important for the public to hear uh some of this um so that they understand and know the procedures many people uh don't
127realize that you know uh we brought in our wonderful superintendent to do a great job of leading our district and he's doing that and the board is here to support that and [Music] and to make policy and we'll continue to do the best job that we can to support him and support uh education and kids in clifton and um having those ethic reminders um you know sometimes you just don't think that you're or what's you know my opinion sometimes you don't purposely think that you're you know violating anything or that you did it on purpose and you just you have to step back and say whoa you know let me go over a b c d e and all those wonderful letters that um i will remember uh for a long time now um so
128it was so very helpful to uh to re-educate us and uh having served on the board previously and seeing you know ethics um was around then but some things have changed today so uh just because you sat on it later earlier there are new i mean social media wasn't existent when i was on the board previously so you didn't have ethics uh geared to that so i i just think it was so important for the board to get and i thank my fellow board members for allowing me to set this up uh and for inviting kathy in and um i hope everyone felt that it was uh helpful and uh like i said kathy on behalf of all my board members we truly do thank you for uh for a great job tonight jim you
129are so kind it's been such a long month and to hear something so nice um really does mean so much to me thank you and uh you know what you said that i'm important to you guys are important to me seriously so thank you for this opportunity and you're on for that retreat especially if we can do it in person friends i want to see you um i will wear a mask i will social distance we'll do the whole thing and uh and now that we got all this ethic stuff out of the way do the fun stuff okay absolutely i see frank going like this what let me just check it through mr mountain anyone uh in the public wishing to speak no mr smith no one joined okay could i entertain a motion
130first on the board to close public recognition since there's no one waiting i will make a motion to close public portion casper second bye who is it mr kenobi oh daley me mr won oh a what i'm sorry uh okay uh anyone else okay thank you all for attending thank you kathy uh dr roberto did you want to say anything before we leave kathy knows kathy knows how i feel about her thank you kathy my absolute pleasure danny great to see you again and before we do go kathy if we are in person i have to find those two friends that we had got to interview or uh yes you did we had our interviews and and you don't have to social distance from those two do you i know i don't even think they
131i'm not having any of that i'm sorry that that violated my ethics right there i don't know are you alone are they still where are they still hanging out in that library or we don't know right i mean has anyone hit them on me the pandemic jeez those poor poor ann and andy man that's uh i was gonna say somebody doesn't want to share what you're talking about here you know now we we had raggedy in and andy on all of our uh interviews for these superintendents we did they were they were special companions of franks they were really good at keeping things confidential um no no no it was about focus radiant and andy out of the equation so we could focus on the issue because we had to find the best person for
132the job that was it it was and you guys did great work and and if roberto deciding your fate i mean i always wondered how i was this chosen i was worried they were injustice spies you never know if there was a microphone in there oh my goodness sure we could stay here all night but uh i thank everyone for uh for attending and um motion to adjourn by mr daley second by mr casper all those in favor aye opposed so carried thank you all good night everybody good night