October 15, 2020 - Clifton Board of Education Meeting

001can i start i see uh danny's just getting to a seat and then i think we're good okay okay um judy gary frank can i start did judy hear me june i'm ready yeah i'm ready okay all right call to order the october 15 2020 regular board meeting please stand for the pledge and a 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 you may be seated roll call here yep got it miss bassford here miss beltran mr canova mr daley mr casper here mr piscenti here mr smith miss danny here can i have a motion to go into executive to discuss contract matters i'll move forward exactly motioned by

002mr pacenti second by mr abu drabbo roll call mr abu drab yes miss passport yes mr casper yes mr pacenti yes mr smith oh i'm sorry miss danny yes um this is foreign okay um could we have attendance roll call of board members from executive session here miss beltran mr kelly here here mr pacenti here mr smith here mr danny here next order of business is the mission statement mission of the clifton school district in an open and reciprocal community partnership is to provide all students with a quality education to develop the skills necessary to become literate lifelong learners who are responsible and productive citizens contributing to democratic society in an ever-changing world next order of business is the open public meeting statement the new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the

003right to the public to have 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 caused notice of this meeting to be publicized by having the date time and place thereof posted at the city clerk's office clifton public library administration building senior citizen nutrition center on cable tv in the local press on the district's website and mailed to presidents of parent teacher organizations this meeting will be tape recorded in accordance with policy 0168 next order of business is recognition and award presentation of the 20 20 2021 paste county teacher of the year thank you uh madam president i'm going to step off the desk i just need a

004minute okay miss danny if i could just chime in i think samantha derose is coming with her photography equipment to record this as well okay she's here she's coming down the aisle good evening members of the board of education and the clifton community it is my honor tonight to recognize one of clifton's own miss megan graziano teacher at clifton high school who was recently recognized as the passaic county teacher of the year so let me take a second to put that in perspective of all the schools in passaic county every school has a teacher of the year there are 20 schools in clifton alone every school in passaic county is a teacher of the year all of those teachers of the year compete to become the passaic county teacher of the year there are 21

005counties in new jersey megan is one of 21 county teachers of the year in all of new jersey she was then put into a competition to become the new jersey state teacher of the year and i'm extremely proud to say that she finished in the top five of all the teachers in the state of new jersey [Applause] mr graziano tonight we have a small token of our appreciation for all that you do for our children and for our community so if you wouldn't mind joining me up here on this camera if you can squeeze in to the picture with me i'm going to present you with this plaque we're going to take a picture and i'm going to present you with these beautiful flowers [Applause] and if you are if you would like to say

006a few words you can i'll bring these over to you thank you so much um i would just like to take a second to tell you i am just so proud to be a part of the clifton school community i work with some of the most amazing educators that exist i teach some of the most incredible students in the planet and have some of the most supportive administrators i've ever known and so again i just want to say thank you to of course the board members for all of your support to my administrators my supervisor my colleagues especially the other biology teachers in the department we've always been not just a team but like a family and it's been an incredible time that i've been here and i just treasure the opportunity to work with

007the students in clifton every single day so thank you very much okay i'll just um right um so thank you very much congratulations uh next order of business is going to be adoption of minutes um can i get a motion to adopt the october 1st regular and executive session uh meeting minutes motion by mr pacenti second by mr abhijabo any revisions concerns cnn roll call yes yes mr smith yes miss danny yes there is no um commit communication and announcements there is a first reading of policy so we have policy 1620 administrative employment contracts mandatory 2431 athletic competition mandatory 2464 gifted and talented students mandatory 5330.05 seizure action plan mandatory 6 64 40 cooperative purchasing mandatory 6470.01 electronic fund transfer uh claimant certification mandatory 7440 school district security mandatory 7450 property inventory mandatory mandatory 7510

008use of school facilities mandatory 8420 emergency and crisis situations mandatory 8561 procurement procedures for school nutrition programs mandatory the next order of business there are no presentation of reports from administration advisory committees and special committees we do have several um board committee reports and dr arbitozzi as i understand the student representative will speak during the public portion correct that's correct miss danny and if i could just interrupt you for one second madam president uh mr horn for the members of the public that are in the audience can we turn the volume on that chromebook so they can hear you you might want to move closer but within six feet or further than six feet thank you miss danny okay should i wait a second or or they can hear uh just one second um make

009sure we have it up and running and we'll start with the first one um passaic county school boards association uh as as soon as um dr obertosi okay followed by policy followed by technology followed by education okay um so vice chairman yes i'll go first oh okay okay that's me yeah okay good evening everybody i attended the passaic county school board association meeting on monday october 5th it was called to order by president judith basford at 6 30 with the flag slate mr dan sinclair the njsba immediate past president said there has been an increase in board members attending uh school board association sponsored meetings because of virtual meetings he said they are looking into conducting hybrid meetings for the future officer applications will soon be out to fill officer positions each officer serves for

010two full years nominating petitions will be coming out in november and the nominating committee will meet in january or february and nancy schwartz njsba board of directors delegate explained that the new board of directors have been sworn in at the passport of director's meeting ray penny njsba member engagement director talked about the virtual workshop taking place next week october 20th through 22nd all sessions will be recorded and are available for a year there are opportunities to talk with vendors as well as njsba representatives during this time christopher jones njsba legislative advocate presented legislative updates uh three months were added to the fiscal year 2020 due to the pandemic fiscal year 2021 started october 1st and will run through june 2021 reimbursement of extraordinary special education funding increased by 25 million in this year's budget the

011school-based youth services program received funding in the budget as well the subcommittee the subcontracting bill has passed the senate our bargaining units must be notified during negotiations the coach's contract bill has not made it past the senate as of yet it was going to provide employment protection and a three-year minimum contract for coaches kathy halwa our field service representative discussed the importance of setting board and district goals as well as getting together for board retreats she is more than happy to meet with us to help us get that underway jonathan bush from the bush law group presented on public meeting storm pandemic it seems as if a hybrid model for school board meetings will be the new normal public comments will be taken virtually either emailed or through zoom participation can be up to 50

012people indoors for board of education meeting there will be new notice requirements for placing notices on our websites there is a limit on the number of people who can come in person there is a the way you interpret it it can be 50 or 150 depending on how you look at it board members do not count in that limit public comments can be provided through email before the meeting boards may also take text-based comments either on facebook stream twitter or a phone number that can that they can send it to emails and comments must be read during public comments a new nominating committee will be put together to interview candidates for the passaic county board for the passaic county school board association our next meeting is december 7th 2020 and i was appointed chairperson this

013year for the unsung heroes are there any questions any board members have any questions so i had one yes can you just clarify that 50 150 person rule what was it that they were talking about yes depending on how you read it everyone is saying it's a 50 person limit and we don't count in that count so there's a up to 50 people that can sit in the audience but there is also a count where you can have a hundred and fifty in the audience miss bassford do you know more on that one um no i no i don't know uh joe it was um it's depart it depends on the capacity of your room the size of your room your ventilation system whether you can have the 150 or 50 right now it's 50.

014but we don't count administration doesn't count it's just the people that come out of the audience count the like the people that we have now are for sitting in front of us so we have one two three four five people we can have 45 more members in the audience they have to socially distance but um that's one of the things that they said if you want more clarification you have to give them the size of your room and it's it's a percentage of how many people you actually have in this room i think it's what 850 in this room yeah so we we could actually have more than 50. guerras miss gutierrez could you check into that and get back to the board on that because i could have sworn at the governor's hearing today

015that he said any municipality um council people whatever they are counted in the count of the room i'm positive he said that at his hearing today now maybe i know i know jim he said that but this is the law that came out two weeks ago that's why i'm just trying to get a clarification here so we have the right stuff here yeah i could um do that and check into um you know the legal or you know just for clarity because we just have two opinions at the moment nothing i don't i don't know whose is right i have no idea sorry i was muted i apologize uh yes we'll look into that to clarify in the process i'll also find out from the business of from the business administrator about the capacity for

016this room but yeah i'll get you some clarification on that thank you any other questions congratulations mr casper um madam vice chair basford for policy yes uh the policy committee met at uh 6208 on october 13th 2020 attendees were myself uh board members joe konova frank casper and jim smith from our administration dr danny robitazi mark teigen luis ross and also president was the intern rachel harrington the agenda it was very very full it included discussions of the following straus ismae mandated policies that committee uh recommends for the board to adopt number one 1620 administrative employment contracts number two 55305 seizure action plan number three six four four zero cooperative purchasing number four six four seven 0.01 electronic funds transfer and claimant certification number 57440 school district security number six 7450 property inventory number 78420

017emergency and crisis situation the committee also discussed the following policy and recommends the adoption of said policy with changes and choices indicated in the markup copies provided to the full board number one twenty four thirty one athletic competition number two seven five one zero school use of school facilities number three eight five six one procurement procedures for school nutrition programs two further policies were reviewed and discussed by the committee which offer the following recommendation number one 2551 adult high school the committee will send this proposal to the education committee for further discussion number two 2464 gifted and talented students the committee recommends changing the strause's main designated language of gifted and talented to talented and gifted uh wherever it appears in the proposed policy thus keeping in line with the uh non-clemature and used in

018our district literature in addition to the policy discussed chairperson bastard myself provided the committee with literature and suggestions to commence the process of drafting a new policy addressing the onboarding of new board members commissioners straus says they will be consulted to inquire if a model policy exists to aid the committee in drafting the new policy to present to the board the goal is to have the new policy approved by the end of the calendar year the meeting adjourned at 7 13 p.m and mr ross so respectfully submitted the minutes any questions thank you madam vice um chair do any of the board members have any questions okay um see none mr canopa technology the technology committee board meeting began at 5 pm attendees were myself vice president ms judy basford board members fahim abu jabbar

019frank casper administrators dr danny robertozzi mark teigen janina kusalevich heather rotolo eric mountain and guest were rachel harrington item one administration approved the chromebook provided a chromebook update 399 chromebooks have shipped and hundreds more are configuration being prepared for shipment the remainder of our may order has been officially allocated to clifton and is queued for configurations as well action informational number two administration provided a security camera update installation for the island building and transportation bus garage security camera system is complete and tied into the chs ccms woodrow wilson middle school system action informational 3. administration provided a phone system update the new ip phone system is formed fully operational all existing phones have been upgraded in all classrooms have the phones as well all teachers now will have a unique voicemail account tests have been

020successfully run to tie the phone system to the chf security system equipment needed to complete this and every building has been ordered and installation will commence upon arrival action information item four commissioners inquired about the potential capability for text alerts to keep parents updated with pay for it.net lunch balance activity administration will investigate action informational the median transition to education committee meeting at 5 30 pm respectfully submitted mr thank you mr kanova do the commissioners have any questions see none um education committee mr casper it's been quite a busy month i tell you that much the education committee was held in conjunction with the technology committee meeting the the meeting began at 5 30 p.m attendees myself as chairperson board vice president judith basford board members joe canova and fahima badrava administrators included dr danny

021robertozzi mr mark teigen mrs genita kusalevich miss heather rotolo mr eric mountain and a guest uh miss rachel harrington number one in person reopening update dr robert terzi provided brief update about the in-person reopening of schools he and both assistant superintendents visited every school this week to oversee the start of in-person learning the overwhelming response was positive teachers administrators support staff and all district personnel implemented all social distancing protocols and did an outstanding job staff has complimented on their hard work and efforts as they manage in-person and remote strands families continue to be engaged to ensure that the health screening is completely is completed daily action informational number two berkeley college collaboration doctor robert teuzy shared a new collaboration with berkeley college the district has an existing dual enrollment agreement with berkeley for students the

022new corporate educational partnership provides staff and family members with a 30 discount reduction at no cost to the district additional opportunities to use facilities and provide professional support are also included a resolution to enter this corporate partnership is included on the 1015 2020 board of agenda number three climate grand stipends update mrs kusalevich provided an update on the district climate grant to support pbsis on this agenda universal team members are listed for hourly stipends for after school meetings and parent students involvement activities the grant provided for district administrators to receive statements for after hours and evening time commitments these administrative statements will appear on a future board of ed agenda a resolution for teacher hourly stipends is included on the 1015 2020 board event agenda additional item security securing our children's future bond act grant

023commissioner abhijava raised the topic of this grant opportunity ms kusalev shared that the business administration business administrator mr michael lucy is working on the applications for possible funds for school security and water filtration the cte component of this grant does not apply to the district action informational the meeting adjourned at 5 59 pm respectfully submitted mrs janina kusalevich thank you mr casper do any of the commissioners have any questions okay seeing the next order of business is public recognition this portion of the meeting is open to citizens of clifton for the purpose of addressing any subject matter pertinent to and or directly related to the operation of the clifton public school district residents are requested to sign the register provided for this purpose and to state their names addresses and subject matter if you are

024virtually you will log in and put your name into the chat in your address unless you're a student comments are limited to five minutes per person issues raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of new jersey the board bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments

025in light of the legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments do we have the student representative right now so that he can speak first miss danny i do not see him online okay when he does come in if you can tell me so we'll go with the um live public portion absolutely i'm told there's um several in person and we have two online so what would you like to start with we'll start with the in person just make sure that they sign their name and address thank you just if you can unmute for him so that so that the public can hear once he finishes signing in if someone could unmute for him because he's muted thank you can

026everybody hear me yes yes we can mark brunsiak 20 holly street thank you dr robert tosie thank you i'm sorry if you want to pull that up a little bit i want to speak in reference to an executive order signed monday allowing organized sports considered medium and high risk to the state to resume contact practices and games indoors with restrictions countless times we've heard over the past few weeks how guidelines are constantly changing and from the state so the science continues to say one thing and another and all of a sudden in this article by nj.com rece recently this week after consulting stakeholders and medical experts we have concluded that with proper public health and safety protocols and still in in place indoor sports may now re resume in a way that protects players coaches

027and staff so this means indoor games like basketball uh kickball whatever they do indoors any kind of indoor sports and what i don't hear is trying to get these school kids in for five days a week on top of that what i don't hear is recommendations to try to make it as normal as possible for the students right now it's a requirement for the students with barriers in front of them including six feet apart for them to continuously wear their masks throughout the classes there are several people there are several of us here who do not have a mask over here yet the risks have been mitigated and as a result of that we are we are safer as a result of that so i'm requesting that the board at some point make recommendations that

028give a student give the students choices to try to make it as normal as humanly possible in the classroom the rates have dramatic drastically dropped and i continuously hear the science says this the science says that where's the signs what changed in the science and then you find out second second to last paragraph in this article from nj.com that you find out the reason that they now allow indoor sports is because enough parents complain to the state to say that it's devastating for their kids their kids want to play indoor sports the kids want to play sports period they want to move on and they know what the survival rates are cdc september 23rd those who unfortunately get infected with coronavirus those ages 0 to 19 have a 99.997 percent chance of survival those aged

02920 to 49 have a 99.98 chance of survival those aged 50 to 69 have a 99.5 chance of survival god forbid they catch this so and the highest risk group are 70 plus 94.6 new york times just this week the american public has made an incredible adjustment embracing mass wearing and social distancing and putting up with unprecedented months-long lockdowns which has made a difference that has saved lives so there's a reduction there's been a great reduction there are new treatments that further denting the virus's impact including antiviral drugs and steroids like dexamethasone and we've we've been told uh by the feds that vaccines and antibodies are far likely to be more effective as a result so i'm asking the board over here to try to make in-person schooling an option for the parents to get

030their kids back in school because they know what's best for their kids and for those that are high risk they have chosen that and i'm thankful for everybody like missy nina like dr robert tosi and all of you involved in doing that in in helping to give give families that option but why stop there we shouldn't stop there we it should be a continuous improvement over here and i know it's hard because you're always saying the guidelines from the state they change constantly okay but you could also tell them that this isn't working out this isn't working out for our district there are parents here who who want their kids to be in school full-time as much human possible if they have extracurricular activities and all of a sudden this week this week governor murphy

031signed an executive order now allowing high risk indoor sports with with measure every time you're running to the rim or every time you take a shot you're screaming in the guys you're screaming in your opponent's face okay um the time has been closed is that what the science says now time i'm sorry the time i saw this again i'm requesting to this board to try to make try to make it as normal as humanly possible for the kids thank you very much for speaking and god bless america thank you everybody thank you dr arbitosi the next person that comes up if you could you only see their chest so if you could pull the you know the um video up so you see their face uh president danny can i just get a clarification he

032said something that several of us here are not wearing masks did i hear that yeah yeah we could do that in in board member my name is justin swisher uh i am a sixth grade social studies teacher at christopher columbus middle school i have held that position for the last 10 years i began in september 2009 i'm also a product of clifton public schools a 2004 graduate i've loved every minute of my experience in the in the clifton community and i'm always grateful for it um i've spent a long time in columbus seeing the wonderful things that the staff does that the teachers do and that the kids are capable of i've seen the fabric of our community get stronger and stronger as we face challenges day in and day out i was humbled and

033honored just one week ago when um dr robert tosie and i had a conversation and i was informed that i would be appointed or recommended for appointment as the next vice principal of ccms i'm here tonight to express my gratitude to you dr robitosi for the opportunity and to express my gratitude to the entire board of education for this opportunity to make a difference in our community i know this is a challenging time for all of us but i hope everyone knows that the challenges are what build our character there's a saying i'm a cross-country coach and there's a saying and running that that first mile is a liar that if you feel in that first mile that you want to quit you've got to keep on going and i know for everyone sitting here

034tonight since march 2020 this has been one of the longest first miles anyone's had to experience but all of us as a community have been working hard to continue to lift one another up and to keep on going and on a most human level i know that it's very challenging when it seems that no matter what choice is made we're dealing with people telling us that we're wrong but i hope we can all keep ourselves focused on the fact that we're building ourselves as a community we're staying together as a community and we're working to move forward as a community um anything that's worth it is worth the effort that we have to put into it and uh everyone in ccms has been putting 110 effort since day one of my career there since my

035time as a student there and especially through this whole crisis as we've been trying to work through it and navigate what is uh incredibly unknown experience for all of us in any event what i'm here to tell you is i'm incredibly grateful i will be giving it all of my effort and i look forward to a great future for our community for our school and for clifton thank you very much congratulations uh hi everyone i'm jessica kutch i am the media specialist over at woodrow wilson uh to start i want to thank the board and the administration for all the helpful clarity that has been provided during this reopening process uh regarding especially regarding procedures and protocols uh getting the kids in the school these past couple weeks much of it has been very helpful

036and reassuring i'm hoping we can continue i'm hoping continue providing clarification and transparency as we continue throughout the school year currently i am a little concerned about the vagueness of past responses regarding what will happen when a teacher is inevitably required to quarantine after travel i understand in some scenarios that sick days may need to be used for self quarantine but i'm a little worried about the lack of clarity regarding necessary travels i know it's been mentioned that it would be handled on a case-by-case basis but i'm hoping that you will be prepared providing further guidance i know uh some may be concerned about losing their sick days and adding this can add unnecessary stress to situations that might already be very stressful like family emergencies or such uh can we be assured that these

037situations will be handled with empathy and respect thank you for time and consideration and i hope to hear about this kind of seat thank you good evening everyone i'm miss langer i am an 8th grade science teacher at christopher columbus middle school i'm here to ask a few questions but also express my thanks for a number of different things i want to start by thanking the administration at christopher columbus middle school mrs gaba and mr jaeger and dr robert tosi have all been in my classroom since we returned to school and i really appreciate that show of support and i also appreciate the modeling of wearing masks in the building i think it's important for each and every one of us to model that behavior for our faculty and staff every time we step foot

038into a school building i wanted to also thank mr frankel who is the science supervisor and i'm sure he worked closely with janina in getting us resources that would allow us to teach both in-person and remote very well so they purchased a system that allows students to solve mysteries and i think it's absolutely phenomenal and i'm incredibly grateful for that one of the things i've noticed though is that we do ask the students to model things in science after all hands-on learning is fantastic and i've found that my remote learners are able to do more modeling at home because they have the supplies that they need to do it the in-person learning is restricted by what we're allowed to share i was also concerned but mr kanova i heard you mentioned our chromebooks are close

039but one of the concerns that i have is that in person without the adequate technology i'm having a lot harder time evaluating and assessing student progress i don't want to put anyone at more risk than necessary by passing out and collecting materials and i really think the technology is an important piece it was a little hard to hear you through the chromebook so i'm hoping that we'll get some more definitive answers on when that technology is going to be available to us i also wanted to speak a moment on social emotional health of our staff at the last meeting i was very concerned to hear a parent expressing concern over the mental well-being of our teachers and i wanted to thank jessica tremble who's in charge of our counseling department because she has been sending

040out weekly self-care tips to our staff but i also want to thank sue feliciano who has worked to get us mindfulschools.org training it was something i started over the summer but the district has supported that and allowed me to continue my training in that area and i'm hoping that that what my colleague miss kutch mentioned from the other school there that teachers are treated with that empathy and compassion is a very real thing because we're all learning so many new things that it's just as overwhelming for us as it is for the kids and i'm sure as you're experiencing here as you're trying to run a hybrid and remote meeting that it comes with challenges and i am concerned for my staff member colleagues that are trying to teach in person to a classroom of

041students and remotely simultaneously i understand that in some scenarios that may be required because that's what our parents are asking for but i do feel like it puts us empaths in a position where we can't meet anyone's needs well and so i hope that that's something that you're considering and i really appreciate everything laurie lalama has done to support the clifton education association and i'm curious to know where we stand on her recommendation of getting an industrial hygienist to take a look at our hvac systems it was something that i heard many board members support at the last meeting some even said that yes we should reopen if we do that and i have not heard whether or not that has taken place yet so i'd really be curious to know where that stands and

042i also wanted to thank you because last meeting someone pushed for flu vaccines to be offered at clifton high school i remember it was one of the board members but i don't remember who i wanted to thank you i came here made it easy got my flu vaccine and i'm wondering if we would consider working with the health department to offer the same kind of drive up covid19 testing to staff because many places that are requiring essential frontline workers to come to work are providing regular testing and you did such a wonderful job with that i was in and out in five minutes that i don't see why we can't try and work with a health department to implement something like that and i think that's all i have for tonight and i really want

043to thank you for your time and your consideration on these issues thank you do we have any more in person mr mountain if we could yes we have a few in the online waiting room okay well first up is lorila llama lori if you can hear us you're the first up to speak and whoever else is going to speak if you could in the chat put your name if you're not a student put your name in your address if you're not a student after laurie will be max reuben and then emma okay so if you're not a student please put your name and address in the chat thank you looks like lori's having an issue so let's go to max first and then we'll get lori max you may speak take them um good evening

044everyone okay thank you um and i'm a student so i won't have my address in the chat thank you um hello everyone um it's good to be okay it's good to be back at school um so far i mean i'm a cohort b so i went on tuesday and i'm gonna go again tomorrow and everything's been running pretty smoothly the teachers are starting to get used on how to used to how to educate kids online and in person at the same time and it's been working out okay the one thing that did kind of alarm me is that apparently some students either aren't wearing their mask properly don't know how to wear their mask properly or are just choosing not to and we're all high schoolers so we definitely know how to wear a mask

045that can't be the issue so it just it's just a little upsetting to hear that some of my peers aren't taking their responsibility and the initiative to just put on a mask so i'm in the cast program and on the morning announcements we made a little video um on how to put on a mask which i still find it's ridiculous we have to do that in the first place we also we put a warning on how to stay safe i just hope that if students are not wearing their masks and aren't following the right rules there should be some severe repercussion or they should just be sent in person or be sent to remote because that is ridiculous and i'm really upset that i had to hear that um on a more positive note um

046the chs morning show has been running smoothly we're continuing to add new things every day um also my drama teacher miss pogee wanted me to read this email that she sent me about a chipotle fundraiser that's going to happen next week so the clifton high school drama program will be hosting a chipotle fundraiser at the route 3 clifton location coming up next wednesday october 21st from 5 00 to 9 00 pm chipotle will donate one third of your check back to the drama program so please be sure to either show your flyer or mention the fundraiser if ordering with the cashier at a register and if you want to order online you can use the promo code which is t76p a jr all caps the flyer encode can be found on the chs drama instagram

047page at clifton high school underscore drama or you can email miss pogie at lpogia cliftonschools.net with any questions and hopefully you'll support the drama program we do actually have some plans coming up as of now we are still planning on doing a musical next year um hopefully i'll be a part of that so um yeah we still have a lot of plans this year and hopefully you guys can go out to chipotle or order online and support the drama program other than that um i'm also the president of the clifton student union and we've been coming up with a lot of ideas on how to make ap exam books and sat exam books readily available for students we have a couple ideas we're going to hopefully have a book drive an in-person book drive where

048people can come to the school and drop off their old test prep books and that could be one to two weeks and then people can come at the school anytime and pick them up hopefully we will do that at either the end of this month or the beginning of next month i need to get in touch with uh mr waka the new central wing vp we also were thinking about doing a virtual um an online list that we could post on the website just a well-formatted list of all the a bunch of youtube channels various test prep websites college board khan academy and just create a list of all those websites and put it up on the school website um so that's another thing we're working on another thing is if you haven't heard yet

049for students watching this and for parents there is an update with the gym policy i know my um my colleague sam at the last uh board of ed meeting mentioned that kids were felt uncomfortable showing their face and showing their body as they work out on camera so if you feel uncomfortable with working out during gym class on camera if you're 18 you can do it yourself but if you're younger than 18 which most high schoolers are you can have your parent email your gym teacher and inform them that my child feels uncomfortable exercising in front of the camera i want a recommendation for him to either tilt the camera away from him or her as he or her exercises or just um point it towards the ceiling anything um and you can do that

050now uh the other thing the last thing um is sports have been pretty good so far um our soccer team and our football team are killing it this year and we have our homecoming game tomorrow i think the homecoming ceremony is being pushed just sometime next week but um yeah i'm looking forward to it and i hope you guys are too unfortunately the stadium is only open for parents of band kids cheerleaders and football players but the game is getting live streamed i believe by mr mecca so you can always tune in online and that's it thank you thank you max uh before miss la lama before you speak um if you are here and you are going to be speaking in the chat if you can put your name and your address and so

051when i call your name and address is already in there thank you very much in the chat miss la lama and then we will have uh we will speak to miss howard all right is that okay miss danny yes yes okay thank you all right good evening to everyone um i hope everybody is doing fine as the president of this association this has been the most difficult job that i have faced since the beginning of the pandemic my job is literally to protect the four corners of the contract however i've always believed it to be much more than that public education is very important and we're going through a lot of battles right now according to the afl cio a strong public education system is essential to the individual and collective well-being of our country

052and its people and its development of an informed and engaged citizen without without which no democracy can exist and flourish this is what clifton public schools does we are a very strong community and education is so important however this pandemic has taken a toll on everyone including from school six the board i would imagine the teachers the principals vice principals so we need to be united because being the president i hear things from the community i hear things from staff and it's beginning to make us very divided and we can't do that we are a community of educators we are a community that cares and i invite and there's a great quote by gene francois cope i invite everyone to choose forgiveness rather than division teamwork over personal ambition and this is what needs to

053change i've been involved in so many meetings to make sure the plan the district wrote would work despite such a horrible situation we're all going through many of you have gone through the this plan must be fluid due to coven 19. there's no more normalcy it's different i would like to mention the fact that the hvac systems is still a major problem the classroom windows should be open there needs to be fresh air so when you're coming in so no one is breathing the stale possibly affected air so i would make sure that everybody is wearing layers when kids come to school that are in for a b please wear some other layers so you're not you know chilly in class because we need to have fresh air into the building another issue is the

054fact that students are entering the schools without parents responding to the covered questionnaire this is a health and safety issue towards other students and staff and i would feel horrible if another student or staff member brought the virus home and something happens so that needs to be clarified and to make sure that all the parents are filling that out and the kids are checked before they enter the school now next you'll hear from andrea about the fight and uh pride and fast what we're doing in clifton and i won't say anything all right um other good news the njea has given me a consultant to work with so we can give different diversity groups voices in our district one's going to be the latino groups and i've been lucky enough to work with fahim for

055our arabic parents and teachers i began working with him to start this we are working on a list so i can contact other parents and teachers so they can have a voice since covet it has been difficult to work on this of late but i look forward to continue working on this to make sure that all of our different diversity groups will have a voice the njea does have a member of color group so i can always get contact with them to put the different groups in there there's also a lgbtq plus group so i'd be glad to help out with that diversity is important cultural sensitivity and compassion are paramount if clifton one is going to continue we must look out for the icebergs we must be united thank you very much thank you

056miss la lama miss howard and again if you're just on here and you're going to speak be speaking dustin i didn't see the name and address thank you miss howard hi good evening everybody i just wanted to say i know that um the board along with dr robert tosie worked long and hard and debated long and hard if school was going to open school wasn't going to open and what that would look like i know that it got pushed back but i can say as a parent saturday night or sunday night was almost almost like christmas eve in my house my student my children were so excited to go back to school all of my kids went in because my oldest who's at woodrow was a hybrid a so all of my kids went in

057to school on monday i raced back home after school because i was able to leave and they were all smiles when they came back i have been in contact with both mr healey and my daughter's team at woodrow i felt like the reopening was really well she had a really good time um she enjoyed seeing all of her teachers the bus came it came almost on time we didn't have to wait she just got she got dropped off on the bus there's a new drop off line that was started at school 15 my husband went through it he said that it went off without a hitch so i just really want to say thank you and thank you to the administration and um i feel like that the opening went really well i think i

058mean i can only speak from woodrow wilson and from school 15 but it was a really happy day in our house and all of my kids were back in school today and my oldest can't wait to go back to school on monday so i just wanted to say thank you for all of your work your time your dedication to the superintendent and the board and all the staff that is here in clifton that it was a very positive experience for us so thank you thank you miss howard uh dustin you are next in the queue to speak um i didn't see your name and address in the chat or are you a student no i'm not my son's a student at school five uh new jersey thank you uh i just want to say thank

059you to dr robert tozie i'm speaking on the last caller pretty much she said it better than i could um i know i called uh i called in a few a few weeks ago and described how horrible the um the day was for my son's at home in school or at home uh remote school excuse me and um him going to school complete game changer his attitude's different you it's it's night and day um i'm sure you guys know it and you've heard it so i don't waste much time on that but thank you uh the main point is to thank you whoever voted yes i know some people voted no and that's your prerogative but whoever on this board voted yes and whoever pushed to do in school you have not only helped me

060personally my wife my son you have helped everyone in my household live a happier life and it's so much just so much thankfulness and so much gratitude for making that happen um going forward you know i like to see longer school days and get more back to normal trunk or treats all this stuff i understand it's very difficult with everything going on as mark stated earlier he had a lot of good uh statistics on the uh positivity of where this is going um i i really appreciate to hear max talk the guy the kid from uh you know high school that was super important probably the best speaker of the night um it's all good things and we just we need to just keep pushing forward and and not just accepting that this is it

061like this is a great start it's an amazing start and i'm very thankful you need to make it better maybe go back to school wednesdays um you know whatever we got to do i i i'm a clip lifelong clip tonight and you know i had a lot of uh trepidation sending my son to public school i didn't go to public school till i was in high school and sending my son to um a public school starting in kindergarten i was scared and you have amazing teachers and i i've not said their names because i don't know how this whole thing you know you say all these big words in the beginning but you know mrs mouth and mrs lisha and mrs harris they they really were an impact on my son's life like you have

062no idea i can't explain to you what school five and those teachers have done for my son i can never repay those teachers and they're amazing people and i just want to thank everyone on the board for who pushed to go back to school and i hope that it only gets better from here and thank you very much i appreciate your time listening to me babel thank you miss orok i'm sorry if i'm i'm sorry if i mispronounced the name that's okay auroch sorry you don't worry good evening everyone my name is andrea auroch i am part of the cea i am the pride and fast chairperson i just wanted to let everyone know pride and fast on our programs we have a combined total of almost 70 thousand dollars um it to be exact

063it's 67 that we can spend on community workshops and virtual events to engage with our families in the clifton community i just want to let everybody know that next week on wednesday we are co-hosting with the clifton high school key club with a workshop titled the cycle of prejudice um let me just go over what this workshop will be it's on my other computer um this model focuses on addressing seven forms of prejudice and implicit bias in order to improve academic achievement and create an educational equality for all students participants will explore personal identities and then intersection of marginalized identities power privilege and the achievement gap this workshop helps individuals improve their relationships and their services for the lgbtq community and other minority groups in clifton conclude with strategies on how to create a safe

064inclusive spaces for the lgbtq community and minorities therefore making spaces safer for all individuals uh we put out the flyer on clifton schools social media there's a link to join this is a free event for every student and every community person in clifton that we will be sponsoring with the money that we had for our pride and um fast the next event we will be doing it's going to be in the last week of october school 12 is hosting a virtual craft night for pre-k to fifth grade as well as school 17 is hosting a virtual decorating pumpkin contest once again we want to do a lot of community involvement and opportunities that open up with the seven thousand dollars we can do amazing things all together for clifton so we just want to let

065you guys know the clifton education association is here for you guys and we're ready to go for 2020 to 2021. have a great night thank you you too so that concludes the virtual i know there aren't any more virtual speakers seeing no others i moved to close the pub abortion motion by mr daly second second by mr abu drabo next order of business is education and administration can i have a motion for ea 1 through ea 5. second ocean by mr casper second by mr pacenti any questions i have a question yes miss beltram um i was looking at the attendance report and we're short roughly 937 students from last february to today's attendance and i was wondering if there's been any um programs or anything like to reach out to those students who have

066dropped off the rolls to see if they've simply missed the registration or don't understand or in in homes that don't have access to all the internet and or things um you know i just simply just didn't know that school started i don't know if dr roberto has any idea where those kids are today is uh october 15th which is the day we do the official account of how many students we have uh in the clifton public schools it's it's the day that every school district in every in the state does our account so that number you're looking at i can't verify that it is completely accurate however what i can do is tell you after today exactly how many students we had on roll today and how many we had exactly one year ago from

067there i could determine exactly how many were down 900 seems like a lot um so i don't we didn't have 900 students drop out we didn't have 900 students leave in fact usually usually we go up we have more registration so give me some time to get you a better answer on that i can um because that's something i want to look at the data more closely and give you give you a real solid answer on why that discrepancy looks like it's there okay yeah because looking like about 567 is off from the high school alone so that seems like an entire grade is possibly missing in action somewhere along the way um so the other ones are more you know anecdotal about 30s or so but that one is a large number that's down

068yeah yeah or something like that yeah any other questions the reason why the 1015 count is so important is because that's the number that drives our state aid so that's why that's extremely important so it's something i'll absolutely make sure we look into and get back to the entire board uh dr arbitosia i don't i don't know if there's uh because i know like with our district um if students lost connectivity or something um they were uh you know i don't i don't know how that attendance factors into that but i know that you know um they were marked as they had issues with connectivity so i don't know if that had anything to do with it um but thank you i'll definitely look into it okay thank you um any other questions yeah on

069and if i if i might follow up on that um and maybe dr robertosi can can help us at the next board meeting i know our our student figures are rarely in 1007 1009 in that range so this is a drop obviously with the virtual versus an attendance because you're going to give us registrations which is important and that's that could be different from uh actual attendance uh and i know it's it's probably difficult for every teacher to take attendance on a virtual basis so you know i think that's probably i'm only speculating the probably one of the reasons why the numbers are different but i think that's important that when you get get your staff to verify what our actual registration is that would help us better i guess everybody better understand what's going

070on here thank you absolutely any other see none roll call miss bassford uh yes to the group but i abstain on number one i'm conflicted miss beltran yes mr canola yes got it mr casper yes mr pacenti yes mr smith yes miss danny yes next order business personnel could have a motion for p1 through p21 motion by mr smith second by second second uh second but i'm starving sorry um any questions comments yes abstain on number two name only please miss beltran yes mr casper i'm voting yes and i'm standing on team uh p19 my name only mr percenty yes mr smith yes miss danny yes next order of business is finance and facilities can i have a motion for effort madam chair madam chair hold on mr um it was number 19 9 22.

071maybe thank you sorry that's okay 19. uh motion for f1 through f5 i moved second motion by mr casper second by mr abdrabo questions scene nun roll call actually i i do have a question um is it possible to get a breakdown of all the additional costs due to covid like i know we have dividers we have uh straps that showed for the desks i know the thermostat the thermometers that we're using now is there a way to get a break out of just covered additional cost chromebooks i'm going to defer to mr uc actually if i may is it possible to add to that what we spent on kovid and what we have saved because of kogit in terms of what our normal spending would be so we can see the difference i could

072work on that mr smith [Music] on uh number one uh is a very generous donation from our boys soccer booster club i just love to see a breakdown of what uh what the money is being used for to what improvements at the field so if i could just get a a breakdown of that but i i'd like to thank the boys uh soccer booster club for this uh very nice donation to uh enhance our boys soccer uh fernando rossi soccer field but i just like a breakdown of what the improvements are thank you um miss danny if i may address that yes uh yeah mr smith that uh the total donation is for the purchase of a sign the whole cost is going towards a sign which will uh be recognizing um all of the

073past championships for both the boys and girls soccer teams and it's going to be really nice i saw a draft as soon as it's finalized before it's actually put out there i'll definitely share that with the board thank you any other questions mr daley yeah just just to reinforce that there uh there is a uh monument or plaque in i believe it's the northwest corner of the field when the field was dedicated uh to mr rossi so this is i take it in addition uh to enumerate other accomplishments that have happened during the tenure of our soccer team thank you any other comments see none roll call mr abu drabo yeah miss bassaford yes miss beltran mr canova yes mr daley yes mr casper yes mr piscenti yes mr smith yes miss danny yes next

074order of business is board member comments uh mr daily are you next or is it mr casper i was first last time okay mr casper that's what i thought okay okay i'm going to keep this brief i'd like to thank the retirees as i always do for your dedication to our district um i would also like to thank the boys soccer the boys soccer booster club as well for your gracious donation to the field i'm excited to see you when it does come out i'd like to congratulate miss graziano again our own passaic county teacher of the year uh this past year has been an accomplishment for clifton we first had our board member of the year and now we have our passaic county teacher of the years so we're we're really making it on

075the map in new jersey finally i'd like to thank all of our speakers that came out tonight i'm happy to hear that everything is running smoothly and i know that the safety of everyone is paramount to our administration so i'm happy to hear that everything is going nicely and i'd also like to thank the cea for your hard work and putting together the pride and fast events that are coming up soon and since it is um halloween coming up soon i hope everyone is safe during this halloween season and uh have fun but also stay safe if there is any all right have a good never uh good evening everyone thank you mr casper uh mr prasanti thank you i just want to congratulate miss graziano also for being a state county teacher here uh

076with hard work uh dedication and especially going virtual um and all this hybrid stuff i know it's difficult and uh i applaud you for your outstanding accomplishment um i want to thank dr robert tozie again as i always do for us during the district um to go to bring back the kids i think that this is um the proper thing to do i still believe that we should bring them back a little more normalcy is good for for students and children they really need it and i've got a lot of calls thanking us on checking this board for their support to to get these kids back to school and the last thing i have since our meeting is not going to be till the i believe the 12th of november next um we're having a

077change of command ceremony for the chief of police um clifton the city of clifton named danucci for a while ago thomas ronaldi to the detective he was a defective captain who just became chief now that things have been lifted for outside it'll be outside of city hall in the front of steps on friday november 6th at 3 o'clock uh and we'll have light refreshments to follow um afterwards so i hope people can make it and again uh social distancing mass will be implemented uh for that day so i want to thank everybody again and um have a great night thank you mr presentee mr smith yeah i'm gonna be real brief tonight uh i'd like to uh first just personally thank um all the speakers that came out tonight uh max i i so much

078enjoy hearing you speak um and giving us detailed information um i apologize if you can't hear me too well so i'm going to be very short i thank uh all the people of the public and my fellow board colleagues that reached out to me after my recent surgery um healing well and uh on my way to recovery so thank you all um i just have a few uh questions uh dr roberto i thought we were gonna have some type of board um um i don't know what it's called but um where we get a list of all the events that are happening in the district um actually come to us about this chipotle fundraiser we may not have known about it i'd love to be able to see where we are on that process of

079making sure that we get notified of all these things because we very much do want to support our kids i do have a concern about something that was stated at the beginning of the meeting um the first speaker stated that there are numerous of us here in the audience not wearing masks i thought it was our board policy and or regulations that all visitors into our building should uh must be wearing masks so i don't know why people are allowed in the building if they're not wearing a mask i think this needs to be looked into and and tightened up a bit uh max brought it up in school um that we have students that are not wearing masks um that's got to be addressed right away and uh people coming into our uh our

080board meetings uh that is a board policy and a board function and it has to be adhered to and whatever administration has to do to make sure that this is uh being followed i think that has to uh to take place um smith if i may that that comment i believe was directed towards the people on the stage here oh i'm sorry it wasn't directed towards uh any visitors to our building i got you i'm sorry i did i not being there i didn't see it that way thank you for that clarification um so um yeah i think that was uh the last thing i had but i i again i'm a little concerned and max being in the building and seeing uh students every day um if he has a concern about kids not

081wearing masks to me there is a concern and i and i and i know dr robitozzi that you'll be on top of that looking into that so thank you everyone thank you madam president congratulations to the state county teacher of the year and clinton's own of course um you know it's it's always a great uh great pride in the city as a community to hybrid remote learning good luck to um all on a great school year students teachers parents administrators you know when i think of my my daughter and stuff from school and just able to see them you know interact with their classmates and have that and that hybrid opportunity is is from my parents my parent perspective is great uh congratulations to the new vp of ccms uh good luck to the football

082team tomorrow night and um thank you for always your continued work we're going to diversity group uh mr lama asked me to take a look at a arab muslim diversity list and i recommended that a staff member may be more helpful because to be transparent as a board member i'm not allowed to interfere with clipping day-to-day work uh but and i made a superintendent aware about miss what i would recommend to you as well is to keep an arab muslim separate because not all arabs are muslims and not all muslims are arabs so that may be intermingled there so that's one recommendation i able to make for you thank you mr abraham miss beltram i just want to thank all the speakers that um as we said we can come in person or you can

083also uh continue to call in and hopefully we can keep this hybrid model even when we're done with the new normal and we're back to the regular normal um we all want to go back to normal on that note um as quick as possible at least i do i obviously don't speak for the whole board but personally i think we're all want ready to get back to as close to normal as we can and some of us may be over eager um and maybe the kids in the school are taking off their mask they feel invisible most high school kids feel invisible and hopefully as time goes on they'll learn that it's more you know it's cool to wear masks especially with all the different designs that you have i know i personally have probably

084like 50 different ones at this point um i was thrilled to see all the comments on facebook showing how much happier people's children were coming home to school we may not always be commenting on facebook but you know that we are seeing everything at least i am um i think it's in our board's prerogative to give our students the best education possible while also keeping everyone as safe as possible which is a hard balance to maintain i'd also like to hope that everyone has an enjoyable halloween as the new normal allows we won't be seeing you until after halloween so i know um some different some other towns are having events i'm not sure if clifton as a town are having any events um and there's ct guidelines onto how to help candy if you

085so wish to do so individual bags etc but i hope that people figure out a way to keep this tradition alive um with their kids even if it's something within your own family that you do and that's all i have this week thank you miss beltran mr canova all right thank you uh i want to congratulate graziano on an amazing accomplishment to be a top five winner in new jersey i mean that that is something truly amazing it really goes to show how how great our teachers are and really how great you are so congratulations on that um congratulations to our mr casper here on his onsen heroes uh venture um also uh on reopening so i i heard the two parents and speak about their their reactions to and their children's reactions to reopening

086and i have to share a similar sentiment because my daughters did not want to go back even though i registered with them for in person you know they were dreading to go back because they left the lifestyle of being home and relaxed on the computer um but when they got in and after hearing about their day and picking them up the smiles on their faces and they were so excited and they were just so happy to be back with everyone uh they didn't see it as the new normal they didn't see it as something weird they knew they had to wear their masks because they've been going to cheers so they know that's just you know what we do now and they had a great time so i'm glad to see that that happened i'm

087glad to see when they went to school they had their temperature checks everyone was was distance there was six feet mark was all over all over the ground they even showed us on uh on an ad hoc back to school night meeting the markers in the school and how they have two different pathways down the hallway to keep everyone distanced so i mean really going to extraordinary events to make to make the kids safe and to make the place a really happy place to be in school so i commend our administration and everyone's working towards it has worked towards it um i'm hoping we continue those meetings meeting around uh getting people back into school and getting things more like what they used to be um so i do support that um i know that

088we did have a policy for wearing masks i remember going through that in policy there was a amanda and wearing mask so that i believe that's in there already so if someone's taking off their mask i think we already have something outlying you know what happens in those situations so i would just instruct them to see someone not hearing masks and you know to let the teacher know and to go through the route of where you need to take this little llama i couldn't agree more i think everyone does need to work together because if we're not we're just rolling around in circles so i'm glad you're supporting endeavors where people do get to work together so thank you for that and that's all i had tonight thank you thank you mr canova uh mr

089daley thank you madam president um i'd like to add my congratulations to ms graciano that's a great accomplishment um and if i understand that it's the first time a clifton teacher was ever in that position to be passed county uh teacher of the year that's that's just terrific and um i know that that happiness and pride is shared by everyone in the district uh also thanks to uh congratulating mr swisher on his appointment his uh vice president uh vice principal excuse me of uh of columbus mr casper congratulations on your appointment as a grand pupa [Laughter] so um also uh i would like to ask our board secretary to you madam president if they could share the poor proposals from um uh of the two attorney attorney firms that uh that presented to us tonight

090um i think it's good to see what's in their proposal as well so they're prepared for when we ever get to vote on that um i would also like to either mail-in drop it off whatever you have to do it's important that you participate in the vote i have a lot of issues the way the governors handle this both from our the way the elections for uh and nominations for school boards it was absolutely horrendous because every county had different uh website information on their website on how you want to register to be a candidate for a particular board of education it was not uniform and i think that the um the state really fell down and i would have liked to seen our voters have the option to to vote either in person or

091by ballot because some people feel more comfortable doing it one way and if you're going to vote i think every citizen should feel comfortable in the way they cast their vote and come out to vote on one last thing i usually don't talk about family or personal but i'd like to thank all the members of the community in clifton particularly on the well wishes and prayers for our grandson uh nicholas uh he is uh now been declared cancer free after nine months and uh uh and he's uh he's a very energetic kid and fortunately he didn't have a lot of side effects but it was a long process especially not only for his parents but uh for his grandparents and all family members but it turned out pretty much as the doctors predicted but there

092will be scans going forward just to make sure the cancer doesn't reoccur but right now he's officially been declared cancer-free and again i can't thank everybody in the community enough for their prayers and best wishes throughout the last nine months that concludes my comments thank you mr daily uh madam vice chair of basford wow that's great jim we've been praying i'm so it's it's thank you thank you what else can you say but thank you to the higher power whatever higher power you believe in um to megan graziero congratulations i was online that day i made sure i took personal time off that morning to watch actually watch the ceremony live uh it was a thrill to hear clifton being represented um we're very proud of you thank you for being the best of the

093best and showing what true excellence in teaching is uh we applaud you for everything we applaud your colleagues for recognizing you and you make clifton shine that's what the best part of everything is um to mr switzer um congratulations and good luck um thank you for coming tonight and um doing that as well to the cea pride and fast wow you guys you're doing pretty good there um and i know it's going to be dispersed in the community in in the most appropriate way uh confident that it'll affect all the children so thank you guys uh you do really great work um uh i just you know talking about voting um i was 14 years old when i cast my mother's ballot there's a jersey journal picture uh i made the front page i have

094big bonded on my brother found the picture when he was cleaning out some of my dad's stuff so he sent it over to the house and it was good to see that i take my civic duty very carefully i take it very carefully so i had a conversation yesterday with somebody about the bucket of water and i just uh uh uh i know i shared that story with you dr robert tells you about the bucket of water uh so we're in the the auditorium and we're in the gym and the bucket of water spills i can't say to the janitor to clean up the bucket of water i got to get on my phone he's not even there i got to call dr roberto he's home doing his thing with his kids and he's got

095to call the janitor and tell him to pick up the bucket of water that's how it works that's that's board membership 101 and i had a very kind conversation with a lot of people yesterday my support group and i thank them very much for um reminding me of all the buckets of water that i've never picked up i never ordered to be picked up and i kept in line so thank you guys for being on on my um on my team uh to uh uh the clifton teachers association laura lamanna i heard your words tonight and i heard them well and the one thing that's sticking with me is teamwork over personal ambition that couldn't resonate anymore with everybody on the sport teamwork over personal ambition uh thank you so much for being the leader

096of the group you're doing a great job uh we we we appreciate you we appreciate everything you do um you come to every meeting you show up you give it you tell us what's going on good bad or ugly and i know this board member appreciates it um halloween coming up ladies and gentlemen whatever it is and whatever you're going to do at halloween please please please be careful and safe um the other thing is uh with the return of school i'm glad to see so many people are happy i am there's so many different opinions on this it's not easy but everybody out there to please be safe i'm not too keen on the numbers it personally affected my family this week it came very close to home uh and we are we are

097dealing with a very extensive loss in my family so um to everybody out there just please wear your mask it's really important you you may be immune you may you may have uh the antibodies but you may be a carrier so you know this they won't really know what's going on so just be careful and everybody have a good week until next meeting thank you and thank you madam vice chair basford um so first i would like to say um thank you to all the speakers it's great to hear that you know some parents are very excited and their children going back and the smiling faces that's always nice um i want to really tell our um educators um our staff administration everyone that's in the building now in person um thank you for all

098that you're doing uh for i mean i i really have to you know give a special thanks to the teachers who are working directly with students um as i know that if you're working um in the setting and you're trying to make the virtual and you're trying to make the in person and everything work i know that that's very difficult and even if you've been in education for this long there's so much planning that um takes place so um i want to tell you you know thank you very much um and uh congratulations to miss graziano thank you very much for um making clifton shine you are um it's you know and again to be one of five is definitely you know we in our profession we always seem to be put down a lot

099of times so it's just great to hear somebody's accomplishments in one of five um in clifton especially thank you um and congratulations to the new vp um mr swisher and um nicholas i saw that you kicked cancer's butt um so um you know i i had uh lost um a cousin's um my cousin lost uh 12 years old she had lost a battle to brain cancer so it was very diff so i'm i'm i'm glad you kicked cancer's butt um and finally just have a safe and happy halloween and that concludes my comments dr arbitosi thank you madam president good evening once again commissioners and members of the community who are joining us at our meeting so we reopened schools this week for in-person learning and i have to tell you that i couldn't be

100more pleased with the way this week has gone um our staff has been absolutely incredible i mean above and beyond our students showed up did absolutely you know the right thing followed the protocols yeah a few bumps in the road we knew that was gonna happen but on monday i was able to visit five schools on tuesday i was able to visit four more schools this morning i was only able to visit clifton high school for about 45 minutes tomorrow i'll visit a couple more schools and by the mid middle of next week i will have visited every school so if i haven't gotten to you yet i'll be there i promise um and just what i saw it just reminded me that all the hard work and all the stress and all the questions

101in my mind about whether or not we should reopen i knew it was absolutely the right decision uh absolutely the right decision i just want to caution everybody about wanting to pull this band-aid off even more quickly and and getting back to you know what we were doing a year ago a a full schedule from you know eight to three with kids you know 500 kids eating in a cafeteria we want to be very very careful about how we do this this needs to be done in phases this is phase two right when we get to phase three we'll depend on a lot of things but i'm really happy about how this week has gone so far and um cannot express my gratitude and appreciation uh anymore to our faculty and staff and our administrators

102for the job they have done in welcoming back our students thank you so much congratulations to megan uh say it again you've just made us all uh so proud we are so lucky to have you uh in clifton and um we're so very very very proud of you and listen you know the state of new jersey they the dear we they make mistakes all the time and you should have won the whole thing but you know i'm sure the person who won is a very good teacher but you know you're number one in our hearts megan so congratulations on a great honor just want to address the couple issues that that came up tonight um through public comment and through conversation with our board um in regards to ventilation in schools let's let's talk about

103ventilation and and getting an industrial hygienist to come into our schools ventilation is important i agree ventilation is important what is more important right now in our schools is wearing masks and social distancing and opening windows we could bring in an industrial hygienist we could hire our architect to come in and look at all of our unit ventilators and they're going to tell us things like yes you have you have ventilation systems that are 60 years old they need to be replaced i'm not opposed to doing that but i'm not sure we're going to learn anything in the in addition to what we already know i'll remind everybody we were planning on a 160 million dollar referendum to be voted on would have been a couple weeks ago to replace all of the hvac systems

104in our school so this is not an issue that's new this is something that we are is on our radar it is something that we are going to do something about in fact tonight this board is going to discuss some things in executive session uh regarding um that referendum and certain contracts that go along with that so i'm not trying to minimize the staff's concern about ventilation i'm aware that it's a concern uh if anything we're going to bring in our architect to inspect all of our systems and make recommendations for now i'm encouraging all of our teachers to open up their classroom windows uh students need to wear a jacket absolutely welcome to they want to bring in a blanket let students bring in a blanket let them wear hats keep those windows open

105wear masks stay six feet apart and you will be safe as far as staff members quarantining the rule is very simple and if somebody who reports to me is not following this rule accurately then i need to know that the rule is if you go to a state voluntarily that is on the quarantine list when you come back to work you have to use your sick base if you're going to um [Music] i don't know florida for vacation the first week in november you're going to disney world when you come back we're not going to be upset with you we're going to make you quarantine them and we're gonna make use of sick days if however you are mandated to go somewhere or you have some other um very good reason to have to attend

106an out of state event then we are going to work with you on a case-by-case basis to make sure that you do not have to use your sick days there are there are things that you can qualify under the law to get leave time paid leave time uh for such activity so if you're not sure if there's a staff member out there who who has been given different guidance this came out from our human resources director and if it's if if somewhere in our district that's not being followed then i need to know about it simple email to me will get the issue fixed because i believe we are a compassionate administration i believe we are a compassionate school district and i believe that we care about our staff at least that's what i want

107to happen in this school district and if it's not i want to know about it let me address the issue that came up that that max reuben brought up our amazing student who i love max when max was talking about um students with masks i didn't hear and he'll correct me if i'm wrong please do max i didn't hear him saying that he saw a lot of kids not wearing masks i thought i heard him say that he heard that this was happening i will tell you this i spent about 45 minutes today walking around the building with mr doctor now you might say maybe it's because i'm walking down the high school with the principal and everybody's wearing their masks but i did not see one student not wearing a mask i saw that's

108not true i saw one student with a mask that was just covering their mouth and not their nose mr doctor simply said please fix your mask the student complied it wasn't an issue let me be clear if students or staff do not comply with our mask requirements during the school day when our kids are in session there will be consequences it's a health and safety issue that is extremely important and there absolutely will be consequences finally we've made it through the first few days of school without a positive student test or a teacher test however as i've been saying for the past couple weeks it's inevitable that that's going to happen at some point in time and uh and just tonight we learned of a teacher a staff member who tested positive in the district

109i'm not going to get into any details the the schools that need to be notified would be notified the parents that need to be notified will be notified um and here's what we do when we learn about a case whether it's a student or staff member we collaborate with the health department the health department gives us guidance and recommendations or sometimes gives us directions on what to do depending on the circumstance it may mean that nothing has to happen it may mean that one classroom may need to quarantine in a worst case scenario it may need may mean that a school would need to quarantine for 14 days and close for 14 days but under no circumstances should there be any panic we don't want people to panic we want people to trust the process

110know that the right people are being notified and that we're looking out for the health and safety of those individuals so it's going to happen we knew it was going to happen it happened today it's going to happen again next week most likely so please please respect the process please understand that we'll be very transparent and open about this um and notify the people who need to be notified about these issues uh and mr daley that's great news that you share with us tonight and i'm happy for you and your family and your grandson thank god for that that concludes my comments madam president thank you very much thank you dr arbitozi uh the next order of business is new business and dr albertosi i actually have uh i would like you to um present

111to the board about the new business with uh miss hallowa i know you just put your mouth thank you uh miss danny uh as as requested by our board president i did contact kathy hello today who was our new jersey school boards association um representative for our region uh to set up a a board retreat for ethics training right now that has been set up for december 3rd at 5 30 pm we have a regularly scheduled meeting already on that date so we'll have the training at 5 30 and our regular meeting will begin at 7 p.m madam chair yes uh i would like to bring this up for discussion with the board if we're having a new uh if we're having a training on december 3rd we will be having a new swearing in

112the next month i don't know what the legal ramifications are but could the new uh prospective board member attend that training as well they can take my spot so the the ethics training is going to be in public so i'm going to make a motion that we have can i make a question well i'm sorry what i was trying to say is that the ethics training is going to be in public so if the new whoever gets elected comes to the public meeting they'll hear it however this gutierrez i can't hear you because of the mask i'm sorry the public meeting the ethics training is going to be happening in public yes so whoever gets elected in november will be able to attend the meeting in public and and hear the training um i was

113just trying to address ms bashford's original question what i would suggest however is that once that person is seated you can always have another ethics training later on it's not very lengthy it's about an hour's worth of training and that's what we figured probably would be february or march maybe whatever works with school boards there'll be another ethics training okay sign with me questions well maybe an open uh invitation to the people that get elected and then this way they can come and participate in the audience thank you okay yeah i just have one quick question uh through you to dr albertosi um max rubin said that they were taking not only uh they were taking sat books for uh for the students i also have a bunch of nursing books that i would like

114to donate we'll will clifton high school be accepting them also because i have a ton of study uh i guess books and pamphlets and everything that i would like to to donate to the students yeah mr piscenti we'd be happy to accept that as a donation um if you could just tell me when they're accepting them i'll be more than happy to bring them over i'll get you that information mr smith you had a question yeah i'm just going back to this ethics training you know miss bassford brings up a very good point you know one month later why don't we just hold it off for one more month and then the new board member would be on and gary doesn't have to not that gary's going to come sit through it anyway but well

115mr smith it was i know but it was miss basford that requested it so i'm just filling up the request and then that's why i originally wanted to hold it till the new board member came on but we could have two it's fine so we'll all get it twice it'll be good we'll be very ethic minded any other question miss gutier is that a hand up or oh sorry oh sorry i was just leaning okay any other questions new business yes dr arbitosi i have a new business item for discussion on the on the board uh miss danny i did give the board a heads up about a week ago i emailed them that we have a school 16 requesting permission to hold a trunk or treat and they've submitted a plan i do have

116to say that you know on on the record um our initial response to these requests to to all the hsas was that no we weren't going to do that this year the elementary principles uh stand by that i support the elementary principles in their um wanting to deny that request for for safety reasons according to the the cdc it's considered one of those higher risk activities although i do commend the school 16 hsa for putting together what i believe is a is a very good plan that i shared with you it would still be for me i i don't know that it's the best idea to to have these types of events um at this time having said that i don't believe it's my call it's the the school 16 hsa has requested use of

117facilities permission from the board of education um if if the majority of this board wants to grant that request i certainly wouldn't block it so i'd like to hear some discussion on that and hear your thoughts please i have a question as of right now uh as of right now our school 16 they're they're doing um a b a b also right and there's ha and there's half of the half of the school participating in in person uh mr percenty they're actually doing at the elementary level they're actually doing four days a week with just wednesday virtual okay and how many how many are in those in that school is how is it half still or about so if they go into this um trunk or treat as they're saying it's possible the whole school

118could participate this is my problem here so that's a good question um my short answer would be i would say yes because the high school level um if you are a virtual student you're allowed to participate in athletics so i would imagine that same rule would apply to any virtual student to be allowed to participate in any type of extracurricular activity so i think potentially yes you can have the whole school there how many are in that whole school oh off the top of my head i want to say about 350. janina do you have a better number for me school 16 numbers so we're under so with with all the parents and every all the helpers who are still under we still have a problem with 500 gathering which is another which is another

119issue i have with this uh whether correct or not school 16 is only um 217 194. no no no either last year's numbers were 217 this year we have 194. so somewhere in the middle there's something wrong with that yeah so anyway that's the numbers that are but i mean even february of last year was 217. so so i i understand mr percentage point is that 500 number in their in their plan [Music] to their to their credit the hsa there is going to do two sessions one from k to two and one from three to five to minimize ground so that would that would help okay so let me just read what what the plan says the events will take place in two sessions one k to two one three to five to minimize

120crowds if there are a large number of participants they will also be provided with a specific time slot to trick or treat all participants will be required to wear masks and will not be admitted without anyone attending the event must be pre-registered no walk-up guests will be permitted the event will be limited to school 16 students and their immediate family which is their household members only the hsa will provide all candy that is to be distributed and create goodie bag types of treats goodie bags will be assembled by hsa members while wearing gloves only adults will be permitted to distribute candy to trick-or-treaters and only candy provided by the hsa will be used adults will be reminded that at no time should they give out any candy other than what was provided adults distributing candy

121will be provided with gloves that must be worn therefore at no time will bare hands have touched any candy and at no time will children be allowed to put hands in candy bowls i have a question mr miss is are the candies are going to be giving out is it sealed packages how is that going to work the verbiage used is a goodie bag okay yes i believe that would have been sealed mr passante yeah just one more thing and dr harper told you you said the teachers were in in the administration principles i should say oh are against this correct yeah the elementary principles i i believe as a whole um are are are not are not for mr smith is your hand up or is okay and mr abdrabbo after yeah uh dr

122robitazi i would surely uh support uh what you think is best however um in saying that somebody one of the speakers in the beginning of the session tonight spoke about how our governor now is opening up uh indoor uh sports so i don't see how you have an outdoor event that you're not gonna allow but you're gonna allow an indoor event with potentially more issues not that i'm against the sports at all that's not what i'm saying i'm just trying to make the correlation but uh you know i would support what you feel would be best for the district as a whole are there that's i think mr pacentia just asked that are there any other applications for other tricky trays yeah so that's one of the concerns for this discussion tonight mr smith because

123pretty much um the elementary principles are and it came from me that we weren't going to do this and so i believe the hsas did not submit requests um due to to that rule that we were enforcing however because school 16 whether or not they got the message i'm not sure um sent a specific request to the board and to myself i wanted it to be at least discussed and considered and if the board does approve this tonight i believe we should allow any other hsas that want to do it a little leeway in getting us uh a permit request you know within the next week so i anticipate if we do approve this tonight you will have other schools um who will you know want to hold a trunk or treat and i think

124your point is well made about the the governor's executive order on monday to me was a big surprise that we're allowing now indoor sports we're allowing wrestling we're allowing basketball indoors and and i think and i i think it's it's more of a political pressure thing and i think we have to be careful of succumbing to political pressure i think we need to do what we think is right but we're also setting a precedent right what we approve now we'll have to approve again in the future and the more we open up those doors to what events we're going to approve um the more difficult it could get so i want our kids to have trunk or treats i want our kids to have a normal halloween i i am concerned about i am concerned

125about it though to be very honest with you but next month if we're having a basketball game indoors i don't know how we justify not allowing a trunk or treat it's a and so i get it it's do you want um dr robertosi do you want the board members to you know do you want to pull the board members yeah further the discussion if if if the majority of this board is is for approving this let's just do it and be done with it okay and the elementary pencils will probably be upset with me but okay that's the nature of my job mr abdrabbo the mr kanova thank you danny um mr sorry superintendent roberto is it inside or outside do they define it outside it's gonna be outside if we're going back i mean

126i see inside and outside but if we if we're gonna go back to normal uh or what whatever normal may be today and open up schools then uh listen i i i'm a school 16 parent so i went to the fundraiser and again i'm not on hsa and i got to talk to our attorney if i even can vote on this or not but um you know i went to the fundraiser they had an outstanding you know showing um and i don't know because i haven't heard of any any cases or anything within you know the exclusive king community so obviously they were able to contain it in any way um they put up a plan together um but that's my you know that's my two cents so i i don't know how i can

127go into this and discuss it but um [Music] i i i don't know i i think it's a fine idea no i'm not a mmh i'm a parent of school 16. yeah um madam president can we recognize mrs kusalevich he wanted to speak earlier okay mr canova just um is it's really your call i don't believe that we need emotion on the floor i think you could just take a stroll pull doctor armitosia are you listening can you hear me i think joe has a question joe wants to talk another thing but yeah before we call the question the only other thing to add here is so i i i do agree i think that they should have be able to have a trick or treat and i and i'm someone that doesn't want to

128get things back to normal the only thing to consider here well first of all they're they're outside of our our district hsa is just like boys and girls club they're not it's not essentially that anything that happens that we would technically be responsible for is that correct so anybody anybody that rents any facilities from us we're always responsible in the end there's some responsibility i think that's okay yeah yeah i know i know so the way it the way i look at it we already have people that attend our our games our football games and et cetera which we're keeping 500 and under um so if we're only talking about 200 i don't know what the number is going to be but if there's if they're giving it up half and half i don't see

129the problem with it the only problem i do see and it's something we're going to have to deal with like you said when other schools submit is that this is late notice for any other school that want to do it one and two it's not so much for your your 16 year two your ccms richard wilson if for year 12 17 4 or 5 how are they going to do this and be socially distant in their small facility where they can host something outside so that's that's the only the other caveat here is some schools have space where others don't and you can't tell one yes and the other no so whatever happens here has to be uniform which is if they're going to use another school's area or something i don't know what we're

130going to do at this point in time and i love the school 16 hsa i love all they do for the children i just don't think i think i need to take my elementary principles recommendations that for this year we do not approve it maybe there's something that they can do the winter break and obviously it's not gonna be a trunk or treat but maybe by winter time uh there's something else we could do in the spring maybe we could start opening up a little more um but it just if all of my principals are telling me that it's not a good idea i got to go with what they're what they're telling me so if you ask my recommendation my recommendation is we say no but i'm just not sure i don't know that

131i have i believe it's a board decision um do you matter president to the superintendent or the business commissioner were there any issues with their fundraiser last month that they helped none that came to my attention so there and again i'm just asking just to inquire because i never really you know delved into what was the outcome very responsible parents i believe that they put together a really good plan i just think that approving this causes more issues um than it than it solves um and i think that at this time i really think that we should look at with the cdc guidelines say that this is a a medium to higher risk activity um even though our governor says we could have indoor sports i i know we're we're talking out of both sides

132of our mouth here i get it and i get the hypocrisy of it all but i just um i gotta go with what my principles are telling me mr daly yeah i kind of uh agree with joe here's the issue i would love for our students and and hsas to carry out these activities uh but what's good for one is also opens the door for others uh and even though they were out there in front school 16 and they may have have a very good plan you're going to have everybody else say well you let them have it why can't we have it and there's other factors as joe said this the schools are all different in terms of the area which they could do this in um so i think it presents more problems

133i do have a question on the liability i think our council uh touched on it um so being we have a very un you know it's it's i feel very unfortunate fortunate not to weigh in and say yes i'd love to say yes but it's it gets very complicated in a hurry here so um i'm leaning towards i don't think it's a good idea i would like to take the poll if we could gutier miss gutierrez yes thank you miss danny this is not something that's on a rep that's a resolution right mr dr robert it is not on the agenda no i but it also seems to me that this is not this is something that you can make a decision you can make the decision whether or not to approve this trunk or

134treat without the board if the decision is solely mine the the the answer i'm very sorry to the school 16 hsa i love you guys please don't be upset with me i'll make it up to you at some point in in in our lifetime but if the decision is solely mine the answer is no i just i was under the impression that the board grants the use of facilities not the superintendent and but if if you're telling me it's my decision my decision is now so do you well let me ask the question this way do you always bring hsa activities to use outside to the board yeah well in that case and you do put it to the board for the question okay yes use of use abilities discussion all right so i may

135i'll make the motion do we normally we don't make motions in new business correct i mean was that i was given it was given to us 48 hours prior so we can it was emailed to us a week ago okay and there are emergency exceptions too and it's an emergency action it right that needs to be done by october 30th so i'll make the motion to take the recommendation as superintendent motion by mr percent second by mr casper um and i guess you're making the motion to vote on um allowing the um i'm making a motion to go with the recommendation of superintendent to suspend all trunk or treats for the 20-20 year thank you mr presentee okay roll call no question yes mr smith yeah i just want to make sure uh there's nothing

136scheduled or requested in the middle schools or the high school for not trunk or treat but anything like that either right well i'm just going with trunk or treat that's fallout that's what my motion is and that's what was brought to the board at this point mr smith that's all i'm just asking if dr robitozzi are there other are there none that i'm aware of mr smith no halloween type activities that's fine okay another questions okay roll call okay so the resolute the motions um take dr robert tosi's recommendation of not allowing trump repeats um i'm going to support the superintendent's recommendation these things we have a process we have a bylaw and we have a policy that supports the facility usage form we just went through this last meeting but we also have to

137support the superintendent's recommendations because these things have to be more thought out and we can't make the decision on the fly so i support the yes to the superintendent it's beltran i would love to see this event happen i think everyone knows that i love events but um i understand that you know it can't happen right now and i hope that somehow we can figure out either allowing the students who are in class or even the ones at home on hybrid to encourage them to encourage them to dress up or you know something to bring a little bit of halloween spirit to it if they choose to yes mr mr casper yes mr pacenti yes mr smith yes miss danny yes motion carries is there any other new business thing on motion to go into

138exec okay i'd like to make a motion to go an executive to discuss contract matters motioned by mr prasanti second by mr casper um roll call mr abedrabo yeah madam chair hold on i hadn't made a request for something to be discussed in executive session is that a soul awesome agenda uh yes miss gutierrez can you um add to what will be in executive session contract matters attorney client privilege yes miss beltran yes mr canova yeah mr daley yes mr casper yes mr pacenti yes mr smith i miss danny yes and miss gutierrez no action will be taken uh we will adjourn from executive session correct that's correct yeah we take a breather we're going to need to go to a breakout room please yes we're just gonna stop the live stream and the recording

139because um you're closing from executive session all right