October 1, 2020 - Clifton Board of Education Meeting

001so okay we are now recording and live streaming uh samuel you you are permitted to turn your camera on and join the meeting as the student representative in three minutes we'll start uh um one minute samuel if you prefer you can turn your camera off until you're prompted to speak and that'll blank you out for the public view until it's your time call to order the october 1st 2020 regular board meeting please stand for the pledge of allegiance 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 liberty and justice for all roll call of board members mr abbey drama here miss bellsford here here miss beltran here mr canova here mr daley here mr

002casper mr picenti mr smith here mr henny here the mission of the clifton school district in an open and reciprocal community partnership is to provide all students with a quality education to develop the skills necessary to become literate lifelong learners who are responsible and productive citizens contributing to a democratic society in an ever-changing world the next order of business is the reading of the open public meeting statement the new jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right 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

003place there are 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 mail to presidents of parent-teacher organization this meeting will be tape recorded in accordance with policy 0168 next order of business is adoption of minutes can i have a motion to adopt the september 17th hey can someone grab the papers in the printer and bring them down it's all moved second second uh motion by i'm sorry mr abu drabo second by it was mr percenty first and average second okay mr sorry because i was with the uh bringing down the papers sorry um motion by mr pacenti second by mr abhidrabo uh any revisions corrections scene none row call mr abedrabo yes yes miss password yes mr

004casper yes mr piscenti abstain mr smith yes mr annie yes next order of business there is no communication and announcements there is no first reading of policy next order of business is presentation of reports from administration advisory committees and special committees the superintendent's update on reopening for in-person instruction by dr robertosi and executive staff i turn it over to you dr arbitozzi thank you madam president good evening commissioners members of the public those watching at home and community members just so we can set the stage for everybody watching this live stream the board of education meeting is being held tonight uh live from jfk auditorium at clinton high school we are sitting on the stage uh six feet apart with dividers separating us so when uh board members are speaking we may or may not

005be wearing masks but we are socially distant and adhering to the protocols i'm going to begin to share my screen if you can just give me one second give me a thumbs up if you can see my screen everyone thank you so good evening once again uh ladies and gentlemen tonight i want to give the superintendent's update on our restart and recovery plan uh as many of you will remember on august 10th of 2020 the board of education approved the clifton reopening plan and and it is important to note that the information in our plan is subject subject to change uh according to what's going on currently in the country or as mandated by the new jersey department of education uh but our plan was based on the health and safety of our students and

006it was the number one uh priority and guide in all of the decisions that were made going back in time on august 10th we board approved the plan to open up the school year in a hybrid schedule on september 8th on august 20th 10 days after that meeting we held the town forum and at that forum we had several guests mr bob foster from the boys and girls club in clifton uh john beagle the clifton health officer all of our commissioners and my executive team at that meeting the board and i made a decision to begin the school year remotely part of that decision we stated publicly that we would reevaluate the conditions on october 1st for a potential reopening for in-person instruction on october 12th ladies and gentlemen today is october 1st and as

007you will see on the agenda tonight there is a resolution where as the superintendent of schools i am strongly recommending that we open up our schools for in-person instruction on october 12 2020. sorry having a technical difficulty again throughout the development of our plan and the 200 plus stakeholders that were part of creating it the health and safety of our students and staff in an inclusive manner was at the forefront of every aspect all decisions and choices have been made with this guiding principle so what has changed since august twentieth twenty twenty first and foremost we postponed the in person in person reopening of our school on september 8th because there was a major uptick of coveted cases in clifton in august particularly among school-age children aged zero to 19 years old in fact during

008the week between august 10th and august 17th 30 cases were reported in school-age children that was an alarming statistic that if that were to occur during a school year would force us to either shut down several schools or even the entire district to date as of october 1st the current seven-day period average among children aged zero to 19 is down to five cases per week of those students um it is impossible for us to know whether or not they were clifton public school students or would have been in school had they been infected so the current data shows a significant reduction in school-age cases so we've had a reduction of cases in school-aged children the department of health is able to do contact tracing with greater detail we have continued consultation with our stakeholder groups

009including the department of health and most importantly our parents our parents a very large group of them want and need their children to return to school while many students are excelling during this remote learning process there are too many students particularly our most at risk students and our special needs students who are struggling for a variety of reasons the subject of mental health has been at the forefront of my decision to recommend us to reopen schools for in-person instruction the number of self-harm cases that are being reported are on the uptick the number of uh students with anxiety the number of students who um and adults too who have depression are on the rise i strongly believe that a return to in-person instruction for some students will help alleviate that it's important to note that

010the district is prepared to transition to full remote in the event of the need to quarantine an individual class school or district if deemed necessary based on consultation with the clifton department of health this is very important and i want all the commissioners to know before you vote on opening schools when we reopen on october 12th could be that week could be the next week could be a month from now could be two months from now there will at some point be a positive case in our district whether that's a student or whether that's a faculty member is yet to be seen however if and when that happens we will have the protocols in place through the department of health to do the appropriate contact tracing to see if we need to either isolate or

011quarantine a class or a few students or a few adults perhaps a school and in the worst case scenario it would be the entire district we are prepared on a moment's notice to switch back to a full remote option in the event is necessary to further my recommendation to reopen schools the early evidence according to experts i'm not a scientist i do not claim to be a scientist but the experts say that the early evidence suggests that opening schools may not be as risky as originally feared there was an article in the washington post on september 23 2020 which stated exactly that with the backup scientific information one of the reasons why we delayed our in-person instruction one was the uptick in cases among school-aged children but the other thing was we were able to

012see what other school districts were doing and while i know there have been cases in other school districts where they've had to shut down a school or even shut down the district there are many more examples where school districts have been up and running since the beginning of september with very little interruption i'm going to remember to hit the enter button instead of my mouse from now on um to discuss a brief review of some of the highlights of our plan for reopening uh my executive team has joined us tonight uh janina kusalevich assistant superintendent uh miss vicki beck our supervisor of nursing and mark gengar our director of climate and security at this time i'm going to turn over this brief presentation to ms vicki beck to talk about the health and safety guidelines

013that we've instituted good evening so the district will continue to maintain communication with local and state health authorities ms beck we can't really hear you i don't know if it's anybody else now you can yes okay the district will continue to maintain communication with the local and state health authorities um [Music] our health department is on my speed dial and we do speak a couple of times a day just to clarify the latest and greatest and the most important things we need to do to ensure the health and safety of our students a comp and staff accommodations have been made for staff and students who are at a higher risk of covet 19. expectations have been set for our staff students and our parents on hand washing proper hygiene use of face masks and daily

014monitoring for symptoms next slide please protocols for daily entrants to the buildings hand disinfecting and the use of faced coverings are posted in main entrance areas of all buildings mandatory daily symptom screening will be conducted at home prior to coming to school and that is from the cdc guidelines and the new jersey department of health guidelines pre-k to 8 daily screen screening will be completed via our parent portal and parents will receive instructions they will receive the link and daily reminders 9 to 12 daily screening will be completed via google form with a daily email receipt sent to the high school student so they can show that receipt when they enter the building staff students and parents will complete a digital screening checklist prior to leaving their homes indicating the absence of symptoms digital screening

015includes a daily history of exposure assessment indicating whether or not the child or staff member or visitor has been in contact with anyone that tested positive for covet 19 or has traveled out of state in the last two weeks and just so that you're aware the new jersey department of health updates the travel advisories each week states are added or taken away and we do keep up to date on that we have shared that link with all of our staff and we will be sharing that link with our parents as well temperature checks will be conducted at entry as a secondary health check measure temperature checks are not required by the cdc or the new jersey department of health we will be doing temperature checks for children as they enter the building as an extra

016health check measure staff students in pre-k through 12 and all approved visitors must wear masks in school including classrooms outside on school property at the entrance to the buildings the hallways and all shared areas to be clear visitors coming to the building will have to have an appointment in advance they will notify us of their presence at the building and buildings will have procedures on how to screen them and how to allow them into the building if needed all students and all staff are required to wear face masks at all times plastic shields are secured on desks and tables as well as plastic barriers in the offices the plastic shields are being installed maybe some are being done tonight too i don't know but we've been doing it for a week or so when we

017will finish before the 12th classrooms and common areas are equipped with hand sanitizing hand sanitizers and disinfecting stations we do have hand sanitizers up on walls those of you who are at the high school now you saw it as you entered the building there they will all be installed on the walls in the classrooms there will be hand sanitizers on teachers desks face shields may be used in addition to but not in place of face masks they are available for all of our staff members i believe we have delivered them to all the buildings and they will be just distributed in time for our october 12th start all nurses and staff in quarantine areas will be provided with ppe including disposable gowns appropriate masks face shields and gloves we have just completed on friday visiting

018every building with mr john beagle the clifton health department director and mr al martion came around with us we visited with each principal we walked around their buildings we looked at possible isolation spaces we looked at appropriate isolation spaces we looked at the procedures in each building we spoke with the principals and the head custodians and the nurses in each building to see what would work best for them within the guidelines of the department of health the new jersey department of health that task has been completed we will have all the appropriate equipment in the appropriate places and ready to welcome our kids back on october 12th thank you mr gengaro thank you very much moving forward on some neil's paw ball reopening plan i would first like to protect mr ash rosenberg the entire

019pomponian team the ongoing efforts to provide meals to the entire clinton learning community to date approximately 325 000 meals have been served to our students with our learning community recently the new jersey department of agriculture has extended their waiver for the duration of the 2021 clifton school year which means that all clinton students are eligible to continue to receive our free emails our property opening on october 12th our meal distribution program will continue to be available three days a week monday wednesday and friday at all three of our distribution sites for both our and charter school students both chs and school number 17 will be open from 1 30 to 2 30 pm with early bird special meal ccns will be offered from 10 o'clock to 11 30 a.m for our students who have selected

020the in-person educational option we'll be utilizing a grab-and-go process students will be provided upon dismissal either at their building or classroom exits simply communicate your intent to your student classroom teacher as this will help us with the preparation process please be reminded any meals or snacks that are eaten in school will take place in the classroom behind us or in some cases such as the chs individual tables at the cafeteria appropriate protocols such as the washing areas and the cleaning areas both before and after meals moving forward to transportation i also like to take this great opportunity to recognize miss elizabeth nick supervising all of [Music] as this team has been involved in a plethora of tasks so it's the members of that transportation team and on behalf of the entire of all members of

021our learning community thank you for what you have done in our preparation to reopen our schools as we know clifton does provide transportation for more than 2 000 students yearly and our district will continue to provide transportation to and from school for our eligible students as for our cdc and njdoe guidance students drivers aides are all required to wear face covers at all times while riding the bus unless doing so would inhibit the health of that individual special accommodations will be made for students who are able to wear a face covering in accordance with all applicable laws and video lessons bus windows will remain open weather permitting to ensure plenty of air circulation throughout the bus of course the cleanliness cleaning and disinfecting processes will be enhanced and increased our buses will be cleaned between

022each route by our drivers and our aides focusing on what we call those heavily touched areas such as seats handrails and seat belts buses will also be disinfected each night new bus procedures will be put into effect for the start of this year october 12th and to help assist with social distancing and to limit exposure of others procedures may include the loading of students from the back to front and being discharged in front of the back in pre-designed parts of students based on bus stops uh procedures will be in the place at the building level where students will load the bus and the specified order based on where the student drop-off is on the way back and when possible students will be assigned will be assigned to be seated with siblings from the same household

023building level administrators will continue to build a building uh communicate this building specific transportation and meal plans to all families in the near future at this time i'd like to turn the reopening presentation over to our superintendent of curriculum and instruction gina thank you mr jingaro in august our families um were surveyed and made selections of either a fully remote plan or in-person hybrid instruction on october 12th those families who chose in-person instruction will be able to return to school those families who chose fully remote instruction will continue in the manner that we've been instructing our students at this time please know that i'm about to given up highlights of our elementary middle and high school format all three plans whether fully remote in-person hybrid or if we have to switch back to remote at

024any point follow the same format so that our students are comfortable with their schedules comfortable with their teachers and can switch back and forth as needed the consistency for our students and our teachers helps our students be able to stay in touch with their peers and be on the same page whether they are going to continue learning at home or if they will return to our schools the elementary school return plan consists of four days of in-person instruction a week with one virtual day on wednesdays elementary students pre-k through five will attend school on monday tuesday thursday and friday with that wednesday virtual day and instruction will continue to be in person from nine until 1 10 for all groups with asynchronous lessons and assignments and online programs assigned from 2 to 2 30 p.m

025across content areas right now our split is fairly even and all of our classes are socially distanced if the clifton public schools and health department determine that we have too many students electing to return we may need to move to an a b hybrid schedule if social distancing protocols are not permissible for middle school we are following a hybrid a b option our students in grades six through eight are already divided into a b groups with an alternating rotating schedule of ten periods across the two days our students are in two cohorts they already know who they are because they've already been cohorted into group a or group b group a students will come in person on mondays and thursdays group b students will come in person on tuesdays and fridays wednesday will remain a

026virtual day and we're paying special attention to grade level splits so that if you're a cohort a middle school student and you have a sibling at the high school we will make every effort to make sure that you are in cohort a together so when one cohort is present in school the other cohort will be participating in online instruction including their physical education and cycle classes on wednesdays both groups will be meeting together middle school will be in session from 8 to 12 25 for the in-person online and virtual days with asynchronous assignments from 1 to 2 pm across the week at the high school our students are following a similar hybrid a b option with the same rotation if you were assigned to the a cohort at the beginning of the year you will

027be coming to school on monday and thursday and if you were assigned to the b cohort it will be tuesday and friday wednesday for high school just like the rest of the district will be the virtual day for everyone our hours at the high school will be 7 29 to 11 48 just like they are right now during our fully remote instruction with asynchronous and independent activities assigned from 12 30 to 2. moving forward the boys and girls club will be providing aftercare beginning on monday october 12th the aftercare hours will be from 1 10 until 5 30 on monday thursday and friday there will be no programs on wednesdays there are still limited slots available across the district families who had previously registered for boys and girls club back in august are already in

028that pool please be sure to contact the boys and girls club directly so that you can see if you can avail yourself of one of the available slots at schools 4 12 and 17 we will continue to have the minds in motion programs during those same hours the minds in motion program will not begin until monday october 19th at all of these programs social distancing will be maintained between groups students will be in cohorted pods of 15 students and all masking and safety protocols will be followed thank you very much ladies and gentlemen of the board uh i give my strongest recommendation that we open up for in-person hybrid learning on october 12th truly once again i i want to say that i think it's the best option for our most at-risk students and those

029who need the most help um there is one thing that i do want to address and i know it's probably a question that parents will have we did a survey over the summer and we asked parents whether or not their child would be taking the remote option which they have the option to stay remote all year or returned in person our entire district's schedule was based upon the results of that survey so having said that if the option you chose if you chose to be fully remote you can stay fully remote you do not have to return to school if you chose to come back in person welcome back october 12th if you chose to come back in person but want to stay remote that is an easier option all i would ask you to

030do is please contact your child's principal where it will become more difficult is if you've chosen to stay remote all year and you do want to return in person right now our policy states that you can request to come back in person at the end of each marking period we will accommodate those who we can earlier upon special requests however particularly at the elementary level in very few places will we ever have more than 15 students in an in-person classroom so if you chose the old remote option and there's already 15 students in your child's classroom in person and you want your child to return to school they may not be able to return to that particular class that is the only caveat that i just want to make sure the board understands i want

031to make sure our parents understand if you want to go from in person to remote very easy no problem going from remote to in person at the elementary level in particular not impossible will most likely be able to be done but probably won't be able to be done till the end of each marking period and in certain circumstances if there are too many children already in person you may have to go to another class so i just want to get that information out there i thank you for your attention and if the commissioners have any questions we'll be happy to answer them now any questions uh through the superintendent through this administration or super i can answer this can you just clarify more on i've had some questions and obviously i've always told them not

032of me it's up to the superintendent to answer this can you just clarify on the masked versus dividers question while the kids are at their desk on the elementary level i'm going to ask mrs beck and or mrs kusalevich to respond to that uh just could you repeat the question one more time mr abdraba yes sir so if a student so if a student goes to their desk do they have to wear their mask and what constitutes that they have to wear a mask in the classroom or where about in the buildings do they have to wear a match particularly the elementary school level all students commissioner will have to wear a mask at all times masks must be worn indoors even behind the student dividers they can only be removed if a student is

033eating or if we're giving them a short mask break that would be extremely socially distanced and usually outside on all school property in the hallways in the bathrooms in the classroom seated behind your shield masks must be worn at all times okay so there will be a massbrick now what happens if again i'm just we're going back into this i want to make sure we get all these questions out right now and today this week people understand from the public right um so what happens now if a parent has a doctor's note saying well my kid's going in person but can't have a mask right there and then so what what options do we give them so ask again so basically if i'm a student sitting at my desk right now i have this on

034my mom my mom brought in a doctor's note saying i can't have this on it affect my breathing or issues but i want to come back into the school what are our options to them i'll answer that question and mrs beck can correct me if i answer it incorrectly we're requiring masks any request that a parent brings in from a physician that their child cannot wear a mask will be considered a request for an accommodation and will be handled as such which means we would first have our district physician look at the documentation and we will rely on the advice of what our district physician tells us and each case if there are any will be handled on a case-by-case basis mrs beck give me a thumbs up if that's correct i want to get

035the mask where you can see me smiling because i feel like i feel like i look mean no by the way there are masks that have zippers that you can open if you want to smile close right back up do any of the commissioners have any other questions mr armstrong and then mr kanova oh let me take another first thirties yes i said mr canova i'm sorry i had the mute on bonnie uh okay um i have a couple questions so um so it was mentioned with that screening's gonna be done at home which means the parents gonna be responsible they're gonna go into the parent portal um now i'm assuming by that time we're going to have in technology for them to be able to do that because we're talking about going into an

036electric electronic database so are all students going to be one-to-one with chromebooks at that time the short answer is god willing uh our our chromebook order is uh currently on schedule um we are hoping that will be next week um and but as soon as we received the order uh i've been informed by my staff that we can you know have those turned around in in two or three days to get them out to parents if we have to have a distribution next weekend and open up our schools on the weekends we'll do whatever it takes to get those devices out having said that if by some chance we do not have the devices these surveys can be filled out on a cell phone anybody who has a cell phone uh can tell it's very

037very easy to log into the parent portal we are going to do some test runs next week so parents be on the lookout for those we'll be testing the parent portal so you'll have an opportunity to try it out um and at the you know worst case scenario if it's absolutely necessary there could potentially be a paper option but we'll leave that up to the individual schools to handle that on an as needed okay and are we also going to do this at school because i remember we said that we wanted to do the the temperature checks at schools themselves is that also taking place we are doing the temperature checks um as per the board's will that was uh if we remember back in the summer the cdc still does not recommend that we

038do it for a variety of reasons it is an extra precaution we're going to do it it is my hope that in time uh once we get back in the swing of things perhaps that might be something we can stop doing in the future but i think for everybody's safety it's best for now to begin with the temperature screenings and we will be doing that at the schools as students are entering the buildings and how how will we know if a parent filled out or didn't fill out the information parent portal when they are arriving on the scene and then they're having their temperature check or is that something that we're looking at both and have both done in order to enter the building we spent hours trying to figure out how we were uh

039going i don't mean to laugh it's not funny but we spent hours on figuring out how we're going to do this so vicki can you help me out with that yes i can so we have been using this same survey through real time for teachers for the past three weeks i believe since we started school we actually got the access to it that the weekend before school started and worked to perfect it we've been working for three weeks to get it down pat with the teachers there is a reporting mechanism that we will be able to see we will be able to know who completed it who didn't complete it and we will follow up with parents and say and give a call and say mrs smith i have johnny here can you just tell

040us what the answers to the questions are yes we have thought of it and we are going to work with our parents this is the reason that we're going to roll out with it a week early so that parents can get used to it and figure out how to do it and since we're relying on a system at this point is there a disaster recovery sort of uh plan in place in case i mean i know microsoft had an outage a couple days ago and it took out all their systems for a few hours so in the mornings when everybody's rushing to fill out these surveys um especially with all the traffic hitting that server is there something as a backup like if this doesn't work then they could do xyz or they could file

041a paper form and hand it in there okay we'll have paper at the door for parents pa the paper forms available as um dr roberta robitazi said each building is figuring out their exact procedure knowing their building but we have the process for the entire district okay thank you mr abdul thank you miss danny um to the administration uh obviously i mean i can't say obviously but many uh elementary school children uh really can't handle the learning process right now uh middle school i can't speak for but have we thought with what's going on in pacific county around the state on the high school level if we would if it's easier perhaps to ease the high school back in more of the general population is what i'm talking about or our high school generally the

042general population sorry have we thought whether we should hold off on on their on their easing them into into the school district and working our way up from the elementary middle and then waiting on the high school or is do we feel that it's safe enough with high school why am i on high school high school because while it's a b cohort while yes it's a big you know big building campus structure that people will be spread apart but high school aged students tend to congregate more whether it's outside whether it's inside yes they have the option of going remote they have the option of coming into the class but the ones who i'm worried about are the ones who are not going remote or incoming day-to-day class and they're the ones who are congregating

043the hallway um you know we're all high school students at one point or another we don't know how to we don't know how to stay away from each other at least from what i can remember maybe i'm wrong now and i hope i'm wrong or if they congregate outside the school and they come into the school so there's many factors that we can think of there's there's a lot of ifs and busts and hands and there's also at the point where um it's going to be inevitable so i just want to make sure that we thought through all the processes and all what can possibly happen and make sure that we feel absolutely comfortable especially on the high school level for them to come back the the short answer mr abjabo is as part of

044our reopening plan i'm sure it was considered or or discussed at some point to maybe phase in beginning at elementary but it has always been part of our plan since was presented on august 10th to bring the uh to bring the district back and the reason why i'm i'm comfortable with that decision now especially at the high school level was because like you had mentioned students do have the option to stay remote if a parent or student is not comfortable with the procedures or processes that we have put in place then then they can stay remote i i don't disagree with you that it's going to be probably more difficult to to police for lack of a better term the social distancing among the older children but i'm going to trust that our students are

045going to be responsible in times of uncertainty in times of crisis in my experience and 23 years in education our students always come through so i'm counting on them to to do the right thing i'm more concerned about not what's happening in school it's about what what's happening at night and on weekends at private gatherings and house parties and things like that i think that's probably more of a concern and something that's really out of work thank you miss basford thank you president danny i have a question about how are you going to control if there's an outbreak in the high school and they have siblings in the elementary school or in the middle school and that was one question another question i have is how are we going to quarant uh we're quarantining is

046not a mandatory but if we know that a staff member has gone out of state uh will we suggest them quarantining um as well um what what is the rules for that and the other thing um is uh how how are we gonna hand uh what's mr beagle what was the advice of mr beagle because um i wish he was on this meeting um you know because i i did speak to him on monday night myself and um i'm just i'm just curious to what his recommendation was thank you uh ms benson i'll start with the last comment first mr beagle certainly would have joined us tonight he teaches a a class in a college class on thursday night so otherwise he would have been here we did have an extensive meeting with mr beagle

047and the staff at the clifton health department earlier in the week and remember although mr beagle can give a recommendation um he doesn't have you know doesn't have the authority to say we can reopen he can close us but he can't tell us to reopen so uh he was encouraged by the lack of or the reduction of numbers in school-aged children uh did he give me a specific recommendation to reopen or not no he did not give me a specific recommendation he didn't but he did not also uh recommend that i that i don't reopen but he did give us encouraging numbers that at least convinced me and my executive team that that we should reopen uh let me address the contact tracing question if there is a positive case anywhere in the district we

048will rely on the health department the first phone call that's made it's either going to come from the health department to us or we're going to be contacting the health department they will be responsible with our help of doing the contact tracing part of that contact tracing will be we will give the family information the sibling information there's a student at the high school and a child that one of our middle schools anybody who needs to be contacted will be contacted through that contact tracing and we will just rely on the recommendation of the health department on who needs to quarantine how many people whether it's a class whether it's a school and for how long so there is a process in place the health department's been doing it mr beagle is also the health

049officer in other towns where he's had to do this already so i'm confident in our health department to to assist us with that the other question you ask is a little bit more complicated so we're kind of on the honor system with staff who travel out of state or to a state that that requires you to quarantine upon return um i can't tell staff not to travel i can't mandate that um so we're kind of on the honor system where we're hoping that staff members self-report and and do the right thing and on a case-by-case basis we'll have to make a determination on whether those uh staff members will need to quarantine or they can return to work it would depend on the situation is it possible that you could add that question to the

050the coveted questionnaire for both parents and staff when they're returning mr knope i apologize i couldn't get that question so the coven questionnaire the one that we filled out today the one staff are filling out the one that parents are going to be filling out for the parent portal can we add that question into it about being in another visiting another state for in the past 14 days it's on that's that's one of the questions okay it's on there but but again like i said it's on the honor system mr daley uh thank you madam president um it's the question on the mask uh i work in for employer that we're both with our fellow employees and a great deal of public and recently i think it was i'm not sure a cdc uh ruling

051that the mass that have breathers and i know i don't see anybody in here that has that uh now no longer effective and i don't know if we have also gotten that message in the district mr daley i'll defer to mrs beck on that um parents will start getting all those flyers and all those that information next week the cdc has developed some information that we can share it will be multi-language which is what we really need and no they can't wear the masks with the vents or there's a a bunch of things that the cdc does recommend that the new jersey department of health is also recommending we will be going by the guidelines of the new jersey department of health who is working with the new jersey department of education that that is

052our first set of guidelines that we will be following okay any other commissioners mr canova uh they're gonna be they're going to be doing aftercare do you know how many total they're going to be accepting of students and i remember the last time they were here they talked about students being in pods and not mixing students is that still the case are we not mixing pods within that aftercare uh the it is still the case mr kenova that there will be pods and no mixing of the pods that was a critical piece for the health department to kind of give the okay on it um as far as numbers i don't know them off off the top of my head i do know that obviously because of social distancing and and then the non-mixing of

053the pods the numbers are reduced but as of today according to mr foster there are spots available so i would encourage parents to reach out to the boys and girls club um as soon as possible if they believe that they're going to need aftercare and for both the aftercare and during in session before going back in session uh what does that look like for for bathroom breaks because if we're not mixing pods then what happens when there's two students that need to go to the bathroom are we allowing them both in the same time or we're cleaning in between how does that all shake out can i um ask uh mrs beckham and mrs cruz to help me out with the bathroom issue there there will be procedures in the bathrooms they will be shared

054with all principles and the principles will make those procedures work within their building as we said we're we're just giving them the guidelines of bathroom breaks we will also share them with mr foster who already ran a successful program all summer and so we're taking some from him as well to see what worked for him would you be able to share that with the board as soon as it's finished yes i would not right this second though okay as as you can as you read in the paper the guidance keeps changing i have crossed out retyped rewritten so many times we're about to have um share with our internal staff um our nurses to discuss the feasibility of all this guidance and to see how it would work best in all the buildings so yes

055we will be sharing it with you but we're still kind of working on it and tweaking it that madam vice chair basford thank you um i have a question not staffing uh do you have an exact number of how many uh teachers are working remote and how many teachers are working in in the buildings right now and will that will let um have being that we're talking about going back has more requests been received for teachers to go um remote mrs bashford i have access to that number i do not know that number off the top of my head i can get you that number um at the end of the board meeting um but we did have a deadline for staff members to submit requests for accommodations to for medical reasons to uh either

056work remotely or work from home so that that deadline has passed so um i don't anticipate that tomorrow i'm going to be getting a bunch of leave requests um because i would have expected that any uh staff member who already had a pre-existing condition knew about it before before tomorrow so i'm not expecting a bunch of requests right now we have enough staff to open up and do what we need to do i'll reiterate my concern at the elementary level if too many if too many elementary students who chose the remote all year if everybody wants to come back there's just no way to house every student that's the only big issue i can foresee in the future again if people want to go from in person to remote that's easy if we have a

057bunch that want to go from in from remote to in person that could potentially be an issue in the future thank you mr abu drabo thank you miss danny um superintendent so that number of staff does that also include the number of substitutes on hand or have we taken a survey of how many substitutes we actually have on hand or are willing to come in if need be yes we know we've contacted every substitute that we have on record we've identified a number of substitutes who have said that they will work we are sched there's a training scheduled for our substitutes next week on our health and safety protocols and also on the use of a google classroom uh substitute staffing you know could could potentially be an issue um it's going to be you

058know dealt with on a day-by-day basis by the principals right now i think we have enough we're going to recruit more and like i said we do have a training next week for i want to say there's 70 or so that are that have indicated that they are ready and prepared to work i have one more question thank you president danny yes madam advice thank you um yes through you too uh dr robert does he i have a question about the amount of time it's actually going to take to check the students and and what kind how much how much is that going to take away from the classroom time um i i know it we've all been everybody's been getting used to the remote learning and i'm just curious to see what what's the

059time frame because the the periods are shorter the day is short i just would like to know if you have any idea that how long it's going to take thank you that's a very good question mr bestford it's something that we talked at length about um we're going to be each and now each school is unique each school is going to have a number of entrances by which students are going to come through and prior to october 12th students will know our parents will be told what door they are to enter to so because we're using multiple entrances and we'll have multiple uh temperature taking stations um sure it'll take a little longer than normal of entering but we don't anticipate that it's going to impact instructional time for example at clifton high school there's

060going to be at least six entrances uh available that are covered by staff with the temperature taking and also students will be coming in with their phone showing their receipt that they did the staff's the health screening survey so on a building by building basis we're trusting our principals to work out those details and parents will be hearing from their child's principle on those more specific kind of building um specific issues i do have one more because i i found my note the other question is um the elementary students will be in the classroom they'll be in the classroom the whole entire time middle school and high school who will be cleaning the desks after they leave that classroom how is that going to be worked out because we that was an issue with the

061meeting that we had to decide to go remote so i was just wondering if we had any clarification on that as well so what you say that is correct mrs bedford elementary students and middle school students will not be changing classes they will be in the same room at the high school because of the complexity of the master schedule the need to teach certain classes in certain types of classrooms i.e chemistry and certain science classes and laboratory rooms will be asking the high school students only as they enter the classroom there will be sanitizing wipes we'll be asking them to sanitize their own desk as they enter the classroom and that will only be at the high school level vicki if you have something to add please don't miss the process will actually be they're

062going to sanitize the desk and then use the hand sanitizer because they just sanitize the desk we we have looked at the options and we're we're trying to make it as easy a transition and safe as a transition as we can for our high school students and we certainly believe that high school students are uh capable of of taking a wipe and wiping down their desk i mean if we go to you go to shop right today first thing you do you grab a wipe and you're wiping down your card so we're not asking our elementary students to do that but we believe our high school students are certainly capable of doing that and yet mr gnome in the elementary school well really all schools but mostly in elementary something i'm thinking the little kids

063with the big book bags that they have all their books in um now we know that at the drop of a dime something can happen and a class goes out and we wouldn't want the class the the students to be without their chromebook without their books and things they need to facilitate proper education are we requiring that they bring in all this stuff every day the the chromebook make sure it's charged at night uh because we're not gonna have wires running across the room or is the are the teachers just gonna say tomorrow we're going to use these books make sure you have this stuff and every night they just have to be uh aware of what they need to bring into for the the next the upcoming day mrs gustavich the chromebooks will be

064required to be brought in every day charged however in terms of the materials we're streamlining which materials will be required to come back and forth with students each day because we have a virtual day every week there will be a portion of students books that are currently there that will just stay at home if there is a change they'll be asked to bring certain things in but for the most part it would really just be their math workbook which is the work text um and each class will be notified of what they would need to bring but it would not be changing radically day to day we want to keep it streamlined so the same things are in the book back and forth and kids aren't forgetting things okay thank you and again these are

065things that we have we have great teachers our teachers are going to handle these issues um i'm not concerned about those things because our teachers know know what's best for for their students and they'll they'll handle these these types of issues and listen there will be issues that come up that perhaps we never thought of but we got a great team we got amazing staff we'll figure it out and we're going to get through this i'm telling you we get through that first week of in-person learning maybe that second week and and we're back and i think everybody's going to feel better about it i know people are leery people are understandably uh perhaps have reservations but i think it's you know we just gotta get back we gotta get back to it do any

066commissioners have any other questions okay see none next sorry i only just have one if if the six foot restriction is removed does that mean that all students can now come back because you were mentioning before there there's a crunch around how many students fit inside a classroom because of the distance if that were to be removed does that mean that now we're back in class mr ganome i think there would be two things that would need to be removed that's six foot restriction and possibly that 25 number in an indoor room now most of our classrooms wouldn't go above 25 but some would when you count the students maybe a teacher that could be two teachers in a classroom with a paraprofessional i just i don't know if that's happening anytime soon but the

067the short answer is yes if that were the the bigger social distancing measurement we have the more students we could bring back mr albertravo thank you let me jump on mr novice hotel now and let me play devil's advocate what happens if six feet becomes now a bigger social distance issue what do we do then so if it goes from six feet to ten feet i don't know it may change the way the state's going away the way the you know the the national restrictions are going state researchers are going you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow you don't know what's going to happen in five minutes what happens if that now changes from six feet to something else to higher more but social distance measurement well i i i don't know uh if

068that happens we we're gonna we're gonna have a problem but i don't have a good answer for that um i mean i know science changes as we learn more information but the six foot um the science on the six-foot separation is pretty standard it's kind of something that most scientists uh agree upon i guess there are some who say it should be less some who say it could be more but six feet is generally agreed upon so we're hoping it doesn't go uh require us to separate any more than that because if that happens we'll we'll have an issue can't fit 15 students in a classroom if it's 10 feet of separation okay um and then one more question if i may so just to clarify this maybe i missed this i apologize so if

069a student is quarantined for two weeks do they do remote for two weeks then go back in person we'll rely on what the health department tells us if the health department tells us 14 days it will be 14 days then they can return thank you yes vice chair basford uh yes i have one other question um how was the did anybody uh talk to the union on this the teachers union what's their thoughts about staying remote coming back in i just wondering if they they've you know they've been in consultation as well as far as she met with your staff but has a union weighed in on this in almost every major meeting that we've had we've involved uh the cea leadership and mr llama i'm sure she's going to call in later and make

070some public comment um i i can't speak for whether or not i mean i didn't i didn't ask if the association agrees with my recommendation um i certainly think that they were expecting that this was coming i don't think that they're opposed to it i think and rightfully so the association's concern is you know health and safety do we have the measurements and the things in place to protect our staff um i believe we do and i believe if there's any areas that we don't that we can correct them you know rather quickly so um maybe mr llama will call in later and i'm sure she'll let us know her thoughts any other questions by commissioners okay see none the next order of business is board committee reports um do we have something from the

071student representative ms danny tonight max rubin couldn't make it so in his place is the ultimate delegate samuel samuel if you can hear us it's your turn uh yeah good morning uh good evening everybody but even everybody was watching on live yeah i just wanted to start saying um if anybody has like any questions about any events any clubs any communities going on in school uh we post the morning announcements every single day monday through friday every single week there's also um school sports are going on we have the first official basketball football game tomorrow we also have tennis girls tennis cross country and boys and girls soccer team their seasons are also going on and then uh questions that we have like concerns is we want to know what's happening with the teen center

072at the high school we're wondering if it's gonna like it's gonna be closing if it's not stay open when we come back like that's the concern that us as soon as we have so if anybody could answer that you are you driving right now uh i am not driving um i just want to make sure that you're safe yeah um yeah miss danny with your with your permission yes i was going to yes go ahead thank you uh samuel i'm happy to to tell you um that with these support of many stakeholders throughout the state of new jersey the governor reinstated all of the funding for school-based youth services so our teen center located at clifton high school will be fully funded and will be operational uh for this school year it really is it

073really is a great thing because it was on the chopping block and there was a grassroots effort to fight for that funding and bring it back and it's it's really good for our kids thank you oh so uh other concerns that we have i think uh a lot of students i did get in contact with the student union and a lot of students are having like um negative opinions towards the gym like the physical education remote learning like they were also giving me like other uh options that they could do they were saying good option would be something like an app or like a website that could like instead of going like to class and being in a car doing physical education they would like um like an app that could record their physical activities

074and that's easier that then they can submit every single day to school and besides that i think that's all that we have thank you very much thank you thank you mr casper uh the education committee yes can everybody hear me yes okay so uh this past week we had a an education meeting uh on september 29th so the education committee began at 4 45 in attendance were myself along with miss basford uh mr canova and mr abedrabo administrators included uh dr reppertozzi mr tegen mrs kusalevich uh miss furtolo mr mountain mr doctor and we had a guest uh uh miss rachel harrington so uh items of discussion included a special education forum planning ms rotolo board members and administration discuss plans to support special education families and provide updates and information about special education a

075virtual departmental presentation and forum will be held at 7 00 pm on wednesday october 14 2020 the action is informational the meeting was adjourned at 5 45 p.m and respectfully submitted mrs janina kusalevich any questions all right thank you miss danny thank you mr casper okay next order of business public recognition we're only having one this evening so this portion of the meeting is open to the citizens of clifton for the purpose of dressing any subject matter pertinent to and or directly related to the operation of the clifton public school district residents are requested to state their name and purpose address 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 responsibly forthcoming if

076and when appropriate the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding student 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 in light of the legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments does anyone wish to speak and if you could please in the chat state your name and address in the chat this danny we do have a member of the

077public here i believe mr horn for public speaking how many members of the public do we have we do have one in-person member of the public for public comment okay so if they could just um write their name on the and their address and this is tech support chiming in um public speaker cannot they're gonna have to enable their own video so mr mr horn is assisting uh mr mountain mr horn is assisting right now mr horn do you want us to hold off uh no we just need to start the video i don't see the video i mean audio we have but i don't see video so i'm okay with that state my name and address is that right yes yes mark prince jack 20 holly street thanks thanks i want to uh thank

078dr robert tozie i want to thank the board of ed i want to thank the city of clifton for allowing me to speak tonight over here and i commend your recommendations on opening up on time now starting october 12th and i think it's a very important step you've already stated the parents have been given an option to have their children learn in remote remotely or in person and i think it's very important that no more delays occur i've mentioned in the past through all the other comm public comments that i have made how detrimental this is to those most at risk those that the the special needs kids and they've been profiled time and again in local newspapers and in addition to that other parents within the city of clifton how devastating this has been

079for their kids and how little they are learning remotely so it's imperative that the teachers get together and they they get ready you've given the plan you've said all the protocols the board of ed has already asked several questions over the past couple of months on how to proceed with it to proceed safely with it uh so i hope there's no longer any more delays and if there is i think it's gonna it's gonna be continued continuously devastating for for the kids that that need the most the most high-risk kids so i i commend you for your recommendations robert tosie i hope the rest of the board is uh hope the rest of the board of ed is on is on board with this as well and uh [Music] i hope we can move on

080with the school year thank you and god bless america thank you miss danny that is the only uh in person public speaker we have so the speaker mr mountain can do his thing now yes the first step we have is miriam gabriel if you are not a student just in the chat if you can put your name and address if you're not a student yeah hi um i'm a student currently at chs i'm a freshman my name is marum jabro and i just would like to start off by thanking the board of education as a whole for taking on this herculean task during you know these trying times and um i just wanted to advocate to reopen schools because i know many people that are very dear to me who are suffering due to um

081struggling with mental health issues people who are already depressed have been um you know in my immediate family people who have been struggling with rat syndrome have been you know diagnosed with depression and anxiety and ocd and um you know people who are dealing with these mental illnesses need an environment to go to they need to go to school they need to open up school because many kids my age many of my peers you know find it so difficult to wake up early in the morning even to use the bathroom or take care of themselves and um they're expected to complete work to do tests and so just being in an environment that is both educational and um motivational will allow them to you know pick things up and i'm not saying it'll cure everything

082you know but i'm saying that this is a necessity for us and you really need to um address it and i'm really thankful for you guys and your work and thank you guys for everything but um as i was saying um that is our top priority i believe and um yeah thank you thank you very much um thank you miriam i apologize for the first names but we got charity and then lisa so if you could if you are not a student if you can just please type in the chat your full name and address before you speak thank you sherry and then lisa did shari leave uh yeah look to yes lisa hi i'm here um hi um i'm a parent from school 16 and um before i begin i just want to thank

083dr robert tozie and the board of ed um for everything you guys have been doing all the teachers and staff this has been an incredible on taking and you're all doing wonderful um i'm a teacher myself so i know firsthand how hard this is and to the student from chess who just spoke with gabriel i thought she was very eloquent and i i think she should be commended for that um so i am reaching out regarding um outdoor activities for elementary schools um right now i feel as if though it's kind of been forgotten um you know the high school has outdoor sports contact sports and the elementary school really doesn't have anything and these poor children have not been able to socialize in months so we are hoping um school 16 hsa that we

084will be allowed to have some kind of activities in particular um the trunk or tree or an outdoor bingo night something that we can get the kids together keep them socially distant keep it um you know controlled by the hsa and parents um i think that it's so important for them i can tell you from my own experience um i have a daughter she's an only child she's in second grade and every day she has cried this summer um so we really need to get this back for the kids i'm sorry i'm starting to get emotional just thinking about it um but i think that we need to take into consideration how horrible this has been on their mental health um and that we can fix it if we do follow certain guidelines and um

085put them you know their needs mental needs and health needs um into consideration um i think that they need a socialization and i feel as if we're doing football and soccer and those things i i don't really see why a trunk or treat you know or outdoor activities socially distant can happen um you know it's an hsa sponsored activity it's not any kind of liability of the school district um and it's a choice that parents can make for their their own child it's not gonna be mandatory and i would really like if the board can take into consideration those needs that are not being met that you know they won't have field trips this year they won't have you know gym class in the gym together with their friends they're not gonna be able to

086eat in the cafeteria um and that's such a big thing for elementary school kids they don't have face time to talk to their friends after school and socialize they don't do those things so we kind of need to create that for them so um that's really all i have to say about that so thank you thank you all right looks like alejandra is having um audio difficulty so maria and if you could just type your name if you are not a student your name and your address in the chat before you speak uh maria cordova maybe she's typing in the chat no okay next up we have denise thank you denise denise miller can you hear me yes yes hi um i just sent the chat i don't know if you received it yes i

087did thank you okay perfect my name is denise miller good evening everyone um i just have some questions and i believe they'll be answered later um so if we selected the in-person learning are we to assume that we are selected to go in person on october 12th or do we need to wait for a phone call um for the virtual learning for if if you're full virtually and if you're not in person how will these kids be learning if the teacher is teaching the in person in the classroom is it going to be the same teacher they've been with and they're going to continue with them is it another teacher just doing the virtual while his my son's teacher is teaching the in person so i hope that makes sense um and i have just

088i work for a university a college and we are partial remote and we have to actually i know that you're doing like this survey that we would need to fill out every morning but why not are we using an app we use an app called campus clear and every morning we need to click on it and we show if there's no symptoms if there are symptoms and you hit the bottom button to submit and then it goes directly to our health health department in our school so i'm not sure if if this is something that is that someone could look at an app versus an actual survey that we need to fill out but i want to thank everyone you guys have been awesome and um look forward to october 12th and again thank you

089so much and have a great night thank you miss miller and if you just continue watching um after the public uh recognition portion after the comments then dr robertosi i'll let him do his address to questions thank you very much you're welcome it looks like we have a lot of people people with connectivity issues so uh laurie are you there lori lalama october okay next we'll go to julie julie if you're not a student um if you uh could then just put your name and address in the chat if you're a student then people connectivity issues so uh laurie are you there yeah luke julie we can hear you just turn off your uh live stream please okay next we'll go to yoli if you're not a student um if i'm not a student okay

090then just in the chat put your name and your address and then you can address us thank you okay okay uh my question is yesterday at the back to school night the teacher said she will be um doing the the virtual learning and she will be doing the in-person learning how is that going to work for the teacher because i feel that it's already overwhelming to do in person and virtual at the same time is going to be kind of overwhelming so i want to know how is that going to be handled and i just heard that you guys said that the kids have to bring the chromebooks but not everybody has their chromebooks how is that going to be because not everybody got their chromebooks they keep saying oh we're going to get it

091next week and i know there's a bad quarterback how is that going to be and the teachers are they getting any mental health assistance because last week or two weeks ago one of the teachers just broke down in the middle of the class crying and we were like what happened to the teacher she just broke down in the middle of the class so are they getting any mental health too cause this is not good teachers crying in the middle of the class is not good for anyone julie if you could just state your name and address i don't know if you hit check did you hit send because i don't see it in the chat let me do it again and julie if you continue to watch then dr robertosi at the end of the

092public comment will be stating um and answering any of the questions okay so i still don't see it in the chat that's why i was just [Music] if you could at least state it did you get it yes i did thank you okay thank you and the next one laura llama well i'm here good evening to everyone good evening i hope everybody's doing well um i i would like to discuss about the reopening of school i i agreed to go back however i have one major concern and that is the ventilation system in the district we have quite a few buildings that are old and according to the public employees occupational safety and health program the ventilation system really needs to be worked on and i am concerned that windows can't be opened i'm concerned

093that there's not going to be enough fresh air getting in because once the ventilators are turned on they really need to be vacuumed out first and then filters changed if necessary because that is my concern so as i was discussing this earlier today i would like to see um if we can bring in an industrial hygienist and to walk through with um a committee me um maybe mr marcion somebody from the board and to take a group of us maybe uh one of the head custodians and walk through the oldest buildings with there's a industrial hygienist out of the new jersey work environment council for wek and to have him come through and look to see what we need because i know that he's been at several school districts and the board of bed has

094been very happy with him because he gets to tell the district what they need you know could it be air scrubbers for some of the areas of the buildings you know i'm i want to go back to class hands down i love teaching i've been doing it for 36 years so but i want to make sure that the kids and the staff are safe and i know so does the board and i know so does the entire school six but i just want to make sure that that we can do something with the ventilation system to make it safe for everybody so and this person that i will suggest to dr robertosi is also part of the school of management labor out of rutgers so i think that would be helping guidance to make people

095feel better about the hvac system in the district that's my major concern and that's been my concern the entire time um the next thing pride and fast grants i think we have close to 70 000 to spend in the district so i we did get the zoom account it'll start up next week for 500. so we can actually have with volunteers for teachers and outside of the area classes for parents on whatever topic that we can come up with um we would like to do a trunk or treat but i i think i heard it was banned so i don't know what social distancing if that could be possible so if you can talk about that in executive session and let me know um so there's a lot of money out there and a lot

096of it's going to be virtual so if we could come up with some ideas that would be wonderful you know to spend this money that we get um and at the end i'm gonna send the board members some of the information on ventilation by payosh and by the healthy care through wek because i just want us to be on the same page i want to go back i want to make sure you know the kids are safe so if we can get and if i want to reiterate to get somebody to come through and look at the ventilation system i would be very happy and um i think that's about it there's concerns about the chromebooks but i know they're coming from china and that whole situation so and some of the members were asking

097a lot of the board members that are sitting there on stage somehow needs one of the masks from the clifton education association because i think they don't have one so if if we can all lead by example for the rest of the crew that would be wonderful so i thank you again and i hope you have a good evening thank you miss lama the next speaker we have a couple here renee isabelle and then uh chloe papa pop witch renee rizpel if you are not a student if you could um type your name and address in the chat before you speak miss renee i think she okay she just did thank you you may have the floor you're muted if you can unmute please thank you hi i'm sorry uh first i'm thankful for everything

098that you guys are doing my son has just started kindergarten at school 12. he's all virtual but he cannot be home because i have to work so he is in an all virtual classroom at the school i work for which is a a preschool or day care it's miserable he cries every morning he cannot stay focused behind the computer he's eating pencils now because he is so bored sliding out of the chair he feels like he's not moving around enough it's just these kids are not learning this is i know this is not what anybody expected in this world to happen right now but we have to think for these little ones there's no socialization skills he's legit staring at a screen from nine o'clock to 1 10 and he just does not like it

099i as a parent don't know what to do to keep him wanting to log on every day i almost i'm at the point where i feel like telling him he doesn't have to that he can resume kindergarten when they open the doors i i just feel for these children i feel for the whole situation i know that it's not an easy decision to make but i'm on board with sending them back to school i know that not all parents are the same but i see these kids out in target walmart the park baseball games soccer games all over the place but we're not opening up the schools we don't we have to move forward now so i really hope at the end of the meeting you guys take into consideration what us us parents really

100want or maybe just give the option of the parents who want to send their kids back to school for that from nine to 110 let us send our kids back i i just feel for my son every day every morning he's crying he's begging me please don't make him go that's all i have to say i thank you for taking my call you all have a great evening thank you and have a great evening as well the next speaker next up we have chloe and then denise and then maria chloe i know you're students though okay thank you there were issues with the current gym policy i like many students in clinton high school don't feel comfortable with exercising on camera there was worry about people recording others while exercising when the mental and physical

101state is vulnerable today the girls were told to dress appropriately meaning to wear sports form this is putting your responsibility on females and liability on females if we get recorded even though there is nothing we can do if we are recorded the responsibility of the integrity of the google me is on the teacher and not on the female students just putting this out there even if people don't have the phone out and recording they can record a laptop screen through the laptop this policy of exercising on camera and making such comments is allowing toxic masculine behavior to happen in fostering an unsafe and hostile environment in the gym policies that impose drug standards based on sex standards stereotypes are especially harmful to the lgbtq plus community let me remind you dress codes impact marginalized communities

102by telling girls to dress appropriately it is telling everyone in the dream class it is okay to sexualize goals and they are not of equal role i am of equal wealth you are fostering an environment that is hostile to females and allowing policies to have a sexual tone to overtake the integrity of gym class this is allowing environment of body shaming victim blaming and harassment in the in the school we need a solution today every day i perform exercise exercises on camera i feel victimized do we have to wait for the inventable taping to occur to complete my feeling of violation i propose that instead of life exercise classes that the student use any fitness app on the phone any fitbit like apps that type that tracks time spent exercising or step count photo physical

103activity during twice a week we meet for gym the teachers critique health a working period is about 44 days divided by twice a week it would take 22 weeks to 22 weeks to finish health if instituted for next week this will fail class time until march 30th and every female student should be apologized or apologized to for telling us to to dress appropriately and for making fearless like voyeurism is our fault rbg stated and on the equality side of it that is essential to women's health with men that she be the decision maker that her choice be controlling it is my decision who and when i share with my body with this online online physical education is taking away that choice away from me it is demoralizing it is humiliating it is sexism at every

104level thank you um and uh as i stated uh dr robertosi and his comments will make any comments to anything that was um brought up by the speakers so thank you very much yes thank you um next up we have denise denise miller before you speak if in the chat you can state your name and your address i already spoke i'm not sure why i came up again oh i'm sorry it's okay i apologize thank you it's okay thank you um uh kim scarano ms scarano if in the chat you can put your name and your address before you speak okay thank you very much you're welcome okay um i'm i'm very happy to hear um that you guys are considering reopening the schools and i'll tell you why so my son is a student

105at one of the elementary schools and he was always just a generally happy kid it didn't matter what happened he was always smiling and cheerful even when he was a baby he was the happiest i've ever seen he's also been extremely social he'll talk to anyone kids his own age older kids adults at parties he'd make friends with the older older brothers and sisters as well as the parents and we used to go to a swim park every year and every time he went he'd make friends with someone but the lockdown has been especially hard on my son being such a social child that we're at the point where i'm now looking for therapy for my child who was once filled to the brim with joy and so it's been almost seven months for these

106kids without normalcy without structure without the support of their friends without the help of their teachers and everyone is afraid of the medical effects of the virus but no one considers the other effects that this virus has had on us um it's a plague of the mind a plague of fear plague of isolation and we'll never be okay for human beings because we're social creatures when school started i put my son in the boys and girls club virtual learning program and i figured it would be good for him because he would be with other kids but it's not just that it's a combination of all the things that our children need friends teachers and person learning the week before the program started he had bits of anger and sadness during school hours and i was

107hoping that this would be alleviated when he started at the club but a week into the program i received a phone call from him hysterically crying because the internet went out and he didn't know how to follow the assignment it was so bad that i had to leave work and go pick him up which should never happen last week i noticed the big change in him and bigger than anything i've seen uh i've seen yet my once talkative child sat in the back seat of my car with his hood up just staring out the window not even talking to me which is very unlike him he calls me incessantly from the club and he also told me that he doesn't even want to make friends with the kids there he has no desire anymore my

108kid the kid that would make friends with anyone we have to do better for our children we have to consider the consequences of continued closure and i hope that you guys will consider it when you vote um isolation depression anxiety suicide addiction to name a few my son is now full of anxiety and has to retreat under blankets when he feels too stressed i feel that the school system has failed our children and the school now has a good plan in place for in-person instruction and i feel that we can be successful the boys and girls club was open all summer and it's still open with no cases uh daycares have been open since march for a central employee with no cases that i've heard of the rec center had a summer camp which my

109son attended no cases we can resume everything else shopping dining movie theaters we can go to school please consider the hundreds of other effects that this is having on our children and start fearing those consequences rather than solely fearing the virus it would be a complete disservice to our student to our children to continue to deny them in-person learning and i'll just leave you with a quote from my son when asked about how he feels about remote learning he said i'm upset i want to go back i'm very sad because i'm school sick like homesick but school sick i miss my friends and i want to go back so i hope you um uh you guys really take the time and consider to uh to vote for uh for the in-person learning for our children

110thank you for your time thank you very much okay thanks miss danny i had to mute a couple people just so people know um but next up we have fran and then angie and then italian girl nj so friend you're up and i don't think fran is there anymore angie um castilla if you can in the chat put your name and address if you're not a student before you speak angie do you wish to speak yes yes sorry i'm putting on my my information in the chat right now okay thank you very much the floor is yours um i just wanted to say one thank you everyone for all the for all the work that that user doing and second i definitely want to be an advocate for the kids going back to school i

111know every day with my child it's definitely a struggle he just says mommy i don't want to do this anymore mommy why can't i meet my friends in person and it's definitely hard for all the kids he's only in kindergarten and like this is just probably the worst possible way a child can get introduced to school is by a camera and to have children that young to try to sit there all day and not really have um be active with other students or even teachers even if it's social distancing it's definitely hard for any parent any child especially the teachers right now so i'm definitely hoping that you guys take take that under consideration where kindergarten you know the children are learning how to be part of society be like learn how to interact with

112other people learning how to take directions from other adults besides their their parents so it's definitely something big that children are definitely struggling with mentally and emotionally especially parents and i know teachers as well my other thing is is that um once children's do start going back to school if they do the whole chromebig sorry whole chromebook situation i know that um as you guys said that you know the kids have to bring their chromebooks to school but my son goes to school 17. we haven't received our chromebooks yet um and when they do get the chromebooks it's only going to be from first to kindergarten for i mean sorry first first grade to fifth grade first and then kindergarten if there's enough to go around after them what are they going to do like

113are we allowed to bring chromebooks or whatever um devices we have at home into school because i know that was a big issue as well and um i know because um i also have a middle school son would he be allowed to um the middle school has a b sessions if his chromebook is free that day will he be able to bring will my kindergartner be able to bring my middle school son's chromebook into school because it is through the clifton school system you know like how was i just don't know how that that's gonna work yet because of the whole a lot of these kids still don't have chromebooks how are they gonna do something when they don't i don't know if they're going to be allowed to bring at things from home inside

114of school and that's it and i just again want to thank everyone for all the work they've been doing through these hard times thank you very much miss castillo and if you could just continue watching at the end of public comment uh dr robertosi will address um questions so if you want to continue watching thank you very much thank you you're welcome italian girl is next are you there italian girl new jersey at verizon okay we'll assume she's not there iphone user you're next if you could state your name and address can you hear me yes uh my name is tom kiefer i'm on nelson street my son goes to school five okay you can you have the floor okay i know i spoke last time on how my son i gave you the description

115of the day nothing has changed since then and i uh going to keep it brief i just want to thank dr robert tozie for pushing so hard um my fear is that it's going to be just like last time and you guys are going to go to private session and it's not going to happen so i'm still scared i uh my son still cries every day um it's terrible and just going in school person with me so much you've heard from so many parents tonight um with the same thing and uh i just really uh really want my son to go back to school he wants to go back to school it is super important that they go back to school and uh mr robert tozie all of his efforts that he spoke uh earlier

116tonight um i thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you i cannot thank you enough and i hope that all of uh all of this is not in vain so we're just on the chromebook again forever and ever and i am very lucky that last year i was able to purchase my son a chromebook on my own and have not waited for you guys to provide them because i just hear all these stories that they still don't have them which is understandable but at the same time it's not okay so i just i thank you robert tozian i really hope this happens thank you very much for your time thank you very much and marissa thank you very much for logging in and the floor is yours hi um my name is marissa

117i can you hear me yes you can thank you okay my name is marissa and i just want to briefly discuss about the special needs communicate community personally i have uh two boys on the spectrum with also adhd and it's been extremely difficult for myself one of my sons is minimally verbal and every single day is a struggle just to get him on um the teachers have been amazing i mean you can definitely see the hard work they're putting in every single day but just as a parent it's been extremely challenging for myself so um my concern is not only going back obviously that is a big concern for me because my children more than anything need needed now more than ever but um the instruction in terms of only being half a day um

118i know that's all we can do for now but i'm wondering if maybe the special needs kids if that's something we can discuss on later on um i mean i can go on and on about just different scenarios from march until esy until now just how challenging and difficult it's been for me um i'm sure there are many special needs parents that are probably going through the same thing and are just afraid to speak up i just i'm hoping and praying that tonight you guys come to the decision to at least let our special needs kids come in um you know half day and then maybe we can discuss if things are getting better or having them go on to possibly a few extra hours for um all-day instruction because they definitely need it i'm

119not saying that the other kids don't need it but definitely as a special needs mom i know my kids definitely need it thank you um for letting me speak and have everyone have a good night thank you you have a good night as well and if you continue watching dr robertos you'll make his comments at the end of public session thank you um abdul hamden good evening are you um if you are not a student uh if you can in the chat state um type in your name and your address sure you're not a student correct that is correct i'm up here okay and sheer ha abdullah if you're not a student if you can type in your name and address because you'll be up to speak next in the chat and um uh mr

120hamdun the floor is yours thank you and thank you to uh the administration and to the board members and to the staff this question may have been presented uh earlier but i'm not sure i didn't hear it for those who choose remote remote learning uh since the teachers will be conducting presumably if school's open since the teachers will be presenting in class who will who will be teaching uh are presenting to the kids that are online so so that's my question mr hamdan that question was um already brought up and dr arbertosi continue watching at the end of public comment he will address everything great thank you so much you're welcome have a good evening um doula i'm sorry if i mispronounced the name the floor is yours thank you and anybody else who's not

121a student if you can um put in the chat your name and address yeah thank you so much uh my name is shahan abdullah and i'm a father of five kids to go to clifton schools and i'm very grateful and thankful for all the hard work that the teachers are putting in and um you know my kids are you know they're learning and they're enjoying it they're enjoying what's what's going on i just wanted to make a statement i came in on this a little late and you know i you know and i see like a lot of the concerns that parents have and things like that i am a professor um at hudson county college and you know my wife is also a professor there and i just hope that the decisions that are

122being made are not made based on really our opinions of what remote learning is and it's based on what's really out there with this virus and what's going on you know um i'm very happy with my kids right now being remote um with the way this pandemic is going um i i choose to have my kids learn at home at this point and i understand the frustration and even as a professor teaching remotely it's it's frustrating it's not the my students are not getting the same experience as if they if they were on ground in a face-to-face environment but you know i've lost some family members to covet 19 and the way the virus is going i just hope that the clifton board of education and the state is making decisions based on the severity

123of the virus and how the virus is transmitted and not based on our opinions and what our kids are going through because the risk outweighs everything that we're saying here and and that's this is really the comment that i i wanted to make um and and i hope that this pandemic ends and things get back and on ground operations resume normally and let's pray for that but as far as you know my kids the teachers are doing an incredible job and kudos to all of them um and you know i have five kids in the clifton school systems and you know it's frustrating for me and my wife being home as well and and and teaching students remotely with five kids on on computers but i i know that it's for the safety and and

124and the benefit of my of my kids and all the children who are learning remotely right now thank you very much and enjoy the rest of your evening thank you mr abdullah the next is calling user the telephone call in igc calling user one are you there calling user one okay um stephanie are you a student i am not i am actually a resident of clifton and a teacher here oh okay thank you thank you can you in the track can you put your name and address then i i believe i already did oh yes you did the floor is yours thank you okay thank you so much i want to start by acknowledging and thanking everyone here tonight for the long hours the challenging new roles that many of you have taken on and

125the new learning that goes with it and the incredible the difficult decisions you face in this time i feel like every solution comes with its own challenges but i do have some concerns that i hope you will consider when you discuss reopening and one of those concerns is with limited supplies in the classroom to allow for social distancing there will be very few materials that the students can interact with and i'm wondering if you would consider a contingency and reopening plan hinging on the distribution of the chromebooks or the development of a bring your own device policy as a teacher i have concerns about how students can safely turn and work to me and i think the technology is an integral piece to that another concern i'd like you to consider is the covid questionnaire

126that's being answered i wonder how long the turnaround time and follow-up is taking and if you've looked into and studied how long the follow-up is taking for teachers and then kind of extrapolated out from there what that increased follow-up time will look like once students are present in school for example will that follow-up take place during first second or third period once the student has perhaps already entered the building i'm also concerned about the questionnaire when it comes to staff attendance i understand the importance that if we are a coveted concern we must stay home to protect our population but if we're able to perform the duties of our job will we be able to teach remotely when that does occur and i was looking at the average age of school buildings in new jersey

127and the average age is 50 years old and weck has identified that age overcrowding and deferred maintenance strain ventilation systems and some of our schools in the district are twice that average age of concern and i know lori lama brought up our merv ratings and ventilation systems and i would really urge you to consider her guidance and seek support from the state and if there's anything i can do to support that i'd like to be a help in that but really use this as a time to push for the remediation of our ventilation systems to bring them up to a standard that could meet the recommended merv ratings i also want to thank and acknowledge all the parents that spoke tonight especially yuli who spoke about her compassion and empathy not just for the students

128but the teachers as well and chloe your words tonight were so articulate and courageous and your statement really spoke to me in a profound way and i look forward to continue seeing and hearing what you do because you are truly advocating for your peers thank you so much thank you very much is ivan speaking yvonne yvonne if you can just put your name and address in the chat okay thank you very much you have the floor okay hi good evening um i would like to just first of all thank you guys all for considering reopening the schools my son goes to school 15 actually and um he in the beginning did have speech problem with him himself and i noticed that after starting the virtual from i believe it was march april he started developing

129his speech problem again and with the virtual learning it's been difficult for myself and his father due to working full-time i'm i'm actually on in the medical field and i've been like dropping him off with the daycare for the teachers to help him and stuff and it's a it's a help but his speech is just not improving anymore so i will i appreciate you guys considering opening the school and it will benefit him thank you oh um one more question in regards to also due to having like the flu season now you guys are still finding the kids to getting the flu vaccine before going back to school on october 12 or would that be considered of not getting the flu just because they might come to like oh does the like does the child

130have covet or does the child have the flu i would like to know more information in regards to that thank you yvonne if you could just continue watching dr robertos you make his comments at the end thank you thank you um call in user two are you there calling user 2. if caller user is not there tech support i don't think there's anyone else i think everyone else has spoke uh there's a couple others um abdul hum done no he spoke already and the last caller just dropped out yes you're right correct on motion to close public sector second motion by mr pacenti second by miss basford next order of business is education and administration can i get a motion for ea one through ea five moved promotion by mr smith who was the second

131avenger oh mr abedrabel thank you um miss danny can i make a request to pull the first one about reopening and have a separate separate vote on that okay so you're making the motion second a second okay second by mr casper so we have a motion for um ea one any discussion so we're making the motion to vote on this separately miss basford right so you had yeah yes okay okay any um questions okay so roll call for e81 i'm sorry i can't hear you mr lucy this is just for ea one just ea one here i guess uh i would if the if the district is going to have a committee to go through the ventilation system i would like to volunteer as long as i can get off my job to be on

132that committee to walk through the schools um i have concerns about some things and i can't say them out loud i will address that with the superintendent i don't know yes yes and i think every parent has the ability to make the decision whether they want to have their students virtual or uh in person and we now offer that so i vote yes still have a little reservations on this so i'm going to go no yes yes i too would uh volunteer for that committee with miss basford and my stance has not changed as no she can't hear you miss danny oh sorry yes i came here yeah that's okay um i say yes pending um any you know that there isn't any major findings on to the ventilation issue that was brought up by

133missile lama motion carries so now ea 2 through ea 6 mr smith do you amend that and mr abu drab are you okay with it yes mister okay so ea2 through ea ea 5 i mean it's 2 through 5. sorry 6 is the uh um any questions miss danny can we just clarify for the public who may or may not have the agenda in front of them that the board did vote um the majority vote was to reopen schools on october 12th let me just clarify that thank you okay thank you any of the board members have any questions concerns for um ea two through five scene none roll call mr robert druva yes ms password yes mrs beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes mr percenty yes smith yes miss danny yes next

134order of business is personnel um can i have a motion for p1 through p17 um motion by mr pacenti second by mr casper any questions comments uh mister you have a question yes through you to uh superintendent um on these personnel transfers p uh seven although we're i didn't want to call you about this because um i wasn't sure how this vote was going to go especially pertaining to moving forward and we're opening the schools now um are these transfers already taking place some of these are um senators that know their schools should we wait until at least uh we get the kids back into school before we make these transfers or do you think it's still going to be a smooth uh transition i'm a little concerned with that at this point uh thank

135you mr vicente um there will be a transition time next week basically there's a there's a set checklist of things that custodians are required to do in each school and while the layouts of the schools may be different the assignments that they have are very similar in nature and we'll make sure that there is at least some time so that the custodians at least who are going into a new building have time to spend with the custodian who's leaving and so on and so forth so i i don't i don't see it as as an issue but i i certainly understand it if you vote no well i'm just concerned again um no no certain no certain person or position but when you go from one school to another we're bringing back the kids at

136this point i'm a little concerned on if it's just gonna flow properly at this second so all right thank you any other questions see none of that notified ahead of time as well roll call miss jersey mr drabo yeah mr bashford miss beltran yes mr smith yes who's danny yes next order business finance and facilities can i have a motion for f1 through f7 motion by mr adrabo second second second by mr percenty questions concerns comments miss danny yes i have a wolf item i very rarely uh do this i don't like to walk on an item but an item came to me very late this afternoon that i'd like to uh verbally add to the agenda and ask the commissioners to approve the city of clifton and more specifically the department of health would

137like to offer a free flu vaccine um event at high school on october 8th it would take place from 12 to 2 30 p.m it would be open to all of our staff members any board of education employee completely free it would be a drive-through testing and i'd like to see if the board can approve that as a use of facilities on behalf of the city of clifton for october 8th chs 12 to 2 30. so are we adding that in as an eighth i think uh mr usually would that be the best case to add another uh agenda item there um either or you just read it in like you can be put on the you know on to the last permit and as long as the people who motioned are okay with it

138um so you mean under that would be under personnel but we can do it separately either way no it's fine finance okay let's do the okay so finance so it's eight is that it eight so um mr abu drabbo are you okay with amending that okay mister yeah that's just a good question no i'll get you in but mr placentia are you okay with amending it yes okay mr abadrab will go ahead yes that's the question uh do you made a present to the superintendent i just want to clarify is this only for employees or what are the boundaries this event is strictly for board of education employees thank you any other questions see none roll call um miss danny uh miss miss bastard's having technical issues so give her one moment okay um regarding

139the usage of facilities these some of these are retroactive and i know that we had a very big discussion one of our meetings prior to this and we also we made it a point to stress that we were going to take everything by a case-by-case basis when something happens in the past and we have to vote on it now it kind of it takes ability away to defend the case basically so i'm gonna i'm gonna ask that this doesn't happen anymore because it's not fair to us as board members because it puts us in a really bad state because we're proving stuff that already happened and that we won't be able to say no yeah something that already happened we don't know the outcome if there was any issues so please i don't know if

140anybody else is struggling with this but to me this is very detrimental to what i even bother if you're not going to follow the rules thank you miss password you are absolutely correct i've addressed this with the business administrator i have directed the business administrator to not approve any retroactive use of facilities uh this will never happen again in the event of an emergency situation where something might need to be approved prior to a board meeting uh i would let the board know in advance um if if it's something that i would approve or recommend and i would get i would get permission from the board before that ever happening again thank you okay um are we ready for roll call thank you commissioner vice chairman yes i am starting miss danny yes next order

141of business is board member comments mr daily i believe we start with you this evening okay thank you uh madam president um i'll be very brief um uh first of all i'd like to uh wish uh congratulations and best wishes to both the uh genova family and mr robert drabo's family on the the newer arrivals uh that's a great event in anybody's life so i wish you both all the best and uh good health to your children um like to thank all the callers for calling in um uh i am very supportive of reopening i think it's important there are many pros and cons to this but i think it needs to be a parental decision we have to provide a safe as possible environment and i think we've done done that to the best

142of our ability at this uh this time this is a crisis that none of us made here uh but uh i hear both sides and i think both sides have that choice so if you want to come to school you have that ability if you want to learn at home you also have that ability so i'm strongly supportive of the superintendents initiative on this as far as the ventilation issue i mean we we have a bond issue that we've decided to uh take a little bit more time because the circumstances if we were going to do it last september it was would be kind of wild because of the the virus and how we would carry that out i think we need to relook revisit that and start to move on a strategy to put

143that bond issue because in that bond issue we do have the basically the replacement of the ventilation systems throughout the district we have very old buildings and a lot of the stuff needs updating and i think all the board members fully recognize that along with the administration and i think we need to have another talk about when we when's the appropriate time to put that on the ballot and on second to that or in conjunction with that um the only way we can get state money for this is if we put it on a referendum and it passes and do a bond issue otherwise we're footing a hundred percent of the bill so basically uh the state would provide us with a little over a third of the value and and we need to revisit

144that move forward for now that'll conclude my comments and uh uh wish everybody good health and see you at the next meeting thank you mr daley mr casper all right thank you uh mr usti i just have to um make a quick uh change may i abstain on p14 please i was under uh it's a board conference yeah all right thank you um i'd like to congratulate the soccer team on their win today they won two to one uh just a few hours ago um hopefully we can see another great season like we did uh previous year so hopefully we can see another another great season um i'd also like to remind everyone that uh voting is coming up soon so vote in uh your mail-in ballots will be mailed out hopefully by next week

145so i'd like to encourage everyone to please remember to vote uh the deadline for registering the vote is october 13th so you also have time on doing that um let me see what else do i have for i have some information uh for high school seniors if you're interested for any uh opportunities for scholarships um i have pamphlets if anybody would like to email me it's through the elks.org foundation to help with scholarships they give they give 500 for your scholarships a year and um i'd just like to make a quick comment on the reopening as much as i'd like to go back myself uh i'm i'm out of school until uh the end of october i'm just still concerned about the safety of our students um so please know i'm here in you know

146and help in hopes of that no one does get sick once we do get back so i'm just here to ensure that uh everyone is safe as we come back to school thank you thank you mr casper uh mr pacenti thank you uh mr president i just wanted to say thank you to all the speakers um and the students that came up want to thank dr robertosi and his team for putting this plan together i know it's not a easy task that we've he accomplished however when you look at everything in perspective there's no way this board would however you voted there's people going to be mad at you and there's people that are going to be supportive of you but i will go with this we as a board should not be letting telling

147the superintendent what to do he made a recommendation he has a great plan and he should move it in place the second thing that i really feel that i've been seeing a lot through is this mental health issue with the students i could understand if somebody gets it's dramatic to everybody but i don't want one person or one kid to have a mental health problem and go through five six seven years of depression because a lot of people know where that goes and it's happened to friends of mine it happens to family members and it's not a good thing so there's a risk reward for everything i support the superintendent and i think the whole board should have supported the superintendent and that's my own personal opinion so dr arbitosi i thank you for for

148moving forward with this um the last i just want to keep this kind of brief today because uh i want to congratulate our soccer team i'm huge sports in this uh in clifton um i've played most of my life football teams tomorrow i want to thank also dr arbitozi uh mr malahi all the work that they put in uh the staff to get us a new a game uh obviously everybody knows pacific county tech uh couldn't play this week but we have colonia at our stadium um so i'm wishing not only the football team the coaches but the band the band directors the parents the the cheerleaders and all the staff um coming together it's it's a great thing for the community that we're starting to get back on our feet and moving forward we

149need some upbeat here we need we need we really need these kids to to get back um what you see out there is is really not good they need to co-exist with each other and i think this is the way to go so again thank you for your team and that's all it has tonight thank you mr presentee mr smith mr smith you're muted just i'll give you a second i would like to thank the speakers that came out tonight um the um the suggestions and the comments uh are well taken um actually the the speaker that gave us the tip on campus clear um i actually just downloaded it it's a very easy app um and maybe administration will look into that it uh it does look much easier than filling out forms and

150such um i would like to thank the hard work that uh mrs beck mrs kuchalevitz and mr gengaro uh put into their presentations tonight um we know that our staff has done a tremendous job in preparing our schools as best that they could be um and uh as dr robitosi said to me tonight uh mr smith there's no vaccine yet for the covid um so we can never be 100 prepared uh for something like this that we're still learning about that's not even a year old yet so uh but i do thank each of you for your great presentation and for your uh tremendous help throughout the year mr gingaro you uh you've done a tremendous job in the lunch program in itself um to me that's a full-time job for somebody and i know

151you do many other jobs other than that but that in itself is a full-time job if somebody has not experienced the process of uh distributing these lunch to these needy kids um it truly is a a program that has been carefully thought out has been carefully implemented and a lot of hard work put into it and mr gingaro i know that you've been instrumental in that and i thank you for your continued efforts and going forward as the kids go back to school um that they will continue to be able to get their lunches because that is a uh tremendously important thing um and also again uh i know you gave a shout out to pontonian but everyone should know that our food service company has done an outstanding job in supporting the district and

152getting these lunches put together nicely packaged for them and from what i've seen from the lunches that they're very enjoyable and nice lunches so the students will be glad to know that food will be available for them uh continuing to go forward uh when they go back to school um i'd like to uh make everyone aware and that this is national breast cancer awareness month um and i'm sure that we know somebody in our lives and our families uh in our friendship somewhere who have been victims of breast cancer um and it's something that everyone needs to be aware of even the male population uh it has become much more popular with males so anyone is able to get breast cancer and this is a great month uh for our awareness and uh i wore

153pink as best i could tonight to uh to show my support uh for it um my opening my comments i'm opening a school i won't uh i won't belabor them too much further um i have stood by um that i understand there are obstacles and there are problems and no one invited those problems and there's problems just about in every uh form of work uh from our first responders to grocery store workers to um regular business people everyone in some way has been affected by this uh this horrible uh pandemic um i just want to make sure that and as dr robertosi had said to me once um god forbid that anyone in our schools should ever get sick and or die how could we live with ourselves and i know it's a process of

154of everyday life and people get sick and people die um but if we can't avoid that if we can uh just just alone let's look at uh pcti high school we're supposed to play him in football tomorrow night and they had to cancel it because students have become ill and the school has become closed and why should we put our students and our faculty and staff um i don't want one faculty or staff member to get sick i don't think they deserve to get sick and maybe they go to the store and maybe they go down the shore to their house that's a different totally different story i can't control that but as an elected official as a board member here i can do my very best to make sure that until we know we're

155safe with all of our staff members all of our kids i'm not willing to risk anybody getting sick and um i know we have to put up with a little bit of sacrifice and i know parents you've been sacrificing a tremendous deal and i hear the stories that you're telling us about your kids and my heart breaks for all of you but i would rather have those kids need to be readjusted down the road into a social aspect and seeing their kids on the soccer field and seeing their friends at lunchtime than not having them here at all or having them suffering in a hospital and uh the virus is still real it's still out there and my stance hasn't changed on that and then it won't um but dr robituzzi as i told you

156before um i will not be mad at you i am not mad at you i support you for your decision and i know you respect me for my decision and um that's how america works and i appreciate that it's working here as well we'll always be friends i'll never be mad at you well i might be mad at you for a little while but how can i how can i be mad at that face thank you mr smith mr abu drabo thank you uh mr danny uh i don't know if i start school stuff first the good stuff cool stuff listen i voted yes because we need to go back to school um i understand i i look at this from a two lenses as a board member and as a parent um i've said

157this plenty of times i'm not gonna harp on it but the other day my heart's beating now because anybody who has a child speaking of mental health going on the coattails mr presente you know when you have a five-year-old daughter who just started school and literally breaks down in front of you i'm getting the chills down because and it's not for show this is the truth you don't know what to do because you can't help her literally breaks down shuts down her laptop because it's her first year of school and she breaks down when you have hay go to a lap depart a crazy three-year-old at home would like to break stuff tvs and laptops and i help on them all the time who's doing speech therapy and standing in front of laptops and his

158laptop and is not willing to do it because he doesn't get it what do you do as a parent how do you deal with little kids and this is why i am adamant about elementary going back these kids need it as much as you think they don't they need it as a parent wholeheartedly yes as a board member i trust our superintendent he doesn't need our vote he is his day-to-day administration duty with his responsible responsibilities with his administration to do so and the fact that he's willing to say and come out here that this is a unified yay or nay i'm i wholeheartedly support him his administration he doesn't need my support it's his dude it's his duty responsibility but he knows and i said all the time that he's got he's got his

159back all the time whenever he needs it because at the end of the day he we hired him as a board to make this decision and he's making the right decision um you know our general population of the young population and our special needs population many of them are crying out saying that we need their kids to go back to school many we also need to make sure that our teachers are taken care of as well and our administration and our faculty and i i also trust the superintendent that looking into the ventilation with the engine with the um cea with miss laurela llama to make sure that all our teachers all our students and administrators are protected with the ventilation um so that was a good call with the committee on that one um

160going to the good things uh thank you to all who have well given us well wishes and received from many people my wife hannah and i are very grateful and i appreciate you and i thank you all campus clear is a good app to use an easy app to use matter of fact i use it myself um and i you know i consider the or i recommend the super saiyan to me that is something we should take a look at 10 questions very easy takes two minutes to to uh to use and it's easy and it's fast pass and fast-tracked it is national hispanic heritage month from september 15 to october 15th um you know it's the national heritage of we are americans and it is a multi-pop whether what background you come from so

161we should be able to celebrate wherever work we come from as as americans uh everybody said congrats to the boy soccer team this afternoon listen i wish we played peace ti tomorrow night i know we would have beat him but let's let's take on colonia tomorrow i'm excited for that game and and i spoke about this and i'll mention it again not only should we care about the mental health of our students and our children we also need to care about our mental health of our teachers it is not easy for anybody whether it's students teachers or whomever this is all new to us you have the option to either keep your kids at home or bring them in um and again parents you know your kids better than anybody else do whatever your heart

162tells you to do and just go with it again you know what your kids are better at and what they're not good at whether it's in the class or it's at home so go with your heart go with what makes you feel comfortable and it's your choice and your option thank you mr abdrabo mr kanova belgium first right yes lucy skipped me oh oh i'm sorry oh sorry miss beltram sorry i'm sorry so sorry it's okay no problem um so obviously i'm happy to see that our schools are opening and i look forward to see our seeing our students thrive in a more traditional school environment i believe dr robertozi has a plan and is ready to execute the opening of the schools in the safest manner possible i hope this eases some of the

163students and staff that are struggling at home whether with family issues mental health issues or just needing access to services or someone to listen to them this is a step towards normal which is what we all hope to one day get back to i'd like to address um mrs miss pop witch's um call in about the gym class um i hope the gym program can be looked at because i know i went to school 15 years ago in high school but i was a victim of a misplaced camera phone that was shared across the school and i know the damage that can do and now it's even easier to with secret apps and fence does and everything like that to have a picture shared that you wouldn't normally ever want shared um so i understand

164that there is a risk of having everyone at home possibly with their camera off watching other people work out and you never you know things happen wardrobe malfunctions happen to celebrities including regular people um so i would maybe if we could do like um same-sex identifying gym classes or at least for the video portion that they're only working out in front of their same-sex people it just will relieve uh i think some of the stress that it could be on our female or male students that aren't comfortable working out in front of the other sex it's the same as like a you know changing room type environment um and that's all i have and i hope that everyone continues to stay safe and has a good second first day of school coming up because i

165think our next meeting falls after the first day of new school or school 2.0 and that's all i have thank you miss beltram mr canova please thank you uh so first i want to say thank you to our speakers coming out i'm glad to see people um coming up and speaking their minds and talking about the things that they want to see here in the district so i appreciate that congratulations to our soccer team uh first good news in sports now for for clifton i hope it continues um i'd like to see that morale i'd like to see everybody get back to that normal sort of road if we can in sports and start rooting on our our mustangs um so going back to school i'm actually glad that the vote happened the way it

166did i know my daughters love love love remote learning and they're doing a great job honestly um you know seeing them teach and seeing them go through class by class it is really it is engaging it does work for some children for mine particularly they love it but i said uh you know i did opt for them to go back and i do want to see them go back because they need that interaction with their teachers they need the interaction with their classmates um i know that my my oldest daughter what she's doing is after school ends her and a couple of classmates get online and they do a homework club so they try and help each other throughout the day with the things they were taught and with the homework uh i told her

167to make sure she's not cheating which i hope she's not but you know they work together and they work through their issues together so that's the type of collaboration they need they're doing it digitally but i think in person it's just so much better that's where you make friends and and we all know how that goes um at a young age people are very impressionable you know you want to be liked and you need to talk to other people and and you need to just get out there a couple of things that were brought up especially around special needs students um depression anxiety mental health issues and and home some homes are just not sufficient but not sufficient for for students you know i hear these stories of uh of people who say that you

168know calling on a child and they're saying oh no my my mom isn't here right now she went out for whatever um and there are situations like that that are out there in this world and it's unfortunate but true and we do need to help and support them as well so i love the option here because we're giving the option everyone who feels feels unsafe they have the option to stay home they have the option to keep the kids home um everyone who's willing to they could bring their kids in so my personal opinion is i don't think that we as this group should be able to tell you you can or can't do something i think you should be able to make that decision on your own and looking at the plan and looking

169at the the statistics and looking at the reports and information that was provided to us i feel it is a safe plan i feel it's something that can be done i know ventilations are an issue which is why you know as mr uh as jim mentioned before that we did have a referendum before and that was upcoming until the covet hit so that is something i would like to revisit visit if possible um but aside from that the one thing that you can do that will help you with that motivating and help you with the filtration is the masks which is why it's a requirement of class to wear a mask so if the child is wearing a mask i'm assuming that would be similar to what a filter is in inside of a nail

170ventilator now i'm not a scientist i don't know but i'm just assuming that's why they're saying for these students they need to wear masks because when we are in older buildings and those that is a concern but i'm glad the vote went the way it did and i'm i'm glad we're going to get back to a somewhat normal um time here in schools someone did mention the the app and i know the savage album brought up as well there's another app if that's something we could bring back technology to take a look at you know i would be willing to do that in addition to that if we could even if that's something we can't do if we could do what's called deep linking where one specific like let's say cliftonschools.edu covid and that link

171will bring you directly to that survey so you don't have to worry about going logging at the parent portal and going through the steps to get you there if there's something that could bring you there quickly and more efficiently because it is something that they're doing every day so the quicker and less steps that there are to be able to do that that's something i would like to look into uh someone also mentioned trunk or treat if that's something we could do as as a social distance group i would i would definitely be on board with that but i would just have to see what that looks like i'll have to see the plane in front of me and how that is because like everyone else is here you know safety is the utmost importance

172so i just want to make sure that everything we're doing is safe and inland um and someone else mentioned about virtual meetings and if teachers were going to both teach and be in a virtual meeting so that's essentially what's happening here today we're all in person with a few remote and we're all on a remote meeting as well so just like you do here just like you do in work where you may be in a meeting with with other associates and you have a virtual meeting happening taking place bringing in associates from you york and whoever from around the world i imagine that's how it would take place so it's not something that's not doable just a little bit of training a little bit of reorganization and i think we could get there and again

173the plane that we have in place is a great one so i thank you good night thank you mr canova miss uh vice chair basford good evening everyone thank you for allowing us in your homes and uh listening to everything that we have to say chloe your concerns have been heard by me um because uh i know what it's like to feel when somebody does that to you and humiliates you to a point that um it's hard to come back uh so i'm gonna uh we have a policy meeting next week i want to bring that up to the policy committee we'll we'll discuss it um there's one uh thing that i can tell you is that the committees that i'm sitting on this year we are we are making uh we are making great

174strides we also are um making things happen and it's i'm proud um education committee we're having a public forum for special ed parents to talk about some things and that's it means a lot to me and my fellow colleagues that sit on that committee that we bought this forward and administration actually listened i apologize for my nose running because i have an allergy and these things make my nose run but i'm sitting here wearing it because to me it's a sign of respect i have to worry about what i bring to my home i have to worry about my own health i have underlining health conditions so i have to worry about being being here in public i have to wear it at work um my job so it's somebody said a couple weeks ago

175with a sign of respect so i thank everybody that that does that because it's it's hard because i'm i'm sniffling like anything my colleagues to the right and left are like looking at me like what's going on but it is what it is so um i just want you to know that uh every decision that we make we make for reasons that sometimes we can't say publicly uh a lot of times uh the parents and people in the community do not understand why a board member votes a certain way uh i can tell you that i've listened to a lot of the colleagues in other districts on a county and state level i hear what they have to say and i hear the concerns and i have a lot of concerns and i can't say

176publicly why i voted the way i did but um i listened to the uh people that have the knowledge and i listen to people that i work with on a different level why i voted the way i did and there is a reason and i i just don't want to put the health and safety of students and staff and and everybody in the community because once someone gets sick and it it domino effects we're going to go through what i call the yo-yo effect in and out in and out we're going to shut down we're going to be back and to me that's more detrimental than staying out waiting a little bit riding the storm it's like it's like waiting for that you know my nephew surfs every day in hawaii and when the storms

177uh start brewing where he lives on the big island he goes out on that surfboard and he waits for that wave and you know when i hear some of the things he's been through and some of the injuries he has from getting tasseled around i always worried about him riding out that storm in that wave so i'm just concerned about a second wave i'm concerned about the flu season compounding this so i have my reasons and i had i asked very specific questions before about certain things and i'm not convinced that certain things will happen so that's why i voted the way it is and that's just a personal opinion i don't represent the board i don't represent anybody on this as i represent me and that's why i vote the way i do um

178so with that being said that's all i have tonight we'll see you on the 15th uh hopefully we'll uh we'll be all safe by then so good night and thank you thank you uh vice chair basford um so first i want to say congratulations to mr kanova mr abu drabo on their newest family editions and thank you to the speakers chloe i do hope that there is something in the way of being addressing the whole gym issue that's always uncomfortable um even when you're in person so um you know i definitely hope that that is addressed um and uh miss bassford i'm glad you brought that up and taking a look at that in um committee and um when it comes to the reopen um you know in my district will be reopening we started

179to reopen already and um you know when people say oh getting back to normal i mean all i just think about is um it's you know there's no normal everything is just sometimes i feel like i'm in that movie groundhog day that's what i feel like um those of you that know what that movie is um it's like wake up and it's like the same thing in a cycle um i do think that you know having some routines is important um my big issue was you know obviously i didn't want teachers in the classroom with students wearing masks and very hot weather the weather has gotten a little bit cooler um it's it's it's very difficult um i mean we have i believe it's october 18th that we would be opening is that it just

180was a nod mr uh dr robertosi would be october 18th i believe october 12th to october 12th so you know if there are any issues um you know i trust that uh dr robertosi would um you know uh reconsider or whole or anything you know if there was any major pending issues um i don't think that it will be you know i mean i want to say i hope that it is just some extent like a normal um where we don't have this back and forth where we're open we're closed um we're you know we're we're live we're virtual we're live or virtual um because that's very unsettling for you know some students and staff as well so i'm hoping that that's not the case but um you know i i say you know expect

181anything because it's really nothing is normal about this year um i you know as an educator myself um hope for the vaccine because you know i i do want to get to some level of normal um some students i see you know from having taught the virtual um as you said mr canova some students have really benefited um it is a different dynamic um when i ask a lot of the students um why you want to return i mean um for a majority it's that you know they want to see their friends they want to you know give each other like goofy goof off looks and everything you know and that's part of the social aspect um but you know obviously the virtual is not a hundred percent perfect for every student and um so

182you know we're giving a little here give it a little there and i just hope that it doesn't turn into you know we're here then we're virtual then we're here then we're virtual um because that's unsettling in a way uh and obviously we don't know any of the repercussions of that going back and coming you know being in school and then not and hearing that somebody has it and they're not i mean i know when um before we actually left for virtual in march um speaking from being in that setting anytime student was out there would be students and they would say i think that student has coronavirus um will we get it you know it was a whole different dynamic and then trying to teach within that setting was um very very uh difficult

183so i don't know how it will be you know i'm going back in person myself so i will see those challenges how it is after all this time um so i don't think you know it's nice to think that this is some sort of normal but it's you know i i don't think it's it's a normal it's um attempts for trying to get to normal but i think there'll be challenges in the classroom that you know teachers will face students will face and especially if we do have a shutdown and we go to virtual i mean that i think will bring a whole set of other anxieties and issues which um i think that you know we'll just have to deal with and um just on a closing note dr arbertosi and i'm not really

184sure but um i know that my district has put in um to place like um not only sel for students but for staff so um you know maybe there is something that we can look into um maybe you know getting somebody like a massage therapist that comes in with the chair and providing some you know massage or you know something something to uh look into an organization that looks at the sel that's um social emotional um but not just for students but for staff as well since it was very troublesome for me to hear about the staff member um and again i don't know what the issue was whatever but you know i'm sure that just from my own knowing staff you know many have anxieties so um in some way helping to alleviate that

185it doesn't matter if it's like well it's there it's there or this is your job i mean that i understand this is a job but it is in a different capacity and um if a person's experiencing something maybe there's something we could do to um help with alleviating the stress you don't want and again i don't know what the issue was but you don't want a teacher um breaking down in a classroom because from what i learned in my social emotional this professional development for this coming year was that if you're unstable the student sense it and the learning it's not happening then so regardless of what it is what it is and if staff is uh you know stressed and all that then i mean we we need to address that we need to

186do something provide them some sort of an outlet or something whatever i mean i don't know what that is i'm not the expert here but um if you know i'm just asking if it is something that you can just take a look into um maybe you already have i'm not sure and with that i close my remarks and dr arbitosi the floor is yours thank you miss danny madam president um tonight i made a recommendation to reopen schools on october 12th this board passed that resolution and now we're going to take the next very important step in this reopening process this is a huge huge step and let me clearly state i respect everyone who for their vote tonight whether it was a yes or no to reopen schools this is a very personal decision

187for some but it is my professional opinion that reopening schools is the best decision for the vast majority of our students and for those who it might not be the best decision for since they have the option to remain remote then i'm very very comfortable with my recommendation and i'm very satisfied with the procedures and protocols that we have in place uh for october 12th so students we look forward to seeing you on october 12th i know i can't wait to see our our kids and our teachers back in action with live in-person instruction i will be visiting every school uh the week of the 12th and uh and i can't wait i can't wait to see our kids i want to address a couple of the questions that that came up multiple times tonight

188by our parents um and i'm gonna ask mrs kusalevich to help me out with a couple too uh the one question that came up a couple times was you know how does a teacher uh do the in-person and virtual learning at the same time now for for the most part in in a lot of classrooms the teacher is going to be expected to do this and it's not it's not something that's going to be easy but it's something that's already being done in a lot of other school districts and something that i'm very confident um our teachers will master uh very quickly so having said that i'd like mrs crusoe just to explain a little bit of how of why we're doing that and how that's going to work janina when we first developed the

189plan we were hoping to avoid simultaneous synchronous in-person and remote instruction but in order to ensure that our students were able to remain um for the best with the vast majority of our students be able to remain with the same teacher they began the year with in order for our students to be able to maintain those group relationships um we wound up having to make a determination that we will be doing both some simultaneous synchronous in-person and remote instruction yes it will be challenging but i believe that our teachers are up for that challenge we are in contact with many other districts that are doing the same this is something that is not unique to clifton the majority of districts are doing some form of both in-person and remote in the same classroom with the

190same teacher we've been trying to learn some lessons from other states that started sooner than we did other districts that started sooner than we did there's been tremendous amount of outreach and we are also providing training for our staff um at various grid spans teachers have been meeting with their content supervisors brainstorming trying out and practicing both low medium and high-tech options um a training site has been developed by our own teachers that is being released um first thing tomorrow morning for our teachers to be able to see clifton teachers trying out simultaneous synchronous instruction the one big lesson that we're hearing from the majority of the districts who are doing this and the majority of the schools that are already doing this is the low tech option is the best way to start um

191i know there are concerns about um yes we did say that students should be coming with their chromebooks that are charged but that being said until everyone has their chromebooks um at the younger grades and especially in the primary rates we don't really use the chromebooks that frequently in the classroom it's the at-home students who would need product to be able to view and see what's happening in their um teachers class the low-tech option is using the chromebook as just a window to another group of students we have spent many years working with our teachers to work in small group instruction so the teacher would address their class as one small group the present in front of them and then address those students who are on screen so we've been working very hard with our

192teachers there will be much more training continuing um and i know it's going to be very challenging at the same time there have been success stories outside of clifton and we're trying to take those lessons and implement them with our students for our students to make this as um positive and connected an experience for our children as possible thank you mrs kusalevich i i have the ultimate faith in our teachers have never once um not come through and and they will come through with this we're asking them once again to do something that they they've never been trained for but i know they'll come through i know they'll learn from each other and yeah we're going to have a few bumps in the road the week of october 12th i know it but it's going

193to get better and it's going to get better i want to address the issue that uh chloe popovich brought up regarding the phys ed uh chloe thank you for you know speaking from the heart and you know very courageous for a a young woman to come and speak publicly about an issue like that i want you to know that our supervisor of physical education was watching the meeting when you spoke she's aware of what your concerns were there are protocols in place already that should have addressed some of the concerns you have we're going to take a look at those and and we're on it and and i assure you that we're going to um to try to make this a a little better and a little more comforting for for everyone phys that is

194one of those graduation requirements there's no getting no getting around it but we certainly don't want people to feel uh uncomfortable or have any of the issues that you described so we're on it and we're looking into it i do like the idea of uh of utilizing a fitness app of some sort and and so that's maybe something we can look into i don't know how fast we can turn that around but that's i love that idea that was mentioned by samuel too we had uh the pattern from school 16 who brought up the elementary socialization and i couldn't agree more you're right we have we have high school sports uh we have middle school clubs where students are going to be socializing more so and they're going to be in person some might be

195in person at the elementary school really don't have much but i yeah i have to say publicly and i have to let the board know i am concerned about approving any sort of trunk or treat uh activity um the cdc guidance that came out on halloween rates that as a very very high risk activity and i i trust the school 16 pta excuse me hsa to put in place the proper precautions but i would be then if if i don't want to approve one and not approve others so that's something i would like ford's opinion on at some point soon students at this time cannot bring personal devices from home however i'm not going to give you an exact date i'm going to under promise and over deliver i am very confident we have two

196waves of chromebook shipments coming in i'm very confident that in the very near future every student will be given a chromebook everyone who doesn't have one i know that the chromebooks are in the country i know that some of them are being configured as we speak so they're coming so all those issues about chromebooks i assure you they are coming um and let me address this this ventilation issue i i appreciate mr daley and mr kanova bringing this up this is not a new issue this is something this board is aware of so this is something that we were planning on doing a 160 million dollar referendum for in fact last week would have been the vote would have been the election we could have been here tonight celebrating the successful passing of a referendum

197instead the world ended in march and and now we're trying to catch up so we know we have ventilation issues and we can address the things that are under our control but it's certainly it's not reasonable to expect us to be able to upgrade the hvac systems in all of our schools in a short amount of time with no money however i do have a plan that i'd like to propose to the board and i think that perhaps asking our architect of record to uh inspect all of our universe um to make sure that they're working properly and i think that's something that can be done rather quickly uh i have been assured that the the head custodians um are responsible for changing the filters in the unit ventilators so i'm confident i mean i

198haven't personally checked each one but that's their job i'm expecting that to be done but perhaps we could get our architect of record and if we want to do walkthroughs i'm all okay with that but october 12th is in um is it 11 days so we have to also be be realistic about what we can do with 100 year old buildings and hvac systems in 11 so um that's my comment for ty and i apologize if i missed some of the questions that the public had if there's any questions that anybody has any questions that went unanswered your best option is to first ask your child's teacher if your child's teacher doesn't know the answer your child's principle and you can always always reach out to me so thank you and i thank the board

199for their support thank you dr arbitosi next order of business is new business do we have any new business miss danny who said that mister i who said miss danny okay cena's i just wanted uh my my comments were complete i couldn't hear her okay i'm sorry um okay so seen as there's no new business motion to move to executive session to discuss various personnel student legal and contract matters um and action will not be taken miss gutierrez you're muted action may be taken action may be taken may be taken okay so could i have a motion motion by mr percenty second by mr casper uh rocco grubby drama oh just just go into it yes i don't know if mine's working but yes mr canova yes mr daley mr casper yes it's empty yes

200can i take my earphones mr mountain we're going to need to be sent to the breakout room and then we'll need to be able to come back out later to close the meeting yes i'm going to send you there right now okay hmm so could i have a motion to return um from executive session so moved motion by mr smith second by mr casper uh roll call okay wait we gotta where's miss drew see here um original version i gotta get new is mr coming in dr robert josie he's he's attempting to he's having a slight technical issue i could call a wrong call for you if not you could tell mr smith made a motion to come back and mr cat for a second anyone object mr uc motion uh to come back from

201executive uh mr uh smith and second by mr casper and now i was just doing the roll call so i'll give you a second didn't you want him yeah i'm sorry it's the return from exec uh i'll eat my sandwich but yeah yeah yes motion to adjourn motion by mr prasanti mr casper all in favor aye aye meeting adjourned that's plagiarism