September 17, 2020 - Clifton Board of Education Meeting

001but right now i'm just trying to set myself so i was wondering how it was because on my laptop in front here yeah i have my uh chromebook with the agenda we're streaming live now so i know so i hope my voice is good or whatever you sound clear all clear houston bueller there's a new documentary on netflix about the challenger shuttle has anybody seen that yet you know what my friend's watching it it's amazing i think it's really good yeah she was saying so many things i learned that i didn't know about because that was yeah now that was a moment in my life i was watching that live in fifth grade sitting in class i remember that moment was that the 1986 one the 1986 show yeah i was one our our congressman

002shared the congressional hearing on that bro who was that jim bob rowe he's passed on but he was our uh congressman and he's chairman of that committee he chaired the hearing on that in the house clearing yep just confirming we're we're live now so we're ready to go okay fahim tried to connect it looked like he dropped yeah it still says joining for him okay well i guess i'll start so it you know he'll because we have enough so we have a quorum so call to order the september 17th 2020 regular board meeting please stand for the pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence i pledge allegiance to rope mr avadrabo here miss bassford here miss beltran here mr canova here mr daley here mr casper here mr pacenti mr smith here miss danny

003here 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 productive citizens contributing to 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 advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the clifton board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be publicized by having the date time in place there are posted the city clerk's office clifton public

004library administration building senior citizen nutrition center on cable tv in the local press on the district's website and mailed the presence of current teacher organizations this meeting will be tape recorded in accordance with policy next order of business there is no recognition and awards presentation the next order of business is the adoption of the august 20th 2020 minutes regular an executive meeting can i have a motion removed from mr smith second by mr casper any revisions editions yes mr yes mr daley yes mr casper yes mr smith yes miss danny yes motion carries can i have a motion to accept the minutes of the regular meeting of august 27th motion by mr daley any questions or visions scene none roll call mr abadraba yes miss bassford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley

005yes mr casper yes mr smith yes miss danny yes motion carries we have no communication and announcements so next order of business is first reading of policy we have one policy 1648 restart and recovery plan mandatory we do not have any presentation of reports from an administration advisory committee and special committee next order business is board committee reports i know that usually we would let the student representative go but i you know uh don't see him here so i know that probably public recognition will speak so the first one will be policy followed by facilitation policy thank you uh madam chair uh the policy committee met on september 15th at 6 00 pm uh attendees were myself board members joe konova frank casper from the administration dr danny robituzzi mark teigen luis ross mark gingaro

006also president president was mike doctor and rachel harrington which is an intern um the agenda included discussions of the following policy number one se1648.03 full-time remote instruction this is a mandated policy and the committee recommends the adoption of this policy number two sc 1648 restart a recovery plan this is a mandate amendment to the policy previously adopted it amends the policy to include the use of masks by students as well as a certain exception to this mandate the committee recommends mandate um the committee recommends adoption of the revisions to this policy um policy number three board policy 7510 use of school facilities preliminary discussion was held on this policy specific discussion focused around the procedure paperwork and the board approval process and applications for the use of school facilities the committee agreed to review this

007policy at a future committee meeting um there is uh some information that was sent to facilities yesterday so we're gonna uh use that information that was sent to facility committee and further dig into this policy and uh get some clarification on some language um number four the committee discussed the possibility of developing a policy regarding onboarding of new board members uh this will be reviewed at a later meeting after recommendations by a special subcommittee this recommendation that this subcommittee be headed by the board secretary number five the committee further discussed existing policies on distribution of flyers and other materials within the school the specific policies will be reviewed at the next committee meeting with the possible recommendation book to the full board thereafter the meeting adjourned at 6 41 and mr ross wrote the minutes

008any questions um mr daley do you want to read the facilities sure um as mr vicente isn't here sure okay um facilities athletics committee meeting it was held september 16th uh president board members president was mr cynthia miss beltran mr kanova and myself administration's president with is dr robert tosi the strategic mr yusi mr thomasevich mr marcion and mr malayhi time of the meeting was 4 45 p.m to 6 45 p.m items of discussion was number one athletic update by the athletic director mr malayhi gave an overview of the status of athletics throughout the district he started by he started by stating that all coaches and students athletics handled safety protocols throughout the summer and up until now extremely well athletics in new jersey went through three phases to be able to return to sports

009this october all coaches and students student athletics athletes required to fill out a google form medical questionnaire daily before practices also there was a mandated temperature screening when they arrived at the field there was a discussion relating to how football games were will run starting in october for governor murphy's executive order each district receives 500 tickets per game of which 200 will be given to the away team tickets will be distributed as fairly as possible there have been meetings about the ticket distribution within all schools and community stakeholders of the past couple of months if the away team has unused tickets mr mullahy will coordinate distributing extra tickets to the district mr daley suggested appealing the governor's to the governor's office about allowing additional tickets uh the stadium has a capacity of five thousand uh

010approximately five thousand the stadium would be able to hold more than 500 people safely if the district was allowed to administration concurred and mr leahy mentioned that the njsia is appealing to the state on all districts behalf for uh less strict restrictions regarding the attendance number two pseg uh eastman proposal there was initial discussion with pscng about the possibility of surveying the area in front of chs for an underground easement with a representative from pscng legal counsel will review a right of entry agreement which would allow pseng to survey and investigate the area to see if the project would be feasible even if the board were to do the uh or to do the survey there was is absolutely no obligation to move forward with the project if the agreement is reviewed by legal counsel

011be brought to the executive session during the future meeting for a contract discussion with the full board number three uh locker room um mr marcion gave an update of the locker room project at the stadium unfortunately the project was delayed two weeks because the contractor did not install the correct flooring the correct epoxy floor was recently installed and the ventilation will be replaced soon the projects consisted of painting uh locker renovations purification water fountains and sanitizing stations dr robertosi mr lazy mr malayhi will give an update to the football booster club number four northern regional aid services commission transportation bills march through june 20th the business office verified the invoices relating to transportation routes uh through the commission during the pandemic there will be a thirty percent reduction in the agreed cost prior to the

012pandemic per governor murphy's executive order school districts are required to pay transportation bills even though the buses were not running so the companies could meet payroll number five policy at seven five one zero use of school facilities there was a discussion regarding policy seven five one zero and use the facilities during school closure by virtual learning it was decided to send the policy to the policy committee for some clarification on language number six capital projects school 15 roof replacement the project has been completed the city will come out to inspect the project to close out all permits b school 17 building management systems upgrade the project is moving along smoothly the air violence engineering report will be coming out shortly the contractors are closely working with i.t department to ensure the security on the district's

013network for remote access uh see number seven per capita potential capital projects 2122. there was a brief discussion regarding potential project projects for the next year such as additional electrical upgrades window replacements in the next couple of months if the board decides to move forward with the capital project the district would need to bid the project out around january to meet budget deadlines uh that concludes our minutes if anybody has any questions i'll be happy to answer them anybody have any questions yeah so for me not necessarily a question just some clarification um uh please standing to dr robertosi uh and in the meeting we did discuss the option for uh going back and talking to someone about getting clarification on what it means to have outdoor events and proceeding because in my eyes you

014have the visitor section that's on the other side of the field to me personally i think that's a whole separate outdoor area so i know the restriction is 500 but 500 i would assume within the stands and then another 500 or whatever they fit on the other side and not how many fits on the other side because right now our tickets are set up 300 and 200 for 500. so as long as we section that off we open up the other side by the visitors side where they would walk into the other entrance and keep them totally separate in my eyes that would be another outdoor area so we can get clarification on that yeah um mr canova you and i we had discussed this briefly last night and and i don't disagree with um

015you know your common sense opinion but your your common sense doesn't mean much sometimes when it comes to government regulations um i think the understanding is despite how large the outdoor area is it's based on the venue meaning there's there's one event there's one venue and if it's outside only 500 people could could be there now um that's my understanding of it where that is in writing i'm not sure um but we can certainly look for that um we could ask perhaps board council if uh if if if maybe miss gutierrez could get us some clarification on that because that would solve the uh the ticket issue for sure and our stadium is certainly big enough to have more than 500 people and socially distance do you know how many people we can hold in

016the stands versus in the visitor stance i i don't know that um does anyone else know that it it's approximately joe yeah it's approximately 5 000 in in the concrete grandstand and and to coincide with joe's comments part of the discussion was that one of the reasons why we ask that we as an individual district send something down there because every school district has a different their venue is situated differently so we can present our case based on our specific venue and you know uh i i don't think they'll do anything but i think we're obligated to follow that and and try to see if we get any bites on it at least we need to present our case because we do have a unique venue of a school district in the state madam chair

017yes i think there would be a better sell if you um if you guarantee that the visitors will come in a different direction in a different entrance so this way you could separate the two groups out you could put the visit there's a back gate and there's a there's a we would have to have a couple more personnel on staff but if we could guarantee the visitors would go through a different entrance to get into the stadium and they'll be sectioned off from our our visitors i think that would be a better sell as well yeah judy what uh in in line with your comments we we did discussed that in fact we also discussed having uh porter john something on so they wouldn't have to come all the way across the field and and

018and use the same facilities that the people in the grandstands were were doing so uh it's in line with with your thinking and your concept thank you jim so we can look and uh happy to take a look and see if i can get some clarification understand though that the rec the uh the guidance that's out there the executive order that's out there is uh it's not a certain number of people per square feet it's just outside in a certain number whether you have you know and the public don't think that they these things are not done looking at well how big is clifton stadium and how big is west new york stadium and how big is some other stadium but we'll take a look i mean i understand the logic yeah and uh uh

019we we um i'll think about but it did we we did discuss all that in terms of uh of our unique situation and i know the um mr malay he told us that the state organization is trying to push for some flexibility in that so but we want to send something in parallel to that but uh yeah the state thinks in one way and unfortunately see if we can get a little headway on that you know i miss miss basford's idea about a different you know path and a different flow of people you know adds to safety so okay we're on it okay any other questions oh just want to clarify for the public and the board members if they um the count does not count the participants so the cheerleaders and the football players

020and and hopefully the band will not be included in that 500. that's correct okay thank you um mr casper education technology mute yourself muted you're muted the education committee met in conjunction uh with the technology committee on uh september 15th the meeting began at 5 00 pm attendees were myself as chairperson mr kenova and mr abbadravo administrators included dr robertosi mr teigen mrs kusalevich ms la rotolo mr mountain mr doctor we had two guests miss samantha derose and miss rachel harrington number one reopening update miss kusalavich gave a brief update about the reopening of schools in a fully remote format she provided an update about book and material distribution student and teacher meet and greets in grades k through 8 were well received parents received access to student schedules by completing the opening of school

021year forms fully online on the parent portal support for access to parent portal was discussed changes to the website guidance for parent portal were reviewed directions to the automated parent portal password reset buttons have been highlighted resources for access to google classroom were discussed parent support to access google classroom can be found on the district website under the family technology toolkit link clifton.k12.nj.us backslash domain backslash 2105 website search terms will be updated to make it easier to find teachers open the year by setting expectations for working online and teaching students how to access the needed programs tools and resources action was informational number two peach jar distribution program dr robertosi and mr rose described the peach jar program to enhance communication with families about various programs and offerings peach jar is an electronic distribution program

022for all flyers from community organization using this system flyers from non-profit community organizations as well as materials from parent-teacher organizations and for school events will be distributed through email and posted on the school website action informational number three device updates mr mountain provided an update about chromebook distribution to date over 3500 devices have been distributed remaining devices will be distributed upon arrival elementary classroom teachers are the first line of response for many technology troubleshooting issues related to student online products they are the best conduit to re to root they are the best conduit to route technology support issues to the correct area technology support strikers with the phone number and email for tech support for grades 6 through 12 have been affixed to all chromebooks distributed action informational the meeting was adjourned at 5 59

023respectfully submitted mrs kusalevich anybody have any questions thank you matthew president thank you mr casper so seen on the next order of business is public recognition this portion of the meeting is open to the citizens of clifton for the purpose of addressing resolutions on this agenda only residents are requested to state their names addresses and subject matter comments are limited to three minutes per person issues rated by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students

024and 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 legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments our first speaker mr mountain okay so here's the the first four in the queue are wilmer ramirez and then dustin and then raphael rojas and then mega matal so wilmer you have three minutes if you are not a student um then just please state your name and your address if you are a student just state your name wilmer ramirez you may speak you have three minutes on this agenda only speakers

025are addressing this agenda only and mr mountain if we could if we could remind everyone to um turn off the live stream when they're commenting so that there's not part of that delay yes thanks um okay so we'll move on to dustin dustin if you could state your full name and your address and what item on the agenda you are addressing thank you my uh my name is thomas kiefer um my son's dustin i live on nelson street my son goes to school five um does my three minutes start now yes all right so i just wanted to i pre-wrote my speech um but there was one point my wife made during uh while we were actually watching you is that school 16 is having a tricky tray and with 200 tickets and we can't

026go to school i just found that funny but uh regardless i just want to read to you my speech quick that i wrote it's very important to me homeschooling is not working in my household every day every day i come home to tears of frustration i would like to describe to you today's event my son says daddy school was not good today i can see him holding back tears explaining his day we took a math test but i couldn't focus because there was so much going on and the one kid who was never on mute was so loud and so many kids had questions about how to actually work the computer for the test and not the actual test i know i could do better if i was actually in school daddy and now at

027this point he's the tears are flowing i really really just want to go to school daddy i hate online school does that story sound to you like online school is working i can only imagine the difficulties of the younger grades going through this my heart goes out to you my wife does an amazing job at helping my son with school some kids on the online classroom have nobody no fault to the parents but the third grader doing online school with minimal help slows down the minimal curriculum that is being taught it's a lose-lose situation my son cannot understand why some of his friends are going to school whether a different town publicly or in clifton privately i can see it eating away at him and it physically hurts me now my three-year-old daughter is also

028suffering we received a call from her early learning daycare they're opening again and they would love to have her back how am i supposed to explain to my son that his sister can go to school but he cannot it would cause such a rift in my household and without any doubt my son's mental repercussions we just can't send her now she misses out too my son loves school like loved school he was so excited every day to go one day last year i was going to keep him home to take him out for a fun daddy sunday since i had awful work that day his response but daddy i have a test tomorrow can we just do something quick after school unreal that's how much he loves school now when i come home it's only

029tears and how he cries about hating online school remote learning is not working thank you for your time okay we've had several leave and then several join so the next three up um the first one the the name is actually called name and then javier sanchez or xavier sanchez and then iphone so if you're signed in with the username name it's your turn to speak for three minutes okay we're going to move on to xavier sanchez okay let's move on to iphone if you can hear us it's your turn to speak for three minutes iphone okay i'm letting a few more in here i think people are still confused as to being joining the meeting or watching the live stream yes so for those people who just want to watch the meeting and not participate

030you just need to watch the youtube live stream link for those who want to participate into the public portion and make public comment should be joining the the meeting and they will be placed in the waiting room thank you awesome danny through you to mr mountain or the superintendent if we remind people also to unmute themselves while they're speaking i'm free because she's my iphone looks like still muted so i hope he or she's not speaking while not realizing they're muted yes um thank you both of you i think you're both correct um iphone last chance you're still muted uh after you will be emma and then jitendra rana iphone or if you can hear us it's your turn to speak okay so we're gonna move on to emma you have three minutes emma okay

031emma if you're here for public comment it's your turn to speak okay next up we'll move to jitendra rana i think you're right dr robertosi i think some people are just here for viewing so i'm going to keep going here jatendra you have three minutes i'm going to let a couple more people in okay next up we have erica g erika g you have three minutes next we have rachel gersek hello can you hear me yes rachel go ahead this guy's right state his full name good evening state your full name and your address and the issue on the agenda thank you yes ma'am my name is rachel garcic i live at 11 ronald drive i have two students in school 16 third and first grade my question goes to chromebooks um i know on

032the agenda you guys said that they're going to be coming at some point and i know that you've um i'm assuming issued all of them already i just wanted to point out and kind of wondered what um [Music] if you're participating in the meeting could you plea please mute the live stream um rachel go ahead i'm sorry yeah that's okay um so my question is um how when you get the more chromebooks and i know there's nationwide shortage when you get the new ones in how are they going to be triaged and distributed unfortunately um it's not working so well i answered no to the survey about me needing a device because my kids had ipads and i thought you know leave them for kids who don't have any devices it's really not going so

033well the teachers are doing fantastic trying to figure out workarounds but um really not going so well i'll be honest with you um it's very hard to get a first grader to be able to do workarounds it's very hard for them to do their work so my question is just to um when the if there's an eta um at this point my husband and i are actually considering buying devices for our kids just because it really is not working at all um and how the triage is going to be done once the uh the new chromebooks come in for the for the rest of the district and just as a school 16 parent i just have to say and a mom who has worked the tricky trait every single year my kids have been at

034school 16. i just have to speak up for our school as to the comment someone gave earlier that the tricky tray has is being held outside so we're doing everything we can to follow all coveted regulations and it's not about being in school it's something that got put off since march so we're doing our best to follow all regulations we're not doing it in school it's outside the school anyway that's all i have to say thank you guys very much for your time thank you miss gertruck and if you just um hold uh possibly dr robertosi at the end of comments um we'll um may address that issue so you want to continue watching the live stream thank you very much absolutely thank you you're welcome okay next up we have nancy cardozo followed by

035mark runciak and then denise miller nancy my name is yes your name and address thank you okay my name is nancy cardozo and we reside at 33 east 4th street in clemson and my question is um when the kids if the kids do return back to school uh with the teacher having 21 children in the class how is that going to be handled and miss cardozo if that's your question um if you continue watching the live stream at the end of the comments dr robertosi will uh make his comments or might save him for later but you know i'm sure you will address that thank you okay thank you okay next up is mark brunsiak how you doing do you hear me yes thanks all right thanks everybody for letting me speak tonight uh thank

036you dr robertosi as well for for your comments in the beginning uh i just want to let everybody know what i heard at the beginning of the meeting i'm sorry yes yes yes mark ziak 20 holly street thank you 20 holly street [Music] so what i heard tonight was about the football field and what i read were exposed in the front page of star ledger in the new york times and everywhere showing that remote learning is not working so what's on the priority list for tonight is about the the amount of people who could go to an outdoor football game has the commit has the board of education at least considered to try to have classes outside or is that against the law as well these are the issues that we're grappling with uh tommy

037kiefer called up earlier he said his son is devastated about it it's an absolute disgrace that that's not on the priority list tonight for the board of education meeting and i think it should be every time on how to open up the schools much faster than they have been because it is not working that's all i have to do thank you very much for listening and god bless america thank you mr runciak next up we have denise miller then cindy i know and then carla denise hi good evening denise miller i reside at 130 sergeant avenue um i have a uh first grader who is um obviously virtually learning i have to conden comment that the teacher's great at school 13. she's a wonderful teacher she's hands-on it's not that hard to actually do for

038the google classroom she's right on point but i do have to say and this is a question i actually am one of the lucky parents who get to send my son to get help for virtual because i am oh i work and by where he goes to get help there is a soccer field and these kids are playing soccer in clifton why aren't we sending our kids to school these kids are out there playing together why can't we practice the social distancing in the classroom for our children at half days i don't know why they're playing soccer if we can't send our kids to school they shouldn't be allowed to play soccer in clifton if this is a clifton board of education um you guys are coming together i i think we really need to

039revisit this don't get me wrong virtual is is fine my son's learning but we need to send these kids back to school my sister lives in total they're in school till one o'clock in the afternoon our surrounding cities are in school i i just i i don't understand that i'm not frustrated and i'm not upset i i want to thank you all for for giving us this chance with virtual but please please really really look into this i just don't understand how kids are playing soccer and we and daycares are open at school in clifton i have a daycare right here and it's opened that's what i don't understand so thank you keep doing what you're doing you're doing a great job and hopefully we can get these kids back into school thank you miss

040miller and um as i said just continue watching the feed dr bertozzi at the end of comments we'll make his um statement okay next up we have cindy i know and then carla and then amy amendola and then a phone caller ending in five seven seven seven just so you know i've muted uh everyone who's not speaking so you will have to unmute before you speak cindy listen hi um is india noah i live on 65 3rd street in clifton new jersey i'm gonna have my husband speak so um my question is i initially in the first service that i wasn't sending my kids back to school even if after reopen but this is not working out and they're just in kindergarten michael james will we have the option to um i guess to rest

041in that survey and put him back into school once school reopens um at the end of the comments uh dr robertosi will be addressing any of the comments so if you just continue watching the live feed okay thank you is that it okay well that's that's it for us okay thank you um it looks like carla's next but carla's still connecting so we're going to move on to amy amendola hi there i live at 161 brittany court clifton new jersey and my son goes to school number two uh he's learning virtually um at the moment in kindergarten and the issue that i have is the number of teachers and the ratio we put him into a public school it's really good public school number two knowing that the ratio is going to be something like

042one to somewhere between 13 and 17 and now the ratio is much higher and i feel he's not getting the attention that he deserves simply because i understand now there's only two kindergarten teachers instead of three so i'd like to understand why that occurred and if there's a plan to get a third one so that we can get that ratio back down to where i was expecting it to be this year thank you miss amendola sure and just keep watching the live feed um comments will be forthcoming for the superintendent after public comment okay next we have the phone caller ending in five seven seven seven you need to unmute uh and then after that will be janet velez and darren altilio hello hello you have three minutes caller hi my name is dana hampton

043i live on 90 dory drive clifton new jersey uh 07013 my daughter goes to stila b my concern is that um she's a pre-k student uh with special needs and she received services um at clb speech ot and pt and it's very difficult to receive these kind of services for a special needs student student virtually my question is if there can be some kind of reconsideration um for at least opening the school for special needs kids if their class size is already small as it is thank you very much thank you next is janet velaz who looks like she dropped off um after that is uh darren altillo good evening everybody thank you for letting me speak i appreciate it um i'll be very brief uh i uh i have a son who's a senior

044in clifton in high school and he's a member of the band my concern is not so much that they're not in school and that is everybody's concern not up to you guys i'm sure that's a state mandate however uh i'm very concerned with the quality of the um online classes he's receiving two of the days well most days he's done by 11 30 and two of the days he has one class and it's done in like nine how he possibly he wants to be a dermatologist and he's applying to harvard yale and all of the ivy league schools how is he possibly going to be able to compete with the curriculum is there any plan to beef it up i mean what exactly are the teachers doing the rest of the day that they can't

045end the day at least at a normal time if not later i mean you know everybody's at home we should be able to spend a little bit more time with our kids it's bad enough that we all have to be at home and i get it we have to be at home but you know since we have to be at home is there any process or any evaluation process in the quality of the education that they are get currently getting and be getting or should be getting what is the plan and what what exactly are we doing with that that's really what my concern is thank you thank you mr solo can you men can you state your um uh your address for the record 20 fair amount possible 20 fair amount the avenue if

046you didn't thank you thank you very much okay the next three callers are thomas followed by two phone callers one ending in one zero eight five and one ending in five nine two two so thomas you have three minutes uh thomas you're muted good evening my name is i live on 166 spear avenue i have uh two children in the school system one is in school 13 in first grade the other is in free the new pre-kinder program in school eight annex um my wife and i are both professionals i work on you know i'm a director for ideology she works here in with the city um and we use zoom meetings every day um but i'm noticing with my children it's uh it's a struggle for them to learn i mean as as adults

047even in this meeting that we're watching here we've witnessed most of the adults have trouble using the zoom meeting yet we expect our pre-kindergarten our kindergarten children to to know how to use this pay attention and focus the adults on this video know this respect um can't focus on the video right we're all fidgeting um so imagine my my kindergartener and my first grader um how they're doing this um i guess i i mean i understand why the schools aren't open you know where it's safety right i would definitely put my kids in school when they do open right away but what kind of additional assistance is is there for two working professional parents that as hard as we try to work from home and give them the attention that they need for school um

048it is difficult right and in the kindergarten the first grade program um you know they they're struggling um i guess the teachers are doing a great job i mean they're doing the best they can at zoom right they're not in front of the kids so i'm not complaining about that but i definitely think something more needs to be done um you know to to ensure that they're receiving the education um even if that means closing the school and opening through this year or next year's summer um but i don't know i'm afraid that if my pre-kindergarten doesn't get the education he requires and goes on to the next grade will he be behind is this going to be a situation that we have to deal with um you know for the next five years where

049he's trying to play catch up because he missed um you know half a year or an entire year of education due to the format that's all i have to say thank you okay next we have a phone caller ending in one zero eight five uh just so you know the phone callers you're all muted so you need to unmute before you speak one zero eight five after that we have another phone caller five nine two two phone number ending in hi my name is francesca and on lakeview avenue um as i listen to all of the parents commenting um i do understand the frustration that they're having with their children through the online remote learning however everyone's experiences are different and to my surprise uh my two children one in high school and one in

050um going to woodrow wilson they're doing very well and again to my surprise and i must commence and and i don't think you the teachers are being commended they're doing a great job at least from my experience so far with my kids and inform them what needs to be done with the family schedule so i do really really appreciate that because there was a lot of confusion in the beginning and every single teacher for my son and for my daughter they've been sending emails galore uh plethora of them is letting them know what their schedules are will be like for that morning so that is so much appreciative uh appreciated and how well they're doing in communicating with the kids so kudos to the teachers uh who are doing their best with the remote learning

051it's all new to everyone so um i think they're doing a phenomenal job as well as the board members uh my only question is um if it should be to to uh go back to school and when it's okay to go back to school well they still have the same teachers or will be a different teacher so uh that's all my question and thank you again for uh to everyone thank you yeah we get a couple people leave and rejoin so next up will be iphone and then a phone caller ending in one zero eight five um iphone you have three minutes hello 90 east 9th street clifton new jersey i have a seven-year-old with a diagnosis of autism and adhd so having him sit in front of the computer is absolutely impossible the only

052way to get them to sit is to keep them distracted with something else which puts learning on a back burner my son is very smart in math and reading and all the things that i could teach him at home which is not the problem the problem is what my son needs is he needs a social setting he needs a social setting of his peers not his friends he needs to learn how to act appropriate in public he needs to learn how to sit and learn he needs six or seven other kids his age with a book open so that he copies his friends so that he learns this is how you do things my son needs the help that i can provide because he needs the social setting the school provides to advance as a

053human being he is digressing in autistic behaviors his adhd is off the wall the worst possible thing you can do to my special needs child because my kid is the only person that i can speak for is to put him in an isolation setting and to taunt him with computer learning now we get maybe two or three of the day's assignments done but there's way more than that um he hides under tables he runs away i have the help of behavioralists from the school i have the help of occupational therapists from the school i have the help of his caseworker his teachers are wonderful but the setting itself absolutely 100 does not reach him and what does reach him is very very little now um these children the time that's lost it's lost forever my

054son is still maturely in the same day that the school closed back in march and these are the things that are overrunning doctors that are overrunning private practices to the point where there's just not enough people to help the only people left to help are you and i am begging you to please please please put that hybrid schedule into effect in october for the sake of all the special needs children because the things that aren't being discussed are mental illness suicide rates teen depression these are the things that are happening because of this isolation and we need you we need you to open so very very badly because we can move mountains and others but there's just certain things we can't do and what we can't do that's what we need you for and i'm

055just begging you to show up for these kids thank you okay iphone um one last chance here you have three minutes if you could hear us you need to unmute and and you can speak for three minutes okay miss danny i'm not seeing anyone else in the waiting room okay miss danny if i may yeah so we're motion to close i'll wait until after mr smith mr daley okay um dr robert josie the floor is yours thank you um thank uh i i really want to give a heartfelt thank you to all of the people who you know called in or joined us tonight and shared their their situation um make no mistake about it i know this board knows that this is not easy that this has been extremely difficult more so for parents

056of children with special needs more so for parents who are at work and have to find extra help and care for their children i'm a father of four a divorced father of four whose three of my children are on a hybrid schedule one's completely remote and it's and i have to go to work and their mom has to go to work and i know i get it i absolutely get it it is my plan to open up schools on october 12th this board has said publicly that we were going to reevaluate the conditions in the community on october 1st for a reopening on october 12th today is september 17th if i had to make the decision today we're opening on october on october 12th we're opening on october 1st we will come to together as

057a board and i will be making a recommendation that we open up on october 12th it will still be a hybrid schedule um but our children need to get back to school so i hear you i do sympathize with all of you not that that makes you feel any better but i hope that you know that that's from my heart i really do i really do sympathize with everyone who's struggling through this so if i could just make a couple comments to some of the more specific questions that were asked um if if a class right now has 21 children in it please remember that when we go back to school some of those children will be still remaining remote and only some will be in class so there will be no circumstance where we

058will have 21 children in an indoor classroom so just be my be aware of that half of those children will probably be remaining remote for um for the um parent who wanted to to change their mind please contact your child's principal if you indicated on the survey that you were not returning to school but you want your child to return to school on october 12th please contact your principal our board policy states that you're only allowed to do that at the end of each marketing period and there's a lot of reasons for that not to get into right now however there's also a clause that says under certain certain circumstances we can make if we can make accommodations for your child to return before that we certainly will so contact your principal if we can

059bring your child in uh we certainly will um sports was mentioned a lot today i'm not a doctor but i just all i read about is that it's just safer to be outside um [Music] to be in personal contact with somebody means you have to be closer than six feet for more than 10 minutes that does not happen um on the soccer field or outside it's it's much less likely for that personal contact to happen and that's the reason why sports have been allowed under the njsia which is the state organization that governs sports in new jersey so the seasons are starting in october and we're opening up school in october but i get it i get the you know the perception that well kids are outside playing they're together why can't they be in

060school the difference is because it is it is more dangerous children are more susceptible people are more susceptible to catching the virus indoors um will they have the same teacher when they return to school yes the vast vast majority of children will have the same teachers when they return to school there may be some cases where it can happen but that will be the exception and not the rule mr el tillio i'm going to have your child guidance counselor reach out to you there's no reason why any student should have two classes all of our high school students have a full schedule maybe your son's a senior you may have some electives or may be able to add some classes to his schedule so i'm not sure what's going on there so i will have

061the guidance counselor and or high school principal reach out to you to discuss that uh because i certainly want your son to go to harvard and we have to make sure he's in the most rigorous classes that he can possibly take um just i'll stand by my general comments for for the rest of the comments that um that were mentioned that's that's all i have for now uh miss danny i may speak some more later thank you dr arbertosi uh next order of business is education and administration could i have a motion for ea 1 through ea8 uh questions comments discussion yes not on that is that ea one yeah ea one am i in the right section yeah ea one is the approval virtual board meeting am i correct yes yes um i'd like

062to make a motion to have that tabled um there's numerous things missing from this uh um resolution uh there is no mention of board members or administrators that wish to remain uh virtual that there would be uh um it basically says that the entire board would be going back in person in in in public so uh i think this needs to be tabled i think it needs to go to a few committees to get uh cleaned up a little bit and uh i'd make a motion that ea won't be tabled second madam chair i have a question about the resolution itself why do we need a resolution because i thought in the beginning in march we suspended our regular order of business so um i'm concerned that we don't need a resolution but um if

063there's uh board members that need to go hybrid and also we haven't addressed how we're gonna allow the public to participate in meetings if we go um in person um they should be allowed to come in person there has to be some kind of mechanism to um make sure they socially distance wear masks but also allow the right number for the capacity of the room so that also has to be addressed as well but i thought that because we suspended our bylaws that we're running on the covert and the reentry plan and all those other policies that we just recently passed covers this for us because it talks about remote and hybrid and also in person so that's just my thoughts focus we're going against the executive order here no because we're we're um this

064resolution will go against it um and you're 100 right but we we our our restart plan for the students are hybrid um come october 12th right so that should also be allowed for the board and also if and then no board members should be singled out nor should they have to tell anybody why they don't want to come everybody has their own reasonings but we should allow for both we should also allow for both for the public as well but i'm saying scrap the whole resolution and just make a motion to amend our bylaw that's all basically what you have to do so yes my my suggestion i agree with you uh miss basford what do we even have to amend the bylaw because right now we're saying that we relaxed everything so since it's

065all relaxed couldn't we just decide as a group that we want to have a hybrid option absolutely absolutely like you said i don't think we need to change anything we just need to make the decision as of when we want to do that and give people the accommodation if the group feels that that's what we want to do correct but i would i would be for i would be for an in-person meeting so long as the public's there right you know being in a room what purpose does that serve at least the people are there you know before the meeting after the meeting they could express their concerns people were you know were elected for that reason to speak to the people so i could understand that reason i'm sorry dr robert i just have

066a quick comment thank you miss danny i just want to let the board know that administratively we can run a hybrid meeting if that's necessary meaning if if we have people in person and people at home that can be done so whatever the board decides administratively we can make that happen okay now miss basford then mr abedrabo um that was my question that was my uh okay you you too the super thank you mr mr albrabo thank you miss danny listen it's simple right at least in my opinion is that if we're going to um if we're going to let's say superintendent just said october 12th fills up the today kids are going to be back in class um we should lead by example we've all said this multiple times there's obviously ways to do

067it superintendent said that there's ways to go hybrid mrs baster said herself and i agree uh as well as mr canoba we really don't need a resolution um at the end of the day whoever can't for whatever reasons cannot whoever can can but i also recommend that we don't do it in school six we do it at the high school um in the auditorium this way we are spread out this way we do have the public there and make sure that we have one path going down one way and one path coming up the other way we can't do that in school six that's not fair because then we deter people from coming for for safety purposes so we need to make sure we do it the right way and i you know i yeah

068i i know there's have an opinion that we should do at school six whether it's going to be some sort of shield between us or whether we're six feet i personally don't care as long as we do safe um yes i have a baby at home but at the same time that's upon me because somebody mentioned to me why would you want to do if you have a kid at home but that's up to me to take care of that to my kid i'll handle it at home i get tested covered voluntarily every week just in case so you know we all take our personal precautions but we have a dual responsibility to the sport of ed and to the city to make sure that we lead by example and have these meetings in person

069if we're going to tell them to go back in class thank you miss gutierrez just one uh just making uh just noting something that's all fine you do have a policy that allows you to have both just remember that in terms of allowing the public into the meeting we still have it hasn't changed as of this afternoon the limit on the number of people that can be inside for an indoor meeting and i believe that that number is 25 so i don't see that you could once you have all the board members and the administrators and be there you'd have a very small number of people from the public allowed to be there in person that doesn't mean that you can't have the folks the people participate in the meeting electronically so let me ask

070who do you miss danny's gutierrez and whomever else wants to answer this so let's say we have let's say we do at the auditorium all right we have all our board members administration mr rose with with technology mr mellon whomever right we had let's say we go to 15 that's 10 left up to 25. if we do it properly by having people robe and make sure we make some sort of way that hey listen you know what you want to come ask a question come ask a question depending on what the line looks like people can wait outside it's still good weather right now that we can still do that have them wait outside and just rove it around where people can do it and we can use that side door rather the front door

071or vice versa this way everybody gets to come in we don't cap it to whatever we need to everybody says well nobody could say well how come that he or she went in and i have to wait outside first come first first come first serve i just came out of work i can't so this way everybody gets the opportunity this is again my personal opinion um so we just there's a way to work around it it's just we need to think outside the box like we already have been over over the past few months it's password um thank you madam chair um i know at the city council they um ex they had a person of personnel escort the the uh participants the public to participants into the uh chambers and had them sit down

072uh if they got to their number they stopped and they had a waiting line outside we could do the same thing we have the side door on on the auditorium they can go out that way they can come in through the top there's so many ways to do it um i'm counting 15 on this zoom right now as far as administration we have just become very creative and we need somebody that's going to actually uh be forceful enough to control the crowd if you want to so say but i'm all for it i think it can work mr casper thank you miss danny um just to concur with what everybody else is saying um as long as it's safe for our students as of october 12 uh and they're coming back as long as well

073as our teachers who are now back in their classrooms and uh whereas we make accommodations for them as well that have to teach from home and we're also making accommodations for our students that will be learning virtually as of october 12th we can also make accommodations for our board members that are unable to come to our meetings um we should lead by example and it goes with the saying um oh god let me see this it's um do as i say not as i do so we have to be careful with what we're doing as well and how we're perceived by the public the only the only question i have is um how are they letting us put students into classrooms into every classroom that doesn't designate 25 it's 25 in a classroom less than

07425 six feet distance so in my mind no no one should went outside if anything we have satellite rooms if room a b c d just put people in there and stacks of less than 25 or socially distance or however you want to do it with seats and then like you said uh someone would usher them in say okay the first three people want to speak you know maybe you could have a tv set up inside of there and they could be watching the meeting from there as well and then he could just usher them in i don't think anybody needs to be outside we do we do this at school now which is an example sorry i think once again mr canova has uh his common sense bringing on tonight and i think that's

075exactly how if the board wanted this to happen that's how we would do it we would have a couple classrooms or rooms opened up where the meeting could be live streamed and those who wish to public make public comment when it's time we uh we we escort them in so um i think that works if that's something that you want me to um make sure can happen just let me know when let me know for what meeting and of course any board member or any administrator that can't be in person for whatever reason certainly we're going to make accommodations for those people and logistically we just want to ensure that any of the rooms that we do use are cleaned afterwards so for the next day for school so miss gutierrez so madame president go

076ahead um so mrs gutierrez i was just going to say so just needs to be revised then obviously just mr smith and then i could second it to revise to remove um ea administration would have to remove it well no you may not you made mr smith made a motion to table it i thought that miss bassford had seconded it i wasn't sure no i didn't understand he did oh you did not just take a vote vote on a table if administration is not removing it then we need to vote on the table yeah disabling it that's what i'm saying okay i just want to go on record i'll i'll remove it okay the only reason why it's on the agenda okay because at the last board meeting you guys told me to put it

077on okay okay then your motion to have it removed yes okay so jim smith amend the emotion to have it removed the a1 is removed by administration it's no longer in the there's no need to either you're right in the vote process it's been raised by administration one no longer exists okay yeah so just do two through two through eight okay so um motion for two through eight originally it was a motion by mr casper than me mr abedrabo so any questions comments [Music] okay see none row call okay so we're voting on ea two through eight two through eight mr abigail yeah miss bassford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes mr casper yes and i will fix it in board dogs um mr smith yes miss danny yes motion carries

078next order of business is personnel can i have a motion for p1 through p26 [Music] motion by mr casper second by mr abhidrabo any questions comments dr arbertosi danny can we move um remove 19 and 20 for discussion and executive session please okay mr casper are you okay with that yes and mr abdrabo yeah okay so it's uh 20 and 21. 19 and 20 19 and 20. any other questions yeah you know i'm sorry i had a question i had a written down i forgot for pete for 22 on the virtual workshop didn't we already vote on that last meeting it's dad miss kusalavi oh i didn't see your name i apologize mr levitch okay roll call okay so 1 through 26 tabling 19 and 20 for exactly mr avadravo yes miss bassford yes miss

079beltran yeah mr canola yes mr daley yes mr casper yes mr smith just a question that that adding miss cooch 11 she's you're just adding her to the to the rest of the group it's not an additional 900 it's a group fee correct thank you yes miss danny yes next order business is finance and facilities can i have a motion for f1 through f7 so almost mr abu drabo motion second by mr kanova any questions see none roll call it was i'm sorry who seconded it i'm sorry second bye mr konova thank you you're welcome roll call mr abedrabo yes miss password yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes mr casper yes mr smith yes miss danny yes next order of business is public recognition this portion of meeting is open to

080the citizens of clifton for the purpose of addressing any subject matter pertinent to and or directly related to the operation of the clifton public school district residents are requested to sign the register provided for this purpose and to state their names addresses and subject matter 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 when appropriate the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful the rights of other individuals speaking matter pertinent specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights aborted by the laws of new jersey the board bears

081no 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're legally responsible and liable for their comments i'm just wondering if for members that would speak if they have access to the chat if they can type their name in an address in the chat this way we have a record of it uh that's a good idea if anyone's if anyone's calling in they won't have access to that but everyone else should have access okay so if you can um access the chat room and if you can put your name and your address this way we have a record not for you max no

082address for you max i'll do the same as danny did remind students they don't need to do that no if you're a student no you just state your name and you can speak anyone who is not a student though if you can please put your name in the chat and your address it'll make it easier for mr mountain also as well sure um just so everyone knows first up we have max and then lori lalama and then andrea orrock and that's it for now mighty max all right um so hello board i am max rubin the senior representative to the board of education um and i have um my first speech of the school year so i'm first going to mention a bunch of stuff that our school's been doing and then i do have

083a couple questions for the board but i'll get to that afterwards um so first um if you don't know already the clifton high school has their own youtube channel called chstv and every morning we usually put up morning announcements on the morning news that we have tvs and smart boards in each class where we can broadcast them and since we obviously haven't been able to do that we've been filming the anchors including me have been filming us doing the morning announcements from home on our phones and sending them to mr mcconney he's been editing it together and they're still going up on the chs not the c clipton public schools channel but the clifton high school youtube channel every single morning um and people are still watching them they're getting hundreds of views so teachers

084must be putting it on their classrooms and presenting it during their um classes and one thing that's really awesome is that most clubs are still going and they're still going strong i have a list here of all the clubs that are still active and have either had meetings or have meetings planned for the future and those consist of a race club psychology club physics and engineering team gli asian club key club which is currently hosting a food drive stage crew student council writing center basketball team wordsmiths computer science and coding club future business leaders of america model united nations esports girls who code club akadeka future teachers club spanish club yoga mindfulness club drama club heroes and cool kids and of course my club the clifton student union have all been either running meetings or

085have meetings planned and we've been announcing them on the morning announcements and giving their class codes so students can join those classes also marching band has still been going strong uh right now we're in the process of planning a show that we want to do at the first football game it's our traditional pre-game show but we also have a bunch of other stuff planned um also um our guidance department has set up virtual info sessions from various colleges um nyu is one of them i'm pretty sure rutgers newark and several other colleges are going to hold virtual um virtual info sessions since people can't go toward the colleges in person um and also i'd like to mention for any parent out there if you're having problems with your chromebooks or any technology please go to

086tech support at cliftonschools.net and that's it for my announcements about school but i do have a couple questions if i still have time um the chromebook shipment delay was mentioned several times and a couple parents asked about it so i just wanted to ask for an update maybe you can address this later dr robert tosi maybe even address where you think the chromebooks are physically like if they're almost here to clifton to new jersey yet um that would be awesome if you could answer that and also i just want an update on the teen center um there was just a really successful rally held over 500 people went from across the state of new jersey um but one of those one of my students um who are in who's in csu with me asked if

087the teen center is saved would something else have to be cut and if something else was cut instead of the teen center what would be cut or would any of that happen um thank you that's it thank you good to see you max um also i have a quick question um since there's a student representative part of the meeting and the agenda do you want me to join the actual zoo meeting or is just going to the public portion fine enough miss danny i was going to suggest that max should be a part of the meeting because when we're when we're in person the student representative is there so if if the board doesn't mind we will share with max the the link in the future so he can join from the beginning i don't

088mind all right thank you miss danny um and thank you guys bye-bye danny maybe you could answer max's question well you know what we'll just wait till all the comments be because in case there's somebody else the student has school tomorrow it's a good point okay that's a good point miss dan if you don't mind i don't i don't mind answering no go ahead go ahead thanks uh oh max first of all thank you uh you're always so very well spoken and uh i've been following the uh the youtube announce announcements i've been seeing it because it also goes out on twitter so i've been liking it and retweeting it so keep up the good work with that the chromebooks were here in july on a ship and due to some sort of international trade

089issue a political issue they were sent back to where they came from where they are this very moment i don't know but our expected shipment date is september 30th give or take three or four days so don't quote me on september 30th it's september 30th give or take a few days uh our tech department tells me that once we receive them within two or two two or three days we will have them distributed to uh to all of our students uh and as for the funding for the team uh the teen center um the governor has stated that he uh that that what the teen center does is valued but that there's not money for it however there is hope that he is going to restore the funding um because it's it's a different type

090of funding um i couldn't tell you where if that funding is restored where that would come from it could be from anywhere within the state budget but i don't believe it it wouldn't be from anywhere within our local budget so if the funding for the teen center is restored it's not going to take away from any other programs we have in our district believe you're next yep well good evening to everyone my name is lori lalama and i'm the president of the clifton education association and i would like to start off by first thanking i want to thank the teachers the paraprofessionals the nurses the child study teams the counselors the custodians the secretaries i want to thank the supervisors the vice principals the principals janina kusalevich mark tisian marc gingaro michael lucy dr robert

091tosie and because we have all worked together and this is something that hasn't been done in many districts and i really want to take that opportunity to thank everybody because this has been so difficult on everybody and we have worked very hard together and i hope that the community and the parents understand this because we only want what's best for the children and to make sure and the staff to make sure that we're all safe and we're all healthy because the worst thing would be to have somebody bring it home to their family so i really appreciate everything that's been going on the next part for people that don't know what really happened and and dr robertosi already explained it an electronics company used by lenovo the heffel bitland information technology company is one of

092the 11 companies in china that the u.s commerce department has imposed trade sanctions against due to alleged human rights violations according to the article that i read lenovo is no longer working with this company and is and is bringing three new factories online so this was the reason why this was a state and east coast problem the next thing does the facilities committee go and look at the work that's being done since you're in the committee because if you do i would like to tag along since i'm on a facilities committee too and i know that mr kenova you came through with dr robert tosi in the beginning when he first started to check out different schools so i would just like to find out see if that committee goes and actually looks at the

093projects that are done and then um i know the staff would love to see the board of ed back in person same thing with the hybrid if people you know have medical notes or or need accommodations but we would like to see you know everybody back in person for board of ed meetings too so if we're back you know for the most part we'd like to see the boarded up of ed members back too so this is um all i have right now and i hope everybody has a very nice weekend thank you thank you miss llama next up we have um andrea and then chloe popowicz good evening how is everyone um my name is andrea orrock and i'm at work at school 12. i'm also the pride and fast chair for the clifton

094education association each year the clifton education association provides free events for the community and we also co-sponsor events at different schools last year for example we provided a lunch buffet for our veteran assemblies at woodrow wilson we did stem nights at different schools we did pumpkin painting and other different craft nights this year we'll be hosting different events with social destiny and safety guidelines in mind our first event we are hoping to shoot for in october and we would just like to let the community know we're hoping to do virtual events such like story time with santa more craft nights paint nights and we're hoping to connect with local pizzerias to do pizza kits so we can do pizza um cooking at home so it's a nice way to interact with our families in the

095clifton community um we also would like you please everyone to follow us at twitter at cliftonteachers and at instagram at clifton education for upcoming events and we hope everyone has a safe and healthy 2020-21 new year thank you thank you okay just to queue up the next couple of folks here we have chloe popowicz and then robert pariser and then mary geary chloe hello apocalypse i'm a student at clemson high school clemson student union and girls international is holding a voter registration drive on september 21st to 25th during high school photographing week we ask all students and faculty to register to vote if they have a wedding you must be 17 to register or can't vote until 18. we would like to extend the drive to include to include the clifton community we asked the

096board of education to post about registering to vote through through all file or through their own and post on the clifton school page and every page in the district website about registering to vote and pass for the wichita drives we were successful and we were hoping this thing for this one thank you may i just ask quickly what is the date again december 24th through 25th okay well we just send me any information that you want posted on our website and social media you can email that directly to me and i'll take care of it okay thank you you're welcome if you're speaking if you're not a student if in the chat you can just type your name and your address thank you unless you're on the telephone then you'll just have to say it

097um mr goldman you're here for later in the meeting is that correct uh correct everyone hi everyone i'm here for the executive session so okay so we're gonna move on to got it um thank you we're gonna move on to mary geary and then sash walker mary if you can hear us it's your turn to speak okay we're going to move on to sash walker sash you're muted so if you unmute hi good evening everyone i'm sash walker from 45 doherty drive and i have a quick question i have a daughter and i'm school number two and her teacher is now doing remote but she's also slated to do in person when the schools reopen so my question is will there be a dedicated person for the remote students after we reopen um if we

098lose um our teacher or will she still be expected to do the remote students at the same time as she's teaching the kids in person thank you miss walker dr robert ozil answer at the end of the comments thank you thank you just watch the live stream thank you you're welcome the only other um public comment is call-in user one if you can hear me call in user one please unmute you have five minutes okay calling user one that's you go ahead yes my name is peter patinski i live at 78 venice road um i'm just i met coleman earlier about earlier in the meeting um i'm wondering why the teachers are still being sent into the school when no students when no students are being sentenced into the school and mr canola has stated

099that the board of ed meetings are being are not being done in person because there's no public people can be there well there's no students going to the school so why do the teachers have to be in the school why is the board of ed treating this differently than with the teachers um five of you voted to put teachers back into empty buildings i think it's hypocritical um i think the five was percentage canova avenger daily and miss beltran um it's put it i believe that is putting the teachers at risk sending them into the buildings and when the district endured a massive budget cuts from the state when why open buildings and waste money on electricity and and additional cleaning i think it would be safer and more efficient if teachers were home and

100going virtual with the studio if that's the route the board wants to take my opinion is this district could learn a lot from wayne school districts and copy what they're doing i think students and teachers alike should be back in school that's that's that's my bottom opinion on it but if you're gonna go the route you guys are going it's it's backwards for for lack of a better term and i think that a border fed would be and i know this isn't a requirement anywhere in for most towns but i don't understand how when it comes down to something like this there's nobody on the board that i'm aware of that has teacher certifications or or degrees in dealing with or experience in dealing with students or teaching students and and or pandemic or anything

101like this and they're making decisions for these kids and for these teachers and what people think is best for them when there's no experience in working with kids anyway they should bring in more experts other than the doctor to help with making these decisions for better education for the students if you're not going to send them back to school okay um so we will uh board members can comment um after a board member after a public comment is closed so thank you very much i think that was all miss danny okay you none motion to close miss danny second uh motion by mr object second by uh vice chair basford next order of business is board member comments and i believe we start with you mr canova okay good evening um as my daughter begins

102to cry in the background so i do have a 10 day old here so let's uh just bear with me for a second um so a couple of things that uh i just want to answer uh i guess one starting with the the person who spoke last the decisions we're making here to reopen are not made by the board of ed those decisions are made by dr robertosi and his team those are the professionals in the industry they're working with professionals from clifton and uh in health working in the regulations and and the rules set forth that we have so our vote is simply just a uh a show of support for for his decisions and i think personally i think he's been making great decisions um i i know personally i do have two

103daughters in the district and uh every wednesday teachers are remote and sometimes the teacher will say oh you know i have something here to show you but i don't have it's in the classroom right now the teachers tools are in the classrooms so i understand why a situation where a teacher is in a classroom can be beneficial because everything is there there's no distractions you have your board you have all the digital technology it's all laid out in front of you the network is controlled by the network administration in the clinton district you don't have to worry about other people sucking up and what not in situations at home uh i can understand whether those decisions were made uh and that as dr robert jose said before we may all be going in anyway on

104the 12th so it's all a remote point uh and i do support the board of ed going back so i do concur with you on that um as for uh mr lama you did ask about the finance of uh rather the facilities committee yes dr robertos and i did do a walk through at all the schools uh and that's when i got to see everything when we do have our committee meetings we are shown some images of things that they feel are wrong or not working correctly or broken and then usually after that we see some some images of things that are fixed so we have seen some of those before it doesn't happen all the time uh just depends on the situation and possums that brought up what we talked about but um we

105could ask for more of those and see you know more of what's going on in the district um and as the student brought up uh max he brought up how there are our youtube channels right now where we're doing broadcast for i think it was channel one when i was back in school that they showed prior you were in a whole room and they would show a channel one show um i wonder if that's possible to show before students connect so i know my daughter connects 15 minutes earlier i wonder if the teachers could just connect and stream that and play that youtube video while people are connecting so that students could get on and have sort of that camaraderie and you know hearing the happenings that are going on in the city and things

106that are going on and just draw people together maybe that could be something positive that we see you know lately all we see is never as negative things and talking about all these coveted issues and issues of social distancing maybe we should start trying to uh bring the community back together again i think that could be a good way to do it and another point is i saw i i heard somebody bring up something about you know reopening and how some people may have to stay home and still stay remote i wonder if we should be sending out a new survey as we get closer because there were meetings where i remember we were talking about aftercare and child care and some parents had opted and said you know now that i hear this i

107may want to keep my kid home or i may want to send them in so i think some things may change as we get closer and we probably should send out another survey as we get closer just to get a gauge on what's really going to happen when we get in in session um that's all my comments i had for tonight thank you mr canopa mr daily [Music] thank you madam president um brief uh first of all on meetings um i am personally supportive of uh having the meetings in public with the exception that anybody has any issues that it also be done virtually i just want to make sure i'm sure the administration will make sure but obviously one of the most important aspects of having a meeting in public is having the mask

108and the mess and the way you wear it it's not only the mask and the way you wear it needs to conform to cdc uh regulations so you need to have it over your mouth and nose um you can't have any breathing the portals those are not no longer deemed to be effective so i i'm sure dr robitozzi will consult with our health officer in the city to have that that goes uh so i'm i'm all in on the hybrid uh and i think we should be in public uh because i think i'm also very supportive of education in the classroom with a caveat that we need to be as safe as possible and that's not the case but um i've spoken about this at every board meeting and nobody seems to have a reaction

109to it um the health officer has reported to us that the biggest spikes in clifton is amongst individuals under 19 years of old so they're out wherever they are and congregating and that's how you get this spread so the parents uh have a responsibility in opening the schools if we have a big spike because where we have a a lot of infections um you know it makes it impossible for the the superintendent to make a decision yeah we're going to open it and we if we're having infections all over the place so uh the parents are playing need to play a role in aiding the ability for us to open the schools and keep them open during this process so there is a responsibility it's not just the board of education and overall the state

110is mandating most of what we can and cannot do in these roles so um uh and i know the administration from top to bottom have done a tremendous job and an extremely difficult situation this is uh unprecedented we haven't had anything since the early 1900s like this affect the whole population of the country and its world nobody can travel even to other countries uh more or less sometimes other states but you know travel to international destinations is virtually shut down uh so this is a worldwide pandemic we have to be smart about it as as as one of the governors says but you have we have to be uh with the right precautions i think we can do it but everybody it's not just the board of ed everybody needs to do the right thing

111here and making doing the best we can to not spread any infections and that that starts with mass and social separation um i'd like to thank mr rubin thank you for your comments as always it's always enjoyable to hear from the students and of course uh miss la lama always great to hear from you and i also like to thank all the the citizens who who've made their uh um made their comments here tonight uh we do listen um and we do take a lot of information that uh the superintendent and staff um gathers to give us uh the best guidance uh both for him and for us and how we proceed in this in this uh pandemic that will include comments i wish everybody a fun autumnal equinox which will be in a couple

112of days so i don't know if everybody knows what that is but i'll let you figure it out thank you mr president thank you mr daley mr casper thank you madam president happy spring to you too mr daley a happy fall i should say or one depends on how you say it um i'd first like to thank all the speakers that came out this evening um we do take your your comments to heart um talking about going back to school um as much as i'd like to go back into my classroom with my students it is quite tough teaching from a computer as well so i can just imagine how our students are feeling at home uh learning from a computer uh sitting in front of a computer for three straight hours before i even

113having a break is quite tough for myself um so i'm looking forward to going back to school once i uh once my district opens up as well um also going back to uh having the board go back in person as long as uh it is safe to open back on the 12th floor our students i see that um we should also lead by example and should be in in person as well for those of us that can make it um we should be we should show our students and our staff uh that we're in it with them um and lastly i'd like to thank all of our retirees for your uh dedication to our district and i'd like to thank the two groups that had made a donation to our district uh this time around

114uh happy autumn everybody and i'll see you in october thank you mr casper mr smith yeah i'm not going to prolong uh my comments too much as i have voiced my opinion numerous times i think my board members are incorrect by saying we're leading by example the example would be to do the safe and correct thing and not put anyone in our buildings until it's uh it's appropriate and safe and um i think dr roberto since schools have gone back uh in session uh there were f five new districts today that were in person that infections resulted in the school and they now are not remote and i believe we said we would watch these other districts that opened up in person and learn from them and then go accordingly so i'm a little surprised

115that we're still shooting for an october 12th opening if more districts continue to close because they opened and there's infections um i just think we're leading for trouble um and it's it's dr robitosi's call but as a board member i will continue to voice my displeasure for it um i don't think that's leading by example for the board to go back in person if anything you're leading into the problem um so i can't agree with that at all many people have come up and and i sympathize with so many people and i and i wish i s i had the answer here and i and i think dr robitosi wishes he had the answer and the governor wishes he had the answer and right down the line i wish we had the answer nobody asked

116for this pandemic nobody invited it nobody wants it we want it gone we want kids back in school but we're gonna do it safely that has to be done i understand that kids are not learning at the same level i understand that and i sympathize with that but at some point they're gonna get back in school this virus is gonna go away and they will be back in school they will be educated in buildings and in schools it is going to happen at some point and i just asked everyone to be a little bit more patient but nobody asked for this stupid thing i wish it was gone tomorrow i wish we could have a huge party tomorrow and open up our schools and celebrate and that's just not reality as mr daley said that's

117just not what our world is facing right now but to put people in harm's way i will not support that so with more districts closing i believe since this all started and school had gone back i believe there are 18 districts in the state of new jersey that were in person that are now not look at the city of new york look what they're scrambling to do that their buildings are not safe yet to put kids back into school so they were smart enough today and made adjustments to their calendar we did it we'll look at it again october 1st and i would hope that if it's still unsafe i know and trust our administrators and dr robitazi that he's not going to put people back in an unsafe situation and our teachers should be

118teaching remotely and should not be in schools at this time until it's safe ask our board to reconsider the two public sessions because we don't abide by them anyway the public is tremendously confused um supposedly the first session is for agenda items i don't think one person tonight smoke on an agenda item and i'm not i'm not putting the blame on the public at all it's it's confusing having two public sessions ask the public to come to the microphone once on whatever they wish to talk about whether it's an agenda item or it's a personal item they have stop confusing the public uh morning announcements max i i watch i watch the morning announcements every morning uh you guys are doing a great job and people are watching it and you're getting information out to

119your fellow students so keep up the good work and um chloe i thank you for bringing uh that date and that information to us um and uh if board members do not know uh the band is uh the band parents are selling krispy kreme donuts as a fundraiser um if you haven't had a krispy kreme doughnut see dr robitozzi smiling i know i get him to smile uh please try and support your uh band i believe tovah is handling the orders um you could uh email her or get in touch with her um but uh if there's any other announcements uh like that if the board could get uh notification on those things uh we surely like to announce them here and we also like to be aware of all the fundraising going on thank

120you that's all i have thank you mister smith mr abedrabo give me danny mr smith the best way actually this is not eating the krispy kreme doughnut it's actually seeing it being made just fyi uh that to me is actually more filling um and less calories let me start off by saying as a you know school 16 parent the tricky tray being held outside and i know it was discussed during the meeting they will be camped outside with their cars and lawn chairs and and being done all outside so i give them kudos for doing that as a new 16 school parent i want to you know seeing my kids again i've said this as a board member doing things safe as a parent i want my kids out of the house by 6 30

121a.m even way before school starts waiting at the door uh it's difficult it really is um and for my pre-k kids the special the special services that he that he needs as well um it's not it's hindering it's not helping being out we've done things safe let's go back to our original meeting when we had a 5'4 vote or 5'3 vote whatever it may be to go back to school we saw what you know we we heard our teachers we heard the public that going back into paul into uh remote and seeing what the governor all said about remote we did it we took the precautions um these kids are honestly from a parent perspective these kids aren't learning as much as they should be to how far we can go in the school district

122in the school year with without really sitting in the back and hindering them absolutely is is problematic but it's also problematic that we have these kids and students i'm sorry kids students and and administrators and teachers to make sure that they are safe that these 300 some 250 committee members came together and made sure that it's done safely again i give kudos to his administration um i'm willing to put my two kids in the hands of the superintendent and that's and i don't trust many people my kids um so you know i asked our parents do the same uh and our districts do the same and he's going to make that that smart decision safely as best as he can and i and i've said it before and i still stick 100 behind her superintendent

123that he'll make the right decision with his administration for our students um it was mentioned that public portions confusing yes i agree it is confusing and i think more of a reason to take our hand at being in person uh if anybody can if people can make it they can make it if they can't there is other options to do so to make sure everybody is safe in their own personal health issues and physical issues so it'll it'll be interesting to see how the next few weeks happen it's it's it's a school year that trust me nobody wants to have it's a school year that people can wish away 2020 and hope 2021 january 1st in the morning that all this is gone um but we need to take it week by week day by

124day and roll the punches as best we can and trust our administration will make the best decision they possibly can you know we have great experts uh to um the parent our resident who spoke said that we don't have teachers we have two teachers on our board who who have their own uh day-to-day operations that they see and i'm sure they keep it in mind when when they discuss um board school returns on the board and and the rest of us too i mean we have great board members who bring various expertise to the board um and i i trust the sport i trust this administration and let's see what the next few weeks brings thank you you're muted miss danny sorry um miss beltram hello sorry um i was actually just about to on

125a light note gonna call out frank casper on not sending me a birthday card but he just did i just found it in the mail so frank you're safe although you didn't wish me a happy birthday and you wish everyone else happy birthday so i'm a little offended but it's okay i'll i'll i'll move along it's i'll live um i just want to say thank you for all the teachers uh for getting into the groove and doing the best to educate children i know all the parents at first were a little shocked by our first couple of days which were just intro but the kids will learn that um you know they'll get into the groove and in college too the whole first week they call it syllabus week so it's a little bit of

126a practice for higher ed when your first week of school is just saying hello and getting um getting all of your materials together and i hope that the chromebooks will be here soon so everything will start going a little bit smoother and i'm hopefully that we'll see all the students back in the classroom i was pleasantly surprised to hear danny i'm so positive that hopefully we'll be able to get back in by our hopeful deadline of october i think it's beneficial to the students as well as the administration our society as a whole to get the students back into some sort of structured learning environment there's very limited time for some students especially special needs to learn certain skill sets and i'm really afraid that we're going to leave some children behind for their entire

127lives by missing um speech levels and and different socialization skills that can only be developed within certain points of the brain development and i hope that everyone continues to stay safe and makes the best choices for you and your family that is the key to this you have to make the best choice for you and your family if you feel afraid that we have the virtual option even for the board members we have the hybrid option um so i really think that as long as you're making the best choices for you and your family you shouldn't really worry too much about the choices that everyone else is making it's really coming down to personal responsibility and with that said for tonight um hope everyone has a good start to autumn and um enjoy the cool

128weather this weekend thank you miss beltram miss uh vice chair bassford hi good evening everyone um to the last caller uh i want to just reiterate what mr abu drabble has said we have two educators on our board actually this um the members of this board we have almost 11 000 students that we call our own uh and so we do take pride uh we do our due diligence we work really hard people do not realize the number of hours that are spent by this board on committee meetings on advocating on their own going to different meetings all over the state having a chance to use our voice to make sure that um we're we're we have a seat at the table and that we are doing our due diligence for every single child and

129family in this district um so um by saying that we don't know what we're doing um is is is hurtful and it's offensive that's my new buzzword for the week offensive to the two educators that sit on this board and the other members that have put a lot of time into this um this this volunteer role we don't get paid so um i just it's hard to hear that um uh watching some of the comments this week on different facebook pages is hurtful as well uh uh people don't realize that we're trying to make the best decision in uncharted waters these are uh extraordinary times uh every district that i have the pleasure of listening to i was on a state meeting on saturday morning before i started my work and there's all the legislative

130districts and everybody was talking about not being able to accommodate their their their members of their community because of just different various reasons and that everybody has to be mindful that we're trying the best we can with what we are given it's not easy no matter if we put everybody back in school for two days a week somebody would complain about that a half a day a week somebody would complain about we we made decisions based on the facts that were given to us by the experts in this town the people that know our numbers the best and we made the decision to hold the children out of school for the reason that was given to us and some reasons that we can't disclose we were given that's why we made the decision is is

131it the best no but are we trying to make it the best yes and on that note dr robitazi i'm going to call you tomorrow because i i am struggling with the um the comments that were made by one of the special needs mom it was very hard to hear her um speak about the the um her child and um i i think as a creative group we can think of some out of the box uh accommodations for the students that are really struggling unless we're told we don't know if nobody tells us what's going on at home we don't know what's going on so i'm sure the education committee maybe they can have a pop-up or maybe we can all give dr robert says he an email on what things that we have but

132i have some ideas that i think would help in a in a quasi way until we go back to full day um three times in the last two weeks i had max this is to you i had the opportunity and the privilege to advocate for the student-based youth service program one at our legislative meeting with the 34th legislative um district members and senator nia gill actually gave us her word that that was on her agenda and she was not going to let up on the governor one at the legislative meeting i took 10 minutes to speak to my colleagues and i have all of them emailing the governor now from every legislative group in the state of new jersey asking him to keep that student base use program because i know for a fact personally

133how valuable it is at the high school and how what they do for our district but the highlight of my week was on tuesday when i was on a zoom meeting with the governor and i submitted my question about a week ago and he called me out and he actually answered the question about the program so um it's it's good that we all use our voices whenever we can so anybody wants to reach out to the governor be my guest it's the student based youth services program that we are concerned about because in this time of isolation in this time of need our students need that service even more um jim uh when it comes down to everybody's comfort level that's what i uh respect on the board if people want to go back in

134person as long as everybody socially distanced and keep comfortable i have to i have to respect that and i also have to respect the board members that don't want to go back in person it's it's about comfort it's about what you feel safe on um and we have to make sure that we respect the needs of our students our staff members and administration and our board members as well um and on that note if you want to change the structure of the um the two public sessions all you have to do is a new business make a motion and we can bring that up for discussion about eliminating one of them it may be a better idea if we're going to stay remote to change that for now because it is confusing to the general

135public and they don't know they can come back in for another five minutes and the uh people call in tonight so i kind of chucked it up to the fact is that we had a policy on the on the on the agenda about the reopening plan so when the people talked about their school and their accommodations in the hybrid versus in person and remote i kind of choked it up that they were legally allowed to talk about that so that's all i i think that's about it but um i just wanted to i wish everybody back to school i hope that in the next couple of weeks the numbers stay low and that we get the word from our um health officer that it's a go and we can bring the students back and that

136we can get everybody back to a quasi upside down inside out backwards normal that we are now living in thank you madam chair good night everybody thank you madam vice chair um so for my comments um first of all i want to thank all of the speakers um second in terms of going back to in-person meetings i'm fine i think that um it's important to obviously think about everyone's situation and be mindful of those that you know have issues and um just be accommodating and especially in this time where many people are um you know very stressed and it's caused a lot of anxiety um one thing i would like to talk about is um i'm an educator and i'm teaching in the virtual setting and i have to say that it is very challenging

137and it comes with challenges and i've been teaching for 18 years and when you think oh 18 years and it should get easier and this year it was very challenging it was very stressful for me um because you're trying to figure out and if you are in this field and you love children and that's why you did this and that's why i became an educator you want to make the best experience for your students you want to be mindful that they're going through stresses and you know that they are experiencing this new normal and i don't want to i understand that for children with um you know who have some learning disabilities this might be very difficult but i speak to my students every single day and i ask them how are you doing how

138are you going through these challenges of being virtually and an interesting thing is that they're getting used to it i mean unlike i think adults um children tend to get used to things very quickly now am i saying that we should be virtual for the whole entire time no that's not what i'm saying i'm just saying that maybe look at sometimes a little bit of the silver lining and again i understand that the mom said that you know her child is going through some experiences and i totally get that and like commissioner you know basford said put our heads together and maybe we can do something and we don't know if we don't if we're not told if we don't know what's going on um i know that as an educator you know i'm always

139asking them and some things that have been interesting for students what they said was that you know they this had they've gained a greater appreciation for their education because they're outside of that setting and this in like mr smith said this isn't forever and i think that um if you're a good teacher um and i thank those teachers of the clifton district um the administrators who are trying to make this work i think that you try to always find some silver lining or some skills that you can teach to the children at this time i tell my students that this is you know how some corporate world works and i tell them that there's skills there's different skills when you are interacting with somebody in this virtual way and you know isn't learning and being

140in a school and isn't that one thing about you know learning the skills in life and so just this little opportunity and i know that you know dr arbertosi said that you know we'll be you know he anticipates that we'll be back in um you know october so just to take this time and i understand that there are other challenges and i'm not trying to in any way insinuate that um what somebody might be going through in the challenges and and the frustration yes i get that but that you know maybe to try to um impart something of what is some knowledge that you can gather from this experience to say you know this is different in the way we communicate and many of the students say well you know i i really want to

141get back to school because i want to be able to throw something at someone and get the teacher a little riled up you know we all have a laugh you know because that's the social aspect but i mean let's face it too that when they go back and i do have um you know someone that my nieces and my nephews that have gone back and the social setting is different and they when they go back to school they realize that the social setting is a little different and um for example just one was you know um the classroom's not rotating he's not going out anywhere and he actually thought that it was a punishment for him that he was he's in school with students but because he wasn't rotating um you know he thought it

142was a punishment and so you know we had to sit down and talk to him and say you know this is what's going on so i think just because the students go into school i think they will find that to be very different and so when i'm with the students i mean that we're in a situation nobody asked for this situation so the way i look at it is that i want to relieve some of their stress i want to relieve some of their anxiety i want to hear how i can make it a better experience and so i'm glad that we had individuals that did call in that shared some of their frustration because then together if we know your frustration as ms bashford said we can collectively put our minds together and we

143can help you with some challenges that you may be facing because we don't want you to face them and again i mean it you know takes a community to raise the children and we didn't ask for this you know we didn't want it and we want to be obviously safe and i do think that um as mr smith said when we go back which you know i anticipate will be in october as dr robert jose said but i think our new normal might be you know oh somebody in the school um contracted covid and then there'd be protocols and then maybe it'll go back to virtual and for a week or two and it might be very disruptive so i think that um i think the most important thing is that you know we we

144try as a community to find um a way to help these children cope because that's what i find is that when you talk to them when you ask them what they need that seems to settle them a bit that seems to help them and i'm not saying i have all the answers that's not what i'm saying i'm saying that if i can't find the answers i try to find somewhere else you know a child study team whatever it is principles vice principals administrators everybody to help me um the parents to get on board so that the experience is um the best it can be and as an educator and i think i can speak for a lot of educators there if you're in this and you're in this like 18 years you know five years

145i mean you made it through that they would say you leave before five years so if you made it after five years you care about your students and i thank you you know the clifton staff clifton administration for the time how frustrating it is that you're there doing your part and i know you're doing the best that you can do and um obviously if i can tell you to work from home me personally it's a profession that doesn't get that much respect i would give you that um but that's not my call um and of course i'm not in the clifton school system i can't see the entire dynamic of it so i have to trust that dr roberto's he knows and from what i understand he's very you know um uh you know if

146you have issues or things like i know that he's there and he listens so that's all i have to say thank you very much dr robert chozi thank you um [Music] is there feedback okay thank you madam president just want to uh give a brief update on on back to school as you know we started the 2020 school year in a fashion like no other on september 8th with a full remote schedule for the first time in the history of clifton public schools we had the parent portal fully available and remote we know i know there were some hiccups i know there were some issues with some parents having access to the parent portal uh we're working on those we're working on making it easier for everyone to access it but that was a considerable

147goal of mine from last year that many things could be done through the parent portal and i'm glad that that worked i know there were some bumps uh with students getting into google classrooms and and picking up materials at schools and things like that uh i believe that most of those things have settled down now and have been resolved but parents i encourage you if you're having any issue with with your child and and remote learning please first reach out to their teacher their teacher is going to do their best to help you if the teacher can't resolve the issue the principle is going to help you reach out to the principal if the principal can't resolve the issue please reach out to me and i'll do everything in my power to help you i

148just want to give a message to to my staff to my teachers to my administrators to all of our support staff you know it's hard to hear people um call in and and say how you know remote learning is not working and i just i don't want any of our staff to take any of that personally because it's not about what our teachers are doing our teachers and our staff and administrators are going above and beyond what's ever been expected of them they're doing something that they've never been trained to do and so the criticism isn't about what you're doing and the job you're doing the criticism is is frustration it's everybody's frustrated everybody's frustrated with this stupid virus and what it has done to our society um i just want you to know from

149the bottom of my heart you're doing an outstanding job you've you've you've transitioned you've done everything we've asked you to do on the first day of school i met with all the teachers remotely we had three meetings i met with all the elementary teachers middle school teachers and high school teachers and told them we're going to do everything in our power to support them through this so please continue to to do what you're doing and know that you have administration support so reopening is the big question and it's a question that will be decided on october 1st it is true what was said here tonight that several of the districts that have opened um have had to close maybe not fully but individual schools or individual classrooms we need to be prepared for that i

150want everybody to understand that if we reopen on october 12th we need to be nimble enough to go from hybrid learning to complete remote learning the very next day and how those decisions are made is if there is a covet case if it is a student or an adult we contact the health department the health department will make that decision for us based on contact tracing and how many people were exposed it could be that just a few students need to quarantine it could be that a class gets shut down it could be that a school gets shut down if there is a severe outbreak it could be that the district gets shut down so we need to be prepared for that um that's what's happening in some school district now there are some that

151have been open and haven't had any issues i'm hoping that if if that's us that we fall into that category but here is the superintendent's dilemma here's my dilemma so um two board members that i have a tremendous amount of respect for mr smith uh mr edraba [Music] both said the same thing they said i trust dr robert tosi to make the right decision and i appreciate the fact that they have trust in me but they both have different views about whether we should reopen so one of them is going to be disappointed or at least one of them is going to think i'm not making the right decision and that's the dilemma it's not just about our board members it's about our community so i'm not going to make the right decision on october

1521st i'm just going to let everybody know that now on october 1st i'm going to make the best decision that i can make based upon the available data that i have based on the recommendation of health experts um and that decision is going to make some people happy and some people unhappy and that's why there's a lot of vacancies for superintendents around the state of new jersey um everybody's fleeing it's it's if if superintendents can retire they're retiring um it's not got a long time for me i got i have four kids and they're young so i'm not going anywhere for a long time as long as this board will have me but i just want to be be be clear in that regard i don't know that i can make the right decision because

153i don't know what the right decision is but we'll do our best to make the best decision and finally um i want to thank our board i don't like the fact that any of our board members were criticized tonight for any reason the board has specific responsibilities that they're in charge of and then i have specific responsibilities that i'm in charge of the board cannot be criticized for decisions that i make that are solely my own so i will take the criticism about having teachers teach from their classrooms there are very good reasons why i made that decision i still believe it's the best decision but that was not a board decision so the board shouldn't have to take criticism on that these board members volunteer their time countless hours to sit in meetings with

154the administration to set policy to work on the budget to set priorities and i just want you to know that i appreciate what you do and i think the vast majority of our community appreciates what you do it's just that everybody's frustrated with the situation so i'm sorry that you were criticized for tonight tonight for something that really was uh not um had anything to do with you um and know that we appreciate you we appreciate all you do and uh on october 1st um we'll we'll make a we'll make the best decision that we can make thank you thank you dr orbitosi next order of business is new business madam chair i have a correction to make i just want everybody to know that we have three teachers on the board we have two

155current teachers and one retired teacher uh you yourself um lucy danny frank casper and jim smith is a retired teacher too so uh we we we're in good hands in with the district with the with our decisions thank you madam vice chair uh new business mr smith are you yeah i i i would like to make a motion that um that we suspend uh the two public session uh excuse me yeah the two public sessions and just make it one public session for for the virtual right now and if we could bring it back to committee and look at permanently removing it uh all together i'll give that a second okay motion by mr smith second by mr casper do you want to do a roll call uh madame can i ask yeah um we

156have this if we're going to go to one have it later on in the meeting so people can really get a good flavor and of what's going on because a lot of times i used to hate when we had the um the three seconds on the agenda and then there would be votes there would be discussions it kind of comes too early in the game so if we could move it down and then listen this way we can hear what everybody can hear about the meetings going on and then voice their opinions that would just be my uh i'm sorry dr robert does that's my opinion again mr abedrabo did you have your and then uh dr robert rosie i i did um mr smith said for the virtual portion of this uh does that

157mean also for the hybrid when we were back in session as well which is the next meeting uh no we don't have two and we only have one in september right yeah correctly only one in september uh yeah so so i just want a nice one i i just want to i split uh i just want to you know clarify that you know what's the fault because if we're going back into into person next meeting is for hybrid as well or this is tackling our last virtual now good good point i i forgot we only have one meeting in september um so i figured we'd have one more meeting virtual and then it could go to committee to decide how we want to go forward on it but since our next meeting is going to

158be hybrid i would say uh to continue to do do it as long as there is um not a hundred percent in person um for the public so while we're outside of normal business correct mr casper you're okay with that yes thank you madam president i just wanted to point out that i i do agree if we're gonna go to one public public comment it should be near the end but you have to be mindful that although nobody tonight focused on an agenda item there may be an issue in the future that the public may want to discuss before the board votes on it so i i my my recommendation and i see their lease nodding her head i think legal recommendation would be you could do it later in the meeting but before any

159formal vote is taken on anything of substance just in case there is somebody who wants public comment on that so can we take a meeting by meeting no i don't think we could predict what the public's going to care about you know i think well i wanted to say see that's why with the chat um if we get everybody to state what it is on the agenda that they are addressing which number on the agenda then we can say okay well if if it's you know when they can't speak to the number on the agenda then you say okay well there'll be a second one uh you know second public comment towards the end so that's why i really thought about that chat and i thought that that was a great option because if they

160put their name and their address or if their student just their name and which item on the agenda that they are addressing then that really takes that out because if they can't put the number of the agenda that they are addressing what number um on the agenda then they they have to speak later uh da miss beltram because i know you and then um mr daley and mr smith miss beltram yeah i was just going to bring up what um what danny said about it has to be before the vote um just so that we can take comments um from the public whether we have i don't know it's kind of hard to tell like you know if how some how we're gonna know if they're gonna call in for it's hard the hybrid format

161to do you know to know with only one if we vote before it so i think we're gonna have to somehow either keep two or just do one in the beginning like a long one mr daley yeah i think myself maybe judy also probably remembers uh this uh there was a ruling many years ago it's called the rutgers ruling and what was going on at rutgers is they convene the meeting and then they go into executive session for four hours and not that we're gonna do that and they would come back out and it really stifled public comment so uh you know our our attorney can weigh in but you know you almost have to play this a little bit uh by uh by the situation uh we can't wait forever uh so i would

162say maybe not the end of the meeting but but maybe just before uh we go get into the agenda but um i you know council can guide guide us and guide the uh the president on on how to make that call when when the public uh comment is appropriate but i know you can't wait forever and have the public at the very end of the meeting because uh if i remember correctly there was a ruling um on open public meetings act because of the rutgers situation well that had to do with the fact that um if i may um just answer that that had to do with the um the fact that they were going to executive session for hours and hours and the public never knew when they were going to be coming back

163that's why when we go into executive session we always say that we're going to be we're going to take x amount of time and that there will be action taken or there won't be any action taken that way people don't wait around um but whatever you decide you can have you have a policy right now you have a board policy right now that calls for two public comment sections one on items on the agenda so that people can say whatever they want before you vote and then on anything else after you vote you couldn't combine the two but i echo dr robert tosie saw me nodding my head because that's what i wanted to say also i would strongly recommend that you make that if it's going to be one public session and you can

164do that you can either adopt a new policy or you can suspend that policy for an indefinite period of time and have only one public comment but make it on items on the agenda or off the agenda but before you vote because i don't i don't want you to decide to vote on something and then people speak and it's something that they didn't want to you know they wanted to be heard on so either way i don't know that i think whatever you decide just try to do it consistently because otherwise people will be really confused i think miss gutierrez what you're saying and um from what i've noticed that many of the individuals just tended to speak um at that first one and then we didn't get too many um in the end so

165um i think that you know at the end it's already you know it's it's done um so i think that you know if we're doing it the first one then what you know it's before we vote so that they can give their opinions on anything that we're going to be voting on so the first one is is perfect where it is number 13 i feel number 13 they're they're giving their opinions on agenda items that we're going to be voting on in after 14. item that they wish to talk about is perfect okay frank are you so do we want to be great go in the middle okay with me okay so do we want to take a roll call so it'll be um public um open public session for the first one and not

166at the end so delete do we have to suspend the current one first and then vote on this second yeah i would suggest that you suspend that policy which is policy number i have bylaw 0167 uh yes uh an o164 n164 i'll amend my motion to include both of those of uh can we combine them yeah until further notice jim because if we want to get until whatever committee is going to discuss it it's got to go to policy mr casper you're okay good with me so roll call mr avadrabo yes miss bassford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes mr casper yes mr smith yeah i know i'm not supposed to comment but public we're doing this in for your benefit we don't want you to be confused and we want

167you to have one time to come and talk to us so i just wanted to make that known yes miss danny yes motion carries any other new business so so the only other one point i want to mention there is before they had a three minute session in a five minute session are we modifying the time that they can speak to are we giving them eight minutes now because i know i i believe that's just up to miss danny i mean however you guys want to run it no i think we're i think we're going with the higher five minutes rather than three minutes yeah i think five or six four but i think that the half of the five is better five five minutes is okay so we're only having one i think the

168five minutes is is good i think that's adequate okay any other new business all right seen on the next order of business is executive session but i have a motion to convene an executive session to discuss legal personnel um student contract matters action take it motion by mr abu drabbo second by um roll call mr abby drama yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley guest mr casper yes mr smith yes miss danny yes an action uh may be taken uh uh how long are we gonna come back what are we doing i uh uh miss gutierrez and dr arbitosi what do you anticipate will be the time my mind should be no longer than 15 minutes and my issue should also be no longer than 15 minutes which means you should probably say

16945 okay so definitely definitely by um you know uh 10 15. okay i don't know how we're um whoever uh mr mountain if you're mr mountain can you put us into the breakout room please yep we're all set here uh just one moment i'm sorry hey danny you know what would you like me to join this breakout room yes mr golden okay thank you so mr teigen and mr daly there should be an option to join the breakout room mr tj mr daley uh there should be an option to join the breakout room okay first it's the brady bunch motion to reconvene from executive session motion bombers drop drago second by second five by mr casper yes beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes mr casper yes mr smith yes miss dang yes madam

170president i have a motion to pass uh p19 and p20 motion by mr daley a second bye mr abdullah yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes mr casper yes mr smith yes miss danny yes oh she carries motion to adjourn motion to adjourn by uh mr um smith second by mr avadrabo all in favor aye aye opposed motion tonight everybody's have a good thank you night much have a great night bye everybody