June 18, 2020 - Clifton Board of Education Meeting

001okay okay call to order the june 18 2020 regular board meeting [Music] we will stand for the pleasure we'll have the students present the pledge [Music] i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice oh say can you see [Music] whose red stripes and bright stars through the barrel last fight or the ramparts we watched through the night [Music] or the lands of the free [Music] if we could have a moment of silence you may be seated roll call of board members here's robbie drobo here miss bassford here miss beltran here jakanova here mr daley here mr casper here mr presentee mr smith miss danny here we have a quorum uh mr percenti said that

002uh he would not be able to join us this evening um who would like to read the next order business mission statement no one okay miss basford did you say okay all right um 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 life-long learners who are responsible and productive citizens contributing to a democratic society in an ever-changing world next order business is reading at the open public meeting statement the new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right to the public to advance notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of

003this act the clinton board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be publicized by having the date time and place thereof posted at the city clerk's office clifton public library administration building senior citizen nutrition center on cable tv in the local press on the district's website and mailed to presidents of parent teacher organizations this meeting will be tape recorded in accordance with policy 0168 so next order business is recognition and award presentation um resolve that the clifton board of education recognizes the instrumental students from chs and woodrow wilson middle school who were selected for region one band and orchestra for their achievements and accepts the recommendation as superintendent of schools to recognize the following students and comp commends them for the honor and recognition they have brought to themselves their families their school

004and their community can i have a motion motion by mr casper second by mr abu drabbo rocal sure mr abaddra yes miss basford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes mr casper yes mr s miss danny yes yeah uh mr robert chelsea can you read the um um chs and the woodrow wilson middle school the students i don't wanna yes miss danny we also have a uh we also have a short video okay great these uh these students the new jersey school music association is um offers students in each of new jersey's three regions the opportunity to audition rehearse and perform on a level like no other they take the best 90 students for orchestra they take 120 students for band um and we're just extremely proud to to recognize our students

005who you mentioned earlier who have successfully auditioned and completed the month-long season with this program so we are incredibly proud of lucas andrew hofsa and zeta for meeting the rigorous standards that the region ensembles exemplify and we have some videos that are short excerpts of the region pieces that the students were due to perform yes and i apologize i don't have background so i'm just gonna i'm gonna play them back to back [Music] [Laughter] [Music] do [Music] so [Music] in our second video um [Applause] [Music] is [Music] okay [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] do next order business is adoption of minutes can i get a motion to adopt the minutes of the meeting of june 4th 2020 motion by mr abu drabo second by mr casper uh roque any questions any revisions to it roll call

006mr abby drabo yes yes ms beltran yes mr daley yes mr casper yes miss danny yes she carries next order of business communication and announcements okay um mr um uh dr arbitosi this isn't where you're doing the one presentation uh no miss danny during uh the uh item 10 presentation okay um next order business first reading of policy we do have some first reading of policy which is um 0152 board officers 3421.13 postnatal accommodations 4421.13 postnatal accommodations and 8 2 10 school year next order business is presentation of reports from administration advisory committees and special committees and at this point um dr arbitrozy will be presenting the one clifton presentation can you just give me a thumbs up can everybody see my screen great thank you tonight uh i present to you a new vision

007for the clifton public schools uh tomorrow's the last day of school for our students and we will then enter the 2020 21 school year and our new vision is going to be one clifton this is something that came about from one of our uh outstanding administrators mr mark gingaro who is our director of climate and secure security it came about as a result of the committee that we formed for reopening and the vision is is pretty simple uh clifton is a unique diverse and pretty incredible community if you ask me um and this one clifton motto is going to live with us from here on out starting tonight is going to live with us it will be the umbrella under which everything we do falls under so as we meet on the eve of the

008final day of the school year we turn our focus to the future the 2021 clifton school year hashtag one clifton the goal goals of one clifton are pretty simple to show unity in our beautifully diverse community to utilize our strengths and talents to rewrite the future of education in clifton to provide assurance to our community that we are all in this together and to prove most of all that our diversity is our strength in today's climate in today's society um we are faced with some social upheaval uh and some of the things that people believed in some of the things that are going on are no longer people are no longer able to believe in them and every time our society experiences trauma such as what and i'm not just the pandemic i'm talking about

009um the protests black lives matter um and believe me black lives do matter but every time our society experiences and goes through something like this we say that you know we must do better and this is my way of saying here's how cliff is going to do better first let me give just a brief background on our district we have almost 11 000 students 23 facilities we transport over 2200 students daily we have over 1600 full-time employees you name a sport we have it you name a co-curricular activity or club we have it over 150 of them and we are beautifully diverse about 56 of our students identify as hispanic and they come from a variety of spanish-speaking countries all over the world about 32 percent of our population is white four percent is african-american

010seven percent asian and about one percent identifies two or more races more than half of our students are considered economically disadvantaged as measured by uh free and reduced lunch status about 17 of our students are have an iep and have a disability and we provide services to them and almost eight percent of our students almost one out of every 10 is an english language learner and among our students among our 11 000 students over 65 different languages other than english are spoken in their homes so when we talk about diversity clifton is a beautifully diverse community and i truly believe our diversity is our strength so what have we done already in our one clifton initiative we've done a lot we've reduced the number of hib incidents in our district based on race color religion

011ancestry national origin gender and sexual orientation we've done that through our five-year five-year school climate transformation grant for pbsis we've implemented stigma-free lessons in our counseling curriculum in kindergarten through fifth grade seventh grade and ninth grade those lessons among other things help students develop empathy for others who suffer from mental illness they also excuse me the students also learn how to identify signs of mental illness and as well as ways in which they can seek help we also acknowledge the importance of being stigma free by hosting a stigma free week during the first week of december each year during that week school counselors create school-wide events and activities for students and staff to participate we formed a district-wide reopening committee that's made up of a variety of stakeholders we initially started with our staff and

012as soon as we received guidance from the department of education on reopening which we expect by june 23rd we will be adding parents and board of education members to our committee we have a culturally responsive curriculum across all content areas we've increased the diversity of our literature options we've implemented inclusive instruction and teaching tolerance across all grade levels we've established and take part in the seal of by literacy this is a program where students who can demonstrate fluency and bilingual fluency in both english english and another language receive an actual seal on their diploma that verifies the new jersey department of education verifies that they are truly bilingual this year 81 of our students have achieved this prestigious distinction else have we done to become one clifton this year i believe we've improved parent outreach

013and communication in spanish arabic and other languages as needed in our community we provide interpreters as needed we're completing our 14th year of psyop which is a training that that helps teachers differentiate and scaffold instruction for our linguistically diverse students we have an intensive focus on constructivist math and multi-sensory reading and language arts instructional approaches to support and include all of our learners and finally we've been designated as a high performing district by the new jersey department of education in order to be designated as high performing we had to meet all new jersey cusack indicators which include cultural competency and a culturally responsive curriculum however we are certainly not where we want to be so here's what we will do in the future as one clifton the first thing is an initiative that i announced

014at our last board meeting and this is my baby this is something that um god willing will long outlive my tenure as superintendent um and go on for decades in clifton and it's the clifton first equals clifton forward initiative and the goal is to recruit our own students and have them enter a variety of careers in education to do that we're going to leverage clifton high high school academies to develop a clifton to college back to clifton pathway in clifton like most school districts in the country our teaching staff does not reflect the demographic of the town one way that we can help uh change that is through our clifton first equals clifton forward initiative and plans to to start that program and to partner with local colleges plans to do that will start this

015summer what else are we going to do to become one clifton we're going to provide for increased support and professional development for staff in multicultural inclusivity and diversity training it's something that's necessary it's something that we all need we're going to increase opportunities and programs to support student family and staff mental health we're going to expand our pbsis programs in all of our schools through a multi-tiered system of supports and we're going to create ongoing interactive feedback between the district and community we're going to listen better so that we can strengthen our relationships and our programs there has to be a feedback loop a continuous feedback loop and we're going to create that in the future we're going to re-engage our students once we're back in school we're going to re-engage them in learning through

016dynamic interactive and inclusive instruction while addressing the whole child's needs this summer we're training our counselors in advanced trauma and treatment for children and adolescents as we anticipate a high level of anxiety and distress upon our transition back to school this pandemic um has caused a lot of trauma mentally for students young people and adults alike we anticipate that we're going to need not just our students but the adults will need some mental health counseling upon return from school at least more so than than typical all of our staff members will receive professional development on the first day of school from our counselors who are taking a trauma informed compassionate classroom course this summer this will help us increase opportunities to address all the social emotional relationship and communication needs resulting from our school closures

017but most of all what one clifton means and what one clifton will do is it'll help our community rise above what's going on in most of our country now rise above the hate rise above the fear rise above the uncertainty as one clifton when we return to school we'll continue with our strategic plan many of uh you were a part of it we had two great sessions back in january and february and then we closed school so we're going to continue that but everything we do will fall under the umbrella of one clifton everything we do will be about including not excluding and we will open this up to a wide variety of people who are interested and i look forward to this being on bumper stickers this being on pencils this being on shirts

018this is going to be the future of clifton because we truly are a special community despite some of our differences we are one clifton and we are strong as we enter the 2021 clifton school year i thank you for listening to this presentation thank thank you dr robertosi do the commissioners have any questions okay see none next order of business is the presentation of reports from administration advise board committee reports i'm sorry um first committee report will be policy thank you president danny the policy committee minutes are from june 9th we began the meeting at 6 30 the attendees with myself joe canover frank casper jim smith uh and dr roberto and luis ross the agenda included s e 8 6 excuse me eight four six two which was presented for first reading at um

019the board of education meeting from june fourth dr robertazi suggested amending the policy to replace the assistant superintendent as his or her designee for uh page number two supervising counselor and um student services seo uh sc number two seo one five two board office bylaws after discussion it was agreed upon to recommend option number one where with the voting for the board president and vice president would be conducted via a written ballot um number three sc3 uh two one point thirteen and 4421.13 postnatal accommodations there would be a new policy the committee recommend the adoption of the policy with the deletion of the first and last sentences of the last paragraph which would have required nursing mothers to sign in and out when taking advantage of accommodations provided in these policies essie number four sh20

0208210 the school year the committee discussed the proposed revisions to the policy and agreed that the recommendation to the full board uh to include the optional language on kindergarten in addition the discussion was held as to why pre-k was not included in the policy the committee would there be uh the committee thought there was previously a policy adopted concerning the pre-k discussion was held on whether or not to add pre-k to the policy if no pre-k policy did exist no recommendation on this was reached in addition it was agreed not to include the optional language in consultation with on page two the meeting adjourned at 7 00 pm and the minutes were written by mr ross any questions seeing none thank you miss madam vice chair uh legislative committee thank you madam president i hope

021you all can hear me uh celebrity committee met on tuesday june 9th uh 2020 at 4pm via zoom uh from the eclipse inside with myself uh thinking about drago commissioner judy basford joe canoba uh jim daly superintendent danny robert ozzie and superintendent has also invited the state county superintendent of schools carlos rodriguez uh from the legislature side there was senator nia gill assembling tom giblin and assembling with brady timberlake now these are our members from the 34th legislative district so earlier this year the new year's department of education informed the clinton district that it was to receive an increase in state aid of approximately 7.8 million for the 20-20-21 fiscal school year the district has prepared its 2021 budget built on that information and our preliminary budget was submitted to nj doe county office and

022it was approved now within the last two weeks of the june 9th meeting the clifton school district was informed by njdoe that due to state revenue shortfalls they would cut that amount of 5.3 or as mr jim daly had made the calculations 68 of what was anticipated now the first we had a few things on our agenda we discussed with our legislature so the idea was what the idea was set the stage of you know you can't argue and fight back what was taken away but we can prepare them and give them the information to make sure they're aware of what that money means to clifton what it can do for clinton with the the programs the teachers the the administrators etc uh school funding was was discussed um drivers spoke about the programs and

023the money that are spent on on areas spent on general education special ed and what the district custom means is closing school district i mentioned that this meeting was to set the stage and provide information for future conversations that the legislators will have on the assembly and senate floor with this b we discussed the cuts that were made in school districts across the state of new jersey we particularly discussed zero dollar cuts municipalities such as jersey city and red bank the response we received by the state county superintendent school is that these towns had previous cuts while districts like clifton received increases so the understanding that cuts came from the increases in retrospect that in retrospect the department of ed we reversed some of those increases see mr kanova discussed special needs in clifton and

024the amount that the amount the district spends on our students and the special needs program in the district the committee request from the 34th new jersey legislators at the state of new jersey look into setting special budgets based on each district special needs expenditures the ms fafsa spoke about special needs budget that comes out of the general budget the social emotional learning the diversity of our school district the special need average cost of 100 000 per student at approximately 150 students and our special needs preschool district's numbers are rising mr daley discussed the lack of direction from the njdoe we need better direction and firm guidance he also recommends new jersey legislators that the city county superintendent of schools mr carlos rodriguez that the legislature and the njdoe set separate budgets from four non-equity schools

025such as charter and pcti it's not fair that while clinton sees a cut that we still need to set aside the same amount of monies for other schools especially during the times of this pandemic and virtual learning we also mentioned that clifton sets aside approximately 1.4 million dollars an increase in our budget for these same schools excuse me uh where'd it go here we go sorry about that um f mr carlos rodriguez the state county superintendent of schools will reach back out to trenton on guidance that was requested by this committee on behalf of the clifton board of ed he also commented that red bank had a shortfall from before whoever received an increase they had they had it taken away jersey city's taking a 55 million dollar cut with no increase um uh two

026and a half million dollars in the cares act now number two is the gusto is the cares act superintendent daniel robert tells us it's gonna discuss that care that money will be used to purchase more devices of students for students makes make sure students do not miss a beat in the classroom b he also asks you would um if we should be embracing more cuts and something when bernie tim blake responded we do not want we do not know what our future is going to bring we went into this year with for our budget season and with this unexpected clove in 19 our focus had to change so basically they couldn't promise what was going to happen whether those cuts are there whether it be being sort of changes see the assemblyman also mentioned another

027discussion will take place with super and board presidents to have a community community discussion in the near future with njdoe we'll be able to speak to the leadership of njdoe about our complaints as of now no announcements have been made for the replacement of commissioner number three charter schools mr daley mentioned since now our budget has been cut by five million charter schools should have their own budget and not have to get from close to get it from clifton it is not a suica that we are hurting by the amount of money we put aside for another institution and that does not operate at the same standards um so approximately six million dollars comes from the cb from the clifton board of ed budget uh that's what mr dale is discussing b the request again

028was repeated to curb charter school budgets from the clifton board of education to coincide with the clifton board of education budget cuts meaning that if the clinton board of education sees a budget cut it should not be fair that for example as a number that clifton receives five million dollars but yet we still have to dish out two and a half to three to three and a half million dollars for charter schools because that we only hurt ourselves so that was a discussion that we need to have to make sure that yes we follow the rules and the the money follows a child to where they go outside district but yet we do not um uh we do not set our children our students uh and our district have have them take a seat on

029the curb and waiting to get more money so this way they can continue doing what they're doing in our district for number four the legislators also recognize that the clifton was the first of a handful across the state of new jersey to set up meals to set up meal pickups for the residents of clifton clifton with no question asked during this pandemic and last written requests were made to legislators of the follow-up i've attached it for my colonies on the board to see what those questions and what the letter was um c c donna was the superintendent and as well president lucidi and a mini request was made to the legislators for a follow-up meeting a meeting ended at 5 30 pm it was prepared by myself commissioner female drama any questions mr abernath do

030you want to read the follow-up legislators of new jersey 34th district the letter itself yes yes will do everybody can bear with me i already have it up but it's pretty two pages so dated june 11 2020 so the summary was um earliest years it's pretty much the first paragraph uh but i'll quickly i'll quickly uh read through it earlier this year the new jersey department of education informed the club that it was to receive an increase in state aid approximately 7.8 million for the 2021 fiscal school year the district prepared its 2021 budget built on that information within the last two weeks the clifton school district was informed by nj dewey the njdoe that due to state revenue shortfalls that would cut that amount of 5.3 of what is anticipated we have no guidance

031in the njdoe if this is the final number when a revised budget was to was submitted uh are we able to adjust that tax levy can we use our fund balance account can we use any of our intensive surplus from our 1920 budget in the 2021 budget can we use funds in our capital and maintenance funds for operational needs also the njwe has no upside has not even given us guidance on a date certain guidance would be forthcoming if we start 2021 fiscal year without any approved budget does the district have to completely shut down since under current law we cannot expend funds with an approved budget we have 14 business days before that situation comes into play 14 days is insufficient time to revise submit and obtain approval for a budget as large and

032complex as the clemson school district under the umbrella of everyone's needs to share the pain the njdoe should permit the closing school district to reduce the increase for charter schools count vocational tech and out of district special ed services on a pro rate rate of basis as 68 while maintaining service levels for clinton residents the clinton school district 2021 online item for increase for charter schools is one million eleven thousand six hundred forty seven dollars and for the vote tech is three hundred eighty five thousand nine hundred ninety five dollars the closing taxpayer taxpayers no other students in the clinton school district educate should be educated should be obligated to that additional burden to fulfill fill the extraordinary gap under these difficult circumstances so the action items inquiries that we've asked and we're hoping to

033follow up and get some questions and answers are seven points one is there any timeline as to when school districts will be able to resubmit the budget to reflect the revised state aid two will exit surplus be allowable for the 1920 fiscal year three will the districts be able to revise the tax levy by the next quarter four will will reserve accounts be allowable to balance the budget i.e capital reserves and other avenues five can our state legislators advocate for special needs to be taken out first from the state budget prior to evenly distributed distributed among all schools in new jersey before calculations or providing the special needs schools their own line to the state to help with budgeting budget forecasting for unemployment expenses what that means is so if clustering was to be given

034for example five million dollars and again these all just numbers i'm throwing out right now as i'm speaking to you and let's say you know um uh special needs and education population has an x amount of dollars instead of taking that x amount of dollars with the with the with the funding be distributed clifton take that out either as a budget line item or say clifton university you'll be receiving x amount for general population x amount for for uh special education this way we don't have to try to figure out all right well where do we go general or special ed because at this time they are both equally important there's not one that's more important than the other there's not one student more important than the other so we want to make sure that

035they understand that and it's not just for clifton but it's set across the state of new jersey things have to change through education state of new jersey and that's honestly i'm not just giving a treasure box to a district and say hey we got you guys to figure it out but they need to see what we see the equal value of each student or district uh sixth is the budget says the state budget will be on the legislature floor in september can we wait until after that time to decide to go back i'm sorry to go to the bank cap or not and then last since the purpose of funds from the cares act is to help school districts and facilitating the new normal standards of learning and clifton will use it use it to

036further fund our one to one for a flipped classroom model will there be other state of new jersey technology based relief or other release that can be used for schools like our like for counseling staff changes to accommodate smaller classrooms and providing family foods so those are seven points i personally i'm gonna be honest i'm proud of our committee um i'm i'm really you know from from joe to judy to jim and myself i think in in you know we cover all our bases from special ed to technology to everything you can think of budgets etc so we had a very fruitful conversation with with our legislators and uh i i'll let my other committee members um our colleagues on the committee speak to themselves but for myself i think this is probably the most

037fruitful meeting we've had with them in a very long time a lot was discussed a lot was um talked about in these points and we definitely will follow we'll follow up with them uh and they were very receptive to clifton and they did nod their head and i'm sorry tipped their hat to clifton in many different aspects and avenues so we're growing we're growing and they get they got you know they get more chances every single time to speak to a phenomenal superintendent um who you know as well also adds some flavor to to the conversation so thank you president thank you mr madame thank you do any of the commissioners have any questions okay see none um next is education minutes okay uh the education committee meeting uh minutes are from june 9th 2020

038the education committee meeting began at 5 30 p.m attendance were myself uh board president uh board vice president miss judith spathford and board members joe konova and sahim abu drabbo administrators and attendance were dr danny robertozzi mr mark teagun miss janina miss heather rotolo miss megan fitzpatrick and miss linda chavez number one distant learning update uh for mrs kusalevich miss kusalevich gave an update regarding the closing of the school year she reviewed phase three of distant learning where processes and procedures put in place from phase two when continuing with increased google means for students grades six through twelve would continue to follow a modified alternating day period schedule that is posted on the website and had been shared with families end of year grading for grades one to five will follow a modified pass fail

039grading model using the existing report card codes of p for proficient and end needs improvement preschool kindergarten and 6th through 12th grades continue using the same grading model as used during live instruction with greater emphasis placed on participation and lesson and completion of work plans have been made to strengthen distance learning should we need to transition off-site again in 2020 to 2021 moving forward all students in grades 3 through 12 will have access to a chromebook each teacher will have an individual google classroom and daily google meets will be required action informational end-of-year update from dr robert tosi dr robertosi reviewed end of year plans a notification was being sent to the community regarding dates and procedures for the return of district textbooks library books and musical instruments while also returning student belongings left in

040the schools at the time of school closure grade levels will be assigned specific dates for pick up and drop off at each school additional dates will be made available for parents who cannot come on the day to sign end of year ceremonies will be as follows preschool and kindergarten students will have individual google meets and certificates by class as their moving up ceremony grade 5 and 8 will have a virtual keepsake moving up ceremony broadcast on june 19th for high school seniors a virtual graduation is being planned using a service provided to create a keepsake for all graduates students will have the full ceremonial speeches a brief bio and all of their honors included this will be broadcast on june 19th as well on june 16th and 18th all seniors will come to the stadium

041as assigned at assigned times just in cap and gown for a personalized photo presentation on the graduation stage this is being done in addition to plans for a possible in-person ceremony at a later date at the governor's phase two guidance is released action informational summer update from mrs kusalevich mrs kusalevich updated the committee on summer programs the 21st century minds in motion in the esy extended school year program will be virtual this year eligible students are being notified northern regional commission and educator will continue to be paid to be the paid option for credit recovery in grades six through twelve both will also be virtual programs summer assignments for students have been streamlined so that no books need to be purchased summer work for general ed students general ed's courses will continue to count as

042extra credit in grades kindergarten through eighth high school general course will receive extra credit rates depending on the content area ap and honors courses will grant quiz or test grades depending on the content area action informational reopening committee update from dr robert tosi dr robert tosi discussed committees created to address the safe reopening of schools a comprehensive high school committee has been meeting and a district-wide stakeholder committee has been created dr robertosi summarized some of the most recent guidance regarding phase two of governor murphy's reopening plans working with release guidance the district continues to implement enhanced cleaning practices social distancing and health recommendations orders for health related supplies are forthcoming committee work continues as more info is released by the governor's office action informational the meeting adjourned at 6 30 pm uh respectfully submitted mrs

043janina kusalevich are there any questions see none next is facilities committee june 16th uh mr piscenti's the chair that he's not here would mr canova or or mr smith someone that was at the meeting please read those minutes sure i can read him clifton board of education facilities committee meetings june 16th 2020 minutes board members president jim daly jim smith dana bellatran myself administration president dr robert tosie mr teigen miss kusalevich mr ushi and mr tomeskovich meeting time was three to four twenty items of discussion number one the stadium locker room ventilation item a concern concerns from the chs football booster club mr marcion will be fielding quotes to address the heating and ventilation of the locker rooms at the stadium for the community review this is a smaller job to address the health concerns

044for our students athletic student athletes and staff prior to future referendum to renovate the space the goal is to finish this project mid-august before the sports season starts painting will be added to the district-wide painting initiative and new lockers will be phased in if funds become available item 2 baseball booster club the baseball booster club is requesting to use the wwms baseball fields for practice and games this summer which happens every summer for governor murphy baseball games are now allowed if following all of the state pandemic guidelines and protocols dr robert tosi asked administration to attach guidelines to the permit before issuance item three capital projects 20-21 item a school 15 roof replacement the equipment and material has been ordered by the contractor and the project will start on june 22nd item b school 17

045bms the equipment and material has been ordered by the contractor and the project will start as soon as possible number four air sampling there is a brief discussion of the district's responsibility to be in compliance with ahira and test air sampling as needed item five athletics update the committee recommended that the athletic director and the next facilities committee meeting to give a status update on all athletics and the plans for fall item six board live board meetings there is a brief discussion on where live board meetings should be held as the state is going to further stages of the governor's reopening plan the administration building boardroom has limited space to distance the best option would most likely be the clifton high school auditorium the committee would like this to be discussed with the full board

046at the june 18th meeting does anyone have any questions would this be the time to discuss at the june 18th meeting are we going to use under a new business i guess that would be miss danny's call if now or a new business either why don't we just do it um is it is it okay mr abu drabo uh under new business god you know of course it is someone just has to remember i'm writing it down as we speak all right if i mean if uh you know if you want okay sealed okay does anyone have any other questions so residency committee um i don't see miss beltram here i know that she is um so i don't know who would like to read it's fine thank you thank you mr nova uh residency

047committee meeting minutes june 17th 3 p.m uh via google meets item one presented present at present at the june 17th 2020 resident ec committee meetings were dana beltran joe canova frank casper jim smith dr danny robertozzi mark teigen mark giangaro nancy foster and vincent constantino item two the residency registration team provided the committee with a three-year comparison chart of the 17 18 18 19 19 20 school year specific to a the number of students investigated b the number of residents found c the number of non-residents found d the number of bounties collected please note due to the spread of the covert 19 virus and the closing of schools the information provided to the committee for the 1920 school year reflected data from july 1st 19 to february 29th 2020. item three marcion guerrero provided the

048residency committee with the detailed information specific to the development and implementation of the remote registration product process item a while keeping the safety and security of families and staff alike at the forefront the district recognized the need to develop a method for family students to register for school one new family students moving into the district two special education cases three family students returning from vacation four filings filling seats in the clifton learning early learning academy program five incoming kindergarten students b please be advised that this remote online registration process is applicable only for the current at-home distance learning program during this remote online registration process the district is waiving the requisite documentation needed for new students to be enrolled in the clifton public schools however please know that when the district reopens students will not

049need to be students will not be eligible to attend school until all the necessary documentation is received as such at that time when school reopened schools reopened you will need to provide all other required documentation c instruction information for the online application processes are available to family students on the district webpage d over 175 family students have benefited from the remote registration process item four marc jaguero provided the residency committee with the detailed information specific to the development and implementation of the remote transfer process the district also recognizes the need to develop a method for family students to exit our district the remote transfer process was the result of a collaboration effort among central administration the residency registration team and the clifton association and educational secretaries see instructions information for the remote transfer process are

050available for families and students on the district web page item five march again provo provided the residency committee with the detailed information specific to how the district will be utilizing real time the district's sis student information system as a part of the registration process the committee recognized the efforts of sharon emilio's supervisor of the informational technology who has played an intricate role in the development of this process item six questions and comments board of education commissioners requested that the residency registration team provide information specific to a the potential for using irs documentation as a proof of residency for the registration process b determining the theoretical versus actual savings for the district based upon non-resident students and families who are founded you any questions yeah just for uh for uh administration uh danny uh we were

051supposed to get a an updated uh of the chart that the the numbers were uh not jiving do you know if we got that i did not receive that yet i will follow up and make sure we have it by tomorrow mr smith okay thank you you got it um i have a question um and i'm sorry for maybe i i didn't hear it but um is there is there a report on if there were any residential residence issue during cobit 19 in terms of getting reaching out to students obviously we can find out in some aspects if the student wasn't being responsive to whether mailers or home visits or you know school homework uh was there anything to that extent we believe that throughout from what we were told during the pandemic right that

052there danny that there just there were no uh no investigative cases that's correct there were no residency investigations however we did um pay visits to students houses if teachers couldn't get in contact with them if they didn't show up to google meets uh just to make sure our students were were safe and to make sure they had what they needed so we did make some some home visits for that purpose but not for residency investigations thank you anything else okay uh next is finance committee mr smith you're muted yeah but i think that's mr daley mr smith sorry okay uh clifton board of education finance committee meeting june 16 2020 minutes board members president was mr smith mr beltran mr canova and myself administrators president with dr robertosi mark teigen janina kusalavich mr yusi and

053mr thomas meeting started at 4 20 p.m and ended at 5 25 items of discussion number one was the obligating of year-end fund year-end surplus for june 2020. mr uc presented the potential surplus of june 30th 2020 the recommendation was to number one replenish the unassigned fund bound to the two percent maximum which was used to balance the 2021 budget number two designate its general fund uh excess surplus as of june 30 2020 and an amount not to exceed 1.8 million dollars to be used for the 21 22 budget uh as relief for state if rela if state aid is not stored number three designate an amount not to exceed the amount of 750 000 uh dollars to the maintenance reserve account which will replenish an aid to the amount used in the 2021 budget

054and four designate any remaining excess surplus to the capital reserve account number two um revise state aid no update from the department of education the administration is awaiting guidance from the department of education on how to revise our budget pending state aid cuts the 2021 budget was built on receiving a full amount of the state aid the administration and finance committee have different plans and options in mind but we cannot amend anything until we receive guidance from the department of education a letter will be drafted and sent to the city of clinton and the commissioner of education regarding state a cuts and potential changes to the tax levy pending guidance and potential further state cuts number three uh aid in lieu june 2 2020 aid in lieu of transportation is a payment made to the

055parents per student who attend non-public schools in short if parents transport their own students to the non-public schools they will receive aid in lieu after consulting with legal counsel or professional associations the june payment has been prorated back to march 16th when school closures were mandated by the governor number four pcti billing pcti's tuition will be reduced from 11 per student to 11 000 346 per student for the 2021 school year for the first time since 2012-2013 number five food service management company 2021 a national school lunch program was discussed child and adult care food program and summer food service program emergency feeding mr utc explained that the district had to rfp our food service management company this year because the department u.s department of agriculture required all three food programs to be compliant in

056the same contract compiled in the same contract excuse me the district received two rfps from pontonian and sodexo administration recommended pumped onion not only because they are doing a phenomenal job but their management fee is almost two thou two hundred thousand dollars less than sodesco with lower expenses even though tony had lower expenses they charge less of a management fee which is distributed is distributed to the quality of food provided emergency feeding will continue at school 17 c cms and chs after june 19th the last day of school and provided all summer long number six price equity for school lunch breakfast personal costs are rising because of staggering minimum staggered minimum wage increases in new jersey to maintain the current surplus and the cafeteria fund the district would need to raise the paid lunch prices

057by 39 cents administration is recommending raising the paid lunch service by 20 cents the committee can concur number seven purchases to state contracts and cooperative pricing for 2019-20 excess of the bid threshold the resolution shows that purchases used like utilizing a state contract cooperative or competitive uh contracting in excess of 29 dollars all purchases went through various committees with budgeted funds in 1920. for order compliances purposes this resolution will be put on the june 2020 agenda number eight cancellation of all checks prior to june 1st 2019. mr uc explained the cancelling of old checks was an audit recommendation and he will be ensuring that this happens on an annual basis all vendor checks will be cancelled employee reimbursement checks will be reissued and payroll checks will be re reached uh and reissued uh uh researched

058and reissued or cancelled on the basis of the age of the check and access to reach out to the employee and that those are my notes anybody have any questions i'll be happy to answer them thank you mr daily okay uh the next order of business is public recognition this portion of the meeting is open to any individuals for the purpose of addressing resolutions on this agenda only so speaking about items on this agenda only residents are requested to provide their names addresses and subject matter comments are limited to three minutes per person there will be a timer going for three minutes issues raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate the

059board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding studies students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specifically legal rights afforded by the laws of new jersey the board bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments in light of the legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments so again you will have three minutes and it's on items on this agenda there will be later a second public recognition for items not on the agenda okay so this is

060the first time we're doing this so bear with us if there's any issues uh i'm seeing 13 people in the waiting room and i'm going to be calling on them one at a time based on the name that they've programmed or plugged into the zoom meeting first up we have catherine miller catherine if you can hear me you have three minutes catherine you're muted if you take yourself off of mute you have three minutes to speak go ahead catherine yes okay good evening my name is katherine miller and i'm a 7th grade inclusion teacher at ccmx i would like to give a big shout out to my students their parents i i did am i on moot uh still on mute no we could hear you uh it's just that you seem a little distant

061um maybe you get closer to the mic or okay thank you catherine miller and i am a 7th grade inclusion teacher at christopher columbus middle school i would like to give a big shout out to my students their parents my fellow staff members the secretaries custodians food service people and administration at ccms for really stepping up in a very difficult situation and making the best of what none of us could have foreseen happening in september we asked a lot of our students and their parents mr mountain are you just going to conclude miss miller is the are you done with your oh i believe there's a there's there's a significant delay from the live stream if if you could just listen to us speaking on the zoom conference that would be uh that would be

062better okay um i we asked a lot of our students and their parents as teachers we gave support through google classroom class chats and emails but we know those things certainly couldn't replace the critical learning we did persevere and i believe we came out stronger i saw different sides of my students during this time and i have to say i'm very impressed they took everything in stride and did what i asked them to do they worked hard kept their sense of humor and really just did the work that is a testament to their parents i also am happy to say that i had more positive interactions during virtual learning with parents and they need to be acknowledged also as one reason why we were able to make virtual learning work yes there were problems and

063issues with virtual learning and hopefully they will be ironed out if it is needed in the future but i am proud of the way my students and their families on team orinchuck and carcass really showed their clifton strength and did not let the coronavirus stop them from learning and i wanted them to be acknowledged thank you and good night and i'm sorry about the technical difficulties no problem you're the first ever so good job um next up we have michelle walsh danny i see a lip smoothie you're not talking you're a mute michelle you are now connected and you have three minutes michelle walsh mr mound if we could just remind everyone that once they enter the zoom meeting they should uh turn down the volume on the live stream because there is a 20

064to 30 second um so if if you're watching please when you come into the room turn down the volume on the live stream so that you can immediately begin speaking for your public comment thank you yes thank you for that i've been back channeling texting them i believe michelle has left so next up we have uh jane crane you have three minutes hi jane you're connected now you have three minutes and while we're waiting just to reiterate if you're waiting in the waiting room please turn off the live stream and just listen to the actual zoom meeting jane i'm sorry we can't yeah i think she's muted we we can't hear you jane so i'm gonna put you back in the waiting room okay next up we have gene bonzi you have three minutes gene

065you're muted right now my name is jean bonzi and i am a sixth and seventh grade language arts and social studies teacher at christopher columbus middle school initially distance learning had its challenges but as a team the students parents and my fellow teachers and administrators adjusted quickly my students never complained we met on our google meets discussed and problem solved together we really felt like a team and navigated the glitches as a group i cannot say enough about my students and their parents resilience and support for me it was wonderful how many of my students embraced our meets phone calls and emails and thrived during this unique educational time i would like to let my students and their parents know how proud they should be of themselves and it will only get better if need

066be during the upcoming school year thank you i'm not sure if you got that nope thank you that was perfect next up we have stephanie langer stephanie you have three minutes thank you i am just here to forward along a little bit of gratitude from my students so i have a personal interest in yoga and mindfulness and last year professor and resident gene modig from william patterson that works with us at christopher columbus collaborated together we did some professional development on how to use some yoga for classroom cards that i was able to then implement in the classroom during stations and mindful mondays and mrs gaba even allowed me to start running a mindfulness study class and i just got an email from one of my students from last year and he said that he

067just wanted to say thank you for everything in eighth grade and all of the yoga made him feel better and i really wanted to be able to share that praise with those people that helped make that happen and as we transitioned into distance learning i thought it was really important to continue on that path with my students so over the last few months every monday one of the things that i put out for them was a mindful monday task and i got feedback ranging from it felt good to stretch to one day we tried some laughter yoga and they thought that was pretty funny and great and i got some little expressions of gratitude and thanks like one email said thank you for the meditation i was waiting for you to post it and i

068really think this highlights the value in the social and emotional learning that i'm seeing be pushed in the district more recently and i wanted to say that i really appreciate that and i think that's fantastic and there's no doubt in my mind that with the continued pursuit of mindfulness and the professional development that you've been helping push forward in the district is going to continue to benefit them for a very long time so thank you okay thank you um just as a procedural update i'm going to admit a few people at a time just to expedite the transition uh so once you're admitted to the meeting please listen to the audio from the zoom and not the live stream next up we have dana howard hi good evening i'm dana howard the president of school

06915. i just this is kind of twofold i just want to say thank you we are very excited that our new roof is going to start coming in on monday um i know this is something that we've worked for and we've advocated for so we totally appreciate that it was already in the budget and that it's something that we can look forward to coming back hopefully in september um i also want to talk as a parent that i felt like clifton did a really nice job with our district learning um i felt like the mice my kids i have an older one um in the sixth grade on the andreessen team and of course i have two at school 15 that i feel like that those teachers that we had really embraced it and really

070helped the transition and um worked really nicely with my kids they worked really nicely with us they answered any questions we had any concerns we had and i felt like they were real cheerleaders for our for our students so i just wanted to say you know i thought clifton did a really nice job with being able to rule this out as quickly as that we needed to roll it out so that's it thanks and have a great summer thanks miss howard please listen to the audience thank you um so next all i see is keen and i'm guessing that's mary kanan it is mary kanan sorry i share the you know with a few kids um so good evening my name is mary kanan and i have been teaching social studies for the past 19

071years at christopher columbus as a parent of three i know how difficult online learning has been for both the parents and the students and i just want to commend the parents and our students for doing such a great job um i am speaking tonight to highlight some of the best parts of distant learning i work with amazing teachers staff students and administration and parents at ccms my sixth grade team manning had a lot of success during online learning we had our science teacher miss foley and miss phillips did a special little prize for students who participated each week we did a wheel spin um we conducted a virtual um they did a virtual talent show and our team participated in a glow stick dance challenge and that was a really neat thing to see our

072math teachers theresa manning ariana bauer and wendy geronimo they met weekly on google meets with their students as well it had two additional tutoring sessions for anyone that needed help our language arts teachers nicole prison and trish conway had wonderful uh projects for the students and they also had daily meets with their students as well uh for social studies michelangelo and myself who are the social studies teachers we had weekly google meets with our students and we also had daily streams where we had a question of the day to continue to interact with our students um today we had an award ceremony virtual of course for our sixth grade students where we awarded them for character traits as well as academic success we had a slideshow presentation and another fun wheel giveaway and i just

073wanted to commend all of the hard-working parents and students during this difficult time we've had a lot of great success and i just wanted to say thank you to everyone that has helped make it a good time thank you okay next um abby cooper you are in uh you're currently off camera and muted so if you unmute you have three minutes okay we'll move on to someone else um i apologize i don't have a name all i can see is o-k-s-s-g-y said jeff labriola yes it is it's mr labriola jeff you're muted i thought i recognized that haircut jeff it's your turn to speak but you're muted on your end it looks like diana's ready to go so jeff hold tight maybe diana can speak yes i'm sorry um i didn't realize that uh there

074was another name connected to the zoom my daughter was using it earlier no problem i apologize sorry um good evening oh just let me know when i'm ready to roll sorry you're ready to go okay thank you good evening dr robitosi and clifton board of education members my name is diana ruiz minicello i am a teacher at christopher columbus middle school i've been a teacher there for 17 years um during this trying time for for the world the teachers staff and students band together to continue the educational process in a very short amount of time although virtual learning cannot replace the traditional classroom setting we as clifton strong came together to arise to the occasion and to tackle this new educational world virtual learning provided the teachers and their students to still stay connected as

075an educator it allowed me to meet although virtually parents students some of the students siblings and of course my students i was afforded the ability to make connections uh with some of my students that i normally don't get during the class day i would like to thank the clifton community for their continued support of the public schools their students their teachers and their parents thank you okay mr labiola if you can hear us uh it's your turn and you're still muted good evening yes thank you so sorry about that thank you for the opportunity to speak with you tonight uh my name is mr labriel i'm a teacher at christopher columbus middle school i wanted to invite the board of education the administration and the clifton community to view the national junior art honor society

076slideshow on the ccms web normally the art honor society is a ceremony held in clifton in conjunction with an art gallery featuring the student's artwork in the school's main foyer a colleague and co-sponsor of the national junior art honor society dorothy ludo and i are incredibly proud of our students much of the artwork you will view was done during remote learning time the talented students worked under our guidance and completely success with their talent and dedication all for their love of heart you will see a variety of artwork drawings paintings and pen and ink illustrations also to support our students during this challenging time artists from the real world who had worked with our students this school year and last school year participated in the presentation by offering words of encouragement and support also dr

077robert tosi sent a thoughtful message which we greatly appreciated the last few weeks were new to all of us our colleagues dorothy ludo and donna minervini challenged our students to use this time as a period for great creativity many students used art to bring them happiness and some peace during these unsettling times the three of us posted artwork on our instagram site which is ccms art teachers you can view and appreciate the talents of our students thank them and we're so proud of them their parents and the community of clifton for helping us through this difficult time and persevering victoriously congratulations to all the high school graduates tomorrow especially our ccms alumni thank you for the opportunity okay next up we have gene bonzi gene if you can hear us you have three minutes uh

078eric she was already on she was the number fourth speaker i think i appreciate that thank you um i apologize if it's rosie or rossi gonzalez ms gonzalez you're next if you have three minutes ms gonzalez if you can hear us it's your turn to speak okay she just left and i am seeing no one else in the waiting room so everyone has just left there's none second motion was by i apologize there's one still connecting um it's sort of stalled out here okay i apologize if i'm saying it wrong a lean a a-l-e-i-n it it's showing that you're connecting to audio so you're next but i'm not sure it's quite live yet yeah it should be good it should be good now it should be good now hey if you can hear me yes

079oh uh can you hear me yes okay fantastic this isn't the first time i'm a parent at school uh two of two fantastic children uh with fantastic staff this is the first time so i don't know if i'm supposed to make a comment or ask a question i do have a question to you guys regarding if we were to continue with remote schooling next september from a trauma informed and a bonding perspective for children and their existing teachers forming new bonding a new connection with a new teacher remotely i can see it being a challenge for our children i'm from my informed therapist myself and i'm a therapist with children um and to me it's a concern in terms of the bond what helped my kids to move forward with the um with the remote

080learning was the bond that they have already formed with their teachers that allow them to continue have the motivation to do better to do um to um increase their um performance and really push themselves when they were really really challenged uh because they want to know whether uh make their teachers uh proud of them or really have that image that the idealization that they had for their teacher that they wanted them to succeed so the question is if we were to move into a a second year or the next semester the next half first half of the year um learning still being in that in that space what are some what are some of the approaches in terms of or what are the thoughts of the district in terms of how to uh promote that

081emotional social learning and the connection that they have or they should be forming with their teachers uh the new teachers if they would be uh assigning teachers next year i don't know if my question is clear i'm so sorry i just thought about it and i thought i will jump in for the first time um but um yeah that's pretty much it madam chair if it's okay with you yeah miss alien thank you uh so much for joining us tonight and bringing up something i think is is extremely important you know that that bond that you develop with a teacher especially during the first few weeks of school is going to be very difficult to do um if we are remote in september now the truth is i i really believe that we will be

082back uh in september in some form or fashion now obviously i don't have a crystal ball i can't predict the future but i do believe that we will be back in person um but i'd also uh i'd like to say that if we are not we do have some ideas and we have some plans in place to address uh the issues that that you've brought up and you know without putting her on the spot but i'll put her on the spot if i could ask uh our assistant superintendent for curriculum uh janina kusalevich to talk about some of the ideas that we've talked about and also know that this is an ongoing discussion we'll be planning all summer um so you know based on on what you've brought up we'll continue to to to try

083to come up with some other ideas so janina if you could alright dr roberto thank you um we are looking at multiple options there are a number of committees dr robert tosi's larger committee but also smaller groups of educators who've been working on looking at the guidance that's going on in other states we have other countries to look towards as well so as we're making our plans we are really focusing on the social emotional learning and social emotional well-being of our students um dr robertosi in his presentation shared with you that we are going to be doing a trauma-informed training for all of our counselors but we're actually offering that the full trauma-informed training course to all of our teachers who may be interested in um teach in taking that course this summer to help

084them have more tools for this coming school year that being said even if teachers choose not to take the full course they will still receive training um on trauma-informed practices on the first day of school we are very hopeful that we will be back with some form of normalcy for september at the same time we are looking strengthened distance learning plans which will be made possible um through the the one-to-one initiative for grades three through twelve um so that all the way down to grade three our students will have better access to online learning and one of the things that you mentioned that bond with the existing teacher um if it looks like we will be starting in september we will work up to the greatest of our ability to have some form of transition

085if we cannot be in person but i'm very hopeful that that will not be the case um we would like our students to be able to transition from the person with whom they've been comfortable this year to the new teacher that being said while they're we're looking at ideas like that we are still very hopeful to be back in some form in person in september i hope so too for the sake of everybody's mental health right yes thank you thank you so we have three that have just entered um jane you'll be first miss crane and then miss jagger and then miss la lama uh so jane you have three minutes sorry something's wrong with her yeah i'm sorry miss crane we we still can't hear you i know you're not it doesn't look like

086you're muted but something must be wrong with your microphone um we're gonna move to miss jagger if you want to try again we'll give you another shot hi how are you everyone can you hear me yes okay perfect um my name is aaron jaeger i'm the middle school math coach for uh clifton public schools so i work with the math teachers at christopher columbus and at woodrow wilson middle school but i also work with a lot of the other teachers in the department at both middle schools and i just wanted to give a big shout out and thank you to all of our administrators our teachers our support staff the custodians who are at our schools cleaning them out um people that are doing drop off pick up parents students you've been doing incredibly hard

087work beyond the hours of a teacher that we could have ever imagined i know our parents are and teachers and students are working you know at night emailing back and forth trying to make sure this their zoom connects you know kids that are having trouble log in it's amazing just to see how we really come together as a clifton community and you know done an amazing job so thank you to everyone that's you know really taken on this challenge and honestly we've overcome so many things i can't believe how where we were in march when we went out to now where we can just jump on a zoom meeting and you know sarah share our thoughts so thank you to everybody thank you you know the board of education and everyone that's here tonight and

088you know great job so that was all i have says thanks aaron and last but not least we have miss la lama all right good evening to all how's everybody tonight good lord good to see you awesome i just want to say that my name is lorelai lam and i'm the president of the clifton education association and i want to thank dr robertosi mark tejan janina kuchalevitz and each commissioner on the board of ed because if it wasn't for your work that you've been doing overcoming all of your things that you have to deal with we've had to adapt and make so many changes for the students and the staff and update guidelines that continue to change from the governor from dr ray pillay and the department of health daily we're going two steps forward

089and sometimes three steps backwards i want to thank the parents and the students for their understanding and hard work the people in the community and ever that everyone continues to look through moreover i'm very lucky to represent the teachers in paris here in clifton we can't praise the staff enough their hard work dedication and passion during this year i'm proud that you rose to this challenge despite your own personal issues now what i would like to do is is ahim and joe konova now you're on the lat and i'm the lat chair and involved with the njea what i would like to see if there was a possibility that we could work together with the reps from um 34 and see if the right letters and joe you did that petition a few years ago

090could we update that and work together on that or you can show me how to set it up and continue that because i've had the members send letters to governor murphy to ask for the money based on the 400 million that we've lost during the time of christie and that how important it is for our school district to obtain that money so if we could work together on that i would be more than happy to as the lip chair all right so i hope everybody has a wonderful summer we all need to relax put our feet up and uh just enjoy our families in other ways this time thank you thanks laurie too thank you thanks lord okay i can now confirm that there's no one in the waiting room and no one trying to

091connect motion to closed cnn sorry see none motion to close second motion by mr albatravel second by mr smith next order of business um is unfinished business um we move to ea one through seven can i get a motion um any questions see none roll call mr abedrabo yes mrs basford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes mr casper yes mr smith yes miss danny yes motion passes next order business is personnel numbers one through 40 can i get a motion motion by mr aberdrabbo second by mr casper any questions line 9 and line 10. miss bassford i'm sorry ms basswood you're muted i'm sorry i vote yes on everything and i am abstaining on number i believe it is sorry i can't see it on my screen um sorry sorry sorry

092it's gone small on me when squint drive never mind i'm sorry it's it's in finance sorry good yes not everything sorry so good miss beltran yes mr canola yes mr daley yes your casper i'm going to vote yes and everything and i have to stain on my name in p38 mr smith yes miss danny yes and abstain to my name only on p38 motion carries next facilities madam chair at this time if if we make i'm sorry yes yes okay thank you um now that the appointments are official uh we have appointed three principals tonight and uh as is our tradition here in clifton these administrators would like to introduce themselves and say a few remarks to the board so um it begins with marissa papa marcos marissa if you could turn on your camera

093and your uh your microphone marissa many of you know has been the vice principal at sela and with dr torley's retirement as the principal is my recommendation that marisa be promoted to principal and i couldn't think of a better leader for our early childhood program so congratulations marissa thank you so much good evening dr robert tosie mr teigen miss kusalevich and the board of education commissioners i would like to take this opportunity to thank you for appointing me as principal of clifton early learner academy i am passionate about our high quality inclusive preschool program and am grateful to be able to continue the tremendous work that we do with our youngest learners their families our staff and our district i'm enthusiastic about strengthening the partnerships we have already created across the state with head start

094and our private providers and forging strong collaborative relationships between our school community and the entire city of clifton your continued support and dedication is truly appreciated have a safe healthy and relaxing summer and i look forward to seeing you in september thank you very much thank you marissa thanks for joining us tonight thank you for having me at this time i'd like to introduce dr ron estricht dr estrich was recommended by me to be the new acting principal at school number 11 dr estrich if you can if you're still there if you could turn your camera on and turn your microphone on um dr estrich happens to be a clifton resident uh with a a child who attends school five um comes with us with a variety of experience and i'm really happy to have

095him joining our team in an acting capacity because one of our principals is on a medical leave um but we are excited to have him join our team dr astrick welcome good evening thank you dr robertosi and thank you to the board members of city of clifton um i am honored and humbled to accept this appointment as an acting principal here in the clifton public schools i am experienced as dr robertosi said i look forward to working with the staff students parents at school 11 and hopefully we will move that school forward as well as the district once again i am humbled and ecstatic to accept this appointment tonight i hope everyone families are safe and healthy and again thank you dr estrich welcome to the team thank you again and our third principal appointment

096tonight um is mrs wendy munoz uh wendy if you're still there if you could turn your camera on and your microphone uh wendy also comes uh to us with uh with a variety of experience uh as a principal um and she will be taking over as the new principal of school number eight um for miss slatzoni who's retiring wendy welcome to the team hello everyone thank you thank you again my name is wendy munoz and i am beyond excited to be part of clifton public schools i would like to start by thanking the board for this opportunity um and again i'm very excited to collaborate with everyone to ensure that we continue to sustain the learning that we have done these past years during these unprecedented times and that we continue to meet district standards

097as well as parents expectations for educational excellence thank you again for bringing me on board and i look forward to meeting all of you in person thank you thanks wendy welcome to the team and and congratulations thank you thank you madam chair thank you dr obatosi and congratulations to all um next is finance and facilities can i have a motion for f1 through f i moved f51 uh mr uh motioned by mr avadrabo second second by mr casper questions concerns see none roll call can we just say ask those who are not speaking commute we're hearing some background noise mr can we just remove them period [Music] looks like there we go it looks like it's just us now okay uh yes on all except no on finance line eight it's bassford uh yes to

098all and no on number eight miss beltran yes mr canova yes and abstain on check 105 731 mr daily yes mr casper yes mr smith yes miss danny yes motion scary okay next order business is public recognition this portion of the meeting is open to the individuals for the purpose of addressing any subject matter pertinent to and or directly related to the operation of the flipped public school district residents are requested to sign the register provided for the 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 a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate the board asks that members of the public

099be 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 and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of new jersey the board bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments in light of the legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments so this is five minutes um it will be timed and it's on any subject matter pertinent to or related to the operation of the clifton public school district and at this point i'll turn it over to you mr mountain

100is there anyone here yes miss danny okay i'm admitting them right now it's a phone caller i apologize i don't have a name but if your number ends in 2798 uh it is now your turn to speak and they just signed off i'm seeing no one else in the waiting room no madam chair i would rather give it a few minutes um don't forget there is a delay on this signal and we have a new person joining us one moment good call mr hello hello hi um i don't have your name but i if your phone number ends in 6967 it's your turn to speak hi i'm santiago garan i graduated in clifton from clifton high school in 2018 and now i go to princeton i'm princeton class of 2022 and i wanted to bring

101up a very important issue that in light of recent events i feel like it must be brought to light so as you guys probably know clifton clifton is the seventh most diverse small city in the country 26th most diverse city overall and fourth in the nation for linguistic diversity however a large majority of our teaching faculty at clifton high school when i was there and even now are mostly white and representation especially during these difficult times nationally are crucial to ensuring that education is comprehensive for the ever diversifying student body and there have also been instances of racial insensitivity that have come to light in both from current and former chs students and it's very important that clifton high school becomes an inclusive learning environment for everybody so that being said i would love to

102inquire about the possibility of taking initiatives to make sure that more people of color are applying and retaining their teaching positions at clifton high school and at other schools throughout throughout the district these initiatives can include hiring diversity outreach chairs as well as creating diversity committees so i would love to see that initiative happen in the school district thank you thank you we have um uh justin rivera you are next to speak hi everyone can everybody hear me you're having headphones i'm not sure alright cool um i'm beyond excited with um before i before i even start my name's justin rivera for those that don't know me i'm a resident of clifton um i want to start by saying i'm beyond excited with the amount of initiatives that the superintendent has introduced and the appointment

103of multiple principals who are people of color which is truly representative of the people and the students in these schools with that being said though i wanted to speak on the lack of diversity amongst the board superintendent you mentioned that you mentioned before that our times diversity is one of our greatest strengths clifton is a beautifully diverse community fifty percent of our people are hispanic thirty-two percent are white four percent are african-american seven percent asian two percent people of other races we're made up of 68 of races that are other than those that pass for white how can a town that is made up of 68 minorities be represented by a board made up of 90 give or take people that pass for white we need more people of color and seats that can genuinely

104make a change so the youth minorities of this up-and-coming generation have a leader that they can relate to someone that they can resonate with for a town to be so widely diverse and have a board swept with people that pass for white and only one person of color i mean what type of president does that set how can a town be celebrated for how diverse it is and its leadership reflect that ever so slightly with that being said you should definitely look forward to seeing my name on the ballot this upcoming election being someone that represents the black community the hispanic community the lgbtqia community and the youth as a whole i feel like someone that can resonate with the majority of this town's people and future generations is what we not only need but

105something that's very long overdue aside from being representative of so many different backgrounds that i do come from it would be naive to rely solely on those factors just to secure a spot on the board i have initiatives such as diversifying the faculty at schools addressing student issues with race in their classrooms questioning why the funds of clifton police are being used to fund three cop cars chit-chatting and looking over a group of children picking up garbage at the park when there are children literally sweating bullets off in classrooms due to the lack of air conditioning with the excuse being funds and i can personally attest to that because i was once a student at the high school people of my age my color my backgrounds they have ideas they have good ideas at that

106for a very long time their ideas and their voices weren't heard because there wasn't really anyone on the board to amplify them and i really do hope to change that so once again my name is justin rivera and i thank you for hearing me out okay we have a caller who's just joining us um if your phone number ends in one eight six one it is your turn to speak hi uh my name is aaron uh i'm a proud resident of clifton new jersey and i would just like to express my support for the petition that is uh going around for changing names of middle schools i personally believe that woodrow wilson and christopher columbus frankly have nothing to do with clifton new jersey um and in fact they've probably done a lot more harm

107than good for this town and we are one of the most diverse cities in the nation um so i would like to express support for uh changing those names in some capacity or another and i would like to express my interest in potentially changing those names to something that could inspire the uh the use of clifton a lot more than the names of a genocidal maniac and uh a man who supported segregation thanks okay i do not see anyone in the waiting room and i don't see anyone trying to connect [Music] on the motion to close motion by mr aberdrabble second by mr smith next order of business is board member comments and i'm trying to remember who was that head mr smith was last last time i'm sorry i was first laughing yeah he

108was first last time okay uh mr abu drabo all right um so i'll start off by a superintendent uh robert halsey mentioned that direction from montgomer's office uh should be coming uh the week up 6 23 2020 and then higher educating should be getting theirs the week after um today i um saw something great and honestly this week has been great and i am going to flat out say it whoever says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about um administrators teachers staff throughout chs throughout the district came together to really you know and the way they say when the community puts his mind to it something great happens and something very great today very sorry not even very just great in general um for our students being thinking outside the box and you're probably trying

109to say what the heck are you talking about graduation uh graduation i think was phenomenal uh morning rather than evening it took away the mystery of the weather and god was on our side um whether believe it or not i think i do so you know the weather was great our staff was great mr doctor phenomenal as they say behind every great man's uh greater woman miss rogers i to my hat to you uh phenomenal uh phenomenal job all the vice principals great job mr hamda miss conte everybody everybody outstanding um you know when they say thank you to the board of vet honestly i say thank you to our chs administrators um and superintendent roberto for allowing them to be really thinking outside the box what they got to do and if anybody uh

110i got permission from sam to do this and say this uh if anybody has doesn't know yet um the alongside project is complete again with that same crew getting it done uh as well as myself uh mr casper and mr smith were there to to the underhand as well uh i know others on colleagues were um inundated with work and other and other uh stuff to do and personal stuff so obviously i know every board member could have been there would have been there uh but lucky me i'm sitting at home doing nothing um kids my kids aren't nothing but uh they're able to ship them off to my parents for an hour so anyways we were able to help out and get it done um one thing i want to mention just really show

111you the true colors of our staff in our district there was something everybody in that stadium did and if anybody was there at the stadium tuesday and thursday every you know students were sent in in groups by by a by alpha order and at one point the stadium was dead with nobody coming in but yet there were teachers who were huddled together because there was one student who had some personal issues who was out on the hill crying outside the stadium no name mentioning i'm not doing any scenarios but keep just bear with me for a little bit and a a handful of teachers went out and consoled the student and they knew her story they knew what was her deal so our teachers are not just our students are not just numbers they're not

112just names there's a humanistic approach to every student and i appreciate it to what they did because they literally walked in this student into the stadium walked her up to the stage and as soon as her name was called they all cheered not one faculty member staff member administrator said you know what it's one student i'm gonna go walk grab a slice of pizza they all stayed they're all i even invited to walk away from the stadium and go grab a slice of pizza i didn't see one person move because they know who the student was and that's what our students are and that's who our students are and listen they have more patience most of our teachers if not 99.9 have more patients than i do that's why i never went to education but

113being on the board i am darn proud of our colleagues my colleagues on the board i'm darn proud of our teachers our staff our administrators and this is why i praise our superintendent every single meeting because it it starts from the top when you show when you show what you show day to day from the top it trickles down there's a trickle down effect um so i i tip my hat to our whole our whole district i tip my hat to our superintendent to our principal and i'm sorry i know i just went off topic i just had to say that because it really is something that everybody needs to hear and i wish you all could have seen what i saw uh back to the clifton pipeline clifton first clifton forward one clifton whatever

114you want to call it i i have a little uh ongoing joke saying that you know i have a different idea of what should you call but it's all right um uh mr canova won the title incorporated um excuse me i'm not supposed to laugh why am i not supposed to go away so okay so um yes bringing our students forward and another conversation really miss peters who is now um today called me commissioner that's i'm the commissioner of travel and this is going to encompass what what the you know superintendent is supposed to do is trying to do and she's like you know i said you'll always be missing the yogi and always being mosquitos to me and i'll always be sahim to you because at the end of the day i came back

115to the district it's not a paying gig it's not a paying job but it's called paying it forward it's called what you took out of the district to come back to clifton and pay it forward and at the end of the day that's what my thinking is and superintendent please tell me if i'm wrong that's what part of this pipeline process is supposed to be many of us are clifton grads um and we're bringing it back to the district and that's what it's all about uh diversity um to something to mr mr rivera you're right there is a conversation that has always had had to happen in clifton clifton's population is changing um the superintendent has always said it has never denied it that there it needs to be more diversity within our district um

116it's something i kind of try to nudge him and remind them and he goes you're right but he's up a little bit because it takes time i've only been here for a year and the fact that we started with two with two principals being appointed tonight is that the answer no but is it a start yes it's not about you know taking my taking where some people say the minority now the majority no it's just reflect what the population is in our school districts it's not about taking over it's not being i have more power than you know it's just reflect what the population looks like whether it's an arab administrator in a major arab neighborhood spanish black asian whatever it may be um mr rivera welcome to the slate of people who are running

117this year uh let's see what it's supposed to bring and in july i wish you the best and honestly somebody who's running who's up this year this is not a campaign fish i'm just gonna say somebody was up this year i welcome you we need more blood we need new blood i'm curious to see what you have and what you're gonna run on uh somebody who is um i think i remember correctly you mentioned to me in passing one time out of march 2015 grad um good luck to you and we'll definitely talk and and i'll see you on the trail down the road um joe perhaps we can discuss sorry mr cornell perhaps we've discussed what lori mentioned mentioned in terms of how we can help her get into um legislators and this is

118not just to joe but it was also to my colleague miss bass for mr daley um as a committee as a whole it's not just for him or just or just mr konova it's a committee as a whole maybe we can assist her and see how we can do it uh within our boundaries and guidelines and mrs bastford i um leave that to you to reign us in and make sure we're we're on check uh other than that have a great summer it's been a rough few months um enjoy it parents you have office teachers for for a little bit um good luck and godspeed thanks thank you mr abhijava miss beltran okay i would also like to congratulate all the graduates from kindergarten first grade i'm sorry kindergarten fifth grade middle school and high

119school it's not how we wanted to be but we still feel the same pride in your accomplishment and i hope you do as well please have a safe start to summer vacation i'm sure the parents are glad to have the summer off maybe now you guys understand why the teachers get the whole summer off now that you've been teachers a little bit of a response to the uh the claims that the board isn't diversified and that uh clifton doesn't do well to portray our true form i understand there are a lot of passions over the names of the middle schools and the diversity in clifton is a conversation worth having however i am of the opinion that it is for another time right now our resources and energy need to be focused on getting the

120schools opened if they're going to be open we are facing a budget shortfall and we will need to ensure that we're able to operate in a safe environment while keeping our amazing staff employed and student programs running i am hispanic i own a hispanic supermarket i employ arabic hispanic white black gay straight special needs you name a group and we've offered them a job my father is a brown skinned non-white passing cuban immigrant and my mother is a blond-haired blue-eyed american they have faced racism as a couple he has faced racism as a businessman and continues to face racism to this day so by no means do i demean the value of this conversation is this a conversation meant for another time we are a district that is doing above and beyond what we can

121to rectify and continue to treat all equally when it is the right time i'll be more than happy to entertain the idea of changing the schools but my opinion should be changed to no person's name history does not look fondly onto anybody but to either a number one or two or east or west i'm proud to have heard from so many people tonight other young people as myself and i really hope to continue our board is very diverse uh i am cuban fahim is um palestinian and in recent times we had a long-standing african-american man on our board and he did run again this past year and i hope that we can continue to add to the diversity of our board as well as we had another hispanic woman i am the very first cuban

122american ever elected in passaic county and i am proud to say that the people of clifton elected me that's all thank you [Music] thank you miss beltran mr canova all right so first and foremost i want to congratulate our our kindergartners our fifth grade our and uh obviously our class of 20 20. um you know it was a long haul here it was definitely a change of the status quo but you did it you did it and you graduated so i know i can't wait until that day where we can all celebrate hopefully that that day comes soon depending on what governor murphy says uh right now i believe the limit is 500 in on july 3rd hopefully that that number will get higher but you know we'll see as things come along but congratulations

123uh love to hear about that one clifton initiative i think that's something that um a lot of these things are things we do already i don't think people really realize that is it um you know a lot of the points the superintendent were going over are things that that happened in clifton um and and i hope that you know if we have this large movement now you see other other uh districts coming in line really with what would we do we're we're a diverse community i know when i grew up in in going to high school i have a lot of friends that that weren't predominantly just white uh that's that's not clifton so it's funny because it's like unheard of in in this town for the most part from my perspective at least that

124uh you know things like racism racism exist you know that they do but you know in high school i didn't really see that um so really hats off to clifton for that for having that that large diversity uh lori and and for him yes we could definitely work on something for for 34th legislative and and we should definitely talk and if it's possible i would like to even bring her into our our legislative committees if that's possible but i yield to feed him on that mr rivera i'm glad to see someone new stepping up to the board of ed best of luck to you um i remember when i was coming out and running you know it was in the beginning was a frightening experience but worth definitely worthwhile um something about the board of

125ed though many people don't necessarily know is we only control three things policy finance and the superintendent uh position hiring a superintendent and outside of that we really don't control anything within the schools that's all done within our superintendents which is why we we hired someone which was very strong which is our dr robert tosi who's been doing an amazing job running these schools you know we hear it day in and day out but it's definitely true he is the man in clifton right now um but with that so board of ed what can we do on some of these issues so one thing is policy um and and going through our policy book now after seeing all these comments about things that that should happen and speaking of racism and and natures of color

126i went through the policy book to see what we had and i see a couple of things here one is uh regarding clothing and patches they have runnings or pictures that detect depict racist comments um all of that is banned there's information here about um people sending messages that contain material that may be defined as a reasonable person is profane obscene or racist sexist et cetera we also say we we do not um the board should not restrict their limit the the options present presented to students on the basis of race creed or color the district will not use test guidance or counseling materials which are based on stereotypes of the base of race creator color ensuring there are no different differential requirements for completion of course offerings for race creed or color and this

127is just sprinkled all throughout our our policy book so that's how we as a board can uh can uh um eliminate things of racism and ideas of racism and and people looking at ideas for color and i know people are talking about you know black versus why and different varieties of uh you know color uh issues going on but honestly i think even just speaking at it in that respect really creates a further divide when you talk about something and you talk about it in that manner all you're doing is creating for the divide what we really need to talk about is moving forward all right um so some of those things that we we have to change you know we are working on changing uh i again i'd love to see what i saw

128when uh dr robert tosi put put out his his clip in one initiative i think that's something that's really going to be positive as for the naming of the schools i know christopher columbus specifically that's that's a name that's tied with an italian american heritage and you saw cuomo on tv the other day and he said it himself you know he understands the feelings about christopher columbus but it's come to represent and signify an appreciation for the italian american contribution and heritage for for new york so that's why he supports that statue being there so it's it's one thing to say um people have certain backgrounds and yes you know racism is obviously wrong and but back in that day they had a different mindset you know just like today i'm sure there's certain things

129that we do like we animals right if you think about it we we eat pork and we eat beef and chicken some people don't but you know many do so who knows who's to say 30 years from now somebody's gonna say that you know we were misrepresenting you know what what humans should do and how they should act in society um so but aside from that taken out of context just tied to the italian american heritage you know i think that by renaming a school you may be doing a service to one group but then a disservice to another so i think we should look at everyone and look at all the facts before we make any any rash decisions so that's just my comments for tonight thank you everyone and good night thank you

130mr kenobo mr daily okay thank you madam president um just a few comments uh first of all i would like to uh congratulate all the graduates lifted high school that becomes official on friday tomorrow um this the administration and the staff and the teachers everyone from top to bottom have done a yeoman's job in this very difficult and new territory about getting our kids educated getting to graduate graduation we also have students that have moved from going to move from the middle schools to the high school that have been in the elementary schools or going on to middle school i can graduate all you on your obtaining your milestone and i'd really really really like to graduate congratulate all the staff on all the hard work and make sure we did the absolute best anybody

131could do in the circumstances about celebrating your success and milestone in your life uh i'd also like to congratulate this congratulate the superintendent on his one clifton initiative um everything the superintendent's done today he's uh he's never ceased to obey let's put it that way on on how he's progressing this district and this is kind of reflective of the board um the board uh really rallied around when we hired dr robertosi we saw some somebody with very special talents and um this is not so much about uh patting ourselves on the back but uh i think each individual board member had enough of sense and intelligence and scope to understand where we wanted to take this clifton district and as mr canova says you know we have very little say in anything except the superintendent

132and i always said during the campaign uh in the last election it was nothing more important than we could do and we got dr robertosi we're fortunate to have him and he has like he's never in the very least ever disappoint disappointed and one final comment um i'm a lifelong clifton resident um i make no apologies for that and i've seen clifton turn into a vastly predominant white to a very diversified city and the city's become in my mind stronger my professional career i've i've worked in minority communities i worked in the city of newark and and elizabeth in union county so i have a vast experience i went to high school in patterson so i've been in the service so um despite my skin color and my current on my current employment um i'm

133technically the minority there as a a white male and i have an absolute ball with my colleagues who are highly diversified and i just want to not leave the public misunderstanding or give have an impression that this is an all-white school board uh we have changed drastically in the last years and we've had now four uh minority members uh i don't know if they call you a minority member you're palestinian uh yeah but but we've had the first african-american elected we've had three latinos we've had bispino mr montero and miss beltran um i think this shows and along with mr abedrabo uh but you know just like the first italian or the first irish got elected way way many years ago where clearly the town is clearly embracing the diversity by having the i can

134look past color and look at the the quality of the individuals and really we have a diverse uh board of you know miss pino moved on miss montero became a judge in another town uh and and we also have a minority law firm our miss gutierrez is a cuban american and her partner owner perry labadeer they're a full minority firm and they do a terrific job they only do education but so there's all the board members realize the diversity and have acted very prudently on who we hire and understand uh this is not the world of the 1950s we are in the 2020s now uh and we continue to move forward so nobody on this board has pulled the reins in i think we've opened up the doors or continuing to open up the doors

135on all the moves we've made so we're not perfect but i think we do a great job and i i think every board member recognizes the diversity of the town and embraces it uh with that i'll conclude my remarks uh everybody have a safe summer uh i'm looking forward to hopefully resolving some of our financial issues if we get some guidance from the department of education i could talk to about hours on that but that's our that's our next challenge and making sure we were able to get our schools open in september and restore face-to-face education thank you madam president thank you mr daley mr casper okay first i'd like to congratulate all of our graduates this year um this was these were trying times and uh everybody persevered through all of this from the

136students to the staff to the administration who helped run the run our district smoothly um i had the pleasure like mr abbado said to uh help today uh set up uh our signs for our graduates at the high school with mr smith and along with all the administrators from the high school it was such a it gave me such a feeling of excitement to help um acknowledge all of our high school graduates this year um i'd also like to congratulate and welcome aboard our new administrators to um our district um i look forward to helping uh dr robert tosi along with our other members um to help move one clifton forward through our district and um i'd like to uh thank all of the retirees this year uh for all of their dedication and service

137to our district um and i'd also just quickly like to congratulate all of our region one band and orchestra winners for this year enjoy your summer everybody and um i'll see you in july thank you mr casper mr smith thank you uh president danny um i too uh will just echo my colleagues um it was great to be able to join uh the graduates today in seeing a fantastic program on seeing probably uh in excess of 14 graduations since i've been involved with the board of education and each ceremony is uh important and special in its own for each of the graduating classes um i have to tell you today seeing the ceremony today was quite impressive and quite moving and hopefully it will open some discussion going down the road of changing up our

138format of of graduation not saying that the standard graduation ceremony isn't important but over the years sometimes we stick with tradition and the same things that we do year after year and seeing this graduation today just proves that we can uh move off the path of consistency and things that have been done this way in the past and do things in a better way and i i have to commend uh the entire staff from the high school and all the volunteers and the people that showed up today to make this a moving um ceremony i i could not believe the amount of smiles the amount of tears the amount of smiles on parents faces to be able to be on the field and get a picture with their child is something totally different than sitting

139in the stands with hundreds of other people watching the ceremony from up there here was a hands-on it just was a moving experience and i hope it's something that we go forward with um in making some changes um so here we were forced into a situation we made the best that we could of it and it turns out to be to me one of the most moving graduations that i've been involved in uh since being a part of the board of education so i commend all those i know miss rogers was the uh the architect um and she did a phenomenal job and her entire crew just seeing all the uh the high school vice principals and all the help that she had um was just a tremendous um credit to her and then joining

140my two colleagues in i'm actually very sore right now and i guess i'm showing my age here but um with all the bending we had to do to put all those signs up today but when we were done i said how great is this how great is this that clifton is honoring their graduates with this beautiful um display of the people that we are that's why i became a board member the main reason i became a board member many years ago is not because of of teachers and it wasn't because of administration and it wasn't the number one reason that we are here is for kids kids are what we are all about and if we remember that i am most proud of speaking of diversity i am most proud that over the years that

141i have represented and helped kids of every diversity and i didn't look at these kids on the color of their skin or where they came from or where they live or what their backgrounds are i was here to help educate and help the process of helping kids and that's what it's all about so anyone that wants to get involved with the board of education your number one reason should be here is for kids and if we keep that in mind at all times we can hold our heads up high and be proud of what we do here in clifton and i have to say um with the graduation program i know many other towns had different things they had in mind and our friends over in wayne i know they wanted to do something special

142and uh it was it was kind of put down in the courts and wayne wayne verbally credited clifton and said you know we should have did what clifton did and we tip our hats off to clifton for what they did for their graduates so i'm most proud to be a board member uh for all that we do in this district and we credit uh dr robitazi for for so much and we should and today i'm most proud and the public should know that um dr robitazi when he was hired uh set five goals that he wanted to accomplish and the board supported him in those goals and tonight i'm happy to say those five goals are now completed and even with the pandemic and even with all the problems that we had dr robituzzi not

143only achieved those goals but superseded those goals and it's going to be hard for him next year in picking goals um because it's going to be hard to top what he did this year but um the public should just be aware that the board is most proud of dr robitazi especially for achieving those goals and achieving those goals um in a very difficult uh atmosphere so uh of course you know that i'm a big fan of yours and i uh thank you and credit you for the accomplish that you mentioned that you made and i want everyone in this district to know plain and simple with all that's gone on in in the world today and all the problems that we had if we didn't have a leader like dr robitazi in the helm none

144of this would have been accomplished um i'm i'm sure of it because i see it in other districts where it it didn't go as smooth as it did in clifton and dr robitazi would be the first one to tell you it wasn't it wasn't easy it wasn't a cakewalk it wasn't something that he spent long hours and long nights with his staff and and and every meeting i come here and i i thank the staff and and all that you do and you know dr robertosi has two of the greatest assistant superintendents who work their butts off and do great for the district and uh mr ross who does a phenomenal job and you know we look over into our business department and mr yusi he does a phenomenal job for us in making sure

145that the numbers are are in line and make sure that the district has things to be able to do for the students it's a well-oiled team and and i have to credit all of you and now mister you see has a a great in assistant and eric and and the district is only going to continue to do great things and i could sit here and thank everybody individually but my board members are going to shut me up so i just have to thank clifton as a group as a community we're doing some great things do we have to improve on some things of course and but we're going to do it together but if we remember the main reason that we're here is for kids nothing else matters nothing else can go wrong and we're

146going to give the best education that we have to our to the clifton kids um and in saying that uh one last thing we want to make sure in clifton that clifton kids are the only kids that are getting educated in clifton and believe it or not some people like to come from other towns to say that they live in clifton so that they can get an education in clifton and that's not allowed we want the best education for our kids we want the money and resources to go to our kids and the residency committee and the board do a great job all year with our domicile investigating team um and our our residency team to make sure that clifton kids are the ones getting educated here so i'm just going to briefly just tell

147everyone if you're not aware of it i know it's on our website and i know it should be on all material going home but we have a tip line an anonymous tip line okay four 973-473-1444 four and if you know of anybody that is coming to clifton to be educated but they live in another town please let us know because those resources should be going to our kids the monies should be going to our kids and i have to tell you over the years i can't tell you the amount of money that we have saved by investigating and finding out kids that don't belong here and we right now the board has a current uh bounty that we offer that anyone that comes to us with information that leads to the removal of a non-resident

148right now the board has given fifteen hundred dollars for all those non-residents because we want the taxpayers to know that their money is being spent on clifton kids and we want them to have the best that we can offer them with the resources that we have so we hope that clifton kids will only be the kids that will be educated in clifton so i commend our residency team our domicile investigating team under the direction of martin garrow and all that they do so again thank you all have a great summer thank you for all that you have done everybody in the district especially parents and the kids themselves they have been phenomenal i have to credit all of you kids if any of them are watching tonight but if their parents are watching please tell

149your kids and thank your kids they really did a great job in a very very tough situation i commend you all be safe god bless thanks for your support mr smith mr basford good evening everyone uh so june it's the end of the year and as we we normally i would look back and normally i would be begging people this time of year for help if it was the night before graduation i would be all frazzled begging people for their help for project uh and it's sorely missed by me and many other people in the community but i wanna i wanna start out with uh one clifton because the one clifton has really morphed from dr robitazi's seed from last meeting it has um had many conversations in my house with my two children especially

150my son and then my daughter a lot of arguments a lot of things i didn't know as an adult a 60 year old woman um and things that i didn't realize growing up that my children had to educate me on um but um i know santiago i remember him sitting in front of me in 2018 and before that in the audience i remember when he graduated i remember seeing around i see him on social media and i i see how he has grown as a man and uh i support things that the students are doing i i hear them justin rivera i've done my little research i know your dad i know him very well your dad your dad was a it's a very important person to people in my family uh he's a male

151nurse and he helps some people in my life be well so i welcome you to the to the see this venture you're going to get into and i look forward to hearing your platform to see what you have to offer and the people clifton will need to hear what you have to offer as well it's always good to see young people getting involved in this arena it's uh it you start out naive to the point where you want to do all this stuff and then when you get to this arena you realize that as mr kenova said we're responsible for three things the most important is policy because we are the policy makers and we and and anybody that doesn't know that policy is the most important thing on the board of education they don't

152understand that that sets the whole tone of the board but we hire the superintendent and the other things that joe talked about but i just wanted to talk touch base on that we need to focus on intersexual intersectionality because there are many layers to identity and that is not an argument and we need to we need to start the conversation like dana said but tonight i want to talk about graduation because that's what this time of the year is most important about it's about our students it's about their accomplishments and because they have gone through so much the the year 2020 started with so many high hopes everybody was so excited that we were going to have all this great stuff going on 220 2020 2020 and then watch came around one of my colleagues

153in the state posted something yesterday about going back to work and looking for his dress socks but it was a poignant thing to me because he runs and he uses his socks they're labeled right and left so there's always a tease going on between us about his socks giving him direction so when he posted that yesterday that little symbol of putting those socks on his feet meant normalcy to us in the world of social media that followed that bubble and we all got very emotional yesterday on a facebook post because to all of us it meant that normalcy was coming back to some of us and i'm gonna get emotional because watching the posts on social media although i could not be there because my job prevented me from leaving my home and i had

154a lot going on in my house i'm not going to talk about but not being able to help with the signs and help with other things but seeing those kids walk across that stage today being at that stadium and seeing my friends post with the socks meant that we are starting to come back to a quasi normalcy that we all need that other conversation is going to take place but right now the normalcy of 2020 and our clifton high school graduates need to come to the forefront today and tomorrow and that's what i'm asking everybody right now all over social media is the next couple of days i want to honor our graduates of clifton high because our formal graduates that are are coming online and they're coming to meetings you had your time let

155the 2020 kids have their time now we want to make that the issue and then when we have a meeting you're more than welcome to come back and hopefully willing when our normalcy comes back we can meet face to face have a conversation and talk about it and do it the right way and have people from all the areas of the community the stakeholders talk about this in the proper way and that's what i wanted to talk about normalcy because quarantine has done a lot to a lot of us it's brought out the good it's brought out the bad it's made people realize what they're missing in their lives what they need in their lives and what they want in their lives so to all the staff you've done a yeoman's job to all the

156parents that had to step up to the plate to become quasi teachers and to the students that have become resilient learners to learn what the word virtual means to the word to learn what the word remote means i thank you from the bottom of my heart to the graduates of 2020 although i won't be riding that bus out tomorrow night on route 46 screaming my voice to where i don't have it anymore and not getting any nights any sleep for two nights i wish you the best of luck in this world you my friends will know what the word resiliency means because you have lived it congratulations my friends and to the fathers on the board happy father's day to my friends out there happy father's day god bless every one of you and one

157day we will all have the conversation miss dana that we need to have god bless you thank you so first i'd like to say thank you to all of the speakers congratulations to all of those hired congratulations to all our graduates and all the staff members and administration for all the hard work that they've done in these times of coven 19 to the parents to the students um it's been a very challenging time and recently i attended a new jersey school boards meeting and they talked a lot about the challenges moving ahead what will the 2020 2021 school year look like and after i spent the whole day in the meeting and hearing all these challenges i called up dr robertosi and i said i'm so glad that i'm not in your position right now

158and it's just that i know there will be people that will be unhappy with what the new academic school year will hold in september there will be people who will be happy and it's just a real challenge and i want to say dr robertos you're doing a great job in what you're trying to do in clifton with one clifton um but we really have a lot of challenges ahead and i don't have to tell you i know um as we look forward to the next academic year and that's what we really have to focus on um some students have lost instructional time it's very different and again i'm an educator and i know it's very different to give instruction in the virtual world i know that some teachers express the challenges with giving instruction at

159the elementary level so how will we ensure moving ahead that these students you know don't slip through the cracks there's so much that maybe many people just don't even think about and i know that i didn't think about until i was at this meeting and you know special ed children regular ed children people who are now in a compromised immunity or compromised positions to where how do they feel coming back the mental challenges everything and really i mean um i'll be the person that is on the end that will execute the plan as a as a teacher but i'm just again just being part of that process to figure it out to actually be the one that you know your name goes on that this is your plan and even though it's a compilation of

160stakeholders everybody will be involved but it still is ultimately you know who will get the phone calls dr robertosi so um it is a very challenging challenging year coming at moving ahead um as far as diversity again i think that you know we have to think about in light of everything that's going on and and sort of think about what do we need to do um the students that have spoken are a product of the clifton school system we need to ensure that the students that we have today now that you know they will be just as educated that they will be well spoken that they will speak to topics that touch their heart so we all need to unite not divide we need to come together in this time of you know challenge because

161as i said i mean there's some that might have fallen through the cracks and we've got to ensure that everyone comes together so that we have these individuals who can speak and speak so eloquently and and you know take up petitions and do whatever it is that is in their hearts again they are products of the clifton school system and when it comes to diversity i'm on a board where i am one of three women and i'm a polish-american woman of immigrant parents who came here and faced challenges and as a child of immigrant parents i mean i faced many challenges many times i was discriminated because again the culture the things that were done were very different from the way things were done so you know we are very diverse board as several board

162members have stated and we understand the diversity that is clifton and we embrace that and finally i just want to say happy father's day to all the dads out there and to my dad stanley qualik um and that's all i have for this evening dr robert josie thank you madam president first uh thank you to the commissioners and uh the kind words that were said about me um please know that i am so grateful to be in clifton i appreciate the fact that you're thankful to have me but i found clifton at the right time in my life and i am grateful uh to be here i plan on being here for a long time and um continue on some of the successes that we've had this year and address some of the weaknesses that

163we know that we have and uh while i've done some good things it's because i have a great team and i'll make mistakes i have made mistakes i'll make mistakes again in the future but know that i will always give it my all and i will always do my best for the children and the clifton community having said that congratulations to the class of 2020. i can't believe that it's the end of the year and although it's not the way we wanted it to end this class is certainly going to have a lot to remember so today uh it still might not be known to many there was a surprise that popped up at clifton high school so at this time i have a a video that i'm going to share with the board and

164will live stream it this is a little tribute to the class of 2020 it is a five minute long video but certainly uh i think we need to to watch the whole video as a tribute to the class of 2020. mr mountain could you share the video sure now [Music] down [Music] uh [Music] you [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] food [Music] down [Music] hey [Music] so [Music] yesterday [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] nice [Music] oh [Music] the uh there's a little bit of a delay on the uh on the zoom with the video the video might have appeared a little choppy it's not really that as choppy as it was and going by the signs but um uh we'll be posting that video on our on our social media and that'll be widely

165distributed so just a little uh tribute to the to the class of 2020 um and i have to give a big shout out to the class of 2000 who had the idea and actually purchased these signs so the class of 2000 um they have a facebook group and the idea came about as a collective idea in their facebook group uh vicki rogers who was a current vice principal at the high school member of the class of 2000 and she's also the graduation coordinator she suggested it and she organized the the monetary collection and another member of the class runs a marketing business uh called blend marketing in bloomfield and put the signs together so uh thanks to the class of 2000 uh that's that's clifton paying it forward so it was really really nice um

166to see that uh tomorrow uh the virtual graduation um for clifton high school will be at 5 p.m um the 8th grade moving up ceremonies will be at 4 pm and the 5th grade moving up ceremonies are at 3 p.m respectively links to those ceremonies will be sent via email they'll be posted on our website we'll put them on all of our social media platforms so that you can see him and i believe there is a way to once the link is active i believe there's a way that you can download um the video and and to keep it you know forever um finally one um i want to go back to the signs for a second uh we're going to keep those signs up certainly uh all day tomorrow it's graduation day we're going

167to keep them up over the weekend and then starting monday we're going to allow the seniors to come and pick them up so you know do a drive by tomorrow check out your sign find your sign see where it's located and then on monday you can come back and and pick it up and keep it that's yours uh compliments of the class of 2000. so um i i have drafted a communication that's going out to um all staff and all community uh members um tonight i'm not sure if it went out yet if it didn't go out yet it's gonna be going to out soon but i'd like to just read an excerpt of my letter my end of the year letter to to everyone it's hard to believe that we're at the end of

168the 2019-20 school year and as with any new job i expected a slight learning curve when i was first appointed as the superintendent a year ago i could say with a fair degree of certainty that no one anticipated what this school year had in store despite the unprecedented challenges though that we faced and are still navigating we came together faculty staff students parents and community and we adapted the support that i've received from this board and from the community as a whole during my first year humbles me and i thank you all we don't know yet what september will bring however i will be communicating throughout the summer as we receive guidance from governor murphy department of education department of health and regardless of what the 20 20 21 school year looks like we will

169have multiple contingency plans for all scenarios in place the only thing i can guarantee is that it's going to look different than any other opening to the school year that we've ever had in in our history i'm sure of that so collectively as a community and across the world we've had our lives up ended whether we redefining our teaching and learning models implementing new safety measures or committing to social justice change we remained clifton strong and i'm in awe of the resilience and fortitude of our community these are lessons that our children will carry with them forever uh finally i would be remiss if i didn't mention the petition that is circulating to change the names of columbus ccms christopher columbus middle school and woodrow wilson middle school this is not a decision that that

170i can make or this board can make in a vacuum we certainly need to be aware of our past we need to learn from our past one could argue that we shouldn't make this a learning experience for our students and that every student that walks the halls of our middle schools should be made aware of the complex legacy of these historical figures having these buildings named after historical figures does not mean that the board or the community believes what they believed or condones any immoral actions that may have been committed there's a famous saying as a history teacher myself that we always taught our students um if we forget our history we are doomed to repeat it so we have to be very very careful and vigilant of that having said that i understand the

171desire to remove those names from our school schools because we don't stand for racism we don't stand for bigotry we certainly don't stand for genocide and the question becomes by having these schools named after these figures are we glorifying these things um do we need to confront our past this is a complicated question the one thing i know for sure is that this is not a decision that can be made based on emotion we need to look at facts we need to listen to all perspectives and it's certainly not a decision that we should make without the engagement of many stakeholders and in due time we need to take our time as was stated eloquently by ms beltran and other board members earlier my focus right now as superintendent is on the reopening of our

172school district in a safe and efficient manner um there will be time to discuss uh the petition um and i know that this board will listen to all perspectives but at this time my focus is certainly on the reopening of schools thank you madam president that concludes my comments thank you dr arbor chosen next order of business is new business and i know we have some new business uh miss danny uh just as a reminder under for new business as mr kanova mentioned about in-person meetings for discussion i'll second that i'm i'm sorry i didn't mr albatro i didn't quite hear what you said yeah i'm used to that um well i meant this what i meant to say was uh i'd like to discuss uh i most impressed discuss the reminder of the in-business

173meeting in-person meeting discussion back at a normal uh border by meetings and i believe ms bashford said i'm not gonna speak first you speak myself yeah i second promotion okay so mr abu drabo motion uh second by miss basford um roll call clarify are we just having a discussion are we voting on something technically we don't need a motion we could just have a discussion unless we are taking action on something okay all right so then i make a motion to discuss uh the topic of in-person meeting and perhaps i'll start the conversation off and perhaps we should have it at the high school because if we have our capacity of 25 of the building structure or a certain amount the high school will be the most feasible place to do it because of its

174size and allowing us to play with the numbers because between board meetings between mr mcconnelly his crew between our lawyers um our lawyer and between our administration i think that brings about 17 18 people alone so we eat up the the majority of folks who could be in a room or in a facility location so perhaps um i i think the idea of going back to some sort of normalcy i mean listen i love seeing you guys at zooms but i think i i also feel better seeing you guys in person too so we can have a real normal conversation but obviously this whole call-in idea while our first date today wasn't ideal and having mr uchi drinking three four bottles of water in five minutes you know also is not to me is not

175ideal i'm sure his stomach hurts after a while with aches um or we could just send them a a blank check for bottled water nirvana um so yeah i think it gives us the the idea to do so that's how i feel some may feel differently and i will leave it to that thank you i have a question if we do that we have to be six feet apart right on the deus and we have to if people come in and we have to check everybody's temperature how does this work what's the uh what's the protocol would that be i think we're jumping the gun a little bit we don't know the actual protocols yet from the from the governor on reopening and because we only have one in july right one meeting in july

176and one in august it would probably be best just to stay with the zoom through the summer and then at that point my main concern is we really need to get mr mcconney and uh eric involved and what would it take to get you know if we move it to the high school about televising it um that type of thing and who knows you know maybe in september you know board type things are going to be different than a school structure um restrictions i don't know i just think we need more information and we should really have both mr mcconney and mr mountain and on anything that we do going forward if we're changing our venue from uh from school six did i make a suggestion perhaps if we were to discuss it again again

177i was i'm not in the committee but um i think i i personally think it's a great idea nor have i spoke to any committee member about this there's something for me i spoke to one person about it but not committee related but if we did if we did do it if we did if we were to do it excuse me um [Music] you know obviously perhaps there there is no there is no real definition or or direction of how to do it they said just do it right same like summer schools every school just can do whatever they want but i'm gonna keep my hands off so this would be the same idea so at the end of the day it would be the administration dr robert towsey and maybe perhaps with support board

178of ed and discussion as we're doing now on how do we do it so do we have a nurse at the front desk or the front door taking temperatures for example uh is that something we want to do do we make sure everybody comes with gloves and mask or at least masks uh miss miss password you mentioned six feet apart that's why also the high school would be ideal because then we can spread out on the bottom uh footing of the of the excuse me of the stage rather than being on the stage or one of us god forbid falling off we could be on the floor a part aspect and spread ourselves out so there is a way to play with play to play with it doing it and doing it at the uh

179at the high school so and there is again we do temperatures we make sure everybody's got a mask it's not ideal but if the board decides as a either at large or the majority that this is something we should be doing rather than all of us trying to play with technology um again that's i'm only one of nine so well um my my view is if we do then we change everything back to going in person format all the committees everything back to in person um you know it's either all or nothing um you know so then we all do go back to like i said meeting um obviously the committee thing's not so much of an issue because you can separate it's only um you know three and for whatever um but it's either

180all or nothing um my personal thing i feel like at least through the summer while thing numbers are you know because they say like with the reopening thing sometimes um numbers could surge up um some were saying in new york some of the numbers um so my i'm a little fearful to be honest um that's just me um but i just do feel that if we go then we go full full one way or full the other way not like this mixed you know and that's that's all i have to say uh mr dr robert chosey thank you madam chair i have to say when when we talked about this i think in education committee a couple weeks ago i was in favor of trying to have a um a live meeting in july at

181the high school i've since changed my mind on that i agree with what mr smith said i think at the very least we go there's two meetings there's one in july there's one in august now certainly i'll do what the board's having a meeting i'm going to be there wherever it is it's the board's decision but i think it's just the best interest of everybody to wait till september and and let me just say one more thing um when we do get back to live meetings um i gotta tell you i don't know that we need to mix this whole zoom thing all the time i mean we've had some very successful committee meetings um that have been done virtually uh so i don't know that we necessarily always have to have a committee meeting

182in in in person if we can do it on zoom i think that what we've been doing and how everyone's adapted i think it's going to change how people work forever and so i wouldn't throw it off the table that once we get back everything's back i would just keep in mind that that maybe if we need a committee meeting you could do it via zoom if necessary absolutely you're 100 uh miss bastard well um just with the with the whole what it's going to look like we we you're going to have to get information from the health officer because you're going to have to take people's temperatures you're going to have to make sure that there's a custodian around to clean the bathroom if somebody goes in the bathroom these are guidelines that they're

183giving to every for businesses period so the thing i'm worried about is if if you would to put us in the boardroom downstairs i would have issue with that because the ventilation to me is not up to par where i would be i mean you know i i get hits all the time on social media that i'm an older person but you know what i do have some underlining health issues putting that in that situation that would bother me about sitting in that room so i'm going to probably get hammered around about it but yes i i would i would prefer to wait to the to september rolls into and and nothing to mr abedrabo but i would prefer to september because and the zoom meetings i'm i'm able to um take my lunch later

184in the day get on pop on a committee thing i'm doing it while i'm driving in the car i can put you know my little thing up on the dash and you guys see my screensaver but i'm i'm participating in the meetings you hear my voice we we're talking and it's it's my life so much more easier because i can participate at the weirdest times of the day when you guys have these requests for these meetings so i really we're gonna have to um amend our bylaw with them the the structure of our meeting um for committees and also if we do decide to have zoom meetings whether permitting maybe if we have a snowstorm rolling in our ice storm we can have a zoom meeting instead of having a regular board meeting and advertise

185it i don't know how that's going to work but we have to work with our legal um uh attorney on that to figure out what the wording could be like that with uh in policy but there is it's gonna morph into a different direction i agree with that so i'm for uh holding it to september i'm so i want to make something very clear i'm not against all this i'm just against being cooped up in the home my kids and my kids are telling me to shut up they're bored about meetings um because common august you're gonna see number three in my life during board read meetings that's all i'm saying i just want to get out of the house so that's my that that's my that's my that's my only out i just want

186to get out of this house and not be cooped up that's why that's why this week i hold the graduation and poster thing i was excited i was there all day people look at me like why are you here all day because you don't know what i'm dealing with every day we'll open up the board conference room for you you can go sit in there by yourself with your computer listen when you're when your three-year-old has broken your tv and your laptop in one week yeah you're done you're done uh judy i think you bring up a a very good point when we do make whatever move we're making i think it has to be unanimous and i think we have to take into consideration everybody's um as judy said you have health issues i

187have health issues there may be other people that have health issues you have to take everyone into consideration and if there's a fear of and i know a lot of people out there today are very fearful if there's a fear of being uh in that type of setting we have to respect everyone's uh you know this uh i don't know what the word i'm looking for but we have to respect everyone's uh decision on that and um i just think it's something right now that we can hold off and i agree with judy that the zoom thing right now is working out fine well right now it's our normalcy this is our normal because so you know it's we got to meet everybody where they're comfortable right now we're all in our little bubbles and

188this is out comfortable for every one of us because we're in our own little protection bubble i'm i have my own worries about this thing spiking that's just me uh you know i have i'm it's just i have all these quirks about it but it's um we have to all it should be everybody's decision but um whatever the board i will go along with the majority so i'm already out here exposed every day so i don't either way you guys can come to supermarket if you'd like can we can we six feet apart can we socially distance yeah social distancing and force stay behind the red line okay dana you're a witness i've been actually offering my kids for free to come work for you i know you have been every week i get a

189text saying i will offer my children to come work i would say take them so can we can we table this until uh another time when we can have this discussion again well take it my kids no let's talk about it now no i don't think we have to table it because we suspended our normal bylaw back then i think we're still in that that realm and our board attorney shaking head so i think we're we're okay and we we would bring it back when we moved to go in august to september okay beautiful and i might add that one of the things you want to um you want to consider also at the at the time that you do return to in-person board meetings is come up with some creative way to still allow

190for perhaps the public to be able to uh participate remotely because you know whether you go back to in-person meetings in september for example uh there may be people in the public who might be who might not be comfortable to be outside at a board meeting and yet you know you can see from these meetings that you have a lot more public participation so you you want to be able to come up with some kind of strike a balance so just uh something for mr mountain to think about how to do that i agree are there is there any other new business i i i want to i want to clarify something um it's sort of under new business but i'm going to bring up new division anyway um it's about the minority aspect and

191if i may and if not tell me be quiet so you know while i know there were some good intentions in terms of how some some of my colleagues spoke today but i want to make it very clear that at the end of the day we're all minorities in one way or another one shape or form whether from the 1900s late 1800s till now or today are still coming from various borders to various areas and yes a palestinian is a minority um and i wanted to make that very clear because actually that part bothered me um in one shape or form we came here our ancestry whether i was born here or not um and we should be proud of who we are but yet still want some sort of representation of what our community

192looks like so i just want to make that very clear i want to put it out there because after that comment was made i got mass text messages saying what the heck was that about so um again that's all i have to say thank you okay so we don't have any um there isn't any executive session that i'm aware of um so at this point um motion to adjourn motion by mr casper i'll second it second bye miss bassford um all in favor aye opposed pass mr albatro you all know what that's about all right so um meeting adjourned thanks everybody good meeting tonight thank you all congratulations thank 2020