March 5, 2020 - Clifton Board of Education Meeting

001call to order the march 5th 2020 regular board meeting please stand for the pledge in a moment of the republic silence which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all next order business mission statement mr casper the mission of the clifton school district in an open and reciprocal community partnership is to provide all students with a quality education to develop the skills necessary to become literate lifelong learners who are responsible and productive citizens contributing to a democratic society in an ever-changing world thank you next order business reading of the open public meeting statement the new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right to the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is

002discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the clifton board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be publicized by having the date time and place there are posted at the city clerk's office clifton public library administration building senior citizen nutrition center on cable tv in the local press on the district's website and mailed to presidents of parent teacher organizations this meeting will be tape recorded in accordance with policy oh one six eight next order of business recognition and award presentations can i have a motion to accept the march student of the month so move motion by commissioner drabo second second by miss basford roll call mr abbadraba yes miss basford yes miss beltran mr canova yes mr casper yes mr pacenti yes mr smith yes miss danny yes

003freshman student of the month okay freshman student of the month is rosalind guido congratulations to wisland guido on being chosen as the freshman student of the month roslyn's favorite subject in school is spanish while she has been speaking spanish her entire life she loves being able to learn new things about the language roslyn says her family always inspires her to do better and helps her through tough times she is a member of her orchestra and is looking forward to joining other extracurricular activities during her high school career come on up [Applause] um congratulations sophomore student of the month so moved okay no second sophomore student of the month liam riley congratulations liam on being chosen as sophomore student of the month liam has a love for history and music and has aspirations to study them

004in the future his freshman year history teacher mr analysia has really helped to strengthen his love for history and he wants to pursue it in the future liam credits his parents dave and tara for showing him the rewards of hard work and always being there to help him he is a member of our chs orchestra tri-m music honor society model un and roman history club outside of school he is an active member of the boy scouts and his youth group liam is in our school's music academy and is excited for the educational opportunities that clifton high school offers him i present to you our sophomore student of the month of march liam riley [Applause] um [Applause] junior student of the month junior studio month max reuben congratulations to max rubin on being chosen as june

005junior student of the month max has always enjoyed his english classes because he likes the artistic freedoms he has when he writes he is also grateful for mr pinto for helping him sing better but also to become a better person max is a member of our mustang marching band and mad caps he has led roles in our music musical for two years he is also the vice president of the clifton student union and is a junior representative for the student council max has aspirations to attend film school because he wants to be a film producer writer and director junior student of the month max rubin [Applause] senior student of the month the senior of student of the month is valentina leon congratulations to valentina leon i'm being chosen as a senior student of the month

006valentina's favorite subject is ap psychology because she likes learning about human behavior she names mr fakina as her most influential teacher because he gives her good advice and obviously cares about the well-being well-being of the students valentina says her parents inspire her to work hard because they have always worked to support her she is currently a member of the yearbook club and volunteers at the local animal shelter valentina has plans to attend college next year and one day hopes to be an intelligence analyst for the fbi [Applause] we're going to take a group picture with all the students please great order so thank [Applause] you next order business adoption of minutes can i have a motion to adopt the special minutes of the special meeting of february 19 2020 and the minutes of the regular

007meeting of february 20 did i say 20 twice 20 20. yes you're right 2020 february 19 of 2020 and also the executive meeting of february 20 2020. move it by um vice chair bass first second by mr um casper any comments revisions roll call mr abby drabo miss password yeah miss beltran yes mr nova yes mr daley yes mr casper yes mr pacenti abstain on 19 yes on 20. mr smith yes miss danny yes next order business communication and announcements we don't have any there is no first reading of policy next order of business is presentation of reports from administration advisory committees and special committees we have mr paul lurch here thank you good evening good evening [Music] if the students would like to leave with their parents you can you're welcome to stay but

008if you need to study get home now's your opportunity you can go smart we won't be offended i won't take that personally thank so there's thank you well thanks for having us thanks for giving us the opportunity to present uh tonight uh the audit results um obviously we are um a little tardy here on the presentation wise um a couple of reasons uh really the first reason is is because um for the second year in a row the state of new jersey was delayed in presenting certain financial information on pension reporting uh to the auditing world so last year that deadline was extended from the beginning of december to actually february middle of february this year it went and the extension went to the end of december so that's part of the reason why we're

009a little bit late on the other item had to do with timing obviously so i'm here to report on the fiscal year ending june 30 2019 and let me just start by saying that the board of education has three opinions that we're giving you okay in that report the first one um and and and i will say that they're all unmodified which is after you know which is a clean opinion which is the opinion that all board of education is striving for so the first one deals with the financial statements so we give a an overall an opinion in the financial statements that they're performed in accordance with governmental uh auditing and generally accepted auditing principles the second is our audit our opinion on internal controls and compliance with governmental auditing standards and it really

010deals with your state and federal grants the third opinion deals with major programs on those grants you do have major programs generally speaking a major program is any program that exceeds seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in a year uh for you that that number is elevated uh because of the size of the district and the amount of of expenditures that are running through state and federal programs just as a little bit of a knowledge here federal programs you expended over 14 million dollars in federal programs and state programs you expended over 62 million dollars in state programs so quite a bit of money running through from the federal and state side what that simply means is that because you are subject to a state and federal single audit additional audit responsibilities are attached to

011those major programs that we identify meaning that we not only have to do financial auditing but we do have to do specific grant compliance auditing just digging in deeper into those specific areas um you know having said that um we had no findings there were no internal controls or compliance items that were reported in the report on on single audit or generally accepted auditing standards as well governmental auditing standards so great news um terrific um what i will do is i and i want to talk a little bit about equity uh the board members i believe you have the synopsis right michael yes okay so the board has a synopsis in front of them just talk a little bit about equity here and then we can get into the comments and recommendations that we have

012so if you look at the total equity the end of the year the board of education ended the year with 20 million one hundred and eighty thousand one hundred and eighty four dollars slightly down from last year down by seven hundred twelve thousand dollars what is it comprised of i'm gonna work from the bottom up um i don't have the synopsis in front of me i'm working off a different component but um what what you know what's comprised of that total equity and what you can see is that working from the bottom up we have an undesignated fund balance of 3.6 million dollars slight change from last year last year was roughly 3.5 million dollars it's your undesignated it's your free balance generally speaking you're allowed to keep two percent of your total expenditures in

013this undesignated fund balance and then of course like everything else in the world there are exceptions to those general rules we make modifications for that and that's how you get to your 3.6 so that is your free balance cash on hand rainy day reserve if you will operating rainy day moving up we have assigned balances we have designated for subsequent year budget meaning that that's the amount that's pledged in your 1920 budget there's two pieces of it it's the 2.3 million here and then the piece up top on the xs surplus designated for subsequent year 1.5 so that combination is 3.8 million dollars and that's balancing the current budget that we're in the 1920 school year then we have reserved for conferences of 193 000 and we also have committed encumbrances of 871 thousand dollars

014just means goods or services that were ordered but not yet received or delivered by the end of the year uh their reservations of equity as the budget rolls these items roll into your modified budget so those are now modifications in the current 1920 budget and they get spent out during that period of time if the goods and services were delivered or performed before the end of the year they would have been charged out as an expense they would have been in accounts payable and charged as an expense these are not these are just reservations of equity then we have the restricted components the restricted components the the first one here is the capital reserve uh we have 3.9 million dollars which is unrestricted or undesignated and then you have the designated component of capital reserve

015of 6'5 meaning that of the total 10.4 million dollars that six million five is being utilized in the 1920 budget that we're currently in meaning that the 3.9 million will roll forward for future uh use last year's budget last year's total was roughly eight million dollars maintenance reserve uh maintenance reserve is money that's set aside to maintain the facilities here you have a combination of the 503 and then you have the designated component of seventy seven hundred and fifty thousand or one million two fifty uh last year was one point five million of the total of one million two fifty seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars is being utilized in your 1920 budget to maintain the facilities of the district and then we get to the last component so it's a progression we're allowed to

016maintain x number of dollars into our unrestricted equity then we have encumbrances or commitments or assignments through encumbrances and then we have reservations of equity or restricted components through capital reserve those items are done by board resolution maintenance reserve is done by board resolution you do that in june every year and that's when you make that uh restriction or allocation of any excess surplus into the various components again those components of capital reserve maintenance reserve anything that's not restricted through that particular avenue will go into excess surplus so in this particular year june of 2019 there was no excess surplus because the board resolution designated any monies in excess of the mandatory amount that we can retain a component of it was put into the maintenance reserve and then the balance was put into the

017capital reserve the capital reserve is obviously items that are for future capital facility improvements of the district last year we did have an excess surplus so when we were here last year there was 1.5 of excess and that's why that now dropped into this particular year excess designated so it's really was last year's excess surplus so overall equity didn't change all that much and that's the reallocation of the of of the equity okay and i'll just get into give you an overview and certainly if you have any specific questions you can stop me but i'm just going to go through some of the comments that we had okay none of these are in my mind significant if they were significant they would have been part of that discussion that i had earlier with you about

018internal controls being material or significant or compliance being material or significant that's where they would have been captured as well we don't believe that any of these rose uh to that level but needless to say there are comments in a report and um we're here to report about them so the very first one looks at the uh or deals with the general operating account bankrec and the net payroll bank reconciliation we noticed at the end of the year that there were numerous outstanding checks that didn't clear in both accounts the general account we had some checks dating back to august of 2016. and the net payroll account we had some checks dating back to september of 2014. the next item dealt with um a reconciling item between the various accounts and funds of the district

019so what we have is we have in the payroll agency account the payroll agency account is accumulating the withholdings from the employees that that are attributable to the chapter 78 contributions and those amounts are then turned over to the operating fund and recorded as a contra revenue and that was happening all year long i think this was a timing issue at the very end of the year and what happened is is that in the payroll agency account the withholdings were held at june 30th and reported as a disbursement but not yet transferred over and what happened is that in a general operating account it should have been recorded as a deposit in transit and recorded as a contra into the budgetary system so on the payroll side we had the check cut it was an

020outstanding check but on the general operating account it wasn't picked up as a receipt as a dit and recorded in the system as a contract so we made that adjustment yes because that that sounds complicated but if i could ask mr usi not to put him on the spot but just to give a specific example of how that might happen sure i think it might make a lot more sense it's really just timing of deposits between accounts from month to month so in this particular case it's significant because it's the end of the year june 30th to july first so for example like a pomponian invoice or something um that was used in july but not paid you uh invoiced in june but not paid until july would that be something if it wasn't set

021up as an accounts payable yes that could be an example but this example was the chapter 78 payment was recorded in july and it should have been recorded in june even because the payroll was so late now and i will say that you know when we went through the audit process because we're always going to reconcile the dits and outstanding checks between the funds and so then we picked the we picked upon the fact that there was an outstanding check of 300 000 316 000 that wasn't recorded as a deposit in transit and what we did is we simply made the adjustment in the financial statements your financial statements are reported correctly i think it was just as when june 30th ended it was so late uh i guess in the week maybe that's what

022it was with michael being able to record that on the opposite end but it's it's corrected and the financial statements are presented correctly the next item deals with um with the lease purchase um led lighting this is different than than uh some other leases this lease is through an escrow and so what's happening is is that we have a fiscal agent you enter into a lease with a fiscal agent and in essence they procure pay vendors but we have access and we have the liability for the lease obviously the transactions have to run through the borders of records and what was happening is is that the physical transaction of the procurement that was done of 310 000 through the escrow was not being picked up in the capital project fund we recorded the activity in

023the capital project fund and as we indicated to mike in the finance committee that in addition to that you also then when you're making disbursements or paying vendors and if they're paying those vendors on your behalf they really should be presented to the board and approved before they release those checks it's your money the financial statements are should be reflective of all those activities and the balance that's left is being picked up as cash on the account as well so we just want to make sure it is unique it's kind of a little bit different you know another way of having a lease is you could enter into the lease the proceeds could have all come to the district would have all been recorded and dispersed through in that fashion this was just a little

024bit of a different uh circumstance so we corrected the financial statements financial statements have the three hundred thousand dollars running through it and any cash balance that remains is sitting on the balance sheet and certainly michael knows now that any of that those specific type transactions have to be presented to the board and all payments have to be approved before the escort agent disperses those funds then we had an unrecorded liability in the food service fund for pomp tony that was the june 19 invoice and that amount was one thousand dollars you know eighty one thousand dollars you would think you know especially in the operating fund wouldn't rise to a level of of being reported but you know in our world what happens is that we have to look at each fund individually as

025well and so the operating fund has a very high tolerable misstatement your food service fund is much smaller the tolerable misstatement in the food service fund in my mind in our auditing world was only forty two thousand dollars so when we had a payment for palm tonium for june that wasn't recorded as an outstanding liability we recorded it but from reporting purposes it now gets reported in the audit report because it exceeded our tolerable level the very last comment deals with um student activities uh and the athletic account this is something we're seeing everywhere it's kind of tough to get your hands around and it really deals with deposits not being made in a timely manner difficult to do um you know we do some random testing here um of the random tests almost every

026single day that we tested we had some violation of and we say 48 hours but it's really common sense so it's just timely deposit make a deposit twice a week you want to safeguard the assets and that's the key behind all of this some of those deficiencies range from six to eight days in the student account and six to 17 days in the athletic what happens is is that a lot of times what we're seeing is is that teachers or supervisors or program managers are holding on to the monies until the event occurs so if they're collecting monies in advance of an event they're holding on to it until all students are paying at that point and then they're transferring the money over so it just needs to be done on a timely basis um

027i don't know if anybody has any questions um the only thing i would say is is i usually do make a quick comment on the pension liabilities we always give a little bit of an overview or an update on that so this is now we are now into the second year of reporting for the under gasby 75 which is the post-employment benefit reporting for opeb which is really just another way of saying the health benefits as we know that the employees of the district receive health benefits for life under the current system in the past we had picked up the pension liabilities for the public employees piece as well as the teacher side so now the total liabilities that are being picked up in the financial statement is just the public employees because you are

028liable for that that was 41 34 million dollars they all went down 34 million from 41 million the year before the teacher's pension side the liability this is not in your financial statements but in the footnote so the total liability that is attributable to clifton board of education for the state teachers pension fund is 432 million dollars and it's down 38 million from the year before and as i indicated to you the last piece is the opeb piece so that is really the health benefits side the post employment benefits other than pensions and that totaled 272 million dollars so for all these retirees in the system the state has calculated through the actuarial team that the total liability for the clifton employees your pro rata share is 738 million dollars but by statute and law

029you have no financial responsibility for the oped piece and the teacher pension side you do have a responsibility for the public employee side which is the smallest component okay any questions any questions comments um next time can we have like hand out do they have handhelds the community because we didn't do anything overhead the only thing was the um the synopsis that you have the synopsis no i'm just saying yes because we have people in the community here sitting here watching listening to uh numbers being told it's very hard to follow along when you don't have something in front of you to read off of so my worry is like why can't the people be seeing what we're talking about on the screen behind us yeah yes because um i i would be lost in

030the source at this point right now and i'll be looking at everybody like what are they talking about so i think we next time should provide the viewers on at home and also in our audience something on the board so they can follow along with us thank you that's it thank you thanks for having us sure i just want to comment to mike um for the largest district that we have and everything that was recommended i think it's minuscule and i think you're doing a fantastic job mike so thank you thank you good night good night next order business committee uh board committee reports there are no board um committee reports that were provided next order of business is public recognition this portion of the meeting is open to the citizens of clifton for the

031purpose of addressing resolutions on this agenda only residents are requested to sign the register provided for this purpose and to state their names addresses and subject matter comments are limited to three 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 responsibly forthcoming if and when appropriate the board asks the members of the public be courteous and mindful the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students 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

032of the public should consider their comments in light of legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments i'm sorry to the student yes so um thank you sorry about that i just as i started reading i remembered it uh all right let me bring this closer here uh congratulations to the clifton high school students of the month uh their academic rigor is certainly impressive and it's great to see that they're being rewarded and recognized for their efforts uh mr pacenti welcome back it's good to see you back in good health um i wish you better health and reason and i look forward to working with you and the last thing i have to say because i'm going to keep it

033pretty short for tonight is that there is another meeting for the district let me just see the official name here the district strategic planning meeting that will be held on march 25th at six o'clock um i would certainly encourage members of the public to attend and uh take the opportunity that dr robert towsey gave to you guys so thank you for uh so that's all i have to say for tonight and thank you it's a great day to be a mustang anyone else wish to speak i'm sorry period on this agenda on this agenda then there'll be another one for not on the agenda items seeing non-emotional closing motion by mr percent second second by mr casper next order of business is unfinished business there's none um next is education and administration can i get

034a motion for ea one through ea8 second motion by mr kanova second bye mr presentee any questions yes can we pull ea 05 for exec i i make a motion to a pulley a05 for executive session second okay motion by mr casper second by madame vice chair um roll call mr abu drabo yes miss belt um miss bassberg yes beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes mr casper yes mr picenti yes mr smith yes miss danny yes any other questions all right um so this motion is for ea one through ea8 with the exception of five which has been pulled bro call mr abdraba yes miss bassford yes miss beltran mr canova yes mr daley yes mr casper yes sister yeah mr smith yes miss danny yes can i get a motion um for

035p1 through p20 so move motion by mr casper second second by mr picenti questions pete um mr daley yes mr casper yes mr presenting yes mr smith yes miss danny yes can i have a motion to approve f1 through f8 so moved motion by mr casper second second thought mr prasanti questions i have some comments on number six our use of facilities um i had some questions about um trying to find the exact thing here um the clifton recreation department is running camps in the summer using our facilities and one is a baseball camp one is a lacrosse camp and i called the superintendent to check on you know are those our camps are those our coaches running those camps um because the the first one on the list shows the lemberg soccer academy running

036their own program under the lemberg soccer academy but the others are running under the board of recreation so i wasn't sure if those are our coaches if those are recreation programs uh how they're funded how they're paid and why are there only two sports offering camps in the summer uh in the past i believed almost all of our sports offered programs for kids in the summer so i was a little confused i reached out to the superintendent i don't know if you want to i'm happy comment on that yeah thank you mr smith did reach out to me so while these uh at least these two specific um items that mr smith is referring to while those are our coaches these programs are they're not going to be our employees they'll be working through the

037recreation department and paid through the recreation department which is why the recreation department is requesting the use of facilities as to why there's only these two and not all of the sports is a little bit of a more complicated question but the idea is that we want we would eventually like all of our sports to have feeder programs summer programs summer camps and i also think that although there's only two on on this agenda there will be more possibly a future meetings but we do have some sports that do not have you know summer programs i did speak to mr malahi about that we are strongly encouraging you know our coaches to do that we certainly want to build our feeder programs uh so that you know when our when our students get to high

038school um they're playing at a high level okay so just to clarify these these are this is not costing the district any money um and if i could suggest that uh this go to um is it facilities that handles athletics facilities that they look at it and maybe the coaches will be called in and see what their intentions are or something but i think all of our kids should be offered an opportunity it used to always be that there were always an opportunity for each sport to be offered to camp in the summer and if that's changed i'd just like to know why that's all so my suggestion that facilities take a look at that please thank you okay so facilities yes i have another one uh through you madam chair the superintendent could you

039just explain 4482 with the passaic athletic department so i got a couple questions on that online i'm sorry um what number mrs bastford sorry facilities i thought we were on the same subject use of facilities um application number oh the pacific track field the uh school district of passaic uh reached out to us they their track is currently under construction uh first they reached out to uh our track coaches then reached out to our athletic director who emailed me and they're requesting to utilize our facilities while their track is being rebuilt by all accounts and according to our athletic director there's a very good relationship among the coaches even though they're technically considered rivals and i'm told that this will not interfere with with our students practice they'll be practicing after our students are done

040and it'll be a temporary period of time until they're till their field is ready so it was recommended to me that it wouldn't be a problem by the athletic director the coaches are all on board so i i have no problem recommending it to the full board thank you very much any other president under um section seven of the claims list in this group i'd like a um oh we didn't get to voting yet okay yeah we're in discussion but oh dude do you want to do it when we do the vote and then you abstain and explain why okay so do it at the vote do it during the vote and then it then yeah and then you ex abstain and you can explain any other okay roll call mr aberdrop miss basford yes

041beltran yes mr konova yes mr daley yes mr casper yes mr pacenti yes but after abstain on uh f3 520 at 4481 with the police department for the use of the facility mr smith yes that's where you abstain now oh you won't understand okay i'm standing on yes check number 198301 for my fingerprinting uh reimbursement miss danny yes yes yeah yes okay next order business public recognition this portion of the meeting is open to citizens of clifton for the purpose of addressing any subject matter pertinent to and or directly related to the operation of the clifton public school district residents are requested to sign the register provided for this purpose and to state names addresses and subject matter comments are limited to five minutes per person issues raised by members of the public may or

042may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students 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 in light of the legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments does anyone wish to speak good

043evening board member superintendent thank you very much i just have two matters i wanted to bring to your attention first is i have questions about the capital plan for this year there are no playgrounds in our schools our elementary schools and it's a particular problem at my child's school ps1 but i've seen ps8 i'm sorry but my child is 10's attack program at ps1 there's no playground there and for the recess periods there's not enough equipment for the children so balls ropes all of these things and so i get frequent complaints from my kids that there's just not a lot for them to do during recess we are new to the district so we're coming from bloomfield schools where all of the elementary schools have playground structures i work in new york city department of

044ed all of our schools have playground structures so it's a sort of unique thing and i'm wondering you know what sort of thought partnership i can provide or parents can provide through ptos to think about how to bring playground structures and those sorts of things to our schools and the second is diversity there's no diversity in our teaching staff at our schools our schools are really diverse places so we have kids that are from all sorts of countries across the world we have african-american kids indian kids kids from south america kids from all over the world literally in our schools and the teaching staff is not diverse at all and so i know that this is a challenge not just in this district but across different districts in new jersey but we are in a

045diverse community and so you know i would love for the board to consider and for the school system to consider how to make our teaching staff as reflected as as diverse as reflect the the diversity reflected in our students particularly because there's research that says there's an outcome impact for students and student achievement thank you ma'am what was your name adrian adrian austin we emailed we did we did okay thank you hi good evening i'm lorie la lama and i just want the board to know that april 25th will be the latino institute so it will be at school 17 from 9 30 to 2 30 and we're having keynote speakers and there'll be four workshops free breakfast and free lunch for the families they'll be babysitting for the kids so andrea rock and myself

046will be having a table in botany village and will be passing out all the information to the families and it'll be a pride event also so we'll pass out our little giveaways to get the people involved so i just wanted the board to know that and also i have an update for the windows at christopher columbus so just pass them out i'll reserve that no but the windows are great they look wonderful and just a few things need to be fixed that's it thank you very much um madam president and i ask that we move the the playground issue and bring that to facilities committee please i think that's an important issue for the committee to discuss hi donna papa which clifton um just a couple of things as we come approaching the summer which

047i know it's hard to believe um every summer there's a tradition in clifton of giving summer assignments grades k through 12. and i'm just asking as we start preparing them that um maybe we could prepare us things that are i don't know how to put it like more genuine more it's something that i know the elementary students would be more into and at the high school level if we're going to be giving summer assignments um could we please make sure we have enough materials if you are assigning a specific book please make sure you have enough last summer the parents were expected to buy the materials which really you know buying five books the other thing is if you're going to give us homework to do with our kids over the summer which none of

048us enjoy i'm sure none of you enjoy that either let's make it actually count for something um last year for example my daughter read five books they counted as a homework grade by the end of the marking period she had 18 homework grades so basically it didn't count for almost nothing it really wasn't um important for all the time she put in okay and the homework assignment should also be referenced during the school year it seems like most of them are done and there's no link to what's going on the rest of the year there's something totally separate if you really don't need to give the assignment and you have to give an assignment then there should be an option for the teachers to say we don't need this the kids don't need this if

049they're not going to use it you know if it's a math refresher for a physics course and we're not going to use that math or refer to it we we don't need to do this and make our lives i mean i think every kid should read during the summer but everything else i don't know if i was history i wouldn't make it read read you know the newspaper the time something be prepared to discuss current events i don't know if i'd make it read these nine chapters in the book and answer these 9 000 questions um and secondly um i watched the meeting and i just had a question on the referendum about the turf we're proposing at woodrow wilson uh and why we are turfing there is it just for the gym classes hi

050how are you um so it would be utilized by the phys ed classes there uh but it would also be for the varsity that's the varsity baseball field there also and it i'll say this publicly maybe the most embarrassing field i've ever seen when it comes to a varsity sport it floods there's no seating there's no bathrooms for for the public to utilize um and it's really uh for for a district uh as proud as clifton and i think we can do a lot better in addition uh the goal would be to once you turf the field it makes it more accessible and that field and will be open to the public for the recreation department for the community to utilize in addition to our schools oh okay i was just trying to you know

051make sure we're having some equality use of turf fields because you know we have a football field and the soccer field and now a boys baseball field please if somebody correct me if i'm wrong the the field at the high school is who plays there that's boys and girls but where do they both practice i understand yeah i mean i'm just thinking if you do the boys baseball maybe you should think about the girls softball too just for equality good evening board uh lance bradley uh 136 princeton street i just want to bring up i guess sort of like the elevator room uh i went to costco today you would think hurricane is coming i see you all got your hand sanitizer just wondering if there's a plan in place for coronavirus um i haven't

052received any literature any letters anything no announcements or whatnot but three weeks ago it wasn't even in the states now it's everywhere damn there so just wanted to bring that up and see if there's uh or here if you could give me some type of feedback as to if there's anything in place or what plans are if it arises which i feel like is inevitable at this point so that's all i have for tonight thanks mr bradley thank you for uh bringing that up i have a uh full statement here that i'm going to read when it's my turn tonight with information on that uh but just so you know you should have received some correspondence about a week ago through blackboard connect there was a district-wide email are you signed up are you getting

053the email blasts uh if if you're not okay it was sent to the entire community i want to say it was last thursday a week ago and while we're sitting here tonight probably about a half hour to an hour ago another notice went out with a parent's guide about to talking to talking to children about the coronavirus email address yes the blackboard connect well we'll have to verify because that i'm 100 certain that that went out a week ago tonight and within the last hour or so another email went out did anybody get that yet yeah yeah okay mr kenova is a parent uh not as a board member he so he got received it as a parent so we we need to double check that with uh with your school and in the student

054database system to make sure your email address is correct because it certainly went out and uh mr rose can you confirm that that other email went out tonight it did so you should have within the last hour received a parenting guide to talking to your children about the coronavirus we got one while we're sitting here you got one okay okay thank you we just gotta take we gotta check mr bradley okay and if i can uh miss danny tonight when it's board member comment if i could just speak first on that um i have a statement to read about that okay so right through it so in a minute okay and anyone else wish to speak see an emotional close second bye mr albrabo second by mr casper board member comments you're up thank you

055miss danny uh good evening commissioners good evening members of the community parents students i want to start with uh with a statement about the coronavirus as it is everywhere you turn on the news and and certainly people are beginning to panic um and we don't want people to panic so current media is filled with coverage the severity of illness or how many people will fall ill from the coronavirus or what is officially known as the covid19 remains unknown at this time and while dealing with unknowns can make us all very anxious um and fearful please rest assure that the school district is collaborating closely with the clifton department of health following any and all directives from health officials and the new jersey department of education we had a meeting with all of the stakeholders at

056the clifton department of health just a couple days ago when i say all the stakeholders i mean the fire department the police department the local hospitals um local businesses you name it and and everyone was there to discuss this current uh situation it's important to know that while this is spreading in the united states the district is being proactive we have plans to respond in a flexible way to this public health concern the district is partnering partnering with local public health authorities we're updating our response plans and sharing what we know of course our school district takes the health and well-being of all of our students staff and stakeholders very seriously to that end we've been working closely with the department of health our custodial staff have been directed and have been conducting deeper cleanings

057and disinfecting high touch areas including doorknobs desks tables handrails paper towel dispensers and providing additional mopping our nursing staff our amazing professional nursing staff have been kept informed of all recommended cdc guidelines that's the center for disease control and are being vigilant in their screening procedures we're asking for parent cooperation and following the guidance provided for children's illness and illness prevention meaning if your child has a fever keep them home 24 hours after a fever keep them home excuse me 24 hours fever-free they can return to school additionally as mentioned briefly earlier a guide to discussing this situation with the coronavirus with your children has been shared with you this evening via blackboard connect and if it is not posted already to our website it will be shortly we will continue to post and send

058guidance from the department of health the department of education and the cdc as we receive updates we were on a conference call with the governor and the commissioner of education two days ago to discuss this situation and any if there is any direct impact on our schools we will be communicating that directly with our parents via blackboard connect email phone call text messages and certainly on our website thank you abu drabo uh the only thing i have is if to the superintendent um one thing i agree with that if we have our laptops now we're gonna do summer readings maybe we can do audibles or something online text i know not all students um would like the book in their hand rather reading online but we should have both options as well it's cost effective

059for parents since if we're signing it it shouldn't be happy for us to go grab 10 15 books during the summer three books of summer thank you miss beltram congrats to all the students of the month i love to see that there's such a the tunes a month really true show the diversity of clifton we have students from every single uh interest group from fbi to music our movie producers today so i think it's it's interesting that all these different uh sub are excelling in our school district um i like to reiterate that everyone should keep washing their hands i know about the runs on supermarkets because i own a supermarket and we never expected to be out of water or hand sanitizer or bleach or all kinds of things that no one could be

060prepared for um please try not panic i know it's hard with the news non-stop drilling in and i have had panics myself of if my father and me wind up in the quarantine what happens to my business and like all kinds of thoughts like that but you just have to try and keep calm and don't watch the news too much um spring is here the good part about that is they said this virus dies when it gets warm so keep praying now we're gonna switch from praying for snow for praying for hot um i'm gonna definitely bring back the playground situation because i have noticed that that there are no playgrounds here and i grew up in a district that had playgrounds um and especially at the very least we should be supplying enough uh

061playground equipment whether balls jump ropes things like that um i also will take back the ccms update on the windows because it is kind of upsetting that we still have some rooms without windows so i'm trying to figure out like is it just a board like what is in that window space right now um and also the ones that are missing pieces because i know if under any construction if you don't find the piece before they leave you're never going to find that piece ever again um i never i hope this latino institute has attended well and if you need any help in the community pushing that out i'd love to be of the help for that and um i think that's it mr granova uh good evening congratulations to students um thank you for

062all the speakers who came out tonight uh i will also speak on the playgrounds i'm glad it's going back to facilities this is something i brought up i think two years ago where i know at school three we actually have a playground that's almost attached to school it's part of the city but you know when i asked if they could use it they said no so i'm not sure if that was something it was a regulation or something that was just something we had to ask for or ask about so i'm glad that's taking back the facilities i know that in uh in the town of little falls where my nephew goes they also have a playground there and the instead of them being on asphalt there's actually like a sponge foam almost like we

063have a celebi uh there's a sponge foam where they can run and play on so i'd be curious to see what happens with that um our summer reading and uh can we kick that back to education and discuss there um i know we have google classroom and maybe that's something we could put on there or even in the parent portal where we could um we could display what needs to be done or how we're going to go about doing that and then uh what else do they have here oh the the coronavirus can we also kick that back to technology to talk about alternate methods for teaching and learning in technology i want to bring that back to tech tech as well all right thank you mr daley thank you madam president um i'll also

064be brief again of course i'd like to thank the and congratulate all the student uh students of the month um that's a great part of our our board meeting i'd also think like thank all the speakers who came up we don't say much because it's not not a dialogue but we do listen and we do take care of uh either superintendent or we discuss it in a committee to what we can do we can't do everything but uh we certainly listen and become and thanks for making us aware of anything we may not be aware of so we're aware of most things but sometimes we don't hear everything uh like to wish everybody a happy st patrick's day coming up and our next board meeting will be on saint joseph's day so uh we'll have

065to bring in some cakes right joe oh say st joseph's cakes that's why okay um and lastly uh this is uh women's history month and i'd like to make a suggestion to those out there especially our students um i think there's two very inspirational there's many inspirational movies out there but two in particular uh i think there's very very well worth watching if not once or twice one is hidden figures and that's a movie about these black women who were the first employees in nassau and how they were discriminated how they overcame it's a terrific movie it's it's it's inspirational you don't have to be a woman to be inspired by it so the second one i would suggest on the basis of sex and it has nothing to do with um with that actions

066it has to do with the ruth bader ginsburg it's a it's a great movie and it's very inspirational when she went to how to get her law degree and what she went through both in in harvard in colombia she had all these barriers and did an amazing job to become successful and not the first one but won the first woman that's on the u.s supreme court so i highly suggest that for the students but also the general public you should really watch that it's part of your history what happened in this country so with that i'll conclude in my remarks mr casper i have a few public uh public service announcements and then i'll go into uh some others okay first one clifton high school is presenting nine to five next weekend it's friday saturday

067and sunday uh tomorrow is christopher columbus's play which is the little mermaid junior so if you're free tomorrow evening uh we also have the special education parent advisory group is holding a [Music] meeting for idea for parents and traditional planning on april 13th at school five those are some announcements for you um 6 30 to 8 30 on april 13th i would like to thank dr torley for her service i know she's retiring in october so thank you for all your service and hard work to our district i'd like to congratulate our students of the month keep on pushing forward we have a few months left until graduation so uh let's keep on pushing forward march 25th it was also announced uh for our last strategic planning at chs at six we have our very

068first superintendent scholarship fund um event which is um it's the teachers versus the harlem wizards on april 23rd from 4 30 to 9 30. and then i'd like to say i'd like to take up uh the opportunity to thank everybody for the invitation for read across america being a teacher um reading is important so i like to encourage reading so i got to uh attend school one over by mrs colano i was in uh by miss durkin miss gillespie and mr thurston i hope i got your names right so those were in the afternoon i also saw mrs rossetti at school four it was a k2 group and in the morning i got to visit mrs bender i got to see mrs mrs santa suso i hope i get this right and mrs wisnowski and

069my last stop in the morning was mrs honorably at school 13. so thank you all for uh inviting i had a great time and i have a good night everybody mr santi thank you um i'll be very brief also congratulate all the students i think it's a wonderful thing that we started a while ago bringing these students and recognize them to the community for them to strive for excellence in their classes it's great that we have student in months and i hope it continues throughout even when i leave um or this board is no longer here i think it's a great thing for our district and uh just want to wish everybody good luck try out start tomorrow for spring trot for spring sports so i hope everybody's ready and i hope the weather holds

070up so we can get everybody outside we don't have to use indoor facilities uh to get a true feeling of what our sports will be like for the spring and last but not least i just want to wish my daughter erica a happy birthday i know she's going through a rough time so that's it mr smith yes uh i too like uh mr casper uh was happy to be invited to read at um two grammar schools i read at school number five uh to four classes and uh read at school number 12 in the afternoon at uh five classes so uh i thank the schools for uh inviting me um we had some uh very uh interesting classes in one of the third grade classes that uh mike that i'm gonna gonna ask you to

071relay a message to but i'll also relay a message to them down at our convention math program were you somebody called pearson yeah well the third graders were very upset and they asked if i would please take it back to pearson that in their books where they have to write in and give a response the space is about this big and they're very angry at pearson so if we could uh advise pearson that the students are not happy with that and that they should make some improvements and i promised the students at school 12 that i would take it back so maybe we can set up a meeting with pearson and they could but it was very enjoyable to to spend the time with students and i thank the teachers and the schools for inviting

072me the strategic planning if you have not attended yet uh the last one is march 26th um 25th i'm sorry um a lot of planning and work has gone into to putting this together and not to be on a negative uh about it because it's such a positive but i would really love to see that auditorium filled with a lot more uh residents parents people that don't have kids residents um a town of this size there's no reason that we can't fill up the high school auditorium of people that are concerned with education and the progress that we're making or planning to make in our strategic plans going forward i know everyone has a busy schedule but to make one of these sessions would be great for you and if you have the opportunity on

073this last one please try and make every effort to be there we really really need and would like to have the input of as many residents students teachers employees of the district um because this is about you people this is about your town this is about the education in your town this is about the district that many of you work in um that many of you had kids go through may have kids still in it may have grandkids that will be coming into it so this is all about clifton and i just think that you would enjoy the session uh and i thank school boards and kathy and uh dr robitazi and your staff uh for putting it all together uh eric mountain with all the technology and all that aspect of it and i

074also must credit your um your administrators dr robitazi that uh so many of them are present at this uh at the strategic planning uh they don't have to be there they're not required to be there but they feel it's important enough to be there and uh we sure are appreciative of the amount of administrators are there so i hope everyone if you can make it on march 25th this is the last of the third strategic plans and we surely would love to have your input on this going forward and that's all i have thank you commissioner vice chair um basford good evening everyone i would like to thank the speakers for coming out tonight and i want you to understand that your voice does get heard uh we cannot have open dialogue like my colleague

075mr uh commissioner daley mentioned but we do we do have conversations some of us have more conversations with the superintendent than he cares to have but we all do and um this board is working well together to um look at all the comments um miss lama thank you very much because um i am a visual learner and i have to see things in front of me and that's why i commented before about the audience not being able to see the the diagram you know for themselves it's really you get lost and i just wish going forward that whenever we have a presentation and we hold papers up here that you're able to see it behind us on the board because it's really important for the people that need to see it to comprehend it and

076it's uh it's something that really frustrates me for many years so going forward i hope that that's changed read across america i was invited to school five and it really takes you back when your mentor's daughter is the teacher on the hsa i couldn't even read the book i was very emotional in that classroom because there was my mentor when i first started as a young parent with a kindergartner and her daughter was teaching the fifth grade class completely blown away and she had a great class we had a lot of fun the questions open dialogue it was fun because the things that they pick up and notice and i i bought two books i bought the book of isms suicides and it's instead of it being a reading book it's all his isms from

077all his different writings and so i picked a few of them and we actually had a little discussion about what that meant to them one was on responsibility one was on making good decisions it was really it was really a lot of fun and the kids had a great time and i thank the two classes that invited me and i i just hope that we can schedule differently that every board member gets time to go even if it's a night reading that we can get to go because i know our schedules are really busy but for each of you to really really pick up on that and to have that experience it's just something that you can ever put a price tag on it's really well worth going and i really enjoyed it so i

078thank school five immensely for inviting me um uh the the summer homework i always have been an advocate against it it's not my favorite thing because i remember the night before school that booklet coming out and the torture that it caused in my house um i think i i look forward to coming it back to the education committee because i sit on the uh as one of the um members of the education committee and i think that if you're gonna make a child do homework over the summer this should be some kind of incentive as a grade or an extra credit or they can fill out that that if they get a bad mark on a test whatever it is but i'm sure that in this 20 20 a year we can be very creative

079but there are people that just don't want to do it and i lived through one that would get through it in an hour and then i lived with one that would take all night long all night long and it was torture for the parent rental units in that house but i i just i just want you to understand that um that um that's an issue and it's it's a hard issue with me and i want to look into it so education really needs to roll up the sleeves into the homework um mr percenty happy birthday to erica my father would have been 94 tomorrow so happy birthday dad i know you're watching over me every day monday the 9th is the full moon it's called the worm moon no mr mr abedrabo i actually i

080actually focus on the moon and things like that you should be really careful when you bother me okay because uh people in my house know what i mean about this um it's called the warm moon because the ground is softer the worms can come up and start the birds start feeding off them you really should it's a lot to do with farming and folklore and things like that but if anybody's been noticing communication has been a little rough lately that's because the moon's retrograde and the mercury and with mercury so it'll change on monday trust me trust me trust me and and for the virgos in the house that's good it's going to change where it's actually going to change excuse me i have the floor mr abu drabo oh wait communication will be better

081after the night when the moon goes retrograde it causes a lot of havoc and things don't work right directions get messed up communication gets squandered but for the virgos in the room you're gonna have a great moon cycle okay so with that being said happy st patrick's day um we get to share our roots and my my irish side in the house and i wish everybody a good week if you have concerns we have web uh email addresses feel free they get forwarded to dr robert tells you or he gets a phone call seven o'clock in the morning but you know what it it it works we are we're all speaking and and it's uh it's actually uh the communication has been so much better and uh i thank everybody for that as well thank

082you thank you okay okay so um i want to thank the speakers for the issues that they brought up and again we do always listen if we don't discuss them publicly out here we do discuss them in committees um for any of the updates by the speakers i also want to say congratulations to the students of the month and when it comes to summer assignments i know that that can be a lot and i think that it's good that it's going to the education committee i know that mr canova i remember we were at a meeting and we did discuss summer assignments and we were talking about either everyone's on board or they're not you know and waiting we discussed a little bit and i think that maybe something with choice and opportunity because students

083if anything if it is that they'll be summer assignments giving them choice giving them opportunities so just pop which something what you were saying about maybe the choice to do write ups on current events you know some students might like that um option um as opposed so they're still reading but they're doing so to give out some choices because people do like if they have to do something they like to have a choice an option um and um one other thing that's um very very exciting well there's two things actually and um two that's right i'm all there's more than two things but two things that are really exciting um one of them is that we have the commissioner of education coming um march 19th uh rappellet he is coming to school three for international

084day so that is very very exciting and then the second thing that closes my portion i will i'll let you speak again dr um okay thank you uh madam president we received really uh great news today that we were hoping we would receive um we received our cusack results uh for those of you who aren't aware cusack stands for the quality single accountability continuum what it is it's the new jersey department of education's way of evaluating school districts and how well school districts are performing and they assess five areas they they assess the school district every three years and it's a very extremely rigorous process they spent days here um they spent days out of office reviewing documents electronically and then days here in district they review five areas instruction and program which is our

085arguably our most important thing fiscal management governance which is what this board does operations and personnel you need to score 80 percent or above in each of those areas in order to be deemed a high performing school district i am very proud to announce that we scored 100 in personnel 100 in operations 100 in governance 94 in fiscal management which is amazing and 82 percent in instruction and program but there they have to give a little caveat explaining what that means is so part of instruction and program deals with our state assessment results so before this before cusack even begins we know where we stand with our state assessment results and before they came in and reviewed every anything we were at 82 based on our state assessment scores which meant if they came in

086and they found one area of our curriculum that wasn't up to standards that they found one item that didn't have a board resolution and wasn't approved by the board or if they found anything in our instruction and program that um was not effective we would have fallen below that 82 percent uh falling below the 80 percent and then we would have been put on an action plan and it would have been ugly and we would have been in cusack purgatory but thanks really to the efforts um of assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction janina kusalevich and her team of of administrators and supervisors of course our teaching staff and everyone who pulled together our principals we are now designated or we will be after the state board of education meeting clifton public schools will be designated

087a high-performing district and that's something you should be very proud do we know the last time that happened janina well at the last cusack um when we the last year of the last q second we got a one-year reprieve because we were in that purgatory for several years we were in purgatory for a while now no more purgatory for three years three years great job next order of business is new business and we do have some new business yes uh miss danny and i discussed earlier we were reviewing uh board of education meetings and as you may or may not have realized when we set the calendar for this year we didn't plan any meetings after april 2nd because the election was going to be held and then reorgan we would have selected the meeting

088so one thing we'll need to discuss tonight is future meetings uh beginning in april and through january 1st and also miss danny and i discussed the uh whether there was a need for the april 2nd meeting it's um it's right before we are schools closed for break a lot of people are going to be planning uh perhaps vacation on a personal note and it's really not a big deal because i'm going to bring him here if we have a board meeting it's my son joey's birthday he would love to come to a board meeting by the way so administratively it's not an issue if we don't have an april 2nd board meeting i defer to the board uh that's up for for you guys for discussion we do have a meeting on march 19th we

089absolutely need to have that meeting mr usee will tell us that the date we we have to have a our budget hearing now remember even though the public's not voting on the budget we will present the budget to the board and the board has to vote on the budget so there's timelines on that so if we can discuss that tonight and kind of sort all that out while we're while we're all in the same room um i think we should do that if if i can just make a recommendation i think the way we've been going with the uh the first and third thursdays i i feel like that's worked pretty well um i don't think we need two meetings each month in the summer i think one in july one in august will suffice

090that's typically i think what what you've done in the past but again i defer to you that's just my two cents madam chair i make a motion to remove the april 2nd meeting um so and then to re after this discuss uh the calendar okay so uh so right now we'll do uh motion to cancel the april 2nd um by commissioner vice chair second by mr um smith roll call mr adrabo miss bassford yes ms beltran yes mr kenobi yes mr daley yes mr casper yes mr picenti yes mr smith yes miss danny yes so now do we want administration to put together a calendar and next meeting we look to maybe we all take out our calendars or you know or any changes or anything that needs to be done so if you can

091send out early maybe a list a schedule and then if we actually have any conflicts we could already contact you and maybe get that resolved and then put it on the next meeting should we continue for may and june with the first and third has that seemed to have worked so that's what we'll you know we'll put together and propose mr uc for the budget um how are we with that timeline so i'm looking at it right now so the preliminary budget's due march yeah march 20th so our march 19th meeting is perfect the public hearing which is the final budget has to be between april 24th and sunday may 3rd i mean we won't have more meetings sunday but so i guess between friday april 24th and friday may 1st so thursday april that's

092going to be between that it has to be between those days it can't be thursday april 23rd no okay this is statutorily so april 30th april 30th so is does anyone have a conflict with april 30th speak now no okay so april 30th so no it doesn't you're right it doesn't have to be a thursday um but if you want we'll plan what we'll throw the draft out there with thursday april 30th okay um and then uh just see what everybody else okay yes that would be our only april meeting right i defer to the board on that well that would be well do you well you don't when we spoke you didn't need administratively i don't need that april 2nd meeting i will let all my administrators know that anything that needs to be

093approved for april needs to be put on the march 19th meeting um and then as far as administratively we can get away with one meeting in april but again because we have that week off but it corrects but again i defer to the board on that month and a half right between meetings it would be march 19th and april 30th so i don't know if that's too long i defer to you know what when you think about it and then just i defer to what they if they need it if they need it then otherwise if you need it then that's it you tell them just like we do in the summer yeah okay so we're done okay all right so is there any other um yeah new business we got a facilities and athletics

094since we have a couple of things come up i think we need to have a meeting so yeah we can schedule one definitely okay all right so that's it um next next order of business is executive session can i have a motion to go into executive session to discuss contract issues negotiations ea 05 student matter security issues motion so moved second motion by mr casper second bye oh um commissioner madam vice chair basford and action may be taken you