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MINUTES OF THE PATERSON BOARD OF EDUCATION WORKSHOP MEETING

April 26, 2004 – 6:00 p.m.

John F. Kennedy High School

Presiding: Comm. Chauncey Brown, Vice President Present: Dr. Edwin Duroy, State District Superintendent Dr. Maria Nuccetelli, Passaic County Superintendent Mr. Michael Azzara, Assistant Superintendent of Operations Mr. Gregory Johnson, General Counsel Comm. Leslie Agard-Jones Comm. William Kline Comm. Joseph Atallo Comm. Alonzo Moody Comm. Jonathan Hodges *Comm. Willa Mae Taylor Absent: Comm. Donald Generals Comm. Juan Santiago The Salute to the Flag was led by Comm. Brown. Comm. Brown read the Open Public Meetings Act: The New Jersey Open Public Meetings Act was enacted to insure the right of the public to have advance notice of, and to attend the meetings of the Paterson Public School District, as well as other public bodies at which any business affecting the interest of the public is discussed or acted upon. In accordance with the provisions of this law, the Paterson Public School District has caused notice of this meeting: Workshop Meeting April 26, 2004 at 6:00 p.m. John F. Kennedy High School 61-127 Preakness Avenue Paterson, New Jersey to be published by having the date, time and place posted in the office of the City Clerk of the City of Paterson, at the entrance of the Paterson Public School offices, and by sending notice of the meeting to the North Jersey Herald & News, The Record, El Diario, the Italian Voice, and Al-Zaman.

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Dr. Duroy: If I may, we are going to go right to the agenda. We do have a long agenda and we did not have any committee meetings. So we hope that we will be able to get through the agenda and address the issues. We do have staff members present who will be available to speak on specific items. So, Mr. Chairman, I ask that we go right to the agenda. *Comm. Taylor enters the meeting at 6:20 p.m. Curriculum & Instruction Committee Nos. A-71, A-72 and A-73 Comm. Brown: That will be fine. If no one has any objections, I believe there are a couple of students here along with a teacher and Dr. Sico who would like to make a presentation. I believe it is in the curriculum section in reference to A-71 through A-73. Dr. John Sico: If it is okay with everybody, we can go to A-71, A-72 and A-73. It is the same field trip. We have Mr. Ollo from Rosa Parks High School, along with a junior from Rosa Parks High School by the name of Curtis Eatman who, by the way, is applying to Harvard University and we expect him to get in. So I would like to turn this over to Mr. Ollo and Mr. Curtis Eatman. Mr. Curtis Eatman: Good evening ladies and gentlemen. My name is Curtis Eatman and this is Mr. Ollo, who is the advisor of the Paterson Future Teachers Club of Tomorrow. We are here to ask your permission to attend the overnight trip on May 13th and 14th of 2004. I am currently representing Eastside, Rosa Parks, and John F. Kennedy High Schools. Unfortunately, we prepared a PowerPoint presentation for everybody but found out it was not necessary. So I am extending this open invitation to you all to come to Rosa Parks and to view the PowerPoint presentation, which the advisor and I created. We would be glad to share it with you for those who want to come. Basically, what this trip does for students is give them the ability and the opportunity to go out of the class and to experience an out-of-class education. What this trip builds is leadership skills and communication skills. The way to build communication skills is to build communication within the three high schools because the three high schools come together. It builds leadership skills because the students are put in positions where they have to express leadership and figure out a problem or an obstacle. Students become well diverse with each other. They become more talkative and more diverse in understanding one another, learning new ideas and new concepts from one another. They learn how to become a better teacher to teach in the Paterson districts and in the Paterson schools. Students will benefit from this program. I personally benefit from this program because some of the things they have done I have never done before. It gave me a challenge to also make myself be able to perform this. For instance, I had never canoed before and it was a challenge doing this. I also had a partner, which also builds skills and leadership, and that helped communication with my partner. So by going on this overnight trip, it will help benefit students in those three aspects of communication, of leadership and of diversity. Whether it is by learning from one another, learning from an advisor, or learning from fellow students. Right now, are there any questions that the advisor or I can answer?

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Comm. Brown: There is only one question I have. Mr. Eatman: Also, the program is free. I’m sorry to cut you off. The program is free and it does not cost the Paterson district any funds or anything. Comm. Brown: What is going to be the date and time of the PowerPoint presentation that you had mentioned at Rosa Parks? Mr. Eatman: Basically, it will probably be after school. Comm. Brown: When is it going to be? Mr. Eatman: Are there any other questions that either the advisor or I can answer? Comm. Atallo: (Comments were made away from the microphone and were not heard on tape.) Mr. Eatman: Well, what I mean by free is it won’t cost the Paterson schools any funds. It comes out of the club’s own economic funding. So the club pays for it. That is what I mean by free. Nothing is free, but the district does not pay. Comm. Taylor: I am not hearing Dr. Atallo’s conversation with you. What was he saying? Mr. Eatman: He is saying that it is not free and I understand that. But what I was trying to reiterate is that it won’t cost the Paterson district anything. It is paid for by the club itself. Mr. Michael Ollo: The monies come from the Taub Foundation and the Paterson Teachers for Tomorrow Program, which is administered by Dr. Gillette at William Paterson. They allocate the funds. So Curtis is right when he says the money does not come from our district. Comm. Brown: Thank you very much. Mr. Eatman: Thank you for having us. Comm. Taylor: Are all of them from the Taub Foundation? Dr. Duroy: Yes, those three. Comm. Taylor: A-71, A-72 and A-73? Dr. Duroy: Yes. Comm. Taylor: Okay.

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No. A-14 Dr. Duroy: Mr. Chairman, I will refer to the Board A-14, which is the district technology plan. I have asked Ms. Patterson to schedule a formal presentation at the next work session on the three-year technology plan. We are going to inform the state that we will consider the approval at the May meeting and not this evening. I think that this particular item is one that really needs to be presented and gives the Board and the curriculum committee a little more time to review it. We will make the presentation at the May meeting. Comm. Hodges: Are we pulling this one? Dr. Duroy: Yes. Comm. Brown: Are there any other questions in the curriculum section from A-1 through A-24? No. A-1 Comm. Hodges: Yes, there are a few. Most regrettably, I did not bring all the questions I had with me but I will try to go through from memory. On A-1, there were 68 computers purchased over the course of the year in this program for the sum total of $110,000. I can’t remember how many calculators were purchased by different groups. I was just wondering if there was some sort of overarching group watching or monitoring these purchases and the kinds of items that we are buying? Comm. Taylor: Inventory. Comm. Hodges: Anything in terms of computer hardware? Dr. Duroy: We do have a technology coordinator and assistant who monitor that and the issue related to the type of computer as well. I hope that at the next work session we will be able to focus specifically on the issue of technology and we will be able to answer with specificity some of the questions that you just raised. Comm. Hodges: I saw there were $60,000 worth of calculators purchased. This is A-1. And then earlier on, I think another school purchased other calculators. The item said for all elementary and high schools so it is unclear to me why those purchases were made over and above the ones that another school asked for. Dr. Duroy: Okay. I don’t know whether Ms. Patterson can address that specific question. Comm. Hodges: And there was even more stuff on the next-to-the-last-page under MIS. They ordered computer equipment and so forth. So it seems everybody is just buying I-Macs, or whatever you call them.

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Dr. Sico: In reference to the calculators, I reached out to Brenda Patterson’s office and we purchased $70,000 worth of calculators. Our goal is to have a TI83+ in the hands of all the high school students. Comm. Hodges: TI what? Dr. Sico: TI83+. That is the name of the calculator - Texas Instruments 83+. In addition to that, we ordered TI30+. The Commissioner of Education’s directive was that every student should have a calculator and what we are doing now is rather than have classroom sets, expand on it so that we have enough calculators so eventually students would be able to take calculators home like they do their textbooks. So $70,000 of that purchase was to get calculators for the high schools and the elementary students at the 8th grade level. Comm. Hodges: You ordered TI83+? Dr. Sico: TI83+ and TI30+. Comm. Hodges: Well, these calculators were TI12’s. I remember that distinctly. Some portion of them was TI12. Dr. Sico: Right, the math supervisors at the early grades prefer TI12. That is at the kindergarten through 4th grade levels. Eventually we would like to have TI30’s in the 8th, 7th and 6th grades totally because it is a more advanced calculator. But some of the supervisors in the k-5 grades prefer the TI12’s. Comm. Hodges: Okay. Comm. Brown: Thank you, Dr. Sico. Ms. Brenda Patterson: It says here computers were $10,000, not $100,000. Comm. Hodges: No, if you go through that total list, there are 68 computers. I spent the afternoon counting them today. I don’t have the figures with me because I left them home, but the total figure was over $110,000 of purchases and that is just the ones that were listed. I didn’t get to MIS’s because they did not list how many computers they had next to the last page. They just said they bought over $100,000 worth of computer equipment. So I guess we will discuss this further at the next meeting. Did you say at the workshop? Dr. Duroy: Are you talking specifically about the type of computers that we are ordering and things of that nature? Comm. Hodges: Just who is monitoring what. Dr. Duroy: Right, I understand.

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Comm. Taylor: They are not going home yet, are they? They are supposed to be at the schools. So the inventory for the schools should have them there for the high schools and then the ones for k-5. They should know how many they have in the building and which ones are operable. Dr. Duroy: Yes, absolutely. Comm. Taylor: After a point some of them… Dr. Duroy: In the technology plan there is an outline that includes that. Again, that is specific to the technology plan. I think we would be able to spend more time on that at that point. Ms. Patterson: They keep an inventory at every school and anything purchased out of Title I funds we keep an inventory as well. Additionally, when we order computers, even though they are considered a supply if they are less than $2,000, they come in through central storage and they are all labeled and inventoried. We do monitor and make sure that we keep track of all of those computers. As Dr. Sico mentioned, some are dispersed directly to the school. After we have inventoried them, they will come and pick them up and use or recycle back. For instance, if I have any, I recycle them back to a school. Comm. Hodges: I certainly don’t object to buying computers. I just noticed there seems to be a variance as to the types and, of course, the corresponding cost. So I was hoping there would be some sort of standardization of equipment so that it could be used anywhere in the school district, unless these particular items were dedicated for a particular purpose. But that was never completely outlined. So I am hoping we can find some mechanism to streamline these purchases and perhaps control them so everybody knows what is going on. Ms. Patterson: There was a short period when we were actually asked not to purchase computers from the state. They kind of put a halt on that. But, for the most part, we look at what the ability is. What is it that we want the computer for? Say, for instance, we bought a computer so that we could actually use it as a server. The capacity of that one would be more than what we would normally need to type some word documents or vice-versa at the school level. Mr. Joseph Serico: In the new plan and starting this year, all technology purchases are going to go through the Department of Technology, Ralph Barca’s office. They will be checked to make sure there is standardization or within a price range of what the computer should be because there are also peripherals that you add to it. So we are going to check everything first before a technology purchase is made. So that is part of the new plan that is going to be instituted this year. So everything is going to go through that office so they will see what is being purchased and there won’t be a big discrepancy over someone buying a $5,000 computer and someone else buying a $1,200 computer. We will keep everything in the ballpark at the same price, maybe a little bit different here or there depending on the needs of the school.

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Comm. Brown: Dr. Hodges, you still have the floor. No. A-2 Comm. Hodges: Thank you. In the PEP-21… Comm. Brown: What item? Comm. Hodges: I’m sorry, A-2. I should have just brought my list and copied it for everybody. I didn’t do that and I’m sorry. I noticed we are paying for programs at Paterson Catholic HS. How does that work? Dr. Jack Perna: Under federal regulations, private and parochial schools have to be invited to participate in funded programs such as this. In order to fulfill the requirements of the NGO, the Notice of Grant Opportunity, you have to send out a questionnaire to the schools. I did that and Paterson Catholic was one of the schools that responded. They wanted to become a partner, and so they are a partner. That is how that came about. Comm. Hodges: Other than the Lightspan testing, are there any other objective measures as to success? You have some indicators here but what I am sensing from what you are… Dr. Perna: There is attendance correlated with attendance during the day to see if there is improvement in attendance. There are questionnaires given to the teachers in reference to the behavior of the children. Do you see a decrease in violent behavior? Do you see an increase in positive peer relationships developing? Do you see more creativity on the part of the child? Do you see better quality and quantity of homework being submitted? Comm. Hodges: Those are all subjective measures and I was wondering… Dr. Perna: No, those are all objectives measures because you are starting off with a child not giving homework or giving homework sporadically, and you are going through improvement in the homework. You are collecting all that and it does get quantified. Then that goes into the federal report. In this case it is a state report. The percentages are all done. Comm. Hodges: So are you having numbers of the differences? Dr. Perna: Yes. Comm. Hodges: I didn’t get a sense of that from the use of the term questionnaire or survey. Dr. Perna: You have to survey the teachers, the parents, the children, the staff or the people who are working in the after-school programs and then you quantify all of that and submit it into the federal reports that are sent every year.

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Comm. Hodges: So you will be getting actual data? Dr. Perna: Right. And that is what this is promulgated on, the fact that we had had quite a bit of success in the first 21st Century grant that we had gotten. It is coming to an end in August of this year. So this is a continuation of that. It is not quite the same amount. We were getting twice as much money in prior years, but we don’t have as many sites. We had more sites under the federal program. This is federal money passed through to the states in the form of block grants, but similar federal guidelines apply here too. Comm. Taylor: And we do the bookkeeping and handling of the money? Dr. Perna: Yes. We do the bookkeeping and we handle the money. For example, the Paterson Catholic staff are all hired because you can’t pay the school directly because of the separation of church and state. So payments are not made to Paterson Catholic but payments for the teachers are all going to be done on a consulting basis. So the teacher fills out a consulting form and then we pay them as if they were consultants to Paterson Public Schools. Comm. Taylor: The students that are attending, are they students that went to public schools before they went to parochial school? Dr. Perna: Yes and no. They will have children who just attend Paterson Catholic and they will be taking children from the public schools into the programs there also. Comm. Taylor: What I am saying to you is they are assessing those children who are going to Paterson Catholic. Are they coming out of the public schools going to Paterson Catholic? Are these our students that went through the public schools that we are now enriching their education? Dr. Perna: I would assume many of them are coming out of the public school system and going to the high school, Paterson Catholic. But I don’t know what the numbers are specifically. But those are the parameters that came from the state in order for us to get these funds. Comm. Taylor: These are partnership grants? Dr. Perna: Yes. In effect, that is what they are. They bring in all these different agencies, too. Comm. Hodges: What is the enrichment component of this program? Dr. Perna: Well, there is art education, there is music, and there is dance. We bring in a karate instructor. Then there is CPR training. There is a safe-sitters program through St. Joseph’s Hospital. There is a YMCA program for swimming. There is volleyball. The police athletic league does their fitness program. There is the explorer’s program. Some of the funding for the explorers will come through here. There are trips to the

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theater and to the movie house. Since we don’t have one in town we usually bring the children in to the movies a couple of times during the summer. They go to the public pool using a bus. They also get their academic work done and there is homework help too. Comm. Hodges: Homework help is not really enrichment and these supplement the academics. But they don’t provide enrichment to the academic curriculum or to the academics that these students are going to encounter. Dr. Perna: Well, you would assume that if a child starts to express him or herself musically, you would see an increase in mathematics. There is a very high correlation between those two. As you teach music, children’s ability to think abstractly improves. So by having these enrichment activities, it does impact on their academic achievement. That is just one example. Comm. Brown: Dr. Perna, how many students will this grant be reaching? Dr. Perna: It will reach about 450 each year. In the elementary grades, it is targeted only now on the state level and we are only able to service 4th through 8th grade. In the past, we were able to service kindergarten through 8th grade in the elementary schools. Unfortunately, that is the way the state structured it and they were unable to change their application. In the past, remember that the focus was here to provide opportunities for families to be able to get after-school programs for all the children in the family that were attending school. Now, unfortunately, I don’t have a vehicle for reaching those k-3 children that might be from the same family. For example, if you and Dr. Atallo were brothers in the same family, he is in the 3rd grade and you are in the 6th grade, I could take you into the program and I have to say I’m sorry but he can’t come in. So there is still a pressing need for after-school programs to fill this gap here if we are going to be able to provide this kind of thing that we would hope to be able to provide all the families in the city. Comm. Hodges: I’m just a little troubled by the notion that while I do see the value of some of those other activities, I hesitate to call it enrichment. It is certainly not academic enrichment. I see that as enriching the child’s overall experience and I have no problem with that. But when I saw enrichment, I was thinking in terms of improving or expanding on what the child was learning in school. Dr. Perna: There is a bridge between the day school and the after school as far as trying not to get out of sync with the curriculum that is being addressed during the day. In other words, you are not going to take the thunder away from the daytime instruction by going ahead in the curriculum. Comm. Hodges: But that is what an enrichment program does generally. You expand dramatically on what the child learns. That is why you call it enrichment. If you didn’t go over and above what the child normally got in the classroom… Dr. Perna: Then you are going deeper perhaps into similar areas, rather than going into areas that may be touched later on in the curriculum.

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Comm. Hodges: Fine, but are you doing any of that? Dr. Perna: That is where the coordination between the day-school program and the after-school programs come in. So there is communication between the day programs and the extended-day programs. Comm. Hodges: I will talk to you. I don’t want to belabor the point but I will reach into that a little bit further because I am curious. I would like to see an actual enrichment program and I don’t see that. Dr. Perna: Like a talented and gifted program? Comm. Hodges: Or even just enhancing. At our level, an enrichment program might just mean getting back to some of the normal levels that everyone else has attained. So I would like to at least see that, as opposed to swimming and some of the other things. Not opposed, but in addition to all of these other things if we are going to call it an enrichment program because an enrichment program means to me that you are going beyond what you do normally in math or science. That is a true enrichment program. I have some very narrow views on what you can call an enrichment program and have it actually enrich children educationally. Dr. Perna: Well, we have some of those coming along too. We are working on a cool grant right now for gifted and talented children. I think it is a very exciting thing. It will be done by the end of this weekend – that proposal. Comm. Hodges: That is fine, but that is my concern with this. When I saw enrichment, I was hoping to see something with a little bit more meat educationally. I will let that lie. Thank you very much. Dr. Duroy: I have a question on the amount. You have $500,000 and you are also showing four years. Is it $500,000? Dr. Perna: It is $500,000 per year. Dr. Duroy: Per year. Okay. Dr. Perna: So it is $2 million, but you have to renew these. The state grants get renewed every year but if you don’t perform, you don’t get the next installment. With federal grants, you are given a commitment for the full amount. Provided the federal government does not crash, the money is there. On the state level, you have to go through almost the same process over again that you went through the first time. The proposal is almost as weighty for the renewals and you will see there are some renewals in here too. Comm. Hodges: I think you see my point. Comm. Brown: Dr. Perna, this is the first year of this grant, correct?

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Dr. Perna: Yes, for this one it is. This is the first year on state level, but we have had this grant on the federal level for three years now. So we are going to be getting continual funding through 21st Century and it will extend for seven years altogether from the beginning through the end of this. Comm. Brown: What mechanisms do you have in place to determine after one year the success of this program? Dr. Perna: We have all the objectives that you have listed and you can see them in here. Then there are reports and you have to show how much progress you have made on each one of those indicators. You have to constantly be monitoring and then you make the reports. You have to show that you are reaching the objectives. Comm. Kline: With regard to the evaluation reports, when these resolutions are presented to us, if there are previous years of service could we have an evaluation report to refer to as to the indicators, such as reduction of suspension, increase in attendance, achieving or surpassing the standards for 4th grade, and things like that? Dr. Perna: Right, I can give you all of those. The federal grant requires all of that. They are called Annual Performance Reports, APR’s. Comm. Kline: I am saying that if we receive that in our packet, it might reduce some of the questioning time that you or whomever is going to report will have to undergo. Dr. Perna: Okay, perhaps. Comm. Brown: Thank you, Dr. Perna. No. A-3 Comm. Hodges: What constitutes a refugee? Dr. Perna: It is a great question because under federal law you can’t ask anybody if they are a refugee or not. So the state, for example, sent us a list of countries and they have stated that people coming from these countries can be considered refugees. So all you have to do is ascertain if this person is from one of the target countries. Whether they are truly refugees or not under the federal statutes and under the federal understanding that they were persecuted or their lives were in danger, you don’t get into that. You know they were from Colombia, so they qualify. If they were from Cuba, they qualify. If they were from Haiti, they qualify. How they got here and the one foot/dry foot/wet foot rules they have for determining who is a refugee and who gets deported don’t apply here. If they are here and they are from target countries, such as Albania or the former Soviet Union, they can be part of this program. Right now they have designated about 396 people who are attending school in the Paterson Public Schools fall into that category and could be refugees. Comm. Hodges: Could we get a list of those?

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Dr. Perna: Of the countries? Comm. Hodges: Of the countries. Dr. Perna: Yes. It is interesting. I can give that to you. There are about 25 or 30. Comm. Hodges: So all they have to do is just be from that country? Dr. Perna: Albania is one of them. If you are from Albania and you want to be in the program, you can be in the program. If you are from Israel and if you are Palestinian, and there are Palestinian refugees, Israel is not one of the countries. So the Palestinian population that we have is not considered refugees. They cannot be in this program. They are from Palestine but they are not on the list, Dr. Atallo, of refugee countries. Even though common sense would say these are the most needy people, they can’t be in the program. Comm. Hodges: Wow! There is nothing else? That is just it, just a list? Dr. Perna: Just a list of countries and those are the only countries we can take people from into this program. Comm. Taylor: The federal list is the same as the state list? Dr. Perna: (Comments were made away from the microphone and were not heard on tape.) Comm. Taylor: Because there used to be a time when we had higher standards than the federal government and we expected other things of our people, other than what the federal government expected. Now you are saying everything is the same? Dr. Perna: Since the federal monies come through in a block grant to the states, whatever the state put in their consolidated grant proposal, that is the way it comes down. Ordinarily, they will follow whatever guidelines the federal government gave them. So they really can’t expand in this particular instance on who is a refugee. The federal government determines what countries qualify and ones that are not on the list don’t. It is just that simple, or not so simple. Comm. Kline: Who provides the individual counseling and the family counseling - Paterson Public School staff, or someone else? Dr. Perna: The Catholic Charities. That was another proviso in the Notice of Grant Opportunity. You have to have an agency outside of the school system that deals primarily with refugee families do the counseling. The counseling contracts in this town for the most part go to Catholic Family Services. Comm. Hodges: Can we have a list of the current demographics?

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Dr. Perna: Yes. That is very interesting, too. They tell you how many students are coming from each one of the countries. Comm. Hodges: I’d appreciate that. Dr. Perna: That is part of the NGO. They did tell us that. Comm. Brown: If you could provide the whole Board with that it would be very helpful. Dr. Perna: It is not a very long NGO, but it is an interesting one to read. So I will give it to everybody. Comm. Brown: You have the floor, Dr. Hodges. Nos. A-4 and A-5 Comm. Hodges: What is the difference between A-4 and A-5? Sis. Mary Teresa Orbegozo: It is the same program, but there are two different people funding the program. Two different entities fund the program. Comm. Hodges: So it is dually funded and you have pretty much the same standards? Sis. Orbegozo: This is to serve the youths 16-21 years of age, the dropout population, and the students that are at risk. We bring in kids from Eastside and Kennedy High Schools that are referred to us by the dropout specialist. During the course of the year, there are three main goals that we try to achieve. They are to assist the students 16-21 to improve academically and at the end to get the high school diploma, to engage themselves in meaningful community services, and also to have career counseling and employability skills. These are the three main goals that the NGO asks us to complete. We have been pretty successful in our 19 years of operation. This past year, we had 71 students who improved their academic skills. We have a total of 80. In the test of basic adult education, we improved 2.3 grade levels. Also we had 20 graduates with the high school diploma. We have performed over 12,000 hours of community service. All of the students receive a stipend for community service and the stipend is part of the funded program. Dr. Duroy: On the first question having to do with funding, one goes through the county entity and the other one directly to the Department of Labor and the state. Sis. Orbegozo: Yes. Comm. Taylor: Are these two different groups of students or is it the same amount of students? Sis. Orbegozo: No, it is the same students. Comm. Taylor: So your money is really…

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Sis. Orbegozo: It comes from two sources. Comm. Taylor: But it is really about $600,000. Sis. Orbegozo: Yes. Comm. Taylor: Alright. And the same amount of students. Do you ever get more than 70? Sis. Orbegozo: Well, during the course of the year we want to take 80 and the proposal is for 80. But in order to end up with this, because we do have dropouts in the program, we might enroll 90 or 95. But we usually end up with between 70 and 80. Comm. Taylor: What do you do with the money when the students drop out? Do you roll it over? Sis. Orbegozo: Usually, since the students perform community service… Comm. Taylor: But you have over $600,000 for 80 students and some of them drop out. So what happens to the money for those students who drop out? Sis. Orbegozo: Most of the money is for teacher salaries, paid benefits, instructional materials and telephone. We also have approximately between $60,000 and $70,000 to pay for the students’ stipends. It is true that sometimes we might not spend $5,000. Last year we didn’t so we rolled that $5,000 over for the following year because if the students drop out, you don’t pay them. Comm. Taylor: So the stipend area you roll over? Sis. Orbegozo: Yes, the other is always expended. Comm. Hodges: So you are spending roughly $7,500 per student and you are able to get them 2.3 years over the course of 180 days plus whatever? Sis. Orbegozo: Small group instruction. That is the clue with these students. Comm. Hodges: How small is a class? Sis. Orbegozo: Could be 10 or 15, but no more than 15. Dr. Duroy: Thank you, Sister. No. A-6 Comm. Hodges: On A-6, I am a little concerned about the benchmarks. There are no numbers here. I guess they call them indicators that increase demonstration of students’ ability to work in groups. What does that mean? Writing work samples,

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improved language arts literacy, multimedia student projects, and so on and so forth. There are no percentages and no numbers, as opposed to A-2 where there were actually some benchmarks that people had to reach. None of that is indicated here, which would demonstrate that anything is actually occurring. Dr. Perna: You are right. It is still going to be done, but it won’t be done quite in the same way. In other words, they will be looking at the standardized test results at School #10 very carefully. Primarily, this was to improve on those scores in language arts. That is what all of this was all about. So if we are going to see any real bang for the buck here, we should see it in the increase in the 3rd grade, 4th grade and 7th grade scores. That was really what this whole thing was trying to measure and trying to impact upon. So when we get those results, we are expecting to see an increase from last year’s language arts ASK and GEPA results. Those will be the major indicators for this particular project. Comm. Hodges: This is across the board or for a certain number of students? Dr. Perna: This is a school-wide program. This was a very large grant that Mr. Rizzo was able to get in collaboration with Rutgers University and this is a continuation. Last year it was $400,000. This year’s continuation is $240,000 and it adds more grades. Each year it adds two grades more to the project that were included. There is a lot of staff development. 25% of all this money goes to staff development in the teachers. Comm. Hodges: Okay, so this is $240,000 over and above last year? Dr. Perna: Over and above the $400,000 for the first year. So the total amount is $640,000 for the two years in one school. So if you go there now, for example, you should see a tremendous amount of technology being used. For example, the children are using these wireless handheld devices where they keep all their field notes and they are able to beam those field notes to anybody in the room. They can beam them to the teacher. They can beam them to each other. They can be loaded onto a computer right from these handheld devices that the children have. So it is a marvel to see. I would advise you to go and take a look at it. Comm. Hodges: You mean PDA’s. Dr. Perna: No, they go beyond the PDA. Comm. Hodges: Beyond the PDA? Dr. Perna: Yes. Comm. Hodges: Then I will go and look at that. Dr. Perna: They are more user-friendly. I don’t know how you are doing with your PDA, but mine is a little bit quirky. These Dana’s were designed specifically for children and I think they are great tools. You have to take a look at what is going on over there. The training that Rutgers is providing to the staff is invaluable, also. The spirit de corps in

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that building has gone up tremendously since this has happened. So they are there and they are very active in the classroom. It is just not whole instruction of everybody and the staff. They are getting right to the classroom teacher and working with them in the classroom. They are doing these critical friend circles. They are doing literacy circles with the children. There is a lot of interaction with families. There is a lot of writing going on that was not going on before, not at this level and to this extent. So we are seeing a great deal of changes occurring in the curriculum there. But again, the true measure will be, and the state is going to look at this too to see if they got what they were expecting, that they are expecting those scores to increase dramatically. Comm. Hodges: Did we see that over last year? Is there any way to check? Dr. Perna: To tell you the truth, I couldn’t tell you for sure what those results were. In the continuation they did ask for them. Those results were put in here, but off the top of my head I couldn’t tell you how dramatic the change was. I am not swearing to it, but I am fairly certain there was a change for the better. Comm. Hodges: The reason I am asking is if this program is so outstanding and we are seeing dramatic results, I certainly would like to have other schools which are perhaps not doing as well benefit from the practice. So I am very curious and that is why I am asking some of these questions. I want to pinpoint programs that are working and that are demonstrating success so that we can then take a look at those programs and duplicate them in other places. Dr. Perna: Exactly, and that is what all of these programs require. They are looking for models that can be replicated. Comm. Hodges: Absolutely. So I guess the question is… Dr. Perna: Can you demonstrate that it really works? Comm. Hodges: Yes. Dr. Perna: And I agree with you. That still needs to be put in place and demonstrated that it is working effectively. Right now I am getting more anecdotal data. It is all so great, you can go and look at it, and everybody is happy with it. But that is like more fuzzy, touchy-feely type information. It is the numbers that we really need to look at if we are going to come off Category I, for example. Comm. Hodges: That is right. Dr. Perna: If we want to move them from Category I to Category II by next year, is this going to do it? Comm. Hodges: That is my question exactly. Dr. Perna: That is certainly one that we are going to look at.

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Comm. Hodges: None of these objectives, except the test score one, gets me an answer and that is what I am trying to get. Dr. Perna: That is a good pursuit and it will be pursued. Comm. Taylor: What are the grades again, Dr. Perna? On this one it says we will start at target grades 3, 4 and 5. Which grades did they target before or did they begin with, including bilingual classes? That is what it says on the resolution. Dr. Perna: They started higher and they are working lower. Comm. Taylor: They are going down? Dr. Perna: Yes. Comm. Taylor: So this is 3rd, 4th and 5th, including bilingual classes? Dr. Perna: Yes. They started in 4th and 5th and now this year they are going to include 3rd, 4th and 5th. They include the same students again so a lot of services are going to be given to the same children over again. They are not going to be dropped from the program. So there is a continuation. Comm. Taylor: I know it says it is a continuing application. It says here this was enacted 5/1/03 to 6/30/04 and that is the one from last year. That was the one-year, the first year. Now this is going to go into the second year. Dr. Perna: Right. Comm. Taylor: I don’t believe I have the one with all the information about this program for last year. Could I see that? Dr. Perna: We can give it to you. Would you like to see the whole proposal? Comm. Taylor: Yes. Dr. Perna: Okay. It is kind of a hefty document, but I can mail it to you. Comm. Taylor: If you can place it somewhere so I can sit down and read it and review it, fine. Dr. Perna: I will make a copy and send it off to you. There are a lot of good things in there. Comm. Taylor: Yes, I would like to see it because we can check with teachers and children and parents if they are all included. What they are saying here this should have been a fantastic year for them in the 4th and 5th grade.

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Dr. Perna: Like I said, anecdotally, those are the reports that I am getting. But until we get the actual test results back from this year, we are not going to really know how effective it was in the language arts area. But considering all the effort that was put into it, I would suspect that we would see an increase this year on those tests scores. Comm. Taylor: On the 4th and 5th graders? Dr. Perna: For the children that were involved this year. Comm. Taylor: It was 4th and 5th, and you are saying they are going down to 3rd. Dr. Perna: Right. Comm. Hodges: You said they had some sort of justification last year that says how well they did. Dr. Perna: It was based on last year’s test scores. It is similar to what the report card looks like. Those are the kinds of things they ask for. How many free and reduced lunches? What is the ethnic breakdown of the school? How many LEP children do you have? How many children are achieving at proficient levels, at the advanced levels and within the subgroups? Those are the kinds of things that go in the needs piece. Comm. Hodges: I guess I would like to see what they consider to have changed from this program last year. I would like to see those results. They used something to justify this year. So if they are going to submit that evidence, I would like to see that evidence so that I can get in my mind, and maybe many other Board members as well, what kinds of successes are occurring. Dr. Perna: What the state has is a rubric with about 15 items and they come in and they do an evaluation. They came to the school and did a site visit. They spend the entire day going into the different classes and interviewing people. They talk to the principal and the teachers and the children. There are scores that they indicate based on what they see. It is not just a matter of what we report. They come up and they look. I can get a copy of that rubric and give it to you. Comm. Hodges: I would appreciate that. Thank you very much. Comm. Taylor: Parents are included in that as well? Dr. Perna: Yes. There are parent questionnaires that are required. If I can indulge you, so I am not up and down a million times, C-13 has to do with our technology bus. Can we look at that? Comm. Hodges: We are still in curriculum, sorry. No. A-7

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Comm. Hodges: On A-7, the Federal E-RATE, what is happening with this now? The current program is… Dr. Sico: We had five ISDN and IDLS sites and as you know we now have state-of-the-art technology. This past year we had ITV in all 50 sites. Verizon is no longer supporting ISDN or IDLS. If you look at the summary sheet, the cost for the five sites to Paterson was $7,617 because E-RATE picked up the rest. That is page four of the summary sheet. That was for five sites. With all 50 sites with our new system, the total cost to Paterson is $11,256, which comes out to $225.12 per site. It is a win-win situation. Again, Verizon is no longer supporting it so we had to get a new system and we thought way ahead of everyone else. We have state-of-the-art. We have a 768 system, which I may say makes Paterson number one in the state, if not in the country, with ITV. We are connecting with New Jersey Edge on this. That gives us the ability to communicate with Michigan State University and any major university college that is part of the system. If there is a biology program going on and they are showing it over ITV, there will be like a TV Guide going out and all the teacher has to do is let us know what program they want to see at least a week ahead of time so we can connect with the schools and be interactive. Comm. Hodges: That was my question. Which schools are part of that? Dr. Sico: Every site. Every school has ITV capability. Comm. Hodges: No, No. Which universities and colleges are part of this system? Could we get a list of those? Dr. Sico: Yes. As soon as it is approved, they will give us the list of all the colleges. It is the major colleges and universities. I know Michigan State is involved. They sold it to us, although they did not have to sell it because we would have bought it anyway. Harvard is involved. Princeton is involved and we will get the list. Anyone with higher education participates, and our longstanding partners PCCC. We do a lot with them and they do a good job. No. A-8 Comm. Hodges: This is the way it is in curriculum, as you know. Comm. Kline: Excuse me, Mr. President. There is no reason to believe that the other members of the committee are not aware. He is asking questions that we have on our list and there is no point in our being redundant. Comm. Brown: Thank you, Comm. Kline. Comm. Hodges: On the list of textbooks, why are there so many science textbooks? I was just curious.

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Dr. Sico: Because we got a lot of free materials when we did the adoption and I did that to show everything that we are getting. It is not all textbooks. It is workbooks, supplementary books and resource kits. So I just listed everything that we are getting. Comm. Hodges: Is there one… I couldn’t determine which… Comm. Agard-Jones: Which one is being used. Comm. Hodges: Yes. I couldn’t figure out which… I guess my question is whether every school is using the same textbook. Dr. Sico: Yes. It is the district’s goal that every school uses the same books. This adoption was put on hold. We did part of it and the balance of it is going to be taken care of now and every school will have the same book. Comm. Hodges: They are using the same textbook? Or it is our goal to get them there? Dr. Sico: As of July 1st everybody will be using these books here. Comm. Hodges: Okay. So currently that is not the case? Dr. Sico: Well, everybody has been using the same books, but these books here are new editions. As of July 1st everybody will have the new editions. Right now the only schools with the new editions are Eastside and Kennedy High Schools. Comm. Hodges: Okay. Now, I noticed we have this Keyboarding Applications I and II. I don’t, for the life of me, understand why we can’t do something more in the area of computing, as opposed to just keyboarding. Dr. Sico: Right. We are going to be going through a posting for a curriculum committee for textbooks for the business department. These are the books that have already been approved so I didn’t take any books off the list. Every book that has been approved is on the list. Once we had new editions, we took the old ones off and put the new ones. So until we go through the textbook committee for the business department, we will have these and then we are working on new curriculums. The curriculums are in the process of being updated as we speak. It is an ongoing process. I think that is what you are getting towards. Comm. Agard-Jones: My question was a little along that line. How often are these textbooks reviewed? I did note that in some of the curriculum, the curriculum follows the textbook, i.e. Chapter 1, Chapter 2, and Chapter 3. Frankly, in my view, that is not curriculum. With some of them, that is how it goes. Chapter 1, this is the outline and so that is the curriculum. So I was wondering how often the curriculum is reviewed and how often the textbooks are reviewed to ensure that they are updated to ensure that the materials that are being presented are appropriate. And who does that?

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Dr. Sico: When we do a new textbook adoption, they are done by a committee. The posting goes out and you try to get a representative from each of the schools. They are to go back and bring back the information to their teachers at their site and we get the input of everybody. We then narrow it down to the top three and we have a vote on the top three. We have a final presentation and the committee makes the decision. We expect the textbooks to last at least five years. We are almost to the point now where we are going to have new textbooks for every discipline. That will happen after this new school year, 2004-2005. Comm. Agard-Jones: There has always been this criticism that students don’t have textbooks in Paterson schools. I have been here for some time and I have been told that we bought all these new textbooks and somehow there is a disconnect in my brain between what you have been saying over the years in terms of the purchase of textbooks and what I keep hearing that students don’t have textbooks. Dr. Sico: There are two things. Any new textbook adoption that we do comes from central office. We supply new textbooks for every student. There are no shortages of textbooks. Replacement books are the responsibility of the schools. They have a budget to get replacement textbooks. There is no shortage of textbooks. If there is a shortage of textbooks, then that is supposed to be brought to my attention via the supervisors and directors. We had this discussion about two months ago. Somebody said there was a shortage and when we questioned them, there was no shortage. There was a wish list to have additional textbooks to have an extra supply in the bookroom. That is a lot different from having a shortage of textbooks. Granted, there should be a surplus because kids do lose books. That is a fact of life. When we ordered the new textbook adoptions, we ordered 18% overage so that there is an ample supply just in case somebody does lose a textbook or if you have new students coming in. There is no shortage of textbooks and I must compliment the principals. They did what they were supposed to do. The directive was that they are responsible for replacing the books. To my knowledge, based on the information I have, they did that. In fact, we made that a point when we had the presentation of the budget. The replacement was the responsibility of the schools. But there is a more than ample supply of new textbooks. Comm. Kline: When parents come down and make a complaint about a lack of textbooks, is there any effort to validate or invalidate that? Dr. Sico: We check into it and we don’t find that there is a shortage. Now, if there is a teacher or a school not allowing textbooks to go home, that is not a shortage and it is our responsibility when we find out about it. The books are given to take home. At the end of the year, if we get back a brand new book that is not opened, what is the purpose of buying the book? The idea is to take the books home. We know there is going to be usage and books will get used and that is okay. That is the purpose of buying books - to have the students use them. When we find out that teachers don’t allow books to go home, we correct it. There isn’t any assistant superintendent here or district high school coordinator who would substantiate books not going home. If we find out about that, the books go home.

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Dr. Duroy: We do follow up every inquiry, whether it is a parent, teacher or community member, who raises the issue. We have followed up on every issue every time we hear that. If there is a need for correction it has been made, but many times we find that it was just miscommunication. Dr. Sico: One parent said there was a shortage of special education books. What happened was the chairman of that particular school decided not to pass out the books because he thought the books were a little too hard. That is not right because the books were chosen by committee. When we found out about it, we resolved that problem. Comm. Hodges: I have been to classes where the teachers collect the books up and won’t let the students take them home. I have personally seen that. I have also been to classrooms… Dr. Sico: Well, that should not happen. The books are there for kids to take home to use. Comm. Hodges: I agree but I have personally been to classrooms where there have been discussions about the shortages of books. Dr. Sico: All I can say is that when it comes to our attention we stop it. Comm. Hodges: Again, the reason I brought up the keyboarding issue is because this is my third year and I have been asking about computing programming and including that in the curriculum as either a math course, part of a math course, or what have you. We still don’t have that and I am concerned. Dr. Sico: We have C++ offered at the high schools. To accommodate the academies, we are starting a C++ course on Saturday that is going to be offered as an enrichment course. Comm. Hodges: I am talking about introducing computing as opposed to keyboarding. Dr. Sico: Through the business department? Comm. Hodges: Not through the business department. I mean in the elementary schools where other people are. Dr. Sico: Yes. We are going to work on that. You had brought that up about starting it early. You are correct. Comm. Hodges: The Superintendent and I sat down at a meeting last year or the year before last where some very small town had begun to introduce elementary logic to their 4th graders, or some place really young. I was very concerned as you recall because we had that discussion before and we were told it couldn’t be done. But they managed to do it in that small school system and we can’t seem to do it here and I am still very

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troubled. And I mean for all their students. It wasn’t just for a class or an elective. It was across the board. Dr. Sico: No, logic taught right can be taught at any age. Comm. Hodges: That’s right, and that is why I am wondering why we have not been able to do that. Dr. Sico: We are working towards that. Comm. Hodges: Okay. Comm. Kline: Is it possible for me to receive a copy of the African American Odyssey and also a copy of Slavery in America? Dr. Sico: Yes, sir. Comm. Kline: I have one other question. Do you have any information with regard to the composition of the classes? Who attends these elective courses? Dr. Sico: Yes. I can get that off the computer if you would like that. When I give you the books, I will give you the information. No. A-9 Comm. Hodges: We have already covered elementary computing. The engineering component, is that Explorations in Engineering? Dr. Sico: Those are the ones where it is pending. You are going to hear two presentations tonight – one from MPACT and one from Garrett Morgan. I think that is the one you are referring to. We have pending in parenthesis. On the second page, there is an Introduction to Engineering. Is that the question you are asking? Comm. Hodges: No, I am talking about Explorations in Engineering. Dr. Duroy: Explorations in Engineering, 9-12. Comm. Hodges: Is that primarily at one school? Dr. Sico: Yes. Comm. Hodges: Garrett Morgan? Dr. Sico: I believe so. I will double check it and take it off the curriculum guide. We wanted engineering interspersed with all the curriculums, especially with the calculus classes. What you are going to see tonight is two curriculums pinpointing engineering itself, just like we have robotics. We have robotics courses at some academies.

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Comm. Hodges: Right. Prior to my arrival on the Board, I think I went to Wayne Valley and asked to see their curriculum. This might have been seven or eight years ago. They had a pre-engineering course for 8th graders where they went in and looked at design problems and they fashioned their solutions. The last part of the class consisted of them building the projects based on what they had designed. I was extremely excited about that and I am kind of curious. It might have been an elective. I can’t remember now. But this was 8th grade. This wasn’t high school. So do we have anything comparable to that? Dr. Sico: We are working on a pilot program with MIT. I met with Dr. Duroy a few days ago and we are going to start physics in 9th grade as a pilot program. MIT has done a statistical study that says we should change the biology, chemistry, and physics, and build physics first. My question to the gentleman from MIT was what about the first and second derivatives when you are dealing with velocity and acceleration. He said they wrote a physics curriculum using algebra. Then they would go into advanced physics later on in the junior and senior years. So we are going to try a pilot program with select students after hours, an enrichment class, and we are leaning towards that direction. Comm. Hodges: That is good, and I like that, but it doesn’t really get at my question. Dr. Sico: You are talking about the engineering in 8th grade and the algebra program that we have in the 8th grade is working very well. We want to get more students to take that. There are close to 300 students in the 8th grade algebra program and we want to expand that to get more. All schools are involved. You are saying to have an engineering class for 8th grade? Comm. Hodges: All I am saying is I am certain they are not building bridges - not exactly. But they are exposing their children to problem solving and actually showing them what it takes to go through the entire process. So that sort of supplements what they are doing in other courses. Dr. Sico: We can work on that. Dr. Duroy: The program at PCCC on Saturdays can be considered pre-engineering. Dr. Sico: Right. That is with the 8th graders. We had over 150 students start classes on Saturdays. People think it is just to get into PANTHER, but it is not. It is for anybody that is interested in math, science and technology. That is the Saturday 8th grade program that Dr. Duroy is referring to. We can make that a little bit more rigorous and have some pre-engineering with concepts that we can install. And then we can put on other schools also to get it rolling. But that is a start. Comm. Hodges: I am just trying to push the envelope a little harder. Dr. Sico: You are 100% correct. I understand. Comm. Hodges: Thank you.

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No. A-11 Dr. Duroy: Are you going to make a presentation on the music curriculum? Ms. Joann Cardillo: Are we at A-12 already? Dr. Duroy: Yes. Comm. Brown: Back to A-11. Ms. Cardillo: Are we going to go into A-11? Comm. Brown: Yes. Ms. Cardillo: Good evening. This evening we are putting before you the music technology curriculum for the Digital Arts Technology House at Eastside High School. It is inclusive of a four-year program and it puts together all of what is needed for a thematic program to happen at Eastside High School in the pathway of music. We have an arts house that has a pathway of interior design and a pathway of digital arts and music. This is the thematic curriculum that was written by Mr. Davis to be used with the students in that particular academy. Comm. Taylor: The digital arts part of it, Mr. Davis, does it have to do with your music? Mr. Kenneth Davis: This speaks specifically to the music technology portion of it. Yes, it has to do with music. Comm. Taylor: You are combining art, music, math, science or whatever this is? Mr. Davis: This speaks specifically to two areas of music - audio recording, music synthesis, composition, arranging and things of that nature. It does not have anything to do with the art portion or the graphic arts portion of it. This just speaks to the music technology portion of it. Ms. Cardillo: There are many pathways in the digital arts academy that a student who takes the opportunity to go to Eastside High School in that particular academy can take. So this particular curriculum is for what Mr. Davis just told you. In terms of the arts, the art itself has specific pathways that can be followed also. We are working on the thematic curriculum for the interior design piece at Eastside High School but it is not ready for presentation yet. Comm. Taylor: Is this the one that was sent to us this week? Ms. Cardillo: Yes. Comm. Taylor: I think we need more review. When you are talking about digital music, is that the keyboard?

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Mr. Davis: The whole caption for the specific academy pathway is digital arts. Instead of fine arts, it was digital arts because it was computer-based. So it is computer graphics and computerized art. That is where the digital came from. This piece is just for the music technology portion of it that deals with audio recording and music synthesis. Our curriculum does not reflect the real world. It is not the way it used to be. You can’t just play your clarinet or your saxophone and work in the music industry anymore. Music is created in a different way now. Technology has melded with the traditional. So now if you don’t know how to operate a computer, you don’t know how to sequence, you don’t know what a drum machine is, or you don’t know how the recording process works, you are in trouble if you plan on getting a job in the entertainment industry nowadays. Comm. Taylor: So this is not instruments or anything like that? Mr. Davis: Yes. It deals with instruments but it also deals with the new technology that all of this is used in. Comm. Taylor: Okay, so a student coming into this department would have regular wind and percussion lessons? Mr. Davis: Well, whichever. Comm. Taylor: Whichever instrument they are working in? Mr. Davis: Right. Comm. Taylor: Plus they would have… Mr. Davis: Plus they would have the technology portion. Comm. Taylor: Because I reviewed a program when we went to see one in Chicago and I saw they had a lot of digital pianos and things like that. Some of them were working on computers and it seemed not to be edifying. The kids were just sitting around. It was not something where you felt they were getting something from their music or learning music. Mr. Davis: I don’t know what you saw. It depends on what the objective was, whether they were supposed to be learning a specific piece of software or whether they were supposed to be creating some music or duplicating some music. It often depends on how you present it to them, too. Comm. Taylor: I wouldn’t want students to be sitting around in a room and not doing lessons that pertain to this because this is highly technical when you do this that you are asking. You already have to know how to sight-read if you are coming into the program, or you are going to have to have someone who is going to teach them to sight-read and understand music.

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Mr. Davis: But that is part of music. Everyone that comes into music is taught to sight-read. Comm. Taylor: Yes, I know. At the high school level, it has to be very comprehensive. When a person comes to you at the high school level to learn music and they have never had music before or been introduced to it, at the high school level you have to have a comprehensive, very good program for someone to really be involved in the music program. That is why I say the teachers that are there and the people that are involved with the technology have to be very good at what they do. That is what I am looking for. Ms. Cardillo: Mr. Davis is the lead teacher for this particular academy. Comm. Taylor: I know he is good. He is a musician. Ms. Cardillo: It’s his responsibility to bring this to us and to the students at the high school. Comm. Taylor: You are not the only instructor, are you? Mr. Davis: At this point, yes. This is just in its infancy. Ms. Cardillo: We are looking to adopt a curriculum so we can begin to develop this program and have this be part of what a student at this academy who wants to take as a pathway will have afforded to them. Comm. Hodges: Do you envision purchasing a soundboard? The students are really going to have to learn how to mix and do the whole thing. Mr. Davis: Right, the whole process. Comm. Hodges: To go along with what Comm. Taylor is saying, what are we doing at the elementary level to prepare these kids by the time they get into high school to step into some of this? Mr. Davis: The course is designed for someone who knows nothing about it once they enter high school. So there is no prerequisite except for the musical background they need to have on an instrument, which they normally would get at the elementary level. Comm. Brown: Any other questions? Comm. Agard-Jones: It is not really a question. It is a comment. I hope we plan the resources necessary for this because if you start it, you are going to need to build at least a studio. So I just hope all of those things, such as your projection, your timeline and all of these things, are in place. I couldn’t see it from here but I am assuming it is there.

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Dr. Duroy: Let me just comment, if I may, on that specific item. As stated before, the SCC and the State of New Jersey has committed to physically restructure both Eastside and Kennedy High Schools to meet the required curriculums for an academy structure. So for this particular academy, the first step is developing the curriculum. It is going to be tied or actually presented to the architect that will take the curriculum and design the necessary physical space related to the program. So we will have that opportunity today. There will be at the minimum the studio space and necessary space that relates to this particular curriculum. Comm. Hodges: Just be mindful that those boards are extremely expensive and you are going to need more than one, particularly if you are going to have students working on it. Mr. Davis: You would buy inexpensive boards for people to practice on. Then you would have the one board that you actually use in a project setting. Comm. Agard-Jones: I simply raise the issue because I know at the university we have an ongoing battle with keeping up with the technology in those areas as we go along. We have a radio station, we have a TV station, we have cameras to purchase, and it is ongoing. So you may have a studio but if you don’t have the materials in the studio that are kept updated, you could then be in a position where you are teaching students on a typewriter when folks are using computers. Comm. Kline: Or you may not have students in those classes. Comm. Taylor: Is Mr. Davis going to be involved with the architect? Dr. Duroy: Yes, all the different academy leads will be involved in discussions with the architect. Comm. Taylor: I would suggest that all the things he needs should be available to him for that studio. Dr. Duroy: When I refer to the SCC, I refer to more the physical space. Some of the apparatus and equipment will be the responsibility of the district. Comm. Taylor: When they shape the studio, Mr. Davis would know a lot about how it should be done for him and the students that will be in there, namely the acoustics and a lot of the other things that you are working on. I think that if anyone has a place where they are going to work with students, they should be really with the architect and the SCC should not just make it up for us. We should be involved in the arrangement of that room and any other room that we have. Dr. Duroy: As I indicated, that will be the case. No. A-12 Comm. Hodges: I am sure I had a question. I just don’t recall what it was at the time.

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Ms. Cardillo: Okay. A-12 is Introduction to Engineering elective to be used at MPACT academy. Mr. Cohen is here to speak to that. Mr. Stephen Cohen: I would just like to take a moment to address some of your concerns. This is a hands-on curriculum and the curriculum really can span a tremendous amount of grade levels depending on what types of activities that you put in there. I will give you an example. There is a bridge building activity in there. It is the West Point Bridge Building Activity. Comm. Taylor: Could you speak a little louder, please? Thank you. Mr. Cohen: I’m sorry. There is a bridge building activity in there called the West Point Bridge Building Contest, which has significant monetary awards to it. It is from middle school on through high school. In that activity, they supply you with manuals and software. Using an Exacto knife and cardboard, you first build your bridges in teams working together developing your teams and your strategy. You then build and test your bridge on a computer and you can see that if the bridge is going to collapse it turns red. And then you mail in your program to West Point and you are judged. If you are fortunate, you win a lot of money in terms of future scholarships. There is a whole series of things like that. Another example is where we are working with the Edgerton Center at MIT. They just sent us up a submarine made out of PVC piping and motors. I will be working with them so that we are reverse engineering it. We are working on that as part of a lesson plan. You have your curriculum but then you have your lesson plans, and your lesson plans are really the key things that will motivate and move your teachers and your kids. Right now I have about two binders like this filled with different types of lesson plans that are all project based and based on teamwork. So we have those kinds of things. I personally think this curriculum can go from 7th to 12th grade and up, once again, depending upon what type of projects you put in there. NASA makes a wonderful book that is free of charge. It is about 60 or 70 pages all on the Wright brothers. You make a series of kites eventually leading up to the Wright Flyer. There is a ton of stuff in there. They even show you how to test it in a kind of mock wind tunnel. That stuff will be in there and it will be available to anybody who wants to take a look at it. Comm. Hodges: I quite agree that these things are being done on the elementary level, just not here. That is my problem. Mr. Cohen: I share your concern. Comm. Hodges: We have this discussion every year about this time. We reach the same point and it doesn’t go any further, which is what is disturbing to me. The question I have is how do we get it to the elementary level? How do we get some of these concepts in the hands of these children? Mr. Cohen: In my own personal opinion, I think what you do is start off with weekend workshops and get kids, teachers and parents interested and excited. You create a demand for it. That is my own opinion.

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Comm. Hodges: Who is going to take responsibility for getting that started? It never gets any further than this? Mr. Cohen: I can tell you from my perspective. I am looking at this also as a way to recruit for MPACT. I am looking at recruiting in the 7th and 8th grades. That is how I am looking at it. One person can only do so much. But I think the district ought to take a look at this. I can see umpteen different ways that something like this could take place. I can see that there could be contests. Comm. Hodges: Yes, I agree. Mr. Cohen: But it depends. Why couldn’t the academies get together and put together contests? Comm. Hodges: There is no reason. The question is when will it start and how do we get it started? Mr. Cohen: Well, our curriculum… Dr. Duroy: As you are aware, within the last two years we introduced the robotics contest along the lines of engineering. What I think I am hearing you say is that we should try to get this to the upper elementary grades to get them involved in this type of activity. Comm. Hodges: These things cause children to get excited about science and get them involved in the process of learning. If we are holding back and they never go beyond the discussion stage, which is where they have been for the last two years… This is not a pejorative, it really isn’t. We have had this discussion. We just have not gone through with it. Dr. Duroy: We have introduced at the high school level a number of initiatives. What we are hearing is that within the curriculum division we need to look at how we can introduce some of these activities at the upper elementary level. There are national competitions as well at the middle school level. Comm. Hodges: Yes, there are. Dr. Duroy: And so I think we need to look at that very closely. Even for the robotics contest, we allow an upper middle school to participate. So we need to look at that for our middle grades as well. Comm. Kline: Mr. President, I think some consideration needs to also be given to tying this in with staff development because teacher initiative and teacher motivation has a lot to do with whether children get interested in whatever. So we just can’t present a program for them to be doing these things and not expect the teachers within the classroom setup to be supportive and help motivate the children. So I think staff development should have some impact on the progress of these initiatives.

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Dr. Duroy: I am going to do a follow-up. I am going to ask Dr. Sico and Ms. Patterson to put together a committee to explore some of these options to introduce them at the upper elementary, or as we call them, middle school level grades. We will look at this and perhaps even though it might initially be a planning year or a planning period, we will look to involve next year and come back with initiatives we can clearly point to that are types of activities beyond engineering. For example, we have been doing this with science, math, engineering, physics and other types of activities. I think we have the basis for this. We have seen how in the last couple of years we have introduced some of these initiatives at the high school level. We need to expand it as noted. So Dr. Sico and Ms. Patterson, if you would. Mr. Cohen: One of the ideas that Dr. Duroy has talked to me about, which I would just like to remind him of, is internships from the different academies working with lower grades. So maybe we could have like a senior internship where students would run either a contest or some type of training as part of their senior civic service. Comm. Hodges: I don’t see why we can’t have students in the early high school or late elementary school grades building lasers. Mr. Cohen: Absolutely. Comm. Hodges: It is elementary and it can teach a whole host of very early physical chemistry concepts. Mr. Cohen: There is so much that is out there now that it is unbelievable. You can actually take one of those inexpensive lasers and use it to make holograms. Comm. Hodges: Absolutely. The problem is we are not… It has been said already. Mr. Cohen: Any other questions? Dr. Sico: Remember that to turn students on to science, we have a planetarium that is going to open up in August. That is going to turn a lot of students on to science. The pilot program that I was telling you about will include the 8th and 9th graders. It is going to be after school housed at Panther Academy. So that is a start. Comm. Taylor: How many students are at MPACT? Is the principal here? Mr. Cohen: There are 108 students at MPACT. Comm. Taylor: It says whereas the Career Learning Academies and Smaller Schools project calls for writing and revision of academy elective curricula in the district high schools. Is that what you are doing here? Ms. Cardillo: Excuse me. Comm. Taylor: Are you rewriting and making a revision?

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Ms. Cardillo: No. We are not rewriting anything. We are writing. Comm. Taylor: You are writing a new part of the MPACT academy course? Ms. Cardillo: Yes, absolutely. Comm. Taylor: This is an addition? Ms. Cardillo: It is a thematic course that is being offered at MPACT Academy for students to complement the thematic courses that are there for them. They have an Introduction to Robotics course and an Introduction to Engineering course. Comm. Taylor: This is an Introduction to Engineering. Did you list any of that in your thematic type of courses? That is not listed in here. Mr. Cohen: It has to be approved for next year. Comm. Taylor: When you put your proposal together? Ms. Cardillo: When you approve it, it will come on board. I don’t understand the question. Comm. Taylor: I don’t understand. It says the proposed curriculum is for academy thematic courses, those courses outside of the core curriculum that are designed to instruct students in the academy themes. So which ones are they for this particular one? Ms. Cardillo: Those courses that are outside the academy theme are not all particularly listed on that page. You have your core curriculum that is being taught at MPACT Academy, which are their basic high school courses that they need. Then each academy is seeking to have or develop specific thematic curriculum for their academy. That is what makes them special. That is what drives some of the desire to come to that academy. Comm. Taylor: What is the theme of this academy? Mr. Cohen: The theme is engineering, architecture and design. Comm. Taylor: So which ones are you going to be using or expanding in this piece here? Mr. Cohen: In this piece we are introducing the engineering component. Right now we have a robotics component. We have a computer component. We have a design component. So now we are introducing an engineering component. Comm. Hodges: When you say computer component, what does that mean?

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Mr. Cohen: We have two computer components. One computer component is actually a two-year course, which leads to an A+ certification. This is a universal certification, which allows you to in effect repair computers. We do that not because we want our kids to repair computers, but because we want them to have a thorough grounding in computer technology and programming. More importantly, when they go to college they can make some good money repairing computers instead of flipping hamburgers. The other course is one where they go through a number of computer applications so they are really familiar with Excel, databases, word processing, and design courses. Then we also have drawing programs and things like that so they have a wide variety of tools they can use to do papers, research, and that kind of thing. Then we have a design course where they use everything from Pro Desktop, which is an auto desk-type program, to Photoshop, to In Design. Those are all design programs. Every year we hope to add another couple of programs to it. Comm. Taylor: Is MPACT a planned school? Did it have its curriculum already outlined for it when it came into being? Dr. Duroy: The core curriculum is required for all of them. Comm. Taylor: Okay. That is for all of them. All the schools have them except this one. Dr. Duroy: As far as the curriculum is concerned, it is evolving. In other words, even in the academies, as they go along they can adjust their curriculum theme. Comm. Taylor: This is an engineering school they are talking about and it is highly technical. If you don’t begin in the freshman year with your information and your instruction and you just piecemeal it to the high school, then your degree is not going to be in this pre-engineering that you are talking about. Will it be if you don’t have the curriculum? Dr. Duroy: The fact is that the curriculum that was started four years ago started with a freshman class and every year you add. Comm. Taylor: This the fourth year. Dr. Duroy: This is the fourth year and so it allowed for the curriculum to evolve to more advanced course work, and also make modifications. Sometimes you design a program and you see that the one component you thought was going to be effective did not work so you modify that. Again, because this is the fourth going on the fifth year, it is still evolving. But it is still within the same theme of engineering, design and architecture. Ms. Cardillo: If you look in the academy guide at all of the academies, you’ll see that on one side of the page it talks to the theme of the academy and what its’ mission and vision is. On the other side it will talk to the courses that are being offered there. There are other courses in engineering and design that MPACT does offer but this is the one that they chose to put together this year. Also, I want to explain that part of developing this curriculum was getting teachers to the point where they could begin to have these

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discussions to think about what direction the thematic curriculum should go in. Part of our partnership was with Fairleigh Dickinson University, who played an important part in discussion for us to be able to look at what is happening with our curriculum at the college level and then being able to look at how we are going to start it at 7th and 8th to be ready for high school. We looked at what was happening in terms of the engineering department at Fairleigh and said how are we going to get our students ready to come to you prepared. So this is also part of that discussion that happens with that. Fairleigh is very much involved with us in terms of this particular strand because they want to bring Paterson students into that particular engineering program. Comm. Atallo: I have a question. Why are we with Fairleigh as opposed to NJIT or Stevens Institute? Ms. Cardillo: Fairleigh approached us on this, Dr. Atallo. It was something where they had heard about MPACT academy. They called us and asked to pay a visit. They were very impressed with what was happening at MPACT. Comm. Atallo: They are hungry for students. What do we get from Fairleigh? What are they doing for Paterson? Ms. Cardillo: They gave us technical support on this. They broke down what was happening at the college level in terms of the course and then we were able to work with that information to develop this particular course. Comm. Atallo: They are making money off this program. Ms. Cardillo: No. They helped us to write this curriculum. Comm. Atallo: For a professional fee. They were paid substantially. Mr. Cohen: Yes, they were paid. Comm. Atallo: Yes. So what are we getting from Fairleigh Dickinson University that we didn’t pay for? I am not opposed to forming a partnership. I think they are very positive with universities. But why not go with a school like NJIT or Stevens Institute where that is pretty much their primary focus? Fairleigh comes to us because when I went to college it was hard to get into college. Now they are looking for students. The demographics have changed. What are they doing for Paterson? They helped with the curriculum but they were paid to help with the curriculum. They didn’t volunteer their time or services. They were paid substantially as I recall because I raised that issue at the time. It was quite a bit of money. Mr. Cohen: I think it was around $10,000. Comm. Atallo: It was more than that. Also, I just don’t understand why we lock ourselves into a school like that. I am not knocking Fairleigh Dickinson. I am just saying that if we really want to do our students a service, and I am not knocking the

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program because it is a valid program, why didn’t we contact other schools? Rutgers is a very strong engineering school, a school of technology. Ms. Cardillo: Rutgers was also a partner and helped Garrett Morgan work on their curriculum. Comm. Atallo: For a fee. So I am saying why don’t we contact Stevens Institute of Technology, why don’t we contact NJIT, and why don’t we contact some of these other schools? The problem I have with this is the original partnership we had with MIT turned out to be with one individual who left MIT. So we no longer have that partnership. They were supposed to send graduates of MIT to teach in Paterson. We were going to have our students admitted into their undergraduate programs and that never materialized. One student came down from MIT to teach here and that was it. That program never took off the ground. My concern is it seems like a very beneficial plan for a couple of professors out of FDU to come in and make some money consulting, and it is very beneficial to their department to have a feeder program. I don’t see how this helps our students. We are paying for this as opposed to getting the optimum program looking at other schools. I am not so quick to marry with FDU. Ms. Cardillo: Point taken. Comm. Brown: Thank you very much, Dr. Atallo. No. A-13 Comm. Hodges: Concerning the adoption of the professional development plan, what is in this plan now that is different from last year with some of the problems that you had last year and are trying to correct this year? Ms. Teresa Carter: Actually, this plan is an extension of last year’s plan. The committee felt that one year was not enough time to execute that plan properly. We needed to get more parental involvement. We needed to have more diversity. We needed to have more job-embedded staff development and this year will give us another year to accomplish all of those things. Comm. Hodges: Okay. You said this is an extension of last year’s plan? Ms. Carter: Yes. Comm. Taylor: What have you found out this year? Comm. Hodges: Yes. That is my question. Comm. Taylor: What did you find out this year? Ms. Carter: What did we find out?

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Comm. Taylor: Yes. Do you have reports about what went on to make you want to extend it? Ms. Carter: Actually the reports are in here, also. It tells us that as far as the goals we had for last year, although we began to implement goals whereby we would do job-embedded staff development where teachers actually asked for certain kinds of staff development, we started but we needed more. They asked for a lot of things that we had not been able to address and so those are the things that we are doing. We are also looking for accountability from supervisors, finding out when they go into buildings to train what are they doing, how are they doing and what kind of follow-up to their off-campus training at La Neve’s is being done in classrooms. The professional teaching standards tell us that one-day trainings are not sufficient. You really have to go into the classroom and follow up whatever it is that you do. That is something that we had not been doing. They go to La Neve’s and that is it. Supervisors go to classes not necessarily to follow up on the training that they were doing at La Neve’s. That is our off-campus training facility. We are finding now that we also have days when supervisors go into the high schools and into the elementary schools and maybe just do some peer coaching. Maybe they teach lessons where other teachers are able to come in and observe them teaching. All of these things fall under the teaching standards. Those are the things we did not get to last year so we needed another year, this year, to make that work for us. Comm. Taylor: So you are going to have staff development again this year, and then you are going to have follow-up of that staff development? Ms. Carter: Monitor it. Dr. Duroy: I just want to comment and you can add to it. We are still in receipt of student achievement data that is coming in June. How is that infused into the staff development? Ms. Carter: We take a look at the data and the results of the assessments. Part of the plan is to train supervisors and teachers to be able to understand and interpret that data. To be able to teach students according to the data, not just going to teach blanket whatever is in the book or the curriculum, but teach according to the data. There is no need teaching something that kids already know. We are wasting time and we don’t have that kind of time. Rather, let’s find out where they are weak and let’s operate in that venue. That is what we are planning to do. Comm. Brown: Thank you very much. I think we already discussed A-14. Correct? Dr. Duroy: We are going to pull that. No. A-15 Comm. Kline: What is the Comprehensive Equity Plan? I have my own ideas but let me hear yours.

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Ms. Zaida Padilla: According to state law, every district in the State of New Jersey has to develop a multiyear equity plan. This year it is called differently. It is called the Comprehensive Equity Plan and it actually has four sections to it. First we have to do an assessment. The assessment has those four sections, which basically include the Board, staff development, school practices, and employment and contract services. Basically, once you do the assessment, if there are any sections indicating that something needs to be corrected, then a corrective plan has to be designed. We did the assessment and the corrective plan is included in your packet. Comm. Kline: Is there a possibility that the contract component has been given consideration – the equity aspect of it? Ms. Padilla: Yes. It is included in the assessment so the particular departments that dealt with that were given the assessment in accordance to their answers. If the answers were yes and the backup information was there, they did not need a corrective plan. You just need the corrective plan for whatever is not indicated that needs to be corrected. Comm. Kline: So we are doing alright in equity and contractual relationships? Ms. Padilla: Yes, in accordance to the law. Comm. Brown: Would it be possible to have a copy of that report for all the Board members, please? Ms. Padilla: Absolutely. Comm. Brown: Thank you very much. Comm. Agard-Jones: The one question I had was, and I may have skipped it because I went through these things kind of fast, is there a diversity plan in terms of the hiring, i.e. looking at the numbers of teachers and where you would need to diversify teachers in particular schools? I might have skipped over that but I don’t remember seeing that in there. Ms. Padilla: In accordance to the law, we have to do the assessment and if in those particular items the assessment indicates that that doesn’t need to be corrected, then it doesn’t need to be corrected. So whatever is in the plan is what needed to be corrected. We just go according to the state law. Comm. Agard-Jones: So it was not an issue. Ms. Padilla: It was not an issue in terms of this plan. Comm. Kline: (Beginning of new tape)…the representation among staff? Ms. Padilla: Would that be particularly identified in this plan?

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Comm. Kline: Would that normally be included in the assessment? Would that come out in the assessment? Ms. Padilla: In a general sense, yes. But not in a particular school or a particular instance- no. Comm. Kline: Well, with your visitations of the schools, are there any schools that have a predominance of minority representations where there are no minority representations among staff? Ms. Padilla: Tell me that one again, I’m sorry. Comm. Kline: School “X” - 95% Black and Hispanic. Do all of the schools who may have that representation have African-American and Hispanic or, if the case may be, Arabic teachers? Or do you have a representation of students but no representation of staff? Ms. Padilla: That may be the case. That may be the case. Comm. Kline: Well, let me suggest that you might want to take a review. You might want to visit these schools and check to see if there may be a possibility. Ms. Padilla: Point taken. Comm. Hodges: It stated here under the Board’s responsibilities that we are supposed to have a re-evaluation of classification placement of students in special education. Do we have that done? That list is supposed to be published. Ms. Padilla: A re-evaluation of? Comm. Hodges: Children in special education. When they are classified we are supposed to have a list of classifications and then the re-evaluations that have occurred every three years. Has that data been collected? Ms. Padilla: Well, the people that did that and the person who did that was Mrs. Jones in collaboration with the Director of Special Services. So according to the data that was given to me, it was exactly what it says there and this is the Board’s responsibility, sir. Comm. Hodges: Dr. Duroy, I guess the question then goes to you. Do we have those figures on special education? Are we keeping that data? Do we have a copy of that? Dr. Duroy: We have data on all students in special education programs. Comm. Hodges: But it says here that a part of our responsibility is we are supposed to get a list of the re-evaluations that are done because that is supposed to occur every three years. So I’m trying to get that list. Dr. Duroy: I can ask Dr. Merachnik to respond to that in writing.

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Comm. Hodges: Okay. I’ll look for that. Dr. Duroy: So, again, your question is in reference to the report? Ms. Padilla: The assessment. Comm. Hodges: Yes, because it says here we are responsible for that as a Board. Dr. Duroy: Right, so Ms. Padilla will meet with Dr. Merachnik and follow up along with my office. Comm. Hodges: Thank you. Dr. Duroy: Including Mrs. Jones. Comm. Brown: Any other questions? Nos. A-16 and A-17 Comm. Hodges: On A-16 and A-17, what is the difference between these two resolutions exactly? Dr. Judith Albornoz: Good evening. Let me see if I can put this in context very quickly. A-16 is an application made to the State Department of Education for approval of a CAD Drafting Occupational Program for the Garrett Morgan Academy. One of the things that I do with the Carl Perkins Grant is to attempt to get occupational approvals because the funding then follows those students. And this program can be funded through the Perkins Grant. However, they must have those occupational approvals. So the application is A-16 and I am very happy to tell you that I have an email from the department representatives that I have actually two approvals on this program based on what we gave them – the CAD Drafting and also a pre-engineering program. A-17 is approving the agreement with Project Lead The Way, which is a nationally recognized pre-engineering program. In order for us to participate and begin training the teacher this summer so that this can begin in September, this agreement needed to be crafted. The equipment and software that is necessary for this program will be built into the Carl Perkins Spending Plan for this year based on this approval. Comm. Hodges: Well, I actually liked what I saw in A-16 because that had a more comprehensive description of the courses and what have you. Dr. Albornoz: Right. Comm. Hodges: A-17 is what sort of confused me because it just sort of said… It mentions the CAD programs but then it said you have some sort of alignment with this Project Lead The Way. But it is unclear as to what…

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Dr. Albornoz: Project Lead The Way is the pre-engineering program. The project director for the State of New Jersey works at NJIT and that is all encompassed in A-16. That is part of that application. Comm. Hodges: Okay. Dr. Albornoz: And by participating in this program, our expenditures will be covered as I said through Perkins. We need to buy and I can tell you pretty much what it is. The budget is enclosed or attached at the end of this application. There is a three-year budget. There is approximately $75,000 for their first year. That includes a rolling wireless computer lab for Garrett Morgan since it’s a very small location. This will make the computers accessible in any one of the classrooms for any one of the instructors. And then the software and the training for the teacher comprise the rest of it. Comm. Hodges: Thank you. Dr. Albornoz: I think A-18 and A-19 are also mine. If you have any questions on those, I would be happy to answer them. Comm. Hodges: I did have a question but I left my list so I’m not going to ask it now. Comm. Brown: Anything on A-18 and A-19? Comm. Atallo: (Comments were made away from the microphone and were not heard on tape.) Dr. Albornoz: It is a nationally recognized network of programs and they are affiliated with universities across the United States. The program is recommended by the State Department of Education. When we had working sessions with them regarding what kind of an occupational program and licensure testing we could embed in the Garrett Morgan Academy, this was their recommendation. Comm. Atallo: (Comments were made away from the microphone and were not heard on tape.) Dr. Albornoz: I cannot answer what other school districts… Comm. Taylor: We can’t hear what you are saying, Dr. Atallo. Comm. Brown: The microphone is off I believe. Comm. Atallo: Dr. Albornoz was stating that the Department of Education was recommending Project Lead The Way, Incorporated. I was asking on what basis do they recommend them. It has never been really the policy of the department to recommend anyone, as I am aware. But if they are, what is the basis for it? In other words, what districts have they worked with? What kind of track history have they had in New Jersey that they would merit the Department of Education recommending them?

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Dr. Albornoz: I believe that their recommendation, and maybe that is not the word I should be using. They suggested that we look at the program because they are affiliated with NJIT. They also work with the Center for Advanced Technology at Rutgers University. What happens with this program is it gives our students exposure to the academic rigor of the universities. It allows us to access some of that expertise as well in building our program. It has built into it, and this is why I said recommended, the kinds of standards that the State Department is interested in seeing districts embrace. When they sit with us, and they were here last spring for a whole day working with me and different academies in the district, they try to give us suggestions of things that we can look at that will provide a rich curriculum, will provide standards that can make our students reach higher, and build the linkages between the university and the school district. Comm. Atallo: That is why I said I find it hard to believe that the Department of Education, a state agency, would be recommending a private entity. I would like to know what districts they have worked with and some track history. Dr. Albornoz: I can provide that to you, Dr. Atallo. Comm. Atallo: Number two - my concern once again is we had other people up here before presenting a partnership with Fairleigh Dickinson University. You are talking about NJIT at this point, even Rutgers. Wouldn’t it be productive to coordinate those types of programs with the higher education institutions we are going to be dealing with? Wouldn’t we be better off having some type of continuity and overall planning? Are you all interacting on this thing? One partnership is with FDU and another is with NJIT. I think we need to look at that. The other issue I’m concerned with is the fee. What is the overall cost of this? Dr. Albornoz: There is no fee to the university or to Project Lead The Way. They require that we use their software. I guess an analogy would be to the SISCO program, which requires that we use their on-line curriculum to put the answers through this program. Comm. Atallo: What will that cost the Paterson School District? Dr. Albornoz: The budget is attached at the last page here. The software is $75,000 for the year. If you look at this, most of it is things that the youngsters will use. It’s the software and the tools that they will use in the classrooms to go through this program. There is about maybe $2,500 for training the teacher. I believe this is a two-week program in the summer. As far as a fee to Project Lead The Way, no. Comm. Atallo: But they are making $75,000 off the district. We could hire someone full time to do this. Could we not for that amount of money? Dr. Albornoz: All of the money that is being put into this is software… Comm. Atallo: Right, I understand that.

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Dr. Albornoz: …computers and whatever in the particular classrooms that are going to be implementing this. My experience with working with the academies is that when we put the computers and the labs in place, that is pretty much par for the course that we are going to spend that kind of money to do that. The added benefit of this program is that you have the rigorous curriculum that is provided. You have the support from the university. The other piece that I did not mention is that they will work with us to provide what we call work-based learning experiences for the youngsters. So part of the requirements of this is that the youngsters understand and experience all aspects of the industry. So in preparing youngsters to go into an engineering career, one of the benefits of a nationally recognized program such as Project Lead The Way is that they have people in the business, if you will, working with us who can help to set up those kinds of mentoring relationships and perhaps internships that students will participate in. In this particular program, that will be a requirement of the program in their senior year. Comm. Atallo: For $75,000, you can have them produce some of the other school districts they have worked with. Have them produce people we can get in contact with. Dr. Albornoz: I can get that for you, Dr. Atallo. Comm. Atallo: A lot of people come to Paterson, they promise things, it sounds good, and then it just never happens the way it is. I’m not saying that is the case here. But what I’m saying is I would like to see what other districts they worked with and get some contact people we can talk to. Thank you. Comm. Brown: Thank you very much, Dr. Atallo, and I appreciate everyone’s patience. Because we didn’t have a prior committee meeting, that is why I believe we have a lot of questions in our workshop today. No. A-20 Comm. Atallo: Mr. Chairman, I have a question on A-20. I would like to get some clarification on what that contract entails. Comm. Brown: Sure. Which contract, Dr. Atallo? Comm. Atallo: With 4C’s, North Jersey Community Coordinated Child Care Agency. I’m glad to see and it is refreshing that we are getting something presented to us before the contract is actually implemented. This is truly unique because we usually get things when they are already in place. So whoever drafted this, I applaud them for their timeliness. We should be dealing with things in April for July, and not getting it in August. It was a sarcastic retort. Dr. Anna DeMolli: I just want to clarify something on A-20 because I actually ripped the contract out of A-23. It seems that there was a little discombobulation there in terms of these two. So if you look at A-23, the actual contract agreement, Dr. Atallo, is attached to A-23.

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Comm. Brown: For A-20. Dr. DeMolli: And I don’t know how that happened. Comm. Brown: That’s for A-20, Dr. DeMolli? Dr. DeMolli: Yes. A-20 has the first three sheets I think. And then if you go to A-23, which also has something to do with 4C’s, they are both adding additional instructional assistants. I think what happened is that the contract agreement is actually attached to A-23 and it is a five-page contract agreement, or six-page contract agreement. So if you open it up to there, it will give you a little more information. Comm. Atallo: My concern is that it appears that all the district appears to be doing is brokering this agreement between 4C’s. Is that what is happening at this point? Dr. DeMolli: Yes, I guess. Comm. Atallo: You are brokering the agreement? So why aren’t we handling, administrating, and implementing this program in early childhood? Why are we just brokering it over to an outside agency? Dr. DeMolli: We are responsible for the in-district preschool program for the before and after care. Comm. Atallo: But they are involved with the same type of service. Dr. DeMolli: Yes. Comm. Atallo: Wouldn’t it be a conflict for 4C’s to be administering and implementing the program, as well as running their own program? They are competing with the other preschool programs in effect. Dr. DeMolli: I don’t think there is a competition because the only thing any of the district centers or anyone can get for this program is a reimbursement rate. It is not like you can get more or less if you write a better grant or something. It’s a flat rate. Whoever applies or does it, you just get the reimbursement rate from the state. Comm. Atallo: But they are competing for the students, the pool of students. Dr. DeMolli: No, not really because these are our in-district students. These are our children and they are already in our classrooms in the district. Comm. Atallo: What programs they select could be impacted or influenced by 4C’s. They are administering the program as well. Isn’t that true? Dr. DeMolli: I’m not sure I understand that, Dr. Atallo. I just know that we have a program at TCU and they need someone to take care of it before and after school. So we hired 4C’s because if we hire our own teachers or our own aides to do the before

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and after care, we can’t afford it because the reimbursement rate, as you look at it, is so little. It’s $12 per child and $24 per day. Comm. Atallo: I have no interest in this other than being a Board member. What I see, and I have a problem in terms of my comfort level, is handing it over to an agency that is actually competing with the other programs in the district in the city. It seems that there would be a potential conflict there. Dr. Duroy: Well, our district does have the option to contract the services and actually select a center. Dr. DeMolli, had you indicated that 4C’s has been providing the services in the past? Dr. DeMolli: Yes, they have been providing these services for us for two years now and it doesn’t appear to be a problem because the only money that anybody can get is the reimbursement rate that DHS gives us and they are large enough. Dr. Nuccetelli: Is this for the in-district kids that attend the in-district programs? Dr. DeMolli: Yes, only for the in-district kids that attend the in-district program. As you can see, the numbers are very low because we only have a few kids in the TCU’s, our little special education district autistic kids that we have. The district itself doesn’t have before and after care for preschool. If we did have our own, we would have to pay at the district contract rate and we just can’t pay that under the district contract rate because DHS reimburses very, very little. So we would have to get the money somewhere and it can’t come out of early childhood program aid so it would have to come out of the general fund. Comm. Atallo: The problem I have with the 4C’s is that they collect all the information and they have all the data. Since they are administering, the other competing agencies have to come to them for the data. That’s a problem. Hence, that is the conflict. I think that needs to be reviewed. It needs to be legally reviewed. It has to be reviewed departmentally by the Department of Education because I see potential conflicts there. Dr. Nuccetelli: Is there another agency that is competing to do this? Dr. DeMolli: No. You don’t need a bid if it is one flat rate no matter who the agency was. That is my understanding. Dr. Nuccetelli: So the only one who is willing to accept this inexpensive rate is 4C’s? Dr. DeMolli: Right, the only one willing to do that right now is 4C’s. Comm. Kline: Has that been ascertained? Dr. DeMolli: Excuse me? Comm. Kline: Has that been ascertained - that they are the only ones who want to do it?

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Dr. DeMolli: Well, at this point they are the ones that have been doing it for two years and I just recommended that we continue. I could ask other centers but other centers do not have the volume of staff and the large size to be able to put out this money and do this and then wait for reimbursement. Many of our centers, Mr. Kline, are six classrooms and under. So their budgets are like $300,000 and less. You really need a large agency that can actually pay these payrolls and wait for payment. Right now for this year we have only received one payment under DHS even though we have submitted all our stuff. This program costs us close to $200,000 and we have only gotten one payment for $80,000. But they have been paying the payroll regardless so that’s why you need a large agency that can float, I guess you would say, the payrolls for the staff etc. and wait for payment. Comm. Kline: 4C’s is the only large agency? Dr. DeMolli: No, no. We have B.J. Wilkerson, and we have Catholic Charities. They are big and they do a lot of things. There are several agencies that we can ask to do it. When we originally asked, they were the first ones that said we would do it. Others did not volunteer because they were just getting off their feet four years ago. Comm. Kline: But, as I recall, when this contract was first offered the question of conflict was raised way back then. Dr. DeMolli: Yes. Comm. Kline: It is not just being raised tonight for the first time. Dr. DeMolli: Yes, and we spoke to the State Department about it several times because it had been raised. We have no problem going to any other agency. It didn’t appear at that time to be a conflict of interest with the State Department and I spoke to the people at the State Department, the fiscal people, and the DHS people know about it. So I don’t know what else to do. Comm. Kline: Have we ever gotten a legal opinion locally? Dr. DeMolli: Locally within our district? Comm. Kline: Right. Dr. DeMolli: Well, the contracts are reviewed by our legal department. Comm. Kline: Was the question ever raised about the possible conflict? If so, was a decision ever rendered from our local counsel? Dr. DeMolli: No question has ever… The questions that have been raised, and let me clarify that, we posed to the State Department and they did not see any conflict of interest. That is the only response I can make.

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Comm. Hodges: Just a minute. Dr. DeMolli, that is not entirely true. When this first started, the state was called here and they met with several of the daycare centers. They said it does appear to be a conflict of interest but because of the way the law was written at that time, it could be done. But they did have a lot of concerns about it initially. It was never revisited because you went ahead with that program. You were initially challenged by several daycare centers and the state was contacted. They came and met here and they had a lot of concerns about it but the law was such that it could be done. But it was not a clean transfer that they were happy with. That was their official statement. Now I guess the question is if we are still doing this and they are still in effect competing against these other people who have to send them information, their information and their teachers and everything else has to go to them for training and whatever. There does appear to be some elements of a conflict there. Dr. DeMolli: I can ask our legal department to review it. Comm. Brown: I have a question, Dr. DeMolli. Dr. DeMolli: Yes. Comm. Brown: I have listened to the sentiments of the Board. Is it possible that what we can do is ask other agencies to volunteer or to participate in this program to see what type of feedback we get? Dr. DeMolli: We can certainly do that. Comm. Brown: I think that is the feeling that I get from my colleagues. That gives us an option on who responds and then we might be able to make that decision based on that. Dr. DeMolli: Absolutely. Well I can go back and I can ask other agencies or every agency if they would like to do the after school program for the in-district program and then see who is interested in doing it at the rate that DHS reimburses. Comm. Brown: Is that the sentiment of my colleagues? Is that what you would like to do? Comm. Kline: That would be a step. Comm. Brown: Okay. Dr. Duroy: I would just like to add to the timeline issue here. We have July 1st through June and this particular service is more related to September through June. Am I correct? Dr. DeMolli: No. It would begin July 1st because don’t forget we have to provide the additional 63 days for the children. So we have to provide before and after care, and a full day program during the summer for the in-district children as well as those in the centers. So I do have to have something in place by July 1st but I can immediately talk

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to our other centers or write a letter to them and say that we are looking for people. I could put it in the form of a request for proposal for before and after care saying that we would need so many hours for so many children. It’s the same thing that I put here and it would be at the rate of reimbursement from DHS. I think I could do that within a few days. Dr. Duroy: So conceivably in May or at the very latest at the June meeting you will have it for presentation? Dr. DeMolli: Yes, absolutely. I can do it. Comm. Kline: That also includes the fact that the services will be provided at the site of School No. 1 so they don’t think that they are going to be responsible for providing their own location. Dr. DeMolli: No, it has to be basically at School No. 1 because that is where we have… Comm. Kline: They need to know that. Dr. DeMolli: Oh, absolutely. Comm. Kline: So that they don’t construe that it means we want to use their premises, which might cause some of them not to want to be interested. Dr. DeMolli: Oh, no. I’ll make sure they understand that, Mr. Kline. That’s not a problem. Comm. Brown: For point of clarification, are we going to be pulling A-20? Dr. Duroy: Yes. Comm. Brown: So A-20 is going to be pulled. Comm. Taylor: One is for reimbursement and the other one… Comm. Brown: I believe the reimbursement is for the prior year. Comm. Taylor: So that one is the one she is going to do now, that she is going to send out? Comm. Brown: A-20 is for the coming year and I believe A-23 is for the prior year. Comm. Taylor: Yes, you leave the A-23. Comm. Brown: Yes, A-23 is going to remain in place. A-20 is going to get pulled. Nos. A-21 and A-22

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Comm. Atallo: Mr. Chairman, I have some questions on A-21 and A-22 in terms of clarification. There seems to be a substantial jump in the cost for LaVida Child Care. I know there is an increase in students of 30. Dr. DeMolli: Yes. What LaVida actually did was they took two toddler infant rooms that they had at that particular center and because they had so many parents knocking on their door for Abbott services, they transitioned their toddlers and infants to other space and they gave us the two additional rooms for Abbott children. So they jumped from 60 children to 90 children and that is why we had to do a modification on the contract. One of our goals, of course, is to increase the number of children we are servicing. We are at about 80% of our universe and the State Department is pressuring us to go out, I guess, and beat the bushes to find out why we don’t have more children in the preschool program. So this is kind of good I guess in a way because we are trying to increase the number of Abbott classrooms we have in the district. So basically, Dr. Atallo, the contract is basically the same contract they had for 60 and we just moved it up, which was approved by the State Department, which has a per pupil cost. I am not sure this one says it. And then we just multiplied it with an additional 30 students. We didn’t give them any more or less than they… Dr. Nuccetelli: $8,183.00 Dr. DeMolli: Right. But basically that was it. They did have the children. Initially we weren’t sure they were going to be able to get that many children but they were able to get that many children right off the bat. Comm. Atallo: So that’s the total amount for all 90 students? Dr. DeMolli: Yes, sir. Comm. Atallo: It is the total amount for 90. Dr. DeMolli: Yes, this is the adjusted budget. It was originally 60 and it went up to 90. Comm. Atallo: And I have a question on A-22. It says one-time adjustment. What is that adjustment for? Dr. DeMolli: Yes, sir. It is a one-time adjustment. Is that the Sha’terra? I hope the letter is a little clearer that came from Ms. Moses. What they attempted to do was to have two sites at one point. They had Sha’terra I for a few years. They tried to get a second site, Sha’terra II. If you read through the letter, they had issues with the landlord, and they had issues getting their licensing, etc. If you read my response letter, originally their administrative cost, which is what we do with all the centers is divide it between the two centers, when they had to fall back and drop Sha’terra II what happened was we did not reimburse them for the administrative costs that had been in the second contract, Sha’terra II. When we realized that, we said that would only be fair. Any director where they have two or three classrooms would get their full administrative costs and I had divided it 50/50. So this is just recovering for them what they would have normally gotten with the one site anyway. And that’s what it does.

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Comm. Hodges: Wasn’t there some sort of similar problem with the YMCA? Something about they did an evaluation and because of teacher payments over the summer, which was not anticipated or understood by your department, they were shorted some funds or denied funds initially and then I guess when they explained… I guess what was happening was that they pay their teachers for 12 months based on the 10-month salary. They just extend it. I guess your accounting department saw that they were being paid less than what you thought they should be paid for 10 months when, in fact, it was extending over 12. There was a reimbursement. Has that been cleared up yet? Dr. DeMolli: Yes, sir. What happened is now that we have a fiscal specialist and we are looking at these centers very carefully, some of them were stretching their teacher salaries over 12 months and they are not allowed to do that. It also stretches it over two fiscal years as opposed to one and they are not allowed to do that. So we have been tweaking and making adjustments if they have been doing that. Comm. Hodges: They are not allowed to do that? Dr. DeMolli: They are not allowed to stretch it over two fiscal years. So if you say September 1st and they were going to August 31st, the fiscal year begins July 1st. Comm. Hodges: But if all they are doing is taking the same amount of money and putting the extra money in a bank account, why can’t they do that? They are paying them less during the course of the year. Dr. DeMolli: Because they have to do things comparable to the district and the district doesn’t do that. They are also asking the teachers to work more hours. They were asking the teachers to work those summer hours. We have a lot of, how would you say, clean up to do in terms of some of those things. They have to pay comparable to the district. If you have a 10-month contract, the Abbott contract is September through June. The wrap around in DHS extends it two more months. So if you have a teacher working during the summer, those 40+ days and then extra days, that has to be DHS money. It cannot be the ECPA money. Comm. Hodges: Right, I understand. Comm. Kline: Maybe I’m wrong. Were they possibly reducing the amount of salary they get per month and extending it over a 12-month period rather than a 10-month period? It’s the same money. Comm. Hodges: That is what they were doing. Dr. Nuccetelli: No, the salary that they get for the 10 months is comparable to a 10-month salary in the district. But I think Dr. DeMolli is indicating that for the wrap around program with its extra 63 days, that is DHS money. That is not money that comes and flows through the district.

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Comm. Hodges: My understanding of what was taking place at the YMCA is rather than pay them over… Dr. Nuccetelli: That was wrong. That was obviously incorrect and I think she said that, didn’t she? Dr. DeMolli: I understand, Dr. Hodges. Let’s see. The district does that. I think the district takes out of payroll. Comm. Hodges: Yes, absolutely. We do that. Dr. Nuccetelli: That’s a pay plan, which you can opt for, but these people were actually working the extra… Comm. Hodges: No, no, no. They were being paid. They took the money from their salaries and took the excess money and put it in another account and then paid them back that money. But it was their money. Comm. Kline: With their money. Comm. Hodges: So what the district saw was instead of paying them $15 an hour, you are paying them $10 an hour. Dr. Nuccetelli: We are saying the same thing. Dr. DeMolli: I’ll check, Dr. Hodges, and see if we can do that. What happened was that the State Department saw it as going through a second fiscal year – keeping that money and going into a fiscal year and that was not approvable. If you have money left over June 30th, whether it is salaries or whatever, and you are saying that really belongs to the teachers because I paid them less throughout the year, this year they didn’t see it that way. They saw it as funds that were left over in the salary account. That’s how they saw it. Comm. Kline: Maybe they need to be explained. Comm. Hodges: Yes, or ask the YMCA what they are doing. Comm. Kline: Why is it fine for somebody and wrong for the next person? Dr. DeMolli: I understand but I think also they were trying to clarify for us. I am just going to say that ECPA money has to be used September through June. That is why they didn’t want any payments July and August, because July and August begins a new fiscal year. Comm. Kline: I think you need to have it re-explained to them. Dr. DeMolli: Okay, no problem.

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Comm. Kline: Otherwise, our district comes in under question. If we can have our teacher salaries extended over a 12-month period and there is no violation of law there, why is there a violation for those agencies providing the preschool service? They are, in effect, subcontracting for our district. Dr. DeMolli: I can just tell you, Mr. Kline, that what we found was they were making teachers work additional days. Dr. Nuccetelli: They were paying them with the money they took out of their salary. She said that in the beginning. Dr. DeMolli: I can provide you with data on that. I’m not going to belabor it. Comm. Agard-Jones: If I may, what it would be like is if you are going to pay me over 12 months, then I would not be working in July and August. Dr. Nuccetelli: But she is saying something else. Comm. Agard-Jones: But she is saying that they worked July and August. Comm. Hodges: That wasn’t my information and that is a concern. Comm. Taylor: The actual nurseries that are daycare centers used them more hours than they were actually contracted for with the monies that were left. It comes out more days than we would work in the summertime as teachers because the daycare’s hours and the daycare’s days are different than the schools. Comm. Brown: Right. Comm. Hodges: Again, my information wasn’t that they were working additional hours. It simply was the way they were paying them for the 10 months. Dr. DeMolli: And that could be for that particular center. You are correct. But there were other centers where we found the teachers were asked to work additional hours. Comm. Brown: Thank you very much. Let’s go to A-24. Dr. Duroy: Dr. DeMolli, do you have the Character Education piece? Comm. Brown: Are there any questions? Dr. Duroy: Thank you, Dr. DeMolli. Comm. Brown: A-25 is special education. Those are all just out-of-district placements. Comm. Agard-Jones: Why can’t we do A-25 through A-69? Comm. Brown: A-25 through A-69.

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Comm. Agard-Jones: These are all special education. Comm. Atallo: And to make it even smoother, I make a motion… Comm. Brown: To finish the whole list? Nos. A-71 through A-73 Comm. Atallo: No, I have two questions. First of all, I was very impressed with the young man who came to speak. He had a lot more poise than I would have at that age to speak before the Board. But I just want to clarify to our students that these programs are not free. Someone does pay for it. We do have foundations and grants. We need to educate our students that we do have people who are benefactors and do help our students, and to instill that into them. So when they are successful, they can set up endowments themselves. Comm. Taylor: When is yours coming, Joe? Comm. Atallo: They can endow a chair in my name. No. A-70 Comm. Atallo: My concern is A-70. I don’t see any funding source for that. Are they asking that the Board pay for that? Dr. Joseph Fulmore: Yes, that one was pulled. Comm. Brown: It was pulled? Dr. Fulmore: Yes. No. A-74 Comm. Atallo: My other concern was A-74. Comm. Brown: By the way, Norman S. Weir is my son’s school. Comm. Atallo: Wow, that changes everything. Let’s pass the hat. Comm. Brown: It’ll be back on by Wednesday. Comm. Atallo: On A-74, again I don’t question the validity of the trips. I am asking if they are asking that the Board underwrite the costs, or is there funding for that? I’m asking for clarification on A-74 because the other one seems to be covered by the Taub Foundation. Comm. Brown: Do you have a question, Dr. Atallo, about the funding source of A-74?

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Comm. Atallo: Well, A-70 was pulled. On the other resolutions for the other field trips, there appears to be a funding source that covers the cost. On A-74, I don’t see a funding source. Comm. Brown: Okay, and then Dr. Jones will be next. Could we get an answer for this, please, from the administration? Dr. Duroy: This particular field trip is paid through district funds. Dr. Nuccetelli: It says on page two that MPACT budget monies are raised through candy sale and individual student expense. Dr. Duroy: We have also listed… Dr. Nuccetelli: On page two of the backup. Comm. Atallo: So is it being paid with candy sales, student fundraising, district funds, or a combination thereof? Okay. My concern is this. How do we determine which schools get to go on trips? What do we do when other schools approach us and say that through fundraising and selling candy, if we raise X number of dollars will you match us so much? Is that the policy here? Is that what is happening? Dr. Duroy: No, there isn’t a clear policy along those lines. However, funds are provided in the budget. Each individual school has their own budget. And as indicated not only here but as many are aware, many of the schools do have fundraising apparatuses and/or programs sometimes through the parents that help to supplement the field trips. So within our budget, we do have funds allocated for field trips. But as we have seen in the past, either through foundations or through individual fundraising, it supplements it. It is just not enough to provide all the field trips that certainly the students and the curriculum call for. Comm. Agard-Jones: It may be a pain for some but I would suggest that the field trips continue to be coordinated at least with the core curriculum standards. We had started that process and I think that the three from the high schools did but these A-69, A-70 and A-74, even though it was pulled, did not link to the core curriculum standards. I recall we went through a big to-do with that. Was that last year with Rosa Parks and Sharon Smith? So somehow or other get the word out that anyone who is planning a field trip has to link it to the core curriculum standards. They pulled one of them. Dr. Nuccetelli: A-69 was pulled. Comm. Atallo: A-70 was pulled. Comm. Agard-Jones: Yes, so A-69 needs to be… Yes, it wasn’t the issue of who paid. It was the issue of linking it to the core curriculum standards.

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Comm. Brown: Yes. I would also like to add to the question that Dr. Atallo raised. If it is possible, maybe in the future on our agendas we can highlight and note the funding sources so it wouldn’t raise a question at a later date. Comm. Atallo: It’s not the dollar amount. It’s just in terms of the policy and the consistence. Comm. Brown: Yes. Comm. Atallo: Are we moving along? Comm. Brown: Can we take a five-minute recess? Is that okay for everyone or no? Let’s take a five-minute recess if that’s okay. The Board took a five-minute recess at 9:00 p.m. The Board reconvened at 9:08 p.m. Legal Committee No. B-1 Comm. Brown: The next item on the agenda is legal. Are there any questions on B-1? Comm. Taylor: No. Comm. Brown: Okay, we will go to the fiscal side. No questions on B-1? Comm. Agard-Jones: Excuse me, but isn’t there some kind of Black newspaper that was just formed in Paterson? Is it called the Forum? Comm. Taylor: No. That is a regional paper for Hudson, Passaic, and Essex Counties. It is a paper that a lot of people read. Comm. Agard-Jones: I don’t know that much about it. I was just wondering. Comm. Kline: Does it fit the criteria for being utilized? Comm. Taylor: I think it’s monthly. I don’t think so because you would have to have one that is a daily paper. Comm. Kline: All the rest come out every day? Comm. Brown: That’s a good question. Comm. Agard-Jones: I just asked a question that maybe someone can research. Comm. Brown: Dr. Duroy, can you answer that question, please.

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Comm. Taylor: Is El Diario every day? Dr. Duroy: El Diario is a daily paper. Comm. Taylor: And Al Zaman? Comm. Brown: I believe that is a daily paper as well. Ms. Cheryl Williams: They don’t publish anymore but they want notification. Comm. Taylor: The Italian Voice is every week? They want notification? Comm. Brown: I think the question is what is the criteria for a paper? Comm. Kline: Right, that is one of the questions. Comm. Brown: I believe that is one of the questions, Dr. Duroy. What is the criteria for a newspaper to be eligible for the Board of Education. Dr. Duroy: I don’t know whether there is a legal criteria or not. Comm. Kline: Can we find out? Comm. Brown: Mr. Johnson, is there a legal criteria for these papers to be chosen by the Board of Education? Mr. Gregory Johnson: I believe the Open Public Meetings Act or the Sunshine Law requires that the Board contract with at least two newspapers to notify the public of your meetings. But I think it is up to the Board in terms of discretion how many papers you actually want to use to notify of the meetings and so forth. Comm. Brown: Would the Board like to consider any other newspapers? I think that would be the next question. Comm. Kline: Let’s be specific. None of these are Black newspapers. It would seem to me with the representation we have in our city if that newspaper falls into the criteria, they should be considered as well. You got the El Diario, and you have the Italian newspaper. I am not saying don’t use them but the name of the game is equity. Comm. Taylor: Well, let’s find out about them. I’ll call them. Dr. Duroy: You can find out and let us know. I don’t know if it is possible, but maybe we can have that information by Wednesday. Comm. Taylor: Yes, I can get it by Wednesday. Comm. Kline: What are you going to get, Commissioner?

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Comm. Taylor: How often it is published. Comm. Kline: What we need to find out first of all is what the criteria is for any of them. Comm. Taylor: I don’t know that. Comm. Kline: And on the basis of that we can make a determination. Dr. Duroy: We will find that out and we will get Comm. Taylor’s information. If we can get that, we will also have… Comm. Taylor: Okay, but send the criteria to the Board members so they will know. Dr. Duroy: Sure, we will have that information. Counsel, will you follow up on that? Mr. Johnson: Sure. Dr. Duroy: Just the criteria. Comm. Brown: So do we want to put B-1 on hold? Dr. Duroy: No, no. Comm. Agard-Jones: Just to add. Dr. Duroy: We can add to it and Wednesday we will do that. Comm. Brown: Okay, fair enough. Are there any other questions on B-1? Fiscal Committee No. C-1 Comm. Brown: We will go to fiscal now. Are there any questions on C-1? Comm. Atallo: I have questions. I Chair the finance committee and no one spoke to the finance committee. I believe Mrs. Taylor is on the finance committee as well and no one has spoken to us about these banks. So until we get a briefing on it, I don’t plan to vote. Mr. Michael Azzara: We need to take a look at C-1, Joe. I think this was just put in as a pro forma because it is usually done through your organization meeting and they are the existing banks. But Dr. Sico and the business office were working with a committee on reviewing proposals and we were looking at not only just the services, but the educational programming they would provide the district or community reinvestment. I think we were close to making a decision on how we were going to divvy up the district’s

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accounts. This resolution doesn’t reflect that and I think we will have to pull this until we can do that. Comm. Hodges: We were just having that conversation. It is supposed to be Thursday. We would like you to pull this for the time being so that we can get that straightened out. Dr. Duroy: Duly noted. It will be pulled for this and it will be hopefully back on at the May meeting. Mr. Azzara: Yes. Comm. Brown: That is fair enough. Comm. Atallo: There is also the point of clarification that by resolution the Board can change banks during the course of the year as well. They can accept and modify different banks accordingly. Mr. Azzara: Yes. No. C-2 Comm. Atallo: I have concerns on C-2 on the payment of bills. I submitted to the business office today my concerns. I have serious concerns. I am just going to talk in generalities at this point. I am not going to get into specifics. There seems to be an excessive number of law firms being employed by this district. I think it has come to the point where the Board needs to become involved. As Comm. Willa Mae Taylor says, we must become good stewards of the money. I was in Newark Friday and there were two law firms being paid, not one but two, on an administrative law case. It appeared one lawyer was just sitting there reading the newspaper while the other one was handling the case. I think that has to be looked at and tightened up. Also, I want to know the criteria, who is picking these firms, and why. I see firms from Morris County and other places and we have very qualified firms in Passaic County. We are going to insist at the reorganization of this Board that the Board have input into who represents this Board because quite frankly, and I’ll be blunt, I am sick and tired of the abuse that has gone on here. I am sick and tired of it. It is going to stop and it is going to stop right now. So we are going to review all these bills of these law firms, who is coming, and who is doing what. It is out of control. Comm. Hodges: Mr. President, I too have a concern. As you know, legal counsel is pretty similar to medical counsel. It is a very special relationship and if you are to feel confident in the counsel that you receive, you should feel comfortable with the legal agency. If don’t feel that comfort, or if that comfort level isn’t there, then your use of that agency will be substantially diminished and that may work to the detriment of the students in this district. So I as well think that if we are engaging in some sort of process for legal representation, unless they really wanted to get into a whole different situation, which we warned them about last year and they didn’t heed us, then perhaps they need to heed us now, this year, rather than go ahead and do the exact same thing and cause the exact same problem to reoccur. So I would counsel the powers that be

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to include the Board substantially in this process since they are supposed to work with us as well. Thank you. Comm. Brown: I agree. Dr. Atallo, do you have a comment? Comm. Atallo: Once again, it is very hard for me to comment intelligently on these bills because I received it Thursday night - the packet. I reviewed it over the weekend. I came in this afternoon at the end of the business day when I could get here and dropped it off to the business office. We need to see the backup sheets. I am not going to get into specifics but there is one law firm here that has a very significant legal bill and we don’t know what it is for. I want to see the backup sheets. Comm. Brown: If it is possible, Mr. Azzara, since Comm. Atallo has raised this issue, can we have the backup sheets every month for the bills? Mr. Azzara: The legal bills? Comm. Brown: Yes. Comm. Atallo: That may not be feasible. I think what we need to do if we have specific questions on specific bills, and it has worked out pretty well, is go through… I go through it and then I circle the ones that I have questions on, and I would encourage other Commissioners to circle the ones they have questions on. When I submitted it to the business office, I have gotten a timely response. I have no complaint with that. But my concern is that we get them on… I get it Thursday night. It is stuck in my door late. We all come home and it is in your door. I don’t have time on Friday during the day to look at it so I look at it over the weekend. I come in Monday at the end of the business day when I can get downtown and I bring it to the business office asking for that information. I understand this is an unusual month because we had the election and the reorganization. But I find it difficult as a responsible public official to support the payment of bills I haven’t see the backup sheets on. So I have certain concerns on about 12 items. We have many items here and I have 12 questions. So to get the backup on everything I think would be a waste of time, paper and energy. But what I recommend respectfully to the Board, and to consider this recommendation, is that we go through it as I do, and I know Comm. Taylor does, Mr. Kline and Dr. Hodges. When I have questions, I simply make a circle around the one I have. I bring them to the business office and they give me the backup sheets on those particular ten or twelve. That is what I do and I think that is probably the most pragmatic way to do it. If you can think of a better way, I would be open to suggestions. But my concern is approving certain bills on Wednesday night when we haven’t seen them yet. It is no one’s fault here. In other words, we get the packet on Thursday night and I came in Monday afternoon with the request. So I need to see those before I can vote. So I would respectfully request that we hold these up and perhaps have a special meeting the following week and then approve these. But I can’t approve these based upon not seeing the backup sheets. Mr. Johnson: I just want to intervene and ask the Superintendent…(end of tape) (Beginning of new tape)…outside the office I would be more than willing to sit down with

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you and go over it because it is one of the responsibilities of the legal department to review the bills to approve them. If there is any need to contact outside counsel to go over it to make sure that we have clarity and understanding, we do that. We also review the bills in conjunction with Mr. Azzara, the Assistant Superintendent. So if there are any concerns prior to a Board meeting, if you just pick up the phone or come into the office, I would be more than willing to sit down and discuss the matter with you. Comm. Hodges: Mr. Chairman, the concern that I have with that is I am not going to go and call anyone who has dragged me off and litigated against me. I am not going to speak to them on any level. I don’t know whether I am going to be attacked again so I am not going to go to him. Therefore, my questions will not be answered by him because I am not going to ask him. I don’t think anyone would ask me to go somewhere where I feel threatened. That has been the case and it continues to be the case. Until that gets addressed in a substantive manner, I am at a disadvantage when it comes to getting sound legal advice. I don’t want to go any further because I don’t want to make it appear that this is a personal issue. It’s not. For me, it is an issue of common sense. I question the whole thing of judgment and I will leave it at that. I don’t have confidence in any advice from someone who would attack me and I won’t avail myself of those services. I can’t. Dr. Duroy: As indicated, Mr. Azzara will be able to work with any inquires on the part of the Board. Comm. Atallo: Mr. Azzara can’t give me legal advice. Comm. Hodges: He can’t give me legal advice. Dr. Duroy: We are talking about fiscal. On the issue of fiscal, Mr. Azzara is available and the discussion has to do with questions on fiscal matters relative to legal expenditures. Comm. Hodges: I appreciate that and I will avail myself of Mr. Azzara’s fiscal abilities. But, again, it does not address my legal questions. So that has to be addressed. Comm. Brown: And Dr. Hodges I understand the sensitivity and the nature of this issue. I think it is something that we should go into closed doors to discuss and see how we are going to plan to address this situation in the future. Comm. Atallo: Well, at the end of this meeting, Mr. Chairman, I would like to recommend we go into caucus to discuss personnel and how we are going to deal with legal representation from this point on. That is number one. Number two is the legions of law firms that are brought in from outside the area. I understood that the hourly rate was $125.00 and I see firms for $150.00 and I believe $185.00 billing this district. And I see them sitting there, talking, and hanging out. Apparently they are getting billing time. I see different lawyers different days from the same firm and there is no continuity. Again, I have to agree with Dr. Hodges on two levels. You have to have confidence in your attorney like you would in your physician. If you have an attorney who is attacking you and who is litigating against you, you can’t speak to that person and have

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confidence and trust that they are going to give you sound advice that would be in our best interest. It’s a game of gotchum. Even tomorrow we are going to be in a case where we have to defend ourselves against litigation that Mr. Johnson has initiated. So that creates a big problem. We can’t sit down and talk to that person. It’s a problem. Again, that is specific but overall in general, as Dr. Hodges astutely stated, you have to have confidence in the professionals that represent you. We have to make decisions here, as we do tonight and Wednesday night, that affect millions of dollars, thousands of students, and taxpayers. We need to have people who are advising us and that we have confidence in. It is just not happening now and that has to stop. That is going to stop Wednesday night. In terms of all these firms coming in, we have a firm here hired to do immigration matters. I am concerned about that. What’s that? We are in the education business. Why do we have this firm here? Who is this person? We have another firm handling the recovery of the funds from the internal audit on the facilities contracting. We warned and advised this Board and school district months and years earlier of what was happening. Now we have to pay a firm with taxpayer dollars, money that should have gone to our children for education, to go after these contractors and vendors when the administrators sitting next to you and behind us here were told month after month about Olympic Windows and Paint Smart. They are the same people that showed up. Look at the work. Look at the work that was done. Look at the work that wasn’t done that they were paid for – month after month after month. Everything we said has turned out to be true. We are not saying it anymore just to ourselves. The Department of Education is saying it with their own internal audit report. It is in the paper every day. Everybody sees it. So now we have to pay a firm. The firm is being hired that we had no input in and now we have to pay this firm with taxpayer dollars to go after these companies that should not have done what they did from the beginning because the administration and the legal department didn’t listen to us. We have to go after other people. We have a lawyer who is on administrative leave. I want to talk about that in caucus. Why are we paying somebody for the rest of the school year? What’s that all about? Comm. Brown: I think, Dr. Atallo, your comments are duly noted. We need to look at the policies that are currently in place and maybe we might want to create some new policies so it will be beneficial to the district. Comm. Atallo: We have the policies. The policies in place need to be enforced. First of all, people were hired who should never have been hired. That’s number one. And when it turned out that they were not the right fit for the spot, which we said from the get-go, they should have been cut loose. You don’t pay them for the rest of the year with a paid vacation. That is wrong and that is an abuse of taxpayer dollars. That is an abuse of our public trust as proper stewards of the money. Comm. Hodges: Mr. Chairman, worse than that it sends a disgraceful example. If the work that was done is such that you wish to put them in that position or adjust their position, then adjust the position. Don’t drag it out. I’m not saying anything. Dr. Nuccetelli: We should really be careful about personnel. Comm. Hodges: I am being very…

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Dr. Nuccetelli: Well, let’s hold this for later on and let’s go on with the agenda so we can finish that. Comm. Hodges: Then I will simply say that we need to have a higher level of accountability here than what we have seen so far. I am enormously disappointed that when we finally realized and appreciated our complaints, and they have been realized unfortunately at the expense of our children, we reward that by paying them additionally. They get a paid vacation. That is just problematic. Again, we want to resolve this legal issue. I can’t get legal advice and we are entitled to that. Comm. Brown: I understand. So Mr. Azzara, you will have those backup sheets for Dr. Atallo? Mr. Azzara: Sure. Comm. Atallo: Let’s expedite the agenda so we can get into caucus with personnel. I will make a motion to move… Comm. Kline: No motions. Comm. Atallo: What? Comm. Kline: There are no motions. Comm. Atallo: No, no, no. I want to clean up the finance. Dr. Duroy: There are no motions. Are there any questions? Comm. Brown: Are there any questions on the rest of the items? If not, we can go into closed session. Comm. Atallo: I have no questions with the remainder of the agenda. Wait, I have two questions. Comm. Brown: Okay. No. C-15 Comm. Atallo: Number one, I have concerns about C-15, the changing of the audit firm, which you might want to discuss under personnel. But I have had concerns about their track record in Newark and what happened. I do have concerns. No. C-25 Comm. Atallo: I also have concerns about C-25, the elevator at School No. 13, which we raised before but this seems to be an issue that needs to be addressed. We had a new elevator installed and this is a microcosm of the district. We have new elevators

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installed, they never really worked, and now the warranty is expired. Now we have to pay a whole lot of money to repair the elevator. I am talking about C-25. Comm. Brown: I thought you said C-15. Comm. Atallo: Again, I believe that is not bad planning. Once again, that is no planning. It is bad mismanagement. It was reported consistently that the elevator didn’t work. The warranty expires and now we have to pay public dollars again for an elevator that is relatively new. It is less than two years old and the problem is this was reported that it wasn’t working. But here is the issue. It is not just the money here, which is a waste, but this is the microcosm throughout the district of shoddy workmanship at Eastside High School, School No. 21, School No. 5, and Rosa Parks. It is not working right now. I don’t know who is checking the work but it is not working. Things are happening and I did a personal site inspection of several school sites. The work was done and it is already falling apart, certain things at School No. 21, Rosa Parks, and Eastside High School. It is not even a year old. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for the Paterson School District with the money that is coming in not only to build new facilities but to refurbish our existing facilities. The original buildings were built for a hundred years. These buildings aren’t lasting a hundred days. Comm. Brown: Dr. Atallo, do you have a recommendation for C-25? Comm. Atallo: I don’t know what to do. I think we need to hold our administration more accountable. I think the word here is accountability because this is a microcosm for the district. In a large district, to be fair, some things fall through the cracks. At times it does but this elevator repair was brought up consistently and it was never addressed and now the warranty has run out. But it is not just School No. 13 and the elevator. This is a microcosm of our entire district. If you talk to our administration about the other buildings, this is happening all over the district. Work that is being done is not being done properly and the warranties are running out. When the warranties run out, the SCC, the state and these vendors are gone. We in Paterson are here. As I have always said, we may not be on the Board three, four, five, or ten years from now. There may be all new faces. But the point is what will be our legacy? People may not remember our names and who we were, but they will say what were those Board members thinking at the turn of the century in 2004 when all that money came into Paterson? Why wasn’t it properly planned? Why were we not, as Comm. Taylor says, good stewards of the money? We need to be good stewards of the money and that is what I am saying. So it is not just School No. 13 and the elevator. It is the whole district. It is every elevator, it is every window, it is every roof, and it is every boiler. Comm. Brown: I have a question. Is this the same company that initially installed it? Mr. Andrew Lawn: Yes. Comm. Brown: It is? Comm. Atallo: We are paying them.

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Comm. Brown: That doesn’t make sense. Why are we going to reward them by paying them for a job that they should have done correctly the first time? Mr. Lawn: I can take a guess at what you are talking about, Dr. Atallo. It is hard to really tell exactly what happened with the elevator. Was there a potential latent defect in the elevator when it was first installed during the first year? It is quite possible. It was brought up that it had broken down and there were problems during that first year. However, I am not sure why those problems weren’t remediated or cleared before the end of the warranty period. All that we know now is that I have taken a number of bids on this particular scenario from ZIP Elevator, from Global Elevator, etc. The bids came in at $40,000 and $35,000, and Schindler has been the lowest responsible bidder. Schindler is also one of the largest elevator… Comm. Atallo: They didn’t get it right the first time. They weren’t responsible backing up their work product. That is what I find very troubling. Mr. Lawn: There is a problem with the elevator. There is no question about it. I don’t know what the latent problem was specifically or when it was finally discovered. But it needs a new jack shaft, which is a hydraulic shaft, and that is what the $19,000 is. Comm. Atallo: Why didn’t they get it right the first time? What is their response to that? Why won’t they back up their work product? Mr. Lawn: There are no records, unfortunately, as to the defects during that particular time. There was no correspondence that I could find. There might be something but I can’t find it. Comm. Atallo: This is my concern for you, Mr. Moffitt, and Mr. Azzara for whatever time you guys are here. The School No. 13 elevator is a symbol of the problem. There were no records. And we are going to have more problems come up in the future. We need to have documentation and records. Mr. Lawn: I completely agree with you and if you think I want to leave a legacy of horrors in terms of the SCC work, that is not where I want to go. I am not about to approach and deliver an un-maintainable problem or facility for the district. I share with you your enthusiasm and the hope for this unbelievable opportunity for us to improve the schools in a high quality way. Comm. Atallo: It is a once in a lifetime that we will never see again. Mr. Lawn: And we are hiring the staff and I have offers out to people who have accepted that will help us to ensure the quality of the product that we want. Comm. Atallo: Well, hiring the staff doesn’t ensure accountability. That doesn’t help us with accountability. We don’t need to add layers and layers of more bureaucrats. We need to have people who are here, while they are here, being accountable. I want to know from this company. You can tell them the Board asked tonight and said they should fix that elevator and they should not charge the taxpayers of Paterson to fix that

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elevator. It is their work product. It has only been there a short amount of time. To come in and try to charge us $19,000 – they should be ashamed of themselves. They should be ashamed to come in here and say we are going to charge you to fix something that they never had working properly before. That’s a disgrace. Mr. Lawn: I hear what you are saying. I have tried to prove it one way or the other. Comm. Atallo: What do they say – no they are not going to do it? Is that their attitude? We should contact the SCC and we should put them on a no work list, just like Paint Smart was put on a list even though they continue to use them in spite of that. You should put them on a list saying you are not a responsible bidder. Mr. Lawn: I don’t know if it was done under SCC. I thought it was done under Epic. I have spoken to… Comm. Atallo: Oh, Epic. Well, that says it all, too. That is not funny. I don’t see what is funny because people are going to go to jail my friends. Epic has now become, by osmosis, Jacobs? Mr. Lawn: Yes, it has. Comm. Atallo: Well, what does that tell us? Mr. Lawn: I can’t solve the problem from being your facilities director. I would recommend at this time that we make the repair, because the elevator is required in the school, and let legal argue this issue because I can’t do it. I just can’t do it. Comm. Atallo: Epic doesn’t have records. The district doesn’t have records. Epic was hired as the project manager and they have no records. Now most of the people from Epic are now working for Jacobs. Mr. Lawn: Yes, that’s true. Comm. Brown: I just have one question, Mr. Lawn. If we award them this contract, what will be the warranty period for this $19,000? Mr. Lawn: I would have to check that and be very careful. Comm. Brown: Please. Mr. Lawn: I am not sure. I would expect a warranty period of six months or a year. Comm. Atallo: Whom does Jacobs report to – the SCC? Mr. Lawn: Yes. Comm. Atallo: Why did they hire the people from Epic when Epic was the one being investigated for not having records? Why would they hire these people?

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Mr. Lawn: I don’t know. I can’t answer that. Comm. Atallo: Madam County Superintendent, since you are our state representative, can you contact the Commissioner’s office? Dr. Nuccetelli: I am not in charge of the SCC. Comm. Atallo: Whom does the SCC report to? Comm. Brown: The Governor. Comm. Atallo: I know that but they work in tandem with the Department of Education. Can you bring it to the Commissioner’s attention, what is going on here? Dr. Nuccetelli: I will bring it to his attention. Comm. Atallo: There is no accountability and no records. Dr. Nuccetelli: Well, I will bring to the Commissioner’s attention your concern about Epic and Jacobs. Comm. Atallo: We would appreciate that. Thank you. Comm. Moody: On this issue, I happen to agree with Dr. Atallo about this company. That is a slap in the face to award them a contract to repair this elevator when I personally witnessed at least on two occasions visiting the school and trying to get them to correct that. They were evasive even when they were responsible when it was under warranty. They were evasive and they did patchwork. Even while we were there, they did some very, very temporary work saying they were going to be back next week. They were waiting for a part and they were very irresponsible. It is a slap in the face to give them a contract and then for them to suggest that they will charge us to fix that elevator. They are one of the largest elevator concerns that we have. They should give us the elevator. It is really embarrassing and I don’t see how we can be even talking to them at this point unless we are talking about, as Dr. Atallo is saying, trying to convince them to come in and give us this elevator for free. Comm. Taylor: Through the Chair… Comm. Brown: Mr. Lawn, do you want to make a comment? Mr. Lawn: I have tried to prevail upon them in three different approaches. My big problem is that the lowest other bids, and we have looked around, are $35,000 and $40,000. It was unconscionable to me, notwithstanding the performance that I have heard from them, to get it for $35,000 when I can get it repaired for $19,000 and change. That is where I am coming from.

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Comm. Atallo: They should have completed the work properly from the get go, as Comm. Moody has astutely pointed out. They evaded it until the contract ran out. We should hold their feet to the fire. We are the third largest district in the State of New Jersey. We are an Abbott district. We have contacts with the New Jersey School Boards Association, the New Jersey Association of School Business Officials, and the Department of Education. We need to let everybody know that they are not responsible business people. They don’t back up their work product. Mr. Lawn: I agree with you. I agree. I would just like to get it fixed. There are a lot of concerns. Comm. Atallo: The Better Business Bureau. That is what we need to do. Mr. Lawn: That we can do, sure. And perhaps legal can bring a suit against them but that is another issue. You know, you might get them to cave. You might get them to settle. Comm. Brown: Comm. Taylor is recognized. Comm. Taylor: I would just like to go through the Chair to ask Mr. Moody if at anytime did anyone write any letters that they have a copy of. I know Mr. Lawn doesn’t have one but he is saying he can’t find any information. Do you have dates that you remember that you saw this happening? And was there any kind of write up for those sightings that you had? Comm. Moody: I don’t know the dates. I recall that it was maybe a month after they completed the work. We were called by the administration, the staff at school. We toured the school. We went straight to the elevator the first thing. We were back there maybe a month later looking at the patchwork that they did and listening to the promises that they were waiting for some parts. Comm. Taylor: Would the school have a listing of that – the principal and the building? Comm. Moody: I believe Mr. Sparrow – he should have. Comm. Kline: Mr. President, shouldn’t there also be work orders? Mr. Azzara: There should be. Comm. Brown: There are supposed to be but I think that is what Mr. Lawn is referring to. There is no… Comm. Taylor: He doesn’t have any because evidently they threw them all out. Comm. Brown: There is no paper trail. Comm. Kline: The school should have copies of the work order.

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Dr. Duroy: The point is that I think we introduced the electronic work order about two years ago. So it should have been done manually, which is correct on the part of Comm. Kline, but what we have today is electronic work orders that are processed. Comm. Moody: I think if you talk to Chapman, I think Chapman was the fellow over there. Comm. Taylor: Yes, he is chief custodian. Comm. Brown: He’s the chief custodian. Comm. Taylor: He would know. Comm. Moody: Because he made a lot of inquiries and attempts to try to get it fixed. Dr. Duroy: Mr. Lawn, if we pull this particular item for further investigation, does that take away the option with the amount of money that we have negotiated for this work? Mr. Lawn: I wouldn’t think so. Dr. Duroy: So if we delayed it for three weeks, for example, and if we can’t get around it or if we decided that we should consider this three weeks from now, we can still hold to these numbers? Mr. Lawn: I would think so, sure. Comm. Brown: We can also find out the warranty period or whatever. Comm. Hodges: All I really wanted to know is how far are we along in getting a maintenance schedule up and a preventative maintenance schedule together with a look at the warranties on some of this new equipment, construction, and what have you so the district can know what to look forward to when these warranties run out? Hopefully there is some sort of schedule being computerized so that we look at the warranty dates and the expiration dates, and match with our maintenance schedule so that we know what we are doing and where we are headed. Mr. Lawn: There is no question that the district is paralyzed by this emergency maintenance paradigm. We are trying to dig out from underneath. There is a new manger of maintenance that has accepted a position who is very skilled in preventive maintenance issues. We need a new work order system, which is in the budget and which we have put into the capital plan to get implemented. We are getting to a point where I have staff. I have lieutenants. We have competency in the facilities department to start implementing these. The first step will be to get a new work order system in place that can accommodate the scheduled preventive maintenance that we speak of. It varies from everything, from roof inspections to filter changes to cleaning out of unit ventilators to boilers and a lot of other issues that are associated with the district. And you are right. This all should be documented in terms of preventative maintenance work orders rather than being victimized by these work orders. That will all start to fall

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in place as the staff comes on over the next couple of weeks. They will get oriented towards their tasks. New staff has been hired and offers have been made to others. And we will be actively pursuing the new work order system that can handle the preventive maintenance, the scheduled maintenance. Comm. Hodges: Do we have any approximate timetable as to when these people might be up to speed and going? Was some sort of maintenance schedule developed? Mr. Lawn: I have not plotted out the specific tasks. I am down to two specific work order systems. One is called School Lube and the other is called Data String. These are two robust preventive maintenance systems. Once you do that, there is going to be 5,000 to 10,000 of preventive maintenance specifics that you have to write for each individual school. If you take each school, 50 schools, and just assume 100 preventive work orders per school, you are talking about 5,000 issues that have to be written and documented and scheduled into the system. It is going to take six months to a year to get that all done and put it together. That would be my estimate of it. You start with the work order system first, you work into that, you train everybody how it works, and the next step is you start implementing the scheduled preventive maintenance issues. Comm. Hodges: We at least need to catalogue when the warranties on some of these things are going to end. Mr. Lawn: Yes. As a matter of fact, the facilities department has been working very hard the last couple of months to try to organize the plan room that we currently have. There is about three feet of files and drawings that are coming from the SCC in terms of the as built documentation, along with the individual warranty books that are associated with each school and with each health and safety specific item of construction that was done. So we have those records and we have file space and shelf space to store these all in an orderly manner. Comm. Hodges: I am particularly concerned with the dates. Mr. Lawn: Right. Those dates, and I agree with you, should be entered into the work order system so that when a work order comes up associated with the roof, associated with the air conditioning, or the unit ventilators, you know where to turn with the numbers and the contact points of the contractors. Comm. Hodges: But I also want to prioritize our looking at those areas first – those areas where the warranties are going to expire. Those should be addressed and should be given priority. That is why I wanted the dates in a computer system. If nothing else, just the date when the warranty expires and that’s all so that we can know that we need to pay attention to these areas first. Mr. Lawn: That’s a good suggestion. I like it. A spreadsheet of the warranty expiration dates. Comm. Hodges: Yes, that’s all. Thank you very much.

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Comm. Brown: The Chair recognizes Dr. Jones. Comm. Agard-Jones: Assuming that the second lowest bidder is going to provide the same kind of service, wouldn’t it be wise to go with the second lowest bidder and turn around and sue Schindler? Comm. Brown: Yes. Comm. Taylor: Hello, I hear that. Comm. Brown: Absolutely. Comm. Taylor: As Mr. Moody said, it’s like a slap in the face. Comm. Atallo: What does our legal department think of that? It’s a good idea. Mr. Lawn: From what I know of the merits of the case, I think you have at best less than a 50% chance of prevailing from the evidence that I have seen so far. Comm. Agard-Jones: When such a case is brought against Schindler, whether the evidence is there relative to how many times they were called or what have you, that would damage their reputation. If they are such a large corporation, as you have indicated, they are not going to want districts to be talking about the poor delivery of service and the fact that they installed an elevator, a year later the elevator is broken, and now they are charging the district for it. That could be a public relations fiasco for Schindler. Comm. Hodges: Especially since it is a state operated district where the state is uniquely involved and could be seen as bringing the lawsuit. That is particularly damaging. Dr. Duroy: If I may, Mr. Chair, I just have another point along the lines of Dr. Jones. For this particular company to defend themselves, should we file a lawsuit, it would cost them more than $20,000. So it is something that I think from here to the May meeting we will look to come back and have a response and perhaps some additional information as to proceeding with the second lowest bidder, proceeding with a lawsuit, or whether Schindler would in fact consider doing the work. Comm. Brown: Thank you, Mr. Lawn. No. C-14 Comm. Kline: On C-14, this is a list of contract vendors. My question is, are there any minority vendors on this list? There are three long lists, two and a half pages long. On C-14, it is a list of state contract vendors. My question is, are there any minority vendors on the list?

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Mr. Azzara: I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head. We would have to take a look at that. Comm. Kline: I would appreciate it. Comm. Taylor: Doesn’t our person that is in charge of affirmative action and contracts know that? Mr. Azzara: No, these are state contracts that any municipality or school district is allowed to use if the need arises. Comm. Taylor: Well, then they would know. Mr. Azzara: Well, the state would have followed all equal opportunity and affirmative action policies before awarding these contracts. But the question is, how many of these are minority firms and I don’t know that right now. Comm. Hodges: That’s the question. Comm. Brown: I think the next question would be what is the district’s policy on hiring minority contractors. I think that is something that we should also be looking into and considering. Comm. Hodges: I think we have a policy. It’s just a question of whether or not we are following it. Dr. Nuccetelli: (Comments were made away from the microphone and were not heard on tape.) Comm. Taylor: Well, we have to make sure our state is doing their job as well. They are demanding it of us so we can demand it of them. No. C-2 Comm. Hodges: Heavens, accountability! Mr. Chairman, I didn’t get an opportunity to raise my questions on C-2. On the very first page, with reference to Patricia Morris Associates, Inc., what is this open, void, open, void, open, hand mean? Comm. Brown: You are looking at the bill list? Comm. Hodges: The bill list on C-2. Comm. Brown: What page are you on? Comm. Hodges: The very first one. Mr. Azzara: They are voided checks.

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Comm. Hodges: What does the open hand mean? What does that term mean? Comm. Brown: What does open hand mean? Mr. Bill Moffitt: That’s an off cycle check. Comm. Hodges: Meaning? Mr. Moffitt: It could have been out of order on the list, sequentially. Comm. Atallo: The check was voided. Mr. Moffitt: Yes, there are two entries. One is a negative and one is a positive, so it is voided out. Comm. Hodges: I am looking for some backup information regarding the use of the MediCenter. There are two on page 15 - $5,000 for the MediCenter. Mr. Azzara: I will have to take a look at that. Comm. Hodges: I’m kind of curious. I don’t understand. Comm. Brown: I’m sorry, Dr. Hodges, what was that name again? Comm. Hodges: MediCenter. Dr. Duroy: The MediCenter is the district provider for employees who we send out. Comm. Taylor: Medical services for people… Comm. Hodges: I know what it is but who uses it and why are we using it? Dr. Duroy: Ms. Shafer, would you like to comment? Ms. Eileen Shafer: We use it for physical examinations for staff who continue to stay out of work. They do psychological evaluations and examinations. They handle substance abuse problems so that we can get them back to work. Comm. Brown: Where is that located, Ms. Shafer? Is it in Paterson? Ms. Shafer: (Comments were made away from the microphone and were not heard on tape.) Comm. Brown: Okay. Comm. Hodges: Is that the same company? There are two checks here and it just says MediCenter. It’s the same vendor.

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Ms. Shafer: (Comments were made away from the microphone and were not heard on tape.) Comm. Hodges: There is no address. It is just a vendor number. Comm. Taylor: The vendor number is the same. Dr. Duroy: It’s the same vendor number. Ms. Shafer: We use the MediCenter in Totowa for individuals who get hurt on the job. And then we use two or three different physicians for psychologists, psychologists… Comm. Taylor: He needs you on the microphone. Ms. Shafer: We use a MediCenter in Totowa for anyone who gets hurt on the job and who needs immediate medical attention. And then we use a general practitioner if we need to send someone back to work and they have physical problems who have been out for a long period of time and continue to give us notes that are questionable. Then we also use a psychologist for any other problems that we have. Comm. Hodges: Okay, thank you. No. C-25 Comm. Hodges: You are pulling C-25? Comm. Brown: Yes. Mr. Azzara: Yes, we are. Personnel Committee Comm. Atallo: I have personnel questions and I would like to make a motion that we go into caucus. Dr. Nuccetelli: (Comments were made away from the microphone and were not heard on tape.) Comm. Atallo: Number one, there are personnel listings that I have questions on. Number two… Dr. Nuccetelli: Do you have a list of personnel items? Comm. Atallo: Yes, I do. I want to talk about these law firms in terms of professional service contracts. Dr. Nuccetelli: Then you can do that in public. It is not appropriate for… I would defer to the attorney but I would think that contracts are not appropriate for private discussion.

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Comm. Atallo: Well, let’s talk about professional service contracts now. Mr. Johnson: Which item? Comm. Atallo: The firm of Schenck, Price, Smith & King. Comm. Brown: Where do you have that, Dr. Atallo? Comm. Atallo: That was in the personnel area. I don’t know why because it should be a professional service contract – 04-B325. It says approved retaining the firm of Schenck, Price, Smith & King, LLP as special counsel to handle the recovery of funds to the Internal Audit of Facilities Contracting, in the amount of $150.00. Let me read this into the record. I am raising a question regarding a professional service contract approving the retaining the firm of Schenck, Price, Smith & King, LLP as special counsel to handle the recovery of funds the Internal Audit of the Facilities Contracting in the amount of $150.00. Dr. Nuccetelli: Where are you reading from, Dr. Atallo? Comm. Atallo: This is in the personnel area. Dr. Nuccetelli: I have this. Is this where you are? Comm. Atallo: Right, personnel item 04-B325. This is my concern. When I get everybody’s attention we will continue. I’ll wait. My concern is this. We have had a policy of paying law firms $125 an hour. Why are we paying this firm $150 per hour? Why is that happening? Dr. Duroy: First of all, there was no policy, but rather a practice. Comm. Atallo: Okay, practice or policy. Dr. Duroy: Secondly, there has been firms in the past that we have on short term paid them at a higher rate, $150 and maybe even higher. I am certainly aware of $150 at minimum. The issue of this particular firm is that we had through the Department conducted a review of law firms to be considered to work for the district. In the short term, when we came across this particular firm we felt that rather than make a decision whether they were going to be awarded the contract for the district, we certainly felt that they could assist us in this particular measure at this point. Comm. Atallo: There is a new Board and the new Board hasn’t had input into picking law firms and we are going to insist on having input. If we are making decisions that we can be litigated against, we are going to have input on who is representing. We are not going to have firms coming in from Morris County who are connected to different people. My concern is what is the cap on this firm? What is the budget cap? You have $150 per hour. What is the cap?

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Dr. Duroy: I don’t know. Was there a cap on that? Do you recall? Mr. Azzara: No. Comm. Atallo: You have to put a cap on it for accounting purposes. What is the cap? Do we have an amount not to exceed? Mr. Azzara: Not that I know. Comm. Atallo: How do you budget for this? How do you budget without putting a cap on a law firm? They have an open-ended contract to keep charging? That is what they will do. Dr. Duroy: That is something that has to be reviewed. To be honest with you, I don’t know. Comm. Atallo: Are we going to pull it? Dr. Duroy: No, we are not going to pull it. We do have a contract with them. Comm. Atallo: You don’t have a cap. You don’t have a cap on this. Dr. Nuccetelli: It will be revised for Wednesday’s meeting to include a cap. Comm. Atallo: We are going to go on record as saying the Board is reorganizing Wednesday and we are not going to be supporting firms that we don’t know who they are. What is this firm’s expertise in school law? What boards do they represent? Dr. Duroy: We don’t have that information at this point. Comm. Atallo: You selected them. Dr. Duroy: Yes, we did select them. We selected them based on the fact that they had extensive experience in school law. Now I don’t have that specific information but they were selected by a committee, with assistance from the Department, and we have the authority to proceed. Again, what we did was limit at this point their involvement with this specific task as indicated. Comm. Atallo: If they are going to be doing work in the Paterson School District, we want to see their background, their professional resume, and what school districts this firm represents. You claim they do extensive work but you don’t know where they have done it. Dr. Duroy: Well, it was the committee’s task to review that. But I think we can provide that information. Comm. Atallo: This is going to be addressed. It’s a different Board.

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Dr. Nuccetelli: Let me caution you that the hiring of an attorney is personnel and that is not something that the Board has input in at this particular point in time. Comm. Atallo: Well, in the future we are looking for that to change. Dr. Nuccetelli: Okay, but I want to indicate to you that the selection of a Board attorney is under the purview of personnel. Comm. Atallo: And we are going to address that. Dr. Nuccetelli: That is up to you. Comm. Atallo: That is what we will do. On 04-B268 retaining the firm of Schwartz, Simon, Edelstein of Florham Park, another Morris County firm, as special counsel handling certain legal matters and litigation in an amount not to exceed $30,000. There is a cap here but you don’t show an hourly rate. What is the hourly rate that this firm is charging? Mr. Johnson: It’s $145 an hour. Comm. Atallo: I would like to see something in writing from the Superintendent. Can you please give us a memorandum in writing documenting the hourly rate so we can have that from a credible source? Dr. Duroy: You can come to my office or Mr. Azzara’s office. Comm. Atallo: If we can have that within the next day or two, I would appreciate that. I want the hourly rate. Again, it exceeds the $125 practice that we have had. Number two, it says certain school legal matters and litigation. We would like to get the specific breakdown as to what they are doing for the district with our tax dollars. We would like that in the memo as well – what they are litigating on. I was out in Newark on Friday and I saw that firm there, as well as another firm Basterica and Guzman out there. I saw two firms getting paid. I saw the in-house legal counsel out there. So much for us having in-house counsel to save the district money! I see billing hours up the wazoo for the Paterson School District on an administrative law case – one that even shouldn’t be happening. My next issue is retaining the firm of Frank & York as special counsel. This is 04-B380, approved retaining the firm of Frank & York as special counsel to handle immigration matters at an amount not to exceed $15,000. My question is why are we getting involved with immigration matters? How is this the role of the Board of Education? Dr. Duroy: In this particular case, it came through personnel where we do have I believe teachers that fall into this category. Am I correct, Ms. Shafer? I don’t know if you can add to that. Ms. Shafer: Yes, they fall into the category of the Visiting International Faculty who are now staying on board with the district and we needed to get some expert advice in immigration to get them on board correctly for September.

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Comm. Atallo: So we had to hire an immigration firm to do that? Dr. Duroy: It is an expertise that some of the local firms didn’t have the background and so we felt it was necessary to identify a firm. We did put a cap on it, identifying a firm that could assist us in this specific area of the law. Comm. Atallo: There is a cap but I don’t see an hourly rate. Can you give me the hourly rate? Do you know it off hand? Dr. Duroy: I don’t know. I don’t know whether counsel knows. Mr. Johnson: Dr. Duroy, when this firm was approached, I believe we had nine or ten teachers who needed to file and have immigration visas requested. They gave us a flat rate for the nine or ten teachers. It was $15,000 covering everything. Comm. Atallo: Why are we using taxpayer dollars to pay for their legal bills? They should be paying that for themselves. I don’t understand why you are using taxpayer dollars for that. Mr. Johnson: I think you have to understand that these particular teachers have an expertise that we do not have or that we have not been able to attract teachers on and the expense was justified. Comm. Atallo: No, it is not. Mr. Johnson: If these teachers were not retained for the coming school year, we would be scrambling to try to fill those positions. I believe Eileen Shafer has indicated that these teachers have been with the district for several years and they needed assistance with their immigration status. Ms. Shafer: We are not paying their fees. We are paying the law firm for advice that I needed in personnel that I was unable to get in the district. So in speaking with our law firm, I wanted to be sure that we were doing the right thing to protect the district and I was not able to get that information. But we are not paying for the teachers. They have to pay their own fees. We are paying to ensure that the district is doing the right thing. Comm. Atallo: That is not what Mr. Johnson said. Ms. Shafer: So the lawyer is really reviewing all the documents and all the paperwork before I sign off on it to send it through. Comm. Atallo: It appears to me an excessive fee. Do you know the hourly rate they are charging? Ms. Shafer: I don’t.

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Mr. Johnson: As I indicated before, for the nine or ten teachers that they will be processing the paperwork on, it is covered under the retainer of $15,000. We don’t know whether we are going to have more teachers coming forward with respect to immigration matters. The regular rate I believe is $250 or something an hour. That is the regular rate. So we do have the nine or ten teachers covered under the retainer agreement. If there is any additional work, it will be billed at the hourly rate. Comm. Atallo: How was this firm selected? Mr. Johnson: This firm was selected by contacting a number of immigration law firms by my office. This firm also represents Montclair State University, so they have a good reputation. Comm. Atallo: That is irrelevant to the Paterson School District. It is apples and oranges. I think the fee is excessive. I am not going to debate you. I am talking now. I think the fee is excessive and I can’t support it. Again, if you ask for a flat fee for representation to give the Board advice, it is unfortunate that the in-house counsel lacks the legal expertise to advise. Perhaps when we hire in-house counsel in the future, we will hire in-house counsel that has the appropriate expertise to advise us professionally since that doesn’t happen now. Thank you very much. Mr. Johnson: Well, I disagree with your characterization here. Comm. Atallo: I am not talking to you. Mr. Johnson: Immigration law is a specialization. You just can’t tell someone… Comm. Atallo: You are out of order. I have the floor. Please rule this man out of order. Mr. Johnson: …in their expertise. Comm. Atallo: Thank you very much. I have two more questions regarding personnel and I think we should go into caucus to discuss them. One deals with administrative leave, and I have another question regarding another administrator. So I would like to make a motion at this time. Comm. Brown: You don’t have to make a motion, Dr. Atallo. We will just close the regular portion. Comm. Hodges: Before we conclude other business, there is just one small matter I would like to address. I am sorry more people aren’t here to talk about it. I submitted a proposal to you, Dr. Duroy. I don’t know whether you received it yet. It is regarding laptops. Basically I just jotted down some figures, an approximation of what it costs to produce these packets. I think the rough approximation is running us about $20,000 a year to produce the packets just to assemble the packets and to make copies. That is not including the paper and all the other items. It is just the time for the staff, for four people, to assemble them. It is a total of $20, 000. The request is to consider doing a time study as to what the actual, because this is an approximation, cost is in terms of

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man or woman hours for each month for at least three months to get a more accurate figure. I know this is going to kill Mr. Moody but I believe what can be done is to buy laptop computers and then have all this material assembled electronically and then be given a CD. We won’t have to go through all this and it will save on the staff. It will save you storage space. I think over the course of three years, you are saving $60,000, which will more than cover the cost of the initial startup, and you can give the computers away afterwards and still have money. You will save money on the process. Those figures have already been documented. We discussed this in the past. It has never gone anywhere but it is cost effective and there are other places that are doing it. I think there are other benefits in terms of contacting people, disseminating information via internet and so forth, which can be done with the laptops to update the calendars and our concerns and data and the whole bit. So at the Board meetings your PowerPoint presentations are just fed in via the network and it is all up there behind you on a large screen so that the whole auditorium can view what you are seeing on the screens in front of you. So it brings you up into the 21st Century. I know it is going to upset some people to go through that old time machine but we can spoon them through. I think it is really worth considering. I think that if we did the time study and looked at those numbers, it would be rather surprising. The proposal will get to you soon. What I will also do is make copies of that and send it to the rest of the Board, which I didn’t do initially. It was just a what do you think about this memo. But I will reproduce that memo and give it to the Board for their own consideration as well. Comm. Brown: Officially the meeting is adjourned. The meeting was adjourned at 10:15 p.m.