Cliffside Park board approves consent items, moves forward on 2026–27 budget kickoff; superintendent previews life-skills curriculum and trips

The Cliffside Park Board of Education approved a package of consent and agenda items and heard staff updates on curriculum, student activities and several facilities projects during a regularly scheduled meeting.

Superintendent (name not specified) told the board the district is finalizing a K–12 life-skills curriculum “going to focus on skills that, our MD, or autism students are going to be using and going to be focusing on as they go from kindergarten all the way up to the twelfth grade.” The superintendent said the curriculum team includes O’Hanlon, Rowe, Canales and Pinto and that the board can expect materials at the October meeting.

The superintendent also reviewed NJSLA (New Jersey Student Learning Assessments) results distributed to families this week and encouraged parents with questions to contact teachers, principals or school counselors. “Students last spring sat for the NJSLA assessment,” the superintendent said. The district will hold a district professional development day on Sept. 30 for staff to compare NJSLA results with Renaissance Star assessment data and to identify priority standards and instructional strategies.

High school student leaders — members of the high school executive team — presented a brief report on the first day of school and sought board support for a student festival. The student president (name not specified) said, “The first day of high school was honestly amazing... Everyone looked so happy to be back,” and described plans to involve local vendors and student clubs in a planned festival. The superintendent said he would follow up with student leaders and staff.

On operations and finance, Business/Finance staff (identified in the meeting as Mister Bridal) said the district is finalizing year-end audit work for 2024–25, preparing the full 2026 budget and beginning planning for a 2027 budget cycle once auditors clarify surplus figures. The district highlighted several resolutions and vendor items in the meeting packet:

- Resolution 37: a kickoff resolution for the 2026–27 budget year (described as a draft/high-level document to start the budget cycle). The document provides milestones and stakeholder engagement steps. Specific appropriation amounts and final budget figures were not specified in the discussion.

- A technology/vendor purchase from SHI connected to the district’s “carry access installation project,” described as an initial hardware purchase needed to enable later mantrap security installations. The resolution number for this vendor item was not specified in the transcript.

- Resolution (page reference noted as the next page): a KDJ contract for a vinyl wrap/finishing project in the high school gym lobby tied to the Jim Labbe renovation work.

- Energy procurement: staff described using a contractor to bid electricity and gas; staff said the district’s kilowatt-per-unit pricing with alternate suppliers is “significantly lower than Public Service” and that, for a district of this size, the approach “could be saving tens of thousands of dollars per year.” Staff emphasized that billing continues to come through Public Service for administrative simplicity.

- Resolution 64 (page 26): a small change order to close out a project with Murray Paving and the district’s architect/engineer (E and V). Staff said the original contract had an approximate 10% contingency and that the final total project cost was roughly $182,000; additional work (listed as peninsula removal and soil removal) pushed costs slightly above the contingency. The transcript did not provide a precise final change-order dollar amount.

Board action: near the end of the meeting a board member moved to accept the agenda/consent items and a second was offered. The board approved the motion by roll-call vote with the following recorded yes votes: Missus Abreu; Mister Capano; Mister Garcia; Mister Nedru; Doctor Pantoliano; Mister Rincourt; Mister Russo; Mister Tabakkia; and Mister Unizi. The motion was recorded as carried. The motion text in the transcript was cut off and the packet ties the listed resolutions and vendor items to the consent/agenda that was approved; the transcript did not record separate roll-call results for each individual resolution.

Additional operational notes made during the meeting: Tuesday (staff in‑service) will be a full day of professional development with no students in session; students return the following Wednesday. The district noted an early dismissal for staff and students on Friday, Oct. 10, as part of a scheduling arrangement with the CPEA contract. The superintendent also listed planned high‑school international trips: a 2‑country trip to France and Spain, a separate trip to Italy, and a planned 2027 trip to the U.K.; the baseball spring-training trip to Orlando is scheduled for March. The meeting included recognition plans for students who earned perfect scores on the NJSLA, and those students were invited to the next month’s board meeting for honors.

The board did not take separate final votes on individual budget line items during the meeting; the 2026–27 budget kickoff resolution was presented as a first-step draft to guide upcoming work. Several items discussed — the SHI purchase for access hardware, the KDJ vinyl wrap work and the Murray Paving closeout — are tied to ongoing capital projects and carry standard implementation dependencies (auditor review for year-end budget work; contractor completion and closeout paperwork for paving work).