Clifton Superintendent Richard Tardalo On Hot Seat

    The continuation of the hearing on Thursday Feb. 24th started with Judge Peter Doyne summerizing the State's major elements of proof which include:

• Inefficient Time to show proof that the education budget cuts has not hindered the "through and efficient clause"
• Due to economic crisis, cuts were equitable throughout all districts
• Sufficient funds per district to manage itself accordingly
• Federal funding is considered as appropriate alleviation of the budget cuts
• There is little connection between Performance and Funding 

    David Sciarra and Eileen Conner of the Education Law Center spent a couple hours asking the Clifton Superintendent of Schools Richard Tardalo a series of questions which began asking his overall experience in education which include starting as a 5th grade elementary teacher in 1973 and rose from special education teacher in the Bronx and Brooklyn, principal and later Superintendent for the last 2 years of Clifton School District.   He shared that there are approximately 11,000 children in the district, 14 Elementary Schools, 2 middle schools and 1 High Schools.  The city itself has a population of 80,000 people of which 48% are Hispanic, 40% Caucasian, 2% African American and 10% "other".  67 different languages spoken in the schools with 65% of families expressing that english is NOT the primary language spoken.   7% of students quality for ESL and 36% qualify for free or reduce lunch.

     ELC went on to question every single cut the district had to make, especially since the community rejected the proposed budget to include a 4% tax levy in response to the state's budget cuts.  Mr. Tardalo noted that through negotiations, the City Council only permited a 1.3$ tax levy which prompted the cuts he was trying to avoid such as:

• Supervisors
• Media specialists
• Professional Developent
• Literacy series
• Math series
• Pay freezes, even for the Superintendent, who contractually did not have to take a pay freeze but opted to do so
• Cut freshmen athletic teams and some intermural programs
• Significant increase of class size
• And much more

      Judge Doyne eventually began to ask whether the old Core Curriculum Content Standards being achieved as a result of this the budget cuts.  Old as opposed to upcoming CCCS in 2011, which he expressed was not to be considered when discussing budget cuts affects on proficiency since it was not being implemented yet.   Mr. Tardalo expressed that most students  below 50% proficiency especially from Title 1 schools.  "We want all students to achieve proficiency, emphasis on all.  I am not sure whether meeting minimum efficiency is good enough for the work force or higher education." summarized Mr. Tardalo

     Judge Doyne finalized the questioning with asking if the superintendent had the additional monies that were cut, how would he have used said money to help the District?  Mr. Tardalos response was that he would place more Basic Skills Instruction and Saturday Programs.  His supervisors and media services would not have been let go.  Over all most of the programs would not have been altered. 


      At this point, the Deputy Attorney General Jon Martin began to question the witness and focused on pointing out what positions the Superintendent did have available to him from his 1400 employees, 900 certified staff, 180 teacher aides and para professionals which Mr. Tardalo was asked to elaborate the roles and costs of various positions.   He consistently alluded to teacher negotiations and evaluations.  Mr. Tardalo chose not to speak on the issue consider the hearing was a public forum and discussing his views on the matter may affect negotiations down the road.   As the state continued to question Mr. Tardalo, he always found his way back to teacher efficiency and evaluation, of which Mr. Tardalo would repeat his refusal to comment.

      Judge Doyne tried to get around this issue with asking if as an educator, did he agree that there can be a improved performance of our students if our schools were readily able to discharge the 5-8% least capable teacher? What has happened in the past when you try to fire such a teacher?  Mr. Tardalo responded that there are some things that can be done like refusing to provide promotion or raises but firing a teacher can be a very costly issues.    So Judge Doyne asked whether the reason why discharging a teacher due to poor student performance was not on the table at the moment because of cost? Again, the superintendent could not answer due to the aforementioned limitation of upcoming contract negotiations. 


       The state continued their line of questioning to note that some of their issues such as increasing class size was happening before the current budget cuts and ultimately making the case that Clifton is an efficient district but there are still areas it can manage with less money. 

        For Friday Feb. 25th, Melvin L. Wyns will be the only witness called. The hearding will begin at 10 a.m. He is an expert in New Jersey public school finance and a former Director of the NJ Department of Education’s Office of School Finance (1988-2001).