Board Meeting

001e e e testing e e e being that it's 7:03 call this uh regular business meeting to order of the Upper Park School District May 9th 24 first of all let's all do the Pledge of Allegiance please we don't have a class this this tonight so it's just us thank you Mr Bishop could I have a roll call please certainly uh director McCormack here director shmid here director mcer here director Bieber here director Cunningham here director Penny Packer here director fluky here director prago here and director chaani present thank you uh I'll introduce our staff Mike you have to tell me your last name again thank you that's why I didn't remember it I'll introduce you first while I'm have it so we have a substitute Kyle today his name is Mike christoo okay and

002thank you for being here uh we have Mr Bishop our U Finance director and we have Miss Fischer who is our HR director and we have Dr finina Who is our assistant superintendent and then we have Dr Roach our our superintendent and we have Rachel Landis making her last appearance today and Chris Montes who I hope will be back next year all right and various oh who did I miss and we have various insundry audience members and we also have quite a few administrators thank you all for coming uh we'll move on to the board president's report I usually don't have a lot to say but today I have a lot to say so welcome everyone again I had the pleasure of attending the Arts Festival last night at the middle school I walked the

003gym saw the great art I've always said here as my kids were going through that there's the best art in the school district I I I don't even know where it comes from and I can't even draw a stick figure and thank you North pen um so I also got to hear the high school jazz band perform as well as Elementary and the Middle School bands they were all amazing and kudos to everyone that helps to make that a great night and and artsfest week basically uh this morning as a member of the chamers perkup committee I had an hourlong meeting with chamber members business owners and members of our school district uh this was a follow-up meeting to the sophomore business tours that were in early April uh Ain from the chamber who's in

004charge she literally had to bang a gavl to shut everybody up because they were all excitedly chattering because it was such a such a good uh event turnout uh really meaningful uh so I'd like to give a shout out to Kim Bast our curriculum director and also our teacher on special assignment who is Angela trob I don't know if she's here today um as a business owner I've been involved with this committee at the chamber even before I was a school board member and I'd like to put a Shameless plugin everyone to um uh for Angela because right now she's our teacher on special assignment and I know she's on our admin's want list in our budget her uh to keep that position as a permanent position for her so that's my Shameless plug um

005she's amazing uh she was just here at our EPS meeting our last Ms meeting and she gave us a whole update on what she's been up to this year uh she's truly amazing in this role and she's second to none with her exuberance for it so I will wholeheartedly ADV advocate for her to be kept in this capacity as a permanent position with the district last item on my list is the thought I've been giving to our new K5 science curriculum I know we've put to bed that there isn't anything nefarious going on with the curriculum uh Sarah you brought up the cost which had me thinking about it and I wanted to put it into perspective when I was Treasurer at marel ptfs way back in the day our principal Charlie ways he always

006broke things down to their Pur student cost that was so you couldn't say no as treasure that's so I couldn't say no uh so I'd like to use this method and put the cost of our new curriculum into perspective the curriculum has a cost of about $238,000 although I believe it's a little bit lower than that yeah it went down to 216 yeah and that includes all the uh Department of Education steel standards alignment and materials as well uh there will be a per year per grade yearly subscription I'll call it subscription totaling approximately and this is an overestimation about 50,000 over the course of the next 3 years uh this is for sixth grades of students and will be used for at least the next three years so in simple math there's about 3300

007students in total in the district if you divide that by 13 grades that's about 250 or 260 kids per grade per year that equates to a whopping 4,500 kids that will use this curriculum over the next three-year period at least and if you take 200 I'll still stay with the 238 take 238 add the 50,000 for the yearly costs you divide that by 4,500 kids it's about $64 a kid so I agree that I would say that that's pretty palatable um and with that I will turn the mic over to Dr Roach for his report thank you thank you Mrs Cunningham I will do my best to keep this brief we have you told me your report was going to be short I know you told me but we do have five other presentations so

008I'll make mine quick here um so give some updates so been very similar updates uh as you know our our uh our high school band and chorus and Orchestra went on their trip and they were able to come back with I guess some Hardware as people would say uh getting some um some fantastic Awards and uh jaay there on the right outstanding piano company of the festival so congratulate our uh our high school students on a fantastic trip as well as uh the teachers that took them on that remember this initially supposed to be Chicago and then it got passed up and did have a great trip up into Vermont and then through Boston so congratulations to our high school watching band overall overall music program so you have a great pipeline for the Red

009Hill band well yeah I know that but I did want to mention that that jce one first place in with 35 schools from United States and Canada so it was pretty significance awesome yeah sorry didn't mean to but yes we will be recruiting Right Moving on as many people know we had Special Olympics uh on one of the the morning of the inservice day couldn't have gotten a better uh a better weather day for our students but man what a what an experience having our students parade in having all our entire staff um there in the stands to support them and and uh I just saw a recent video from with Mr Mr thrush and Mrs Willet just talking about the excitement the students have for this day it's really their day to shine besides

010me falling during the uh the uh obstacle course and Mr Flanigan who was supposed to let me win cross ahead of me uh it was a great day all around so thank you everyone's like don't you know you're supposed to let him win like that's okay that's all right I I'll be ready for next year and next year I'm taking on Mr Flanigan and Mr Howard all right four five Senator Coler walk um this seems to be an annual event with ptfs it's it's well well planned out I appreciate the the um strategic scheduling I think last year or two years ago we unfortunately had this event on the same night as prom so some people were torn between nights so everyone's aware of the schedule and and making sure that that the schools and

011can all have their own nights where parents aren't feel like they can rip through that so we're working on it there's only so many days in the calendar um but that definitely is a highlight and we appreciate all the work that ptfs does um and obviously you can see the kids are are having fun I'm not sure who's going to whose car they're going to drive home in but I'm sure that's a discussion point there so great times and there was prom on uh last Friday so great great experience I my wife and I did ATT 10 prom and tried the Sha rers with nothing for us to do the kids were excellent they looked great um their shoes were off at least some people's shoes were off within five minutes after the walk through

012the prominade but it was a great great experience at at Bear Creek uh they're kind of on three levels there so really nice opportunity uh for the kids they look great and definitely seem to have a nice time so I appreciate that that opportunity Dr Thomas helps to lead that as this senior class advisor May 1st was National College decision day so you mentioned Mrs TR my understanding she was the engineer behind this this uh this picture at least encouraging students to uh to uh to wear that wear wear the um wear their shirt where they're heading for next year uh I did have a conversation with Mr Pao and Mrs McCormack at some point about a signing day of some sort so we may have missed that that window this year but it's definitely

013on the radar for next year and it's not just signing for college and not it's not Athletics it's signing to what you're doing so um you see some of these things probably it's coming up in 15th maybe the 17th of May we're hoping to have that a real strong Outreach of that next year to have a signing thing and again if you're heading to the military come and sign and take your pictures and be a part of that if you're going to work that's awesome as well so it's not just about a college um it's you know it's going to be signing for all of our seniors so hopefully we'll have a much stronger presence uh heading into next year or for next year for that so I did hear that suggestion did talk to

014the team about that artsfest as I was already mentioned I'm going to I won't stay too much on this but again as Mrs Cunningham said um it's a it's a great opportunity great night we we tried some new things with adding a little time in there for parking we did have a shuttle bus I heard it was used last night it wasn't so much used the first night but that's okay we we're just trying to make that make that a better experience with parking yesterday we had a double challenge with our senior night for softball we typically Park in the middle school but it seemed to work out um you know it was a great this was showing the first night there with the the elementary course um and then just before this I was

015able to stop over quickly to see the jazz band again at the high school and they're right now in the middle of their recital going through all kind of single single highlights and then the art show and awards are also taking place tonight if you have if can't get if you can get a chance in the next couple days to see the senior showcases at the high school in the main Auditorium Lobby please do they're really really uh unique and interesting and appreciate the talent that you see there uh this week was the celebration week so we know our teachers appreciation week we had school lunch hero day we have our nurses Nurse Day and then Administrative Professionals Day I think last week so uh just if you can join me in a round of

016applause for all the staff that we have including our teachers and all of our staff and then one final I guess plug in terms of our class of 2024 graduation we're set for June 5th at 7 o'clock we do have 25 or 30 uh staff non- High School staff that are going to be be on the field with the students in in an area which we appreciate again this is a k to2 uh celebration so I want to make sure we continue to do that and what we learned if we learned anything from last year's uh um Canadian Wildfire smokeout uh we are going to continue to live stream moving forward so we will have a live stream that link will be out even if it's a clear sky and someone wants to stay home

017and and that just works out better for them that live stream will be available so I appreciate Mr Roth uh Mrs Barker at the High school and her students are working on a solution uh to uh to get that going and well the goal will be to have that moving forward that's going to be an expectation that that would be there for anyone that wanted to uh to have that as well so from the from the challenges we we adjust and and have some new things so we're looking forward to celebrating the class of 2024 on June 5th no rain date if we can you're G to call that through the smoke Comes The Clarity one way okay whatever yeah and then the kindergarten registration there was another event today at the I think Marell

018for kindergarten registration will continue to promote that the class of 2037 is coming through the doors and Mrs Janowski has done a nice job this year with really actually they had a signing day for kindergarten there's a big old pencil and the kids are signing like they're going to school so again continue to promote the work there and again appreciate the board for their their their support with full day kindergarten because it has had an impact and will continue to have an impact moving all the way up through the system as a students that have had full day move forward so we're hoping to see that over the course of our our years here and again that's the end of my report thank you see mine wasn't that short yours wasn't either okay we'll move

019on to our student representative to the board report what do you have for us so at the high school the keystones exams start next Monday and they last until Thursday AP exams started on Tuesday and they end on the 17th I actually took the environmental science AP test today so that went well um senior Awards on the 21st at 700 p.m. there's a senior Clash trip to on the 23rd to Hershey Park and I think today the jazz band is performing at the high school we have the Pack championships that were today and tomorrow uh Great Outdoors day is on the 24th and then we have no school on the 27th for Memorial Day the 31st will be Powderpuff and June 2nd will be the billette and that is at the new Goshen hoppen Park

020and then June 5th is graduation well thank you very much and again Rachel good luck and thank you for being our representative we've enjoyed you completely thank you um we'll move on to our solicitors report and sunshine act announcements please uh thank you the board of school directors met in a virtual executive session on May 1st 2024 for the purpose of Consulting with legal counsel And discussing a matter of school security the board also met an executive session immediately prior to tonight's meeting for the purpose of discussing a matter of L of litigation involving a tax assessment appeal for the members of the public who are present at tonight's meeting there will be two opportunities for public comment to be provided by individuals who are residents or taxpayers of the district the first opportunity is

021to comment solely on action items that are on tonight's meeting agenda for a vote by the board the second opportunity will occur toward the end of the meeting will before comments on other matters of concern which may come before the board there is a three minute time limit per speaker and pursuant to board policy 903 individuals who wish to speak must sign up to do so prior to the start of each comment period the signup sheets are available in the back of the room by the door and must be turned into the bin that is located on the table next to the screen to my left thank you thank you all right we're g to move on to the fun stuff presentations and discussion first off are wmctc National Technical Honor Society recognition so if

022I can introduce Dr David living good yeah I'm sorry yes okay that uh Mr living good uh the the administrative director at the uh at the Western Center all right good evening uh it's my pleasure to be here tonight Dr Roach inviting me to introduce some of our students and your students here who were inducted into our National Technical Honor Society so I'd just like to share with you what it takes to be in the National Technical Honor Society um they have to have an a average for their technical area be average for their academic core courses no unexcused absences up to five days of excused absences no dis discipline referrals good character leadership plans to pursue their technical area after graduation and extracurriculars is a bonus not required and they also have to have

023a teacher recommendation to be inducted into this so tonight we have six students and I think they're all here um first is Megan Browning for health science and she's in 11th grade Meg again come on you go and that's from oper perk made that just stay if you could stay up there we're gonna get we're going go a picture with everyone all right next is Porter pry off right and he's a ninth grade culinary student and he just came from work then Omar gazi he's in our computer information system program as ninth grade student I Migel Gray she's a health science 10th grade student then Skyler Keenan Sports Medicine 10th grade student and then Rachel zah a 10th grade Dental student ni e so Mr mccarrick it was your you had made a comment about

024recognizing students and I think less than a week later we were at the the induction ceremony so I felt it appropriate to invite them and thank you very much I to give credit to Mr prgo he's the one who approached me with it first yeah so any questions for Mr living good yeah yeah so thank you congratulations and thank you from all of us and if you don't want to stay for the rest of our meeting feel free to go ahead thank you thanks Dave thanks Dave y we'll be here all right really don't feel pressured it's okay it's okay we know we're not that excited I'm just waiting so while they're going out our next our next presentation will be a distinguish service award for radian Cochran so we'll turn it over to Dr

025finina so if you've been here uh if you were here in November and if you were here last month um we've been making up time postco for honoring our distinguished service um retirees over time and Riden was not able to make either of those times and you're going to find out why um when I read uh about rayen but I'd like to invite rayen up who is one of our 2021 uh distinguished uh service award winners Riden Cochran is a remarkable educator whose dedication to education and passion for fostering the love of reading have left an indelible mark on the upper pery Omen Community beginning her journey at Millersville State College where she pursued Library science in 1976 she later enhanced her expertise with a masters in elementary education and reading specialist from the same

026institution in 1982 continuing her pursuit of knowledge she obtained a certification in English as a second language from Drexel University in 2007 Riden embarked on her professional career as a librarian at red Hill and Green Lane Elementary Schools in 1982 before seamlessly transitioning those libraries into what is marbor Elementary School upon its opening in 1990 her commitment extended beyond the shelves as she actively contributed to planning the planning of marbor Elementary School lending her insights on various aspects including Furniture interior design and the layout of the library throughout her time at upper perk rine served 21 years on the UPA collective bargaining committee and she played a pivotal role in negotiating seven teacher contracts that's a lot reading we could St right there additionally she was instrumental in establishing the employee recognition events such as

027tonight and pioneering Innovative in which was pioneering and Innovative in the buck M region and celebrated the contributions of Staff members Raiden fondly remembers celebrating Dr Seuss's birthday every March and playing her accordion for first graders her favorite read was ly ly crocodile and she is happy it is now a fulllength movie upon retiring in 2010 Riden embarked on a new chapter of exploration and Adventure alongside her husband from vering Canal boats through the Netherlands to camping in National Parks across Utah Colorado and New Mexico their inventures know no bounds their greatest Voyage however was sailing their 35 foot sailboat along the inner Coastal Waterway from Maine to Florida extending their Journey as far as the Caribbean covering an impressive 50,000 nautical miles which is why you couldn't be here right raan okay so we

028would like to congratulate Riden Cochran and present her with a certificate of distinguished service and an artwork from one of our very own Marboro kindergarteners Bailey male so thank you congratulations raen thank you and while you're taking those pictures I'll just say that Mrs Cochran You Were My Librarian at Red Hill Elementary so thank you and I remember you so yeah Emily my name then was Emily psaris yeah yes thank you well thank you very much that was very nice uh next we'll move on to some business uh first reads of the following board policy and administrative regulations anybody like to take that these are first reads so if there are any questions all right hearing none get reading um we'll move on to Transportation module upgrade upgrade update don't say that 10 times fast

029and we'll have Jen Malon come up our director of Transportation hi everybody shouldn't be too long should be short and sweet um first though I want to say thank you for letting me get this module the little bit I've played in it it's it's really already showing me things um we do not have training unfortunately until May 30th though so I just wanted to make you aware of that um that was the timeline on it so but we have been in it we have been messing around with it we found some good stuff so that's what I came to show you uh let's see maybe that's what I'm checking it says on now we got no okay well while we figure that out the green light light goes so our software company is Tyler Technologies

030there we go you went I think a little far yeah keep going okay so Tyler Technologies is our transportation software company um the system we're using is traversa this piece was an add-on to our traversa um purchase from last year which has been wonderful so what the advanced AVL that we purchased this year was um it's the GPS driven enhancement for what we already have with traversa so traversa has given us the routing software and it has also given us the GPS system Geo tab so that's the GPS system in every bus in every van every vehicle we drive um so this system actually brings all of that geotab into traversa so now it layers that on top of our current routing system so that's what this add-on was for us so what it does

031is it takes the location services brings them in to the system that we're working on with routing so it's kind of not an overlay but a side piece so now I can see real-time routing by what's been driven by the drivers so that helps us create the better routes the better route times the knowing more fine-tuned what time that bus is coming when we're doing our routing um that system that we do have already in place does all of the things with the stop arm the harsh breaking the harsh cornering the speeding all of that's already in there the near Collision detection that sends us a push to let us know that there was a near Collision or there was a collision we'll know as soon as the radio clicks we've already known they were

032in an accident um so that that piece is been working and it's been wonderful this layers it on to the piece that we're already using for routing um um and it gives us that animated route review which I was goingon to screen record and then I thought well that's a little hard they're like an hour route so I didn't do that I did do just snapshots just to show you what we've been able to play with so far so this is what it does this is what it gives us we're able to follow the route look where the vehicle is and it gives us that information it tells us where they are how fast they're going it'll tell tell us if they're stopped if they're moving how long they were stopped it's right there on

033the screen so if I punch in vehicle 103 pops right up on the screen shows me exactly on the map I can change the map four different ways I have aiel with labels on here now um so that's the piece we did not have in that software prior we had to go into the Geo tab Geo fence look for the vehicle pinpoint the vehicle then go back and find it this just zooms it right in we also have a 3D view now this was me in the bus parked at spring for when I did the Special Olympics trip and I was going to show the whole video of this um it's kind of fun but you can watch that vehicle as it does everything and on the bottom of the screen it tells you stopped

034end stop left turn right turn it flashes red if you're speeding um all the exceptions that are in the system that we place there pop up it just keeps dialing it in and it's it does it by second yeah you'll see that it's it's kind of cool sorry not to interrupt is this on the Vans too or just the buses on the van yep so here you'll see on the left side of the screen the log time it'll tell you exactly what that vehicle's doing again this is the route I did so I stuck it up here because I did it and I figured I'm not gonna you know put anyone else out there I'll put myself out there so I drove this bus this day um you'll see it's almost every second sometimes it's

035every two seconds if I didn't really do do anything you know you're not really doing anything anything that would have been off the exemption list would have been red um I did good this no we did test the system though I will show you that because we did test it just to see what would happen but you'll see I I made a left turn I made a right turn I used my e bra um I put my brake pedal on I used my e bra if I didn't have a seat belt on it would be on there if I would have put the vehicle into a drive position or reverse position position without a seat belt it'd be on there it's that fine-tuned it really is it tells us fuel it tells us mileage it

036all of that it's actually a fabulous system um so I can watch any route any day any time I can watch it live here and it'll show the bus going through the the route that's going to help us tremendously like I said with stop times we can only use what Google can give us so if I say I'm going to the doctor's office for 10 o'clock what time do I got to leave we always push ourselves 5 minutes because you're going to hit traffic or what have you if I can see every day that this route the stop time was supposed to be 12:15 but every day it looks like 1218 129 12 I can relay that and it it'll just layer it right on like we don't have to go back and adjust 217

037rounds it'll it'll help us do that manual uh automatically so that's where it helps families a lot um so here we did test it out as you see it's 12:30 in the afternoon we have any kids on the vehicle the exception is 5 minutes that's the automatic on the system we went to over that to see what it would do and it gave us that speed so it it does do exactly what it says it's going to do very impressive and just a couple fun facts for everybody to check out currently those are the miles that are on our vehicles and as you know our contract is not that long so that's how much drive that's a lot of vehicles a lot of drive time so that's just a little fun fact not yet we're

038getting there I mean we might get there in our contract time I don't know maybe um yeah but that's quite a bit we have a lot of different little reports we can pull off of that information like there's all kinds of stuff in there I can pull a driver record which would help with training for them you know they can pull their record and be like oh you you scored an 87 this month or you scored a 97 this month or you know or you need a little Improvement here or there or you know right now currently I did look at it today I think we have a 92% Jen how you doing right now with uh enough drivers um we unfortunately have suffered a little bit in the last three weeks um we did

039lose one driver um and we just had one go out on medical day before yesterday so we're we're somewhat in the negative again but holding my room um we'll get there does this this software help you when it's time to make your reports to PD correct it does yes and it's also really helpful like I shared it with HR because I keep driver record in here so the driver records that are in the office for HR with clearances and background checks and um CDLs and licenses and physicals and all of that is also kept in here so it does give me a warning when they're coming due it warned me this month that my physical is due in July so I made that appointment for June but yeah yeah so that's all in there as

040well so this software really it really took on all of the things we needed it to take on thank you so much anybody have any questions anything thank you so much I appreciate that we've been waiting with a worm on our tongue for that one so thank you thank you all right next next we have the proposed 2024 2025 final budget presentation final preliminary budget so I will introduce your Bishop take it away yeah thank you so um we started this with the finance committee back in November and we've been going ever since um I'm not sure what the meetings were like before I came but I think I've been keeping the finance committee there for well beyond what they are used to so um so this is the 2024 2025 proposed uh final budget

041presentation I have the link there to the website all of the presentations can be found under the business office uh page and then there's a budget section so all the ones from November are up there and loaded so you can always go back and uh enjoy those uh so here is the timeline we did start in November and you can see the topics that were discussed uh January through April and we come to Where We Are Tonight with the May school board so there is an action agenda item uh later on in the agenda that you'll be voting on um and then we still have a a May Finance agenda and a June before we have um I think it's June 17th is the finance committee before the June 20th that's right um so that

042week the Monday before the the board meeting so I just real quick we've been talking all since November we're following the act one timeline for the budget um that is uh act one of 2006 so that's the timeline that we followed for that budget this one is in school code um from 1949 the key Point here is uh it's 30 days prior to the adoption of the annual budget you must pass the proposed final budget so there has to be 30 days in between the two budgets which is why uh we're coming to you tonight and then we can come to you then on June 20th and make sure we have some some some time in there to uh to follow school code so found this uh enrollment snapshot through um forecast 5 which we

043which we use uh so if you take a look this goes from 2011 through 2023 basically enrollment has is the same now as it was in 2011 but you know you can see there's sort of like an uptick uh and then a drop off down there in 2021 the green line is is low-income families in in the district and the red line is the special education so there there was a dip in Special Ed but it has been creeping back up and we can talk a little bit more about special ed later in the budget uh and then the low income line unfortunately is is increasing uh big picture with the revenues this is looking budget to budget so 23 24 is the budget that we're living in and then 2425 is the one that

044you're voting on uh we do we are seeing an increase in our local revenues we're seeing an increase in the state revenues and you can sort of see it there um the federal revenues are dropping off they they're not much to begin with um and that really is the eser money that is gone after September of 24 so just taking a look at a pie chart here of uh expenditures by function um so the the big the big blue piece of the pie there is our regular programs so that's our regular instruction costs that we have throughout the district uh the red piece of the pie there is our our special ed education programs um and then the other one that I really wanted to point out or the other two I guess is that

045sort of an orange color there operation of buildings um see if we have a pointer no maybe not okay uh so 7% is um buildings and Safety and Security up there sort of a peach color is other expenditures and financing that's your debt service right there that's about 7% so we can drill down a little bit more by object um salaries 39% the red piece of the pie is benefits at 24% and then the other uh large piece of the pie there is uh what PD terms other services the 500 that's going to be your transportation and your charter school is all in that 500s right there so those are your your three largest pieces so here's a format that we'll go through this is how it was presented to the finance committee looking at

046the 23 24 budget and then we're looking at the 2425 budget and then what that increas is um between the two the two budgets so not much change there in charter schools and Debt Service um scholarships couple years ago the governmental Accounting Standards Board which is gby said if if people are donating and you're deciding which students get those scholarships you need to record that as an expense and as a revenue so that 20,000 is an increase in our expenditures but there's also an offsetting increase in our Revenue so um really just a net zero but I did want to point that out because we didn't have anything in in Prior budgets but um we're all set for next year the building budgets are obviously all the buildings and Athletics uh so that's about a

047$71,000 increase so really it's not the it's not the buildings that are um receiving an increase they they have their normal allocation per student and it's been relatively flat with the buildings uh the athletic budget is increasing um the leagues decided to increase the rates for officials about 10% and uh we're also seeing an increase in transportation costs and um other competitions playoffs those sorts of things which is a good thing but it does um increase the cost here so we sort of lumped in Schoolboard superintendent business office and HR um looks like a large increase there of 38.8% the bulk of that is um I'm I'm making an assumption here that some of the money was kind of put into budgetary Reserve because we don't have any money in uh the legal line so

048I'm sorry but we have nothing for it no I'm just kidding um so I I my assumption is we have a budgeted under the chart under the uh budgetary Reserve but there's there was just no money on that line item so I really want to get sort of the money in that line item where it needs to be for next year um so that was uh $325,000 increase same thing with the board uh psba dues again probably was budgeted somewhere else but um I really kind of want it in the the 2310 which is the Schoolboard line uh yeah that's that's pretty much it for that line um transportation we do have a two and a half percent increase so uh Jen was able to sort of bring some other costs down uh because we

049do have that contractual increase with with chice not much movement there in technology uh we did have a a jump in our special education department budget that is you know that's driven by number of our students and cost of those services that are needed those are two things that are unfortunately increasing um but you know we're we're we're committed there to meeting their needs and there's not much we can do with some of those costs um the assistant superintendent I'd love to give Dr finina her kudos for dropping the budget however the majority of that is uh we're moving money from that budget and putting it into the grant budget so we will be spending for some things that were paid out of uh assistant superintendent and just moving it she even still with that

050she was able to cut some cut some funds there uh curriculum instruction and Facilities really just a a five and a six or six and a five perc increase um nothing major there just you know we're seeing some increased costs for uh for services and and materials the Grant Line looks like it's increasing um but what we're what we're doing more and more is that we're moving Grant funds to be paid for uh stuff or Services as opposed to salaries I like to have all salaries shown in that salary line instead of sort of moving salaries into grants and and that sort of thing so that Grant Line is really uh stuff and services that we're using grant money to pay for uh and then we have all our salaries in in that bucket um

051so our salaries and our benefits there we are seeing uh an 8.8% increase in salaries and a 12.8 increase in our benefits um so obviously the salaries covers uh the teachers collective bargaining agreement uh also covers all the administrators and all of our admin support our nurses our uh admin support and I'm sure I'm forgetting another group um so that'll be the salaries and then the benefits so benefits includes our our payroll taxes and our peers so anytime salaries are going to go up your benefits are going to go up uh we also have an 18% increase um in our renewal for healthcare for next year and we can talk a little bit more about that in a minute but um but all that is kind of factored into that almost 133% increase so what

052I did here we we did have some money in budgetary reserve for this year but I'm making it a zero and what I did is I shifted that into the charter school line because it it kind of looked like we moved it from Charter into budgetary Reserve so just for the board en able for them to be able to see really like an Apple's Apple's comparison I hated to have money taken out of Charter put in budgetary reserves and it it's just you couldn't compare year-over-year so um so that was I put that down to a zero but knowing that it really wasn't a charter school and then I put just to put some money in budgetary reserve I took a half a percent of the expenditure budget and that's the 400,000 that um that

053I'm putting in budgetary reserve that's a number in there because legally we cannot overspend our budget so sometimes we like to like to um put some money in a budgetary reserve in case something pops up in the middle of the year that there's no way we saw it coming we would have some extra money budgeted I'm sure we can talk about this in finance uh later this month um but I just I've always done a half of an expenditure or half a percent of the expenditure budget kind of thrown that in there so we are showing a 10.1% increase in expenditures uh for this proposed final budget uh so I talked about most of these things uh The the budgetary Reserve amount was moved into the charter school line there's your half a percent um

054total expenditures the finance committee last month did recommend a 5% millage rate increase uh for this proposal um I was uh very clear in understanding from them that they were not in they would prefer to see that number lower um for the final budget so I got that message loud and clear however this is kind of the there's still another month or almost month and a half you still have to be a little more conservative a little more careful before you get to that final budget so you know if something if something were to happen in between now and final budget there would be some of that cushion uh with a with a 5% Mill increase so that's where we are with that uh I did talk about 23 24 that's this year that we're

055in is the last year for the erer funds and we do have all new positions that were requested we do have it included in this budget so that 8.8% increase in salaries does include um all the new positions that that we did talk about at Finance last month as well so we'll have an update on those position requests that the May Finance okay halfway there so uh the revenues so here's a real estate Revenue that would be a 9.5% increase with the um proposed presentation here at uh 5% millage rate increase your other taxes really mostly that's your your per capita taxes along with uh the perta taxes which are the utility taxes that that we receive um I am projecting an increase there in earned income tax um a decrease in transfer taxes seems

056like the housing market is cooling down um but we are definitely let's see earned income transfer tax and delinquent we're going to have a much more in-depth review at uh Finance later this month but this is kind of where we are right now um there there was a slight increase in um those properties that were leaned at the end of 2023 so that's why there's a a 9% increase in our delinquent taxes just kind of figuring that money is going to come in it just gets a little bit delayed but um that's the reason for that increase interest Revenue um keep hearing that there may be drops in the in the Fed rate the last that I heard was towards the end of um I think it was actually even into 2025 so I just

057dropped that Revenue down slightly not really knowing where we're going to end up with with interest rates um and then your other local revenues uh we do get idea funds but that comes through the IU so that has to be recorded uh in this section uh and all those you know donations um just other miscellaneous revenues are all lumped into that $849,000 those State revenues both the basic Ed and the special ed subsidy I I brought up to our base amount for this year so we were conservative in that 23 24 budget um what we're what our base amount is for this year is really that 10.3 and the 2.1 uh for those two line items if the governor is able to well the governor and the legislature are able to get some more funding

058for those two lines it's going to get added onto those lines right there but that should be the the bare minimum that we'll receive for those two subsidies uh for next year other subsidies and grants this is going to be mostly these are flat from year to year I I dropped our transportation subsidy is in this line I dropped that a little bit because that fluctuates a little bit more than the rest of them uh but also included in there is uh the subsidy money that we receive for Debt Service payments through the plon process uh so that is included in that line also uh good news is the gaming relief increased for next year so that line comes in as a state but then it offsets our our local real estate so it's if

059that line goes up our uh real estate collections will go down by the roughly the same amount um but that's that's good news because that money gets directly passed on and directly taking off uh our taxpayers tax bills when they go out and we'll have a little bit more on that too Social Security and retirement so we are uh reimbursed for 50% of those expenditures for uh salaries so we pay the full amount we have to book the full amount uh on the expenditure side but then we are reimbursed from the the state for 50% of those costs so salaries go up these Revenue line items are also going to go up so our title grants so that's Title One title two title three and title four um I'm just showing just a slight decrease

060there we don't actually get those allocations until well actually I think we just got 23 24 couple months ago maybe yeah yeah so those those allocations come much later um so we're we're really guessing here um there you can see the drop off of the yeser funds that we had budgeted from this year into next so a zero um there's the exess money that we talked about uh that we can use for special education expenditures um right yes okay um and then other revenues sometimes uh some insurance monies could be coded there like a reimbursement um or yeah reimbursement of of some kind of insurance uh issue that someone has I I don't see the need to put $2,000 in there so I just left it zero um so there we are with total revenues

061um just shy of $77 million so I was able to increase the uh tax collection rate in real estate up to 98% I believe we're at 97% uh for this current Year's budget um so there's an increase there uh we talked about earned income tax and delinquent uh the increas is there state budget I wouldn't hold our breath that we'll have a state budget by the 20th um so in all likelihood that's going to be done a little bit later but if there is some sort of agreement on the state budget any additional money that we receive through that state budget will uh just flow right into the revenue lines so here's uh the setup is a little bit different there's the budget and then there's uh the 2425 preliminary budget so that was where

062we were when we fin finished with the finance presentations a month two months ago so as you can see really the the biggest changes there came on the revenue side we actually increased from 74.2 million up to uh$ 76.9 million so that leaves us with a difference of just over $4 million so I just thought this was interesting so I put it up here a graphic this is the uh millage rate for all the schools in Montgomery County uh we are the fourth lowest uh millage rate um and this is as of 2324 uh this is just a history of our millage rate going back to 1415 and it does include uh the 5% mill rate increase uh for this proposed final budget this is the average tax bill not the median tax bill you're

063welcome uh so this is what it would look like now I will tell you this is already going to change because uh I just got a notification from montg County I think there was another Farmstead that came in so that is going to affect um the pointer uh the far right column that $282 is the projected gaming relief um that number will probably come down might only be a few pennies but that number is going to change but this is what it would look like um with the uh 5% rate increase so it it's you know it's helpful to have that increase in the gaming relief it it sort of uh lessens the blow on that 5% Mill um increase okay so we have a few open items uh things that can and most likely

064will change between now and and June 20th uh so we talked about health insurance um we do have an option of you using some of our balance at cpast our health Consortium so the reason that our rate is so high at 18% is that it it seems we now have a new consultant starting this year they would have calculated our rates differently than the prior consultant so it's almost like we're we're trying to do a little catchup here on the rates to get back to where we should have been this year so that's why I think we could use some funds to kind of take two years to build up to that number that we should be at instead of having it all hit at once um so we can use some budget money this

065year and some cpass money uh this coming year to help sort of build us up and then the year after that we'll uh we'll be able to build up through the budget to get up to the rates as the where we should be um so we still need to to finalize the discussion on that we have not locked in diesel fuel though over the last month it has decreased um pretty substantially so I think we're getting close to that number where we're going to want to lock in so we can talk about that um at Finance as well talk about the governor's budget so he did propose um he did propos a budget which added I think it was 400 million um into the basic Edline and if that was the case we would have

066an extra $460,000 just in that one basic education subsidy line item uh so if he gets half of that then we'd be at 230 that we would be able to add in again don't know that that's going to happen in time for us to approve our budget State supposed to also have a budget done by junee 30th but who knows um so we've already begun we're not complete but we have begun um going through literally line by line of the entire budget reviewing questioning discussing going through seeing if there's ways and room uh to cut so uh Dr Roach has started this with uh myself and just bringing everybody in and I'm not even joking when I say line by line it really is line by line so uh a very good exercise and and

067we hope to finish that over the next week or so uh and again we did talk about the new positions already any questions from the board comments I can comment being this is my seventh budget that that is the best presentation I've ever seen and thank you all of you best budget presentation or just presentation overall all right all right so just best budget presentation so I want to thank you for that it's ugly and it is but I I feel very confident that you're working on it all of you to that point thank you for the clarity I mean melan's right it you know it thank you do have two more Finance meetings that we'll be discussing it so there's certainly plenty of time to bring your questions okay I am looking forward to

068it thank you me too thanks Drew all right well that is it for our presentations today so now we will go to public comments on action items and we do not have any unless there there's no new ones over there okay so we have none on action items so I'd look for an approval of the agenda motion second any discussion all in favor okay I we will move to the approval of the minutes of the April 11 2024 Schoolboard motion second any discussion all in favor all right okay uh we don't have anything under old business and thanks again Jen for the update on the transportation appreciate that we'll move on to new business uh starting with the Personnel report try to make a motion to approve the Personnel report in its entirety the resignations

069appointments and leaves of absence any discussion hearing none all in favor I any opposed okay all right move on to action items Madam president I make a motion to do items A and B the a is the compensation plans for the administrative support staff and the instructional non-instructional support staff B is the revised act 93 agreement second thank you any discussion I just want to thank the negotiations committee Miss fiser as well and uh all in favor I any opposed okay thank you move on to motion C motion to approve a request by Sandra Hughes to allow Carl massing from Estonia to attend upper peran up Estonia to attend upper perum high school as a foreign exchange student for the 2024 2025 school year in accordance with board policy 239 foreign exchange students motion second

070any discussion yes I'm happy to see this um I don't recall seeing one of these for a number of years yeah I agree any other discussion all in favor I any opposed he motion passes welcome Carl Adam president yes can I make a motion you may to do item D the um approve qualifying students to attend the future Business Leaders America conference in Orlando e the educational services agreement for $ 56800 $ 56,800 for tuition and counseling fees F the special education services G the two agreements with new story for student tuition and H the access programs you may second any discussion hearing none all in favor I any opposed motions carried thank you next we'll have the motion to support the recommendation from the finance committee to provide the annual sports physicals for high

071school and middle school students at no charge to the students and families starting in June 2024 as part of the sports medicine services agreement with St Luke's motion second any discussion all in favor I any opposed great thank you okay uh letter J approval of TLS contract do J and K uh could we just do J sure thank you I I have a second second thank you uh that's the approval for TLS contract for professional development for the recommendations of the EPS committee any discussion hearing none all in favor I any opposed motion carries thank you uh letter K motion to approve the resolution seeking grant funding from the Pennsylvania Department of Education in the amount of [Music] 1,266 650 which includes a 50% match from District Capital funds for asbes dis abatement at the

072upper peran high school as recommended by the facilities committee motion thank you any discussion all in favor all any opposed thank you Adam president yes can I make a motion for L the proposal for TRC environmental for the asbest abatement just L just L okay I'll make that motion thank you all second any discussion all in favor I any opposed motion carries letter M motion to approve the resolution seeking Grant funding from the Commonwealth financing Authority in the amount of 3,522 948 which includes a 25% match from District Capital funds for roof replacement at the upper perk High School Herford Elementary the 45 Center as recommended by the facilities committee second any discussion all in favor I any opposed motion carries yeah you're good now go ahead all right back to my regularly scheduled program

073of making motions um that was M that we finished with so when we have motion for n the re-roofing design for upper perk high high school um o re-roofing design for the fourth and fifth grade Center P re roofing design for Herford Elementary Q uh professional Engineering Services for marbor elementary wastewater treatment are the uh let's let's stop there at o q answer Q second oh sorry second you can PJ something okay all right any discussion on any of those items and they were all recommended by the facilities committee okay hearing no hearing no discussion all in favor I any opposed okay motions carried now we'll move on to R which is the motion to approve the upper perk School District 2024 2025 proposed final budget in the amount of 8,981 49 with a millage

074increase of 5% resulting in a tax increase of 7.34% and to allow for discussion over the next month and authorization for official advertisement of its avail ility for public inspection at the following areas until June 20th 2024 which is the edge Center which is where we're at today and on the upsd dorg web website can I get a motion motion thank you second thank you any discussion yes go ahead I'd like just to say that um none of us are happy with this proposal a 5% increase we have worked very hard on it for the past few months we've looked at many many things um unfortunately this is the cost of doing business for the school district uh as you might have seen there's a trend in the few motions before this as far as

075re-roofing environmental design Wastewater so you can see where some of your money is going to you know um we did not have a good plan years before and over the past few years we've been making up for that we have great committees going on now facilities Finance education um they're doing their jobs they're doing it well so that's all I want to say well said anyone else all in favor I any opposed motion carries thank you we move on to the motion to approve a contract with the chest County IU Madam president yes motion for S&T the IU and Chris trans Transportation can I get a second second thank you uh any discussion all in favor I any opposed okay motions carry thank you all right we'll move on to the financial reports Megan Moyer

076if you would be so kind I'm not going to be easy on you today I'm sorry hello attached to tonight's agenda are April's operating reports payroll report and the general fund list of payments totaling 2, 840,000 33050 also we had one Capital payment totaling $ 55628 and that's for the new expansion tank at Herford was it all right it says on the P Herford so what you got sorry um can you just tell me who Duff company is it says general supplies um what do we what are we getting from Duff company come on up Craig I kind of figured had something facilities wise but I just thought i' asked the question I see it in here a lot is uh Ross and Phil best friend when it comes to our air conditioned work a

077lot of things that we use well you know throughout districtwide as far as when we need pars and different things on the Fly def use our supplier we can get it so we pay a little extra money because of the how fast we can get things moving through dff and I have to order and wait a week or two like using a co-stars yes thank you um while you're right here um El sorry elk transportation for repairs and maintenance I had a question that one too okay it's the high school it's the um what is it the Hydraulics or the hyic HS yeah it's actually um it's called elk Transportation but it's also known as elk um environmental Goa yes thank you all right I'm not done I'm sorry I'll try to hurry um I

078just want to point out that there's a lot of cyber school in here a lot yeah um just out of curiosity I Cardinal Point so we're at like $24,000 a week that about right yeah I think because of the sorry can't think my secretary name right now Anna is uh we have't break it down as far as how we building so we're able to see what are we getting bill for how many hours we have caught them a few times over billing us when more have talked and they have credit us back so it's very important that we get to spreadsheet with them when we get our monthly bill okay perfect perfect um Granite Granite telecommunications under travel oh yeah I just think that's in the wrong place it is okay I'll look at that

079okay just check it I'm almost done I promise Cardinal Point um we have extra people for precision human resource solutions for custodial yes okay I won't make Craig that excuse me it's custodial as well as admin support substitute admin support we've had two people out on leave okay thank you um I'm sorry that one's fine um more Charter Schools what did we spend on the Lehi Valley Iron Pigs just out of curiosity it was a field trip at the middle school I'm sure that was a reimbursement or a check cut for them that was the field Yeah Tuesday they went eth grade it's eth grade so thank you just trying to pay attention that's all Mr call was excited to go but couldn't quite make it with everything going on right yeah I heard about

080it that would be fun um okay do we actually have 12 guards um Cardinal point do we have 12 or I believe we're fully staffed at this time great I believe we were fully staffed I'm happy with that I mean we've had some change over this one um fully staffed right now yes we are we're good y we're good okay thank you um I think that's it I think that's it thank you thank you I appreciate your Indulgence anyone else have any questions comments or did I cover everything thank you all right uh hearing no other questions uh make a we have a motion to approve motion thank you second okay and no discussion uh all in five all in favor say I I any oppose all right thank you I don't believe we have

081any new follow-up items and we have one public comment that I just buried I'm sorry okay so christon Telly and S the W thank you diversity equity and inclusion the majority of this board Champions this for students but does not see fit to follow it for its own board diversity includes UD political differences Equity each School Board director should be recognized and considered a school board director with 23 years of teaching experience has considerable Equity inclusion that would imply that thoughts opinions and beliefs of the board the staff and public are not subject to bullying by individual board members or administrators sitting at the front making faces while other people are talking in April 25th meeting Mr prao went on an acrimonious charade attempting to bisch a fellow School Board director please note that Mr

082prago ran for school board director on a platform that said he recognized there will be disagreements and conflict and that his philosophy is respectful listening Mr prago claimed Miss shmith in in her address to the board regarding amplify had made accusations saying she was not speaking factually I was at several meetings can attest that Miss Mrs shmith spoke with respect acknowledged the work done by others but pointed out faults she had found with amplify through her own research Mr prgo proceeded to try and use asme code as reference to politics and accreditation there are no politics in asme ASM SAE or other standards and specifications the only similarity to the proposed curricula is is they test to a standard M Miss McCormack added comment by regarding Miss fluky's Revelation please note Miss McCormack ran on

083school board director on a platform that said make sure all family friends and neighbors are treated fairly and with respect as well as listen to diverse viewpoints now Mrs fluki may have taken longer in her approach to get her point to her point but that does not make her any less significant her point is that amplify has political agenda and in reference to the climate initiative Mr prgo implied science is not political but unfortunately in 2024 everyone is well aware that science is absolutely political I heard Mrs McCormack and Mr mccarrick say I hope I hope and I hope a teacher will not teach to indoctrinate our young however I expect our teachers to educate with no political bias or agenda but in difficult is very difficult for this community to trust the teachers not

084to include their political bias on our students when more than half of them are displaying their political stance from the teacher Podium as for $238,000 for onee new curriculum contains political agenda Miss B Mrs Bieber offered a free pa core aligning software and you would not even table the vote to investigate or compare and yet you were proposing a 5% tax increase Chris I have to stop you there sorry thank you uh that's that's all we have for public comments uh we'll move on to board comments do we have any board comments thanks for your board comment I I just want to say I know you came loaded for bear tonight to uh I believe the quote was belittle us in a classy way so well done um I think we are and I have

085said many times we're willing to accept and listen to the diverse opinions and we did just like I did in the EPS meeting when you were there as well so clearly you have to allow a little bit of the same you can't say that you're getting bullied but at the same time try and Bully us or vice versa it's all got to go the same this whole charade you know you brought your camera so that you could tape it so you could take it back to your group and have your you know party I guess to talk about how you got us uh it's not not appreciated nope my turn to talk not yours my comment no no not I'm speaking to the public I'm speaking to the entire public you just okay I don't

086need to be belittled or you know whatever you think you're doing I don't think it's really I think you have to come at it with a little bit more of a collaborative approach if you expect to get any type of actual movement in a direction that you'd like to go no you do not I'm sorry board comment right now do we have any other board comments Rachel go ahead um first of all I just want to thank the board for the past two years um being up here it's taught me a lot about like confidence and public speaking and it's definitely a skill that will follow me through the rest of my life and I also just want to talk about um although I am leaving I'm not leaving my fashion club Behind um for

087the past two years I've been trying to get it approved and tonight I have Michaela Singh over here she is a sophomore and she will be more than happy to take over the club next year um she's been in our club since day one she's involved in speech and debate and wants to see more diversity and cultural exchanges in the fashion industry she plans on pursuing a career in marketing and hopes to bring a more exclusive consumer experience um in the past two years I feel like we haven't had a lot of support from the school um we are an arts program um we had posters we had to take them down and our interviews weren't being put on the news and I really strongly um encourage everyone here tonight if you can make it

088to our show tomorrow it is at 6 o'cl in the audion I would really appreciate it just see what the students do I mean we're all donation based um because we don't have a budget but it's incredible what everyone can do with what we have and please just come out and support the Arts tomorrow night thank you so much thanks Rachel well we will miss you we really will and you took the question right out of my mouth about the when was your fashion so thank you thank you I was hoping we didn't miss it tonight but you were here so I figured we didn't okay anyone else oh goe uh board members and administrators and student representatives and guests May 19th is only a few days away and so mark your calendar for Sunday

089May 19th for the annual spring concert of the Red Hill Band We The Red Hill band and we we will be uh in concert at 2 pm on May 19th in the High School auditorium and it it's free admission and we are in our 124th year and next year we'll be celebrating a milestone so please come out and Dr Roach I'll save a seat for you so uh bring your knitting all right um so um but seriously we have a lot of alumni in the band and we have current student band members uh so we're uh we've been around for a while and uh we we love playing music for the valley on Saturday May 4th I had the uh wonderful opportunity to attend the upper perky High School football alumni gathering at the East

090greenw Firehouse where uh seven plus uh gentlemen were inducted into the Football Hall of Fame they did give me a a moment to speak they were very appreciative of a board member being there and I had a chance to speak to the uh upper perg Ed foundation so I made my Shel there and I also spoke to the upper perom and Alumni Association which uh they're very interested so we're making some connections there again to Echo Dr Roach um and others uh congrats to the high school a choir for their magnificent showing and Boston a few weeks ago uh had the pleasure of uh hearing the a choire in our church on Sunday and they're just it's it's just been fabulous to uh see them continue that 50 plus year old tradition uh again again

091to Echo uh Melanie and Dr Roach and and others the artsfest is um moving along and just exciting and wonderful to see and uh hope everybody can get out and and see our talented students and finally I just want to acknowledge and thank Dr finina for all the work that she puts into grant writing I don't know how you do it I know grant writing is extremely time consuming takes a lot of effort but thank you very much because the the monies you bring in for the school district uh pay off uh in dividends so thank you for your hard work uh that's it thanks thank you and yes thank you go ahead um I like just like to say you know I'm thankful for Dr Ro uh we had the Western Center students National

092Honor Society up here tonight that's because Dr Ro she reached out I was suppose originally JP mentioned to me um a week two weeks ago and I mentioned it to Dr Ro in the meantime I was calling the Western Center to try and set it up Dr Roos had already called and had Mr living good arrange for the kids to come up here you've heard me talk about our Western Center kids for years now we finally got to see some of them up here and I'm planning on making it happen as we go forward for the for the next few years um I forget whether I gave this update or not but we had kids who went through skills USA and the C CCAP culinary careers uh something or other of America yes there are

093you know CPAP I'm thinking of the thing on your face so I know it wasn't that one but anyhow we had local kids win Awards down there recently one got a full scholarship $775,000 okay this is what our Tech schools are doing for us and that's why I want to continue to bolster our kids with that give our kids both here at their home school and at the tech school every opportunity that they can have to learn and succeed thank you thank you anyone else I have a couple if I can go I was hoping you would go last thank you okay sure uh so just first um thank Emily for what you said I couldn't have said any better um Peg you stole a little bit of my thunder with the uh grants so

094just to put a number on it just simply for school security I think it's a $850,000 Andrew that's correct so that's $850,000 of money free money coming into the district that we're gonna be using in the next year for uh school security updates um it's been a little while but I have two shout outs that uh requests that came in so I want to share them with the board and everybody uh the first one comes from uh Brian lavesque and he just wanted to give a shout out to somebody we all know Parker Elliott he's a senior at the high school who just earned his Eagle Scout rank he's a member of troop 90 in pensburgh his Eagle Scout project was rebuilding the vegetable gardens at Logan's Heroes animal rescue so they can use the

095gardens to feed some of the animals he's a great and role model for the community so that was from Brian uh the next one is from Lisa Mazy and she wanted to give a shout out to Nikki Howard uh she has been a tremendous teacher caregiver and role model for so many students on baseball senior night three boys selected Nikki as their Mentor influential teacher Kyle Mazy Evan Sans and Drew graph all former fourth grade students found Mrs Howard to be the the one teacher who had made the most on their school career for all the above reasons and many others Lisa finds Nikki worthy of a shout out and that's it thank you that's very nice I missed those shout outs I do had a couple uh now I would ask for a motion

096to adjourn um I am a little oh I'm sorry that's okay I'm sorry I first want to give a shout out to Mrs Barker Miss Barker again for giving us the Walt Street Journal um some of you know that this I have a soft place for journalism I teach journalism myself so I love it I'm proud of the work that they're doing um little side note my daughter's on in the class so so I appreciate that um I did want to address a couple things that were brought up at the last meeting in the spirit of discussion so I have a couple brief comments I promise JP brought up some good points at the last meeting about facts and opinions um I'm with JP in that I really wish everyone would just walk around with

097a little label floating above their head to say whether they're spouting facts or opinions but unfortunately that's not the case somewhere in Middle School our English teachers gave us some guidance about how to differentiate facts from opinions and from there into adulthood we're pretty much on our own so JP I do think it's an important skill and since you've noted that you struggle to differentiate I think I can do a little better to help you there um I'd like to address a couple points fact there's consensus among Educators that Common Core was overall a failure and research shows that Common Core has had more negative effects on student achievement in reading a math than positive that's not a partisan belief that's overall fact at the last board meeting Keith mccarrick bemon Common Core saying he

098didn't think it was great for kids and in my opinion I think he's right in a lot of ways and the research supports that fact the board made a decision to allocate 216,000 toward purch purchasing a curriculum from amplify also a fact one of the directors at amplify's parent company is AR Duncan who introduced The Common Core initiative during the Obama Administration and at the time he praised it as the best thing to happen to education since Brown V Board of Education while I'm not suggesting we revisit that particular vote I'm attempting to urge fellow board members to embrace constructive dialogue and inquiry which I think was exactly what Emily was talking about it's imperative for board members to maintain a healthy skepticism scrutinizing information even when it's presented by members of the administration including

099the superintendent assistant superintendent and the curriculum D director and any other of the administration it's okay to ask questions um adopting a trust but verify approach will fortify our decision-making process on another note while I typically refrain from addressing personal criticisms I feel compelled to offer some clarification regarding my engagement with Schoolboard matters before I was elected while it's accurate that I did not attend many meetings prior to running for school board you're right you got me there you got me there PJ JP sorry um I did exercise my civic duty by voting for individuals I voted for Keith I voted for Melanie I voted for Peg whom at the time I trusted with the responsibility of being Schoolboard directors community members while encouraged to participate shouldn't be burdened with baby sitting School Board directors

100as a voting Community member I trusted the competence of those elected to the board last and if you don't hear anything else of what I say I hope you do hear this I'd just like to encourage my fellow board members to continue taking my advice to keep the dialogue open between board members I also implore Bo board members in 2024 to take time to address the concerns underlying parental Andor community challenges which is why I would urge you Emily like you sort of berated Chris for coming up and I would urge you to try to understand what's underneath why why is this discussion coming up by taking time to address those challenges and understand them my hope is that this District can foster greater understanding across the community and a heightened awareness of what values

101we actually all have in common and we all share anyone else we catch everybody yet I don't want to miss anybody okay all right now can I have a motion to ajour motion thank you any discussion thank you thank you meeting is Jed e e