001Yeah. I now call to order the March 23rd, 2026 meeting of the Wallingford-Swarthmore Board of School Directors to order. In opening, as you are willing and able, if you would please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Ms. Mosley, would you please take a roll call vote? Roll call, not not a vote. Dr. Crawford? Here. Mr. Dibble? Here. Ms. Dolle? Here. Ms. Obert? Here. Ms. Livingstone? Here. Mr. Miller? Ms. Witsett? Ms. Williams? Here. Ms. Witkowski Smith? Here. Eight voting members present. Thank you. Um, first thing tonight, we have our student representatives report, and Ms. Joy Yang is with us, so
002take it away. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. As we wait for temperatures and the weather to catch up to what spring should be like. Let's catch up on what's been happening across the district. Although the high school's speech and debate season is winding down now, this team's domination only continues. At PFBL qualifiers, 15 members of the team qualified for the National Catholic Forensics League Nationals in Washington, D.C. The highest number of qualifiers ever in team history. The team also broke another record number of qualifiers when 12 speech and debate members qualified for the National Speech and Debate Association Nationals and won first place in overall sweepstakes. The team's coach, Mr. Kahn, and senior debater, Vincent Liu, were also chosen chosen as this year's District Coach of the Year and Student of the Year, respectively. Next,
003congratulations to Mock Trial for their amazing performance at the County Championships. Their B team made it to semifinals and their A team made it to finals. Science Olympiad did fantastic at their regional tournament. The high school and middle school teams placed third and second, respectively, in the region, allowing both qualify for the PA Science Olympiad States Tournament. Finally, congratulations to Panther Press and Jabberwocky for their many awards at the Pennsylvania School Press Association, including winning the Clyde F. Little Keyston Award for online publication, newspaper/news magazine, and literary magazine. Additionally, congratulations to all the individual students who placed in the top three for individual stories and photographs. And special congratulations to Caitlyn Hope, who was chosen as this year's best student writer. Over at sports, the high school boys and girls indoor track and field team
004ran away with many notable accomplishments at the PTFCA State Championships. Congratulations to Derek Bradley for placing 10th in the 200-m race, Peter Johnson, Jamal Hoff, Ben Joiner, and John Paul Redmond for placing 10th in the 4 x 200-m relay, and Kayla Gaffney, Kira Kobasko, Sam Spector, and Ava Hurwitz for placing 10th in the 4 x 800-m race. Moving on to the music and arts, SHHS Theater performed the musical Alice by Heart this month. The unique and imaginative story, detailing Alice's journey through a storyland world while navigating the bombing through World War II, stars Eli Graves and Jack Davies. It was definitely something to lose your head over in enjoyment. In addition to the musical, SHHS orchestra and band had an amazing time at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, playing their music, performing in the parade,
005and of course, having fun on all the rides. After returning home, the Haverford Symphonic Band, Wind Ensemble, and Orchestra will now be following the high school choir's amazing singing on Sunday with performances of their own tonight. The high school wasn't the only place having fun, either. This month, fourth grade students at SRS continued the tradition of the Living Wax Museum, a fun project honoring important African-American historical figures. Students brought history to life as they dressed up as their historical figure and acted as living wax statues and gave short presentations. In addition, the first week of March was Read Across America Week. And to celebrate reading, both NPE and West had a Read Across America Night, where students got to listen to special guests read and pick up a few new books to read. West also
006hosted their annual science fair, where students shared their experiments and scientific discoveries with their classmates and families. Experiments included how things float and which birds like which seeds, making for a fun night full of curiosity and creativity. And that's it for March. Dasha and I are eager to share the fourth quarter's last few happenings with everyone, and we hope everyone has an amazing spring break. Thank you. Thank you so much for your update. We really appreciate it. Right. And next, we'll turn to Dr. Johnson for his Superintendent's Report. Thank you, Mrs. Williams. Glad to provide a brief update tonight on some of the happenings in the district before I also happily turn the microphone over to the high school team led by Principal Benzinger this evening. So, you know I always like to ground myself
007in images of our students as we begin our conversations to always remember the bright young people who we have the privilege of serving in this district. And so, yesterday was the Art of WSSD, the art show at the Community Arts Center, the gallery opening for all of our students. And so, I was really pleased to go yesterday and be there with all most all of our art teachers, remembering that each teacher is able to select 10 students to present at the art show. And it was a really joyous affair down there at the bottom. a reminder that this art show lasts until April 24th. And so, if you get a chance to head on over and check out the art fair, I strongly encourage it. Really great things going on from our students on display
008at the Community Arts Center. So, for this evening, there are four topics that I'd like to share with you. First, just thinking about our budget planning for next fiscal year, a brief update on our capital plan, a sort of introduction to an idea that we have for a demographic study, and then like I mentioned, the main event is our update from the high school. So, first of all, just important news about our budget. And you know, I previously presented to you all that, you know, we are experiencing some concerns and challenges, obviously, that requires us to really course correct right now and make sure that we are really charting the best way forward to be good financial stewards of the district's resources. And as such, the board then took a resolution in December to describe
009to the administration the type of budget they wanted to see brought before them in April, and so we are on target for that next month. Ms. Mosley will present the initial budget for fiscal year '27 to the board, aligning with these priorities. And because things are always challenging in a lot of ways. We at the last meeting, right, you heard our plan for reorganization. And that, as we presented, will actually save the budget save the district about $2 million in savings just from the the staffing reorganization plan. And at the Finance Committee meeting earlier this month, you heard Ms. Mosley explain the way in which our directors have worked to reduce our spending on things like supplies, professional development, contractual services, and that adds up to about another million dollars in savings. So, right now
010we're looking at reducing our budget by about $3 million for next year. And unfortunately, we also have experienced some additional expenditures for next year that came up just this month in March, and I do want to explain them to you tonight so that we can continue to watch what's happening and how this is transpiring for our community as we move forward. So, during the month of March, there have been some budget increases that have come our way. I'll use the laser pointer to show. And they're listed here on the left side of the the column here. And I'll just walk through each one. So, in March, the Intermediate Unit provides us with their budgets. That's something the board is taking up tonight to vote on. And so, all of the member communities across the county
011are then provided their assessment for next year in March, the final assessment. I will argue it's a little late. Where I come from, my previous district, we would have gotten this information in the fall. Just the way the agreement is structured here in Delaware County, this is something that we don't get until March. We can't know that final number until March. So, as you can see, for special education, the cost for this fiscal year is $377,000. We had projected an increase of $465,000, but the final amount is 639,800. And this is really coming from what we've heard from the IU is an increase in three- to five-year-olds receiving services. That's a good thing. We want students to get services. So, I don't begrudge this at all. It's just of a financial cost is something that
012we then have to absorb and be able to handle. Similarly, for the technical school, this was our cost this year. We kept that level for next year because of increased enrollment. We then see that increase in in budgetary expenditure resulting in this variance for next year. Want to spend a little bit more time talking about medical and prescription drug, the increases that we see here for insurance. So, with our medical insurance, you'll see that this is the cost that we are expending this year. Interestingly, this is how this works. We receive money from we receive updates through Let me back up. We belong to a trust, right, across Delaware County. All of the school districts most of the school districts work together to be part of a a trust related to our insurance costs, both
013medical and prescription. And the trust has a consultant named Gallagher, and Gallagher is an organization that provides us what's called a first look at our medical and prescription drug costs in the fall. And those costs originally came in, and that's what you see reflected here in the projection column. Now, let me explain a little bit more. When we got the first what's called the first look in the fall on medical, our consultant, right, looking ahead, projected this number to go down, actually, not to go not to stay even, but to actually go down by about $127,000. Now, what I appreciate about what Ms. Mosley did is she said, frankly, I'm let's be prudent here. Let's not assume that savings. Let's keep this level funded, and we'll come we'll be happy, right, if this actually goes
014down. An important thing to know about the first look is that it's usually very conservative. Usually, the first look is more than what you are charged through the final look in March. Unfortunately, the reverse happened this year. So, instead of going down, right, by $127,000, you see that number went up to in the variance is $192,000 that we have to make up in our budget for next year. So, that alone is challenging. I really want to point out what's happened with prescription drug changes to the cost of insurance for prescription drug drug costs. So, you see that this year we're paying $2.6 million. We again, that first look that we had in the fall projected this number to go up. And so, we we took that projection, right? Instead of keeping it, you know, the
015same as we did with medical, we said, "You're telling us this is going to go up sizeably." So, Ms. Mosley built into our budget the assumption of this increase. The problem is is that this is the actual number that we received in March. And here's the variance. Now, I want to just let's all take a look at what happened between this fiscal year, right? Fiscal year 26, $2.6 million in prescription drug costs, and next year going up to $3.6 million. So, an entire million dollar difference in the cost of prescription drugs from one year to the next. I'd also like us to remember that if in rough numbers through the tax increases, right, that we can, you know, uh that that we can enact through Act 1, the amount of money that we can really
016draw in as new revenue is about $2 million. So, when you think about a million dollars being absorbed in prescription drug uh insurance, that is a hefty um challenge for the district. And so, um you know, this I appreciate that we built in an assumption, a strong assumption, but when you add all these things up, it starts to become, you know, a significant amount of further pressure on our budget. And then finally, this was a an internal correction that we made here around, you know, essentially saying, "We have contracts with our employee groups, right? So, our collective bargaining agreements, we need to make sure that we're budgeting the right amount of, you know, PTO, the paid time off that staff members uh would be entitled to. Let's make sure we assume that they take all
017of it. We want our employees to take their time." So, we just need to make sure we just needed to adjust this number to make sure we were accounting for all the possible days that our employees might take as holidays, the cost of that, particularly if we need substitutes or whatever that might be. And so, uh that is a there there was an internal adjustment during March of this amount. And you can see the total variance then is $905,000. So, when I mentioned that, you know, we have found about $3 million in savings, I just want to be very transparent, keep the conversation going, make sure that we're all looking at this with eyes wide open about what's happening, that during the month of March we have now absorbed back about a million of those
018dollars and still have work to do. So, speaking of still having work to do, um this is a slide that I've shared at every uh finance committee meeting throughout the winter. And so, I'm just repeating it here that this work that we're doing about building our budget for next year has to be forward-thinking. We need to prevent a future budget shortfall. We don't have a shortfall right now, but we know if we keep eating away at our fund balance, we ultimately will. And so, we need to reduce our dependency on fund balance. We've done a lot of work to make that happen this year. And yet there's still more that we need to do. So, all along we've been saying we have to continue to take measured steps to adjust to our changes as we
019go forward. And not only do we have to make these purposeful for next year, we also will have an ongoing process to look for greater efficiencies and return on investment. And at the heart of this, as always, is our students and focusing on student outcomes. I did my monthly walk-through at West today with Principal Steve Kroll. I was in fourth grade and third grade classrooms today, and I am pleased to say that we are maintaining the, you know, the the strong academic program that our students are receiving. We're keeping up that at the core of what we are doing. We're not losing sight of that while we continue to, you know, sort of reconcile the budget challenges that we face. And I think it's just important that we continue to have an open conversation about
020them. So, as we look ahead, uh what does this mean to have measured steps and an ongoing process? I just want to be very upfront that, you know, I mentioned previously that, you know, a place that we also have to look in addition to the work that we've already done is to see if there can be savings through attrition. The verb there that's very important is consider, right? Because it doesn't mean that every position for which we have a resignation or retirement, we don't fill, right? Most of the positions we will fill because we need most of the people we have. But we do need to look at every case to ask ourselves, "Can we get by without that position?" So, we will need to be even more diligent about that, even more disciplined about
021examining every vacancy to determine whether replacement is necessary. So, on tonight's agenda, for example, we do have some retirements of two teachers who will be sorely missed. Um and we also have the retirement of our HR director as well. And I make a strong commitment to you that in every case, we will have to look at the numbers for those and other positions, but not limited to those positions, and just ask ourselves that question of, "Can do we need to replace this position?" And like I said, in many cases, the answer will be yes, but if the answer can be no, if we can continue to adjust, then we need to do that. And that's a it's a hard, you know, hard work that we have to do internally, myself and the leadership team. I
022have my meeting tomorrow uh every Tuesday morning with our principals. We call it the principals huddle. And um I'll start the conversation in further detail with them tomorrow about, "Let's talk about, particularly, you know, an administrative position like our HR director. Can we get by without it?" Now, that is it is a deep breath moment. It is a very deep breath moment, but that's the reality that we're living in right now. And that's the work that we need to do uh to make sure we can continue to provide what we need for our students. So, um just want to name what uh is sort of at stake right now, the hard work that we need to continue to do. Um this is something that has been building over time, so it's not a surprise that
023it takes us time to continue to get through it. And again, I just want to make sure that you're aware of the story along the way. So, you know, we'll also have to continue other, you know, other avenues for savings, um particularly as we just look ahead to things like our capital project and all the things that we're doing. Everything has to be looked at in terms of, "Can we afford it? Is this the right time? Are there other solutions to make sure that we do the right thing for our students?" Um I do want to mention a couple of updates about our 10-year capital plan that I'm I'm happy to share. Uh and really this is sort of web website navigation, if you will, uh with me. Uh we have more information available for
024the public on our website, and I just want to point out what it is and highlight a particular document that I know gives me a lot of excitement. So, if you follow the breadcrumbs at the top on our homepage, there's a um a particular uh location for our capital plan, um a landing page for our capital plan, and then informational files exist within that. And I want to point at the bottom from the bottom up, the presentations that we've had most recently about from our architect, KCBA Architects, about their renovation ideas for the high school. Both of those presentations are live on on this website. So, if you're curious about what's been presented, you can find those presentations there. It's the next one up that I want to point out, which is the capital plan
025project list. I've appreciated some of the sit-downs that I've had with community members where they've said to me, "You know, I'm sort of curious about, you know, if you look at that first bullet point about the overview of the capital plan, it tells it's paints in sort of broad brushstrokes about the improvements that need to be made in each building, roofing and electrical and whatnot. Um but what are the details? And what are the priorities for those details? So, the capital plan project list is that very information, and I want to show you an example of what this looks like. I just took a screenshot from SRS, and it shows greater detail about what are those priority improvements. So, if you look on the right side, you'll see that we have them listed by priority
026one, priority two, it goes down the list, priority three, priority four. Um information about the cost of the project, a description of what it is. And then on the far right side, uh just a a designation of is this part of being warm, safe, and dry, or is it something not related to warm, safe, and dry? Because we've set our focus um is really about warm, safe, and dry learning environments for our students. And so, I hope that this information is useful not only for the public, but I know it will be useful as we go forward because 10 years is a long time. We need to remember what got us here. What were those improvements that we said we were going to make? And so, this being housed on our website, I hope will
027kind of add to that that level of um understanding and um as we go forward. My last uh update for tonight is really just to let you know about a potential elementary school demographic study that I plan to bring before the board, most likely to the finance committee meeting in April. And let me tell you a little bit about what's the problem we're trying to solve. What is it? Why am I suggesting that we need to perhaps examine uh further demographic information about the district? And there are really two issues that uh I have been, you know, keenly aware of since I've been here. The first is, you know, the the high enrollment that we have on the student population at West. So, since the pandemic, the population at West has grown uh to the
028point where, you know, the school is really very full. Um many of those who you've been in West with me know that our our classes are full. Um the use of space is really uh kind of pushed, you know, to about its its maximum capacity right now. And will it get will that increase? Well, what will what's going to happen in the next 5 years? And how do we plan for that? And I've had West parents who've said to me, "You know, we've known this for a long time. And so, when will there be a plan about what to do about this?" And there are many options of what we could do uh to take that on. But it would be nice I think it's important that we take on options that will actually yield
029results, that we don't start something and then find out that the solution didn't really address the problem. And so, I think a deeper understanding of where we should expect our demographics to change and grow over the next 5 years will be useful for our planning. In addition, any changes in looking at, you know, where our our elementary students uh are, you know, are going to school really has to take into account the need for full-day kindergarten. And I think that this is something that we should be looking at simultaneously together when we think about addressing the, you know, high enrollment that we have at West, we also need to be creating a plan for how will we ultimately have full-day kindergarten in our district? Where would those classrooms go? How would we create a feeder
030pattern that would yield, you know, access for all of our kindergarten students to have full day K. So, I'm excited about working with a vendor to get that underway. We have actually conducted a what's called an RFQ process where we went out to vendors with a request for quotes from them. We received positive responses. I involved both the elementary administrators and two board members in interviewing the candidates with me, the candidate firms, and we've narrowed in on one that I think is particularly promising and I'm likely to bring that before the April Finance Committee meeting for consideration. I just mentioned though how funding is a challenge for us right now. So, what I want to mention is the funding source that I intend to use is aligned for our superintendent professional evaluation of professional development.
031So, you know, not I I want to make sure that I'm not, you know, causing expense to our classrooms or our schools in order to fund this. This is something that I think that I should take care of through my own professional development line and transfer that those dollars to be able to cover this cost. I know that sometimes there's been a concern about this district the district has had studies and not presented the results, you know, have the results been shared publicly? So, that's why I want to start the conversation now to let you know that this is something that's in development, that we would start this in late summer. What I appreciate about the vendor who we are particularly interested in is who said to me, you know, my results are sort of
032solid for 5 years. So, if you are and that's really what all the demographer demographers have said to us is that, you know, that it's a 5-year projection. So, start with next year's enrollment. Start with your September 1 enrollment to make this determination to get this information. So, that's why I'm suggesting that we get started late summer 2026. And then again, with when will we present this these results, when would the public look forward to hearing what the outcomes are and the options are? That would be next winter, early winter of 2027. So, I just want to name that down. With that, that is my part of the update, but I told you the main event is Principal Benzing and his team. So, Andy, I'm happy to turn it over to you. Thanks everyone for
033having us this evening. We're thrilled to present with you. My name is Andy Benzing, and I'm the proud principal of Strath Haven High School, and I'm joined with by Ms. Tabitha Duffy, Ms. Andrea LaPierre, and Mr. Tom McLaughlin, amazing assistant principals who, you know, are tremendous to work with leadership in the building and really coach me up every day to be completely honest behind the scenes. So, we're we're really excited to share with you a lot of the work that we've been doing just this past year in the high school, in particular and how it relates to the strategic plan that we broached a few years ago, and we try to use this as our guiding principle. What was that? Was the mic off? How's that? Is that better? I'll use my teacher voice, Mr.
034Winston. Okay, we'll really let it rip here. In terms of the strategic plan, kind of guiding what we had hoped for in our building in terms of our own individualized goals, then when we sat around this summer and talked with teacher leaders, we talked to ourselves, what are the core ideas that we really want to focus on this academic year? And four ideas continued to emerge. And some of the assistant principals each of the assistant principals are going to take one of these to speak about, but the idea of climate and culture, you know, is there a place and you'll see the title of this I think is critical, this idea of pathways to student success. Right? Are we building a school and a place where everyone can feel safe, where everyone can feel a
035sense of belonging, where they can see themselves in that school? That's the culture of the place. That was important for us to focus on. A lot of those efforts largely live in our PBIS system as we discuss that. The idea that if we're going to provide challenging programming for our students, there's going to be times when our students are really challenged. And what type of supports do we have in place? What type of systems do we have in place to support them as we challenge them both academically, behaviorally, as they progress through the their years with us. It also was an important opportunity for us to refocus on this idea of high quality instruction, right? What goes on day-to-day in the classrooms, right? In terms of different tiers, you hear that thrown a lot about
036thrown around a lot, but the focus was if we can really get our teachers and our team to focus on what leverages what high instruction can we leverage to achieve support all students, that's really where we hope to see a lot of the benefits. And the last, I think, talks a little bit about transitions. Transitions are difficult. We're a small district, so you'd think we're really good at it, but the fact of the matter is if I'm an eighth grader, right, at whatever age I am, 12, 13, and I come to a high school, right, where I'm the top dog in the middle school, and I come to the high school and I look and I see other people and they have hair growing on their face and they're 6'1 and they're playing for state
037football championships. That's a transition for our students, where they move from eight periods a day, around 47 minutes, to four blocks a day, around 85 minutes. That's a transition. So, we really wanted to focus this year on what that transition was and to make it as clear as possible to our students and to our families exactly what it is that they can do to try to access the full resources to have real success to all the pathways at Strath Haven. And this is just my favorite picture. That's why that's there. Of our cherry blossom tree, and it's going to pop any moment. Very excited. I was a little envious as I walked up the back steps here at the middle school. All their smaller cherry blossoms have popped, but we watch ours every single day.
038We're very excited for this, Jackie. Very excited. So, I want to start with that first goal, the idea of climate and culture, and for that I want to introduce Mr. Thomas McLaughlin, who really spearheads our PBIS kind of brain tier efforts at the school, to talk a little a little more, excuse me, about culture and program. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Benzing. So, as Mr. Benzing stated, you know, we have a lot of transitions at the in our school district, but one of the things when they come to the high school is one we feel connected. How do you feel connected is by personal connections with the teachers, the staff, and the students. So, one of the things we we started with um slide that up a little bit. Um as advisory lessons, and you
039might say, "What's that?" So, it's SEL lessons, social emotional learning. What we did was we gave surveys to students to say, "What do you need? What do you feel like you might need?" One example of one of the lessons we've done was when they feel frustrated, what do they do? So, the best way we could do that is we designed a lesson to frustrate the kids in the classroom. So, we could say to them, "How do you handle this frustration?" And then our teachers worked with the students on how do you handle frustration in classroom and outside the classroom. So, they want to work with them. Another example we did was we started a program called Wellness Wednesdays. So, monthly or bi-monthly in the school at the high school on Wednesdays, we have a partnership
040with Saint Joseph's University. They come in for some mental health you know, um productions that they put on with our students. And we try to do something fun. So, Dr. Johnson came over one day, we had bingo, and we were like, "How's this going to go?" And I'll give you a little secret. Kids are kids no matter what age they're at. So, in the high school, they were fighting to get a seat, they were fighting to win bingo, and they won little prizes. So, it's things like that where you look around the cafeteria and they're not on their phones, they're not just sitting there with their head in the book, they're actually being kids and having fun. So, that was what we do on Wellness Wednesdays. We have some games we put out, we have
041cornhole we put out, we sort of play music. Here we This was funny, we made bracelets, and we have more football players and weightlifters and stuff over here making bracelets. At one point, it was kind of funny cuz you didn't expect to see that, but they were like, "Get out of the way." And they were all making the bracelets. But during that time, like I said, they're connecting with the teachers, they're connecting with other staff. Staff can come out during their lunch and hang out with the students and talk. Huh? Uh here's another example. Here's Dr. Johnson right here calling bingo. All right. And this is some of our partnerships. We have different various groups. The Saint Joe's people, they do give out swag, I'm not going to lie. Um but they said when we
042talked to them afterwards, they're really impressed with our students because our students wait in line to speak to them. Things about resilience, positive relationships, and they spend time and talk to our kids, and I thought they were just getting, you know, these are great, by the way, the little Oreo fidgets are awesome. But the Saint Joe's people were really impressed with the way our students sat and talked to them. So, it's we try to do something fun and we try to do something educational every every Wednesday we do this, and the kids have really, you know, taken to it, and now you may say like, "Where's your proof? Where's your proof?" So, over the last few years, here are some hard numbers for you to see how the kids feel positively connected to our school.
043So, we give these surveys, and since we started this, we really made a push last year and this year. Look how much they've gone up in all of our subgroups. And these are the sort of the questions that we ask them. How do you feel belong? How much do being, you know, around the school matter to you? And you can see it's all moving in the positive direction. So, these numbers kind of shocked me in a in a positive way. I was like, "Wow, it's really working." And, you know, when the kids walk in the cafeteria, like, "What do you got this week for Wellness Wednesday? What are we what are we doing today, Mr. McLaughlin?" Um so, they feel comfortable enough to say that, and there's the hard data to prove it. So, that's
044something we're going to continue to do. We're going to continue to address it, and that these things are school-wide, not for particular groups, for every student in our building. All right? Thank you. Hi, good evening. I'm Andrea LaPierre, one of the assistant principals. Um the one of our second goals that we're working on is to develop and improve our tier support structure for to meet the needs of all learners. And what we know about students is that they are not one size fits all, and what students need in sometimes in ninth grade and 12th grade are very different. You you what they need over time uh, can vary and change. So, we want to make sure that we have opportunities available to students and Mr. Benzing sort of alluded to it in the transition, you
045know, sort of developing that independence and and advocacy so they're seeking that support out because, you know, at some point, um, you know, kids are going to move beyond high school and we want them to have those skills. Uh, you know, what I'm going to talk about and then I'll turn it over to Mrs. Duffy is the supports that are freely accessible to all of our students, our universal supports. Um, one of the things that Mr. Benzing mentioned and we'll talk about later, so I'm not going to steal his thunder, is building capacity and high-quality instruction through professional development. What's happening inside the classroom on the everyday that would, you know, help our students grow and develop as learners. Um, we've had fifth block fifth block for as long as I've been here, as long
046as I can remember, but one of the things that we've really sort of structured this year and and increased and sort of formalizing is for students who really need it. We're developing what we're calling a fifth block contract. It's a pretty simple concept. When a student's starting to struggle, they're starting to we're starting to see a pattern of missing assignments. They've been out for a week cuz they've been sick, you know, whatever it might be and they come back and they're kind of in a hole. Um, we'll work with the counselor, the admin, you know, their teachers, parents even to say, we're going to build a fifth block contract. And all that really means is on Monday, we're going to make sure you're going to your your math teacher. On Wednesday, you're going to go
047to your English teacher. On Thursday, you have this club that you're really passionate about, so we're going to let you do that, but then on Friday, we're going to have you do this. And we might do that do that for two or three weeks and see how it's working. And what's happening is with through the contract, the teachers all know that the student might be struggling across the board. And so, they're able to communicate with each other. It increases that sort of opportunity for students to, um, you know, kind of build that build their, um, build back up with, you know, if they kind of fall into a little bit of a hole. One of the things we're really proud of this year and we started it as a pilot in January was what we're
048calling the lunchtime learning lab. Um, what we know about fifth block is students are incredibly busy. Students are super involved in our music program. Some students need to get home to get their younger siblings off the bus. Whatever it might be, fifth block doesn't always work perfectly for students. So, we have our math interventionist, Miss Culbertson, and a language arts certified teacher working in a little classroom in the library, um, during lunch. Students can come for any reason. They can come because they just want to have some focused homework time. They can come because they have a math test coming up and they want to review a little bit beforehand. Um, I talked to a student today who's a little behind on a paper. I said, "Hey, do you know Miss Latari? Um, she's in
049the library during lunch. She can help you get this paper done." And so, you know, we are trying to advertise it and promote it through our teachers, um, you know, through the counselors. Our counselors are making connections. You know, sometimes students aren't necessarily willing to go in their room with a teacher they don't know. So, sometimes our counselors are sort of addressing this with the students saying, "Hey, take a walk with me. Let's go meet Miss Culbertson. Let's go meet Miss Latari." So, that lunchtime learning lab, we've had a a good number of students who are going frequently. We have a number of students who've gone once or twice. We also know that it's a student's lunch and sometimes they need a break and they can go eat lunch in the cafeteria for 15 minutes
050and go up to the learning lab. If they want, they can bring their lunch and be there the whole time. Our teachers there have been super flexible to make it a really warm and inviting space. Um, you know, I mentioned counselors and admin. These check-ins really are mostly just to see when we see a student struggling, "Hey, how are things going? Is something going on? How can we help?" You know, sometimes in high school, when students know that you've noticed that they've struggled, they start to they they straighten up a little bit and then we can try to figure out what's causing them to struggle a little bit and then we can help direct them in the in the right direction, you know, in the right place so they can, um, you know, build back
051up again. So, these are things that are available to everyone and we've tried to formalize them a little bit more this year and, uh, we think we're seeing some progress. We don't have a ton of data yet on the learning lab and the contract, but again, we've just started many of these things and and getting them launched now. So, we're pretty excited about it. I'll turn it over to Mrs. Duffy. Before Miss Duffy goes, I'm trying to get Miss LaPierre to call the lunchtime learning lab L Cube. >> I was going to say that. >> But she's she's, uh, she's fighting it. >> Were you going to say that? I told him that was too nerdy. No, that's a stick. That was going to be my segway. Um, so, Mr. Benzing did steal my thunder.
052Um, but I'm going to talk a little bit about building systems. Um, I'm sort of like the member of the admin team that really likes spreadsheets and like charts and things. So, I'm going to talk a little bit about how we've been building systems this year to make sure that no matter who is in which positions, um, we have a plan for how we identify students who need support and that the plan isn't reliant on anyone person. Um, something that we've been doing this year and and last year a little bit, but really, uh, systematizing better this year is weekly data pulls of attendance, behavior, grades, and then I put observations, but it's sort of anecdotal information through referrals that teachers and other staff members have seen. Um, to lead us to that second point
053where we where we bring everybody together. Um, we have weekly team meetings for student support that include all of our counselors, our behavioral health counselors, our entire admin team, and interventionists, social workers, and school psychologist to kind of get everybody in one spot. Um, and in that meeting, we can talk about trends that we are seeing across courses or across grade level, um, or we can just work simply to identify an individual student, um, who might be in need of some individualized support and then we see at the bottom there that additional supports are added. Some additional supports that we could put in place following these support meetings are skills groups that, uh, we're really excited this year include both academic skills and behavioral health skills. We have started a staff mentorship program this year
054and we've had 15 teachers volunteer to mentor students, um, where they meet once per week and they work on a specific goal that's set by one of our team. We have two affinity groups uh working with our students. This is about our third or fourth year, um, that these groups have been working with our students and they've been really great. And then of course, we can make referrals to individual counseling with our own counselors or referrals to community services. So, all of those things come out of the kind of get everybody all in the same room to talk about what supports a student might need. Because I love charts, um, we have the we just got our Panorama data back, um, last week, but I wanted to show you that just within this school year,
055the first column there is the growth in, uh, students feeling that they have supportive relationships with adults and the second column is feelings of belonging in the school and this is just within this school year and I have to say I was also pleasantly surprised by how positive they were because you sort of wonder when you're slogging through and building systems and, you know, working through everything in the nitty-gritty, you wonder if it's working. Um, and our data is really positive this year, which we're really proud to say. But, as we said earlier, you like to hear from children more than you like to hear from us. So, we took a little bit of a tour around the building to ask kids, um, what makes them feel like they belong and where did they go
056for support. And I did I want to thank Jackie because the sound was quiet, so we're going to work on the speaker for a second before we get the video playing, but you can hear from our students here. Oh, I actually don't know how to do that. Right now. Oh. Somewhere I can go for support is, [music] um, Mr. Peters' class because I had him all of freshman year for, uh, English and I really liked his class and I really connected with him. If I needed support at school, I'd probably go to her classroom and talk to Miss Silva because I spend a lot of time with her and she's a good person to talk to. Something that makes me feel supported or heard is being in the, uh, girls group at my school. I
057get to talk to other girls my age and get their perspective on situations that goes on in the And I think teachers help succeed by, um, if you if they see you in class and you don't know something, they'll come up to you. So, having you come up to them ask for questions. When I need support, I go to Mr. Fowle because I'm comfortable talking to him. Teachers help you succeed in many ways during the school year. You can stay after school to have a basic conversation with them or you can email email and reach [music] out to them. They're always just a person you can go to even when it feels like you have nobody to talk If a student arrived tomorrow, I would tell them that he needs really great. Everyone's welcoming and
058the teachers [music] are kind. You can always like find anyone, like even in the hallway, they'll talk to you. And yeah. They play everywhere all the time. I hope you enjoyed that video as much as we enjoyed taking it. Um, I I I appreciate you bearing with us. We only have about 40 more slides, so this is going great. Uh, this is going great. I'm I'm I'm only kidding, Miss Crawford. We're not we don't have that many, but, um, as we talked about, you know, a lot of senses of of belonging and making kids feel welcome, you know, what we hear a lot about tonight are a lot of the new things that we've implemented this year, but we've also coupled that with some of our existing practices that we wanted to review and say
059to ourselves, is this, you know, the best practice? Is it giving us do we talked about data? Is it giving us the most best feedback we need? I mean, you heard from anything ranging from our practice of Saturday school. Is that something that's still equitable? Is that still something that serves all learners? And we revisited that and realized in fact, no, it's not and we're looking for alternate ways to reach students that way. You saw pictures of, um, our cafeteria there. There's a challenge right now in the school to try to keep the the tabletops clean and clear for the next 600 kids coming in. So, it's these type of global efforts that I think really feed a lot of the data that you saw up there in the in the growth. But, this next
060section really focuses on instruction and and our renewed emphasis on that this year. I think this started in the summer where we pulled groups of teachers about 10 teachers at a time together really as PD culture groups to start the thought work of some of this work towards instruction. And there was any number of PD groups. There's a probably about eight or nine of them. But, one group in particular was just largely focused on participation and engagement. That if we could increase the participation and engagement in all of our instruction, that overall we would see growth and benefit and all throughout. So, the participation and engagement group was born. And you'll see in fact, this is a group of teachers. Here's Ms. Condon down here. Why can't I remember her name all of a sudden?
061Ms. Cortese, Chris High School. You know, folks in our instruction intervention group meet monthly, do a little bit of research, reach out to the teachers and hear what kind of things would you like to see and do a little turnaround trainings during our faculty meetings. You're seeing one of them here. When Ms. Condon talking about whip-around technique. Ms. Cortese talking about concept maps. And our teachers are veterans. Some of them are rolling their eyes. But, on the other part of them they realize this is kind of effective. It's a nice refresher for them. The real benefit of it is and this is an activity. Alex is always Alex is always smiling and laughing like this, but this particular day he really was. And this was a technique that they were sharing to try to get
062everyone in the class involved. And this categories kind of technique. These three I like to point out because they've been there for about 25 years in that exact same exact order in every single faculty meeting. And that day they were playing Scattergories together. So, you know, they're getting engaged. The real benefit of it I think is the beauty when you walk around during our walk-throughs and we take a look and we see those same strategies being implemented in real time in different disciplines. Right, this is Sarah Holt's life skills class. They're using a Frayer model to talk about Diwali that particular day. Walk down the hall, there's a geometry class using a concept map to draw reasons for, you know, congruence with particular triangles. It's wonderful to see this stuff. You know, literally days, weeks
063implemented in real time right after these faculty meetings where it's shared. The other arm of this I would say. So, I wanted to just thank the board quite frankly for the support that they give those subgroups during the summer because that really feeds our work for the whole year. Right, we have different groups come in. They're wearing shorts and they have really good tans and the four of us are like envious of them cuz we're still working. But, they're fresh and they give us great ideas and that allows us to make the planning for the next year. The other arm of this is really, you know, what generally people call PLCs, but we like to rename everything in the high school different, right? Middle school has periods, we have blocks. Other people have PLCs, we
064have instruction intervention teams. It's a PLC. But, we decided in the summer that we wanted to really reinvest in our teachers and give them the most valuable asset possible to do this work. Do you know what that is? Time, absolutely. To give them the time to do that. So, every other week our teachers are afforded the time after school to get in smaller groups, groups of three to four teachers to really invest themselves and look at the lessons they're doing to get them increase participation and engagement. That was the fall. These are just a few examples of it. Here on the top right, you know, and this is not I realized if anyone in our community work, you know, for Cardinal USA Cardinal Oil, they're probably going to get mad at me. But, you may
065may not remember a story where a Cardinal tanker tipped over on Route 1 right above Crum Creek. Yeah, or Ridley Creek it was. Our environmental science team, our instruction environment, they were on to have a focus on how can we build the hook? How can we build the curiosity? How can we build the phenomena? These things sound familiar with our steel standards in each of our lessons. And they stumbled across this one and how this is going to impact the watersheds. And then they thought to themselves, that was really engaging for your students. That was fabulous. Fast forward to January. Now we're as I effectively saying, "Okay, we've done this work. We've taken a look at how we've hopefully increased participant engagement. Well, hopefully, hope, that's one thing. It'd be nice to measure it. So,
066we turned our gear towards how can we go ahead and this spring we're saying, how can our instruction intervention groups measure that, whatever change we made in our biology team totally separate thought to themselves, let's measure that curiosity somehow. So, they came up with this rubric. It's pretty dandy. Then they share across there's this cross-pollination that happens on these instruction intervention periods. Each one of us has a bunch that we see in a our next instruction intervention period is tomorrow. We run around like crazy after school to try to get to as many of them as we can to touch base. But, it's growing. Like now in the spring they're saying, how can we measure these changes that we've made? This is a this is a really good one. This is actually from our physical
067education and the health curriculum. This is actually a form of differentiation. You'll see, you know, there's another third over here pictured dice, right? 1 through 6. And there's different depths of knowledge of levels of questions that are being asked here. As a teacher I can roll a die and say, "Everyone do number two." Or as I'm walking around the class I can say, "I'd like you to do the top half of the document." Or I can say, "Boy, you're really good at this. I want you to do five and six for me." All these are side conversations naturally building in differentiation in the classroom. So, a nice example of it here. Before we get to this, I wanted to Mr. McLaughlin had another good example that just he brought up last month. I said, "You
068really got to share that one." And unfortunately, I just whispered in his ears like, "I want you to talk about that." And he said, "Okay, I'll think about it right now." But, I'm sure he'll do really well with one of his instruction intervention groups he works. So, like Mr. Benzing said, you know, when you work in a high school the the teachers tend to be a little more siloed. Prime example standing to my left here. Math teachers really like math teachers. They really like math and they think that's the most important thing. History teachers, my subject is most important. That's cute that you can add, but if you can't know the history. So, that that kind of thing. I worked with the history department and one of the I and I days I went around
069and three separate groups all were talking about the writing process. And what department focuses on the writing process is the English department. So, I went down to the English department and I said, "Hey, question for you guys. What do you think about X, Y, and Z?" And they're like, "We were just talking about that myself." So, I went back to the history department and I said, "Just so you guys know that English department's working on the very same thing. So, what we're trying to do is get those teachers together in the same room so they can talk about the same process for all their students. It's not just the big research paper in history for junior year. It's the writing process. So, right now the history teachers are working on a rubric for hypothesis statement.
070And the English teachers are taking that and also helping along with it. So, there's, you know, where we took two separate groups that normally wouldn't really have anything in common. We're getting them to work together and sort of benefit for students. It's not a flipped over oil tanker, but it is a nice thing, Sarah. Our last goal we want to speak about today is this idea of transition and really clarity for our students and our families. In particular, the access to all the programming to focus on that pathway. And there's specific things that we did this year that we want to highlight just to And again, I love this phrasing that we're really adopting here. Idea of identifying and encouraging students to find their pathway to success at Strath Haven. Two in particular, and this
071was Ms. LaPierre's brainchild. The idea of this electives fair, right? So, our students get to Silver Guide. Have you looked at it recently? Like, it's really thick and could be a little overwhelming for eighth grader, ninth grader. But, the idea is that we're going to get actual students in these electives. This is our intro to music intro to guitar class. And down there showing and discussing about what these courses are all about to get a student's perspective. We heard that more and more in the superintendent's advisory council. Yeah, you adults are nice, but we want to hear from the kids what these classes are like. Mr. Stewart, our ninth grade counselor, and Ms. Kristen Dunning hosted our back to school night session before for teachers. We thought, "Okay, we'll put 10, 11, 12 in the
072auditorium and the ninth graders in the library and we'll see how it goes." Boy, we got it wrong. There was 150 people and ninth graders stuffed in the library before back to school night hearing about what are the resources that our school counselor office can provide. Like, these are new things we're doing to try to get the word out about our efforts here at the school. In in terms of the transition, we coined this phrase of the transition of the freshman academy. Transition, yeah, that might work. The freshman academy. And Mr. Gavin Stewart who's pictured on this page here really has spearheaded this. He and Ms. Dunning go into every single ninth grade classroom certainly in the fall just to have lessons about, you know, who do you go to for what? What do you
073need to do to have a healthy relationship? In particular, we took a look at an eighth grade orientation and said, "How can we revamp that to give that more student voice to put these idea of pathways that there's a path for every single student if they come to Strath Haven regardless of where they need to go with." Back to the idea, we want to hear from the kids, not you. Student council officers, some of whom you saw in one of those videos that they've led tours around. We're encouraging them. They've started to go into actually have gone into those same ninth grade classes to say, "What questions do you have on counseling?" You've heard the assembly. You've seen the webinar. Your parents have gone to What do you as a student have cuz to try
074to build, you know, student voice and autonomy in some of their choices. It was funny because when they started that the student council members came back with a list very different than what than what we had in mind. So, again, Ms. LaPierre sat down with them and we found a nice place in the middle to say, "Let's give a central view." But, the feedback's been positive in that regard. And last, you know, I just want us to to focus on this. You know, we asked the freshman, we're surveying them a lot. You know, what do you know now that you wish you knew then? And these are some of the responses that they gave us. And I think as you read them, you you'll I hope that you'll, you know, agree with us that, you
075know, we're trying to build a place for everyone and everyone a place. Every voice is very important to us at Strath Haven. And I appreciate that your your support through that as we try to build those systems and supports for our students to achieve their maximum potential. So, thank you very, very much for giving us opportunity to to share a little about our school which we're very, very proud of. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share with you this evening. Thank you so much. You know, as I was listening to you, Mr. Benzing, I had to in my head I was noticing that we missed your enthusiasm from the board meetings. It's been a while since you've been with us. So, but there's so much here to be proud of and and excited
076about and I think what really stood out to me was it feels very intentional and also very student-centered and I love that and and kind of similarly last two months ago we heard from the middle school. They had data that like their kids felt very connected to the school and so I love that you use data and and you know, the results speak for themselves, but you know, we're forging connections and giving these kids these pathways. So, thank all four of you very much and I will open it up. I'll go left to right to see if other board members have any comments and then Dolly. Thank you very much. Appreciate the work all of the work that you're doing, but I will say that one of the things I think about is, you know,
077so we've kind of scaled back on cell phones, right? So, we've taken something away, but it's very clear how focused you are on adding something in that's positive, you know, with your wellness Wednesdays and I mean, I notice it when my kids come home and I hear things about them and I just think that's it's very clear that you're um focusing on this being a positive experience for them and not just a negative. So. Thank you for all of the work that you do. Yeah, thank you Mr. Benzing and your team. There was a lot that I liked about the presentation. I just want to pick one thing so I don't take up too much time. You talked a little bit about intentionally frustrating the kids in the classroom and I think that's really important
078because helping young people understand how to stay resilient in challenging situations in a structured and intentional way is extremely important, as important as any knowledge you could possibly teach. I just love that. I wanted to emphasize that. Thank you. Yeah, and thank thank you so much. I appreciate your coming here and spending your time and I also appreciate that you're not taking anything for granted. That you are re-examining and examining all of your systems. Thank you so much for your systems. I appreciate that greatly and spreadsheets. Love them both. But I appreciate that you're looking at everything. That you're not stopping anywhere, even what you're doing well. So, thank you. That's that's big work that you're doing. So, thank you for it very much. I'll just echo what everyone else said. Mr. Benzing, I always
079love your enthusiasm. And I just wanted to highlight the focus on student voices and the other thing that I thought you were going going to say when you said you were giving teachers an important resource, it was time, was each other and the connections that they're building between one another and I think it's striking that we're seeing in the Panorama data that students are experiencing a high sense of belonging and supportive relationships and that's because you're building them amongst one another and that's going to trickle down to the students. So, strong work. I was I was glad to hear about Saturday school. You know, I took you to task a couple times on it um and and recognizing that it wasn't paying off. It wasn't making a difference where you could use positive PBIS to
080get the same results and it's an equity piece that was pretty um prevalent in the use of Saturday school and and so um I'm excited to hear that as well as all the new initiatives and like someone said, the intentional and the purpose-driven um student-centered um philosophy that the high school is now embraced under your direction, Mr. Benzing. Got a good team. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. We really appreciate it. All right, now is the time for public comment on items on the agenda. There will be time later for topics that are not on the agenda. Public comment is the time for district residents and taxpayers to share their perspectives and experiences with the board on an issue that is before us. It is a time for us to listen. While
081we are not able to respond to individual questions during the meeting, there is the opportunity to follow up after the meeting if there is a specific question for the district. Each speaker will have a three-minute time limit. We will give a reminder when one minute remains so that you be get can begin to wrap up and at three minutes we will ask that you finish your final thoughts so we can move to the next speaker. Please remember that this is not the appropriate venue for discussing matters that relate to any individual student, whether your child or not, or any concerns that you have about an individual staff member. When speaking, we ask that you state your name and the street in the district in what on which you live before beginning. Is there anyone here
082tonight who would like to speak about a topic that is on the agenda? I didn't know we had one. Yeah, in a minute. Minutes ago. Yeah, I didn't No. All right. Um so, is there anyone here who would like to make a comment for an item on the agenda? Please. Uh 10 board You have to I'm sorry, go to the podium and if you would please give us your name and the street on which you live. I Ken Torres Ziegler. I live on uh Linden Avenue in Rutledge. Um I have two comments. One about items on the agenda. One is about the transportation changes which are coming up in the um things for second reading. Um I have concerns with this based upon the the fact that it's going to go into effect fall of
083this year, which is I believe way too soon for people to have uh made made changes to aftercare. Uh people are expecting that they're going to be able to use what they've been doing before and and have already had to sign up prior to this meeting. So, I think that making a drastic change like that with this little time is just too quick. I understand where you're coming from a lot of these things, but people have uh come to expect this to be able to make make child care happen and that's going to be difficult. So, I would hope that you do not approve that this year this at this meeting at least. Um and further consider it. The other the other one that I have on here which is I was looking through the
084changes in there have some personnel changes coming up in the change of position which I think is based upon some of the changes happening and I do have a concern that we're changing our supervisor of elementary special education again. We just did this a year ago. Um and uh uh and and I have I have concerns about about this person's qualifications. That's all. I don't want don't want to get too far into it because of, you know, personnel issues, but um but I uh I like our current one. It's really concerning to have to to change again within one year. But Thank you so much. All right. Please. If you'd state your name and the street on which you live. >> Yes, Rebecca Warrenken on Byerly Lane. Good evening. Um sorry, I'm like a little
085nervous. My name is Rebecca Warrenken. I've lived in this district for 14 years and the parent of an elementary student and I also serve on the board of the Park Avenue Park Avenue Community Center. So, I'm really here tonight with those two hats as a parent and then also a community partner and I'm here to address the proposed transportation changes that will significantly impact family like families like mine as well as organizations that are supporting students in our district every day. Um I want to begin by acknowledging that I take student safety very seriously. I myself have had a kindergartner who was missing, who's not supposed to be on a bus. So, I get it. It's incredibly scary as a parent and take that very seriously and appreciate that that has been a concern surfaced.
086Um and understand that operational challenges that that kind of crep created this I think it's John's Dr. Johnson, you've used the term Swiss cheese with regards to our current policy. I totally get it. At the same time, concerned that the proposed solution goes further than necessary. It's too quick and it creates new barriers that will disproportionately impact working families and families that you know, might have diverse needs or can't afford necessarily to make changes in time for the fall. So, my primary ask tonight is to please consider allowing transportation to any approved in-district facility. So, not just limiting to state-licensed programs as long as safety standards and consistency requirements can be met. So, not asking to make any, you know, special requests for those programs. But really, you know recognizing that the Community Arts Center
087and the Creative Living Room have been trusted Wallingford Swarthmore School District partners for decades. The trust has already been built with the community. And my own child who's in elementary school would not have been able to attend programming at either of those locations without the busting that has been made available by the district. So just really can't emphasize enough how important that is to our community. And I would also like to address the issue of capacity with our current state license programs. Many do have wait lists. I have been shut out of programs in the past due to wait lists. And as another parent mentioned those enrollments have already happened for the fall. So I don't think we even have the capacity even if we wanted to implement this change by the fall. And two
088you know locking in specific language around the state license requirement is going to limit the flexibility in the future if you know the Community Arts Center or the Park Avenue Community Center are you know able to change their operations to meet those other requirements it's going to be much harder to undo policy later. So that would be I guess my my two points I'd like to make. And in closing just ask that we slow down the process make sure that we're considering all the options and any implications and barriers that it's creating for families in our district. So thank you. Thank you so much. Anyone else? Please. And again if you'll just state your name and the street on which you live. Hi I'm Megan Ryan. I live on Oberlin. I have I'm also here
089to talk about the transportation changes. And so to not repeat I'm going to focus just on the fact that I think this policy change that you're trying to do it's not going to accomplish what you want and it's going to cause a lot more harm than you're thinking. So on the accomplishing what you want I totally get you're trying to avoid these near misses. But your Q&A itself referenced that this change which is only going to say you can't go to multiple locations by bus would only affect 150 families. Can tell you tons of families send their kids lots of different places. Maybe they go bus three days a week or two days a week and they go to TCDN at SRS two day three days a week. Those kids could still make these mistakes.
090Maybe they go to grandma's two days a week and bus to their home three. Maybe you have two different families of each divorced parent. One is busting to both different locations. One has a parent who picks up and a parent who's bused to. You're basically saying family two you're allowed to keep doing your program. Family one you're going to have to figure something else out because we can't support you. But those same near misses that you're worried about could have happened with either family. So the sheer number of kids my own included my daughter seven. She walks to three different locations on her own two three days a week she's on her own to her grandma's to my house and then two days a week she joins the walking bus to back center. So a
091phenomenal after school program that she would be allowed to continue to do only a couple days a week. But that's because she doesn't rely on a bus because she happens to be at SRS. Wallingford Elementary and PE they would no longer be allowed to attend a great after school program which as said again there's capacity issues. They're all full. The child care ones are full for next year already. And these other programs have filled a need. And it's also phenomenal programming that kids get to access. And then I just want to in terms of like the harm that's already come up about there's not enough time to make this change for next year. Like these things really are locked in early. And one other additional thing that I just wanted to mention that other districts
092don't allow this flexibility but I spoke to a parent at Rose Tree Media and Media Elementary does. They're allowed to go to different locations and not only that they have a system in place where if you're doing something totally new including taking a bus that's not your regular bus they just have a slip that you send in and you're allowed to take a different bus. Not saying we have to do it that way. I'm just saying if if you were making this change under the assumption that other districts all do it this way at least from Rose Tree Media that's not my understanding. They do allow this kind of flexibility. So I just reiterate that I just think we need more time because it feels like this hasn't been fully thought out. And it really
093is going to harm some families and harm these amazing programs. So I just would caution against making a change right now when you're doing lots of other really great things this year that are better to focus on like the budget. So Thank you so much. And again just state your name and the street on which you live. Please. Hi thank you. My name is Nikia Primus. I live on Madison Court. I just wanted to thank you all. I'm here as a parent of a fourth grader. She's over there. Her name's Alyssa and she attends a Creative Living Room. Her older sister who is a former school district child also attended the Creative Living Room. And I'm here to speak on transportation 810 as well. And I don't want to repeat certain things but the thing
094I think I want to mention is in terms of unsupervised time as a harm as well. Right? So I am a professor and I commute a significant amount to I work at Millersville University. So just for those of you who don't know that's in Lancaster County. And so without the transportation that my child is able to get she would be either on her own or I would have to figure out child care for her for two hours away. Now that's not every day and so when you implement a policy that requires me to expend money every day when she doesn't need it that's that's a that's a hardship for a single parent like me. And so I want to just bring that to your attention as well. My child is going to be 10 years
095old and that age range 10 to 13 is already a you know a ghost years for programming in many of our district programs. And what our programs in the Creative Living Room you know PAC the Community Arts Center they really hone in on that 10 to 13 year old age range so that they're not un unhoused that's not what I want to say but you know what I mean. You know they're not unsupervised but they're also engaged. They're they're they're making meaningful impactful relationship building and they're working with adults that really love and care for them. I can't tell you how many times Lisa or the teachers have been like don't worry about it. I know you're coming from a long way we'll wait with her for five or 10 minutes. And for me that's
096that's a godsend. And so I just really hope you would reconsider. And I also want to just thank you for those of you I was able to reach out to directly for your responses. This dialogue is important and I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you so much. >> [clears throat] >> Good evening. I'm Carl Musson. I'm down on Copples Lane. Dr. Johnson where where were you this past weekend? Were were you at the Community Arts Center? I was. This is not a I understand but just realize that under the proposal for transportation that we have today transportation to the Community Arts Center and similar programs like that which are not technically state licensed because they're exempt under their programming rules about how they are overseen would not be would not receive transportation to these facilities
097anymore. And so programs like the Community Arts Center where my son has found home since he's been in kindergarten would no longer have access. Our children would have to find alternatives. And as some of our other folks have already mentioned there are very limited opportunities here within the West District and as such they are already full. We could not have those options for the upcoming school year. We have to make do with what we have and that's going to leave us with very limited options if we stand here with the proposal standing firm as written. What we need to do is take a step back think about how we can structure this to make sure it works for the community and the families in it to make sure that our children are supported. We understand
098that the transportation is complex. We understand that there's a lot of kids to deal with. We also understand that the trade-off between cutting access to these programs and that complexity can both be addressed. And we'd like to time take time and find opportunities to work for the district to continue to find solutions where these programs that you know my fellow speakers have already mentioned our students and our children have access to them on an ongoing basis. Thank you. Good evening everyone. My name is Nanjun. I live on East Rose Valley Road. My son is 10 years old going to West fourth grade. Um So I I don't want to repeat what other parents have said. I'm here to talk about transportation policy change. It's my first attendance to the board meeting just got of this.
099And first of all thank you for having me. Um so I just want to emphasize a few points and that you know have really been exampled beautiful examples shared by other parents. So I think you know this policy change it's not trying to just change change trans transportation. I think it literally removes access to child care that that many families depend on just like the parents were relying on. My son goes to you know same situation not repeating two different places you know here since kindergarten. Um but if that thing changes with you probably just can go home or can only pick one of them right? Um so the other point I want to make is um So I understand the whole whole reason behind it because budget and other things. Um instead of um
100So if this this is about safety for example that that's what's described in the in the in the policy. So, think the way to do it is trying to figure out figure out a way to improve improve the safety instead of just eliminating eliminating the access. Uh I think that might be the better approach um to deal with the problem. And a more more um reasonable uh solution like maybe limiting the number of stops or or other things maybe able to address the logistics uh without disrupting many families. And uh I just heard a number of 150 families just now. I don't know why that number is not big enough. It just sounds a lot like a lot of families uh being impacted like a like other parents said, I think it's the number's going
101to be higher than that. Um and then I think at this core this policy shifts the burden onto working families um you know, who are already very spread thin like like all of us I think and single single parents in the um in particular. Um and uh I really urge you and I mean I really hope you and I urge you to reconsider um uh you know, toward a solution and that actually fits all the families in this district today. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Hi. Steve Dikes, Chester Parkway. Uh for what I'm hearing, the budget's very tight and you need to save money somewhere and you might have to sacrifice subsi- subsidizing people's after-school care. I mean, that's one of the lines you'll have to do
102if you're laying getting rid of positions and doing things. I mean, that's why they call them sacrifices. Thank you. Would anyone else, please? Hello. My name is Sarah Ware. I live on Reinhard Road. Um I also have a fourth grader. Um he is over at NPE. I also have a 3-year-old who's not yet in the school district, but um I echo other sentiments. Um the timing of this is just the ship has sailed in terms of enrollment, uh the various options that we have in this area which are quite limited and I think a lot of families can speak to the fact that we have to juggle different child care between half-day kindergarten, um between there not being really a program for the district um that's offered as an after-school program that's very consistent and
103open to a lot of different families. Um additionally, just the financial burden of this is a lot. Um fortunately, my husband and I were able to work semi-remote, so we can cobble things together. Still, my oldest has to go 3 days a week to after-school. My youngest, he goes to a preschool 2 days a week and even just that combined, that part-time, it's more than our mortgage. Um so, adding, you know, to this is a huge financial burden for parents not to be able to have the flexibility to have this partial um option to go somewhere certain days, somewhere other days. Additionally, in terms of the safety concerns, I echo that as well. I've worked in um elementary schools and after-care programs as well and out-of-school time and it's such a benefit not just financially
104and time-wise for parents to have a place to send their kids, but you know, it does so much for students and for their growth. Um and and the fact of the matter is, you know, if you force this this early without giving parents time to plan, you're going to create latchkey kids. It's just going to happen. You know, there are parents who aren't going to be able to get their kids enrolled full-time. They aren't going to be able to adjust their work schedules or come up with extra money for this. So, you're going to have kids who are, you know, they're going to have to go home alone. They are going to have to figure out what to do by themselves. You can have high schoolers who are idle. Um and I think that's not
105something that you guys want. Safety is our goal. So, um I just want to emphasize that that it is um going to create problems um whether or not you can anticipate for it. You're just going to have kids that have nothing to do. And I think it's detrimental to force that on parents and on our community, quite frankly. We don't want you know, a bunch of idle kids getting into trouble. So, thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? All right. Um seeing none, thank you all very much for coming out. Um the next item on our agenda tonight is the approval of the minutes from the February 24th, 2026 regular board meeting. Um do I have a motion for approval? So moved. Thank you, Mr. Dibble. A second? Second.
106Thank you, Dr. Crawford. Any discussion? I'll go left to right. Discussion on the minutes. I seeing none, Ms. Mosley, if you would please take a roll call vote. Dr. Crawford. Aye. Mr. Dibble. Aye. Ms. Dolaway. Aye. Ms. Holbert. Aye. Ms. Livingstone. Aye. Ms. Witsett. Aye. Ms. Wolkowiez Ms. Wolkowiez-Smith. Aye. Ms. Williams. Aye. Motion passes 8 to 0. Thank you. Next, we'll hear updates from our board committees. As a reminder, our ad affairs, facilities, and finance and policy committee meetings are available to view on our YouTube channel. Um as such, we'll begin. Uh did wellness have an update? The committee met today at 4:00, so the update will be >> Will be next month. >> Okay, perfect. Uh then we will go then to the Pennsylvania School Board Association and that is Ms. Wolkowiez-Smith. Ms. Wolkowiez-Smith.
107Thank you. PSBA is having uh advocacy day on Monday, May 4th and this is a complimentary event that brings school directors, business managers, and superintendents together to advocate for key education uh issues in Harrisburg. So, this year the focus will be on relief from costly and burdensome mandate that uh school districts face, uh school funding and timely school funding, uh the impact of budget impasses and support for school infrastructure needs. So, if you know, hopefully that uh many of our board members will be encouraged to join and any members of the community that have ideas for uh our state legislators, please forward them to us and we'd be happy to convey your message. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we'll go to um Ms. Holbert, our liaison to the Delaware County Intermediate Unit. Thank you. Just
108uh real quickly. So, um as Dr. Johnston mentioned, um at this meeting we will be voting on um WSSD's portion of the the DCIU's budget. It's dozens of programmatic budgets fall into three main categories: operating, special education, and technical school. Um the operating budget has not grown, but the other two uh our contributions have as a result of projected increases in usage by our district students. Um and like like you said, Dr. Johnston, I'm also really glad about that people are, you know, getting what they need from the DCIU services. It's there for for them. Um and and also wanted to congratulate the students from Swarthmore-Rutledge Elementary and Strath Haven Middle School who participated in DCIU's Connects STEM Design Competition. Both schools came in second place in their respective divisions. That's it. Thank you. Um
109and finally tonight, we will hear from Ms. Dolaway, who's our liaison to the Delaware County School Board Legislative Council. So, the there's a summary attached to tonight's agenda, but just a few highlights. So, House Bill 17 mandating cursive writing was signed into law since we last met. Um newly introduced and referred to education are House Bill 2199, which is gender-based bullying prevention. This would require districts to adopt or amend bullying policies to address bullying related related to gender identity or expression. And also House Bill 2217, which is school free play recess and lunch periods. This would require 30 minutes daily recess K through fifth grades and 30 minutes lunch K through 12 and would permit recess, but not lunch, to be withheld for disciplinary reasons. Uh and then an update on the uh the the
110cell phone ban. So, this bill is in the House Education Committee and PSBA is engaging in conversations with leadership and advocating for flexibility at the local level. Thank you. All right. Uh our next items, we have eight items tonight for action in personnel. All items in this section are attached or described in the agenda. Are there any items on the personnel list that anyone on the board would like to separate from the rest? Seeing none, the items for action are uh resignations, retirements, and termination of employment, appointments, leave of absence, change of position, change of location, 26-27 curriculum supplementals, 25-26 activity supplementals, and 25-26 activities advisors appointments. Do I have a motion for approval? So moved. Thank you, Ms. Holbert. Uh second? Second. Thank you, Ms. Dolaway. Uh any discussion? I'll go left to right.
111All right, seeing none. Um Ms. Mosley, will you please take a roll call vote? Dr. Crawford. Aye. Mr. Dibble. Aye. Mrs. Delay. Aye. Mrs. Holbert. Aye. Mrs. Livingston. Aye. Mrs. Witzig. Aye. Mrs. Bukowski-Smith. Aye. Mrs. Williams. Aye. Motion passes 8 to 0. Thank you. Uh next we have policy. We have three items for action in policy tonight. All items in this section are as attached or described in the agenda. Typically administrative regulations are attached for attached for informational purposes only, but our policy 707 does require the board to periodically approve the fee schedule, which is why we will be voting on this AR this evening as well. Are there any items on this list that anyone on the board would like to separate from the rest? I'd like to separate both policy 810 and policy
112707. Um you know, as we've heard tonight and as we've been as we've been discussing this would be a significant change for some of our families and community partners. So, I think they should be separated. Um additionally, when we last discussed this at policy, we wanted to each of these to go before the board the board for full discussion. So, I think that would be important to separate them. Okay. Um so, for we can I'll pull out item C. Um Mr. Berman for policies for second read, that's our transportation policy. Can we pull Do I pull out all let all >> We'll just make it Mrs. Mosley already has it noted in her cheat sheet here that she's going to be taking a vote on the policies for second reading, but for the transportation policy.
113Okay. So, our first vote will then be on policies for first reading and policies for second reading minus transportation and then we'll pull out transportation and we'll pull out the fee schedule. Correct. Excellent. All right. Um so, do I have a motion for approval for policies for first reading and policies for second reading excluding transportation? So moved. Thank you, Mr. Dibble. A second? Second. Thank you, Dr. Crawford. Um any discussion on policies for first reading or policies for second reading excluding transportation? All right. Seeing none, uh Mrs. Mosley, if you would please take a roll call vote. Dr. Crawford. Aye. Mr. Dibble. Aye. Mrs. Delay. Aye. Mrs. Holbert. Aye. Mrs. Livingston. Aye. Mrs. Witzig. Aye. Mrs. Bukowski-Smith. Aye. Mrs. Williams. Aye. Motion passes 8 to 0. Thank you. Um next we will um I a
114motion for approval of eight of policy 810, which is our transportation policy. Do I have a motion for approval? So moved. Thank you and a second? Second. Thank you. Um and before I open it up for discussion to the board, I'd like to give Dr. Johnston a few moments to um kind of explain some some rationale for the policy. Yes, thank you, Mrs. Williams. And I really appreciate the feedback that we heard from the community tonight and certainly take it to heart. This is a really important decision that comes before us. It's not one to be made lightly. This is a decision that is really about at the core um you know, something that isn't codified in our policy right now. Our policy makes no mention of after-school programming whatsoever. And so, the policy committee
115and I have taken up this hard issue to say, what should this be? How do we name what our students have access to in the way of transportation after school? And how can we do this safely? Uh there's not been a community conversation about the impact of the current policy uh or lack of policy, just the practice that we have. And so, I appreciate that we have interest in this topic. I appreciate that we're opening up a topic that just has not been discussed. Uh and this will be a hard decision. Uh no doubt about it. And it's a hard decision for me uh to come forward to say that I recommend a change. Um but there's a reason behind this. And I'd actually I'd actually equate it to a little a story from my
116background um that I helps me see the difference between this and other situations like it from my past. And so, um when I was superintendent previously uh in a district of about the same size, uh we took our students on a field trip uh to a rural part of the state and the uh the bus took a took a group of fifth graders and parked at the top of the hill. And uh in this situation, the bus driver got off the bus, but forgot to set the emergency brake. And the bus began to roll backwards. Horrifying. Uh still to this day I can genuinely taste the acid in the back of my throat when I think about this moment. A resourceful fifth grade teacher jumped up and grabbed the emergency brake and was able to
117set it before any harm was done. And I tell you that story because that's how much transportation is a challenge, a responsibility, and weighs heavily on me every single day. Every time I see a bus pull up to our schools to take students on a field trip, uh I can still feel that moment. I can still feel my concern. And yet we continue to do field trips, right? Because in that situation, the incident that occurred was unpredictable. We couldn't have predicted that the bus driver was going to take that action. And the safety remedy was very straightforward. We were able to send that driver to a retraining process so that setting that emergency brake became second nature to her and we never had the issue again, right? So, I am not I completely understand that
118opening our schools means opening risk, right? Everything we do, every day that we open our schools, we know we're taking a risk on behalf of our students. Um and so, and and particularly when transportation is involved. But the the practice that the district has had without ever talking about it to my recollection in an open way as we have this winter to say, hey, we've been following this practice for a long time, but there's nothing that justifies it. There's nothing written down to say this is what we should be doing. And so, we now work to have that hard conversation to say, what should we be doing and what's the consequence of continuing to do what we're currently doing. And you know, I will always respect the will of this board. I will always respect
119the voices of our community. And I appreciate the opportunity to share my insider knowledge that I've received since I've been here about what the impact of our current practice is as unwritten down as it is. And the practice that we are currently following does create predictable, unlike the other situation I described, an unpredictable safety risk for our students. We have a predictable safety risk that's happening on a daily basis because we have students who are transferring between buses throughout the week. And then that schedules change during the year heightens that safety risk for our students. And we've had a number of mishaps, that a number of concerns that in my mind, in the mind of our team here, lead us to the the concern that a small mishap is going to lead lead to a
120large mishap, a serious safety concern for our students that frankly like I couldn't live with myself if I wasn't coming before this board and this community and saying, we've created a system that is truly unlike other districts um in terms of allowing students to go anywhere within the district. Other districts, if they have a more open policy, you're you're bound to the boundaries of your school um in most often. So, we we have students going across our district. We have students changing schedules on a day-to-day basis. And then on certain time periods during the year we have students changing again. We're getting information from various sources, from parents, from programs. So, the opportunity for breakdown occurs at every level. It can occur from within, you know, and everybody's well-meaning. There's no ill intention here whatsoever.
121But breakdowns can occur at the student level, right? A student just forgetting where they're supposed to go. The staff level from within the school. The bus driver him or herself. It can happen at the program level. It can happen at the parent level. And all of these things are actually happening right now. They are genuinely I don't sit here before you right now without bringing you with the clear conviction and the worry in my I um have resumed meeting with the preschool programs in our district, the programs that provide both preschool services and kindergarten complement programs. So, we just met uh just a few weeks ago, two weeks ago. And I we've talked about transportation all throughout this year. And I was talking to them about, you know, again bringing up this issue about where
122students are going. And it was alarming to me that two a person they said, this is an accident waiting to happen. This is a serious issue. They talked about particularly the concerns at the beginning of the year when students are confused, the situations are confusing, and students are going to the wrong places at the beginning of the year in particular and how just the confusion that's built into the system is really contributing to um some real worries about our very youngest students, right? So, I think it's important that we're talking about, you know, our very youngest learners, concerns that our providers have and being responsive to those concerns and not just sort of turning away from that, but turn leaning into it and saying, what are we going to do about that? And I think
123it's important that we think not only about these safety concerns in relation to the students themselves who are offered this option option and opportunity right now to be able to change locations throughout the week and throughout the year. I think it's also important that we note the safety concern that this creates for all of our students on our buses because the drivers, as they have to deal with, you know, additional sort of, you know, not only just checking who's on the bus, but because there are these little mishaps that have are happening, there's increased radio traffic and that's increasing the distraction of our drivers. There are other distractions on the bus. I'm not going to say this is the only distraction. Uh but do I want more distracted drivers and what that can mean on
124our roadways? I don't want that for our students. And so again, that's why I feel like it's incumbent upon me as the superintendent to bring this issue forward so we can have a candid, thoughtful conversation about it. And it does bring us to the recommendation that we that we're putting before you tonight to consider. Um again, I know this is a difficult decision. I in no way minimize this. Um and the the impact that if as written uh this is voted upon tonight, um I'm hearing these concerns loud and clear. They do not they don't fall on on deaf ears whatsoever. Um I'm very willing to continue to work with particularly unlicensed afterschool programs to explore how we can continue to partner um in the future. I don't believe that conversation is done whatsoever. I
125did reach out last week to the unlicensed programs. I have a commitment to sitting down and continue to meet with them this spring so that we can continue to figure out how we can uh partner and support our students well. Um and I just feel like this is this is a time for us to consider this. Um to have this conversation, to have community input on it that I very much respect. Um and I hope that we can figure out, you know, what I hope will be a responsible path forward uh before we face a more serious incident for our students. And that's where this is coming from. Thank you so much. Um so now I'll ask the board for discussion. I'll go left to right. So the left. So since we last discussed this
126at our policy committee meeting, I will say that each email we've received has been thoroughly and thoughtfully read. Um including those that are in support of this proposed change, I must say. Um and we as a board have also had the opportunity to to ask questions including about a phased-in approach. Um so I just wanted to um you know, talk a little bit about my thoughts and concerns at this moment. I feel that we're sort of stuck between do we continue to have a practice to allow a practice to continue um versus codifying it in policy. So there was mention of other districts that are engaging in these practices. My understanding is uh that they are not that is not part of their policy. So you know, in essence as a board we're deciding do
127we continue continue to sort of covertly allow a practice to continue or do we codify it in policy? Um and once we begin to do that, I struggle with the idea of codifying a policy that we are acknowledging is unsafe. A practice that we are acknowledging is unsafe. So you know, the other thing I think about is so right now we have a practice that many families are taking advantage of but perhaps some do not know about and are not aware of. So I think of things like do we have the ability to handle this increase in volume that we may have to deal with should this become you know, something that we're going to say, you know, is okay and we're going to continue with in policy. Um I feel if we can't offer
128it to all, I'm feeling uncomfortable about having some partake in it and not have it. You know, I don't think we have the ability to offer it to all of our families. What I am hoping is that um an outcome of this discussion and engagement is that we have afterschool programming that will be accessible for all of our students and all of our families. So you know, I and when I hear you talk about full day kindergarten, I mean that's just music to my ears. So you know, I'll leave it at that for now. Um yeah, thanks. So I'll I'll say um the first thing I want to say is is thanks to Dr. Johnson and the administration for identifying that there is uh lack of clarity, number one, in the existing way that we
129handle particularly afterschool transportation. Um for members of the community both here and virtually, I also have a first grader in district. I use the aftercare um services that we offer and I use the busing as well. Since I've joined the board and learned a little bit more about the intricacies of the operations within transportation, it it is clear to me that that the the problem waiting to happen is not something we should ignore. That's one thing that I'll say. It is a it is a clear and present um risk to the students and if we put ourselves in the hypothetical scenario of a kid actually getting lost and going to the wrong place, we can all imagine as parents how upset we would be. That's one thing. It countermanding force at this point is timing.
130I think that we've heard about a lot for families in the district is it's March. Um aftercare has already been settled in many cases for many months. Uh the optionality in the district for sending your kids somewhere else now that you don't have a way of getting them to where you planned to send them is complex and challenging. I also think about our community partners and they could probably work to fill the transportation gap if given some time. I'm not saying everyone needs to go out and buy a van, but there's an option for for a reaction from the from the care providers. Um I I think that probably from a timing standpoint, they just don't have the the flex at this point in the year to operationalize that in time to address all of
131the district's needs for September. So I would say that that's my my current thinking. Yes. And I want to also say that thank you for reaching out to us. I you know, I feel I feel, you know, I raised two kids. I do feel uh the juggle, the strain, the two working parent, um how that happened and you know, on the other hand, as and as sitting in this position, when the director of transportation alerts us that there's an issue of safety, then she is very concerned. I don't feel I any longer have an option to make it a policy that goes against a an expressed concern of safety. And the expressed concern of safety is twofold for what I see. It is the risk of um children being lost and I know that on
132Tuesday of the Monday that we had off is a particularly difficult day for everyone knowing where they go. Also the beginning of the year. But also we have many a day that we have substitute bus drivers. You you've mentioned that. Now I have a substitute bus driver that's not as familiar with the route, that doesn't know the children, doesn't know their schedules, on the walkie-talkie, on a road that that person hasn't driven regularly with a whole busful of kids sitting here, I am obligated to vote for the safety of of our drivers and of all of the students on the bus, not not just the children who are being transported, but I have to care about every child. And if we are I think we put ourselves in an area of uh liability if we
133do not vote for the safety of all of our children. Thank you. I'm still mulling this over. It is still right now I'm still thinking about it. Um I think what it comes down for me, um there's a couple concerns. I mean, I've heard everything, of course. Um One thing that was also mentioned um is that the bus drivers' schedules or the bus schedules change throughout the you know, the like the semester or the year or whatever as each community center's schedule changes. You know, they don't start the same day that school starts. They don't end the same day that that school day, you know, that the school year ends. And so the bus the the transportation department is constantly revising its schedules for who should be where at any given time. I think that
134that's I I I didn't quite I didn't think about the nuance of all that um before. That said, I think for me, it really does come down to the timing. I just don't I think that this is too quick. Um unfortunately, you know, it feels like we've been talking about this for months and we have. Um but sometimes um it's I think that we should explore more um opportunities to have afterschool care take place in each elementary school. We don't you know, it's it's it's uneven right now and that's that's not fair. So I I'm not sure that we should punish um our our families for something that again has just grown up culturally, that we have certain things in certain schools, certain opportunities, and not in other ones. And that even sets aside the
135things that take place at the art center, at you know, the the living room, and all that. So, I'm not saying that it's necessarily a one-for-one, but it's something, and we should enter into those conversations, and that's probably not going to happen at the beginning of this next school year. And so, I just don't think it's fair. Where it comes down to for me. First, I want to say I I really do appreciate all of the comments that people made here today, and all of the emails that were sent to us. Um again, both in support and um expressing concern about this policy. Uh for me, I echo a lot of what everybody else already said. The safety is is a primary concern for me. Um my kids are older now, but they went all
136through this district. Um and we had when my son was in kindergarten, I had to make him a little card to carry around in his backpack that showed where he was going on each day with pictures and emergency contact info on the back because I wasn't necessarily sure he was going to get where he was supposed to be on the five days that he was going to school, and I was terrified um of that because he did take a bus to Swarthmore Friends, and then he got picked up a couple days, and and it was um and he wasn't getting picked up by me. So, I appreciate all of the coordination that goes into this. Um but I can't imagine if there was a safety issue for one of my children, what that would result
137in um for for me, for my family, for how I would feel about that, and for us to know that there is an a safety concern on behalf of our staff and our administration, um really is kind of the bottom line for me. I do agree that the timing is hard, and I do also very much hope that we can look at bringing some things into the schools. I think that that is long overdue. Um you know, uh SRF has that option with something right there. Um not all the schools have that option. And you know, I live on Turner Road. You can't walk anywhere safely from there. So, my kids would you know, that it's not even an option, and I understand that that reality for people. Um so, it's not without um concern,
138and especially in terms of the timing, but I I do ultimately support us addressing the safety issues. Um so, I think I'll be piggybacking on a lot of what was already said, and um I think this is a policy that I've been struggling with um quite a bit. As many people here know, um first of all, thank you to the administration for identifying a safety issue in our current policy. Um I think that safety needs to trump um all other concerns. And also to the families for taking time to speak tonight and highlighting logistical challenges. I think as a district, it's important to thread the needle between safety and also access to aftercare and enrichment programs in a district in which licensed programs do not come close to meeting the needs of working families in
139the district. And I do remain concerned that a that a change in policy, while it does correct some safety concerns, that it may transfer and create some other safety concerns. And so, while we're thinking about prioritizing safety, I want to make sure that we're taking that 30,000-foot view. Um increasing latchkey kids does not improve safety, um and decreasing enrollment in um in enrichment programs also does not improve safety. I also wanted to just touch on a few logistical thoughts. Um As Rachel was just saying, the community centers don't keep the same schedule as the district. And so, these bus schedules will change week to week. So, it's not simply Monday and Tuesday Tuesday you go one place, Wednesday to Thursday you go another place. It's, you know, September 2nd through 4th you go one place,
140and then the schedule changes, and that can create a lot of logistical challenges. Um I I don't know if this is a question or a comment, but I did want to just clarify a couple of things. So, if someone, for instance, can only pick one drop-off place, and that drop-off place is um a licensed daycare facility, but they are only using that place three days a week, the student could be dropped off there, and a parent could pick them up there, correct? That is correct, or the parent could pick their child up at school. Okay. And there is there remains an option for programs that are not included in the AR of this policy to outsource the transportation method that would pick the students up at school. So, for instance, the Community Art Center could
141say, "Okay, in order to keep our our program running, even though it's not included in this policy, doesn't keep the same schedule as the district, they could pick students up at their various places and bring them to the after enrichment programs that they enroll in." Yes, that is correct. I think that Oh, no. No, sorry. There's There's no The public [clears throat] comment has ended. This is now just the a board, which is that may I go? Um I think that concludes my time. I just want to say that um this um and we didn't take it lightly um on the decision, and we haven't taken a vote, but from from hearing um the potential and and and realizing that it is a lot of logistics that you're putting on that transportation supervisor to know
142that this child is going this place on one day and another place on another. I think that as a district, we became really comfortable with what our transportation department was providing. And so, it seems like we're taking something away. But it was something that should have never been in place had the policy been looked at from a different lens. So, um and as far as the licensed programs, yes, it is a waiting list, but their waiting list is like two two two years because they open up the enrollment to the students that are currently in the program. So, they might only end up with three openings out of all the people that have requested because the parents are are signing their kids back up again. And I just know personally the little boy that I
143nanny with, he had been going to the Presbyterian um after-school program from kindergarten, first, second, and in third grade, his parents were two days late on responding to the email that was sent whether or not he was going to be returning, and he lost his spot. So, um I I I hear the concerns, um but we have to look at it as a as a as a district-wide decision that's being made that benefits and prevents Well, I wouldn't say benefits, but it it prevents a potential um accident to happen. It's it's waiting to happen. And And so far, we've been graced that it hasn't. We've had a a few. My son in kindergarten fell asleep. You know, the kindergarteners barely You can barely see them over the seats in the first place, and he fell
144asleep on the bus, and it was a substitute driver, and they just they took him back to the transportation. I called, and I'm like, "My son wasn't at the bus stop." And everybody was scrambling. Nobody even knew that he was on the bus sleeping. And so, I mean, that that that that sticks in my mind when this policy came up that that that it it personally affected me, and I can't imagine um the emails and the the feedback we would get if your child was misplaced because of the various schedules. So, um I just think that um you need to understand that as board members um we are we don't make the policy, but we vote and we're governance to make sure that things are happening correctly. So, um I think that a lot of
145time went into this. A lot of discussion was given. Um Dr. Johnson, you met with family members. You you did talk sessions that parents were invited to come come to, which to me the turnout wasn't that impressive for a concerning issue when you were given the opportunity to speak directly to the super superintendent and it wasn't taken advantage of. And so, I just want you guys understand that we didn't take um this decision lightly. Thank you. Um and then finally tonight, um I don't I mean I don't have a lot more to add, but I would like to kind of explain kind of my thoughts. Um you know, as board members we have a superintendent telling us that our transportation person who we pay, you know, a lot of money to keep our kids safe
146and buses running efficiently, she is telling us in her professional expertise that we have a system that's unsafe. And you know, to me I I don't you know, I don't take what you say just because you say it. Um we have been talking about this in policy for 2 months. Um we have all asked a lot of questions. Could we do this? Can we do this? How could this work? Um it's certainly not something we've taken lightly uh or just at face value even on like that you say there's a safety issue. So, we all you know, just are voting that there's a safety issue. I agree. Um So, I I personally would have a really hard time after I have now know that there is a safety issue. Um if we were to misplace
147a child or there was an accident from a bus driver that was driving distracted for any reason, I couldn't I couldn't live with that on my conscience. Um that's just not something I'm prepared to do. Um so, I I find those reasons compelling and I will tell you I I know you said you've been at transportation during dismissal, very chaotic, all the like radio calls going out. I mean, the dismissal at the elementary school is total chaos. I've done it for 12 years. I know. [laughter] It is total chaos. Um so, if we can do something to alleviate some of those stresses and we're going to have these more tightly rostered buses and we know what kids are on what bus. I mean, at this point we don't need if there was an accident, we
148don't really know what kids are on those buses every day. And that's not that's not something as a district that I think we can take the risk of. So, um yeah, so you know, it was not a decision that I take lightly, that's for sure. I mean, I have three kids of my own and I believe me, I've cobbled together child care myself. Um but in this seat, in this job, that's kind of my perspective. So, um yeah. So, all right, if there's no further discussion, Ms. Mosley, if you will take a roll call vote. Dr. Crawford. Aye. Mr. Dibble. Nay. Ms. Dolle. Aye. Ms. Holbert. Nay. Ms. Livingstone. Aye. Ms. Whitsett. Aye. Ms. Witkowski Smith. Aye. Ms. Williams. Aye. Motion passes 6 to 2. Thank you. Um and then next on the agenda we
149have our fee schedule, our administrative regulation attachment first reading fee schedule. Again, just as a reminder, um because our policy requires us to periodically approve the fee schedule, that's why we're voting on this um AR. So, do I have a motion to approve the AR for first reading on the fee schedule? So moved. Thank you, Mr. Dibble. A second? Second. Thank you, Ms. Whitsett. Uh any discussion? Uh so, regarding the fee schedule, um you know, in this I I you know, we're we're speaking about this in the context of the difficult budgetary decisions that we're having to make. Um for me, I am still kind of struggling a little bit with what covering costs means in terms specifically of our um of our grass fields. I feel like it's more difficult to quantify this. Um
150I'd like to propose that, you know, should we vote to approve this that we as a board request follow-up on field conditions say around this time next year. Um I don't expect fields to magically be you know, Sure. up and running and and you know, in tip-top shape in a year's time, but I would like to think we'd at least see evidence that they're being maintained. Um and so, I'd like to propose that we ask for that should we approve this? And also, um I think it's been mentioned and I think it's worthwhile to kind of put a pin in for a future topic whether or not a summer rate for group B could be mutually beneficial for both us as a district and our community groups. So, Uh yeah, two things. I'll just echo
151the comments around the summer rate. I think that's a that's a great idea and just the nature of the programming is different. Um and and the other comment that I'll make on this one, I think this is this is a great initiative to look at precisely what it cost us to support community partners uh whether they're not-for-profit or for-profit and make sure that the district isn't subsidizing those programs to an extent which is uh disproportionate. So, I I just agree again. All right. Um so, seeing no more discussion, Ms. Mosley, if you would take a roll call vote. Dr. Crawford. Aye. Mr. Dibble. Aye. Ms. Dolle. Aye. Ms. Holbert. Aye. Ms. Livingstone. Aye. Ms. Whitsett. Aye. Ms. Witkowski Smith. Aye. Ms. Williams. Aye. Motion passes 8 to 0. Thank you. We have two items tonight
152for approval in curriculum. The items in the section are as attached or described in the agenda. Are there any items on the list that anyone on the board would like to separate from the rest? Uh seeing none, so we have uh international exchange student and field trips. Uh if I could have a motion for approval. So moved. Thank you, Ms. Witkowski Smith. And a second? >> Second. Thank you, Ms. Holbert. Any discussion? Nope. All right, Ms. Mosley, can you please take a roll call vote? Dr. Crawford. Aye. Mr. Dibble. Aye. Ms. Dolle. Aye. Ms. Holbert. >> Aye. Ms. Livingstone. Aye. Ms. Whitsett. Aye. Ms. Witkowski Smith. Aye. Ms. Williams. Aye. Motion passes 8 to 0. Thank you. Uh student services, we have one item for approval. The item in the section is as as attached
153or described in the agenda and it is the approval of emergency emergency health care agreement. Do I have a motion for approval? So moved. Thank you, Ms. Witkowski Smith. And a second? Second. Thank you, Ms. Holbert. Any discussion? Yeah, I just wanted to say from you know, we heard about this in um finance and facilities and um I just think that this is great to have another another option for some of the you know, folks that we need to support our kids. So, um I just I I think it's great that that um the business office went out and you know, was able to create this opportunity. So, Any other discussion? All right, seeing none, Ms. Mosley, will you please take a roll call vote? Dr. Crawford. Aye. Mr. Dibble. Aye. Ms. Dolle. Aye. Ms.
154Holbert. >> Aye. Ms. Livingstone. Aye. Ms. Whitsett. Aye. Ms. Witkowski Smith. Aye. Ms. Williams. Aye. Motion passes 8 to 0. Thank you. We have eight items tonight for approval under finance and facilities. All items in the section are as attached or described in the agenda. Are there any items on this list that anyone on the board would like to separate from the rest? Seeing none, the items for approval are bills paid to vendors February 1st through the 28th of '26, financial statements February 1st through 28th of '26, treasurer's report February 1st through 28th of '26, budget transfers, student activity account, approval of CliftonLarsonAllen LLP agreement, approval of Serrilli Associates Inc. agreement, and approval of McNeese Wallace and Nurick LLC agreement. Do I have a motion for approval? So moved. Thank you, Mr. Devel. A second?
155Second. Thank you, Mrs. Livingston. Any discussion? All right, seeing none. Miss Mosley, if you would please take a roll call vote. Dr. Crawford? Aye. Mr. Devel? Aye. Mrs. Delay? Aye. Mrs. Holbert? >> Aye. Mrs. Livingston? Aye. Mrs. Woodside? Aye. Mrs. Wukowski-Smith? >> Aye. Mrs. Williams? Aye. Motion passes 8 to 0. Thank you. We have three items for approval under other. All items in the section are as attached or described in the agenda. Are there any items on this list that anyone on the board would like to separate from the rest? Seeing none, the items for approval are the 2026-2027 school year Delaware County Intermediate Unit Unit General Operating Budget, the 2026-2027 school year Delaware County Intermediate Unit Special Education Budget, and the 2026-2027 school year Delaware County Technical School Budget. Do I have a motion
156for approval? So moved. Thank you, Mrs. Holbert. A second? Second. Thank you, Dr. Crawford. Any discussion? Seeing none, Miss Mosley, if you would take a roll call vote. Dr. Crawford? Aye. Mr. Devel? Aye. Mrs. Delay? Aye. Mrs. Holbert? >> Aye. Mrs. Livingston? Aye. Mrs. Woodside? Aye. Mrs. Wukowski-Smith? Aye. Mrs. Williams? Aye. Motion passes 8 to 0. Thank you. Now we have time for comments from the audience for items that are not on the agenda. The same rules apply here as did for the comments on the items on the agenda. We have a 3-minute time limit and we will give you a reminder with 1 minute remaining. You're also reminded that this is not the appropriate venue for discussing matters that directly relate to any individual student, whether your own child or not, or any concerns
157about an individual staff member. Is there anyone here tonight who would like to speak about a topic that was not on the agenda this evening? All right, please. And if you would go to the podium and give us your name and the street on which you live. >> [clears throat] >> Hi, my name is Rachel Cox. I live on Moylan Avenue. I'm here to discuss our school district's technology policies regarding approved digital resources and security protocols. It's silly. >> [gasps] >> Okay. During back to school night at the middle school, one of the teachers told the parents that if your child brings homework home from my classroom, it's because they were playing games on the Chromebook during class. So that was my first indication of what kind of stuff is happening at the middle school.
158So I have learned since that playing video games on Chromebooks during school hours is very common at the middle school. The kids play all play online games at the school whenever they can manage to. These websites are not approved digital resources for the district and are not blocked on the Chromebooks. When the administration discovers a website that has become too much of a distraction, for example, coolmathgames.com, they block it. I believe this just happened with coolmathgames.com. When this happens, the students do manage to either find a new URL URL to use or they make their own game pages with Google Sites. So there's lots of workarounds for this. They can go to any page, find an open source game, copy the code, put it into an iframe, slot it into a Google Sites, and play
159any game they want through a Google environment on the school website on the Chromebook. So this is what they're doing every day, basically. Or what my son is doing every day. Instead of continuing this game of internet whack-a-mole, I requested the district adopt a white-listing internet protocol. This is a security practice that allows only specific pre-approved IP addresses to access a network system or application. This method helps prevent unauthorized access and enhances security by blocking all other IP addresses that are not on the white list. In other words, you block everything and only allow the approved digital resources and vetted digital resources instead of allowing everything and then continuing to block problems as they come in. This issue goes beyond the middle school. My second grader came home telling me all about this great game
160he played at school on the iPad called Bike Hero, which is a racing game. You can find it mathplayground.com, which is not an approved digital resource. Why does the district go to the trouble of assessing and vetting digital resources if the list does not mean anything? I do not want my children playing video games at school. If there's a persuasive case to be made for certain apps or software, I'm open to it, but the current situation appears to be um not policy-based. Parents need to be made aware of how many hours a day their children are currently spending at school playing gamified edtech or randomly browsing the internet or potentially watching Storage Wars on YouTube, which is not blocked. Another problem is there's nothing stopping middle schoolers from doing all of their homework using Google
161Gemini, even during free Chromebook time at school. Until the district finalizes their AI policy, which I understand is still in its early stages, I request that the school technology department block all generative AI-enabled apps on their devices. I originally planned to come here to ask for opt-out policies for the one-to-one screens, meaning basically to only do shared Chromebooks and iPads, but I would settle for the administration doing a full audit of the approved digital resources and working with the technology employees to implement a sensible security protocol for the school-issued devices. Thank you. Is there anyone else here who would like to speak tonight about a topic not on the agenda? All right, seeing none. We will move. Is there any old business? Any new business? And if not, thank you. This meeting is officially adjourned.