001I now call the January 28th, 2026 meeting of the Wallingford School Board of School Directors to order. in opening. As you are willing and able, please rise and join me in the buddy. 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 justice for >> Thank you. Uh, Miss Mosley, would you please take the attendance roll call? >> Dr. Crawford >> here. >> Mr. Dibble >> here. >> Mrs. Dole >> here. >> Mrs. Hullberg >> here. >> Mrs. Mrs. Livingstone >> here. >> Mr. Miller >> here. >> Mrs. Woodset >> here. >> Mrs. Williams >> here. >> Mr. Wowsky Smith >> here. >> Nine voting members present. >> Thank you. All right. First on tonight's agenda, we have Miss
002Joy Yang with us to give us a students report of what's going on in WSSD. Take it away. >> Good evening everyone. I hope you all enjoyed the two snow days. And although the new year has only begun just a few weeks ago, WSSD is already knee deep in snow and happenings. With that, let's see what the district's been up to. Speech and debate started the year off strong with countless top finishes at PCFL3. In debate, Magna Obak and Ana championed in varsity policy debate. In speech, middle schoolers Sha Devar Sharma, Shrisha Padakanti, and Vishna Padakanti placed in the top three for middle school pros. At the high school, Kylie Elliot and Juniper Ward placed first and third respectively in declamation. Siai and Dominique Midor place second in JV duo interpretation. Adrienne Lynch placed second
003in JV extemporaneous speaking. Ime Lee championed in JV original oratories. Evelyn Smith and Ishani Gwaman placed first and second in JV pros respectively and Joy Yang Champion Varsity original place second in varsity dramatics performance me at the Lexington Winter Winter Invitational. Congratulations to Urban Ye and Vincent Ju for quarterfly in varsity policy debate. Malcolm Olak and Ana Ju for placing second in novice novice policy debate. Nhan Lee and Jason Zang for making it to double octtof finals for varsity public forum. As an Kona and Kenji Melby Griffin for making it to octave finals in novice public forum. Bey Martell and Nia Tob for making it to double octifinals and novice public forum. And Michael Chen for making it to octifinals and novice Lincoln Douglas debate. Finally, just last week, Ottawa St. Carter filed an congressional
004debate and Casper Stockman semi-filed an original oratory debate or original oratory at a Mory Barkley Forum. Sia Gordy joined them on the podium, placing fourth in JV Lincoln Douglas debate at the Ridge Invitational. Haven's HighQ team is also going strong, winning their second round against Academy Park in Habford is earning a total of 58 points and currently placing fourth in the state. We wish them luck in their final round before playoffs against Delgo Christian School in Brad on February 6 at Strath Haven Middle School. As you wait for the much anticipated highQ match, go enjoy Delaware County Communities College 10th annual regional high school art exhibition. 10 students from Sprat Haven High School currently have their art displayed in that gallery. So, be sure to check out their amazing projects before the gallery closes on
005February 6th. In addition to amazing artists, the high school also has great musicians. 11 Haven musicians played at the PMEA district concert this past week. Congratulations to Marcus Johnson, Richard Kim, Juliet Lloyd, Sophia Sha, Anori Sai Toad, Emerson Choy, Jonathan Knap, and Joseph Satawati were advancing to the PMEA regionals. Over at sports, Strath student basketball recognized their seniors this past month in celebrations that included fellow teammates and family. Other winter sports like track, wrestling, and cheerleading have taken off as well. In fact, Strap Haven cheerleading competed in states and won fifth place in the KOA division and are going on to compete in the Central League and Nationals. Finally, members of the boys and girls cross country teams were nominated for all Delo first and second teams with multiple honorable mentions. As for happenings last
006week, students across the district honored Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's legacy with acts of service. At the high school, more than a hundred students showed up to help city team and access center. Some students stayed at the high school packing hot lunches, organizing care package packages, and making peanut butter sandwiches that would be delivered to the access center. Other students distributed food packets and played bingo with residents at the access center. Finally, another big group of students helped city team sort clothing and food donations. Additionally, middle school students also joined the day of service, heading down to the Garden City Fire Station to help wash fire wash fire trucks. Speaking of gardens, despite the cold weather, MP's gardening club hasn't slowed down at all. The students prepared for spring's arrival by painting flower pots with
007friends. They weren't the only ones looking forward to warmer times either. Last week, the high school held a job fair, giving students an opportunity to scan for potential summer jobs. On the other hand, the high school's outdoor adventure club took advantage of the cold weather and organized a trip for skiers and snowboarders at Blue Mountain for some night skiing. Although the conditions weren't ideal, everyone enjoyed their time on the slopes and some hot chocolate. That concludes the first student report of 2026. Doca and I can't wait to continue reporting on what happens later in the year. Thank you and stay warm, everyone. Thank you so much, Joy. Always good to hear the happenings of our district. So, we appreciate you being here with us tonight. Um, next on our agenda, we Dr. Johnston for the
008minutes report. >> Thank you, Mrs. Williams. Really happy to be here with you tonight. And, uh, just start off by expressing my gratitude for our buildings and grounds crew, our transportation crew for getting us successfully reopened today. Uh, two days without school is sort of two days without my heartbeat. Uh, and so I'm really glad to have our students back today and to hear our halls thring with the, uh, the joyful noise of learning. Uh, it's just music to my ears, but it really took a lot of work to make that happen. And I do appreciate all that it took to do that. Of course, we did miss two days. So, what does that mean? We need to make up some time. Uh, thankfully, we did have one day built into our schedule, so we
009really only make up one day, but not a full day. Uh so what's likely to happen and I'll have more communication going out soon to our families is that we would repurpose our March 20th professional development day as a half day for our students then a half day of learning for our teachers. What I also asked my team to do today and I really appreciate Dr. Matic's leadership on this is to think ahead of what if we have another day bill on top of this right still early in the winter and so we would look ahead to say that if we need to extend the school day into the last professional development day that we have in June that would mean if we have an additional day beyond what we've already had then we would
010take that other professional development day in June and uh so that's sort of our planning and then some contingency planning as we continue to wait through the winter weather um and again just want to express my gratitude to everyone who helped us get not running our uh great day of learning here in volume. Um so first off uh just always want to ground ourselves in the images of the students who we serve and we have uh two up here. One uh building on what Miss Yang said about our highQ team. This is our team competing and as she said fourth in the state right now and really great to see them going strong after the very impressive season they had last year. We offer just such a wide range of activities and events and opportunities
011for our students. On the right side of the screen, you see our students at West honoring Martin Luther King Day Jr. Day with a great celebration that they had at the school and uh really some important messages that the students learned about and shared with each other uh in the celebration that they had at that school. So, just two ways of bringing to you bringing to life in this room a cold room tonight. I'm not going to lie, uh some of the warmth that our students bring us through their amazing work in our schools. January is board uh national board appreciation uh board recognition month. And uh what we asked our uh team to do is to reach out to the schools and prepare a book for each of our board members. So our board
012members have in front of them tonight a book from each uh from various schools and students who wrote letters to our board members uh to let them know about how we so appreciate the work that they do. And I think this is always really important to hear from our students to know the impact that you have on our students. It's real. Governance matters. The work that this board does matters greatly to the health of this district, to the functioning of our schools, to the achievement of our students. And for those of you who might not be aware of the great length of sort of the the the work that it takes to be a board member, I just want to take you inside last week. Right. So we had two committee meetings, finance and facilities.
013And it's important to note that many of our board members attend even when they're not on the committee. So it's not even just uh common. It is just every meeting. There's always additional board members who go above and beyond to be at our committee meetings uh to participate and listen in and ask questions. So that's sort of standard business and that's sort of in the public eye and people are used to that. But I also want to um inform the public that our board members again in going above and beyond in being volunteers take on additional um tasks, responsibilities, work associated with learning about our district and supporting our schools. So last week our new board members were invited to come to NPE uh and spent some time with the principal there and hear more
014about the great work going on at Nether Providence Elementary. Really appreciate the time that you all took who came and enjoyed that visit and had a chance to hear from Alheimley at this school. We also did an uh an additional onboarding meeting for our new board members and appreciated that Mary Joe Smith and uh came to that meeting as well uh just to hear more and learn about the cabinet members uh here on our leadership team as well as to get more of an introductory overview of uh sort of core functioning of of boards in addition to the work they've already done. This isn't a continuation of the onboarding that they've uh they've completed. And then at the end of the week, uh, I had one of my monthly board member visits to, uh, SRS
015and really appreciated that visit. Uh, Miss Harder, really appreciate your opportunity to see more about the functioning of the school as well as the connection through the DCIU. And so there just many, many things that go on that board members are um, engaging in and I just want to just express my appreciation to the board for their willingness to continually go above and beyond and support our students in so many different ways. and just thought it might be good to give a few examples of the many facets of uh the life of a board member and how important the work is. So, I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for the the work that you do. Um, with that, I do want to turn our attention to our budget
016for the upcoming year. And these are the same slides that I shared at our finance committee meeting last week. I just want to restate them again briefly. I won't go through them in as much length. You can always go back and watch the finance committee meeting from last week. Uh but I just want to make sure that uh we're all on the same page about what's coming and what how we are doing what are we what we are doing to address the challenge that we've described which just means we need to adjust our spending in order to you know uh have a sustainable budget and within our revenue sources for years coming. Always an important reminder that we are not in deficit now. uh we are anticipating that we would have to dip into fund
017balance and therefore be um taking away the savings that we have and ultimately leading towards what could be a deficit if we don't make these adjustments now. Time is on our side. We have the ability to do this. We have the ability to correct um and really think about our spending in a in a planful way um in a collaborative way so that we can make the decisions that will keep us healthy and strong for years to come in a financial and our financial well-being. So I think of this as many opportunities that this presents for the district in the way of more efficiencies, thinking really allowing us to ask the about the return on investment of all of our spending to make sure our spending matches our priorities gives us an opportunity to think
018about reorganizing uh our our staff and particularly our administration as well as then making sure that we're just being as fiscally responsible as we possibly can be as we continue to move into the future. So, uh, since our last, uh, uh, time together, I've had office hours in all of the schools. Unfortunately, Wes's office hours were on Monday. They're now on Friday. Uh, so I'll be at Wes on Friday. Um, we've spent a lot of time talking to comparable districts to just understand their revenue and their spending. And then of course the resolution that the board took back in December has created a guidepost for Miss Mosley and I as we continue to work on developing a budget that will be responsive to the resolution that the board passed in December. So just want to
019explain some next steps of what's coming next. uh in February we will bring to the finance committee a reorganization plan for review and then at this meeting our full legislative meeting in February we will then bring that before the board for approval to request approval on a reorganization plan and then also in the finance committee meeting in February we'll present uh what potential reductions would look like how do we solve this problem we've put out there that there's a challenge what does a solution look like and again this is a thoughtful process a challenging process this is not an easy conversation vision. Um, but it's one that if we do it with time, if we do it thoughtfully, if we put out ideas and allow for feedback, we'll get the right combination of changes for
020the future uh that would then be uh brought before the board um in April uh sorry actually yeah in April for the proposed budget. But just quickly in March we would continue the discussion. We need to look at the high school renovation project and an approval of where we're going with the high school renovation project and the contract for our architect. So that would happen in March, which would then set us up for presenting a proposed budget in April uh for the board's consideration and then approval in May. So that's where we're going over the next several months. I do just want to put one thing to rest uh that I know a lot of families have given us feedback on and in a really helpful way. Like when I say feedback, I don't mean
021that uh families have been um at my doorstep with pitchforks. I really mean that I've had a lot of very thoughtful engagement with our families and I've appreciated uh the the discussion that we've had at about our transportation policy in particular. I put out there uh back in the fall that we do not we are not required to provide kindergarten transportation we would call that right that that is not something that we're required to do and as I use it as an example of how we will look to where we are spending money on um uh costs that are not required that was just one example uh and it did prompt a really good conversation though about kindergarten transportation so at our February policy meeting I will be bringing forward a a policy to relook
022at transportation um and the uh the what what allowances we make for drop off and pickup. But families are having to choose right now about where to send their children for kindergarten next year. So I want to be very clear that we do not prop we are not proposing changes to kindergarten transportation. And what was very compelling to me was our families who said this district only offers half day kindergarten and to put a burden on families to have to transport their children at midday would be uncaution. Uh that is just not not doable for working families makes perfect sense. So we uh I want to assure families that are looking to make choices for kindergarten and of course we want them here uh in our kindergartens and our three elementary schools uh that there
023will be no changes to kindergarten transportation. What we'll be bringing before the policy committee actually just next week is uh clarification about before and after school transportation uh pickup and drop off locations and then what will be important after that is just further adherence to the policy um to make sure that we are then just implementing it with full uh with full uh conviction. So those are my quick updates on the budget. Uh I wanted to be brief tonight because the main event for us is a presentation from our amazing middle school team uh under the leadership of Dr. Chris Manena. So with that I am really Oh sorry like that's not the middle school. We do have two more slides. I'm so sorry middle school team. That was a great leadup. I'm going to
024try it again. Uh we do have three community listening sessions coming up. Uh the first is about the high school. Uh February 4th at 6:30 and the high school library. uh we will have a listening forum about priorities for the high school renovation planning. Our architect will be uh leading the meeting uh and really we'll be presenting sort of you know key considerations about different aspects of the project and wanting to hear from the community about how much they should be prioritized as part of uh the final plan that we bring before the board uh later this winter actually like I said in March. So prioritization comes first that's February 4th. Then we have two more coming up. Uh like I said, I'll be announcing uh reorganization, reductions, reallocation proposals for the fiscal year 27
025budget at the finance committee meeting on February 17th. So I want to hold another community conversation after that. Uh we'll follow up with uh times and locations for that because that will be a a day and evening session just like we did before to accommodate families who have different schedules. So, I'd like to hear more from the community about our ideas for again reorganization, uh, reduction and, um, reallocation. And then we'll follow up on March 5th with another community conversation about the high school. Uh, particularly once we hear about prioritization from the community, we want to turn that around into some ideas for how we address those priorities and what some design ideas might look like. So, that will be on March 5th. Uh, and we'll have more details about that soon as well. So,
026Dr. Man, I do apologize. I'll try my lead up again. I want to introduce our amazing middle school leadership team. And I will turn it first to Dr. Mensega to introduce his colleagues. And with that, uh, Dr. Men, I'd like to turn the paper over to you. Thanks so much for being here tonight. >> Good evening. Thank you for that leadup twice. Um, I want to thank the school board and Dr. Johnson for having the middle school uh here tonight. Uh, we've had a great first semester of the school year and hopefully we could heat up the room with our presentation tonight because it is a little bit chilly in here. Um, tonight I am accompanied by my two assistant principles, Mrs. Kim Stock and Mr. Kevin Kelly. Mr. Kelly, this is his first presentation.
027Uh, he joined us in May. uh and we're super excited to have him as part of our team. Uh we we are going to tag in and tag out for tonight's presentation. So uh please bear with us. Um tonight's presentation will be a little different than the ones that I have given in the past. Um our teacher staff and especially our students have been doing some great work over the last year since the last time I was I was standing here. Um so we're going to brag a little bit more more tonight. Uh we're going to talk about our data a little bit more than I have in the past. Um we're just really excited about the work uh that have been showing up in our scores, in our data collection, uh and all the
028all the progress that we we're making as a school. And um we're really reaching some new heights as a middle school. I've been here since 2011 as an assistant principal and now principal. And we're doing some things that we we weren't doing 10 years ago. and we're accomplishing things uh that we weren't uh even just a few years ago. So, um we're really excited about our progress. Um so, um we're going to talk a little bit about that tonight. So, I just want to start off every year. We're middle school, so we do things um that warm and friendly feeling at the middle school level is what we uh really try to promote. And each year we come up with a theme for our school. And this year um our theme comes from an adaptation
029of of researcher and author Bnee Brown's quote that the middle school is messy but that's where the magic happens. Uh we agree that middle school can be an uncomfortable rocky and uncertain phase between uh starting middle school and ending middle school. Uh but we think that's the stage where real learning uh real growth and real transformation can occur. Uh so we've uh shared this theme with our our students. Uh you can see it throughout the building. We've talked to our students about it. We've encouraged our teachers to promote it in their class and it's really guided us with our professional development with our teachers uh throughout this school year. There are several focus areas that the middle school team identified uh this year. Uh if you watch previous presentations, you'll know that our goals don't
030change much from year to year. Um, it's one of the commitments I've made when I became the principal is, you know, these are the things we value. We should never veer uh too far away from them. Uh, our first goal is always create a sense of belonging for everyone in our building. We continue to plan activities and lessons uh for students and staff to attack these goals. We continue to implement PBIS tier tiers one, two, and now tier three at the at the middle school. and we continue continue to work on uh the changes to our building schedule that we made uh a couple years ago with with our advisory. We continue to focus on increasing student engagement in all classrooms and improve our overall student outcomes. A lot of our professional development uh has
031been focused on strategies to help teachers in the classroom. The one thing that's new this year is that we are having a heavy focus on the creation of professional learning communities for our teachers uh to really focus on data and share uh their instructional strategies and give them that time uh to really discuss how they could collaborate to improve student learning. So that is something new and has been uh a huge initiative uh for us this year. So I'm going to ask Mrs. doc to come up and talk about how we're creating a sense of belonging at the middle school. >> So, as Dr. Metsena said that our our first goal of creating a sense of belonging, we really believe that this is key to actually achieving all of our goals for our students uh
032student achievement as well as uh creating the wellness um of our school community. So we want to talk a little bit more in depth for some of our goals how what we are doing to achieve and what are some progress that we're seeing. So uh for creating a sense of belonging one of the things that we have done is we focus in on some of our affinity groups uh which help our students uh to connect together um uh uh when they have maybe diverse needs. Um I'm going to talk a little bit about the Panorabin data in just one uh second. Um but I want to give just a little bit more information about the PBIS as uh Dr. Matsena mentioned. Um we do focus in on our tier one uh instruction which is where
033we teach our students about how pay off their pride and uh about staying safe, responsible, respectful um and uh and and how to be good citizens. Um so that's from a tier one. It's also where we teach our students about how to follow uh the expectations for our uh technology policy too as well. Um, for our tier two, uh, that's going to be for maybe about 15% of our students, and that's for students who may be invited to be part of a social skills group for maybe a six-w week period of time, or they might work uh with a trusted adult mentor uh to do some check-ins as well. This is also the first year that we have implemented tier three. And so for tier three, that's going to be about 5% of our students
034or fewer. And for those students, for again, maybe another six to eight week period, they're going to be doing some more intensive check-in, check out uh process with a trusted adult. And then also they're going to be checking in with their teachers daily in every class um to uh have a short visit about the success of meeting a couple of the goals that they've come up with uh to try to achieve um in six to eight go uh six to eight weeks. So that's a couple of things that we're doing for the PBIS tiered supports for our professional development. Um we are continuing to focus in on how to make our classrooms and our schools engaging. Uh for example, uh we've introduced our staff to um community circles and how to run that. Um we've
035also uh looked at at our last um professional development day things like how do we address diverse student needs? Even something like why is a middle school boy so different than a middle school girl? And how can we be proactive? uh when we are lesson planning for our middle school boys and for our middle school girls too. Um our panorama which we're going to show you just a couple slides that show uh some improvement in our panorama data. So this is a survey that we give to our students uh twice a year and it really measures the health and wellness um of their social emotional wellness and their health. And one of the things that we wanted to do is we wanted to focus in on how are our students doing in terms of um
036when we categorize them by race. And so from here you can see that we've separated them. A is for Asian, B is for black students, H is for Hispanic, M is for multi-racial, and W is for our white students. And you can see just in one year's time from last year to this year uh we're looking for students to increase their uh positive uh favorable uh percentage uh in terms of how they answer these questions. So for example here when students were asked do you have trusted adults in the building and trusted friends in the building that you know are supportive and that are people that you can go to when you need some support. Um you can see that our students um made improvements from last year to this year. Uh and we were
037really pleased to see with the no change with our uh multi-racial students, but with our black students and Hispanic students that they had the most uh increase from last year to this year. And then just another uh that we wanted to uh point out with of course our sense of belonging. So when students were asked, do you feel important in this building? Do you feel important and like you belong with both students and with adults in the building? You can see that we're really pleased with some of the improvements that um that have been made just from one year to the next. Um, we can see that with our Asian students that we didn't see a change necessarily uh with their positive uh results there, but um we can see that with our black students,
038Hispanic students, and multi-racial students that that's where we got our greatest growth. So, we know that we're not going to be satisfied until we get 100%. And we real and do we real do realize that, but it's something that we continue to work for and strive for and to continue that increased uh sense of belonging because we know that that's key to everything. Right. >> So again, I want to talk a little about um improving student outcomes. um what are we what are we doing to improve the performance uh for for our school? Um and again, the development of PLC's, that's that's something we're really working on this year. Um but for the last last two to three years, we've really been working hard um on tier one academic interventions uh within the classroom. A
039lot of our professional development uh has been around that. And again, tier one academic interventions are strategies that all teachers can use to increase student performance in their in their classrooms. Um, and uh we're trying to get help our teachers learn how to incorporate the data uh in into those tier one uh interventions. So, our teachers are doing such a great job. Uh we keep giving them a free pass. We keep saying just try things. Just try things. It's great thing about education. The kids come back the next day and you get a chance to do it all over again even if even if it didn't work. Um, so we're really trying to encourage our our teachers uh to try new strategies in the classroom. Um, and this is something that we are really really
040uh uh proud of. Um, what you're going to see here is is each year schools are assigned an ACT 13 building score uh based on the indicators of the future ready index which includes measures of academic achievement, growth, school attendance, and college and career readiness. This year our score school scored 88.9 and you can see our history there on the right hand side. Uh which is one of the highest scores in the state. Um I didn't research it. I was told we had the 14th highest score in the state out of whatever 2,000 middle schools. Um we have never we have never achieved this. Um, and it's something that we've really worked hard uh not at trying to achieve a score uh but trying to help all of our kids grow. And historically we've done
041so well with student achievement. We haven't done well with uh as well. We've been inconsistent with student growth throughout our building. Uh so so last year we did extremely well in both those areas resulting in a in a a very high high score. It's something we're proud of. Again, I want to emphasize it's not something we're we're chasing, you know, but it's so great when when you actually see it come out in your in your data. Um, and we know we know it's we still think it's easier to get there to to stay there. Uh, so we're really trying to figure out how do we how do we ma maintain this performance uh in our building and that's that's our work uh going going forward. Um, but this is something we're celebrating because our teachers
042and our students are working really really hard. uh for us to achieve achieve this level. Um sorry to brag a little bit, but uh it means a lot means a lot to me that uh because for the last couple years, every time we got this score, it was kind of like a punch in my gut. I'm like, "Ah, you got to be kidding me. We're doing all these great things. Why isn't this coming out?" And and and this year we were able to see it. So super super excited. I am going to ask Mr. Kelly to come up and talk a little about the work we're doing with u um PLC's. there. Thank you, Chris. >> Good evening. Um, when I came on board last spring, I was a, you know, administrator and the school
043district of Philadelphia, um, where professional learning communities were, um, pretty entrenched in in our culture. Um, and so it it brought me great joy that right where I I found that passion, Chris and and Kim were looking to develop that next step here. So joining this team, it it really worked out well to spend some time this summer planning for the work we're doing with our teachers. Um we think of a lot of this year as um a a laboratory for PLC's. We're not quite there. We want teachers to learn. We don't want to dive in too fast, but we're given the space for teachers to experiment, to learn. Um so as we move to the future, we could have these more consistent, effective PLC routines. So this year, where are we headed? We're developing
044a structure for it. Um, we found a space um with our afternoon uh Wednesday meetings to twice a month have teachers meet with their cohorts to be able to meet as a professional learning community. Um, we've conducted professional development for staff. There's countless models for PLC's. This year we decided to follow uh Rick Defor's model. We'll speak about that a little bit more in just a moment. Um, but I think teachers have really latched on to this particular routine. Um, we gave teachers space to develop their own norms. Um, a lot of the success of PLC's comes from, I think, teachers collaborating to make it their own rather than it feeling like a top- down initiative, um, from their administrators. Um, we're partners on the sidelines. We're coaches. We're there when they need them. We're
045giving them the resources they need. But there have been some PLC's that say, "We got it. Um, back off. We're going to make this work." And um you know we the ego crush we take is is equaled by our our acceptance that that means that our our teachers are growing in the PLC uh cycle. Um we're working on creating a cycle. We're not where we are with consistent meetings. We would like to get to a space where we can meet weekly um for teacher PLC's um for data review. But teachers this year already learning um how to create common formative assessments. So if there's a particular skill or um content uh within a unit, teachers are working on coming backwards from that standard to create a measurement for um student mastery, administer that and at
046their next PLC they come back and look at data. Um one teacher might find that their partner down the hall was more effective with teaching ratios than they were. Well, what are you doing? And then it opens up a very natural space for teachers to share best practices. And the proof's there, the data is there um of who's doing what effectively and how can we best learn from one another. Um which you know is the backbone of a professional learning community is that teacher collaboration and sharing other strategies. Because we love rooting ourselves in data, we wanted to see what effect the work we're doing with professional learning communities is having um not only our students but on our teachers growth this year. So at the start of the year um we sent out a
047survey uh about teachers familiarity with professional learning communities. Um 50% put themselves as somewhat familiar. Um but also they're not at all and slightly familiar. That's a third of our teachers. Um, and we want them to get to a space where they see not only how to do PLC's but see the true value in moving students and helping students grow through this. What we did see all around though is that there's this need the strong agreement uh almost three4s of our teachers uh that collaboration is positive and collaborating with our colleagues can improve student outcomes. are uh we would like to in May and June this year to give this survey one more time just for teachers to be able to reflect on their growth and for us to know what the needs are going
048into next year. So I mentioned we're following the RIT for model. So in every PLC teachers are responding to one or more of these questions with the use of data and discussion and action planning. Um, the first question that every PLC needs to ask is what do we want students to know? This is largely rooted within our Pennsylvania Common Core standards. Um, but then the most important thing I think any teacher can ask is how how do we know they've learned it? Um, is it assessment, a multiple choice assessment? Is it an essay? Is it guided discussion? There's so many ways um you know through project-based learning to traditional instruction that we can get evidence of how well teachers are are are getting through to students. U many of them have an exit ticket as
049they leave the room which gives them data on how to move on next. So our third question, what do we do when they did not learn it? Teachers get that data um and find out that they weren't super successful teaching how to identify key evidence in a passage. how are they going to respond to the students who did not quite get there yet? Um, we're working with teachers on changing the mindset of we have to move ahead with each chapter, each day in order to get to the end of the year, but rather some stuff is worth reteing. If students haven't mastered it, we're not ready to fully move on without coming back to that. Every student deserves to have a chance of mastery before they move on. And then one of my favorite questions
050that um coming to this school I didn't I didn't have the space to think about as much before but um with our not only our gifted program but students who are are not identified as gifted who who are craving opportunities for enrichment ask what do we do when they already learned it. Um we're not ready to just move on with them too but there's opportunities for students to really dig into um into content and a skill and develop a passion and ask deep questions. um the greatest tier one instruction which our teachers are really starting to to show this year is how to take students from question three and question four in the same classroom and differentiate for them to both have a meaningful engaging experience in that same room. So our goal this year
051as we're doing the laboratory approach and our slow roll out is about two to three times per month PLC's will will meet um second and fourth Wednesdays as well as during our inservice days we're giving teachers time. The norms as I mentioned were developed by the teams themselves. The teams are subject areas and within those subject areas we also have uh gradewide bands breaking off. So some PLC's might be the entire English department or science department discussing best practices. Um but often we want to break off into sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade bands within those departments to give teachers the opportunity to create those common formative assessments and really hone in on what this week or next week are we specifically teaching um to move our students towards mastery of of those state standards.
052And finally, we're ready to make mistakes and that's okay. We're gradually rolling this out and we're rolling it out together. Um I in about 90% of our PLC's, we see a lot of engagement and joy. Um and then the ones that aren't quite there yet, we're finding opportunities and challenges for us to be better as leaders to help teachers get to those that success. In summary, this year's focus using data that all of our conversations should be rooted in the reality of what students are mastering, what they're not, and why. Building strong team norms. I think this is the the part that uh happened the quickest. I think surprised us all pleasantly of of how well most of our our teams have really gelled. Um the teams that aren't quite there yet are asking the
053right questions um to get to those strong team norms. um setting student learning goals. I think as we start finding more data from uh not only the common formative assessments, but the big data indicators such as the MAP testing that just happened this month, um we can really know where our students are now and where we need to get them by the end of the year. And then rather than just throwing instruction at students, being intentional and mindful about how to most effectively um move students into the direction we need to get them. Um, and finally, the core of a professional learning community, sharing those best practices um with one another and celebrating it when the data shows us that the work is paying off. >> Chris, thank you, Mr. Kelly. Uh, one of my
054favorite part one of my favorite moments so far this year is Dr. Johnson and I were doing some learning walks and we went into one teacher's classroom. Um, and she was doing like just an awesome activity. Uh, I always try to circle back to the teachers after we're in the rooms and I had a conversation and just give her all that positive encouragement and and she said, "Well, I learned that in PLC's from, you know, the teacher down the hall." And that's that's what we're really trying to establish in our building. So, that was a a really nice moment for me. Um, I know uh we're a little long-winded here. Um, so I I want to keep moving. Um, but again, student engagement is something that's just so so important to us. Um, again, if
055you are a parent of a middle schooler, you know how hard it is to get middle school age students excited about their learning, right? So, um, but when we see kids engaged in their learning, um, uh, it it's just brings back that magic that I talked about in that in that theme. So, um, this is something that is always going to be, um, important to the to the middle school and, uh, we've worked with our staff. Again, we've done a ton of professional development. I think it's something that's very important to the three of us um that we're we're we're planning um uh planning for our teachers uh to meet their needs which ultimately improves student learning. So um but uh each week I send strategies to teachers. We have weekly tips. We do stuff
056at team meetings. Uh our teachers are doing peer observations. Mr. Stock has set up uh opportunity for teachers to observe each other and we've increased walkthroughs in our building and and feedback for our teachers. Um, so, uh, Mrs. Stock, um, worked with with some of our students and teachers to discuss this topic and why they love middle school. So, she created a short video that provides an inside look about what is happening from their perspective. Uh, we want to emphasize that no one was paid uh or coerced uh, to say any of these things in the video. So, it's a four-minute videos. Let's let's check it out. lesson. It was in sixth grade, probably like early in the year was in PE. Uh what really stand out to me was like um basketball. I really
057enjoyed it like a lot. It was about like John F. and like his story and how he got assassinated. >> And so we put students in groups and group on the different of Benjamin Franklin and we had them do a sharp tank. >> So this lesson is at the beginning of a seventh grade unit called self expression through artist. I call it everything and anything. And I kind of made that up. >> It was seventh grade. such as things such as labor unit to essentially figure out how patient is in it was like really because one just did it. I have them listen closely and have their hands on the desk or make a weird sound like the data I just would um every time they hear something illogical in the poem. So I like
058it a sensory experience made it so engaging and she like kind of like incorporated lesson into like kind of like a story. >> We all did good and we all had good game, good sportsmanship and yeah we all we all just had fun and did our part. But then by far most importantly, she uh she like played this song and it like and I just yawning. It's kind of one of my things that I really like because of uh learning is >> and they also write on their desk and so >> so number one thing that I think is really important with them is being able to work together collaboratively in groups. So when there's a little bit more buy in um you want to obviously number one be successful but also to not let
059your teammates down as well. um as well as relating it to real world experiences. So groups of students were assigned one of the five most important inventions of Ben Franklin and were tasked with creating a Shark Tank style presentation to try to sell their inventions to class. Um responsible probably hard working because it's like you have to keep up and work hard to get good grades. >> I probably welcoming. I just feel like it's just like when you walk in here, you just feel very welcome. One word would be dedicated in a hard world game. That is truly amazing. I love working with her. All the students who who come here should be very very happy with the education and also the community as well. And the other piece is I think we set really
060high standards not only for our students but also for ourselves and I feel like the same goal at a very high level and that makes me want to make money as well and I have students um they're wonderful they're kind curious openminded willing to take risks um and that's how you learn a language and I have colleagues and um collaborating there and imagine going somewhere else. So that was a little bit So, uh, hopefully you're able to get that without the echo. Um, so that that was a little bit like an inside look about what's going on in our school. Um, we're doing some pretty cool things in the classroom. Our kids are always doing some amazing things. We're super super proud of our teachers and and our students. Um, I just want to end
061with a few other uh points. Um, uh, kind of do it quickly as possible. Um, that we're super proud of that are uh definitely points of pride from this year. Uh our students are doing such a great job with our cell phone policy. Uh it's very rare to see a cell phone in our building during the school day, especially in classrooms. And if a student does slip up, they're they're so responsive to us and so respectful. So uh but it is rare and uh we really appreciate our teachers efforts in enforcing it in our classrooms, our family support. um it's going so so well and we we believe this is again part of why our students are more engaged is not having that device on them or uh out during the day. So I have
062no data to support that other than what we're seeing in the classrooms and and we are really really excited about that. Um we've also been recognized uh by the US News and World Report as a best public middle school in Pennsylvania. Uh to my knowledge, I'm not sure if we've ever uh got that accolade, at least in my time. Uh again, it's not something we're chasing, but it's sure nice when you get when you get recognized. Um uh this year, eighth grade service project, uh we're supporting the Prominence, uh Providence Animal Center. Uh you can see a picture there at the bottom bottom left of uh that they um uh were able to bring some some pups uh to our school uh on MLK day MLK day of service and uh our students got to
063got to hang out with them for a little bit. So um the second picture there is from our winter pep rally. We had three awesome pep rallies to really celebrate PBIS Panther Pride in our building. Hopefully the kids had a great time. Both both kids uh and teachers and staff uh participated in a lot of different events. seemed like everyone had a great time. I know I had a great time and walked out uh super proud that day. Um and again uh down here on the on the bottom right, uh we continue with our MLK Day of Service and Learning. Um we were able to get most of our eighth graders to go out um into our local communities. Uh Mrs. Stock, uh this was something new this year I just wanted to make note
064of. I thought was super cool. uh had some friends at the Claymont Community Center uh which used to be the old Claymont High School and there's a lot of history there uh that I wasn't even aware of. Um and not only did our students have an opportunity to work with English English language learners um but they got an education about the Claymont 12 uh who are students who played a pivotal role in desegregation uh of schools in Delaware. So it was a just such a such a great great experience. So, uh, I did talk to some of the students that went there and they said it was, um, it was it was amazing. This still, um, just a couple other points. Uh, we really are trying to invest in our athletic program, too. Um, uh,
065we've been spending a lot of time looking at ineligibility. Uh, again, we are the feeder system for the high school. So, how our students, uh, perform as, as both, uh, students and athletes, um, does impact the high school. Uh, so we've been working really hard. Mr. Neil, our athletic coordinator, has been working really hard with kids when they aren't doing well in class and are ineligible to help them get uh eligible again uh and keep them eligible. And again, there's been huge decreases uh from the previous year uh 69% 54% in the fall season uh that so far that we've been tracking of a decrease in ineligible students. So, we've really been trying to emphasize with our coaches and our students, uh, that it's a student first before the athlete. Um, we've doing student we've
066been doing check-ins with them. Uh, really trying to encourage them to work, uh, with teachers before practice. Uh, and it's it's been going really well. Uh, just a couple there's a there's a lot of athletic highlights from the fall and winter season so far I could have uh, kind of discussed, but our wrestling team, if you haven't seen it, they're massive. Uh, we have so many wrestlers. It's amazing. We have seven female wrestlers, which is the most in the Central League. I got a chance to see them. Finally had a home match that I could see the other day. Uh they did awesome. Our cheerleading team is back. Fortunately, we had a lapse in them last year. We couldn't get the program up and running. Uh they're back and better than ever. Uh been cheering
067on so many events. So, uh we're just super proud of these things, too. So, I just wanted to end with those those few highlights. Again, I'm very thankful for Mrs. Stock and Mr. Kelly for all their work. Uh but most importantly again our our teachers and our students. I say it every all the time. You can't underestimate we all too often underestimate middle school students. Um our our students really really can do a lot. Show us a lot every day. Makes makes it a joy to come come to work. So um um so that's that's our presentation. >> Thank you Dr. Matt stock. There is a lot to be proud of that said you didn't regret but that you should be bragging that I mean this is a testament to your admin team the hard
068work of the teachers staff and the students um I know the the data is great it's you know the act 13 building score the US news and world report those are all amazing but probably the slide that I think I most liked was the number of kids that say they feel like they belong in school. I thought that that was really touching and and something to strive for. So, thank all three of you. Um, and I will turn it over to see if any other board members have comments. I'll start on my left and go to my right. No, I I agree. Feel free to brag. There's some really impressive data points there. Um, what's really great is to also feel your pride and enthusiasm. you know, you're you're you're genuinely excited about it and
069it just it's um it's really gratifying to see the strategic plan um initiatives and goals that we have and hear the way that they're, you know, coming to fruition at the building level. So, thanks so much and thank you all for your work. >> Yeah, agree. Thank you so much for the presentation. That was great. US reports a great accolade. I think as as the other board members have indicated, that's something to be proud of and and and I hope I hope you are proud of that. Um I I really enjoyed the the video technical difficulty side. I think it was fantastic to see the the human element of some of these things that we talked about. The data is extremely important and we should continue tracking it and continue making decisions this way. But
070then also humanizing it really matters to me. So thank you >> Dr. Mena, Miss Stocks, Mr. Kelly. Thank you. You have a fabulous team here. It has just made me feel like our administrative team in the middle school is deserves that uh accolade and deserves to be number one because the work you're putting in is amazing. Not only the work for this presentation, but to make all of this happen. This doesn't just happen. I mean, I know that this doesn't just happen. This is uh representative of a tremendous amount of work and coordination and organization at the top from the three of you and the uh athletic director. So I mean this is this is wonderful. Again I I agree uh with Miss Williams that the panorama results were like amazing. Um, I also was
071very impressed with how the PLC's are going and the big questions. Boy, that is so targeted to exactly where we want teachers to be thinking that um I just thrilled by I'm thrilled by what you're doing. So, I appreciate it. Makes me and the board feel like our hard work means something as well. That this is uh this is great. So, thank you. Thank you for this presentation. Thank you for thinking about putting it together for us. And uh yeah, let's keep going. So, great. >> Just really quickly, thanks for being here on a Wednesday. I have an end of one of a middle schooler and he's having a great time. Uh the I would just reemphasize the work in the PLC's and the steady uh gentle pushing that you're doing I think uh is
072going to pay off in the long run. So, I'm pleased to see that emphasis on the >> Thank you for that presentation and I think I'll be echoing much of what the other board members were saying. Um, I was really struck by the themes of pride and belonging that you weave through every portion of this um, presentation. Um, and you mentioned that too often middle schoolers are underestimated, but you refuse to do that throughout all of this. Even from the beginning where um, you talk about magic in the middle because that that's there's so much growth that happens in middle school. You really are molding adults and you clearly love to do that. Um, and I also just wanted to highlight the work with the PLC's. It struck me that um in doing those professional
073learning communities with teachers learning from one another, you're creating a sense of belonging with the teachers and then that is percolating through to the students. Um so just really strong work and thank you for this presentation. >> Thank you all so much again for being here tonight and uh best of luck for a great rest of the year. >> Well, we appreciate your support. Thank you so much. Of course. Thanks so much. >> Um while we are still on the superintendent report, I would like to just briefly thank um Dr. Johnston for his kind comments about our board service and also thank the students who wrote notes to us uh from WSSD. I haven't had a chance to read my but I would be the first thing on my agenda tonight to do. So I
074appreciate that very much. So, all right. My alarm went along, but >> I just want to um say thank you for the work. And for me it is most satisfying to see the equity piece being put into the school and through the PLC's teachers are beginning to understand the diverse learners and that it it's not a forgotten child. It's not a problem child and to meet the student where they are and Mr. Sega, I know that you don't like to brag, but you're the head. You're the captain of the ship. So, um, kudos to you. You're doing a fantastic job, and the data shows. >> Thank you. >> All right, moving on to board announcements. Um, I do have one board announcement. As mentioned last month, I'm pleased to be able to share a highle
075summary of our 360 uh review survey on Dr. Johnston's performance thus far. Uh the full summary document is attached in board docs. Um but I will give uh kind of overview. Um as a reminder, the survey was distributed to a broad group of identified stakeholders. The survey link actually went out to 221 stakeholders and we received 125 responses. um the only required question to complete was what type of stakeholder they were. Um so that kind of ensured that participants were able to uh answer questions voluntarily and thoughtfully and also of course it was an anonymous survey as well. Um overall the results were extremely strong and remarkably consistent across pretty much all categories. Um across every area measured, well over 90% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the positive statements. The highest ratings came
076in the category of interpersonal skills with nearly 99% of respondents describing our superintendent approachable, ethical, adaptable, and open to feedback. Additional strengths were noted in categories of leadership and vision and communication and collaboration. Uh the written comments to the open-ended questions reinforce these steps. There were frequent mentions of active listening, clear and transparent communication, inclusive leadership, and his strong visible presence throughout our schools. As a note, with the open-ended responses, um a trend was identified if a comment or theme appeared three or more times. So that's how I identified those. Um, in terms of areas of growth, the most common themes mentioned uh for improvement focus on strengthening accountability, prioritizing equity and decision-making, and addressing our ongoing financial concerns. Notably, many respondents indicated no concerns or felt that it was too early to assess if
077there were concerns. Um, so I'd like to sincerely thank everyone who took the time to participate and share their feedback. While the results were extremely positive, they also offer us an important opportunity uh for reflection and continuous improvement, helping ensure that we are meeting the needs of our students, our staff, and our larger community. So, at this moment, I will turn it over to Dr. Johnson, who would like to share a few additional comments. >> Thank you, Mrs. Williams. And I really appreciate everyone who took the time to provide feedback so that I can really learn from their perspectives about how things are going and how we can continue to improve my work in support of our students here at Molly for Sworthmore. And uh you know of course the first thing that I go
078to is the suggestions and the ways in which I can improve um and I really take it to heart. Uh and I did have a really great opportunity to talk with Mrs. Williams about um and Mrs. Wow, Smith about what we how we should understand those recommendations particularly around accountability. What does it mean to improve accountability? Uh so helpful to hear their perspectives. I'll take that same conversation to our cabinet and our principles. I have that queued up for upcoming agendas with both groups. I've shared the results with them as well so that we can have an open conversation about how to um what's their feedback for me about how I can continue to strengthen those parts of of my leadership for the district as well. So the conversation goes on. It doesn't this isn't
079a oneanddone. It's not a sort of tick the box. Um using this information, frankly, using this data uh in order to support uh the work that I'm doing here. I also really appreciated that we were able to disagregate by the different uh roles that people play between parents, principles, teachers, support staff, uh board members. And that's also a a helpful lens to look at the types of responses that I got and the type of feedback that I received. So reading uh the qualitative uh feedback as well as those quantitative numbers I think will really help uh mero and my leadership here and again I just really appreciate the time that everyone took to provide the feedback. >> All right. Uh moving on to audience recognition response to items for action on the agenda. Uh now's
080the time on the agenda when we provide an opportunity for public comments for items on the agenda. We'll have time later for topics not on the agenda. As a reminder, public comment is a time for district residents and taxpayers to speak to the board about an issue that is before the board or may come before the board. It's a time for us to listen and hear perspectives and experiences from our community. While we can't answer questions at the meeting, there's always an opportunity for followup after the meeting. Uh we will continue to follow a threeminut time limit. Um, we will give you a heads up when you have one minute remaining so you can wrap up your thoughts and once we hit the three minute time limit, I will ask that you try to finish
081your final sentence. Um, the public is also reminded that this is not the appropriate venue for discussing matters that directly relate to any individual student, whether your child or not, or any concerns about an individual staff member. Is there anyone here tonight who would like to speak about a topic on the agenda this evening? All right. We ask that you go to the podium and please state your full name and the name of the street on which you live. >> Hello, my name is Kenneth Torres Ziggler. Uh living on Rutledge on Lynen Avenue. Um I just wanted to make a comment about uh specifically about the uh the superintendence 360 results that uh you just got there and a comment about communications. Um, one of the things that uh, a few stakeholders have noted suggestions
082for improving communications with the broader community. Um, and I know that this is a kind of a tough item to tackle um, for the size of our district, but I wanted to let you know that I've noticed we've noticed that uh, a lot of parents have been using their own networks, Facebook, etc. to fill in the gaps when communications from the district or within the school are not are not quite hitting where they need to. Um, and we just wanted to uh like for instance uh uh academic events, field trips, keystones, um, and uh, and things like with teachers not understanding how to be able to send stuff out through schooly or whatnot. Um but uh we just wanted to uh uh make this uh uh note that uh that those sort of communications from
083the district or something would be really great to work more on to to provide uh better um better opportunity for everybody to use the tools that they have and uh and stuff like that. And one other thing on that was that uh also um it's been lately it's been it's been difficult to find um speaking of communication like email addresses for specific staff members on the on the uh website. Used to be able to go in and look up any staff member and send them an email and uh that's difficult now. Uh there's a lot of people who are not on there specifically special education but that's it. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. Great. Is there anyone else? Um, so next on the next item on the agenda tonight is the approval of
084the minutes from the December 22nd, 2025 regular board meeting. Do I have a motion for approval? >> Still moved. >> Thank you, Mr. Miller. A second. Thank you, Miss Witset. Any discussion? I'll go left to right. Seeing none, Miss Mosley, will you please take a roll call vote? >> Dr. Crawford. >> Hi. >> Mr. Texas. >> Mr. Dele, >> I >> Mrs. Wbert, >> I >> Mr. Living >> I >> Mr. Miller. >> Hi, >> Mr. Woodet. >> Hi, >> Mrs. Williams. >> I miss Smith. >> I motion passes 9 to zero. >> All right. Next, we'll hear updates from our board committees. As a reminder, our edif affairs facilities and finance and policy committee meetings are available to view on our YouTube channel. Um, as such, we will go to the Pennsylvania School Board
085of St. Cl. So, PSBA would like to congratulate all school directors for their dedication and service to our communities. PSBA also wants to recognize that this is the 40 40th anniversary of IDA, Individuals with Disability Act. Um, Pennsylvania Act 44, if you have not heard, has been passed and that now requires school districts to notify families if there are weapons found on school property. This is uh consistent with what has been happening already in this district. Um, federal lawmakers from both parties are moving toward approving a new spending plan that maintains the US uh, US Department of Education and rejects the Trump administration's proposals to slash billions of dollars in educational investments. Uh, also PSBA is hosting an advocacy day on May 4th. This is a chance for board members and superintendent to meet face-toface
086with our Pennsylvania representative. Put that on your calendar. Um, also PSBA is not supporting the uh PA Senate cell phone ban the way it is written. Uh, there are concerns about the responsibility of school personnel to separate a student from his or her phone as it is written in the bill. Currently, the Senate is hearing a lot of support from their constituents for this bill, but PSBA is advocating for district flexibility in creating their own policies. And that is all for PSBA. Thank you. Next, we'll move to the Delaware County Intermediate Unit with Mrs. Hullberg as there is no update um from Delaware County Community College. Okay. >> All right. So um despite another interview process, the search for a new executive director for DCIU came up short. Uh so we will be opening up
087a new search process in the future. The current executive director retires on August 21st, so we do have some time. Uh DCIU uses a lot of temporary staff, especially for personal personal care assistance um from several vendors and has decided to begin the process of contracting with a firm that will manage the sourcing, credentiing, timekeeping, and billing of temporary staff. It is hoped that using this model will improve staffing reliability and billing efficiency. Um, just to put it in perspective, DCIU spends more than $2 million per year on personal care assistance alone. Um, DCIU has four different construction projects currently ongoing. The Marle project, which created a new addition for the practical nursing program, is back to being on time. I thought it was interesting that it was really late in some and now it
088has caught up which kind of teaches me something about a construction process. Um and uh the nursing program opened in its new space earlier this month and now the former nursing education rooms will be converted to early education learning classrooms. As a side note, the amount of early intervention services um that DCIU um conducts have increased more than 50% from 2020 to 2025. So those platforms are needed. Additionally, the acid site will be significantly improving and expanding its welding program space by the end of the summer. The goal is for the program to be doubled in size, reducing the weight list for interested students. And finally, I want to congratulate Annie Hamburger, a Strath Haven Middle School student. Um, just heard from our middle school folks who won third place in DCIU's Veterans Day essay
089contest. I got to hear her read her essay at our board meeting earlier this month. And I just wanted to say well done, Annie, and to the teachers and the staff who supported her and her parents. Thank you, Miss Hbert. Uh, next we have Delaware County School Board Legislative Council, Miss. So, there is a summary of the of last month's minutes that I think was attached to the agenda, but just to highlight, well, in addition to the Senate Bill 1014, which is considered the cell phone hand bill. Um, I wanted to highlight there is a newly introduced Senate Bill 1125, which is welcoming schools, ensuring PA schools are safe places for all students. So, this bill would require districts to implement procedures for responding to immigration enforcement at schools and affirm schools as welcoming places
090for all students. So, we'll keep an eye on that. Um, and that is it. >> Thank you so much. All right. Next on the agenda, we have nine items for action and personel. All items in this section are as attached or described in the agenda. Item K is for informationational purposes only and the board is pleased to acknowledge that Miss Courtney Aaron has received tenure. Are there any items on this list that anyone on the board would like to separate from the rest? Seeing none, uh, the items for action are resignations and retirements, appointments, leave of absence, change of position, change of salary status, 2526 conference requests, 2526 spring athletic supplementals, 2526 activity supplementals, and 2526 change of base hours. Do I have a motion for approval? >> Thank you, Mr. Miller. A second. Second.
091>> Thank you, Mr. Double. All right. Is there any discussion? I'll go left to right. Mr. Dole, >> just just real quickly. So, um, as we continue to have difficult conversations about our spending across the different departments in the district, I just wanted to confirm that we have an ongoing process for sort of assessing the number of coaching staff that we need across all schools. Excuse me. >> No, thank you so much. >> Absolutely. Thank you. So I I do appreciate the question and it's uh really indicative of the work that we've done across the board. We look at every facet of spending tend to continue to question how we can make improvements. I do know that you know when I made a commitment to uh take reductions furthest from the classroom I also think
092about you know furthest from the experiences that our students have in schools. So um right now the my emphasis is remains on the things that are you know furthest from the student experience and on the longer term horizon looking to you know perhaps make other changes for the future that are more programmatic in nature. How do how are we approaching both instruction and extracurricular activities uh in the longer term uh as a continual exploration so exploration. So the answer is yes. Both in the here and now in the most immediate term but sort of pressure testing against the the not wanting to um you know diminish the experiences that our students directly have but also then taking that longer term view and continual analysis. >> All right. Um Miss Mosley, can you please take a
093roll call vote? >> Dr. Crawford. I >> Mr. Dibble. >> Hi, >> Mrs. Blay. >> I >> Mrs. Homeberg. >> I >> Mr. Livingstone. >> Hi, >> Mr. Miller. >> Hi, >> Mr. Woodet. >> Hi, >> Mr. Williams. >> I >> Mr. Cy Smith, >> I. >> Motion passes 9 to zero. >> Thank you. Uh, under policy, we have one action, one item for action and policy. All items in the section are as attached or described in the agenda. As a reminder, the administrative regulations are attached forformational purposes only. Um, so we have policies for first reading. Do I have a motion for approval? >> Uh, Mrs. Dolelay, I heard you first, so we'll go with you. Thank you. And a second. >> Thank you, Dr. Crawford. Uh, is there any discussion? I'll go left
094to right. Mrs. Sound bike. >> Actually, just real quickly, um, at our last committee meeting, it was suggested that we touch on the differences between policy and AR. I didn't know if you wanted to do that, Dr. Johnston, if you want me to do that, but um, I know specifically with regards to our, uh, technology policy. Um, this conversation is going to be relevant for next month's meeting. So, would you want to or >> Sure. would you like to start and then I'll >> Yeah, I mean just just in general I I sort of like to think of it as the policy is sort of the what and the why and the administrative regulation is the how. >> Um so whereas policy is more broad and boards may develop them or do develop them. Um
095the ARS are usually developed by administration and they're more specific. Um and then with the policy we would require multiple board readings to change a policy whereas the uh administrative regulations can be more frequently and easily updated. That's sort of how I think I couldn't have said it better myself. >> Just can I add let's go down. No. All right. Sorry. I was just going to add that keeping the appropriate content in the ARS allows for flexibility on the part of the administration. So we aren't trying to dictate things that may need to change over time. >> Yes. Well said. Thank you. >> Any other comments? All right. Miss Mosley, will you please take a roll call? >> Dr. Crawford. Mr. Dibble. Hi, >> Mrs. Delay. >> Hi, >> Mr. Pbert. Hi, >> Mr. Livingston.
096>> Hi, Mr. Miller. >> Hi, Mr. Woodet. >> Hi, >> Mrs. Williams. >> I >> Miss Kowsky Smith, >> I. >> Motion passes 9 to zero. >> Under curriculum, we have one item for approval. This item, the item in this section is as attached or described in the agenda is field trip. Um, do I have a motion for approval? >> So, thank you, Mrs. Wowi Smith and a second. Thank you, Mrs. Hbert. Any discussion? Seeing none, Mrs. Mosley, will you please Miss Mosley, will you please take a roll call vote? >> Dr. Crawford, >> hi. >> Mr. Dibble, >> hi. >> Mr. Delay, >> hi. >> Mr. Hbert, >> hi. >> M. Livingstone. >> Hi, >> Mr. Miller. >> Hi, >> Mrs. Witet. >> Hi, >> Mrs. Williams. >> Hi, >> Miss Wowsky. Smith, >>
097I. >> Motion passes 9 to zero. >> Thank you. Uh for finance and facilities we have for 14 items for approval. All 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? Seeing none, the items for approval are bills paid to vendor December 1st through 31st, 2025, financial statements December 1st through 31st, 2025, treasures report December 1st through 31st, 2025. Budget transfers fiscal year 26 ready tolearn tax equity supplement resolution annual financial report for local audit report for 2425 general fund balance commitment resetting fund balance commitment levels Dr. Tanner Walsh DCIU special programs division access agreement Divine Brothers Inc. Tech Defenders Buyback quote and Easy Peasy LLC Um, do I have a motion for
098approval? >> So move. >> Thank you, Mr. Miller. A second. >> Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Dibble. Um, any discussion? >> New York audit report. >> No findings whatsoever. This is the first time in three years, I believe. And so >> no findings and no findings. So um just wanted to congratulate our our um business office on Thank you. >> All right. Mosley, will you please take a roll call vote? >> Dr. Crawford. >> Hi. >> Mr. Dibble. >> Hi. >> Mr. Delay. >> Hi. >> Miss Hbert. >> Hi. >> Mrs. Livingstone. I >> Mr. Miller. >> I >> Mr. Vet. >> I >> Mrs. Williams. >> I >> Miss Wowski Smith. >> I. >> Motion passes 9 to zero. >> Thank you. And audience recognition. We now have time for items that are not
099on the agenda. We now give the opportunity for public comment for items not on the agenda. The same rules apply here. Instead, for comments on items on the agenda, you have a threeminut time limit. We'll give you a reminder with one minute remaining. This is not the appropriate venue for discussing matters that directly relate to any individual student, whether your child or not, or any concerns about an individual staff member. Is there anyone here who would like to speak tonight about a topic not on the agenda? >> Just point information. Where was the field trip to? I don't know. Click on it. >> Uh, what's that? >> There's a bunch of them. >> Oh, it's all of them. The pools. Okay. >> There's a bunch. >> It's out of state. I thought it was the
100Williamsburg trip. >> No, it's it's not the Williamsburg. I know about it. >> I can follow up with you afterwards. >> Okay, that's >> all right. Um, is there any old business? New business. Thank you. This meeting is officially adjourned.