WSSD Board Meeting 09/13/2021

001foreign all right thank you i would like to start by asking this fagor to take the roll call dr grandi before i begin the roll call i would like to let everyone know that i have the executed oath of office properly administered and subscribed to by kevin henry on august 17 2021 pursuant to sections 315 and 322 of the pennsylvania public school code mr henry has fulfilled the requirements to be seated on the board the executed oath is attached to the minutes of the meeting all right thank you ms figura mr henry mr cutis here mrs lentz here mr sullivan here mrs miss vote mrs walkman here miss wikowski smith present dr grandy here mr berman here dr marseille miss sue darson here dr grandy there are seven voting members present all right thank you

002mr aguero all right so um i want to start this evening by welcoming our student representative uh mr darson welcome and we really appreciate you joining the board as our student representative and i would like to invite you at this time if you'd like to make any comments or make a report the start of every school year is stressful but this year especially there was something for everyone to be nervous about each school had to take extra steps in order to make sure that everyone was safe and comfortable coming back to school all of the schools stressed the importance of coveted safety by providing outdoor seating at lunch making sure people stayed distant and masked and implementing new safety protocols throughout the building and the playground at the elementary schools the schools also made sure

003that students had an enjoyable first week npe started off a day with bubble machines and balloons srs had a back to school picnic and movie night shms teachers greeted students with welcome parties and the high school had the panther greeting students as they came in the student council also gave tours over the summer to the class of 2025 as well as those who are new to the district many 6th and 7th graders at strathaven middle school took part in the rite of passage of learning how to use their lockers for the first time during orientation the positive behavioral interventions and supports or the pbis initiative was launched in the elementary and middle schools as well wes and shms teachers reviewed the expectations of being safe respectful and responsible to create a positive school culture over

004at the high school the student council is starting a mentoring program to help freshmen get the hang of things in terms of fundraisers srs is hosting a pizza night at swarthmore pizza on tuesday september 21st by mentioning srs spirit night swarthmore pizza will donate 15 percent to the home and school association on friday the 10th seniors at the high school held a super successful food truckathon to raise money for after prom teachers are so excited to meet all the parents at back to school nights this coming month wssd started off the school year strong and i can't wait to see what comes next all right thank you for that report and um you know it's just an exciting time of year to welcome all of our students back to school i can speak personally to

005that rite of passage of cracking how to open your locker um that was a feat of accomplishment in my own family so it's amazing how stressful that can somehow be it seems as like how is that like the big thing but somehow every year you're in and you're out it's like can i open my locker turns out they all can um all right well uh i would like to uh turn things over to dr marseille for the superintendent's report thank you dr grande um thank you for student rep for being here that's awesome look forward to engaging in deep conversation with you uh but on a number of things so thank you for uh for coming um so i i thought that i don't know if mr uh russ johnson is here um because we

006were going to have him come and speak with regards to his donation but i don't see but we'll table that uh with respects to um that so um i'd like to get started if my slides are up because oh it's okay about to say i need stronger glasses all right um so you know the first couple of days i think when you try to think about what makes a successful opening day right with all the stressors that you were talking about and the hiccups that often happens with uh with lockers and schedules um parents and guardians who are dropping off their little ones for the first time and not wanting to let go um so i saw more families and more moms and dads not wanting to let go than the students themselves in terms

007of that experience but i uh remember those days uh as though they were yesterday even though cheyenne's in in sixth grade um but when you think about what makes a successful opening day and i think what families want uh and at least i'll speak for myself that you know your your children your child leaves the house happy and you want them to come back in the same state of mind right um though a lot of learning has to happen in between then but that's really what you're thinking about and i think about what are those metrics to determine a successful opening besides the logistical stuff right you got to have bubbles right the first opening day right i mean if you don't have that then that right there united 100 percent right um oh right

008um and you have to have children who are laughing who are smiling um obviously have to have lots of welcome back posters uh uh if it wasn't enough that the music was uh playing in the in the background and i and i say that even though and i shared this in my communication that you'd love to be able to see those beautiful smiles i think the eyes also um give you a glimpse of of the excitement uh across uh the district a thumbs up is extremely important so that's a criteria right there if you get a couple of thumbs up you know you're headed in the right uh uh in the right direction as people are giving thumbs up and they are and they are waving right our staff are extremely happy and obviously you

009top it off with the best day um ever you can't get any better than uh than that um followed by hey listen if you can't get picture with the panthers and that's also not a successful day so we clicked that off uh as well and uh even though the rain came on the first day really couldn't damper the spirits uh with respect to that so um buildings come alive when children are inside them and it's amazing how uh our staff their level of energy just shoots to the moon when um when students are back so we're really excited about that and my first opening besides obviously those logistical tweaks right some of the late buses some students not getting on the right bus including my very own so i worked that right that's fine the

010other family that dropped it that she dropped off could pick her up it's fine don't worry she got back so um those these things happen and and that's okay and i love it i'm trying to get more out of her when i say how was your day besides fine i said that's it fine i said what did you do nothing i said oh great thank you um so it starts with that process so but i know she's having a a great time my wife warned me and said please do not embarrass your daughter i said i'm her father and that's my job all right i have to do that um she tries to stay away so it's really good i just want to share a couple of pictures we're going to put together a video

011montage to kind of celebrate that as well but i wanted to capture that um but um with that though uh i want to pivot um darby something a little bit more serious and we know that because um our students are wearing masks and we are obviously under a mass mandate and we continue to adhere to our health and and safety plan and we need to make sure that we are vigilant in terms of honoring our commitment for five days in-person instruction uh and though uh some may feel as though hey everything's going okay we want to be mindful of uh where we are and uh in the data does tell um that we continue to see um extremely high numbers and we want to be mindful about our our activities not only inside the building

012but outside the building as well that's extremely uh important which really then brought me to wanting to share this with our community and with the board as we're thinking about it and i have to say that i was remiss because this did not come up prior in my conversations and realized i didn't give some direction or some guidance around uh travel and some of the ways in which we have to be extremely careful about that process as i was learning about families who were coming back um the night of uh before we opened from uh from experiences i'm like wait did we kind of share and and put caution to those individuals so we really want to talk about um those who are traveling abroad um those who are traveling domestically um and then what

013does that mean with respect to vaccinated and not vaccinated and there's some pretty simple delineations that is on our website is part of our plan that wants you to be really mindful that if you are vaccinated and you are traveling domestically that you do continue to monitor um for symptoms of of covet and if you are uh uh have those symptoms we really want you to decide on the error of caution uh in terms of that and make sure that uh that that you get tested um if you're traveling internationally um there's also stricter uh guidelines with respect to yes you want to get tested and we want to have that three to five day window um after you uh after your tribal right um and for those um who are uh traveling who are

014unvaccinated as well internationally that want to be mindful in terms of uh what the requirements are um because it doesn't take a lot in order to upset the the current structure and what we don't want to do is begin to play this back and forth seesaw that often we experienced last year with coming in coming out coming in and coming out and we're trying to try to mitigate that but i did want to share that with the community it is on our website uh obviously there are some exemptions to that um travel but if you're uh traveling to and from work out of state then obviously that that that's okay but we wanted to give a a brief update in terms of that in terms of that process i also want to share that we're

015really excited because um you know i've had a lot of questions about vaccination mandates and are we going to mandate to nation for uh for staff and i shared with those who who reached out to me um both via phone and via email um which by the way i worked significantly better with the phone call i am getting adjusted to the volume of emails from this community and um it is astonishing that you pay me so much money to sit in front of my desk and respond to emails right uh that's not i mean i thought penn was preparing me for something different um so i'm gonna try to mitigate that so a phone call works so much better than going through the the email right i'm supposed to be in classrooms walking hallways seeing

016the instructional practice but a phone call is significantly better because i can take it while i'm on the road in terms of that process um so we're really excited around so i did say no we're not mandating uh vaccinations for staff what we are mandating is if you're not vaccinated that you're tested twice a week and our lead nurse deb sweeney who's been absolutely phenomenal um and i have to say that um with all of my colleagues who are watching and who are in the audience i love you guys but i've talked to her more in the short amount of time since i've been here with you guys since july one matter of fact we spent saturday and sunday together uh on the phone as we're navigating through some serious matters but uh nonetheless um

017so our staff currently we have 98 to 99 right um a little less than a dozen that are not vaccinated uh and those individuals are being tested um twice a week um mondays or thursdays or is it is it monday or friday which one is it monday and friday thank you uh in terms of that process um now uh so i'm really excited about those numbers about vaccination what i want to share nets are areas which i think we can improve with our vaccination right and that has a large part to do with our our students who are eligible for for vaccination right so a little difficult to see and i apologize but um you'll have access to the slides and you can go back uh to the video tape but when you when we

018uh when i asked ms sweeney to kind of give me a breakdown of where we are uh in terms of those who are eligible for vaccinations and i'll share that with you briefly that we're really looking at um for our seniors who have reported uh their vaccination status to us 63 of those uh seniors are fully vaccinated however when we get to our lower grades it just keeps progressively getting lower lower and lower so 11th grade only 40 percent of our students in 10th grade 39 and 9 i mean as obvious and you get to the younger age around uh grades seven and six it's single digits uh percentage uh points right and we can understand that but i i was taken aback thinking that i probably would have more high school students nine through

01912 who are vaccinated i know that uh prior to end of this uh beginning of the school year we had a large vaccination uh roll out and a lot of students came out we continue to collect those we love to see um as however we feel about vaccination is one of the most effective right mitigation strategies um that's a family decision that needs to be made but i was looking for a lot higher number in terms of our of our student vaccination but happy that we have really a handful of our staff members who are yet to be vaccinated and that's a really great sign with respect to that and we'll keep um sharing that information with the public and the uh and the board but if we keep i'd love to see those numbers

020who are eligible to go a little bit higher so that when we're able to shift in a very different direction we're able to use that as a indicator for our ability to come back in some sense of of uh of normancy uh if you can um so the next topic in my report that i want to talk about is this idea around um uh committees and i uh in my time here been listening been thinking been reading trying to understand the system the organization how it works how it flows and there's a number of committees that currently exist to support the districts and the board's vision with obviously effective communication and transparency what i want to share with you that there are a number of committees that i am recommending in terms of shifting and

021bringing more consistency to the conversation so really the meat and potatoes of the work of this administration and the board are facilitated through board approved committees that are led by administration that have representatives of the board um who have been assigned to take action on on that particular committee whatever that may be and then bring that forward to the larger board hence the votes that sometimes happen in these particular legislative sessions and have been vetted through those committees they are consistent in terms of their meeting dates right um so just like um the united states post service right through rain sleet or snow um we meet um we have uh our meetings uh posted we meet once a month we welcome the entire community to those committees so it's not a a selected group of

022individuals coming together to have a conversation it is a public meeting in a public forum where individuals are able to ask questions about those particular items on the uh on the agenda um there are and to speak about agenda there's agendas there are powerpoints there are minutes although those are available to the public for review uh for those who are unable to attend those uh sessions are live um so uh a couple of the committees that i am very familiar with and have worked with and wanted to think differently about are the educational affairs committee facilities and finance committee and policy committee i have always shared that if you want to think about all our important committees make significant decisions about the trajectory of the district short and long term um i have my favorites

023though you shouldn't right is that like was only for children yes um so um yeah it's tough question right um i tell cheyenne she's my favorite daughter right she's my only daughter all right um so at affairs because i live and breathe teaching and learning and curriculum and instruction that's my background and i think that a significant amount of the work that the district does is funneled through educational affairs right and as a former director assistant superintendent i led education affairs uh committees the second uh though i encourage everyone to show up right i'm not going to take away from facilities and finance because that's important all right uh you got to learn how to pay the bills and make sure you can't pay the bills policy what governs the way in which we do

024our work the way in which the board in actuality one of their primary roles when you look at it and break it down is you besides hiring and removing the superintendent um right not real movement superintendent um and then you you think about obviously passing the budget that's a high priority for board members um and then you are ensuring the effective implementation of policy and policy tends to drive everything that happens in districts and oftentimes people don't realize that until a policy has been implemented and then they realize it significantly changes the way in which they're thinking or the way in which their child um experiences the educational system so all are extremely important but love policy and i love educational affairs facilities if you have a good infrastructure already you're just making sure that

025you're doing preventative maintenance uh unless we're in a stage where we're doing some major capital improvements and or i'm not sure um building a brand new high school uh if you want to do that or at a indoor pool those major conversations usually take place but um in systems that don't have to rebuild consistently and buildings are up to speed it's really about making sure that the buildings are being managed appropriately and you're thinking long term um and that your your preventive maintenance are in place so these committees um really have an opportunity um which if it will go forward um i can share with you a little bit more um yes right so um i shared a little bit about the role the educational affairs committee and what they do the facilities committee as

026well in terms of looking at infrastructure looking at preventative maintenance making sure that repairs are done thinking about long-term long-term projects and then our finance committee is making sure that um we are being fiscal stewards of taxpayer dollars and uh the way in which we are moving forward and policy is looking um at all aspects of programs that relates to students employees finance property and other areas as as well so those committees especially the first three committees have a september meeting dates we met uh our educational affairs committee was scheduled for september 1st then we had to delay that um for september 9th and there's going to be a presentation tonight that is just a synopsis of that two hour and ten minute conversation that uh that we had but our next meeting on september

02715 is our facilities meeting uh there the agenda is listed uh for your review we're gonna push that out again i know on our website there is a reminder letting the public know uh about that uh about that meeting and then after that um we have immediately after that meeting we have the finance meeting right so seven o'clock the facilities meeting starts immediately after that our finance uh uh meeting takes place we're really gonna and this is a good opportunity for individuals who may not know the way in which schools districts our district create a budget that we're going to walk you through that process remind you where we left off last calendar school year in june review some of some items that uh we want to bring you up to speed with and a

028couple of uh recommendations that we're going to present to you with regards to this wonderful analytical tool that i'm glad that we are going to get that really takes out the guesswork in terms of financial forecasting for us and some additional items which we have not done in a very long time and um is a demographic study which is really going to help us in our strategic planning process so i said earlier there's a series of data points i need to collect that i think is going to inform this community when eventually we sit down and put a five ten year strategic plan into place so we're gonna talk a little bit about a proposal uh that we like to move forward with uh to the board and getting someone in here to do a

029comprehensive demographic study of the of the district so some some really great things happening with respects to that and here are the dates for the educational affairs the facilities in finance policy i'm still working through the way in which and learning the way in which we've managed policy prior to my uh arrival um and i want to meet uh i need a little bit more time to speak to our solicitor and um uh and and figure out ways in which we're gonna move forward i'm anticipating that no later than october we want to have a policy meeting but policy is not just about again a group a small group of individuals in a room and talking about that policy impacts almost every director and every director has to be part of that conversation when we

030are revising uh one more revising policy steway um has worked for me it's been very successful and i want to piggyback on that so um we want to be as transparent as we possibly can and by doing that we want to put dates out in advance we know families are extremely busy and that they want to be able to map out their evening so that they can't be everywhere all times what we wish i could have done and we're going to do that much better because i won't start july 1st already started is that um next year what you can look forward to is um by august we would have published all the agenda topics all the dates for every single committee meeting so when you're looking at your calendar and you're thinking about which

031evening am i going to be out again without without dinner with my family you can prioritize that and you can say this agenda topic is extremely important to me to us and i want to make sure that i come to this policy committee meeting with the caveat um that we told our community members that though it's written things change and it could possibly be uh be pushed back or push uh forward but we want to be able to at least communicate that uh in advance as early as possible so families can work through uh their schedule so once we have the policy dates once i confirmed that with the chairs i didn't want to publish that before i confirmed it um with the with the board the other twos are the other two are confirmed

032uh we will be publishing that and you're constantly going to see messages about please come to this meeting please come to this meeting because that's really where a significant part of the work takes place and i think it just reiterates the board's commitment um to the work around communication and work around uh around transparency so that really concludes my superintendent report excited about um uh dr jones and the conversation we're going to continue uh from our ed affairs a short brief presentation as a reminder about what's on the agenda for tonight that we like the board to take action on with regards to our equity um audit and our curriculum uh audit as well all right thank you dr marseille um is mr johnson in the room oh yeah there we go we wanna that's

033awesome hand it back to you yes yeah welcome thank you um so if you want to take the podium over there this is mr johnson from the foundation for wallingford swarthmore schools just ask my colleague in the back is carol getty she's the chair of our panthers for panels committee this wise doctor dr manchester a project started under dr nooney oh wow okay and over the years we've worked with staff and the board to refine the project and what we're going to do is work with the school district to put solar panels as a demonstration on the panther pit so we've raised over twenty five thousand dollars and tonight we're presenting uh 11 000 directly 11 299 directly to the school board so that they can get started on this project i need someone else

034for a funnel opportunity [Applause] this is an effort by thousands of people making individual donations in the little cookie jar at the pit during sporting events also the uh football fun day and sport more and the spring you know the may day uh and and some larger donors as well so it's really been a community effort to get this far and we thank uh quite a number of the teachers who've been involved with the projects as well so i thank you very much thank you do you want to move a little bit yeah so they're not in front of the background's not my face yeah how about that there you go thank you very much thank you let's bring back memories of those old tv commercials with a big check at the front door um

035all right well thank you again to the all those involved with the foundation and raising that money uh for this project um i wanted to just before we move on to the focus topic just make a brief um board announcement which is actually just a piggyback on what dr marseille was talking about with the committees you know obviously everyone knows we've had some turnover recently on the board so we have some new board members and so i just want to make sure that the public is aware of the members of the board who are designated to serve on those particular committees that were just mentioned so let me just read those off and we'll make sure the website's updated as well but the education committee is kevin henry wendy vogt and jennifer lentz the finance

036committee and the facilities committee will have overlapping membership meaning it's the same members of the board because those meetings will be held in tandem on a monthly basis on the same evening so lawrence cutis matt sullivan kelly wachman and kevin henry our board members on that committee and then the policy committee uh is mary jo wadkowski smith jennifer lentz and kelly walkman on that committee and so again we'll make sure to update that on the website um the board goes through its reorganization process uh the first meeting in december um so that's the time during the annual calendar when some of those committee assignments will be reshuffled so that's just a few months away so people may switch assignments at that time as well so let me hand the baton back to you dr marseille

037do you want to introduce our focus topic yes yes okay yeah um so um as i said earlier in my presentation um we had a two-hour or 20-minute conversation um with uh mapping backwards where we need to be and uh a number of data points that we need in order to inform our work and a number of audits uh that need to take place uh two of those we're going to share with you tonight and that we're proposing the board approve those contracts with those uh vendors to begin that uh work the equity audit uh as soon as possible um and then the curriculum audit in the in the spring which will help us uh in the in between then i'm going to come back to you with regards to a communications audit that we're

038going to facilitate as well along with the demographic study all of that is going to inform eventually the following school year when we put together a steering committee who are going to lead our efforts into a strategic plan with all that information and anyone and everyone who's part of the community will have an opportunity to give input throughout that process so with that normally we don't when we have committees that are so in-depth don't come back and repeat that but i felt i felt the nature of this conversation was extremely important to uh to give the education office 10 or 15 minutes to give high overview of that presentation uh though that presentation is on our website for uh for review so dr jones if you can uh walk us through a couple of those

039uh summary slides we'd appreciate it thank you for that really great introduction dr marseille um i just appraise you i want to give a shout out to you because the last time we saw each other i was driving a school bus and you were in the back with the other chief science officers and we were on our way up to a college to do work together and you guys and instead of just the normal teenage chatter were back there playing intellectual games and i was so impressed with you and myself for driving a school bus which i had not done prior to this so yeah no offense but i'm more impressed with the fact that you were driving a school bus i mean it was a smaller it was a smaller bus but it in

040fact was the school it had the door opening thing feature and all i struggled with that a little bit but yeah it was a good it was a good time i really enjoyed it i'm glad to see you here so tonight i really have a great opportunity before me to speak with you in recap of the two-plus hour meeting that we held last thursday that was rescheduled from the first because unlike the post office in this particular case we actually had to evacuate the building there was no choices so we i wanted to persist dr merced want to persist but you know in in terms of safety um so and we're just going to give a brief overview because these are really two very important topics two very important audits um that we want to

041bring before the school community that we feel an urgency for and that urgency i'm going to share a little bit of what is fueling that urgency with us but again the powerpoint in full will be made available on the district website this is not the full version of that powerpoint so if you were in attendance at that meeting you're going to look at this and say it was truncated and indeed it has been truncated but i was given 10 minutes so here we go i want to start first by talking about a strategic plan dr marseille alluded to and spoke directly about the timeline for a strategic plan strategic plans are what districts use to take all of the vision the data the mission that we see over and over again in these presentations and

042figure out how we are going to enact it how we are going to refine it how we are going to elevate the school district to new platforms national platforms international platforms in order to do that we have to have a set of data points that guide us in that work the strategic plan can't be done without that and so the audits that we have planned are going to be the fuel for that strategic plan or what we keep calling our north star the curriculum audit and the equity audits are the things that would fall within the purview of the curriculum office i will speak about those but once they are complete the communication audit as well then we will start working on our strategic plan and i won't reiterate what dr marseille said because i

043don't want to lose a minute of my 10. so i want to talk a little bit about the power of audits i'm going to read this out loud i know not everybody can see the screen you might be just listening in but it's the power of audits lies in their ability to provide an unbiased in-depth understanding of where we are strong that's an appreciative inquiry model i could talk about for hours where we are strong and where we need to be better as a district this is the notion of continuous improvement there is never an and a notion of we have arrived we're done work is over that's not how school districts work we are in cycles of continuous improvement at all times they are understandings that will lead us toward and through the strategic

044planning process but to talk about an equity audit we must first define equity and there are two places that i want to go to for our initial definitions of equity the first is from dr pedro naguara and i have a little video clip that i want to show you for this if you're able to access that video clip and we're only going to play just a brief i'm willing to give him 30 seconds of my 10 minutes um and i'm hoping that um that you can see why it's powerful enough focus no too much feedback yeah you can't hear it yeah can you just what happens if you just turn the speakers up or they up pull there's too much echo too much echo because it's streaming so we're getting ready it won't be the

045last time we talk about dr paige and the girl from ucla so you'll see it again okay it's really powerful and in fact you could go to youtube and put that in and see it um and so i think it's certainly worth um worth looking into the other definition here comes from a draft of an equity policy for wssd and so i'm going to read that to you as well because i think that in inhabits some of what we are looking into so the wssd school board wants to prioritize the principle of educational equity through the fair and just allocation of resources opportunities and treatment of students each one of these words so powerful treatment of students based upon each individual's students needs the pursuit of educational equity requires the continuous and collaborative effort of

046identifying various aspects of district programs and operations in which consideration of educational equity shall be analyzed we're talking data incorporated we're talking action planning and prioritized which is where our policies come into play the equity audit involves every building every aspect of our educational system i've placed every one of the buildings up there in a picture so you can see that this is not just something that's coming out of central office but it's coming for all of our buildings it's coming from our homes for parent input it's coming from the buildings for student input for teacher input addressing these inequities presents districts not only with the challenge because it will be a challenge but also an opportunity to create a truly truly diverse and inclusive environment for teaching and learning not just something that's on

047books but that is enacted so we don't have a lot of data in this district and we want to have a lot of data we want to be data rich that tells us how we are doing both in the curriculum audit and the equity audit we are seeking this data and when we dig deeper into the data that we do have i have to go back to the 2018-2019 school year looking specifically at the pa future ready index and what that tells us are the scores for pssa in 2019 and for keystones in 2018-19 and when you look at that data on the surface we look like we're doing okay but when you dig deeper into subgroup data you can see that in terms of equity we are not okay by far in fact one

048of the things that we are noticing is that there are disparaging there are disparities that are alarming i'm going to share with you just a few of them because i want and i'm going to read this right off of here because i really want you to get a sense of what we talked about at the educational affairs committee meeting in high school 73.4 of white students take advanced classes that is fantastic we're talking about honors classes we're talking about ap classes 73.4 percent there are only 39.1 of our black students who take any advanced courses in the high school that is an alarming disparity and when we talk about advanced classes these are the classes that are preparing students for college for some top-tier colleges so i'm going to take this story and go a

049little bit further at the middle school in the 2019 pssa 45.7 of our white students scored advanced in math and i know it seems like i'm picking on math but i want to tell a true story when you have 45.7 of our white students scoring advanced on their math test and you look to compare that with our black students only 12 percent of black students are scoring advanced on pssa math in that year of testing advanced on pssa is one of the qualifiers we use for placement in upper level classes it is no wonder that fewer black students are taking our honors and ap courses in the high school it is not the only determinant it's not the only criterion point we used but it is one of them and it's something that sets the

050tone for what students believe in terms of self-efficacy what they can and are able to do advanced on pssa gets down into you and you feel that you're capable of doing it and when our students can't score that they don't see themselves as honor students they don't see themselves as ap students and i'm going to go down one step further in elementary there are 60 percentage points difference in two of our schools and the third would be there but we don't have enough of the counts that we need in order to measure that but for students who met benchmark our white students for that same year in math 84.8 percent met benchmark for our black students only 20.7 met the benchmark there is no wonder that when you look at that trajectory of math we

051do not have students at the high school level taking our honors and ap courses at the rate that our white counterparts are taking this is important data and it tells a story dr martin luther king talked about something called the urgency of now and i wish i could memorize this and maybe one day i will but i want to read it to you because it is important he said we are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today we are confronted with the fierce urgency of now in this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late this is no time for apathy or complacency this is a time for vigorous and positive action we don't want to be too late and for every student where there is

052a gap it's almost already too late we have to ask ourselves do we offer a diverse and inclusive environment for teaching and learning do our policies and practices ensure that we have equitable work and learning environments we have to ask ourselves these questions do we hire enough people of color are our students seeing themselves and our teachers in our administration do our curriculum and instructional practices and policies provide all of the equitable learning environments that they need to we have to ask ourselves these questions if we don't know the answers we need an audit when we looked into audits we looked at three different companies and we looked at how audits should be done equity trends is a data review survey data's are important my voice is one at the microphone right now i get

053this microphone i get the privilege of standing up here and being at this microphone but not everybody has the microphone we want to give the microphone to the folks in the community what are you seeing let's survey let's have focus groups we want to do some policy analysis we want to do culturally responsive curriculum pedagogy and leadership training this is the important stuff we also want to disrupt the deficit views of community we want to conduct initial community inquiry and shared experiences we want to develop community leadership teams that's part of what the strategic planning process is about and we want to collect equity asset based community data for action when we looked at three different companies one emerged as the best for wellingford swarthmore school district they are known as hanover research and they

054do a significant amount of work in equity research and equity audits for school districts we will be lucky to have them we are looking at a fall 2021 inquiry that will be multifaceted in the audit the components of this are quantitative and qualitative data a clicker that works that's okay i'll go from here in this there will be surveys there will be focus group interviews we will have data analysis the timeline for this is that by december and january at the latest we will have what they call an equity score card this is a diagnostic of data that tells us where we are as a district a report that will be given to the school board in the hanover research membership we also get a dedicated research advisor tailored research requests and beyond an equity

055audit we are able to use them for other requests as well for inquiry they have an online research library access that is continually updating as people do continuous research in these areas we have data lab access and we get weekly weekly and monthly syndicated updates curated specifically for our needs the cost for this is forty eight thousand five hundred dollars and again is a year-long subscription membership for hanover research this is a company that has done this work this is a company that will come in and guide us as a team and a community in this work and we have a timeline of the fall of 2021. that is a coup in and of itself because we are already in september they are poised they are ready to go this is the group we feel

056very confident in that we've put together a recommendation and it goes before the board tonight i'm going to quickly shift i know i'm coming to the end of my time but i want to talk a bit about the curriculum audit when we talk about curriculum it is not just the textbook that your child is bringing home it is not the worksheets it is not the teacher at the front of the room talking that's not what curriculum is we can write that curriculum we can design it to adhere to standards we can make sure that teachers are doing the best of the instruction the best of the curriculum but what we really have to evaluate is what is written and what we actually teach and then that final step which says what are we actually assessing

057what are we measuring in terms of student progress and all of those have to align if they do not align we don't have the quality control that we need to be sure that all of our students are getting the best teaching and learning experience after doing a search over three different companies we've chosen the curriculum management solutions incorporated or cmsi as the recommended company they are able to do a spring 2022 inquiry for us and it too will be a multifaceted audit the way this looks is that in the fall we would have an equity audit with a report card that goes out to the school board for that equity work then hanover will continue to help us unpack that equity score card while cmsi is coming in and beginning the work of the curriculum

058audit it is not that we will drop equity and move to the curriculum audit it will continue with the equity audit unpack as we move into doing the curriculum on it when both are completed we will have everything we need we will begin to unpack that and it will start to fuel our work for the strategic plan included in these audits are things like coverage and quality of schools curriculums programs these instructional guides how great are they are we able to follow them are we implementing them with effectiveness what are their school board policies and planning consistency and equity of programs i'm going to highlight that one specifically one of the things that we liked most about cmsi is that they too do an equity piece in their audit that gives us two data points

059about equity because equity and curriculum instruction and assessment practices is also where equity lives and breathes we have to make sure that that is where we get to see equitable practices so that students have similar experiences and opportunities the specifics of the audit are very similar to what we see for hanover research documentation evaluation and interviews surveys and for cmsi a unique piece of this something that we really did love is that they come to us and go into classrooms and see our curriculum enacted in the classroom there are not many companies that are doing that cmsi is one and cmsi is one where they were not available for the fall they are only available for the spring and we need to jump on getting this group in they do curriculum audits across the nation

060the timeline for that is march through may they will look at vision and control curriculum and direction consistency and equity and assessment and feedback they will also look at productivity are we getting the bang for our buck and the cost for this is forty three thousand five hundred dollars when we look at how do we fund both of these equity audits we are looking to esser and arp funding the allowable use of these funds i've underlined here at the bottom we are looking at addressing the needs of students from low-income families children with disabilities english learners racial and ethnic minorities students experiencing homelessness and foster care youth that's where our equity piece of it comes in but also things like planning and implementing activities for summer learning which we did with our summer programs and

061also addressing learning loss and this is when i want to talk for just whatever my last two minutes are about learning loss last year and and in the spring before we were going through a pandemic and we still are going through that pandemic there is no doubt that there has been learning loss for our students we are a strong district district with very talented teachers and very talented students but there are inequitable experiences not all of our students excelled through the pandemic but we don't want to guess who that was we don't want to guess what we could do to make it better a curriculum audit will tell us what we need to know so that we don't throw money at guesses instead we bring in programs and interventions that we know will target what

062the data tells us we need to target there are other districts in delaware county that are looking at their programs that are looking at old data saying well we think this is what we need to do we're pausing and making sure we know exactly what we need to do that's the power of an audit at this time because i know my time is up um i have time left for questions from the school board all right thank you dr jones uh do you have any questions from board members go ahead now just one quick question thank you dr citrillo jones uh can you walk me through what the site visits by curriculum management solutions are going to look like and in particular how we make sure they're not too disruptive to our learning process yes

063and i think it's a really good question it will it will depend on the number of people they bring for a team i think it will be rolled out over several weeks the goal is to have them visit classrooms similar to how administration visits classrooms but without that feeling that it's going to be a supervisory evaluation of course what they're going to be looking for is once they see a curriculum document and it suggests this is what will be taught and this is how it will be taught to go in and see if that teaching and learning is happening in that same way if it is not there are many reasons why that could be the case but they're looking for patterns across multiple classrooms i think the disruption idea i have to push back

064on a little bit because there is in the spirit of continuous improvement the idea of working collaborate collaboratively and with a coaching mindset when we as administrators go into the classrooms um we are always asking teachers to be self-reflective to think about their practices and because this audit goes beyond just the instruction and the curriculum to policies to that govern teaching and learning right and to um things like attendance and discipline and that sort of stuff these audits are going to give a really really big full picture and so going in and seeing it is a much more authentic way of doing it and i'd say in the past five six years more and more administration has been going in we've introduced walkthroughs which 10 years ago we were not doing was one formal observation

065but walkthroughs have become really a part of what we do so teachers are getting accustomed to having people in their classrooms um it will never be a gotchu there's not going to be uh somebody just popped in we don't know who this person is so there will be some some advanced warning for that as well great thank you sure questions kevin sorry dr jones i have a couple questions sure um they're going to be the exact same questions i asked on wednesday so you'll recognize these and i do it for the benefit of those who weren't there on wednesday or that are here or watching from home um but i just wanted i wanted to reiterate this because i know a lot of people in the community will ask this because so i wanted them

066to be clear what you just said about the cost so that we we have received and you'll confirm whether or not i'm wrong or right we have the district has received funds from the federal government and we are going to use some of those funds to reimburse ourselves for these two programs is that correct that is correct yes the federal government gives us the funds and you could see by the allowable use um slide there that they fall right in line thank you and then you said uh you really you really were impressed out of the three companies you were impressed with hanover research um and they're gonna they're gonna do an audit they're gonna come to us with a lot of data that we can are we going to be we being the district

067are we are we going to have that data to try to figure out what to do with it ourselves or will they make recommendations on hey these are our observations and recommendations based on this data yes it's the latter so they won't dump a bunch of data on us and give us a buy wave and a good luck it's they are really here to help us unpack it they're here to give recommendations on what we should be doing about it um and that's part of what that 12-month membership is for is so and and that that dedicated researcher that's part of what that person's job will be is to work with us then because the data is only as good as when we know what to do with it right so as experts working with

068lots and lots of districts i mean over 700 districts that have research has done this with they know precisely what next steps there are thank you and i had one last question an easy one um you mentioned survey data and i thought this was particularly i thought on wednesday a lot of us were like to hear the answer this question you mentioned the the stakeholders that the surveys would involve um and and if i'm correct you said they would you think they'll involve not just uh teachers and and administration but also uh parents and students is that right is there any stakeholders i'm missing or is that correct they would also be included they will definitely be included yes um and i think student voice is a really important and impactful one um both for

069curriculum and for equity because i think all of the teaching and learning that we talk about as grown-ups sitting in this room and then some students are in this room sorry situation um in the end their experiences matter the most um and so that student voice is going to be absolutely paramount thank you that's all the questions i have seen any other questions jen yeah go ahead dr cinderelly jones um two questions that are related for the equity audit when hanover does the focus groups do you know if they're going to be looking for volunteers to comprise those focus groups or if they're going to be reaching out into our community um i guess in an attempt to get a broader larger context simply because sometimes i think we know that and it's great people

070that step forward with information but sometimes the the bigger picture and some very rich information can lie with people that are are less willing to to step forward so do you know how they're going to or if they're going to try to reach our broader community or that it will be more of a volunteer type focus group my now not having worked with them and done this with them my hope is that there will they will strive for a cross-section of participants um and i'm not sure of their methodology but i don't think it's just going to be whoever raised their hand we call on i mean teaching 101 says don't do that so i can't imagine right um dr marseille i know that you've done work with them before i don't know if you're

071turning your microphone on for that but one of the things when we work with hanover research is to make sure that we call us a diverse perspective right and so that might mean that we have to cold call some people that if we don't see a group that's being represented to do that um i'll work with hanover research to make sure that cross-section happens okay thank you any other questions all right um i'll just add quick commentary you know i said some things the other night at our committee meeting but i just want to echo that i think this strategic planning for the district overall is overdue and i think it's incredibly important that we bring a lot of objective information to that process and so i'm very excited to see this work go forward

072this academic year and move forward in a swift fashion so that we can undertake that longer range planning that dr marseille discussed because it has been too long for the district and you know we do say that we want to be the best and we can't just tell ourselves that we have to actually measure how we're doing and i think dr jones what you said continuous improvement and and that's going to be incredibly important to bring data to that conversation so i look forward to this process as well as what comes after that in terms of the longer range strategic planning for the district thank you all right um so that takes us to our time for audience recognition uh for items that are for action on the agenda this evening this is a time

073again just for items on the agenda it is a time for district residents and taxpayers to speak to the board about an issue that is before the board it is a time for us to listen and hear perspectives and experiences from our community while we can't necessarily answer questions at the meeting there's always an opportunity to follow up after meetings if there is a specific question for the district as i mentioned at the last meeting we do want to continue to make sure we give as many people as possible a chance to be heard and so um we do have a three-minute time limit for comments and to try to communicate um to our speakers because i know it's hard to keep track of time when you're speaking um we'll try to miss fagor can

074we still give like a one minute warning okay um so we'll let you know when you have one minute remaining so that's uh more clear um and then just in general as i mentioned at the last meeting um just ask that members of the audience um you know try to refrain from responding directly to our speakers it's the speakers are here to talk to the board and give us a chance to listen so uh is there anyone who would like to speak tonight about a topic on the agenda so we'll start here and then i'll come to you next okay and just as a reminder just start with your name and the name of your street for your home address hi i'm jayatri das from whittier place in swarthmore and i'm here to speak in

075support of the equity audit um and i want to first give dr marseille a shout out for his recent eloquence in speaking about his vision um for the district in this regard in the swarthmorian interview but this is particularly important to me as an educator in in science education these types of audits are essential for recognizing the systemic issues and inequities that are embedded in our schools and educational systems particularly with respect to how they affect minoritized community members with respect to race ethnicity religion gender sexual orientation and ability i thank dr jones for sharing some of the data around these inequities certainly they go beyond just achievement we also see them in communication and culture as well as disciplinary practices so it's it's i think it's really valuable to have this wide-ranging audit in

076my own experience some of the some of the trickle-down effects that i've seen from the lack of the lack of an equity audit is in the lack of communications and dealing with an incident of hate speech in my children's online class last year the persistent advocacy that we've needed to do to to meet their individual needs and a curriculum that only reactively acknowledges non-dominant cultures like my family's own and these i think are indicative of where the lack of systems contribute to maintaining the status quo that favors those who are already privileged i'm really glad to see that i looked up hanover research before this meeting and i was glad to see that they have explicit expertise in dei issues and audits specifically applied to k-12 education i do want to thank the discussion that

077everyone for the discussion that happened just now because we know that methodologies of data collection can have embedded human bias and certainly wssd policies and practices may have blind spots so i'm glad to hear that there are plans to involve community voices and i hope that we can be intentional both about outreach to those who have felt that the district has been unresponsive in the past um as well as being intentional in asking that the hanover team brings a diversity of perspectives to this work so i'll close by just saying that i'm really glad that this audit is the one that comes first um and that all of you are looking to see how this the results of this audit then inform all the future work for the strategic plan thank you thank you uh

078please just as a reminder name and uh the street that you live on everyone hear me yes okay good evening school board i'm robert cristaldi putnam boulevard in wallingford i'm a senior at strathaven high school i come before you to urge the appointment of amy drum caruso to the board i know she's the only candidate in consideration tonight but i believe what i have to say is important regarding this amy caruso is more than qualified to serve she knows the district in and out she's lived here for 10 years and she attends all the meetings and has been an active participant in the community for the better part of a decade she clearly has the widespread support of many in the district she scored first place in the republican primary in may and even defeated

079the incumbent in that primary she's volunteered many times over the last several years at various different roles at wallingford elementary school strathaven middle school and strathaven high school i live in region one if i was an eligible voter she would have my vote she's an open-minded caring and understanding person she sees the importance of keeping our schools open during the pandemic mental health of students education and many many other things she will continue to carry these traits on the duration for her duration of her time on the board i know she will fight her heart out on all of these issues she does not support recent tax increases and yet she will run our district with the fiscal responsibility it so desperately needs right now it takes no genius to see our community is very

080divided i've lost friends because of disagreements we've had over coven 19 mitigation strategies we should employ in the district our community is fractured so fractured and the board is supposed to lead the community the most important thing a new school board member can do is unite we need a school board member he can bring our people together from across political ideological racial scientific socio-economic divides i have no doubt amy caruso will lead the way to do this often i'm the only person in this meeting in this room at these meetings who's currently enrolled in the district there's me and there's apresia and think about it everyone else could come but they choose not to or they're unaware i know amy caruso will do her best to bring more parents and students into the decision-making process

081thank you and the board you'd be so lucky to have amy from caruso join it all right thank you is there anyone else who would like to speak about an item on the agenda uh please and just as a reminder name and the street that you live on hi uh roberto riccio and 519 rutgers avenue and i i had a big thing here to read but mostly i think everything i want to speak about the audit uh equity audit which has been a long time coming and to thank you very much for hoping to push this through um i just wanted to add in addition to what jayatria said i mean there have been several incidents that happened in this whole time that i've been in the district and my children have gone to school

082and we sort of start and stop and try to address these issues for so many children that are been marginalized not only uh you know race sexual orientation and they've been here to speak to us too so i'm really glad that we're taking this seriously and we will hopefully get input from students and as well as as mrs len said try to really reach out to those communities that aren't here and and many of them are not here for a good reason because they haven't really been heard in the past and and i'm hoping that this sounds like a really good way to you know try to bring people in um i just wanted to say one one other small thing is that i know the communications plan comes last but if there could be

083some consideration on how we go about you know communicating this equity or audit and try to bring in as many people as we can and be as open and transparent as possible i think that would uh really help i know there's not much time but if additional meetings might be held or a really good outreach in order for people to understand specifically what hanover is doing i think that would be really helpful and just maybe even hearing from the school that this is a priority and we're going through with it may help to bring some of those people who have kind of shied away from this because they haven't seen change to maybe participate more and and not only i think this not only helps all of our students who are marginalized or um it's

084for all of us you know i i think we fail to realize that that it's for our white students as well i guess we will not be able to solve any of our problems if there's not an understanding of how everyone's impacted by all the issues so i really thank you all i know this is uh it's been a long time coming and i really appreciate if you can all support this equity audit thank you all right thank you uh anyone else like to make a comment uh please so i'm sorry i'll say it each time just remember to state your name and the street that you live on thank you christine doley uh you said street as well uh just a street name okay haverford place in swarthmore uh so i think the prospect

085of these audits is really exciting as well and i just wanted to offer two thoughts after having had time to process what was presented both last week on thursday at the committee meeting and also this evening so our mission statement includes our commitment to assuring the academic achievement and personal growth of all students much of the data that has been presented thus far relates to academic achievement data regarding personal growth is admittedly more difficult to quantify so i look forward to the qualitative research that hanover has described and secondly as as was also discussed last week inequities are seen across race and socioeconomic status and we already have the data to to bear this out um although mention of students who identify with other marginalized groups including but not limited limited to gender diverse was

086not included i'm also hopeful that this audit will allow space for those voices to be heard as well thank you anyone else who would like to comment about an item on the agenda sure so just start with name and the street that you live on uh justin murray and on rutgers i just want to say a few things i i won't take very much time one is i'm against the uh equity audit i think if you can't hire based on someone's uh qualifications then what are you doing i understand some of the things that you're saying but i think that in the end if you're going to hire based on oh we need to fill this cavity and fill that gap it's not an equal opportunity in employer the next thing i want to say

087is that um i got a chance to speak with some of our representatives not here in this room this this last week or so and i got the feedback now i'm saying this because it was mentioned in the first part of this meeting was that there's has been no adverse affections or no adverse reactions and no deaths to the uh uh kobe shot and that's just not true um so if you all would just take a look at the bears reporting system and take a look at how many people have been affected by the shot the types of adverse things that have happened to them not including deaths there's been over 675 000 adverse events re reported just for the kobe shot fourteen thousand deaths fourteen thousand five hundred deaths um it's very very high

088and so when you talk about oh neither we need all get these shots i think it needs to be talked about who's at risk of covid what category of people should get this type of shot and there are also other uh therapeutics out there um that can help them but their kids don't need to get the shot the risk for them the adverse the adverse events that the kids get far outweigh what kovac does to them so i think we need to be careful because we have no informed consent of the kovid shot there is none um so you don't have a choice to really say to make an informed decision is this safe for me or is it not safe for me because the data is not out it's not done yet the clinical

089trials aren't getting done until 2023 and the data that is out there right now is not publicly available the raw data is not so anyway the point is i just want to ask you to um take some time looking on the internet see what you can find there are adverse events happening to our kids so when you push it the shot be careful what you're asking for because there are a lot of people getting injured from these shots and you know look look now first it was one then it's two now it's three uh how how many more do you need to have before before you can you know walk out your door and go to the store so and then to be uh tested twice a week sounds pretty fascist all right uh thank

090you i'll just remind members of the audience if you have a comment for something that's not on the agenda just hold that to a later time period any other comments for items on the agenda yeah please name and the street that you live on hey i'm i'm bill foster i live on strathaven and swarthmore um thanks so much for uh allowing us to speak here um so the uh you know i wasn't going to speak but regarding the equity audit that the issues are it's definitely worth looking at it's it's such a complex issue we all know this you know for instance when it comes to hiring your community you usually hire from within your community and so you may want more diverse staff and you may have the exact same standards and you say

091you know what i'm going to go to howard i'm going to interview at howard i'm going to get a different kind of staff that is just as qualified but you face so many difficulties getting people to want to move to a community that may be strange to them where there's not the infrastructure that they're used to so it's not easy it's never been easy um this summer there's a lot of magic involved in the process this summer my son was assigned some summer reading outliers by gladwell he didn't read it which is interesting because the whole book is about getting opportunities by investing your time and having access his sister read it and his mother and i'd read it years ago but in that book we learned that access matters and there's all kinds of

092strange magical barriers that happen with access i was talking with my mother who was a public school teacher for decades and she was describing to me what parent teacher night is like and how often the ap classes would be full of parents but then some of the english classes that were less advanced she's alone in the room it's not you know i don't know why the people weren't there but it's not great maybe they weren't comfortable and she would describe people in a room parents with the guidance counselor the principal the teacher and feeling so nervous and maybe because they're thinking back to what school was like for them there's lots of barriers so hopefully an equity audit will cast some light it's not easy but it's worth doing thank you uh any other comments

093for items on the agenda this evening okay i want to thank everyone uh for their comments uh with the board this evening so that'll take us to our first item for action which is approval of the august 16th uh business meeting minutes and i so moved do we have a second second thank you kelly um any discussion okay miss figure can you please take a roll call vote mr henry mr cutis hi mrs lentz hi mr sullivan all right mrs walkman aye ms witkowski smith aye dr grandy aye the motion passes seven to zero all right thank you miss figora that takes us to personnel there are ten items for action are there any on the list that anyone on the board would like to separate from the rest okay uh so first we have

094approval of five resignations as listed in the agenda then um given the time of year we have a lot of appointments so let me read those there's 21 appointments so jocelyn smith the school counselor at the high school david velardi autistic support teacher at the high school brooke hostrander family consumer sciences teacher at the high school and a building substitute phyllis williams a spanish teacher at the middle school carly [Music] today hopefully i pronounce that this is the part of the job i dread where i mispronounce people's names so i apologize if i if i mispronounce your name uh a long-term substitute teacher at west krista sudall a long-term substitute at west cassandra karcher a long-term substitute at srs alyssa pine a long-term substitute at npe in west sharon o'hanlon a long-term substitute math teacher

095at the high school carey ward long-term substitute ela teacher at the high school jessica protesto a technology education teacher at the high school molly reinart a long-term sub at west lisa fariola a long-term substitute nurse for the district shayna rush instructional support at the middle school paula govinici technology support specialist for the middle school gabrielle neri instructional support at srs ellen bernard instructional support at west joanne bucci instructional supported npe destiny smith instructional support at west sheri mulligan part-time instructional support lunch monitor at npe and rachel heslep part-time instructional support lunch monitor at srs then we have the approval of four leaves of absence as listed in the agenda we have the approval of four changes of assignments as listed in the agenda approval of three salary status changes is listed in the agenda we

096have the acknowledgement of our 13 teachers that are eligible for tenure effective august 30th 2021 as listed in the agenda we have approval of appointments to the 2021 2022 fall athletic supplementals as listed in the agenda we have approval of appointments to the 2022 curriculum supplementals as listed in the agenda we have approval of appointments to the 2021-2022 activity supplementals as listed in the agenda and finally approval of the appointment of mark liveships as the accompanist at the high school for the 2021-2022 school year at the rate of 30 per hour not to exceed 324 total hours um all items in the section are as attached or described in the agenda do i have a motion is that you jen oh thank you jen uh do we have a second a second and then ask

097the first question sure go ahead matt so in section g i apologize i didn't notice this when reviewing the draft agenda but the first employee listed there says no longer coaching i'm not sure exactly what were and i'm sorry i did not hear the question okay sorry yeah the first when you go to section g the first line there is the ninth grade head soccer coach and when you get to the far right column it says no longer coaching so we're removing that okay [Music] okay thank you mr abbott any other questions i get a quick question discussion uh probably for dr uh dr merced i see these uh teachers eligible for tenure is that something we should celebrate yes i see some of these teachers i know them these are great teachers and this

098is a this is a good thing yeah um it means that they have gone through their courage on state statute and have received satisfactory uh evaluation during their time there and um are awarded the 10-year status so that that is a good thing yes sorry i didn't want to gloss over it without recognition i recognized some of these names and i'm like oh these are great teachers i'm glad i'm hoping after my five years um a probationary period i get tenured to put no pressure on this boy okay it's been stated yeah follow up on youtube um any other discussion or questions okay uh all right mr gore can you please take a roll call vote mr cutis aye mrs lentz aye mr sullivan aye mrs walkman aye ms witkowski smith hi mr henry aye

099dr granty aye dr grandy the personnel items pass seven to zero all right thank you mr goris that takes us to curriculum we have five items for action in curriculum are there any on the list anyone would like to separate from the rest okay uh so we have approval of 2020 2021 related services provider contracts as stipulated we have approval of 2021 esy related services provided contracts as stipulated approval of related services provider contracts is stipulated approval of tuition contracts for 2021 extended school year is stipulated and approval of an educational services agreement as listed in the agenda under item e again these items are as attached or described in the agenda do i have a motion thanks kelly uh do we have a second second thanks mary jo any discussion okay miss figora can

100you please take a roll call vote mrs lentz hi mr sullivan hi mrs walkman aye ms bukowski smith hi mr henry hi mr cutis aye dr grandi hi motion's passed seven to zero all right thank you miss figura takes us to finance we have four items in finance are there any on the list anyone would like to separate from the rest just uh i just wanted to make a quick note because dr marseille answered my question earlier so i thought i'd bring it out for the benefit of everybody we have removal of obsolete musical equipment on there and i asked the question why would we have that on there and i thought dr merced your answer was pretty good so if you'd give that again yeah let's hold that for discussion until we have the

101motions on it i remember what i said that was very that was very good you're plenty of time now no worries uh so first we have approval of a renewal of an agreement with qualtrics and their red pepper software to support data analytics second is the approval of removal of obsolete musical equipment from the high school third is the approval of a research services agreement with hanover research conduct and support and equity audit for the 2021-2022 school year at a cost of 48 500 pending solicitor review and then lastly we have approval of a contractual services agreement with curriculum management solutions incorporated to conduct an audit of the quality of district curriculum and instruction and related curriculum management processes and grades k to 12 at a cost of 43 500 uh pending solicitor review these

102last two items are of course what we spent the focus time focus topic uh discussing this evening um all items in the section are is attached or described in the agenda do i have a motion some thanks jen uh do we have a second second thanks matt all right any discussion you're on oh i could save you i know i could say i asked why would we have removal of obsolete musical equipment on our agenda dr marseille wisely said because this this equipment was originally purchased years ago with taxpayer money and it's if we're going to dispose of it we should also be cognizant of taxpayer money and you know like you said if there's a if there's someone loading a truck out back you don't run up there and say oh my lord they're

103stealing all of our musical equipment so i thought that was just an interesting note for people to know i did not know that yes all right uh any other go ahead matt just one quick question we've covered three of the four items here in discussion tonight but can we get a quick summary of what we get for our twelve thousand dollars for qualtrics do you want to take that doctor marseille uh call trick's a system we bought last calendar school year um it is an analytical tool um used by districts they have eight suites in that package the district bought that uh package and only used one out of the eight programs that are eligible for that the only package we use for qualtrics was the screening monitoring tool we had last calendar year however

104they have data analytics they have survey branding they have website design all of those observations all those are webbed into the entire suite package so we're renewing that with the intention of using the other platforms any other discussion or questions okay mr gore can you please take a roll call vote mr sullivan aye [Music] mrs walkman aye ms wikowski smith aye mr henry hi mr cutis aye mrs lentz aye dr grandy hi the finance items passed seven to zero all right thank you ms fagora uh so next we come to our other section uh which has um our item for filling the vacancy on the school board following chapin samino's move out of the district and needing to resign her seat early as a reminder this term that we're appointing to this evening um ends

105at i guess the first december 5th right that's the first meeting in december um so the appointment to this that we're making this evening goes until then miss cimino's term expired in 2023 uh and thus um the serving of the remainder of that term will be filled by a special election on the ballot um this november so i think i've got that all described correctly for the for the sake of the community um we do have one candidate this evening that has indicated interest in this position so we'll follow the process that we've used uh in the past and give our candidate a few minutes to introduce herself and then uh some brief q a and then move to a vote um so ms caruso do you want to come to the podium and then

106i know i asked you recently but i need to ask again and i always mean to write this list down so let me see mr berman we'll make sure i get it right so this career so you are 18 years old you've lived in the district for the last year you've lived you now live in the region to which you are intending to fill the the position and you do not have any of this the disqualifying other position you don't currently serve in one of the disqualifying other local positions that is correct very good thank you thank you mr berman go ahead that's chris thank you um dr grandi uh dr marseille members of the board um very excited to be here this evening i'm no stranger to this room and see these meetings you

107know me you know my background you know my passion for the wallingford swarthmore school district so i will be brief um i've always been an active participant engaged in the community and the school district you have my resume attached with a listing of all of my volunteer leadership positions here in the district um it's been a joy and a pleasure to be part of this district and i would uh i would love to join you on the board at the table i'm committed and i have worked tirelessly for years with pto and home and school associations working with multiple superintendents and interims principals teachers staff administrators parents and community members i would continue to do so as a board member and continue to listen and uh to may help make this a a great district

108and continue in the community so i will leave it at that thank you all right thank you ms caruso so i'll ask board members if they have any questions i do have one just quick logistical question yes um will you be running for the duration of this seat on in the november election yes yes okay all right thank you that is correct okay um anyone have any questions for ms caruso you know okay please hi amy hi kevin um a couple couple quick questions for you sure um cause you and i've had a number of conversations about running for school board so what new or unique perspective do you think you can bring to the board in our district um thank you i've been involved in so many different activities that i think i can

109look at issues from a parent's point of view a community member's point of view a parent or guardian's point of view teachers and administrators i really feel like i have a broad view of issues um and working in home and school we really did get to work with all different types of students and teachers including marginalized students or those in need so it wasn't just um the highest academic level but it was really everybody and i think that's something that um is not always obvious when you work with a home in school and pto so you really see the broad scope thank you another question for you what do you think currently is the most pressing issue facing the board of the district and what idea do you have or ideas would you have to

110kind of address them i think a lot of them have been addressed this evening and in in recent meetings i think communications and transparency are paramount um i had a one-on-one meeting with dr marseille in july and i conveyed to him my experiences as a community member attending committee meetings um that it was difficult to find out when the meetings were being held when to to be able to participate and that some of the items that were coming out of committee were not transparent or communicated well and and so i really really happy to see those um issues coming forward and um i think the nice thing about some of these audits and the strategic plan is that we can direct our energy in the right place instead of reacting [Music] sure any other questions

111all right oh you do have one more sorry i didn't want to be rude okay so last question i swear so sure i swear last question from me um well i think i mean amy i'll i'll support amy in this in this i think it's only fair that we ask questions i i myself hoped to get more questions when we were up here so i think that uh it's okay right i mean if i'm the only one that's all right but the last question for me um at the health and safety meeting a couple of months ago please correct me if i get this wrong because i don't want to misquote you um you mentioned we were talking about universal masking and the board was voting on masking and what what what what to do

112i think that you said at the end that you thought masking was correct if i'm wrong the parents parent's choice so i just wanted to ask you what you how you stood on kind of the universal masking now and what your opinion was about that if that's how you still if i got that right um so there were parts of the plan that i felt were not fleshed out completely enough at this point i support any guidelines by any agencies that that would require masking if that's the mandate and that's the requirement i would i would support that anything we can do to keep our children in school full-time and to minimize the risk i absolutely 100 percent support thank you that's that's it for me there i'm microphone any other questions okay thank you

113ms caruso thank you okay so that takes us uh to our roll call vote um [Music] to fill this vacancy again this is uh until december 5th and then the remainder of the term will be filled through the november special election uh miss figura can you take a roll call or i guess i should invite if there's any discussion before we go to a vote you can let me pause on that for a second okay sorry miss figora mrs walkman amy caruso is it do we say i or amy person i miss lukowski smith hi mr henry hi mr cutis hi mrs lentz hi mr sullivan aye dr grandy hi amy caruso received seven votes from the board she needed five majority votes congratulations congratulations miss caruso um i'll let people clap i said don't

114respond earlier to public comment but it's not public conference um and again i just want to welcome you and again thank you for your willingness to serve i've said this at each of these occasions that you know our schools are really the the core and foundation of our community and so i applaud everyone who's ever willing to come forward and serve in this role and and deeply appreciate that and certainly look forward to collaborating with you ms caruso and the rest of our board um which i've uh is a group i've deeply valued working with um i'm also going to say right now that no one else can move so i think we've had enough people decide to change their residence in the last year so um i am hopeful that this is the last

115for for a while of going through this process but i'm excited certainly about this school year i'm excited about working with dr marseille and certainly all of you as the group of directors for this school district so that takes us to uh our time for audience recognition now for items that are not on the agenda this evening um i won't repeat everything i said earlier but ask if anyone has a comment for something not on the agenda sure go ahead i will repeat the reminder day state your name and the street that you live on and if you notice dr marseille stopped asking for the street name yes yeah i liked it okay that's a different conversation yeah [Music] and swarthmore um my dream is like if i could just get uh someone who is

116a science communicator to talk after me we'll see i want to talk there's so many things when you come to a school board there's so many issues that are worth pursuing in so little time so for instance i would love to to talk about getting map testing to be used for sixth grade math tracking i would love to talk about getting a review of the gifted programs or getting the school board to really hang out with the school code and then look at its policies and see you know why they may be different and and look at other school boards policies but honestly from a scientific perspective i think the most important thing sadly is that we should really be looking at what can we do as a district on climate change and it's so

117hard to focus on because it's so tiny our inputs so for instance in my house about if you look at all of the electricity i use and add it up for a whole year it's like a tenth of my property taxes or a tenth of my health care and it's the same for school districts so when you look at your personnel budget the big items and then you look at the things that are making co2 the buses the fuel the electricity it's this minuscule part of your budget that's so hard to pay attention to and yet there are things that you can do whether it's um i mean and they're all in facilities right or in transportation there are things you can do and because our inputs and our budgets are so small and because

118our input to the world problem is so small for instance united states it's like 14 of the world's co2 release pennsylvania is four percent of that and then here we are in this tiny little district what's it matter what we do so it's really a question an issue where leadership matters so when you're a school district and you do something first thing you do is you look and say is any other school district doing this that's where a district like wallingford could make such a difference by showing some leadership so for instance um we had panthers for panels tonight but look how long that took we really need to do better than that and even though the buzzer is about to go off i just want to say there's so many examples of incredible leadership

119in pennsylvania historically you can look at independence hall and think about the bill of rights and the bill of rights was modeled over the pre-existing after the pre-existing pennsylvania constitution we really had a contribution from right here and then i'm almost done oddly enough the very first incredible comprehensive paper on global warming in 1896 which was written by a guy who went on to get a nobel laureate uh nobel prize wrote this paper in 1896 and he used the basis for his paper was data that was collected by a guy named langley who was leading the astronomy observatory in the allegheny um the allegheny observatory in pittsburgh can i just ask you to wrap up sorry so the very first most pivotal paper in global warming came out of pennsylvania so we need to show

120some leadership thank you all right thank you any other comments for items not on the agenda this evening all right uh so oh sorry go ahead i don't know if this works like the senate judiciary hearings but if i could yield back some time for mr foster i enjoyed what you had to say thank you for saying it i'd like to welcome dr marseille to the board my name is todd stryan i live on riverview road in swarthmore and i want to congratulate the board for really an entirely new attitude uh we are in a very different time uh after the last year and a half and it's great dr jones that you recognize that this has been a very difficult period for a lot of families in the district and also the increased awareness

121of the inequities of what's happened during the pandemic the need to collect data and to follow that data where it leads i think are wonderful new initiatives and i commend the board for taking them so thank you all all right thank you all right if there's no other comments uh we will again i'd like to thank everyone uh who commented this evening uh and and shared their thoughts and concerns the next section is on board reports and specifically uh reports from district committees or out of district roles i believe we have a brief report uh which will probably reiterate some of what dr jones uh shared earlier but from our educational affairs committee last week um mr henry were you going to take that one or miss lance thank you mr henry i was i

122was told you're making a report so okay that's not a pun but i want to give you that opportunity i will say this i wasn't prepared for that but that's fine um no because i think that uh dr jones did an excellent job uh i'm a big supporter of what you had to say i think the the meeting was for me but it was my first committee meeting so if i have to say it was very enlightening and actually very uh i left there really energized it was a long meeting uh no doubt about it it was two hours long but i walked out of there thinking this is what it's all about this is what we should be talking about we had a number of members of the public we're there as well and

123uh i thought it was a very nice uh discussion and a great way to learn one what an equity audit is because not everybody including myself knew what it was and what a curriculum audit is which i also was not entirely aware what that is so thank you dr jones for a very good uh summary this evening but even a better presentation uh longer presentation a couple nights ago so i don't want to say any more because sure everyone wants to get out of here well and certainly we um you know spend a good deal of time talking about the content of that meeting but in the future we will share with the community um following committee meetings report out on those committee discussions here um this was somewhat unique in that we we spent

124considerable time on the content earlier in the meeting uh okay are there any other reports from any out of district roles or any other committees yeah go ahead john uh thank you dr grandi i would just say that i am the psba representative for the school board pennsylvania school board association there was a virtual uh conference it was scheduled i'm sorry there was a live conference scheduled for the end of september it's now moved virtual it'll be in mid-october so i know that any school board member and even non-school i think even a non-school board member could go to the website there may be a fee associated but you can um get involved in their conference which would be again uh virtual in the middle of october our website will be psba.org i believe thank

125you that's it thank you jen anyone else okay do we have any old business do you have any new business all right thank you this meeting is adjourned oh