001good evening i now call the may 24th meeting of the wallingford swarthmore school board to order in opening as you're willing and able please rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states thank you i would like to ask ms fagor to take the roll call dr randy before i begin i wanted to let you know that i have the executed oath of office properly administered and subscribed to by mary jo wikowski smith on may 11 2021 pursuant to sections 315 321 and 322 of the pennsylvania public school code ms wikowski smith fulfilled the requirements to be seated on the board the executed oath is attached to the minutes of the meeting thank you miss fegora and welcome mary jo mr ballas yeah ms samino
002here dr huff here mr cutis here he said here mrs lentz yeah mr sullivan here mrs walkman here miss watowski smith here dr grandy kyra in place of mr berman today we have michelle mintz dr palmer here miss patel here dr grandy we have nine voting members present all right thank you miss figura and before we get started tonight i just wanted to ask all board members for our members here in person it is sometimes hard to hear our voices if we don't get really close to our microphone so um when you do speak this evening try to get your microphone very close and speak up as much as you can there's no problem hearing at home but there is some challenges in the room so let's start with our student representatives report ms patel
003hi so first srs received a heartfelt thank you from the american health association for their donation of three thousand two hundred and ten dollars from the school's recent kids heart challenge slash american heart challenge event the efforts of srs families and students make a tremendous impact and help millions of americans through increased awareness of cardiovascular disease life-saving scientific research and critically needed education efforts at west for their spring citizenship project in anticipation of spring cleaning the pto will assist the students of west in collecting and donating shoes please help wes raise funds by note by donating pairs of gently worn used and new shoes they are accepting both adult and child sneakers boots flats sandals high heels flip-flops slippers and water shoes the collection will end friday may 28th and there's still lots of time
004to contribute there will be boxes in the west lobby for in-person and online academy families at nbe the social justice slash teaching tolerance committee has recently been working on finalizing an outline of grade level read-alouds and activities for the upcoming school year each domain identity diversity justice and action will receive a three-month curricular focus during the 2021-2022 school year the committee spent time reviewing literature and lesson plans compiled by the wssd dei committee which focused on the teaching tolerance domains and standards several stories have been selected at each grade level to promote conversations on diversity equity and inclusion through read-alouds and classroom activities the next school year will begin with a focus on identity some of the texts that have been chosen for grade levels include the name jar the invisible boy and the sandwich
005swap at the high school since seniors graduate on june 10th this will be the last meeting i report at as i know that we are all already aware of this year has presented tons of new challenges at every level in the district despite this the student council team has found ways to adapt and create to move forward with our mission of ensuring a more unified and overall more positive school environment for tonight i worked with annie ottavas the student council president this year to come up with some of the highlights from the student council we unintentionally found that one word sums up many of our accomplishments and that word is connectedness so first we started off the school year strong with our new freshman mentoring program student council officers were divided and each assigned a
006freshman english class to mentor as i've spoken about before the purpose of these sessions was to bridge the gap for those graduating from the middle school to the high school which is important every year but especially necessary this year considering freshman students started their high school experience without ever coming to the high school these mentoring sessions allowed freshmen to connect with seniors and have their questions answered and ultimately ensured that to them they know that strathaven is the school they belong at the student council would like to thank the freshman english teachers for being flexible with us and letting us take up some of their valuable class time we hope that next year student council is able to continue these sessions next as we've all learned it's a lot harder to have school pride when
007you're not in the same physical space as many of your classmates that's why i think the first in person ever event student council organized which was our movie night was especially significant students watched the sand lot while student council officers walked around with snacks and everyone was able to have fun and remain masked and socially distanced also throughout the school year student council officers have collaborated to keep the student council instagram account up to date while it may not sound like much officers have had to coordinate to take turns reading the announcements and posting important information which proved to be especially helpful considering the frequent schedule changes this year undoubtedly social media is a powerful way to connect people and this year when many students have felt the emotional toll of being physically disconnected the
008instagram account has been an overwhelmingly positive way to bring students together and keep them informed about events happening in the district the last thing i wanted to touch on was the student council-sponsored goodie bags for teachers during kindness week while we all know our teachers deserve the world every year students have a reason to be especially appreciative this year the student council would especially like to thank our supervisors ms esposito and mr ligo for all of their help advice and support with that recap of this year's student council i'm excited to share the elections for next year's officers president vice president and of course the school board representative who will replace me is underway there are over 40 incredible candidates with so many bright ideas to continue making strathaven the best school it can be
009even freshmen sophomores and juniors have the opportunity to vote today and tomorrow and results should be available by the start of next week that's it thank you so much do not leave yeah you can't run away as mira said this is her last board meeting with us and i would like to take a moment to formally recognize her for her outstanding service in the role as student board representative and whether she reports in person or on zoom her reports have been comprehensive fact-filled up to the minute relevant and interesting and since she reports before i report she's really a hard act to follow so on behalf of the school board and the district we present you with a plaque to thank you for your service and recognize all of your efforts in keeping our board
010and our community informed we will miss you and we wish you the very best as you go off to georgetown next year may i have a round of applause for vera thank you rarely do we get to surprise someone and i think that's a surprise mira so um thank you uh mira for that report and again i would just echo uh what dr palmer said it certainly uh has not been the easiest year to volunteer your time and service but it is certainly deeply appreciated appreciated and the district is certainly much better off having you served in this role over the past year and we all thank you but with that let's move on to our superintendent's report dr palmer so the first item i have now is also a cause for celebration and it's
011a coveted update and that's not normally something you say as a cause for celebration but our coveted statistics in delaware county are way down and i can count our wssd numbers on one hand so let me recap for the community in delaware county our incident rate per 100 000 is 45.8 and our percent positivity is 3.1 percent in wssd our incidence rate per 100 000 is 14.25 and our positive test count is three so we've been better than we've been but we're not out of the woods yet i still consult with the delaware county superintendents the chester county health department doctors brennan and dr rubin on a weekly basis we're still using our mitigation strategies such as our hygiene practices our cleaning practices social distancing and masking we're also still contact tracing the cdc does
012recommend that school districts stay the course through the end of the school year and so does the chester county health department except in a few instances and i want to highlight them so in the area of contact tracing and exposure to covet 19 for fully vaccinated individuals and that means two weeks following your second shot if you're in a two-shot series or two weeks following your one dose if you're in a single vaccine and you remain asymptomatic if you have an exposure you do not need a quarantine secondly for individuals who test positive and have recovered from coven in the past three months and you remain asymptomatic the chester county health department has said that you do not need to quarantine either if you are exposed to a positive or a probable covenanting case and
013the third piece is for individuals who test positive for covet 19 antibodies don't have to quarantine either under certain circumstances so we know if we have our contact tracing and we come across individuals who fall into one of those three categories they don't have to quarantine but if they do not fall in those categories we are still quarantining children or staff members if they are exposed the second area falls into the area of masking and the chester county health department has made the following changes relative to masking and i'm going to take the time to read them in case anybody has not read what the chester county health department guidance is any student engaging in high exertion outdoor activities including but not limited to athletics exercise or play activities is not required to wear masks
014when actively engaged in those activities they also make the same statement relative to staff and i'm going to stop and give you the benefit of the conversation that i had on one of our weekly conversations with gene franklin from the chester county health department when she discussed this this particular conversation or this particular change with us she stressed that it pertained to high exertion outdoor activities such as participating in athletics she gave us the example of not masking while you're in a game or actively engaged in a practice but still masking if you're on the sidelines or if you're in the dugout and then she also said each school district needs to make their individual determination so to see how this would affect our students we and when i say we i say our pandemic
015team our principals and our nurses met to see which activities fell into the high exertion outdoor activities and we determined that it only pertained to our secondary athletics for us this means that we're no longer requiring our middle school or our high school athletes to mask while they are actively engaged in a game or practice however if they are on the sidelines in a dugout walking to or from a practice or game traveling on a school bus to or from practice or game they are required to wear their masks on our weekly calls we also talked about what the fall will look like and this i think is really important and on everyone's mind we're all cautiously optimistic that things will look very close to a typical year and as we discussed at our last
016board meeting we are planning for our children to return to full in-person learning what we don't know though is will they be masked and will they be required to have social distancing and we won't know more about that until the summer but what we do know is that our students in the high school who wish to be vaccinated can be and based on the figures from our own student vaccine clinic we know that they are we also know that a large majority of our middle school students have received their first vaccination already many of whom received them on saturday with us and we anticipate that 70 of our middle school students will be eligible to be vaccinated by the first day of school what we don't know yet is when the vaccine will be authorized
017for children under the age of 12. i would love for it to be available by the start of school but i have not heard that it will be but in any event we know that we can successfully have all of our elementary students in school five days a week even if they have not been vaccinated yet so the future looks really bright for us for next year we are planning for our kids to return to full in-person learning five days a week and with lunch at the high school so stay tuned for some more updates on that so before i leave the topic of covid i must say thank you to several folks on saturday we held our student vaccine clinic for the second shots for our children 16 years and older and for the
018first shots for our children aged 12 to 15. it was amazing to see how many families signed up thank you to springfield pharmacy for partnering with wssd and all of the delaware county schools to make sure all of our eligible kids receive their vaccinations thank you also to the many many volunteers who made our clinics possible when i sent out the all-call for medical volunteers to assist with our clinics i had no idea how many medical professionals were in our community and who were willing to assist with everyone's assistance our clinics would net without everyone's assistance our clinics would not have been possible and on behalf of all of our families thank you all so very much for partnering with us and while i'm thanking folks now i'd like to thank a couple more so
019on our agenda tonight are two donations and i'd like to thank mr pinatero for his generous donation of otto altenberg piano to strathaven high school and then i'd also like to thank the giant company as in giant food stores for their generous donation of over fifteen thousand dollars to our food service program through their feeding school kids initiative the giant company and their customers have raised more than three million dollars to address the issue of childhood hunger and they've done that through local public school districts in the communities they serve and this occurred whether one was rounding up their grocery purchase or they were converting one's choice points all of that money was matched by giant and then donated to the local school districts and it was also very nice to see rose welke a
0202002 strathaven graduate also from the giant company who came out to present us with our money so that was just a little extra sweet and since i just mentioned the agenda i'd like to mention a couple more items so on our agenda this evening under the policy section we have 16 policies for second reading and we have 16 policies for third and final reading and all of the policies are the same that we had at the last board meeting except one and that is policy 808 food services we made one revision to that particular policy to the non-discrimination clause and we made it more broad so moving off of the topic of the agenda for the moment i'd like to update the community regarding litigation brought against the school district by one of our neighbors
021so last week the parties completed our respective presentations before delaware county court of common pleas judge spiros angelos related to the position for permanent injunction filed by neighbors who live on couples lane seeking to restrict curricular and extracurricular school activities including our band and various athletic events at kingfield as the local community is well aware our high school marching band and football team have played under the lights on king field for close to 40 years judge angelos did not immediately rule on the injunction request counsel for the neighbors requested and the court granted the opportunity to file another brief the neighbor's brief is due on june 3rd and the school district's response is due 15 days later which would be june 18th we expect judge angelos to rule at some point after the final brief
022is submitted and while the school district remains disappointed that the neighbors continue to attempt to eliminate our ability to use kingfield as an important part of our school student experience we'll continue to do our best efforts to remain good neighbors to all who live in the immediate area surrounding the field and speaking of king field i'm on a roll dr granny and i'm almost taught speaking of kingfield i must say last week was a very special week because it felt like we were back in school in a year without covet i had the opportunity to start my week by seeing our girls lacrosse team compete amazingly well in their victory over marple newtown and i ended my week by attending the marching band mini season showcase which was so very special seeing or seeing and
023hearing or banned martin to the stadium literally gave me goosebumps and i had tears in my eyes i think these were particularly emotional events for me because i was spending my days in court trying to defend our use of king field and talking about what a dramatic impact it would have on our students and our school programs if we could not use it i cannot imagine that our district will be ordered to restrict our own activities on kingfield and i'd like to end my report tonight celebrating our student athletes so i'm wishing good luck to some teams first our girls lacrosse team will be playing tomorrow in the division one semi-final at seven o'clock on king field our baseball team who are the central league champions and the number one seed in district one will
024host the winner of the radnor and unionville game on wednesday in the district one quarterfinal and i am hoping it is really good news for our softball team who played today at four and i don't know the outcome of the game but i am hoping they won fingers crossed also a few more good luck go to our girls and voice track for our girls track who are the central league champions we have three who are advancing to the states on saturday we have olivia dumont who won the division one chav javelin championship we have tegan seidner who finished second in division one for the 100 hurdles and alexa brown finished third in the district one for the shot put under boys track who finished second in the central league we have enrico facio who finished
025second in the 110 hurdles and all four of them will advance to the states on saturday special congratulations though to a few of our sports teams as well because i had not mentioned them before and i thought i would do it now before the year is out first to our boys lacrosse team who made it to the playoffs defeated central bucks and then lost to radnor last thursday but congratulations to them for moving on to the states and in our winter season we had sydney bergstrom in girls swimming who won the state and the division championships in the 500 freestyle on our wrestling team that finished second in the central league we had chase barlow and kelton broner who qualified for states and chase went on to finish seventh at 152 pounds and then in
026our last piece that i'd like to mention we have two central league champions in the fall season with the girls cross country and the golf team so special well wishes to our teams that are still competing and very special congratulations to our athletes dr granty that completes my report thank dr palmer it's exciting to hear about all those achievements of our student athletes and others and it's just exciting to hear about students being able to be out doing things that they that are familiar to them from before covet um i do want to just um you know because there's been some questions about uh some of the you know recent changes around covid um just ask if any board members have any questions for dr palmer based on that update that she just provided i
027actually have one quick question i'll give people a chance to think if they have any questions um are you still you're still meeting with chester county health department each week getting updates from them at this point that's still happening okay um and so any changes they make they're communicating with all the districts on a weekly basis oh yes and more frequently if they need to they'll send us an email okay and i guess there there was some questions about high exertion um and when when they made those changes did did they talk give some sense of what they mean um i guess you gave some examples there that that was their recommendations in terms of how to apply that was exactly the um conversation that she had to when they're in the game versus when
028they're specifically on the sideline or in the dugout so i brought that back to the team when we were talking about it to look at what activities do we have in total that fall into that category okay thank you any board members have any questions before we so i have a question what is the um masking protocols inside the buildings inside the building we're all wearing our masks there has been no no exceptions no exceptions thank you just as a follow-up to that it seems like we have some audience members who don't have masks tonight do we have extras we can lend them uh we should have a box of them i don't know who has it with them tonight but we are fully masking thank you mr abbott are you in the room and
029i apologize if we are not and i only say that i don't know if mr abbott has it with him tonight it looks like he may be getting them okay thank you thank you kelly dr palmer the um vaccination clinic that we had um on saturday do you have a rough estimate of how many uh people were vaccinated on saturday i do we were over 700 and i should also say dr grandy and or mrs wachman were both there thank you both for coming out and volunteering with us at the clinic but we had over 700 on saturday any other questions for dr palmer all right thank you okay all right um that takes us to uh board announcements um the board met an executive session prior to this meeting to discuss uh litigation and
030negotiations uh and so that takes us to our one focus topic on the agenda for the evening um which i'll invite dr palmer back up to the podium to introduce i think it was faster for me to just come right up here and introduce miss q as she's coming up here and then i'll go back to my seat we had miss qr business administrator with us at the last board meeting to go over a pretty in-depth conversation about where we are on the final budget for 21 20 22. tonight she's just going to go through the highlights because tonight the board is actually taking action that will trigger us putting our final budget on public display and then moving toward the counting to when the board can actually adopt the final budget so for anybody
031who wanted the full presentation it's on our website on board docs at the last meeting and then tonight is a little higher overview so oh i do see martha behind me so martha i'll turn the microphone over to you thank you good evening since i was here two short weeks ago i will keep this brief this is the proposed final budget between today and june 28th we will continue to analyze the revenues and expenditures to further hone the final budget there are still several unknowns still affecting this budget these include the final county assessment numbers and homestead breakouts these are vital numbers in order to set the final millage rate and the high school property tax reduction and the wallingford property tax reduction state revenues including basic education subsidy special education subsidy and other state
032revenues the federal revenues including various title programs as well as the federal coveted relief funds that are referred to as the arp esser or sr3 although i will say literally just before i came to meetings the state has released the final allocations for the arp esser funds this budget is based as dr palmer referred to a full return to school for the 21-22 school year it does also include the cyber option that was approved at a prior board meeting the district intends to continue the seamless summer options for food service for the 21 22 school year this means that any child 18 years of age or under is eligible to receive a free breakfast and a free lunch regardless of the income however we will be reopening the a la carte service in all buildings
033it may look a little bit different only pre-packaged items no salad bar we are waiting on guidelines from the cdc and the chester county department of health as well as the pennsylvania department of education department of food and nutrition over the summer to see how these will all play out as i noted i will be adjusting this budget right up until the very end so that what is being presented is as accurate as possible in june so let's briefly review the revenues local revenues make up just over 79 percent of this budget state revenues are just over nineteen percent and the federal revenues make up one-third of one percent of the entire revenue budget the last piece of this pie is for our use of fund balance to balance our budget and that's approximately one
034percent our expenditures salaries and benefits make up approximately 70 percent of the budget purchase services almost seventeen percent debt service and fees make up over nine percent supplies are just under three and a half percent and the budgetary reserve represents less than one half of one percent of the total budget the total budget is eighty nine million ninety six thousand eight hundred sixty one dollars at this moment the district is using fund balance to pay normal operating costs instead of saving those funds for those large unexpected items the current proposed final budget has a structural shortfall of 943 000 caused by our yearly expenditures exceeding our yearly revenues this will leave a fund balance of approximately 5.4 million dollars i do want to point out that although the fund balance is 9.4 if we don't
035use that budgetary reserve that i referred to in an earlier slide the fund balance would be more like 5.8 million dollars let's talk about the countywide reassessment we are still finalizing the reassessment values but at this point in time the district went from 1.4 billion dollars in assessed value to 2.6 billion if we reset the millage rate based on the current assessed values that we have we would go from 48.365 mills to 25.6727 mills we are eligible for a special ed exception this year this special ed exception is based on the two prior years of special education costs this is for 1819 and 1920s special education costs the state sets this comparison and they are using those years so this exception is basically providing the district funds for the costs that the district has already
036incurred this budget includes both the act one index as well as the full special education exception for a total of 1.116 mills or a 4.34 tax increase please remember even with that increase we are still using almost 1 million dollars from our fund balance to balance the budget so we're going to go from 48.36 mills after the tax increase will be at 26.7887 to give you an idea of the effect of this we normally talk about median assessed value the median assessed value last year was 000 almost 179 000. at a millage rate of 48.36 mills the taxes were 8 653 for the new year the new median assessed value is 334 000 using our project millage it's twenty six point seven eight eight seven the new real estate taxes would be eight thousand nine
037fifty nine this is based off of our projected millage rate and the inclusion of the tax increases in that number so the actual tax increase for that taxpayer is approximately 306 dollars so what's next well today on the agenda is approving the proposed final budget and advertising that budget in preparation for a june 28 final budget i will be back on june 14th to present that final budget hopefully we'll have some of these unknowns resolved by then any questions i said i was keeping it short any questions for miss q kelly um miss cute i'm sorry can you remind us um the the final esther uh grant that may or may not come through it sounded like you said that there are some allocations made today literally just shortly before the meeting started um released
038the final numbers the final allocation so it looks like it's happening they're really they're starting to release the guidelines although i thought it was funny that they were talking about they've opened up the grant application site but they have not released the guide for implementation of the grant so it's kind of funny i can apply for the grant but i haven't been told how i can use it so i'm not quite sure how that works but that's okay and if we were to get um full grant funding for what we've already applied for i think there's some that's still outstanding if i'm correct that would be approximately how much sorry i didn't bring all of my covered numbers with me um i honestly it doesn't make at the end of the day it's not making
039a difference a material difference though in what we've put on the table in terms of the impact of the budget and the related tax increases for for the 2021 figures that i presented i had included all of the grants except this easter three right or the arp so that's still for the current year the easter three is not included in either my projections for 2021 or is that revenue included for the 21 22 years so the 2021 projection does include all of our covet related costs that occurred during 21 2021 22s and zeros but it does not include that grant because we didn't know what the final allocation was and we didn't know what it's going to be used for and the 2122 includes 28 000 of the easter three grant relative to our esli
040okay thank you other questions from miss q okay thank you miss q all right uh so that takes us to our time our first time for audience recognition which is specifically for response to items that are on the agenda this evening for action as a reminder public comment is a time for district residents and taxpayers to speak to the board about an issue that is before the board or may come before the board it's a time for us to listen and hear perspectives and experiences from our community and while we can't answer questions at the meeting there's always an opportunity to follow up after if there's a specific question for the district for now we continue to have two methods to comment in person and by phone and just a reminder that everyone in person
041must wear a mask for phone messages members of the public wishing to address the board can call 610-892 extension 1102 to leave the recorded message uh recorded comment subject to a three-minute time limit any comments left prior to five o'clock on the day of our meeting are transcribed and made available to the board and any called in after five o'clock but prior to the end of the meeting will still be transcribed distributed to the board and made a part of the record but will not be acknowledged during the meeting i i don't believe we have any called in comments for items for action on the agenda this evening is there anyone who would like to who's in the audience this evening who would like to speak about a topic on the agenda okay i don't
042see anyone um so that takes us to our first item for action uh which is approval of the may 10th uh regular business meeting minutes and i so move second thank you matt any discussion okay miss figure can you please take a roll call vote mr ballas abstain miss mino i dr huff hi [Music] mr cudiff abstain i was absent mrs lentz hi mr sullivan aye mrs walkman aye ms buckowski smith abstain i was not yet a member dr grandi aye the motion passes six to zero with three abstentions all right thank you ms fabora so that takes us to personnel where we have seven items for action are there any on the list anyone would like any one would like to separate from the rest okay so we first have approval of one retirement
043janice garrity a financial clerk in the business office with the approval of one appointment judith young instructional support staff at srs we have approval of compensation of the student activity advisors for the 2020-2021 school year as stipulated we have approval of the change of resignation date for martha q business administrator from august 20th to july 8th we have approval of the collective bargaining agreement between the district and teamsters local 107 for the wssd bus drivers effective july 1st 2021 through june 30th 2025 as stipulated we have approval of the collective bargaining agreement between the district and teamsters local 107 for the wssd bus aides effective july 1st 2021 through june 30th 2025 is stipulated we have approval of the 2021-2025 compensation plan for non-certificated nurses effective july 1 2021 through june 30th 2025 as stipulated
044with approval of the 2021-2025 compensation plan for confidential executive administrative assistants effective july 1st 2021 through june 30th 2025 is stipulated we have approval of the 2021-2025 compensation plan for act 93 administrators effective july 1st 2021 through june 30th 2025 as stipulated we have approval of the 2021-2025 compensation plan for exempt supervisory employees effective july 1st 2021 through june 30th 2025 is stipulated with the approval of the appointment of the accompanying accompanist at the high school for the 2020 2021 school year at the rate of 30 dollars per hour not to exceed a total of 90 hours as stipulated we have approval of additions to the 2020 2021 academic supplemental postseason pay as stipulated all items in this section are attached or described in the agenda do i have a motion thank you jerry do
045we have a second second thanks kelly any discussion okay miss figora can you please take a roll call though miss mino aye dr huff hi mr cutis hi mrs lentz aye mr sullivan aye mrs walkman hi miss mccaskey smith mr ballas hi dr grandy hi motion the motions pass nine to zero okay thank you miss figura so that takes us to uh the policy section on our agenda this evening as dr palmer mentioned we have policies on the agenda for their second and for their third reading and there was just one change that she noted earlier uh from prior readings uh so uh are there any policies anyone would like to separate from the rest before i read them in okay so uh first we have approval of 16 listed policies for third and final
046reading i'll just read them off quickly 105 curriculum 123.2 sudden cardiac arrest 137.1 extracurricular participation by home education students 151 title 1 comparability of services 251 homeless students 340 responsibility for student welfare 626 federal fiscal compliance 803 school calendar 805 emergency preparedness and response 805.1 relations with law enforcement agencies 806 child abuse 808 food services 810 transportation a 10.1 school bus drivers and school commercial motor vehicle drivers 8 10.3 school vehicle drivers and 8 24 maintaining professional adult student boundaries and then we also have 16 policies for their second reading policy 113.1 discipline of students with disabilities 113.4 confidentiality of special education student information 218.3 action and placement related to students convicted adjudicated of sexual assault 311 reduction of staff 314 physical examination 317.1 educator misconduct 318 attendance and tardiness 323 tobacco and vaping products
047328 compensation plans salary schedules [Music] 332 working periods 334 sick leave 819 suicide awareness prevention and response 904 public attendance at school events 906 public complaints 907 school visitors 913 non-school organizations groups individuals and all these policies were previously summarized by dr palmer so we won't go through that again at this time do i have a motion for these policies for second and third reading so moon thanks jen do we have a second second thanks marilyn any discussion okay miss fergor can you please take a roll call vote dr huff i mr cudiff hi mrs lentz hi mr sullivan hi mrs walkman aye ms wikowski smith hi mr ballas miss dimino hi dr grandy aye dr grandy the policy items pass nine to zero thank you miss figora so that takes us to curriculum we
048have six items for action and curriculum are there any on the list anyone on the board would like to separate from the rest okay we have approval of 2021 2020 2021 related services provider contracts as stipulated we have approval of tuition contracts as listed in the agenda we have the approval of an educational services agreement as listed under item c and is listed under item d we have approval of the strathaven high school category 1a overnight field trips for the 2020-2021 school year is stipulated and we have approval of a school calendar revision for the 2020-2021 school year for the high school related to graduation events on june 10th which shifts june 10th to a half day and some of the reasons for that have to do with some of the uh logistical and staffing
049needs related to hosting uh graduation ceremonies on king field that day all of these items are as attached or described in the agenda do i have a motion thanks matt do we have a second second thanks chapin any discussion okay miss fagor can you please take a roll call that mr cudiff hi mrs lentz aye mr sullivan aye mrs walkman aye ms winkowski smith hi mr ballas miss dimino aye dr huff i dr grandy aye the curriculum items pass nine to zero thank you ms figura so that takes us to finance we have 14 items for approval and finance are there any on the list anyone would like to separate i'd like to separate 11f 11f okay okay so that's 13 items which we'll start with and then we'll come back to item f uh
050so with the approval of payment of invoices to vendors dated april 21st 2021 through may 18 2021 with the approval of the treasurer's report for april 2021 acknowledgment of receipt of financial statements for april 2021 approval of budget transfers as stipulated approval of the facility usage and rental agreement between wssd and trinity cooperative day nursery to occupy a portion of npe as stipulated acknowledgement of a receipt of a donation from giant feeding school kids of fifteen thousand twenty six dollars and eighty seven cents that's the one dr palmer mentioned in her superintendent's report acknowledgment of receipt of a donation from mr nicholas pignatero of an otto altenberg piano which was also mentioned in her report we have approval of removal of obsolete musical instruments from the district by duffy piano movers with the approval of
051the renewal contract with powerschool for its talent ad student information system storage and related items for the 2021-2022 school year not to exceed 105 000 as stipulated we have adoption of the 2021 2022 proposed final general fund operating budget of 89 million dollars 96 861 with the following millage rates another providence township rose valley borough 26.7 rutledge borough swarthmore borough 27.0309 we have approval to advertise the board's intention to adopt its 2021-22 final general fund operating budget at the board of school directors regularly scheduled meeting on june 28 2021 we have approval of the interim agreement with the pennsylvania associate association of school business officials at the rate of 875 dollars per day and this is to staff uh the business office uh with miss q's departure and then we have approval of an independent
052contractor agreement with deirdre abramson to serve as communications specialist for the 2021-2022 school year as stipulated all these items in this section are as attached or described in the agenda do i have a motion so move thanks matt do we have a second second thank you jerry any discussion okay mr gore can you please take a roll call though mrs lentz hi mr sullivan hi mrs walkman i miss makowski smith hi mr ballas art miss amino aye dr huff i mr cutis aye dr grandy hi the finance items pass nine to zero thanks ms fagor and that takes us back to item f which is approval of the agreement between wssd and snr bus leasing company incorporated for the 2021-2022 school year do i have a motion all right uh any discussion so it was
053kelly and then marilyn any discussion that was marilyn and then oh maryland oh that wasn't i i erroneously pointed at kelly all right all right so we've got maryland then that right there we go so i i separated this out to all of the comments which is um you know i note that this covers 11 of our 37 buses so two things come to mind one i'd like to see all of our buses on a similar lease term so that they're all expiring at the same time and part of that which is really my second comment is i'd like to see the district look at alternate technologies for our bus fleet not just look at diesel but look at something that's a little greener technology and so i'd like to use this coming year to
054look at that as well as to line up our leases for all of our buses so that if and when we're ready to make that move we can do it in a nimble fashion dr palmer do you happen to know how our leases line up currently or is ms q still here so i i and i can save martha the trip to the microphone if that's okay our current lease for our other buses was a four-year lease that we entered last year so that expires three years from now okay so three years to come okay any other discussion on the bus lease okay mr fagor can you please take a roll call vote mr sullivan aye mrs walkman aye ms witkowski smith hi mr dallas miss amino hi dr huff hi mr cutis hi mrs
055lentz hi dr grandy hi motion passes nine to zero all right thank you mr agora so that takes us to uh a section on the agenda titled other um where we have to take care of some appointments related to individual board roles and so we'll take them one at a time here and the first one is the election of the board treasurer and i would like to call for nominations for the position of treasurer for a term beginning july 1st recognizing that i hope our current treasurer happily is ready to serve another term but the nominations are open okay i would like to nominate larry cutis thank you marilyn are there any other nominations for board treasure okay um so nominations are closed and so my understanding is we do a roll call here where
056each board member will indicate their vote for board treasurer is that correct okay so miss figora can you take the roll call for the board treasurer election mrs walkman hi miss wikowski smith i vote for larry coos mr balas my voice for larry miss amino aye larry cutis dr house larry cutis mr cutis i'm having a hard time voting for myself but did we get an eye okay mrs lentz hi mr sullivan larry cutis as well dr grandy larry curtis mr cutis got nine votes from the board all right uh thank you miss figura and thank you larry for serving in that role again um and then next up we have the election of the board's secretary i would like to call for nominations for the position of secretary for a term beginning july 1st
057i will nominate miss figura for that role um are there any other nominations okay well miss figora can you please take the roll call miss lakowski smith aye ms figure mr ballas aye ms figure ms amino aye ms figure dr huff aye mr cutis hi mary figure mrs lentz hi mr sullivan mary figure mrs walkman mary segura dr grandy mary fegora dr grandy it looks like you're stuck with mary fedora for another year how to vote to 9-0 thank you all right um then next step is um appointment of in-district representatives uh and on this one i would like to appoint mary jo wokowski smith to the dei committee of the board and to the policy committee of the board um do i ask for a i don't need anything mary jo thank you for
058serving you're welcome i assume you accept those roles okay thank you okay and then uh the last item in this section is the election of the dciu board members so we have approval of the nominees listed in the agenda to be elected as members of the dciu board for a three-year term beginning july 2nd 2021 through june 30th 2024 as stipulated um do i have a motion thank you kelly uh do i have a second second all right matt any discussion okay mr gore can you please take a roll call vote mr ballas hi miss amino hi dr huff i mr cudiff aye mrs lentz aye mr sullivan hi walkman hi miss wikowski smith hi dr grandy hi promotion passes nine to zero okay thank you and thanks again to larry cutis for serving in
059that role for uh our district um so that takes us to our time for audience recognition for response to topics not on the agenda this evening i do know we have two called in comments that i'll ask kelly to read into the record this evening but we also have time for anyone who would like to speak in person about anything that may come before the board in the future do you want to go ahead and read the first one while we wait and see if anybody wants to comment thanks this is from joanna mcgowan waterville road in wallingford i have kids at npe and in the middle school and i'm calling to leave a comment for tonight's board meeting i would like to express my concern that the school district has not yet addressed the
060updated school masking policy to reflect the updated chester county health department guidance the new guidance states that any staff or students engaging in high exertion outdoor activities including but not limited to athletics exercise or play activities is not required to wear masks when actively engaged in those activities this includes outdoor recess activity periods and pe classes we've been repeatedly told that the school board measures were made and considered in accordance with cchd guidance so i'm failing to understand why after over two weeks this is yet to be addressed this seems particularly cruel to our children as the weather gets warmer which puts our children puts our kids in an elevated risk of heat stroke and heat exhaustion studies have demonstrated the wearing sweaty outdoor wet masks increases bacteria and is more dangerous than not wearing
061a mask at all additionally the mental health of our children is at risk kids need to reconnect with one another to socialize on the playground and to see one another's faces this is critical to normal childhood development but even more so to help them re-engage in normal life and help mitigate ptsd in both physical and mental manifestations from the pandemic as we've seen from recent cdc and news updates the risk of outdoor transmission is less than one percent and possibly even as low as point zero one percent and this rate is even lower for children i respectfully request that the school board masking policy be updated immediately and doing so poses no health risk is in line with cdc and cchd guidance is being implemented by most other area schools and could reduce so many
062other serious risks for our children thank you for your consideration okay why don't you go ahead and read the second one because i don't see anyone coming to the podium yet this is from sandy gatch 732 pine rid sorry pine ridge road media pa i was calling with regard to masks for our elementary age students at recess and pe from the beginning of covid we've relied heavily very heavily on information and recommendations by the cdc and specifically the chester county health department this is the reason that our students stayed hybrid for as long as they did we were going with the recommendations of the chester county health department and keeping them six feet apart the cdc and the chester county health department had recommended that at this point students should not be wearing masks when
063they're outside especially during activities like recess and pe as the weather continues to get warmer these last couple days were quite warm i feel there is much more danger to students becoming overheated having breathing issues while wearing a mask outside so i would really ask that the board would consider to follow the science and the fact that transmission outside is less than one percent and continue to follow the recommendations of the chester county health department and allow our elementary age students to remove their masks while participating in recess in pe thank you all right thank you kelly do we have anyone for in-person comments if you want to make a comment you can go down the hallway and then come around to the podium yes please good evening if you could just uh introduce yourself
064with a name and uh the name of your street hi my name is michelle and i live on chestnut parkway in wallingford the precautionary principle is a philosophical and legal approach to innovations that possess a potential cause for harm when extensive scientific knowledge on the matter is lacking it is often used in policy making when there is a possibility of harm and conclusive evidence not yet available it implies that there is a social responsibility to protect the public from harm when scientific investigation has found a plausible risk these precautions should only be relaxed when scientific findings provide sound evidence that no harm will result in shutting down schools and decimating the social lives of children policymakers rashly abandon this sound principle instead thrusting children into known scientifically proven harm it is well documented that social
065health directly impacts mental and physical health and the traumatic disruption of social constructs school sports church family gatherings has devastating effects especially on children and teens our youth were already suffering epidemic levels of depression anxiety addiction eating disorders and suicide yet policy makers such as yourselves choose to exaggerate this devastation on children's mental health even there was no evidence that returning to normal would pose a risk to them or anyone else and even as all evidence continued and to this day shows coven 19 to pose nearly zero harm to our children those charged with protecting our children chose harmful and abusive policies this must stop immediately your abandonment of the precautionary principle with regard to our children's health has caused catastrophic consequences that will span generations the definition of abuse is a non-accidental action which
066causes or creates substantial risk of physical or emotional injury to a child your policies fit this definition you have violated social ethical and professional contracts to keep our children safe and instead use your position to knowingly cash children directly into harm using the classic abuse tactics of psychological manipulation and emotion emotional blackmail and now it gets worse moving beyond this first stage of abuse to an unthinkable act of irreversible harm by promoting coercing and further manipulating children to become subjects of massive medical experimentation using our tax-funded facilities and staff to inject healthy risk-free children with a risky unimproved pharmaceutical product no one has an idea whether these shots will cause infertility or cancer once that experimental shot is injected there is no one doing it if an entire generation is rendered infertile as a result
067of this medical experimentation on children there will be no going back remember the nazi doctors tried at nuremberg were not pardoned on grounds that they were just following orders from their superiors all persons of authority who are complicit in committing these crimes against humanity on our children will be held to account for the irreversible damage inflicted our children are not human test subjects for the pharmaceutical industry our school tax dollars are not to be spent in promoting marketing coordinating or implementing medical experimentation on children and especially not within the institutions designed to provide education we demand that you immediately halt all covet 19 related restrictions on children within our public school system and prohibit any further promotion on any medical interventions especially those are which experimental if the teachers union will not comply with these
068demands we urge all of our big-hearted child-loving teachers to withdraw from these extortionist unions if a schoolteacher is fearful of their workplace then we suggest that they follow an alternative career path rather than insist on the use of practices that harm children you have been entrusted with overseeing the education of our children and that is all you want your inhibited promotion of pharmaceutical products within our schools is an inappropriate abuse of power and may even qualify as providing medical advice without a license this must end now thank you do we have any other comments okay i don't think we have any other comments um so i'd like to thank our district families that have contacted us uh this evening that takes us to our next section on the agenda which is school board reports does
069anyone have a report from a district subcommittee or out of district role okay do we have any old business do we have any new business do we have any new business okay thank you this meeting is adjourned