001good evening i now call the january 25th 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 of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you i would like to start by asking ms fagora to take the roll call mr ballas here miss mino here dr downey here dr huff here mr cutis here mrs lentz here mr sullivan here mrs walkman here grandy here mr berman here dr palmer here miss patel yeah dr grandy we have nine voting members present all right thank you ms fagora uh so first up we have the student representatives report
002ms patel thanks dr grandi at srs one of the most loved events of the year is the annual bingo night while this year we won't be able to play in person dr tuck in the srs community hopes that all srs families teachers and staff will join in on the fun online prizes raffles and srs celebrity callers will all be a part of the fun tickets are for sale on the school's website for one dollar each you can choose which basket ruffles to be entered into and how many chances you would like to take on each all tickets need to be purchased by friday february 19th plus a portion of raffle sales will be donated to the american heart association's jump rope for heart campaign also in the spirit of giving srs still has donation and
003volunteer opportunities including a non-perishable food collection for the foundry church in wallingford and card collection for residents at sterling healthcare and rehabilitation center and media more information can be found on srs's website some news about clubs at npe this year the third fourth and fifth grade students will be able to participate in a virtual version of the fitness club activities will be sent home to the students through google classroom and students can participate at their own pace if you would like to sign up you can either use the code listed in google classroom for physical education or email mr buscaglia in addition ms goldman will be facilitating a stem club for students in grades four and five more information on how to sign up is on the npe website join wes on february 18th for
004virtual bingo and silent auction bidding pick up your items at west for a night of family fun you can register soon through the school website strathaven middle school families are planning for virtual career day they are looking for parent volunteers to participate in the career video and believe it or not half of the school year is complete students at chatham had their second first day of school today and after finishing up finals last thursday and friday even students began their new semester with all new courses and teachers also today students began getting adjusted to stratheven's new schedule which allows students to attend school in person for four half days a week if they choose the second semester back to school night will occur on thursday february 4th and will be held virtually similar to the
005event in the fall also the strathaven student council is working on another freshman mentoring session for this month we look forward to answering any questions underclassmen might have about the new semester that's it thank you thank you miss patel uh and next up we have the superintendent's report dr palmer thank you dr grandi tonight i have quite a few comments that i would like to make um actually let me stop for a minute dr grandy were you going to make board reports i can do that first if you'd like um i'm thinking that might be best before i make my comments okay let's do that um so actually i have three uh board announcements to make the first is that the board met just prior to this meeting in executive session to discuss a security
006matter and then the second announcement uh is to provide an update on the superintendent search and so i want to start by thanking all of our community members parents of our students and staff members who completed surveys we heard from 237 staff members 412 parents and more than four dozen community members who don't have children in our schools currently i'd also like to express gratitude to all members of our community who attended virtual forums last week and shared their opinions about the key skills and expertise that our next superintendent will need in order to lead us well in 2021 and beyond participants in those forums also shared their views about the most critical areas of work that we will need to tackle as we move forward as a district the staff forum is scheduled to
007take place this upcoming wednesday applications for the position are still being accepted but we are anticipating first-round interviews uh starting next month in february and then the third announcement i have is to let everyone know on the board as well as in the public that we intend to have a special board meeting next monday february 1st at the usual time at 7 pm the purpose of that meeting is to consider how and when we might have our elementary students transition from the current hybrid model to a non-cohort face-to-face instructional model there are a number of reasons why i think we're ready to have this discussion now and potentially make a change and i just want to share a few of those first since we have started school in the fall there is growing scientific evidence
008demonstrating that elementary schools in particular have not been a significant source of covered transmission particularly in places with mitigation strategies in place evidence also suggests that the more rigid distance requirements of six feet can be decreased slightly while still maintaining safety this change would potentially allow us to bring students back for more face-to-face time in our elementary schools the evidence and recommendations are summarized in a recent report from the centers at harvard brown and new america second in the fall i'll say we needed to implement wide-ranging and many new safety protocols and we now have ample experience with these protocols and have had a great deal of success for example our students are now quite accustomed to things like all day masks and these measures have kept our schools safe third will also soon have
009access to a new testing program which you'll hear about from dr palmer that will allow for regular staff testing and the potential for some student testing in certain settings and that program is on our agenda this evening so there are a lot of reasons that make it the right time to consider plans for the second half of the school year now we've discussed previously how our youngest learners are a high priority and potentially the lowest risk i should also say any changes that might be adopted would not mean end to our online academy so that is the purpose of our meeting next monday to discuss and potentially adopt plans for bringing our elementary students back for considerably more face-to-face time so that's what i have for board announcements and let me turn it over to
010dr palmer for the superintendent's report thank you dr grandi as i had mentioned i had quite a few comments and the first comment i wanted to make was regarding the special board meeting but i thought it was best for dr grandy to make his comments first to that end i'd like our parents and guardians to know that our elementary education committee and our administration have already been working on those plans a return to full in-person instruction requires quite a bit of planning it means that we must carefully look at our education plan as well as our health and safety plan to consider all aspects of our students days at the meeting on february 1st we will share our elementary transition plan and our timeline for returning the elementary students to in-person or i should say
011full in-person instruction if and when the school board accepts our transition plan we will communicate with all elementary parents and guardians so you will know what is being offered we will then survey all elementary parents and guardians to ask you to select in-person learning or online academy for your child so we're going to ask you to make a choice even though we know we just asked you if you wanted the online academy for your children we are going to give you another opportunity everyone the opportunity do you prefer in person or the online academy we will also ask you to confirm if you need the district to provide transportation or if you will transport your child or your children so please mark your calendar for 7 p.m next monday february 1st and join us for
012the meeting we're planning for it to be an in-person school board meeting but we will broadcast it live on youtube just like tonight's school board meeting secondly i'd like to comment on a few items on our agenda under curriculum the 2122 school calendar is on the agenda for adoption this evening thank you to everyone who wrote to us with their thoughts on the draft calendar that was presented at the last board meeting during our focus topic this evening mr abbott will be back and he will provide us with an overview of the changes that we made since the last board meeting also under curriculum there are two items for action regarding high school athletics the first pertains to the requirement for our student athletes to attend school virtually by way of background at the november
01323rd school board meeting the school board authorized the implementation of a pia return to competition plan for winter sports as part of our own wssd health and safety plan for athletics as part of the plan the school board required student athletes to attend school virtually until 14 days after the last competition tonight's motion recommends removing the requirement for student athletes to attend school virtually if approved this evening athletes could attend school with their respective cohorts as early as tomorrow the second item for action under the curriculum section is a recommendation to approve the health and safety plan for competition for voluntary workouts spring and summer 2021. we did not plan a focused topic around this plan not because we don't think spring sports are important but rather because the plan very closely mirrors our plan
014for fall sports we didn't think a presentation was necessary also on our agenda under the other category you will notice some very important items the first is a memorandum of agreement between the chester county health department and wssd by way of background this is the item where dr grandy said we are looking at some other mitigation strategies and testing is among them project acet and ace a-c-e-i-t acet stands for assisting childhood education through increased testing is a school-based covit 19 testing program across five counties in southern pennsylvania the program offers rapid point-of-care testing strategies in school setting the purpose of acet is to provide schools with a point-of-care rapid testing as a mitigation strategy in the fight against covet 19. such testing is a combination with the school's covet 19 health and safety plan and
015it aims to protect staff and students from exposure to covet 19 and limit the transmission of covet 19 on school campuses through the program our school will have access to the abbott binax now antigen kits and the q covid 19 molecular tests acet as part of the coronavirus testing strategy as the supplies are provided to us be by the federal government the memo of understanding that's before the board this evening is the first step in moving forward with acquiring the tests we are in the process of being trained on how to administer those tests and we are developing our plan to utilize the tests we still have much work to do preliminarily our thoughts are to utilize the binax now antigen test as part of a voluntary assurance testing for our staff we're also considering
016using them as a mitigation strategy with our student athletes again we have much work to do we would be taking the first step if this is approved and as we develop our plans more fully we'll share more information with our staff and we'll share them with our parents and guardians in addition when we're looking at the agenda still under the other section there are two resolutions included on the agenda one is a resolution to vaccinate our educators now and the other one is black lives matter at school a day of understanding and affirmation and dr granty because of the importance of these two resolutions i'm requesting that i read each one before the vote board votes on them this evening and finally as i said i did have a lot tonight january is school board
017director recognition month in pennsylvania at the beginning of each year we pause to salute a group of nine individuals who spend dozens of hours each month voluntarily leading our schools and making important and often very difficult decisions at the wallingford swarthmore school district we have an amazing school board that is indeed worthy of recognition we often highlight the successes of our students but we cannot forget our elected school board directors who play a significant role in creating the environment where those successes can happen and tonight i would like to pause and share psba's proclamation with our community and it is entitled school director recognition month january 2021 whereas the role of locally elected school officials has served the commonwealth of pennsylvania and local communities in meeting the needs of public education since the passage of
018the free school act in 1834 and whereas these local boards have discharged their responsibilities to public education in a manner which has placed public education in the forefront of our educational systems and whereas locally elected officials have distinguished themselves and their communities in this non-paid volunteer public service commitment and whereas the contributions of these men and women should be recognized and appreciated by those who benefit from the workings of our public school system now therefore be it resolved that the board of school direct or the board of directors of the pennsylvania school boards association hereby proclaims the month of january as school director recognition month in this commonwealth and further resolved that this proclamation be communicated to all school districts school officials and local communities in a planned program which brings visibility and awareness of
019the role of locally elected school officials to the citizenry of this commonwealth this was unanimously approved the first time in july of 1985 and it was most recently reaffirmed by psba on thursday december 3rd in a gesture of our appreciation we are giving each of our board members a framed photograph from students in miss plows photography class at strathaven high school the students were tasked with creating a still life piece featuring items that have been quote getting them through the pandemic these items include some of those things that are getting them through are ballet shoes a lacrosse stick a puppy and much much more this gift to you this evening symbolizes our thanks to you for helping quote get us through as we charter these unprecedented times thank you for all you do you make
020a difference for all of us and for those board members zooming at home you will have to be in suspense this evening and we will deliver your pictures to you tomorrow so dr grandi that now concludes my report well thank you for that dr palmer and and thanks to the the students uh who helped contribute to these really awesome things for us so we really appreciate it um and i just want to thank uh all my fellow board members for your service on the board uh i know it's been a been a challenging past year and so we certainly appreciate all the time and effort that you put into providing leadership for the district next up on the agenda is our focus topics we have two of them this evening one related to the 2021
0212022 pro proposed preliminary budget there's a lot of teas in there and the revised 2021 2022 school calendar i think when we switched years to post 2020 this job became more difficult saying all these things but let me turn things over to dr palmer to introduce our first focused topic thank you dr grandy so tonight ms q will be presenting the proposed 2022 preliminary budget the budget itself is still very preliminary and very much a work in progress covet 19 with its effort with our ever-changing educational plans and our health and safety plans has made budgeting very difficult to say the very least and i'm using a lot of varies we are really very early and still having a great deal of difficulty estimating what all of our needs are we know we are a
022work in progress this year but what we do know also is as we plan for our 2122 budget we remain committed to maintaining our excellent educational program our mental and behavioral health supports and broadening our diversity equity and inclusion focus procedurally we start our budget countdown this evening with the beginning of the required steps toward the adoption of the final budget we will continue to share more details and refine our estimates until june at which time the school board will adopt our final budget for 21.22 and looking at that timeline tonight the proposed preliminary budget is presented to the board and the community but no action will be taken ms q's presentation and the proposed preliminary budget will be posted on our website and it will be under departments business office and it will also
023be included on board docs on february 8th the board will adopt the preliminary budget and will continue to work on that budget in a very profound way until may miss q will then present the proposed final budget and that budget will be posted on display on our website until on june 28th the board will take action to adopt the 21 22 budget so ms q is joining us virtually so martha whenever you are ready you may start just to confirm can you see my screen we can or wait a minute we can in the room and we can on youtube okay thank you um good evening another year has passed and what a year it's been um this is my fifth budget for wallingford swarthmore and things couldn't be more unpredictable than it was for
024the first budget as dr palmer noted we are very early in the budget process and there are many unknowns and a deeper analysis is needed on many items doing projections for the current year becomes incredibly difficult with the ongoing coven 19 expenses and related effects on district revenues what other costs will be what other costs will the district have to absorb during this most unusual year getting estimations for revenues and future expenditures is more difficult as there are so many unknowns when you are talking about a time frame so far into the future where there are so many questions yet to be answered we do not know whether we will receive additional relief funding from the state or federal government we do have an item on this agenda related to fema funds we are continually
025looking for covid19 relief funds we do not know what our revenues are for from the state or federal funds for the coming year we honestly do not know whether our funding will be due what are where our funding will be due to the effects of the cover 19 on the state revenue streams and so on we are working to finalize the assessed values from the country the county-wide reassessment this information affects our local revenues we are building a budget based on a full return to school for the 21-22 school year however if there are restrictions still in place what will they be and what effect will that have on the budget so as indicated we are very early in the process and many items need to be fleshed out before the final budget in june
026when we create a budget is we examine revenues to find historical trends to project future revenue growth wait historical trends hmm that isn't really going to help this year local revenues are affected by the county-wide reassessment investment earnings are at a historic low and we are waiting for information on various sources the state and federal governments haven't even discussed budgets at this point so we have no idea where our state and federal funding streams will be we assume that we are going to be at the same funding level for this year but we have no indication as to the governmental intent we also work with department and school budgets each year each department or school principal is asked to provide their budgets at a relatively flat growth rate for the coming year there are areas
027of change that need to be addressed due to items like student enrollment changes and changes for programmatic needs then there are the major cost drivers salary and benefits make up almost 70 percent of the district expense expenditure budget the cost of our staff is included in the proposed preliminary budget based on the collective bargaining agreements that are in place one part of those costs include teasers the state defined pension plan the employer contribution rate continues to rise from year to year for 2122 the rate will raise from 34.51 to 34.94 percent or an additional point four three percent a one point two four percent increase this increase represents approximately a hundred and fifty thousand dollars just by itself we have to continue to examine expenditures many areas of the budget contain estimates for services and
028supports at this point as we continue to work on refining the budget we will develop firmer estimate estimations of the district needs in various budget areas and did i mention that we're very early in the budgeting process at this functional level by function i mean the larger expenditure categories such as instructional programs support services and so on approximately 60 percent of the total expenditure budget is for instructional programs this includes regular instruction special education vocational education community college and other instructional programs including summer programs homebound instruction and so on support services are 29 of the budget this area includes all the support areas including guidance psychology social work nurse library administration operations transportation technology and the business office basically any area that supports the instructional programs debt service makes up just over eight percent of
029the budget this is the interest in principle being paid on the district's general obligation bonds and notes student activities and athletics are approximately two percent of the budget this is all the sports as well as the student activities including things like speech and debate music band the musical yearbook the newspaper class advisors and so on the budgetary reserve are funds that are set aside in case any unforeseen issue arises that needs immediate attention this represents less than one half of one percent of the total budget let's drill down further into our expenditures using what the state calls object codes the object code reformist and benefits make up another 27 percent of the approach for for approximately 69 of the total budget purchase services which includes professional services like therapists consultants legal counsel and contractors it
030also includes tuition to specialize schools the intermediate union program payments payments to the community college repairs leases such as copiers and insurance represents just over 18 percent principal interest and fees make up just over nine percent of the total budget fees includes items like membership licenses certifications supplies are textbooks small equipment utilities instructional and non-instructional supplies and software this is just over three percent of the budget as previously said the budgetary reserve represents less than one half of one percent of the total 89 million dollar budget again i say remember we are very early in the process and we will work digital buying 81 percent of the revenue budget included in local revenues are the property taxes per capita taxes transfer taxes interest earnings facility rentals and miscellaneous revenues state revenues include things like basic
031ed subsidy special education subsidy transportation subsidy the rental sinking fund social security and peasers reimbursements as well as the property tax reduction allocation the property tax allocations are not released by pde as of yet and the estimate for 2120 the estimate in the 2122 budget uses the current year numbers as you can see state revenues make up just of just under 17 of the revenue budget federal revenues are title 1 title 2 and title 4 and make up less than one third of one percent of the revenue budget for 2122 the budget does rely on the fund using the fund balance to balance the budget the structural deficit is 1.3 million dollars and is approximately 1.5 percent of the total budgetary requirements to come to again that 89 million dollars let's talk about the county-wide
032reassessment we are still fi 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 dollars if we reset the millage rate based on that value we would go from 48.3654 mills to 25.6727 mills each year we talk about the effect on the median assessed value prior to reassessment that value was and net seventy nine thousand dollars in assessed value or eight thousand six hundred fifty seven dollars in real estate taxes assuming an average adjustment the new median assessed value would be approximately three hundred and eighteen thousand dollars or real estate taxes based on the new millage rate of eight thousand four hundred and eighty two dollars that's actually reduction in taxes some property some properties will have an increase in taxes while
033others will see a decrease it should average out over the county and i say the county not just the school district where one-third of the people will see a decrease one-third will see an increase and one-third will remain about the same in addition to that included in this proposed preliminary budget is additional millage above the reset value of 1.16 mils even with that additional taxes we are still taking 1.3 million dollars from the fund balance to balance this budget so what's next on february 2nd governor wolf will present his version of the budget for the state on february february 8th this budget will be presented to the board for their approval on may 10th they'll be a proposed final budget presentation may 24th board action on that final proposed final budget june 14th another the
034actual final budget presentation and june 28th the board takes action on the final budget in between now and that time there will be many finance committee meetings as well as a great deal of work with the administration and staff to finalize this budget and make the unknowns more solid any questions if board members have questions i'll keep an eye on the zoom hand function and then if anyone in the room has questions i can see you uh jerry uh yes the assumption on the next year's budget is it full in school for all the students the budget was prepared with the idea that we will have full return and will there still be an online academy that was not included in this budget presentation okay is that a thought in case there are people that
035do not want to come back in martha i'm going to jump in on that even though you can't see me at this point mr ballas we have built the base budget assuming that we would be full in person i think the piece that we're going to need to know is as we move closer to the end of the school year as we say we're early in the process depends on how we're progressing through the coveted vaccinations what does the landscape look like will there be need for that online academy at this point though we are assuming that our children will be back but we'll be watching it very very closely and as we and i should add as we're moving through finance committee meetings and our public presentations we'll be able to discuss it more
036fully okay thank you other questions uh matt have a quick one martha can you just talk about where we are with our fund balance and we have a structural deficit that we're spending down 1.3 million dollars of the fund balance in the proposed budget but can you give us a sense of you know where our fund balance sits versus where where we're comfortable with it winding up because i want to do some quick math over seven million dollars in unassigned fund balance that doesn't count us having any commitments for our health care self insurance or things like that um at this point at the end of this budget you were going to be down in the area of 4 million assuming the current year ends with a pretty significant deficit that was originally projected which
037is another thing that we're working on is the record projecting out the reconciliation for 2021. so martha i'm going to ask you to go one bit further if you were looking at four million dollars how does that compare to what is in the budget that you just presented tonight because i saw a use of fund balance what does that mean if somebody were looking at that after the 1.3 million dollars we should have approximately 4 million i do want to go back and recheck that to confirm that's correct any other questions okay thank you miss q so dr palmer do you want to introduce our next stop i do i see mr abbott at the door mr abbott is back with us this evening talking about our 2122 calendar and again i thank everybody who
038gave us their comments either at the board meeting last time or wrote to us subsequent to the board meeting we listened we heard and we brought back a revised calendar for the board's consideration this evening so ferg would you give us the highlights thank you dr palmer we're waiting for a very short slide presentation to come up there it is so as dr palmer indicated since the last presentation um we heard comments uh about the calendar and we're coming back tonight with a change and that change has to do with the start of the school year so that instead of starting as we proposed two weeks ago at before labor day a week before labor day we are now going to our traditional after labor day start so so now the first student day will
039be on wednesday september 8th if if you recall or or to be told for the first time labor day is always on a monday as we know but in this case in for the 2021 year tuesday september 7th is a holiday so for that reason school will begin on the wednesday after the labor day so that pushes school back the start of school back by that week and that means the last student day is pushed back by one week which will make the last student day friday june 17th what that means for the beginning of the year in service day is that we now have the week before labor day is aaron service week and at the end of school at the end of the school year we have three in service days monday through
040wednesday june 22nd through june june 20th through june 22nd so that one change was made to the calendar everything else will remain the same in the proposed calendar that is up for board approval tonight questions all right uh i see the uh jen has a question on zoom thanks uh mr abbott um are you able to also see me am i on the screen back there or do you just hear me i'm curious i think i see you on my screen aj if you want to end that you can i was just curious um oh now we see you on the big screen okay okay um so mr abbott i see that the asynchronous day remains on election day which um correct me if i'm wrong means that the teachers are actually all occupied doing
041an in-service day and the kids are at home on their own following instruction that's been assigned um on on what has traditionally been a day off is that right that's correct instead of adding a student day an additional student day during the school year or adding an additional day at the end of the school year that monday june 20th we are doing the asynchronous day on november 2nd and you're correct the teachers will be participating in in-service day activities on that november 2nd and they will have ahead of time plan for asynchronous activities for the students for november 2nd when you say activities like work they can do at home correct just so i i understand i just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing yes yes it would not be work
042in school it would be work to be done at home okay and so i'm wondering how if we anticipate being back full time five days a week without the asynchronous wednesdays legally what gives us permission to have that day as an asynchronous day we we've never had an asynchronous day before this year is that right not to my knowledge and actually i spent some time going through previous calendars and i did not see anything there okay so how do we how do we you know um how do we get away with that so to speak i guess in other words how does pd pde determine what makes an educational day no i guess what i'm saying is that there has to be 180 days for each for the kids right um do i have that
043correct i thought from the department of education from the state yes it's a combination of days it's also hours as well and minutes so i guess what i'm wondering is with an asynchronous day when kids are or are not doing that work on their own how does that equal the same kind of school day that let's say comes right before it on november 1st under the law well the and dr palm you may be able to clarify this we're able to identify those days such as an act 80 day um where where the time the time that is spent will count as an educational day there has to be substance behind it and but as far as what is the measurement of that substance i can't answer that here i would need to do research
044to find out what what that measurement is if there is such a measurement with pde well i get the reason i'm asking is i'm concerned because i've also read act 80 on the department of education for the state and all the basic requirements for our days seem to be outlined i believe what i'm reading is is the requirements when we're not in a pandemic which we're anticipating next year theoretically we're not in a pandemic and i just don't see how an asynchronous day could possibly qualify um which is probably why we've never done it before now um so that that concerns me that it actually does not fall under a non-pandemic requirements for our state well i would say you know before kovid and um with snow days there was this if i'm not wrong
045there was this movement towards school districts on a snow day um having essentially an asynchronous day where activities are provided when students are not in school due to inclement weather and that would count as a snow day and that practice was starting to take off with some districts prior to the cobit pandemic unfortunately i mean i don't know if that would fall under something else because because of the inability maybe to conduct school in a snow day but i have to say and i'm not gonna i won't read it for us at 80. it's long and it's lengthy and i don't think any of us necessarily have had the time for that but there is a huge section about what sort of counts and what doesn't and it's it's specific that education is to be
046underrated the direction direction of a certified teacher i just don't think from what i'm reading unless someone can tell me i'm flatly wrong that this asynchronous day again please correct me if i'm wrong i don't see how it qualifies under the state's requirements um you know again we have asynchronous now um we're in a different year now we um anything that's going on now again that's pandemic i i just don't see how it comes in so the other question i had for you is um what have we done in the past when we run into this is with the calendar have we had school on the 23rd of december it has varied but if i go through the many calendars of past we have not had school on a monday in june at the end
047of the year we have had school on december 23rd when um the 24th was on a friday i've seen it both ways where we have had school for students on the 23rd and we have also have not had school on the 23rd when the 24th was on a friday okay is is there any reason that i'm missing that we have changed it this year since the 24th is on a friday for 2021 why we wouldn't be putting up like an actual in-school school day which we i think there's no argument that that's the best education for our kids minus a pandemic is there is there a reason that i'm overlooking why we instead are giving the kids asynchronous work on the second and not doing a school day on the 23rd well as i indicated
048i had seen the 23rd both be a student day and an on student day encounters in the past and as i understand it the reason this time that we're doing the asynchronous is because the 23rd is close to 24th obviously and and many uh community members feel that that is part of the winter break and also not to ha and then the other reason is not to have monday june 20th be a student day have we done that on in the years that we haven't done the 23rd have we ever had a monday bringing students back it as the last day in june no i guess on the my question is um actually on the years that we haven't had school on the 23rd have we had it then alternatively on the monday in june
049i'm guessing the answer is no if we haven't done that no we've i cannot see any calendar if you can see the stack where we have had a monday in june for students as the last student day and do we know what the neighboring schools or other schools are doing um if they're having instant async days as of yet i know not everyone's passed their calendar but have you heard of anyone else putting in an async day no i don't dr palmer and i are shaking our heads know that we um do not know what other school districts are doing as far as asynchronous days or not okay thanks mr abbott that's all my questions dr granty okay thank you um dr palmer are you able to comment on the pde requirements so mrs lentz
050focused on what constitutes an act 80 day and i know i did a presentation on this last year but i thought let me point out for everyone we have to have 180 student days at all levels our elementary middle and our high our elementary yes middle and high we also have to have 900 minutes i'm sorry 900 hours at the elementary and 9.90 at the secondary level so when we are counting those days every one of the days when the children are in session or any one of those days that are quote an act 80 day count toward the 180 day requirement and some of those items are when we have professional development days they are an act 80 day when they are parent-teacher conferences they are an act 80 day they don't count for
051instructional minutes but they do count for the days and that's what mrs lentz is referring to what constitutes an act 80 day and they are very specific items and only those items count for act 80. an instruction has to be instructional time that the children are with us this year when we look at what we had at the beginning of the year we developed educational plans when our children weren't in school at all and that time counted as instructional time when we look at our hybrid time we have some kids who are online some kids are in school and wednesday is an asynchronous day we count all of that as instructional time because it is part of our educational plan for this year and it is under covered and it is unusual what i don't
052know will be in place next year will we be able to do an educational plan similar to what we're doing now dovetailing on the conversation that mr ballas said was what will we do with the online academy will be will we be running it again next year at this moment we did the budget assuming we will not have the online academy but we could move a little further into the year like a little further in this year and we find out that we're going to need it those children would be coming in on the online academy and we'll be developing an education plan for that might the asynchronous day fit under that education plan because we're operating similarly to what we're doing this year an alternative to that would be to use flexible instruction days
053which is what mr abbott was speaking about when they are the way that school districts have been using days that are when the children are not physically in our buildings but they are using those days most typically for a weather related day where the kids have activities that they are doing under a flexible instruction day that the board has approved a plan and then we are able to count those days my thought would be we will either be having an educational plan that will allow us to define what the asynchronous day is or we will be applying for flexible instruction days and we will be able to put what we will be doing on that particular day we're just looking to designate the day as part of our calendar but we still have to develop
054what would the plan be for that day and i hope that helps and i thought it really does wedge in but it is not a question of counting it as an act 80 day as we do for parent-teacher conferences or as we do for staff in service i hope that helps thank you dr palmer uh i see kelly here in the room and then we'll go to maryland mr rabbit i was wondering just listening to the conversation would the option of trading the president's day holiday be something that we could consider most working parents do not have that as a holiday and might that be an option the um the friday before president say right yeah that's an option right dr bomber mr abbott i'm just double checking isn't that a pd day it would
055be just like november 2nd would be a p day oh i see what you're saying but to make it an asynchronous day yeah flip to november 2nd asynchronous with february 11th async synchronous yes it probably doesn't work but i was what i was thinking was if it was and i wasn't realizing one what day that falls on this year um typically that's a day off in the district and i was thinking that we could flip it it would be an actual in not asynchronous an actual learning day but what you're saying is that it's already in the calendar as a so then we'd have to trade something else in order to make that work got it thank you yeah if i recall uh in the past two years we moved a lot of the pd
056days sandwiched around a lot of holidays to try to decrease the sporadic professional development day during other times of the year for parents um marilyn so i think families have a very specific picture in their heads of what an asynchronous education day means uh which is how asynchronous wednesdays have been this year and and i'm assuming that that's not exactly what the asynchronous day would most likely be next november but i also know that we don't have a plan yet for that but could you give us a little bit more information about what that asynchronous day might look like at the various levels had um we had sent a note out to uh dr citarelli jones the director of education and she responded back with very general terms for what that would look like and
057i don't have that or else i would read it word for word one of the things you have to keep in mind is that on november 2nd teachers will be engaged with their learning activities they will be engaged with their professional development activities so the um any interactive activities that are occurring on wednesdays now would not be a part of it um but they are going to be related to the promotion of the curriculum or related to the curriculum of of at least at this point um you know if if that doesn't um prevent good ideas from coming to the table as to how to use that day but as of now that is that would be the intent is to promote the correct to advance the curriculum of each teacher at each at each
058grade in each subject one thing that um i remember from uh uh dr cedric ellie jones responds to that and and i remember the explanation more from the high school level and that often in the high school level they will have in-class work days on projects where students will be doing research and such and those are the kinds of things that could be easily planned for the asynchronous day that students could do from home yes that certainly is true without speaking too much for the elementary level i would also say that that what has been learned this year with remote learning as with the good and the bad that comes from it but taking the good and being able to use that for this day next year um as value it's not like we would
059be starting this from square one we've had this year of experience or this half year of experience uh chapin it's uh thanks it just seems to me that jen asked a legal question and we could just ask kyle to answer it for us you know an interpretation about the statute and move on from this because we either have the authority to do it or we don't what it looks like ultimately down the road is a totally different question jen raised a legal question so i feel like we should ask kyle and then move on if we can uh okay so i can address part of this um first of all the flexible instruction days which i think were what florida was referring to really aren't applicable because you can't plan for the emergency situations that
060are discussed in the statute for that that being said it's fairly clear from the way that pde has in the past approved schools to use online academies even outside of the pandemics that there has to be a or the pde will approve the use of online resources to allow for remote participation it's not clear because i don't know that anybody's ever done it before that they would have mostly in in school and then have particular days called out where it's not so i can't give you a complete answer in truth if i had had some notice that this was going to be asked i would have looked into it further but i can certainly come back with information later not tonight where i can try to get more information about this okay uh matt thank
061you just one quick question for you if i'm understanding this right what this really means is that we have one less what it really boils down to is that there's one less day of in-person instruction compared to a typical year you know so setting aside everything that we've gone through since the pandemic hit this calendar this proposed calendar would be one less day of in-person instruction than a typical school year am i understanding that right that's correct in our typical school year okay um and i know it's only one day but i i do have some concerns about that about less one less in-person day just because i feel like particularly coming out of the pandemic we're gonna need as much in-person instruction as possible to make up for the covid impacts to education so
062you know i would be in favor of going on the 23rd or any of the other solutions i know there's no perfect calendar but that's the way i'm looking at this other questions who has their hand up jen did you have your hand up oh no okay um i mean i think i'll just add um i'm kind of torn to be honest with you um you know i think that a lot of families had very difficult holidays this year and so that's weighing on me as well that i certainly hope that people's holidays next year are not what they were this year and people have more of an opportunity to spend time with their families over over that holiday season um i know that's not a question so i'll leave it there um but there's
063no other questions from board members okay thanks ferg all right um so that takes us to audience recognition um this is the time for uh comment for items that are on the agenda this evening for action uh and just as a reminder public comment uh 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 is 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 meetings if there is a specific question for the district i'll also mention as in our past in-person meetings we do have two methods to comment both in person and by phone and for
064members of the public wishing to address the board in person we have overflow of space for this meeting if needed to maintain adequate social distancing when it's time to speak we ask audience members to wear a mask at all times you'll be guided to the meeting room to speak members of the public can also call 610-892-3470 extension 1102 to leave a recorded comment for the board 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 any comments left after five o'clock but prior to the end of the meeting are still transcribed distributed to the board and made a part of the record but not acknowledged during the meeting so with that is there anyone who would like to
065speak tonight about a topic that's on the agenda this evening okay great if you could uh are they supposed to go out in the hallway yeah if you don't mind walking out in the hallway and then coming around that door sorry to make you take the circuitous route to get here um but it seems kind of silly um but um if you could just state your name and uh just your street you don't have to give your house a dress uh and then take it away okay great thanks my name is rochelle kelly and i live on west country club lane in wallingford um i just want to thank the board tonight for allowing in-person commentary it's actually so nice to be somewhere in person and see people face to face um tonight i'm here
066to talk about something that i really never thought that i would have to do i'm here to ask for our children to attend school in person uh we've all been impacted by coven 19 but the science is telling us that there's a greater impact to children if they don't attend school in person we've heard discussions month over month we're doing the best that we can we'll look into it later but yet our elementary children are still either two days a week hybrid or they're fully online and if a parent opted in to have their children um have have class um fully on home that's a great fit for that family but for those of us who opted in for in-person learning it's it's a weekly struggle um our children really need our help i've had
067so many people share with me their struggles with at home learning and our teachers are being asked to teach two different classes all day long that's not sustainable or fair to our teachers or to our students our children need to be in school every day and there are children being lost in our school system and if we don't help them now the consequences could have a long negative impact to their mental health when i was in elementary school a terrible tragedy happened to my family and if i didn't have that support of my family or the community or the school especially my teachers i don't think that things would have turned out the same way going to school saved me and we need to help save our children the toll on our children's mental health
068has not been realized and i am glad to hear that this is on our agenda for this special board meeting next monday i believe you said at 7 pm as for high school students it was great to hear that students have a four day a week program unfortunately my kids couldn't go to school today because they are winter athletes they can literally show up at practice at this at our school but can't attend school in person um you know where they are and who they are with um this doesn't make sense and we really need to make that change now so i urge you to a vote to allow our winter athletes to attend school as well as consider for our spring athletes to attend school as well i'm asking you to please put our
069children in educator first and bring our elementary school kids back in full time and allow our students other high school students to attend in person thank you so much for your time tonight thank you for coming out uh do we have any other comments for anything on the agenda this evening i have one that was phoned in okay uh so kelly you have one called in comment i don't think anyone else go ahead okay um uh this comment is from joanna carp on cornell avenue in swarthmore hi i'm just calling to commend the board on the 2021-2022 school year calendar that was revised after the last meeting it is a breath of fresh air to see the after labor day start we are also grateful that the board continues to include the jewish holidays in
070the calendar we just wanted to voice our support for voting yes to accept this new revised calendar thank you okay and that was the only called in comment correct for an item on the agenda correct okay yeah if it's not on the agenda then at the end for something on the agenda sure thank you for making the trip around uh so just again name and just you can just say your street but you don't give your your home address okay my name is jamie murley i live on sheffield drive in wallingford um thank you so much for having tonight's meeting i've never been to a board meeting before so it's nice to see you guys i appreciate all the work you put into this um i didn't prepare any remarks but in terms of the
071asynchronous day i have three children in the district i'll have a child at each school level next year and coming from this place of this year and the experience of having three children and three different grades i can tell you as a parent it's incredibly incredibly difficult managing three different curriculums and it's even it doesn't seem like a big deal that it's just for one day but i guess the fear of mine and people that i've spoken to is that this is gonna open the door to become a regular occurrence and uh that's terrifying so um i just want the board to take into account that this has been a really hard year our kids are behind so behind and to even um accept one more asynchronous day on the calendar is really going to
072be difficult on the children and on the parents not to mention it's a day for voting and if this year's taught us anything it's that elections matter and anything making it more difficult on the parents to be able to perform that civic duty um is also i think very problematic so i just urged the board to think about those things and consider taking the asynchronous day off of the calendar and putting it on the 23rd or some other place on the calendar all right thank you for coming out thank you any other comments okay um all right so that takes us to our first item for action which is the approval of the january 11th regular business meeting minutes an iso move do i have a second thank you matt any discussion all right mr
073fagor can you please take a roll call vote mr ballas aye ms amino hi dr downey hi dr huff hi mr cutis aye mrs lentz hi mr sullivan aye mrs walkman aye dr grandy hi motion passes nine to zero all right thank you miss bagura all right that takes us to uh personnel we have five items for action and personnel are there any items on the list anyone on the board would like to separate from the rest okay so first we have the approval of three appointments brittany mcneil administrative assistant at the middle school jason pastouk instructional support at npe and john bucci instructional support at npe we have the approval of five leaves of absence as listed in the agenda with the approval of a new higher rescission as listed in the agenda we
074have the approval of an addition to the 2020 2021 activity advisors as listed in the agenda and we have the approval of payment of unused sick days as stipulated all items in the section are as attached or described in the agenda do i have a motion so moved thank you kelly uh do we have a second matt i'll give that to you uh any discussion okay miss figueroa can you please take a roll call vote miss cimino hi dr downey hi dr huff hi mr cutis aye mrs lentz hi mr sullivan aye mrs walkman aye mr balas hi dr grandy hi dr granny nine to zero the motion passes all right thank you miss figura so we have four items for action in curriculum uh i think four hold on let me double check yes
075four okay uh are there any one any on the list anyone would like to separate from the rest i would like to separate out 9c my microphone is not on jen i see your hand down thank you dr randy i would like to separate out uh b okay uh so can we take a and d together does anyone want those separated okay so we'll first consider 9a and 9d so 9a is the approval of 2020 2021 related services provider contracts as stipulated and 9d is the approval of the health and safety plan for competition and voluntary workouts for spring and summer 2021 uh and both of those items are as attached or described in the agenda uh do i have a motion so i moved jerry balance thank you jerry do i have a second
076thanks larry uh any discussion i had a question on item d actually if the district were to move uh to less than a six foot distance will it require us to amend the um the health and safety competition voluntary workout plan for spring and summer right now it's written it is written at six um maintaining six foot distance thing in there currently i'd actually have to go back in and look at that because we could still keep the six foot distancing i think it was outside but we would go back and look at all of our plans okay if we go to a shorter that would be our that would be our intent though if if it was necessary because we're going to go to a less um distance insulin would depend on where like
077if we only apply that to elementary schools or if we apply it across the board i understood yeah i was i was thinking ahead to if it were to be applied more broadly into our education plan i want to make sure that we would go back and look at the plan for health and safety as well and mrs walkman that is actually one of the things that we are looking at right now in anticipation of monday's board meeting we have an educational plan that we will have to revise and a health and placement okay health and safety plan i wasn't thinking in terms of high school sports yeah but i know miss figure and i just had the conversation that it's both plans that we have to look at in terms of monday's meeting okay
078okay thanks any other discussion okay ms fagor can you please take a roll call vote dr downey aye dr huff aye mr cutis aye mrs lentz hi mr sullivan hi mrs walkman aye mr balas aye ms amino aye dr grandy hi curriculum items a and d pass nine to zero all right thank you miss figueroa so that takes us to nine b which is the approval of the 2021 2022 school calendar as presented earlier in the focus topic uh do i have a motion so moved marilyn huff uh dr grandy are you opening up discussion on this so we would open up discussion uh after we have a motion and a second okay thank you so i want who said i mean okay you made the motion okay i gotcha okay do we have a
079second second all right thank you larry uh now we have discussion jen thank you dr grandy so um i am not voting for this calendar tonight and it has nothing to do with the labor day issue which is what most people's eyes have been on i think since our last meeting um i take real issue with seeing an asynchronous day on our calendar in a year that is theoretically not a pandemic year um with all due respect dr palmer i really didn't understand the explanation that you provided um sort of planning for it and i don't mean anything that i'm saying with that offensively at all i just really don't grasp um why or how we could legally have this asynchronous day on our calendar um i understand mr grimm and you said you're not
080prepared to really um enlighten us on act 80 and there's certainly something i could be missing because i did go out of my way to i read it on my own um but i don't see which is probably why it hasn't traditionally happened how this allows for asynchronous learning days um again when we're not in a pandemic um certainly back on july 20th of 2020 when we passed this year's education educational model there was nothing about that that made me think that we were approving asynchronous days in a year that was not a pandemic i certainly did not think in any way that i was voting for that so i would hope that that would not be the reason that we're putting them into the 21 22 school year uh in addition i did look
081at what our neighbors are doing not everyone has their 21 22 calendars approved i looked at interbro springfield ridley abington school district which is a montgomery county but um and they unfortunately did not improve according to their websites their 21 22 calendars yet so i couldn't see them on there um rose tree media also does not have a calendar up on their site yet although they did have school on december 23rd um i believe i think this year from what they uh showed on their website i looked at garnet valley school district now they do start the week before labor day which is different than us but they have school on december 23rd and they have a full day off on election day and they have no asynchronous days at all on their calendar for
08221 22. i also looked at radner uh radner starts actually on the 8th of this september and they they end when we end i believe let me double check they end when we end on the 17th with an early dismissal on june 17th and their last day is december 22nd before their before their break lastly i looked at haverford and haverford school district seems to start on september 9th actually for 21 22 and they also have school on december 23rd radnor haverford and garnet valley do not have any asynchronous days on their calendars at all for next year the one thing about the calendar is that it's certainly not unique to us i mean we all have it which is why i looked as far as abington school district so i have to believe that
083there is a way that we can solve this and give the most optimal form of education which i don't think is debated to our kids that deserve it second of all you know of all years next year our kids they need to be in school that is where they learn the best i again don't think that's been up for debate um of all years um they got to be there and dr huff when you ask you know if we can tell the parents what that day is going to look like they know what that day looks like because they've been seeing it all year now i'm not advocating for or against our wednesdays but i think an honest conversation would be that they are controversial in the community no matter how you fall with what
084you think about them there are many different opinions to be balanced in our district about those wednesdays um the kids also know what those wednesdays look like and i'm going to tell a quick little story about a conversation i overheard last week when i was walking my dog i was at cades which is a park in swarthmore there was about 10 kids throwing a football around all masked and there was i guess one of the kids was not from the wallingford swarthmore school district and the other kids were asking the kid if he has school on wednesdays kids said yes i have school on wednesdays because he goes to a different school and all the other kids started ripping the child because he had to go to school on wednesdays and there was debate amongst
085the majority of the kids about whether or not they do an hour or a half an hour of work on their wednesdays and then they get the day off now again i'm not advocating for or against the asynchronous wednesdays that's a different conversation but they are controversial and the parents know what they look like and the kids know what they look like even if they look different to different families i'm really worried about the president this is not one day this is an avenue for possibly a different change in how we're learning and what we're giving our kids as far as an education what is this going to look like if we allow an asynchronous day i mean next year if we choose to decide to start before labor day will it be well you
086know you guys are going to warm up on your own you're going to take a few few days to start the year asynchronous with a workbook and we'll see you after labor day i don't know but i think it's silly to think that this one asynchronous day doesn't mean more than just a simple eight hours on november 2nd i'm all for a clean calendar i love a clean calendar i love a simple calendar who wouldn't want that but this is not like i said about the eight hours i don't want to seem nitpicky i really don't i don't think that it is unreasonable on paper on paper that this calendar was presented but in practice this is not a good um certainly not an optimal way to educate our kids a lot of parents have
087had a front row seat education this year and guardians because they've been watching school come right into their homes and what i think that i know i learned and i think a lot of other parents have learned is that education is not a full throttle where someone just picks up multiplication or picks up division or picks up you know ap biology in one day education is full of a lot of little moments it's the little moments and it's the little steps and even though they're small even though it's one day it matters it is a series of building blocks that these kids need and that's exactly why education is designed this way there is no reason for us to change it so that we can have a smooth vacation or an easy easy break in
088june again i like a smooth calendar but not at the expense of an education for our kids especially after this year i think it also sends a really bad message if we put an async down there i think it sends a bad message to the kids i think it says that they have a passage to the parents especially after we're saying we want your kids in we want to teach them in person and then we and then we go and throw an async day on there i think it sends a bad message to the teachers and i think it sends a bad message to our unions i do not think that this asynchronous day has any business being on our calendar when we are not in a pandemic and finally this is exactly how things
089start to slowly change we've seen that with some other things this year again there have been some good parts of the past year but this is not one of the things that i think we want to carry over our kids are not going to speak up on this we're not going to hear from them they're too young and they're too little but someone's got to say that this is not an acceptable form of education for them i appreciate you mr abbott presenting it to us it's great for us to share all these ideas but i am not going to vote for this calendar tonight and i encourage my fellow board members not to either so i have um two people with hands up uh but then i did want to maybe ask uh ferg to
090just weigh in again on implications of making a change kelly do you want to go first and then why don't you go and then we'll go to third okay um uh uh ms lynch thanks very much for your thoughtful and impassioned comments i was wondering uh if you would want to offer an amendment um to the current calendar and put that on the uh on the floor for for a vote you know i i would definitely be interested in offering an amendment i i i get concerned about um you know i certainly think that it's the administration that has its finger on the pulse of what works well um i'm going with mr abbott's assertion that the 23rd or a monday would be alternate alternatives again i'm not really sure how our neighboring districts are
091working this out um without combing each of their days it's it's unclear to me but what i do know is that they're working it out so to me it really doesn't i i guess i'd be happy to have this asynchronous day go and um if the support is there and it makes sense for the administration we could pick a day um how we get rid of it is less of a concern to me it's more important to me that we get rid of it maybe we could have ferg talk about if there's a and then i see marilyn you have your hand up so if you want me to wait on my question to ferg i'm happy to do that i guess um i raised my hand before i knew i was going to need
092to rebut anything um because my concern was more about only today we started hearing from families who actually disapprove of um shifting the calendar to starting after labor day again so i'm wondering if a better solution to this rather than amending it on the floor tonight would be having a full discussion tonight and possibly tabling it for um a vote at a later board meeting and so maybe that's something that for could also address uh what the timeline is that we need to meet so maybe then there's maybe two questions that we could come back to one is uh if there was a preference to have kids come to school on december 23rd is that a is that a a clean change to the calendar like can that just happen or are there other i
093know with these calendars there's like lots of spillover effects once you change one thing so that would be uh one question and then the second is related to the timing of getting this done and finalized so uh of course one change creates a domino of changes and if we make december 23rd a student day it would change november 2nd to an in-service day with no students no school for students the december 22nd day where we have a half day for grades one through five and a kindergarten modified schedule that would flip over to december 23rd december 23rd would be a student day we then go to june the end of the student year stays the same but the teacher and service days would change from 20th 21st and 22nd to the 20th and 21st there
094they're the changes that would um need to take place and i believe that is all the changes uh postponing approval of this uh to a later date um as i indicated before i looked through a bunch of calendars and uh this would be one of the earlier approval dates that we've had the earliest i saw was the first meeting in january and typically it's done in february so certainly a postponement of another two weeks is doable especially if we're not although starting starting school for the students before labor day does warrant a lot of advance and that was one of the reasons why we had gone for next year back to after labor day start um because it's still you know families are making plans or have made plans thank you ferg i i do
095have a little bit more to say just oh go ahead marilyn so um uh you know mrs lentz you you spoke passionately about a lot of things but i do think you mischaracterized what i said a bit and that i don't think i ever stated that families or students don't know what asynchronous days look like right now they certainly do and they are living through them and i agree with you and they're having a lot of it and they're tired of it and i get that but the point i was making is that perhaps that day being called an asynchronous day was unfortunately an unfortunate name for that day because i don't think we know exactly what that day will look like next year for students or for families so that was the point that
096i was making not that people are unaware of what's going on another reason why i would uh support um maybe tabling the calendar at this point was i do think we need to have more discussion about the value of starting school before labor day now i agree maybe this year is not the time to do it but or next school year is not the time to do it but this is a discussion that's been going on for quite some time in this district and it is some it is an idea that needs to be hashed out in the community so that when the change does come eventually to starting before labor day it won't come as a surprise to the community so we need to have an ongoing discussion about it and make some decisions
097so that families can be uh prepared for such a change yeah and i i see uh i think kelly did you have here i was just gonna offer a motion to table at this point table that let me just say say one thing real quick which is i know that i i may be misremembering but i think i myself may have said about a year ago that um to maryland's point about whether or not we'd like want to consider a start before labor day that if we were to do that the best thing to do would be to move the discussion of the calendar to much earlier in the year to have that discussion and so given everything that's gone on obviously that hasn't happened in this year um so be my own feeling like
098at this point to like reopen the conversation about a pre-labor day start i i would lean toward trying to not do that for the next academic year but instead more forward looking after that um but you had a motion i just um i think at this point we've had a lot of dialogue a lot of important conversation and i think to marilyn's point the the ability of the community members to weigh in on this um as as she indicated um only today did we start receiving and i i agree i really don't want to revisit the early start at this point for this particular upcoming calendar year but i do think it's fair and appropriate to hear from families with give them more time to reflect on the removal of an asynchronous day and what
099that might mean where we pick it up in the calendar okay so there's a motion to table do i have a second second second from matt uh there's no discussion on a motion to table uh so ms fagora can you please take a roll call cutis aye mrs lentz hi mr sullivan hi mrs walkman hi mr ballas hi miss amino hi dr downey aye dr huff aye dr grandy hi the motion to table passes nine to zero okay um so we will um likely take this up at our february 8th board meeting then uh so that takes us to 9. excuse me yes before we move on i just wanted to say dr huff if i mischaracterized anything you said or misunderstood it or gave the wrong impression um i'm i'm truly sorry for that
100so let's not move on before i get to say that okay thank you dr grandy thanks jen uh so i think that takes us to 9c uh which is the approval of revisions to the health and safety plan for winter sports uh do i have a motion so moved thank you kelly uh second second thanks matt uh any discussion uh marilyn so later in the agenda we are going to be addressing the acit testing that will be available for staff and students when do we expect when can we project that that might be available do we have an idea dr huff i think it will be several weeks two at the earliest so my my concern is that when we put this provision on student athletes the reason we put the provision on them was
101because student athletes are inter-mixing with the other cohort within our district and they're also exposed to students from other school districts and so they have a higher exposure risk than the average student and that is why we put that restriction on them i'm wondering if there would be value in delaying and the students coming back into the building until we have the testing available for them any other comments matt just a question dr palmer have we seen a higher incidence rate amongst our athletes as opposed to the general student population we have not well actually let me stop we have not recently initially we did see a number of incidents nothing recently okay um you know i feel like we put this policy in place when we had climbing rates and we were you know
102really worried about seeing huge spikes continue and that this was a reasonable compromise to allow winter sport competition and practice to go forward but i feel like we're at a point where we can lift some of those restrictions and get these kids back into school kelly i i would echo that um sentiment i i voted in favor of that last time around i was passionate about it for the same reasons the the rates were climbing very much we knew that we were going to experience the highest rates yet over the holidays and as more and more data is coming out made available to us uh the the experience is is different than than what we had anticipated and so i do feel comfortable at this time of um approving the return and and i'll just
103speak for myself i i certainly agree uh with that sentiment i think november 23rd was a very different time uh during the whole trajectory of what's transpired uh over the winter and certainly not to say we don't still have high rates but uh i think we had two major holidays ahead of us at the time when we voted on the 23rd and we were already looking at the beginning of that upsurge in cases and so while we wanted to i think create those opportunities for student athletes to compete i think the prudent decision at the time was to do it in a cautious manner i do think we're in a different place now and i feel comfortable having those kids come back in our buildings the semester just started today in the high school uh
104which i think also is an important time for and we have a new instructional model that we approved just at the last meeting and i would like to to give those kids an opportunity to fully re-engage in in our in-person education program any other comments okay um ms fegora can you please take a roll call vote mrs lentz hi mr sullivan all right mrs walkman aye mr balas hi miss mino hi dr downey hi dr huff no mr cutis aye dr grandy hi dr grandy the motion passes eight to one all right thank you miss figura so that takes us to finance let me move ahead a few pages okay uh we have nine items for approval and finance are there any on the list anyone would like to separate from the rest okay we
105have the approval of payment of invoices to vendors dated december 9th 2020 through january 19th 2021. we have the acknowledgment of receipt of the financial statements as stipulated with the approval of the november and december 2020 treasures report with the approval of the 2020-2021 budget transfers as stipulated with the approval of the submission of plan concave for the general obligation bond series a of 2020 for refunding of the general obligation notes series of 2016 to the pennsylvania department of education we have the approval of the agreement with conrad segal actuaries to conduct analysis of post-retirement benefits as required by the government accounting standards board with the approval of the kandora cyber recovery based solution agreement we have approval of an agreement with coil lunch and company for appraisal reports and we have the approval of
106the designation of agent resolution for fema and pima coveted grants as stipulated all items in the section are as attached or described in the agenda do i have a motion thank you jerry do we have a second sec thanks larry any discussion all right mr figure can you please take a roll call vote mr sullivan hi mrs walkman hi mr ballas hi miss amino hi dr i dr huff hi mr cutis aye mrs lentz dr grandy aye dr grandy the motion passes nine to zero thank you miss figora so that takes us to uh the section on the agenda called other scrolling forward again so we have three items in this section for approval uh we will actually take them all separately the first is approval of a memorandum of agreement between chester county health
107department and the wallingford swarthmore school district to participate in project acet assisting childhood education through increased testing as stipulated this is the testing program dr palmer referred to earlier it's a school-based cova testing program for point-of-care rapid testing as a coveted mitigation strategy do i have a motion thanks matt second second thanks kelly any discussion just one quick question this is it no cost to the district nope yeah no cost of the district correct any other discussion all right miss figueroa can you take a roll call vote mrs walkman aye mr ballas aye ms amino aye dr downey hi dr huff aye mr cutis aye mrs lentz hi mr sullivan hi dr grandy hi motion passes nine to zero thank you miss figura so that takes us to the second item in this section which
108is a resolution uh to vaccinate our educators now and i'm going to ask dr palmer to read that resolution for us thank you dr grandi whereas the wallingford swarthmore school district board of school directors desires to record in the minutes of its regular meeting a resolution of respect and safety for all educators and educational staff members in the wallingford swarthmore school district and whereas the superintendents of delaware county along with the chester county health department and the delaware county covet task force have developed a vaccination plan for our staff starting february 13 2020 and whereas all plans have been submitted to the pennsylvania department of health have been vetted through the school leaders and have accounted for the details associated with such an enormous effort and whereas we know that receiving the vaccine is voluntary
109for our staff and whereas we have been advocating for the proper amount of vaccines so we can begin to better secure our schools and whereas we have not been a lot of the necessary dosages to begin our plan and whereas we have not been given a single dosage as of today now therefore be it resolved that the wallingford swarthmore school district board of school directors calls upon the general assembly and the pennsylvania department of health to secure the proper amount of covet 19 vaccines in order to vaccinate our educators now be it further resolved that a copy of this resolution be submitted to the elected senators and representative of the wallingford swarthmore school district in the general assembly the pennsylvania department of health and to the governor of pennsylvania all right thank you dr palmer
110um do i have a motion so moved i heard nathan uh do i have a second second thank you larry uh any discussion just a quick question i don't know that we need to amend the motion but should we be also providing a copy of this to our federal representatives it says that we're giving it to our senators and general assembly in pennsylvania i think that's an excellent suggestion which we can take care of yes any other discussion all right mrs figueroa can you take a roll call vote mr ballas aye ms mino aye dr downey aye dr huff aye mr cutis aye mrs lentz aye mr sullivan aye mrs walkman aye dr grandy aye motion passes nine to zero all right thank you miss figura uh and then next up uh we have an
111adoption of the resolution regarding black lives matter at school a day of understanding and affirmation i'll ask dr palmer to read that resolution thank you dr granty whereas in response to historic and systemic racism discrimination and violence perpetrated against black americans a nationwide movement has arisen to assert that black lives matter and whereas in support of that movement the wallingford swarthmore school district proclaims a day of action affirmation and solidarity to be called black lives matters at school a day of understanding and affirmation and whereas the purpose of that day and of the subsequent activity the day will inspire will be to explore and confront the past present and future status of black lives in our society and to affirm that status as equal to and not secondary to the lives of others and whereas
112schools should be places for the practice of equity for the building of understanding and for the active engagement of all in creating pathways to equity and justice for all people and whereas we are at a pivotal moment to affirm our values for an equitable and racially just public school system and elevate our voices to support the needs of our students and whereas the board of school directors of the wallingford swarthmore school district seeks to provide safe spaces for dialogue around challenging topics through curricular and school culture channels now therefore be it resolved that the wallingford swarthmore school board endorses the k-12 schools to participate in black lives matters at school a day of understanding and affirmation to be held on friday february 26 2021 thank you dr palmer do i have a motion so moved
113is this marilyn uh thanks marilyn uh do i have a second second all right i think matt was first uh any discussion all right miss maguire can you please take a roll call vote miss mino hi dr downey hi dr huff hi mr cutis aye mrs lentz hi mr sullivan aye mrs walkman aye mr palace aye dr grandy aye dr grandy the motion passes nine to zero all right thank you ms figuera all right that takes us to uh audience recognition for response to topics not on the agenda and just as a reminder public comment is a time for members of the district community to speak to the board about an issue before the board or that may come before the board um this section again is for items not on the agenda this evening
114as 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 meetings if there is a specific question for the district and i'll just remind members of the public viewing remotely if you wish to address the board you can also call 610-892-3470 extension 1102 to leave a recorded comment subject to a three-minute time limit as i mentioned earlier any comments left prior to five o'clock on the day of the meeting are transcribed and made available to the board and comments left 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 is there
115anyone who would like to speak tonight about a topic not on the agenda come on up thank you for being patient and waiting if you could just say your name and your street and then you can go ahead and make a comment great good evening thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight my name is monica zeitz and i live on forest lane in swarthmore i'm the mother to a fourth grader at srs and a seventh grader at strathaven middle school i've come here this evening to share a petition on behalf of 331 signatories using urging the school board to reevaluate the amount of spacing necessary in our classrooms in our elementary middle and high schools as some of you may know i'm a local physician practicing in delaware county so i'm well
116aware of the devastation covet has caused in our community and the burden it has placed on our health care system thankfully our recent trends have been improving locally the hospitalizations of cova patients is less than half of what it was just one month ago the daily case rate and death rate continue to steadily decline and vaccinations are being distributed slowly but surely throughout our county what most people don't know about me is that i immigrated to this country with my parents in the early 1980s growing up my parents stressed the importance of a good education they knew firsthand from growing up in uganda africa and gujarat india that access to quality education can open the doors to opportunities to help better the course of one's life my husband and i moved to swarthmore 11 years
117ago because we wanted to raise our kids in the excellent school system here i know that as school board members you too must highly value education for all of the countless hours you selflessly devote to your school board duties at your last meeting a board member asked what specifically stood in the way of returning a full-time in-person school and the high school principal answered quite matter-of-factly that the only obstacle was the inability to space six feet apart in our classrooms last summer we were told that our schools could accommodate all students around four and a half feet apart in classrooms district wide much guidance has come out since then stating that students can space as close as three feet apart and still create a safe school environment further cchd's current guidance allows for districts to
118work with the health department to transition to more in-person learning with less than six feet of physical distance last thursday i sent you a petition which has now been signed by over 300 members of our community requesting to change the six foot spacing requirements to three feet in our classrooms based on all the new scientific evidence i was very encouraged to hear dr grande and dr palmer discuss earlier this evening the possibility of full in-person instruction very soon for our elementary students and that planning is well underway i hope that our middle school and high school students can follow suit and on that note i would like to now read the petition into the public record so dear dr palmer and wallingford swarthmore school board we are concerned members of the wallingford swarthmore school district
119and are reaching out regarding the cchd and wssd six foot classroom spacing requirement our school board has made it very clear that the roadblock to our students returning a full-time five days a week in-person learning is the cchd requirement to space students at least six feet apart within our classrooms however cchd has stated that their guidance is simply guidelines to consider not a mandate cchd has also stated that desk spacing is to be determined by each school's governing body or plan while six-foot spacing was considered the safest and most cautious approach last summer when the cchd guidance was first developed new guidance from the harvard global health institute based on evidence gathered gathered this past fall states that distancing three feet apart with masking is sufficient within our classrooms we are requesting that you update
120your guidance based on what the national experts from harvard's edmond j safra center for ethics harvard graduate school of education harvard's chan school of public health harvard business school harvard kennedy school boston university school of public health brown school of public health brown university mass design new america group mit system design and management and tufts university have provided in their latest return to school guidance from december 18 2020. these experts state since july our scientific understanding of covid has increased significantly as has our understanding of degrees of risks in schools and we can now recommend that schools be open even at the very high levels of spread we are now seeing evidence gathered this fall around the world and in the u.s suggests that schools can open even in conditions of wide community spread and
121achieve low and even near zero transmission in the school building this evidence combined with the benefits to learners of in-person schooling and harms of remote schooling suggests that the time has come to pursue in-person learning across most school contexts our knowledge about the virus and about mitigation strategies for infection control has increased significantly from july based on three months of varying school reopenings across the country that have served as a national natural experiment it is now clear that schools with in-person learning that use effective mitigation strategies are very unlikely to create super spreader events and even more importantly can create safe environments the most important uh the most important elements of infection control that matter are three feet social distancing for young learners at all levels of community spread six feet social distancing for high
122schools when levels of community spread rise above 100 per 100 000 daily new cases which is the equivalent of 700 per 100 000 a weekly cases three feet social distancing below that level their analysis of the data from real school experience is consistent with the preliminary data from a mayo clinic study that shows that with three feet distancing droplet transmission is minimal when both parties are massed furthermore while cchd states its guidance is aligned with the cdc and pennsylvania department of education both of those entities clearly state six feet spacing when feasible which has allowed many private and parochial schools as well as public schools in other pennsylvania districts to open full-time with less than six-week distancing the world health organization has always recommended a minimum of three feet spacing based on their international data
123and the academy the american academy of pediatrics has stated three feet spacing is acceptable especially when the alternative is to subject the children to the harms of virtual learning the cdc guidance from december 2020 on modified layout states in quotes space seating deaths at least six feet apart when feasible the pennsylvania department of education preliminary school guidance from june 2020 states in quotes established distances between students death seating and other social distancing practices to the maximum extent feasible and appropriate the world health organization guidance on coven 19 in schools from september 2020 states physical distancing of at least one meter between individuals including spacing of deaths the american academy of pediatrics covid19 guidance for safe schools just published on january 5th 2021 states in many school settings 6 feet between students is not feasible without
124drastically limiting the number of students physical distance between deaths should follow current public health guidance and desks should be placed at least three feet apart schools should weigh the benefits of strict adherence to a six feet spacing rule between students with a potential downside if remote learning is the only alternative yet contrary to all these experts and their guidance the cchd language states if in-person learning is planned school must maintain six feet of physical distance between student staff and faculty in classrooms and learning spaces if six feet physical distance cannot be maintained due to space limitations schools should consider alternative options for providing education such as virtual hybrid or etc meanwhile in neighboring bucks county the health department specifically allows for three foot spacing within classrooms school districts like upper marion and neighboring montgomery county
125are already making adjustments to their in-person guidance to now specifically allow for a minimum of three foot spacing within the classrooms we strongly urge both cchd and wssd to please work together follow the science and remove the outdated six-foot spacing requirement to allow all delaware county and chester county students the opportunity to return to in-person school full-time our children have suffered enough emotionally and academically thank you for your time and all that you're doing to keep our community safe and this has been signed by 331 people as of this evening and is still accepting signatures from community members so thank you thank you dr seitz thanks for coming out and we will definitely begin that conversation next week yes i'm looking forward to it thank you so much okay thank you okay um any other
126comments nobody else here but we do have one called in comment right go ahead kelly um this comment is from melissa burkhart zesterson of university place in swarthmore my comment is the following chop policy lab along with others hosted a virtual talk about school reopening on friday the discussion started with the rhode island education commissioner angelica infante green she spoke about rhode island's success with in-person school five days a week since september with no major outbreaks in three feet of spacing in fact the distance learners had more covid than the in-person students we clearly have evidence supporting three feet of distancing can from rhode island can wellingford swarthmore school district catch up and make some evidence-based decisions thank you for your time thanks kelly for reading that uh okay that takes us to uh board
127reports do we have any reports from district subcommittees or out of district roles yeah jerry ballas i have a quick report on our di action committee meeting we had on the 13th of january we uh updated the committee on the district ei initiatives including the status of the equity audit diverse classroom libraries in k through 5 in middle school the district participation in the dciu equity coalition that's beginning that involves most if not all the school districts in delaware county talked about the progress with teaching tolerance with each school focusing on putting together a subcommittee for each building and focusing on the one of the teaching tolerance standards and the fact that most of each of the schools are focused uh for the month of february when black history month and nowadays they just finished
128the mlk celebration last week uh we concluded the meeting with a general discussion about where are we and where do we go from here with some very positive discussions first of all feeling that impressed with the work that's going on within the school district especially with challenges of covet a lot of energy around black lives matter which got us after the meeting now working with the administration we came up with a with a very uh innovative way to celebrate it as we just approved the resolution for it and then finished uh with a discussion of uh the need for us to engage broader with the community both in terms of what we're doing within the district in d.i but also to listen what they're thinking regarding the eni to listen some voices that we don't
129hear about and that was the conclusion of the meeting thank you thank you jerry uh any other reports oh larry go ahead i'm the one for swarthmore representative on the dciu the delaware county intermediate unit and uh everybody knows that they uh basically oversee the operations of a lot of special ed programs and and alternative school programs but they also oversee the operation of the delaware county technical schools technical vocational and technical schools um the delaware county technical high school has virtual open houses on the dciu web page that you can link to and you can basically attend a virtual open house in a number of areas uh that the you know technical high school offers and these are engineering and computer science logistics and transportation hospital hospitality tourism and human services construction medical careers
130to include a program that takes you all the way up to the lpn licensing examination and health and biosciences these all were conducted you know ended december and during january but they were all recorded on youtube so you can go watch them if you have any interest uh the second thing out of the dciu is that there's a major substitute teacher shortage um because of cove it fears a kobe um they're offering a program for anybody who's bachelor degreed uh to go through like three days of training and uh be able to go act as a substitute virtual or in person um and any of 12 12 of the 15 school districts in delco have signed on to it and so is the dciu so if anybody's interested in that reach out to dciu and
131lastly uh i'm also a map to sit on the delaware county school board's legislative council and in case uh it's not public yet uh our own senator kearney from swarthmore has been appointed to the senate education committee in the state of pennsylvania so we have a member of the community is going to advocate for us so that's it thank you larry any other reports okay uh do we have any old business this evening do we have any new business all right thank you this meeting is adjourned you