001okay startor okay good evening I now call the November 9th meeting of the Wallingford swathmore School Board to order in opening as you're willing and able please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance evening thank you uh given that we have some board members participating remotely and some in person again I would like to start by asking Miss Fagor to take the roll call Mr Ballas Mr Ballas here miss tamino here Dr [Music] Downey here Dr Huff here Mr ctis here Mrs lent here Mr Sullivan here Mrs wman here Dr Grandy here Mr Burman here Dr Palmer here miss Patel here Dr Grandy you have nine voting members present tonight thank you Mr pagora uh we are going to start this evening with the student Representatives report so miss Patel thank you Dr
002Grandy November is stem month and the SRS home and School Association stem night team has devised a series of fun educational atome stem activities for families to do together head to the SRS website for a list of activities to keep stem learning going strong all month in addition the stem committee is hosting a nature photo and storytelling contest open to all SRS students submissions are due by November 30th this exciting project takes a little bit of research and Imagination but will be rewarded send in your pictures and accompanying research or story for home and school judges to review to SRS stem atgmailcom three lucky winners will receive a $25 gift card to the SRS Spirit Weare store and have their photos featured in the SRS School building and on the SRS home and school website
003also the home and school Hospitality committee is hosting a teacher and staff appreciation event this coffee break will take place for SRS staff on Tuesday November 17th at 8: a.m. at NP staff are busily preparing for a fall parent conferences which will be held um during the week of November 16th parents can sign up for a conference with their child's teacher links on the NP website under School news evening conferences will be held on Thursday November 19th all conferences are virtual this year NP students continue to model the 3 Tob at npe additional student friendly signs are in place around the building display the importance of handwashing social distancing and other effective safety practices being safe responsible and respectful our daily routines at MPE at West students and families are encouraged to participate and thankful
004Thursdays our staff has been working above and beyond to make this school year successful and memorable for all students as a simple way to say thank you students and families are encouraged to fill out an anonymous Google form a PDF on the website has more information this can be done weekly or as you feel you want to just say thanks each teacher will receive their positive comments on Thursday in addition as part of Wellingford Elementary School's ongoing citizenship project the PTO will assist the fifth grade class this year in providing non- perishable food to families in need this year more than ever our donations are needed and greatly appreciated we will again be working with City team and Chester PA after stth even middle the next home and School Association meeting will take place this
005Wednesday evening beginning at 7 p.m. a zoom link may be access through the home and school website parent teacher conferences at the middle school will take place during the afternoons of November 19th and 20th team leaders will notify all families that require a conference the faculty and staff at the middle school would like to thank the school board for treating them to soft pretzels last week and appreciation for all of their hard work during these challenging times the jester meant a lot at shth Haven the school is celebrating the varsity girls cross country teams Victory on Saturday the 7th they have won the central League championships all marching band students can now sign up for Pep bands performing at the next two football games students will be chosen based on instrumentation needs senior t-shirts are
006officially available for pickup at the third floor office and also for seniors virtual College information sessions will continue throughout the week and signups are available through navian and if you haven't already be sure to follow Haven's Instagram page for weekly updates from student council officers and for all things Haven the handle is Strath Haven SC that's it thank you thank you Miss Patel um next up we have the superintendent's report Dr Palmer thank you Dr Grandy tonight I'd like to talk about a few things first following the death of George Floyd in May I wrote to our community about the fact that racism is alive within our communities and that our schools can and must be part of the change that is necessary to eradicate racism in all of its forms I recommended the creation
007of the w SSD CommunityWide diversity equity and inclusion committee and requested that we accelerate the review of the district-wide curriculum on the topics of racism and inclusion and I'm happy to report that we have a very active Schoolboard Dei subcommittee and wssd Dei action committee that has been working since this summer in June the Schoolboard approved a partnership agreement with the Southern Poverty Law Center to provide significant professional development on the teaching tolerance framework tonight the Administration has recommended that the school board approve a partnership agreement with Pennsylvania school board's Associates to have their director of equity Services Dr Heather Bennett provide diversity equity and inclusion training for our school board and our action committee in fact the action committee has already had its first training and if approved our school board will have its
008first training on Thursday in addition I'm happy to report that we will feature our diversity equity and inclusion work as a focus Topic at our next school board meeting on November 23rd and I encourage you to tune in and see the good work that's already underway on a separate topic I wrote to our community on Friday about the rumor rumors that are circulating in the community about health authorities requiring Delaware County Schools to switch from hybrid to Virtual learning due to the increased incident rates in our region as of Friday and still as of today no mandates have been issued and we plan to maintain our current hybrid delivery model we plan to continue the implementation of our health and safety plan we will continue to monitor our cases and we will quarantine and isolate
009individuals as pre previously recommended by the Chester County Health Department we still need to watch the co data very carefully and monitor what's happening within our schools but we're not at a point where we would change direction some factors that may cause us to change direction and move to Virtual learning at a school at some schools or all schools would include items like linked transmission within and among our schools if we are at a point where the Chester County Health Department cannot contact Trace positive cases to spread the disease if we are at a time when we don't have enough staff to open our schools or if we have a mandate from the Pennsylvania health department from pde or from the Chester County Health Department to return to an all Virtual School environment our wssd
010community figures have increased again this week and this means that we as a community have to be more diligent than ever in our safety measures if we want to keep our schools open this means that we must and I know I've said this over and over so you can probably say this with me now we must mask properly even with our friends we must practice social distancing and that does mean 6 feet distance or greater we must practice good hygiene parents please do not send your children to school if they are sick and as staff members please don't come to school if we are sick also in my update I mentioned that the Chester County Health Department was in the process of revising their guidance to public and private schools that guidance was just posted
011on the Chester County Health Department website a few hours ago the guidance while substantially similar to Prior versions does have a few changes that I would like to highlight the original guidance had a community transmission grid that shows low moderate high and very high Community transmission levels and they had recommended that school districts would transition to Virtual instructional models when the thresholds for the incident rates and the positivity ities were met two consecutive weeks I've spoken to the group about this before and I've spoken to the community they've now changed the recommendation to move from two consecutive weeks to three consecutive weeks and they added the following and this part is really important and I'm going to quote the guidelines the above thresholds serve as guidance for instructional models and must be considered along with
012additional information such as the number of covid-19 cases Andor outbreaks in school evidence of transmission within the schools Staffing level adherence to preventive measures Etc in combination with the thresholds the additional information is used to assess the best course of action related to instructional models the document also says and it's this is another quote because it is another important part when transitioning to a more virtual based instructional model it is recommended that the transition be phased transition beginning with older grades with an assessment of progress throughout the phases so they are looking at us to not have a wholes sale open or closed but phase through how we might go to Virtual learning with our um closure starting with our oldest students and I have been saying that it is really important to follow the
013data but we do have to do it in conjunction with what's happening within our schools the co situation remains Dynamic and it may change quickly it may be changing again tomorrow or the following day my next regular meeting with the Chester County Health Department Dr Rubin and Dr Brennan is scheduled for tomorrow morning if I learn anything new I will send an eblast out to our community and to our staff and in the meantime as parents if you have any concern about your children attend School in person please contact your principal I do have two other public service announcements as always please do check your children in in the morning with the symptom monitoring tracker each day it does make a difference for us to know that the children that are coming to school are
014healthy enough to come to school and by your completing the symptom monitoring checklist it saves our nurse having to run down your child to make sure your child is well enough to be in school and the second one has to do with if you get a call from the Chester County Health Department and we're in the process of contact tracing please cooperate with the Chester County Health Department it's absolutely vital that we know individuals who have been identified as a close contact that we know that we have identified all of the individuals who are close contacts we know when those contacts took place we get the additional information that the Chester County Health Department needs so they can continue their work of contact tracing that is absolutely vital to what we do in our schools
015and it is vital to keeping our schools open so I'm thanking everyone in advance for their cooperation and Dr Grandy that concludes my report tonight thank you Dr Palmer uh just all right is that louder back there okay all right um I will try to be loud I know for people watching at home I may sound like I'm shouting now but I will try to balance the the inperson folks with the online folks um I do have one board announcement uh the board did meet an executive session on November 2nd to discuss specific administrative Personnel so that takes us to our Focus topics this evening we do have two Focus topics and I am going to ask Dr Palmer to introduce our first Focus topic for the evening thank you Dr Grandy I had to
016figure out which order we were in tonight so last week we had a finance committee meeting and we had our auditor Carl Hogan was with our finance committee and we had a a review of our audit for the period June 30th uh 2020 and and we had uh questions back and forth tonight we have Michael mood from BBD uh our auditing firm with us to give a little bit higher level overview of what our audit was like for the 1920 school year so Michael I see you online so whenever you are ready you can start and thank you so much for coming with us tonight in this most extraordinary way to join us for a meeting thank you very much uh yes as as Dr Palmer just indicated Carl Hogan last week presented our audit
017results to the finance committee uh so what I'm going to do is just try to keep it brief and give you a more High Lev overview of of the results of the audit and answer any questions if there are any uh to the best of my ability so uh what I first want to focus my attention on is is pages one and two of the audit report this is our independent auditor report uh this outlines Management's responsibility which is to prepare the financial statements in accordance with generally accepted auditing uh accounting principles rather it also outlines our responsibilities as Auditors which are to express opinions and to conduct the audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards uh as well as Government auditing standards this uh fourth section of that first page also outlines our
018opinions our opinions are unmodified uh what this means is that the financial statements were fairly presented in all material respects in accordance with accounting principles accepted in the US um essentially that's a clean opinion for people that um don't understand the the unmodified technical term uh that we use that that's changed over time uh the second page of that audit report also uh identifies that some of the prior year information has been summarized based off of the prior year audit as well as discussing some of the required supplementary information and uh some other schedules that are included throughout the audit report so it's providing a little bit more information as to our responsibility um as it relates to some of that information that's presented in the back of the audit report beyond our auditor report
019on pages one and two uh if you go to Pages 3 through 13 that's the managements discussion and Analysis or mdna this is a report that's prepared by management uh which is essentially a narrative that discusses the financial results of the current year our responsibility as Auditors is really just to read this mdna and make sure that it's consistent with the financial statements that are being presented and that it contains all the required components that are uh mandated by government Accounting Standards Board or the gby uh and that we do not give an opinion on this uh this discussion and Analysis so if there are any new board members out there this is a good place to uh really focus your attention and and and scan through this information as it provides a lot of
020the highlights and Varian explanations as it relates to budget actual information or significant changes year over year uh I'll go through some of those highlights uh real quick uh the on a government-wide basis the district uh landed at a deficit and total net position of about $65 million for the year which was an improvement of about $2 million year-over-year the general fund reported a decrease in fund balance for the year and the cumulative fund balance at the end of the year was about $8.5 million uh portion of that $24,000 is considered nonspendable because they are related to prepaid expenditures there's an additional $5.5 million that's committed for various purposes such as self-insurance uh rate stabilization retirement rate stabilization as well as funds that were committed to balance the 2021 uh budget that left unassigned balances
021of about 2.9 Million which is about 3.3% of the uh subsequent Year's uh general fund expenditure uh budget uh within the mdna there's also some discussion about the covid impacts um that transpired over the the last part of the previous fiscal year and its continuing impact going into the 2020 uh 2020 2021 fiscal year um which as I just referenced included uh committing over $3 million of fund balance to balance the the 2021 budget Pages four and five in the mdna it basically provide you with an overview of the financial statements beyond that Pages 6 through eight provide some condensed financial data and of the information that's provided later in the statements on pages 14 and 15 and then Pages 9 through 11 discussed the district's governmental funds that show that it reported a combined
022fund balance between your general fund and capital projects fund of just under $15 million which was a a decre a decrease of about 1.2 million year-over-year there's some budgetary highlights presented as well on the middle of page 11 uh it also discusses the district's Capital assets uh the district had about $92 million uh of capital assets net of accumulated depreciation at the end of the 2020 fiscal year and then there 's also some discussion about the non-current liabilities of the school district um this is going to include the general obligation or long-term debt of the school district as well as the pension liabilities and other post-employment benefit liabilities of the school district um if we go the general obligation debt year overy year declined about $5.8 million which was a decrease of about 8.4% year-over-year
023and the net pension liability uh also decreased about $4.3 million or 3.6% year-over-year so even though that net pension liability is still a large number it is heading in the right direction at least uh as of late which was uh you know it's it's decreasing um for your proportionate share of that shared liability with uh with peers after the non-current liability section Pages 12 through 13 also discussed some of the factors bearing in on the in on the district's future so there again there's some some Co highlights some enrollment and information Trend analysis uh discussion about uh the rates uh for paser contributions uh and things of that nature that are discussed in a little bit more detail so after the management discussion analysis Pages 14 through 24 this is the financial statement information um
024that you've probably seen that from the committee or or seen on a monthly basis throughout the year again that information was materially accurate as presented by management after those statements on pages 14 through 24 we have our footnote disclosures which are located on pages 25 through 48 this discloses the district's significant accounting policies uh its estimates the types of cash and Investments that are on hand as well as some supplemental information related to pension and other post-employment benefits changes in fixed asset bound balances and long-term debt repayment uh terms so all that information is explained in a lot more robust detail on pages 25 through 48 uh if anybody wants to take a a deeper look into those things the schedule of expenditure of federal Awards is outlined it's it's two pages long on pages
02555 through 56 uh this outlines the district spending of of federal funding that was passed through to the school district the district district for the for the fiscal year ending June 30th 2020 spent approximately $1.9 million of federal funds that's a pretty significant increase over the the federal spending that that is typically incurred by the school district due to additional cares act money that was passed down uh through multiple Avenues uh increased about $600,000 probably year-over-year in terms of cares act funding and coronavirus relief money that was uh spent by the school District prior to year end as a result of of the school district receiving more than $750,000 for the year we performed a single audit um the single audit was performed uh we audited one major program that major program was a special
026education cluster or your Ida program uh we evaluated the school's compliance with requirements applicable to that major program and issued an unmodified or clean opinion on compliance we also evaluated the internal controls as it related to that major program and found no internal control issues as it related to compliance or to um any other issues uh there were no findings to report and there's a summary of that information on of the audit results on page 63 and the um reports on internal control over financial report and compliance there's two separate reports that were issued on pages 59 through 60 and Pages 61 through 62 uh which explain in a little bit more detail of the findings that we uh just discussed and that's a summary of our audit results again everything went well uh we
027issued a clean opinion and I'll open up the floor to any comments or questions that you might have uh I will look at board members online who have a question so just put your hand up there and I will call on you if you have a question and I'm looking at anyone in the room to see if anyone has a question okay I think a clean audit does not tend to prompt questions so that's good um so thank you very much uh thank you all right thanks for joining us this evening Dr Palmer uh that takes us to our second Focus topic do you want to go ahead and introduce that one I do thank you we've had some questions over the last week or so relative to our education plan and some Chang es
028that we might be able to make down the road and tonight I'd like to introduce two of my colleagues we have Dr Denise citelli Jones our director of education and we have Dr Greg hilden our Strath Haven High School principal and together they will be giving an education update so I will let whichever one of you wants to go first I'll go ahead and get us started I'm gonna share my screen first and and then I can take us through our presentation all right so good evening and um and welcome we are excited to be here today Dr hild and I are going to be sharing some information related to the design of our first our weekly schedule specifically how we use our asynchronous Wednesdays and we're also going to provide provide some information about
029a timeline for evaluating our hybrid high school schedule um both topics came up in a prior board meeting so I want to start by saying that wssd really is a great community and we know this so in that great Community is a commitment to student learning through productive conversations collaboration and a sense of Oneness especially as we continue to be victims of this 21st century pandemic that has changed our education program in ways that none of us want this afternoon I had a very fruitful conversation with a wssd parent who happens to have a child at every single level and we talked at length about the learning that has been taking place since March of 2020 we agreed that the pandemic learning has created gaps in student progress and that this form of teaching and
030learning is absolutely not ideal we also agreed that as we gain a better understanding of those gaps our team must hammer away at the problem so that our students do not fall behind two weeks ago we established education committees at each level and they are tasked with looking at the unique learning issues for elementary middle and high school during pandemic and believe me when I say there are different and unique challenges at each level so this is a group of teachers and administrators who will be meeting and already have begun meeting regularly to bring brainstorm better systems of support for student learning in addition in the curriculum office we have Humanities supervisor and a math science supervisor to work on Gap analysis and preemptive planning with our teachers they are digging into the data as
031it becomes available to look at revising the former pacing guides that we had from from years along um also to look at ways of differentiating learning needs in both hybrid and online learning they are tasked with evaluating the authenticity of our assessment data and they're examining placement criteria as we move forward with the school year also we are in an information gathering stage a very important one in adaptive decision making we have sent out parent and teacher surveys at the elementary level last week and the secondary surveys will be coming out shortly analyses of these data will be a huge step forward so that we can look for the common threads among our stakeholder perspectives and that common thread is very important so that we are seeing what is trending what has majority opinion but
032tonight's specifically I would like to talk some more about our choice for having an asynchronous day of learning for fall 2020 and in order to do that I want to take us back to our summer planning we had several pivot pivots that took place this Summer that affected our education and health and safety committees none of which could have been avoided the covid-19 numbers as you know change regularly and our community's health and safety as well as the most ideal education program can often be at odds tugging that same rope but in opposite directions so some of the challenges that we faced this summer in July we attempted to focus on both the hybrid and the online schedules with an emphasis on hybrid learning so that meant we were looking at schedules we were looking
033at technology different for each we were looking at templates for lesson plannings we had a large group of teachers and administrators working on this August came very quickly we moved up our start date by a week we also shifted from starting in hybrid to starting all online and so we had to quickly adjust our pacing guides our instructional delivery modes we had to redo our PD plans for Augustin service for teachers we had to quickly get materials out to students and that was a huge under taking we started enrollment for the Online Academy and we started looking at new and different technology needs and so those three weeks really came up very very quickly as we tried to make those pivots so I want to talk about the bread and butter of any good education
034program which is quality instruction from quality teachers John hadti in his seminal work visible learning synthesized over 800 meta analyses related to student achievement and he ranked the most effective components of student achievement in there teacher related components represented more than 50% of the top 20 so now anyone who has is a teacher who has ever been a teacher at any point in their life will understand when I say that creating lessons that are engaging and that ensure students make necessary progress toward our learning outcomes dictated by the state is very complex work and our wssd teachers have spent years perfecting these lessons they use formative and summative data they used research-based information and they adjust and refine the goals and activities for optimal learning as they plan and evidence suggests that when teachers work
035together to perfect lessons using their existing evidence their reflection and observation and also their student achievement from past years that we notice student achievement increases when we provide that opport unfortunately pandemic learning has rendered it impossible to simply pull out those tested and perfected lessons from years and Implement them in this new learning environment without significant revision so that re revised lesson in addition that's going to look different in hybrid than it is in the online learning modality so every time a changes made in modality if we start in online and go to hybrid if we ever go back to online the teachers are adjusting every single lesson and our observations of this new way of creating engaging lessons indicates that it takes almost three times the amount of time it did pre pandemic and
036that doesn't even account for the learning curve of technology so let me give you an example I was an English teacher for 15 years so I think in terms of English teaching so if I wanted to teach a lesson on persuasive writing and it was preco days I typically would review my tested and valid ated lesson from prior years I would of course make adjustments for the new students I have this year differentiation that sort of thing and then I would updated for any changes to the curriculum and then maybe in that lesson we would use the Whiteboard for students to go up and write some slogans and then maybe we would debate whether or not those slogans were persuasive and then we might swap papers for students to do some writing and some editing
037to talk about whether or not people were persuasive in pandemic learning as a teacher I would have to rethink all of that kids cannot go up to the Whiteboard because number one I might be using it to share with students zooming at home but two I couldn't necessarily have them going off switching off markers and they can't move around the room in the same token students can exchange papers right because they can't be touching those same papers so now I have to set up a way to do that in Google classroom and anything that was a hard copy before I now have to make that digital so it's uploads and it's downloads and it's me thinking of all those different ways to make it accessible I can't circle around the room the way it would
038normally do that's that is the meat of what teachers do circling around the room and so I need to figure out new ways to peer over students shoulders to catch any mistakes in the moment before they can continue so that's just an example of one lesson one part of a lesson for one teacher for one day and our teachers are Reinventing every single thing they do in a lesson for every single lesson and the majority of our teachers do not teach the same class or same course all day long which brings me to lesson design lesson design takes place not just before but before during and after a lesson we have great hybrid lessons and we continue to tweak and improve as we go there is a learning curve it's it's absolutely true when we
039have some trip ups and things don't go well it's the same trip ups that happen when we teach normally it's just now it's broadcast to everyone so we want to make these engaging and it's hard work so our teachers have been spending considerable time prepping and they use that asynchronous Wednesday for that they do collaboration they do individual work and they're thinking about their specific body of students I want to talk about during the lesson because this is often forgotten the pandemic learning environment has thrust at least four major constraints into our teachers work for lesson and unit planning the time our teachers have in the class period is not the same the way students attend class is not the same the technology Learning Systems not the same and the constraints of learning for health
040and safety are not the same that means regular ongoing adjustments each day sometimes in the moment have to happen so that our teachers can do their best to optimize learning despite the constraints in the moment and that's how they use their daily preparation periods making adjustments in the moment sometimes for the next class they're about to teach teach and then I want to talk about after the lesson good instruction requires our teachers evaluate the success of the lesson and with lessons that have never been used that have been revived revised for pandemic learning this is more important than ever we can't afford to have too many trip UPS we have to learn very quickly that agile methodology has to be alive and well in our teachers work in a metaanalysis of 72 studies it indicated
041that there was a strong connection ction between student achievement and professional development time for teachers that includes collaboration among our teachers and time for individual adaptive metacognition and I will quote a researcher it is best served offline when teachers are not caught up in the times sensitive complex and novel issues that occur during class we need our teachers to have that reflection time in addition to lesson planning and design teachers also work continuously to improve their technology skills they are working to align the curriculum and the pacing across buildings especially at the elementary level and teachers in a g given grade and that happens at the secondary and the elementary levels they are managing one or more digital platforms they make instructional videos they're responding to emails they're developing assessments it's a colossal amount of
042work and then I hate to even say this part but although we originally planned for a full uninterrupted asynchronous day for all of those aforementioned tasks and needs almost immediately we began asking teachers to also attend District level meetings on those Wednesdays to hold morning meetings for elementary students for social emotional health to run extracurricular activities and clubs to hold office hours for student support and to prepare for IEP and gep meetings and I just want to explain that is how our teachers are using their asynchronous Wednesdays but it's not just about the teachers it is also about our students our asynchronous Wednesdays are a critical step in the learning process it is vital that our students have time to work independently in the four stages of web's depth of knowledge and that is recall
043and reproduction application strategic thinking and extended thinking I'll go back to John hadti who I consider to be you know the Forerunner in terms of research he reminds us that the deepest forms of learning are when students have time for what he calls relational and elaborative thinking relational is when students are putting together two concepts or two aspects of knowledge an elaborative thinking occurs when students go beyond the given information and that is accomplished both synchronously in the class and in asynchronous blocks of time and that is so students can develop their own constructive cognition how do they construct knowledge so our independent work component of that occurs during the asynchronous ways students can reflect they might be practicing skills they might be demonstrating proficiency they might be collaborating with others or doing um reading
044doing math facts and in a normal year this this processing time this practicing time is intricately woven into the fabric of the plan of the lesson and then also the homework but in hybrid this is not often possible so our schedule has built that time in for the students to do independent work for their con structive learning time also the research tells us that giving students substantial time before during and after class to pause reflect and verbally process their understanding can help them consolidate their learning that's a big step and generate new ideas even bigger so what I I do especially want to say is that if you feel your child is not getting enough work or maybe getting too much work on an asynchronous Wednesday it is really important that you communicate with your
045child teacher they are your very first resource for making adjustments to your child's learning as they always have been and they're ready for you to reach out so that you can talk about what it is that you know best about your child so that we can put together a good learning plan especially for those asynchronous Wednesdays do we wish we could go back to the former ways of providing quality education absolutely no one is claiming that this is the new best way to provide education we still have a great deal of work to do to make this better for our students but we really have a commitment to do so so the last thing I want to talk about a bit is our teachers and and I feel that this is worth saying we believe
046that the wssd difference is our community and the extraordinary Talent of wssd teachers and staff members we are extremely lucky to have highquality teaching staff who every day bring Innovation collaboration engagement and care for our students quite simply we could not do it without them please reach out to your child's teacher with any issues comments or insights on how to best support your child we need to keep our home and school communication ongoing and productive now at our last board meeting um we were able to hear from some of our parents related to the high school schedule many of the speakers acknowledged the challenges the district faced when putting together these schedules and we really appreciate that we also want to acknowledge that during pandemic learning our parents par are seeing their students learning firsthand
047you are inside the school walls now and as such you are positioned to see the struggles and the successes in real time and that can be very frustrating especially if you see things that are the struggles and we understand that many of us many of us are parents ourselves I just want you to know that your voices are important to us and we we we want to hear them not just when you agree with us it is okay when you don't agree with us in fact there were some rather creative of ideas at the last board meeting that we were jotting down and thinking about even now so we cannot fully understand the experiences of all the people if we only hear from a few so I really am encouraging you on behalf of the
048administration to please complete the surveys for the education committee that will give us a collective sense of what is working and what is not working and that is a big piece of this complex Wicked puzzle that we are trying to solve so what I like to do now is to turn over our presentation to Dr Greg hilden for his comments about the timeline for evaluating the high school schedule and thank you very much for your attention tonight thank you Dr Celli Jones uh good evening everyone thank you for allowing me a few minutes to provide an update on our continued efforts to evaluate our hybrid plan October 12th was the first day of in-person learning via the hybrid model at strathan High School on that same evening I reported to you how exciting it was
049to have students back in our building while we continue to enjoy seeing students walking our Halls sitting in our classrooms and participating on on our athletic fields it is not the typical vibrant High School atmosphere to which we are accustomed as student interactions are extremely limited due to the necessary safety protocols being utilized to combat the spread of covid-19 while students participating in our online Academy are clearly not experiencing School in the traditional manner neither are our students who intend attend in person the reality is in part the reason this reality is in part the reason why continued evaluation of our plan and schedule is so important anyone who has ever constructed any type of schedule knows there is no perfect schedule every schedule comes with a caveat or a pro and a con scheduling
050decision are often predicated upon your priorities in the case of our hybrid schedule our priorities were non-negotiables were a safe environment and equal opportunity for all students consideration was given to many factors including but not limited to our students who attend the career in technical school our music program preserving fifth block transportation class size instructional time screen time staff delayed start times and safety protocols next slide please where are we now last Friday concluded week four of instruction in the hybrid model my apologies is on this slide you'll see uh bullet number two reads three weeks as of last week when we created this presentation we were just completing three weeks of hybrid learning as of today each cohort has had the opportunity to attend in-person learning on eight days four of these days included
051the opportunity to remain in school for an in-person fifth block additionally cohort students also participate in two virtual lessons on each day they attend in-person learning therefore cohort students still receive instruction for each of their four classes for a minimum of 60 minutes each day the two inperson classes are 80 minutes in length we have received feedback from many families articulating the themes noted on this slide we have been asked for Less homework more homework less asynchronous more asynchronous work full day half day inperson attendance a mandate to keep cameras on during virtual instruction and return to delayed start time anecdotal information also includes our absentee rate of 133% per day of in-person learning and fifth person fifth block excuse me attendance which is almost non-existent with the exception of our music program in other
052words by and large our cohort students attending in-person learning are not staying for in-person academic help join fifth block next slide please this slide represents a few important upcoming dates in two short weeks we enter Thanksgiving break teachers will engage in two full professional two full days of professional development during this break there are only three weeks then in December prior to winter break upon return from winter break we are facing the Keystone exams the state has thus not provided sufficient guidance on administration of these exams specifically in regards to our 100% virtual Learners currently there is not an online option for the administration of the Keystone exams therefore it is possible the online cohort would need to come into school to take a keystone exam and then January 29th concludes the first semester next
053slide please during October we have been open to feedback from all of our stakeholders additionally we have collected schedules from other comparative high schools which have employed a variety of approaches to pandemic learning some of these schedules utilize lunch while others do not some schools have also remained in the virtual mom we' have also monitored attendance and fluctuation between the cohort groups and the Online Academy we've manage Staffing shortages as well as mandatory quarantines recently I sent a short survey to our high school parents via my weekly email message additionally in about a week or two the survey mentioned by Dr Celli Jones will be distributed to the high school Community as well during the next two weeks our team will review the survey results as well as our attendance data we will also continue
054to collect and examine alternative schedules during December our team is prepared to review the academic data determine the purpose value and administration of our final exams and collaborate collaborate with outside institutions as well as the transportation department in January we will develop recommendations and research unintended consequences in order to provide scheduling options for the beginning of the second semester in closing I'd like to recognize as as Dr C Cella Jones did that our current situation is not ideal our students parents and teachers have all exerted significant effort and sacrifice to re-engage in the E education process many of the requests that we have received are extremely valid but conflict with one another we believe with patience and the timeline presented above improvements which we which meet the needs of all students can be developed thank
055you for your time and thank you that concludes our presentation all right thank you uh let me look at board members on the screen as well as board members in person uh to see where there may be questions Matt thank you so I had a question and I guess it's best addressed to Dr Celli Jones could you just pull your mic a little closer I was trying to do it without unplugging it I had a a question that I think is best addressed to Dr citelli Jones but I first want to thank you both for your presentation tonight it was incredibly informative and helpful uh one of the things we heard last week or at our last meeting excuse me was about the asynchronous Wednesdays and what they're being used for and it's something that
056I've heard about uh outside of our meetings as well from community members just asking you know what these days are being used for and and I don't know if you can go back to that slide sure yeah I I'll get there no problem one more there there we go thank you um so you know one of the questions I've been hearing is what are our teachers doing on these asynchronous Wednesdays you you know I know and I see from my own kids who I have one at every level how incredibly hard our teachers are working when I look at this chart here I see some things like I know you mentioned lesson planning is taking three times as much time as it used to and I see managing a digital platform and making instructural videos
057but I was hoping you could highlight other things on this page there are things teachers are doing now that we're in a hybrid or a virtual mode on Wednesdays they didn't have to do before well sure I mean so of course I've talked about lesson planning and I talked about that at Great length because of the complexity of it it is it is easily 75% of what our teachers are doing because it is so difficult to rethink every aspect of a lesson um and so that is something that gets better over time teachers get better at doing it the problem in that and I'll just something I didn't mentioned but it's worth mentioning is that if I have lesson a about let's say persuasive writing and I figure out how to do that lesson a
058only helps me in terms of some strategies that worked for ESS lesson a that I might be able to apply to lesson B but lesson B can be all new content that I still have to reinvent I still have to redo and make digital so each one of those things comes with a whole burden of tasks that go along with it at the elementary level it's especially difficult with making sure we're staying on Pace we have three elementary schools and an online Academy that means on those Wednesdays I'll I'll take third grade for example third grade needs to have a meeting and those third grade teachers from npe from West from SRS and from the online Academy get in a virtual room for over an hour to talk about what the learning outcomes are going
059to be for the next week who is going to be looking at math assessments that need to be done who is going to looking at which reading books are going to be used um where are we going to be with our science and social studies what are the learning outcomes from that meeting each one of those teachers then goes off and starts working on making the lessons for the upcoming week and so when they're doing that kind of collaborative work that is so that when we have a rem merging you know hopefully next year or whenever it is we all come back to this non-pandemic learning we don't have students who have moved further in one building uh moved further in an online Academy or not as far in an online Academy those are the
060things we really have to make sure are happening so that we're hitting those targets so that's another piece of the collaboration that I didn't elaborate on but that is certainly worth elaborating on in terms of Technology we have things that it's not just about the delivery of Technology it's also about the programs themselves so each one of our programs math and focus for example has a tech piece to it that that company itself is Reinventing to try to make things easier for teachers so every time something new comes out a new application comes out or a teacher discovers something new that we can use to give kids on a seesaw platform on a Google classroom in in um elementary middle and high that teacher is now learning that system and trying to infuse it in
061so that technology PD is ongoing every single week is happening and then things that are related to the clubs and activities the office hours email communication grading and giving feedback if students need help that stuff is all sometimes it's by appointment sometimes it's having to be at a specific place in time um sometimes that is about making sure that we get to those emails so that especially if they're from students we can answer them if they're from parents who are the guide on the side for for their kids and they're waiting for a response because the student can't get to the work until they've heard back from their teachers those things are also demands that happen every single minute to to keep that email open and you're checking it regularly and then the same thing
062is true of the digital platform that cannot be understated the digital platform requires teachers to go in and constantly have it populated to H to be checking for submissions from students to do the grading our specials for example at the elementary level they are looking at work from over 300 students to see how they are doing and if they're progressing so that all of that work all of that grading and feedback that is done on those asynchronous Wednesdays I mean I could go on and on um I don't know if I quite answered your question but there is so much that we could be drawing from in order to talk about how that time was critical now that that's all very helpful and right on point Thank you sure I wanted to ask um for
063students who are doing asynchronous work on Wednesdays that are running into difficulties understand a little bit more about um office hours and just gen what's the general approach to a student that needs some help because they're hitting some obstacles when they're doing asynchronous work on Wednesdays and I imagine it varies a lot by by level absolutely by level it will be a different thing I my recommendation would be for if there are not formal office hours and it's again it's happening different ways at different levels and even within the same level different teachers might have them at different times that for students who are experiencing problems on an asynchronous Wednesday and you know I hope the teachers concur with this but my recommendation would be to send an email as soon as there is a
064problem our teachers are regularly monitoring their emails it also isn't a bad idea that when the posted work for an asynchronous Wednesday occurs for students to read it over they could always email their teacher or the parent could help to email the teacher to ask for a time that they could would meet with the teacher and talk about some issues I don't know any teacher who would deny a student some one-on-one time to go through and explain things even at the college level we have students who are reaching out to their teachers for an explanation about directions who are looking for some more clarification on how something is supposed to look perhaps they're looking for a model what the final outcome would look like for a project so our teachers get these questions all the
065time it's part of being a teacher and normally a student could walk up to them and class and ask this question and we could answer it in the moment our teachers understand that they have to be available to answer these questions for students and they are it's a matter of making sure to reach out don't be shy about that reach out and advocate for the piece of it that you're not understanding because written communication is sometimes less easy to understand than spoken communication and we'll only know that if you're not if if you're reaching out we won't we won't be able to guess it otherwise great thank you and again I know there's an immense amount of work being done in so many ways by everyone in the district um so you know just my
066thanks to our teachers who I know are having to be about as flexible as as we could ever ask um so thank you for that um I have another question but I see Kelly's light on go ahead Kelly um Dr hon I was wondering if you could comment um I know that on the synchronous days in the high school the schedule flips um and it it causes some confusion for sure um but I know that there was reasons why we did that and I wondered if you could comment a little bit on on why we've done that so that there's an understanding sure thank you so we originally thought about rotating the periods um so that on a Monday it would be 1 1234 and Tuesday it would be 4321 but that conflicts with with
067our students who attend the career in technical school so in order to maintain the ability for our Career and Technical School students to come to our building we had to make a schedule that allowed for them to still follow their schedule at the tech school so by flipping it this way we were also able to add that fifth person or fifth excuse me fifth Block in person which we wouldn't have had if we had just done mornings if you will and then had the the student students go home so while I we we certainly recognize that um Monday and Tuesday look a little different if you're in cohort a or Thursday and Friday if you're in B this schedule actually increases time in the building while maintaining uh the schedule for those students who attend
068school outside of our building thank you so um Dr hon I wanted to ask uh a couple questions but I guess one is a highlevel question that it sounds like has a survey gone out yet to high school families or it's about to go out Ethan so I sent just a preliminary survey that was focused on trying to understand if we if we converted to a full day if people who were in The Online Academy would then want to return to the cohort or if students were in the cohort would leave and go online and that is important because we have restrictions on class size based upon the cohort and the six foot minimum that we have to have between student desk and the lunch the survey the other survey that's referenced has not gone
069out yet and that's the education survey for curriculum and instruction that will be going out within the next two weeks so it sounds like okay so that's in the next couple of weeks I guess just thinking about the timeline you know obviously I could imagine there's like some major structural changes that could come into play with revisiting the full day option um depending on what feedback we're seeing from from District families I guess I'm wondering like are there other other changes that might be more accelerated that could come to light from a survey I know you you proposed coming back in January if we were to look at some more structural changes but I can imagine I mean you pointed out a couple things like fifth block it sounds like hasn't materialized in the way
070that we had anticipated um you know and there may be some other other issues that come up in the survey do you think there's some other items on the table between now and January or is everything looking at the January time frame no so I I I certainly think that if we recognize significant changes that can occur immediately we should Implement them so one thing I addressed in my weekly email to families on Friday was the use of the of the camera so participating virtually with a blank screen has increased dramatically since the beginning of school and we've seen a a corresponding decrease in student engagement so there are obviously some Equity issues there some privacy issues but that is something that I think that we can work on an expedite to try to to
071re-engage students uh via their virtual learning models the other piece is that fifth block finding a way to motivate people to stay for fifth block because that is an opportunity um when we walk the building there are many classrooms that have no students in them there are some classrooms who have one or two students in them even in the virtual fifth block we're seeing uh minimal participation we're seeing more virtually than we are in person but we're seeing limited participation and that those times it's a significant amount of time if you add it up those are great opportunities especially for students who are struggling one of the things we've done and we're working on is looking at the list of students who struggled academically at the end of the first markting period and a way
072to engage those students especially in that fifth block time so there are certainly some things we can do that are targeted to spefic specific groups of people and to increase student engagement thank you and and just you know to try to help me I know these schedules are like they have a million moving parts to them I think a lot of people who are looking for a full day um are are asking what the kind of key obstacles are but it sounds like you're raising something else which is that there's some amilies out there who may not want to go to full day and some students who may not want to go to full day so I guess if you could help kind of maybe summarize that a little bit it sounds like there's really
073a couple questions on the table a couple that are very logistical in nature I know there was a a heavy discussion about lunch um a fairly heavy discussion about Transportation some of that related to again I guess a survey that you have out now about trying to understand how people's choices might change if they were online only or hybrid um but then other aspects it sounds like you're also hearing from some families who maybe don't want it to go to full day is that that that that's correct so so I think you very aply put it there's there's two really uh two large issues here one is the logistical piece of the instructional time disparity caused by having the lunches and the second is transportation those are the two logistical pieces and those were were
074mentioned um I mentioned those myself a few board meetings ago and they were mentioned um very appropriately by some parents last time um when you look at those logistical issues and students have a certain amount of time for lunch when you stack the three lunches you have a minimum amount of instructional time needed to run that period and in a high school the other piece that people often forget is we have mixed classes so it's not an elementary school where you have 20 students in a room it's the same students they can go to lunch and they can come back you can't cross periods and have lunch in a high school because those students would be in a different classroom unless you can guarantee that all the students in both those classes would be the
075same students and there's so many variables that prevent that from from happening um it's logistically impossible so you also have to add time in between the lunches for cleaning that we didn't have to do in a in a traditional setting we there's some cleaning in a traditional setting but not the type of you cleaning you would need in this setting so once you add up all that time you're left with a a third period which is extremely long it's about 135 minutes minimum and then you have periods one two and four which would have to see a reduction in time to make up that time so if I have algebra 13 period I would end up with a much longer instructional period than my peers who had Algebra 1 at first second or fourth period
076as we heard that presents a problem for pacing and curriculum the second issue is I have had a lot of people who have decided or would decide that if we went to a full day they would remove themselves from school and go to the Online Academy and I think that presents as with a very interesting philosophical um situation whereas what's the is there more value in full day for X number of students versus having a larger number of students in our building for half day um and that led me to really research what what did our fifth block attendance look like you know we were students staying for that extended period during the school day and I was quite surprised to see that the attendance was rather low during that in in person fifth block
077um so I think I think you you hit the nail on the head if you will really two different issues there thank you I see uh Marilyn has a hand up yeah I just wanted to um uh revisit the question about the Online Academy I think I have asked this question at every school board meeting but at least at the high school level students can switch uh to and from the online Academy if they want to and I know with the rise in covid cases uh even Dr Palmer mentioned that that families who um are feeling uncomfortable sending their students to the building should contact the principals I was wondering how much movement you have seen uh recently sure so Dr since October 12th we've had 56 students move from the co to the Online
078Academy and we have had 11 students move from Online Academy to cohort just recently as of Friday and today of those 56 that moved to Online Academy there's probably eight or 10 just within the last two days given the current numbers okay thank you and then I guess this is a question um I don't know if it's for Dr Palmer or for Dr selli Jones uh have you seen any similar movement in the Middle School or has there been movement in the elementary schools at all Dr Huff I'll take that one we have seen movement in the middle school and at the elementary school because of the way we're set up with the unique teachers for the students we've had very Li limited movement and it's been more from an extraordinary request okay thank you
079other questions I do go ahead Jen I want to elaborate on that a little bit what we were just touching on with um Dr Huff's question you know sometimes I have a concern or often I have a concern and it's not just specific to our district but it's it's broader than that actually where things look really good um on paper and as adults we look at them from our perspective as adults and what we seem to think is um important or make a difference but I think that um something that I've heard is happening when it comes to engagement in the high school is that and actually the numbers The Limited uh movement at the elementary school and less at the middle school and more at the high school would support what I've heard from
080um actually a lot of students is that unfortunately and I don't know what the answer is but um the model that we're using to teach these multiple schools with using the cameras inherently makes the students that are there feel uncomfortable now I know that we're not doing any recording ourselves as schools in those lessons or at least I don't think we are because there's been no consent no permission however you know this is a generation that is technologically savvy and they know especially high school students that anyone can record them at any time through their home devices they're all aware of that and so while I'm not speaking for every student in the school there's definitely a wave of conversation that surrounds this topic uh in the high school and I think that when we're
081seeing a shift in engagement and we're seeing more kids moved to online I've heard that kids don't want to be engaged in school and they don't want to ask questions because they know that they could be that could be thrown back in their face in some capacity at some other point so I'm not saying that we should have an answer to that in this meeting um Dr hden you strike me as someone who's very immersed with the students and with um the conversations that are going on in the high school so perhaps you've heard this too but I do think that when we're looking at all of these issues we have to get down low and look at them as students and not just as adults you know when we hear a shift to online
082I think as adults we automatically think people are worried about the co numbers and while that could be true I don't think we can really understand that shift if we don't take a step back and look at it from a student's perspective so um that comes to my mind when you're asking those questions Dr Huff I also wanted to say to Dr citelli Jones that um this presentation is is very informative I think even as a school board member it's been hard before tonight for me to understand exactly all that's going into Wednesdays um you know I was here too yesterday when I heard so much struggle or not yesterday the other meeting when I heard so much struggle from so many the parents and I think and I hope that people are understanding a
083little bit more I don't there's not a bone in my body that ever thought our teachers are not working to their extent and tenfold but I do think that you know most people are burning the candle of both ends that includes teachers and that includes parents and that includes students and it's hard for us to really understand and get this information without a presentation like this especially if you're not a teacher I did want to go to Dr hilden to your one slide which was the timeline for review where you talked about um and this is in relation to trying to get kids back into the two full days the high schoolers that we have um completed an examination of similar schools so my question to you here Dr hilden is what other schools in
084this area in Delaware County are having their high schoolers in a half day like we are in their hybrid model so um the where this is on the time we're still completing that examination we have looked at other schools we've looked at rer we've looked at Garnet Valley um we've looked at I'm going to try to pull up my list here uh we looked at te they're all doing things a little bit differently so for example some schools are having lunch in the middle of the day and they're all eating at the same time which is something that we haven't been able to accomplish some schools are putting lunch at the end of their day and they're frontloading all the instruction at the beginning so in other words you would start school at 7:30 and
085you would go straight through academically until one o'clock and then release students they could either stay for lunch or they could go home that's just a significant amount of time for a student to be in class without any break uh it also presents us with a little bit of a problem with our career in technical students although I don't think that part would be insurmountable um so and then we look further south and schools like aeng grve are still in the virtual model they haven't even come into school yet but we do want to expand as a you know in this month a more complete examination maybe some other schools farther out that would be more similar to us that have block schedules that we could compare ourselves to okay I mean I I can't
086say that I'm 100% right on this but it's my understanding that we're the only School in our area that is doing the half days for high schoolers that has gone back to a hybrid model you think that's possible yeah um it is possible but I do think there's other schools doing half day I Pro I apologize I don't have that information in front of me but I can certainly find it out for you well I I mean I think it just leads us to the million-dollar question for the parents that are sitting home that are not just it's not working for them this model for their for their kids it's not a blame game and it's not a finger pointing thing but I think that they are sitting home and wondering you know see everyone
087else going to school the high schoolers two days and and I guess I'm still wondering and they're maybe wondering you know why we can't make that happen and it is my hope that we can keep looking at this and expedite anything that this Board needs to vote on to get those kids going like our other schools are yeah and I would encourage a great and we want our kids to be in school I think a great first step would be to have students stay for fifth block I mean that's an easy win for for people they're leaving when they could stay um and then we'll continue to look for ways to increase our time in the building thank you Dr hon it sounds like the the block schedule is one of the things that really
088stands out that makes us different than a lot of other schools and create some of these challenges is am I understanding that right that that the block schedule is kind of colliding with some of the like lunch Logistics yes and what what when you look at other schools you look at rner um you look at gret Valley you there are many schools that were formerly on a block that have transitioned to a what they call modified block um and I may or may not have had a hand in creating some of those schedules in my past um and you know once upon a time in education there were there were good and valid reasons for switching to a block and some of those things have changed over time and and this block here at Strath
089Haven and some of the other blocks and some other Central East schools were implemented over 20 years ago and as education has changed and certainly the impact on technology um we've seen that shift back to more of a middle where we where schools aren't doing a traditional schedule where they're doing eight classes of 45 minutes but they're also not doing a block you know they're in that kind of a mixed uh method approach to the schedule so that block is certainly inhibiting us at this point and could you just it would just be helpful to to maybe just explain that a little bit as to what what is it about block that creates that is creating challenges so about logistics I mean not not like should we have block schedule or not but just in
090this specific question about logistics well what you want to do is when you're looking at classes you want to have equity in of instructional minutes over time so in this specific situation because you're in a block you you could end up having classes that have extreme difference in the number of instructional minutes that they meet over time and that's the major issue thank you uh any other questions not seeing any in the room not seeing any online so thank you Dr hilon Dr citelli Jones that was immensely helpful uh we really appreciate uh you talking with us tonight D thank you for having us all right uh so that takes us to our time for audience recognition this is audience recognition for items for action on the agenda this evening again I've mentioned before at
091our I guess we have hybrid meetings um partly remote and partly in person there are two ways to comment in person and by phone uh for members of the public wishing to address the board in person um we do have opportunities for that to take place we also have over overflow space for meetings if needed to maintain adequate social distancing when we do get to a time for uh people commenting in person to speak we will guide audience members into the meeting room to to speak and everyone of course has to wear a mask at all times we also as has been the case members of the public that wish to address the board remotely can call 610 892 3470 extension 11102 to leave recorded comments for the board subject to a three-minute time limit
092any comments left prior to 5 o'clock today have been transcribed and made available to the board anything left after 5:00 but prior to the end of this meeting this evening will still be transcribed distributed to the board and made a part of the record but uh we won't be able to acknowledge it during the meeting uh this evening uh from my understanding I don't believe we have any comments called in is that correct Kelly none okay uh and is there anyone uh in the audience this evening who would like to speak related to topics on the agenda okay uh seeing none uh we will move on to our first item for Action which is approval of the October 26 regular business meeting minutes and I so move uh do we have a second second Kelly
093wman thank you Kelly uh any discussion so I didn't see a copy of them Linked In the agenda okay so I was wondering if we can push this to next meeting since I didn't have a chance to review them link um so you could make a um motion to table okay uh which is so moved so I think um if I remember correctly I know Kyle's not sitting next to me I think you should make a motion to table and then someone needs to second that and then there would be a vote on the motion to table okay that we table second Jennifer Lun okay uh so we have uh Matt made the motion Jen second and then I believe there's no discussion no discussion Kyle is that correct that's correct okay no discussion so
094miss Fagor can you please take a roll call vote so this motion is for the motion to table correct Mr Ballas n Miss simino I'm confused I'm sorry is there a link in board dos there is isn't there yes there is it's not here if you click on it there's a little view minutes hyperlink on under minutes agenda item details for October 26th you can click on that when I tried it home this evening and right now trying I can't see it uh well if I could share my screen I could show it to you I mean it's there so I kind of want to say May too it may be I don't know why it would depend on being logged in you do have to be logged in okay because they're not board approved
095minutes yet gotcha okay so chapen you voted no I think so didn't Jerry vote no correct I'm voting no too sorry Matt that's okay okay Miss Fagor can you take us to the next vote Dr Downey oh I Dr Huff no Mr cus Mrs lent I because I don't have him either Mr Sullivan I Mrs wman Dr Grandy nay Dr Grandy I have six Nays three yes votes okay the motion fails so that takes us back to the original motion which was approval of the minutes that was seconded and now that is open for discussion do we have any discussion okay can you clarify we have to log in to look at this okay in board docs I think I am logged in but maybe not okay it it requires your own password and you
096can't just go into board dos and see the minutes that haven't been approved yet okay I I mean I am under that okay thank you Mrs wman any other discussion Miss Vora can you please take a roll call vote Miss simino hi Dr dowy hi Dr Huff hi Mr Cuda I Mrs lent I Mr Sullivan may just because I can't see them I can't get logged in to see them you can abstain I'm happy to abstain so Mr Sullivan you're changing your vote to abion Mrs wman I Mr ballor hi Dr Grandy the motion for the minutes passes eight with one exstension thank you Miss fura so that takes us to Personnel let me just get my agenda flipped here all right we have 10 items for action and Personnel are there any items on
097the list anyone would like separate from the rest Dr Grandy I was wondering if we could talk a little bit about item J I think it's under there so would you like it separated then I don't need it separated no I just thought that maybe we could when we get to discussion then on items in Block yes no I don't need it separated okay thank you uh so let me read through the 10 items uh we have have the approval of three retirements two certified staff jeie pit I cannot pronounce names well piter Zac from the high school Linda aan at the middle school and Diane Hanam at the middle school we have the approval of three appointments Kayla Betton building substitute at West Rachel smutz first grade teacher in the Online Academy and Rebecca
098laderer instructional support at West we have the approval of two leaves of absence as listed in the agenda we have the approval of of changes in additions to the 2020 2021 activities supplemental appointment lists as listed in the agenda we have approval of a change of assignment for David bear as stipulated we have the approval of additional assignments as stipulated we have the approval of the appointment of PBIS coaches at the annual stipend of $3,000 per staff member during the 2020 2021 school year as stipulated we have the approval of the 2020 2021 activity advisor appointments as stipulated we have the approval of an addition to the 2020 2021 athletic supplementals and we have the approval of payment for the K to5 social studies vertical team members for the 2020 21 2021 school year at
099the rate of $37 per hour not to exceed 90 total hours as stipulated all the items in the section are as attached or described in the agenda do I have a motion so moved thank you Kelly do we have a second second thanks Matt uh discussion I I just wasn't sure if we could talk a little bit about this I don't I don't have discussion per se to discuss whether or not this should be happening but I just wasn't sure if everyone was um understanding what the social studies vertical team was and how that was going to work so I know ashina is not here but um I didn't know if you were comfortable giving is she no but I can okay comfortable giving a just small okay thank you Dr early just a small
100synopsis of what what this is yeah absolutely so the social studies vertical team typically when a vertical team starts we do our best to have it begin as K12 um and that way we won't have any kind of hiccups in the way that there is sort of a through line of thought what happens in elementary school is because the same teacher is teaching reading and math and social studies and science we have to pace it a little bit because we don't want teachers to have too many new things at once so at the time we started the social studies vertical teams our elementary folks had just come off of new math and then new reading and then new science so in order to pce them we held off on having them be part of the
101social studies vertical team and started with our 6 to2 group so our 6 to 12 group finished up the social studies vertical team a year ago and now the social studies vertical team at elementary is ready to get started and we're trying to fuse together what has been happening at elementary school and the shifts that need to happen in elementary school for social studies most specifically for some topics related to um an indigenous people our um our culture about the way you know certain aspects of history that we want to make sure we're getting right and also because there's a lot to be learned about diversity and what we are and aren't including in social studies so we feel that this was a not just the time in terms of the sequence but also time
102in terms of the fact that we're looking at our classroom libraries for ELA with having more diversity in those classroom libraries having more choices for students so that they can have what's called mirrors and windows so they can see themselves in our literature and so they can see through Windows toward other people who might not be like themselves and a lot of our social studies work is combined up in the classroom with those Ela classroom libraries so as ashina Dr mosakowski is working on the diversity classroom libraries it's a great time for us also to be talking about social studies and what's happening with we don't want to separate them out um so this gives us that opportunity and then the last thing that I want to say and I'm I'm going to expand on
103this next week or at the next board meeting when we talk about diversity inclusion and Equity is that our teaching tolerance social justice standards are being fused into our social studies most specifically at the elementary level and because that work is starting that's going to be a large part of what the social studies vertical team is going to be looking at so they have this threer view that's going to be happening and and it's no time like the present because it's where everything's converging anyway thank you sure any other discussion okay uh Miss fuera can you please take a roll call vote Dr Downey I Dr Huff hi Mr cus I Mrs lent I Mr Sullivan I Mrs wman I Mr Ballas I miss tamino I Dr Grandy the motion passes nine to zero thank
104you Miss pagora so that takes us to curriculum we have three items for action are there any on the list anyone would like to separate from the rest okay uh first we have approval of related services provider contracts as stipulated second we have approval of a tuition contract as stipulated and third we have the approval of the 360 degree therapy agreement for a contracted special education teacher uh all the items in the section are as attached or described in the agenda do I have a motion so moved very do we have a second second Cheno thank you japen any discussion okay Miss VOR can you please take a roll call vote Dr Huff hi Mr ctis I Mrs lent I Mr suvan I Mrs wman I Mr Ballas I miss Cino I Dr Downey I
105Dr Grandy hi Dr Grandy the motion passes nine to zero thank you Miss Vora okay that takes us to finance we have five items for approval and finance let me make sure I'm counting this correctly four yep okay um are there any on the list anyone would like to separate from the rest okay we have approval of a service agreement for a customized training partnership with Pennsylvania School Board Association as stipulated we have approval of an agreement with the Chester County Intermediate Unit for the scope of work is stipulated this is to provide additional Staffing in the office of student services to address needs related to co we have approval of the candoris proposal for VMware carbon black endpoint licenses and implementation not to exceed 26,758 iate unit three for translation services to be used
106on an as-needed basis we have the acknowledgement of receipt of the district's local audit report for fiscal year ended June 30th 2020 as prepared by BBD LP certified public accountants that was what we heard about during our Focus topic this evening all items in this section are as attached or described in the agenda uh do I have a motion so was that Marilyn so moved Marilyn H okay do we have a second second Larry keeters thank you Larry uh any discussion okay Miss fuera can you please take a roll call vote Mr cudas I Mrs lent I Mr Sullivan I Mrs wman I Mr Ballas I miss simino hi Dr Downey I Dr Huff I Dr Grandy I the motion passes N9 to zero thank you Miss vagora so that takes us to time for
107audience recognition for response to topics not on the agenda so I won't read through the entire thing that I read through earlier um but just to mention again we don't have any called in comments at all right okay um is there anyone in the audience who wishes to address the board okay if um if you don't mind um maybe one at a time if you could go out in the hallway and then come in through the door at the podium Dr Grandy we also have two people downstairs in the Overflow room that will be coming up also okay so just a um couple quick things so um just to remind you that everything you say is being broadcast um and then the second thing is if you could just state your name your address and
108then make sure you speak close to the mic so everyone can hear you okay thank you Beth benzing 405 Brierwood Road Wellingford I am a teacher at Strath Haven High School I've been a part of the amazing math department at Strath Haven for the past 20 years and this is my 27th year teaching I wanted to share a brief overview of my experience of teaching online yes it is challenging what makes it challenging is the scene challenge we had when kids were in the classroom face to face how do I create an environment for my students to be active Learners how do I promote and encourage my students to take risk in learning we use different strategies now that we are online Andor maintaining six feet when the kids are in the building fortunately I
109work with an amazing group of teachers and staff who have focused on this issue engaging our students in this different environment personally and professionally it has been a rewarding start to the year I have learned and used new applets and Incorporated new systems that I will use forever moving forward after covid-19 when trying to connect to my students and hear their thoughts and ideas stapplet.com allows my students to stay connected by entering their own data that merges with the entire class instantaneously whiteboard. fi and jam board.com have allowed my students to share and view other students work the Google slides and breakout rooms have provided a great opportunity for my students to share in small groups full disclosure I thought I was prepared to be able to connect with my students on zoom on August
11030th but what I found it was not enough for and it was excuse me but what I found it was not enough and our instruction needed more and now these newly implemented strategies and applets created accountability and the needed connection these successes have occurred and led to the highest level of teacher collaboration in my 27-year teaching career I'm sharing these words because I've often I often get asked not only as a teacher in the district but also as a mom of three children who attend schools in the district how can math be taught online and in person at the same time well I've had to tweak and write and rewrite curriculum to fit these models everything is reworked from assessments to group work and personally I've enjoyed this process curriculum and our lessons need to
111be thought about through a new lens to continue to get better and covid-19 has forced us to do this it is not perfect teaching my students time management and the importance of deadlines is a challenge for students I do not pitch a perfect game every class far from it but my mind is always thinking about the best way for my students to learn the material students are learning and are working harder than ever because we demand the best of ourselves I believe Strath Haven High School students are our future leaders this year's education is just as important as every other year we live in a community that values education our teachers are talented and passionate I'm grateful to be living in a community that sets high expectations and provides numerous educational and extracurricular opportunities for
112our children thank you to our friendly and responsible breast driver thank you to my loyal and committed administrators thank you to my friendly thank you to the friendly staff that keep the building moving forward and thank you to my wonderful students thank you to the hardworking parents thank you to the selfless Schoolboard members and lastly thank you to my own children's teachers for your creative morning meetings for your amazing virtual adapted meaningful labs for making my son smile at a silly birthday song for the creative writing assignments for the discovery math lessons and thoughtful assessments thank you for your commitment to the wssd children thank you hi good evening so just a quick thing since I realized I said this after everyone went in the hallway so I'll say it with each speaker um if
113you don't mind just um mention your name your address and then just make sure you speak closely into the microphone as well sure I usually don't have a problem being loud uh my name is Amanda Lawson I'm about to tell all my students my address 303 Henry Lane in Wallingford I've been a high school social studies teacher for 21 years 19 of those years have been spent at Strath Haven High School my remaining years until retirement will be spent at Strath Haven High School I've served our wssd students as a field coach for 19 years I've pre worked previously worked as an assistant coach to our varsity lacrosse team I've been a member of the team up for Turf committee that helped raise funds and install turf at Kingfield my name sits on the wall
114of those who gave their time and efforts I currently serve as the H head building rep at the high school for the wsea and last spring I filled in as assistant as interim assistant principal at the high school this summer I worked on the education committee with my colleagues and the District Administrative team I tell you all of this as I do not take being here lightly I tell you all of this to make you aware of the varied roles and responsibilities that I've had while an employee of the district and I and today I also proudly add parent of a West second grader shout out to Mrs moris she's doing a great job I'm not here tonight to tell you to reopen the schools because they've been open I'm not here to say what
115the high school schedule should and should not be what I'm here to tell you and make you aware and those of our district aware is just how hard our teachers are working I spent years developing my craft years creating resources handouts tests quizzes projects the hours spent are impossible to count those hours have been professionally rewarding and make every year after just a little bit easier and now I'm converting all of those things not to just one format but to two I now have to make plans lessons resources handouts tests quides projects for our new normal students in the room and students on Zoom I am working non-stop some of the parents that spoke at our last board meeting were correct teachers are not working 5 days a week we're working seven days a week
116many of us were grading as we listened to the last board meeting many of us were writing College recommendations as we listened to the last board meeting all of us were devastated as as we listened to the last board meeting I have never worked harder in my 21 years of teaching and in those 21 years I've worked really hard I've taught new classes assigned to me I've Rewritten curriculum twice I've endured a changed AP Psychology curriculum multiple times from the College Board all this while teaching and Grading and coaching and co-sponsoring the class of 2019 and co-sponsor Ing minithon and writing College letters of recommendation and filling out weekly behavioral forms and attending IEP meetings and filling out sack forms and responding to parent emails and getting my required professional development hours in and attending
117faculty meetings attending social studies department meetings reading a book our principal assigned us at one point and parenting and being a wife and taking care of myself all of those things are being done in a regular school year today those things still exist they have not gone away they're just now buried under a mountain of new work I never saw coming and I never thought possible teachers are working five days a week teachers are working on Wednesdays teachers are fulfilling the district education plan teachers at the high school are not ignoring an entire population of students instead they're serving multiple populations at once every day we are educating students that come into our building and those that have opted to remain at home we care about all of these students we want to serve all
118of these populations we it is killing us that we cannot provide for them the educational experience that wssd families have come to know we're doing our best and we're struggling to keep our heads above water I'm here tonight to implore the board to please keep Wednesday's asynchronous so that our staff at all grade levels can continue to have the needed time to prepare for this unprecedented style of teaching I implore the boy board to keep Wednesdays asynchronous so that our amazing teachers can continue to develop the quality education that wssd families have come to expect I implore the board to keep Wednesdays asynchronous so that our teachers can breathe my final message tonight is not just to our board but our community at large no one wants what we're going through no one wants this
119for our children no one wants this as an adult but this is our reality and I truly hope our wssd community can get behind our schools and support our teachers and support our students as a team we need the messaging in our homes and in our in our classrooms to be supportive of each other supportive of everyone that's navigating this pandemic together parents teachers board members admin ministrators we're all doing our best we're all getting by let's remember that and let's continue to work together to keep Wallingford swore the special place that it is for all of us thank you to all of you the board members for your time and all that you're doing for our students thank you to our parents who support our learning at home thank you to the students for
120inspiring me and giving me a pickme up when I mess something up in my lesson and saying that's okay Mrs Lawson you got it and Wally here thanks to AJ satron for all the work he does to keep this place and the technology working thank you very much have a good night thank you hi good evening um if you don't mind when you come to the microphone just name address and then make sure you talk uh close into the microphone so everyone can hear you okay um thank you Dr Palmer and the entire School Board for allowing me to speak tonight my name is Kate Jones 205 Fairfield Drive Walling Ford Pennsylvania I am a fifth grade teacher at nether Providence Elementary School I've had the privilege of teaching in the school district for the
121past 19 years my husband and I attended school here and both graduated from stra Haven High School I also have two sons an eighth grader and a sixth grader as stth middle school after watching the last school board meeting I heard a number of concerns surrounding the cohort model and the impact on students across grade levels what compelled me to want to speak this evening were the remarks made made about teacher work days the comments some residents made were not only inaccurate but they were not fair as school reopened this fall teachers had to learn in a short amount of time how to do their jobs in a totally different way while the technology and platforms required for both the virtual and hybrid settings were familiar we've had to learn a whole new way of
122delivering curriculum and helping our students to learn we have to plan lessons that meet the wide array of needs in our classrooms for both the home and in-person cohorts it is almost impossible to explain the sheer exhaustion that teachers have experienced in the past 11 weeks especially to anyone who is not a classroom teacher not only are we putting in extra hours of physical and mental work each day and week but for many of us the emotional workload is 247 whether we are caring for our own families planning lessons collaborating with our building and District colleagues communicating and supporting students and their families our jobs and responsibilities are on our minds much longer than the traditional workday we are worried about our students wssd teachers have chosen this profession because we love teaching we love
123our students we have a passion for the subjects and units we teach we take pride in our students growth throughout the year we rete enrich and differentiate for students who need more this has become much more challenging during this pandemic but rest assure we are doing our best in closing I would be remiss if I didn't say thank you to to each and everyone of my son's teachers my husband and I see the emails that are sent at 6:30 in the morning at 10:45 at night we see and hear you patiently answering every one of their questions no matter how small we hear you gracefully help them manage technical difficulties that arise on Zoom thank you for all the videos assignments explanations that you have posted in your Google classrooms thank you for checking their
124work sending it back sending it back if needed and working hard to keep them engaged and positive thank you for keeping the portal up to dat and most importantly thank you for loving them and keeping them safe we know you are working over time we appreciate you and we're in this together thank you thank you hi good evening um if you don't mind just uh state your name address and then just make sure you talk closely into the microphone you can move it closer if you need to hi my name is Jennifer Rogers and I live at 610 bmore Drive I have a freshman who chose to be an online Academy student I also have a fifth grader at MPE who is a cohort student my husband Scott and I are both art teachers at
125Strath Haven High School I have taught 2D art there for 23 years years I'm the K to2 art department chair the class of 2024 class advisor National Art Honor Society adviser and the co-chair of the George slick Fellowship committee Scott has been teaching ceramics at Strath Haven High School for the last 12 years prior to that he taught sixth grade art at Strath Haven Middle School for 11 years we are both passionate art Educators whove dedicated Our Lives to inspire ing the creativity of the children in this school district by providing them a safe Studio environment where they can explore materials techniques and creative self-expression five and a half years ago we moved our family to Wallingford specifically so our sons could attend this school district specifically so our sons could benefit from the dedicated
126Educators we are honored to call our colleagues we know from working side by side with them for decades that they are a special group of Educators it was upsetting to hear that some of my neighbors think we are not working and our students are not learning therefore I will speak to the Great Lengths our teachers specifically in the art Department are going through to make pandemic School happen for all students of the Wallingford swore School District first I'm in awe of my colleagues the teachers at Strat High School and what they've been able to accomplish these last 10 weeks I proudly stand with them and stand by them as they continue to provide our children with an outstanding education during a pandemic second converting an entire curriculum to be presented in an online format is
127a gargantuan task add to that the transition to hybrid learning which has resulted in doubling of the workload responsibility and expectations for teachers everything we ever knew about teaching has been turned upside down due to the pandemic all teachers have had to reinvent their curriculum I know this because I am one I cannot use the lesson supporting documents and artistic examples that I've developed over the last two decades because they do not work well or translate in an online or hybrid format as teachers we have to redo everything from scratch I feel like a first year teacher all over again and my first year of teaching was in 1998 long before we had internet in our classrooms and zoom and Google classroom and power school this means that every slideshow every document every artistic example
128has to be recreated for this pandemic learning situation imagine every piece of work you've ever created you have to redo and reimagine it takes hours to do this type of work add on top of that figuring out how to deliver that curriculum through technology that you have not been adequately trained to use Orly Ed with add to that trying to teach a Hands-On experiential based student centered curriculum that is Art through an online format to make this happen we are sacrificing times with our own families to get the job done specifically the art department has put tremendous effort into making our curriculum accessible to all of our students the high school art Department meets every Wednesday to discuss and troubleshoot and share what is and isn't working for us this is all we have each
129other to figure out how to teach art online and in hybrid teaching Art Online certainly has its challenges so we meet to work out Solutions together because we aren't able to see each other in person we use Wednesday mornings to meet on Zoom as a way to stay connected to each other as colleagues during our inservice day last Tuesday we met as aada 12 art department where each district art teacher shared art that their students were making this year we spent well over hour looking at and marveling at what our students have created during 10 weeks of pandemic school it was invigorating to see what our student artists have created shading with colored pencil forming clay into sculpture learning about color mixing and color theory using free online computer programs to create a repeating textile
130design Dr Grande and Dr Palmer I provided you with a packet of um examples of some of the student artwork that our students have made this fall one of our teachers commented that it was like seeing the joy in the art room this is our goal as an art Department to bring some joy into your child's life we are trying so hard to teach your children and see them motivated to learn our meetings also give us a chance to reach and support the three new art teachers we've welcomed into our department this year although they are not new to teaching they are new to wssd and these new art teachers certainly need and deserve our support the Arts are essential to our student social and emotional learning our K8 art teachers teach every student in
131their school buildings as part of the required curriculum at the high school level while Arts are an elective they are a required part of the curriculum as a graduation requirement the high school art Department teaches over 500 students in a variety of art courses over a given school year we have more students in art classes at the high school than are in the marching band that's right 500 teenagers choose to spend one of their electives with us and we are so honored I continue to be in awe of our art students and what they have been able to create these last 10 weeks of school during a pandemic they have created works of art that explore the beauty The Joy the grief and the loss of what being a teenager is in 2020 this is
132the power of art our students continue to amaze me with their curiosity and their willingness to embrace this strange new way of learning this school year all teachers everywhere are doing the best they can with what we've been given no teacher ever could have imagined having to reinvent and teach their curriculum online and inperson simultaneously while wearing wearing a mask during a pandemic but that is where we are right now living in the midst of a pandemic while providing an education for our children teachers are highly qualified professional with Advanced degrees in our Fields please support us and trust us to do the job we were hired to do we need the support of parents and administrators to motivate your children to continue to be the best version of themselves we all yearn for a
133pandemic free school year in the meantime the ultimate goal should be to keep our children faculty and staff safe after working well past 3:30 most days teaching attending Zoom meetings planning grading helping our seniors with their art portfolios for college admissions and writing letters of recommendation for those seniors my colleagues and I will get up tomorrow we log into zoom while simultaneously teaching a cohort of children in person while wearing a mask and we will smile we will teach and Inspire and we will bring some joy into your child's life because that is what teachers do thank you thank you hi good evening um if you don't mind just uh mention your name address and then just make sure the microphone is close enough that we can sure pick you up well is that close
134enough perfect um good evening my name is Megan coin and I live at 23 medbury Lane in Wallingford Pennsylvania I have two children who ATT Strath Haven High School a ninth grader and an 11th grader I'm here tonight to voice my support for our teachers in the Wallingford swore School District I felt compelled to voice my support in this public way after hearing members of our community make remarks about what they perceive as a lack of professionalism and commitment to our children this school year I felt that maybe I have a unique perspective on this topic as I myself am a teacher in a neighboring School District I can understand and even EMP with the frustrations of parents that this school year has brought as we Face a global pandemic and the changes that has
135made to our normal lives both of my children are enrolled in the Online Academy at the high school a choice I did not want to make but did so for the safety of their teachers their classmates and my students and their families as well because my school district requires me to teach from my classroom even when students are virtual my own children have been left every day to manage all of this on their own and they've done well and that is because of the one consistent and reliable aspect in all of this their teachers so to take frustrations about this school year out on our teachers is not right teachers across our district are working well outside their contracted hours to completely recreate curriculum and lessons to fit this new model this isn't something that
136takes a few minutes it takes hours the asynchronous time on Wednesdays is much needed for teachers to meet and collaborate write IEPs 504s and geps that usually take hours to complete and they are planning creating and Grading assignments for our children there has not been one Wednesday where both of my children did not have a full day of work to complete to suggest that this day is not a true and full work day for teachers or students is just simply incorrect I know for myself that I am now working 12 to 14 hour days just to get prepared for the next day teachers are working on the weekends trying to get ahead and never feeling like we are caught up this is not the exception this is the rule this school year to Mark assignments
137it now takes me five clicks to check student work and return it and that is without typing any feedback a task that used to take me a few minutes now takes at least 45 again this is not the exception this is the rule our teachers are giving up time with their own families every day to do what they can to provide the best education possible for our children and for anyone in our community to suggest that teachers are only working four days a week and should not be getting their full salary is not only wrong it is demoralizing I want to thank the board and Dr Palmer and administration for communicating to our families just how hard our teachers are working right now the transition to Virtual and now to hybrid has literally doubled the
138workload responsibility and expectations of teachers while giving them less pay support and recognition for these efforts which is why it is so important to publicly acknowledge the amazing efforts of our teachers again and again and to the teachers of Wallingford swore School District I want to say this I see you the community at large sees you but most importantly your students see you they see you every day as you face a test that feels impossible and insurmountable but yet you get it done that is teaching them courage they see when you have to change lesson plans at a second's notice when the technology you need to do your job doesn't work teaching them flexibility and perseverance they see when you pull them into a breakout room to make sure that they are okay or to
139discuss extending a deadline for incomplete assignments due to an internet issue teaching them empathy compassion and Grace and they see you get up every morning and face all of this again and again even after hearing disparaging remarks about your profession and your work ethic and you show up in spite of it to be there for them that is teaching them strength of character and I will take these lessons for my children over an SAT score any day thank you to our teachers these words they feel so small compared to how grateful we are but they are all I have thank you and thank you to the school board for your time tonight thank you Dr Brandy they have to say their house number no they don't okay hi good evening uh if you don't mind
140just stting your name and and I should have said earlier address but you just say street name if you prefer and then just make sure the microphone is close enough so we can hear you you hear me right great good evening my name is Andy riger I'm at uh Drexel place in Swarthmore but today I'm coming to you from 7:31 Harvard which is better known as the ABC house in Swarthmore and Wallingford Swarthmore School District uh for those of you who don't know I'm the president of a better chance Ro Haven and for those of you who don't know ABC has been a part of the wssd community for over 40 years our Scholars are high achieving minority students from distressed school districts who come to stth Haven for the opportunity of a better education
1412020 has been quite a year to say the least Co has presented a particular challenge for our Scholars who come from as close as New Jersey and DC and Brooklyn and as far as uh Georgia and Chicago um half of our Scholars took advantage of the hybrid opportunity and half chose the Online Academy on behalf of our board staff and Scholars I would like to thank the teachers and administrators for all their efforts to make this year as positive as possible as we've heard tonight it has not been easy in particular the teachers have done an amazing job of connecting with our Scholars and making the best of a challenging educational EnV enironment but Co was not the only challenge of 2020 sadly this year continued a trend of more open racism in both our
142country and in our community this has a significant negative impact on our entire Community but specifically on our ABC Scholars we had a mom this summer who was so frightened from the George Floyd incident that she didn't want to send her her child back to swore that's a concern most of us will never have I want to thank the district for the diversity equity and inclusion initiatives including some that were discussed tonight and I just heard some will be discussed in more detail uh in the next board meeting uh and I want to encourage the teachers and administrators to continuously search for innovative ways to integrate diversity into all aspects of our wssd experience thank you very much have a good night thank you hi good evening uh if you could just state your name
143and address you don't have to give your house number if you don't want to but just a street and um just make sure you talk close into the microphone hi my name is Kaye rer uh I live on Drexel place in sore I am a freshman at the high school School uh and my mom is a teacher there uh I am here today to respond to the shocking comments made at the last board meeting parents attacked teachers and selfishly demanded that changes be made that help their child without acknowledging that these changes would hurt the majority of students most board members did nothing to dispute these CH that uh um the parents incorrect facts or defend the teachers they spend so much time praising it was disappointing and made me realize how important it is
144for me to speak up and make my voice heard that is why I'm here today the first topic I would like to discuss is asynchronous Wednesdays parents seem to think that this day was wasted and unnecessary this is not true as a student I can say that my teachers give me plenty of work and I learn a lot of material I will admit that I do not learn as much on these days as uh as a normal school day but this is to be expected I also understand how important these days are for teachers every day I see my mom working 10 times as hard as I do just to keep up and Wednesday are no exception The Audacity Of parents to invalidate all the work that teachers and students put in on Wednesdays by
145saying it is a day of lost education shocks me school has become more stressful than ever and asynchronous days can be helpful in reducing that stress teachers workloads have also tripled making this day absolutely necessary teachers I have heard of that have never needed to work weekends before because they've been able to get their work done in after school time are now working weekends and Wednesdays just to keep up I have also received comments from teachers on my on my assignments at 4 in the morning showing just how much time teachers are putting into their students I don't think a lot of parents understand how much time outside of school hours goes into being a teacher but that is no excuse for attacking the work that they do in the time they need to do
146it the second topic I would like to discuss is hybrid days a lot of parents seem to be pushing for two full days of in-person education each week while I agree that iners education is better than virtual and would love to be in person as much as possible I recognize the impossibility of uh doing this plan the high school may have enough room for in-person lunch but that does not mean it's a good idea I have seen too many people pulling their masks down in crowded hallways playing wind instruments next to other students or hanging out in large uh groups after school without masks on to feel safe eating lunch in a room full of unmasked students adding lunch into the school day would increase the number of students in Online Academy I have talked
147to my friends and people I know who are on the fence and they agree that they would not feel safe in a lunchroom this um is especially bad as this plan would hurt Online Academy students being online while other people are in person it makes it harder to learn while teachers are doing the best that they can um they it feels like they are teaching like they are teaching to someone and you are watching them for the majority of the lesson currently this is okay because um there are also all virtual days where they are teaching to one group of students and are able to make it to help us as much as possible um but going two full days in person would mean that Online Academy students that these classes never happen and Online
148Academy students always have to deal with being uh the second priority another point that some parents brought up was the lack of consistency in the schedule I do not think that the schedule is that confusing or at least any more confusing than schedules that we have had before the middle school has bells ringing in the middle of lunch periods uh in the middle of school in the middle of periods for uh the different uh schedules for each grade and I have never understood the high school lunch schedule but this is the best hybrid uh plan for our school at the moment there are downsides that I don't think there is a better hybrid plan that can be implemented right now cases are rising and opening up schools is not the right move uh before um
149I uh end my speech I would like to say thank you uh to all the teachers for the hard work uh and time and effort that they are putting in to make sure that we get the best education possible thank you for listening thank you hi good evening uh if you don't mind just I'm over here I know everyone's like where's voice coming from um if you don't mind just stating your name and your address you can just give your street if you don't want to give your house number and then just make sure you talk close into the microphone okay can you hear me yes okay my name is Heather Sullivan and I live on Blue Hill Road in Wallingford um I currently have a freshman at the high school and I have two
150former Wallingford swathmore School District students that are in college one is a senior and one is a sophomore I just wanted to read a review of our district that was taken from I don't know how to say this niche.com it was their website it's a good one um this school district is incredible I am so grateful for Strath Haven and my experience as a student there I am currently a freshman in college and feel very confident and capable because of the way Strath Haven prepared me in fact I feel that I have a leg up sorry compared to my peers as I know how to balance School extracurricular activities and a social life because of the rigorous schedule I had as a Haven student Strath Haven allowed me to experiment learn and grow in a
151safe environment where I was not only supported and accepted but also appreciated Strath Haven is unique in that you aren't put into a box my two older children could have written that it's so true we are better than everywhere else we're Blue Ribbon Schools we're number one in Delaware County we're always rated that way so I'm a little worried I'm just a little worried because I want to make sure my son the one the freshman is going to receive the same experience that the others had I know across the board this is the way it is everywhere I understand that but I also believe that Dr citelli Jones I I believed her when she said that our school's plans are going to be the best imaginable she also said we need Mutual satisfaction from parents
152teachers and students therefore I don't believe it's unreasonable to ask why our high school students the hybrid schedule only receives one block per per subject per week face to face with their teachers when other surrounding school districts are I know they don't have block schedule I heard what Dr hilden said tonight I was listening there's a lot going on there anyway what I'm asking for is us just to please re-evaluate the high school cohort hybrid schedule please try to get these children in two full days figure it out there's a lot of smart people here change whatever you have to change but let's do it sooner rather than later that's really all I know our teachers are wonderful they are wonderful there's just no denying it and I don't think this is asking them to
153do anything more I think this is just asking us to work with the curriculum itself and the schedule that's all thank you thanks for your time thank you hi good evening if you don't mind just oh here yeah sorry I'm realizing I guess my voice is over there um if you don't mind just stating your name and your address you can just give street name if you prefer uh and then just make sure you're close enough to the microphone okay A little bit of a size this microphone uh good evening my name is Kelly Evans Brown and I live at Drexel place in swathmore can you hear me okay I'm here tonight to express my gratitude for the teaching and administration in the entire District specifically to the high school all five of my children
154have or will graduate from the Wallingford sbor School District I am privileged enough to work from home right now so I hear firsthand the commitment from the teachers to my my kids my kids are far from thrilled to be online learning but it is the enthusiasm and creativity of the teachers which is keeping them engaged I have nothing but gratitude and appreciation for their patience and understanding during this pandemic I do believe they have addressed the mental health of my children as much as they can they have worked tirelessly to blank screens and radio silence when this occurs I have heard them use empathy humor and compassion to get my children re-engaged it is the teachers who are making the wheel turn in this Uncharted time quite frankly I'm surprised at how much they are
155learning in these extremely difficult circumstances as far as the hybrid scheduling I am a proponent of the asynchronous learning on Wednesdays my children need this time to process everything they've been taught and frankly they need a break from Zoom they have enough work to do on Wednesdays and it certainly is not a day off for anyone and I will say that every time my kids have reached out to their teachers they have gotten immediate feedback and the support that they've needed and I think too often with some of the comments from the people in the community that that it's a day off and it's not my kids have had amazing teachers responding to them when they're struggling and my kids speak up for themselves I commend the teachers who are using everything in their toolbox
156to broaden the minds of my children it is their commitment and dedication which is responsible for my children's learning I feel like they could not be in better hands and I am so proud to be a member of this community please take care of yourselves your families and each others because especially right now kindness matters thank you thank you anyone else yeah Larry do you mind just double checking no one else okay okay well I want to thank everyone who came out to speak tonight you know we are absolutely living through some extremely difficult times and I think those difficult times have created some very deep feelings um the world is certainly not what we want it to be right now um but everyone you know is working so exceptionally hard during these times and
157you know I understand some parents are frustrated um but I know our teachers are just working so hard to try to adapt to the circumstances that we're in and I think it was uh Miss Lawson who said it you know how important it is is that we find a way to come together to work together to try to find Solutions and it's not to say that there's not some things that can't be changed uh but at the same time I do think we do need to support and celebrate people who are who are working so hard um you know there is you know there there's Hope on the horizon around Co um there was some fantastic news today around vaccine devel Vel M that I think gives us hope but it's still going to be
158a very hard winter over the next few months um it's going to be a while before we get through this most difficult period And so you know I I'll just say from from my own self here that I think it's just critically important that as a community we find a way to come together because during these difficult times it's very easy um to start having anger uh take over our conversations and I hope we can have productive conversations as a community as a school board as an entire District um so anyway I just wanted to thank everyone who who came out to speak tonight um next up um on the agenda is old business but I see we we skipped over um we don't have Schoolboard reports listed on the agenda tonight so I just
159want to mention uh that for a moment and see if anyone has any reports uh for out of District roles or or subcommittees anyone on online have any reports to make okay I'm not hearing any just double checking okay um that takes us to Old business do we have any old business this evening do we have any new business all right thank you this meeting is adjourned