001Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the finance committee meeting of the Wattsburg Area School District. Uh the meeting is now called to order. Our guest this evening is Dave Data uh who will be presenting on our financial audit report. But at this time, I will turn the meeting over to our business administrator, Mrs. Vicky Bendig. Mrs. Bendig. >> Thank you, Dr. Bushchek. I'm turning it over to Mr. Dana. >> All right. Well, good evening. Thank you for having me tonight. My name is Dave Dana. I'm partner with BWB and my job tonight is to give you an overview of the 202425 uh financial audit. And actually your audit I think um you all received was a big 61page document. Um ultimately this is your financial statements. Okay. And in it is a lot of
002numbers and a lot of wording that we call disclosures that basically represent some of the numbers that are included in this document. Um, our job as a CPA firm is ultimately to opine on the numbers and the disclosures and that opinion is whether or not the numbers and disclosures are fairly presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Okay. Ultimately, this is an important document. Um once a year you have to compile all of your financial information both on a shortterm and long-term basis. And this document goes to a lot of folks that make decisions on your financial well-being. Um you have to send this in. It's an MMA site which is basically um when you issue bonds your bond holders have the opportunity to look at your financial statements. Okay. And they make judgments
003on those. Uh the federal government gets this document because you have federal awards that are expended during the course of the year and then obviously the state government receives the financial statements along with the board. The public has the ability to review them. So, a lot of people at the end of the day have access to these financial statements. Okay. Pleased to report that we're providing a clean unmodified opinion with no exceptions, which is the highest level of assurance that we can provide the district. So, congratulations. Okay. Um, if you were to look at page three, which is the main, you know, audit report, and compared it to last year, you would see a new paragraph. And that new paragraph really has a couple different things in it. It's referencing a prior period adjustments. And
004there were a couple things that occurred during the current year. Number one, we're going to see in a little bit, your fixed assets, which is the investment that you've made in your school buildings primarily, plus your equipment, um, were adjusted to your appraisal report that was conducted a few years ago. Okay, those numbers were really being carried forward year after year after year on an old appraisal and I think the decision was to be made as to let's just adjust it to that new appraisal and then ultimately let's use that new appraisal going forward where we're submitting our additions and any disposals that we have. Okay, so that was one change. The other big change was the fact that you incorporated a new government accounting pronouncement and that was Gazsby 101 which required the district
005to account for your accumulated sick time a little bit differently. Okay. Now the way that gets represented is whatever has been earned by your employees is recorded as a liability if it's likely to be paid. In the past it was whether that those dollars were vested. Okay? And so in the past we used you know folks that were close to retirement was represented in the liability. Now it's almost all of your employees are included in the liability. So, a little bit of a change as far as how that was reported. And both of those things affect the long-term reporting. Okay, we're going to talk probably more about your short-term reporting, but those two items affected your long-term reporting. Okay, so there's two reports included in the financial statements. They're both referencing internal controls and compliance.
006Okay, the first document is internal control over financial reporting in compliance with laws and regulations. Um, this audit is a financial audit. So, it's not a forensic audit. It's actually not an internal control audit. So, we're not providing uh opinion on your internal controls. We're not providing a opinion on your compliance with laws and regulations overall. However, during the course of the audit, in order to obtain an opinion, we're looking at a lot of information from the district. Okay? And we talked to a lot of folks during the course of the audit. And through all that work, if we come across any instances that we consider to be a weakness in your controls that's material or significant or if we see something in the documentation where you didn't comply with the laws or regulations, we're
007required to report it within this section of the audit. Okay. We have just one matter and that matter is something that we've reported on the past. We'll report it on the future and it's very common among school districts, nonprofits, you know, smaller entities and that is that we play a role in putting together the 61page document. Okay, you look for our assistance in providing some journal entries and also the disclosures that are included in here. Okay, and that's really all we had. Okay. Um one more report uh this is same thing internal controls and compliance but a little bit different. Uh here we are actually making an opinion as to whether or not the district complied in all material respects with regards to the federal guidelines on the federal money that the school district receives.
008Okay. And here we're actually required to perform testing to ensure that you're ultimately complying with the laws or regulations. Okay. Different than overall, we're also required to do specific testing of your internal controls with respect to that federal money. Okay. If we had any instances of non-compliance or any internal control weaknesses with regards to the federal money, we would be required to report it within this section of the audit. And this is a clean opinion and no findings with regards to the federal money that the district received. Okay. So that's an unmodified single audit report which is the best report that you can receive. So congratulations. That's what you want to hear. Okay, any questions? All right, let's talk about the numbers. And again, two sets of of reporting. The first set, we referred to
009it as Gazby 34. That was an accounting pronouncement that basically required all governments to report their financial statements on a long-term basis, similar to a business. Okay, prior to this government standard, you only had to report the short-term basis of financial statements. So this was a big one. Okay. And so here you look at your assets, you look at your liabilities, and you look at your net position. And you'll notice again the big decline in your assets was due to the fact that we restated your capital assets to agree to the independent appraisal. Okay, so that's really the result of the assets declining liabilities. You can see each of those five years you've had a little bit of a step decline in your total liabilities. Really twofold. Number one, your long-term debt. the debt that
010you issued years ago to pay for improvements of the district. Um, you continue to make payments on those. Okay. In the current year, your total liabilities were down about $2 million with respect to to debt. And there's a future accountant. [laughter] And the other component of your liability is actually your largest liability is your liability in the pension system. Okay. Um last year it was $28 million. This year it's $27 million. And [clears throat] part of the decline over the period of years is the fact that the pension system is actually improving. Okay. What do I mean by that? Well, um, about 10 years ago, [clears throat] the pension system in Pennsylvania for education was about 50% funded. Okay? So that means there was a liability for retirees and existing employees obligation that we're going
011to have to pay for their benefits and then the assets that the system had in place was 50% of that liability. Okay. Over the last nine or 10 years that's improved to now we're about 65% funded as of June 30th of 2024. Okay. Um, my guess is it's probably going to improve a little bit more in 2025 because the market did pretty well in 25. So, my expectation is we're going to see, you know, maybe that's going to go up to 68 or 69%. So, it's taking a while, but little by little that's improving. The goal is for the state to eventually get to 100%. That's their goal. Okay. Okay. And you might say, well, how is that impacting us? Well, probably the biggest piece that is impacting you is that the district is required
012to make a contribution for every dollar that we pay in salaries, we're paying about 34% into the pension system. Okay? And that's at that level because we're so underfunded as a state in the pension system. And so as that approaches 100% my guess is that contribution rate will continue to fall. Absolutely. Cross your fingers. >> Cross your fingers. >> Double cross your fingers. Okay. And then we have expenses, revenue, and change in that position. Um again, this is districtwide long-term basis. So, when you make your principal payments on your debt, it's not an expense. In the short-term model, it is an expense. Okay? Um, there's depreciation that's included in expenses, which isn't an expense in your short-term model. So, there's differences. I think the biggest takeaway is look at the far right column change in
013that position. Look how consistent that's been over a fiveyear period. um in the current year is about $3 million and it's ranged from about two a little over two to $3 million every single year. Um that's positive. That's, you know, positive that's it's a positive number in the black, but it's also positive because it's consistent each of those five years. So really a nice a nice looking graph there. Okay. going to walk through the general fund, main operations of the district. Um, in the current year, you can see our assets improved about a million dollars. We had a little bit of an increase in liabilities and our total net position increased about $800,000 in 2024 25. So, a nice year in the general fund. Again, this is shortterm. There's no long-term assets. There's no long-term
014liabilities. It's really current in nature. Okay. Our assets went up primarily in cash. Okay. Um that cash went to work for us a little bit in 2024 25. We earned about $200,000 of interest income. Okay. So part of the positive results was the fact that we earned $200,000 of income because of that cash that was on hand. Liabilities again pretty constant. If you look at the blue versus the purple, biggest liability is acred liabilities. That's the salaries and benefits related to your primarily your professional staff that work during the school year and then get paid after your fiscal year. They get paid in July and August and so the payments that they get in July and August are expended and recorded as a liability in the 2425 year. Okay. So pretty constant not a lot
015of change fund equity. So again in total up a mill up $800,000. Your unassigned fund balance was up a million and your committed fund balance was down about $200,000. Okay. Your committed fund balance is really specifically for capital purposes. Okay? That's what the board has designated those funds for. Okay. Um I will say you guys do a really nice job um I think in monitoring and approving the use of the capital. you know, you have the authorizations of what it's for and then you make the transfer to the capital project. You do a really nice job there. I can tell you in practice, you know, we see sometimes where some of the activity in the capital, you know, is isn't improved as much as it should be at the board level. Um, but I think
016you guys really do a nice job at making that authorization so everybody's aware of what those funds are going to be utilized for. Okay. And I'll talk more about the capital as we go on. Okay, revenue. You had a pretty nice increase in revenue in the current year. You can see it was 29.6 to 31.4. Um, that increase was really twofold. You can see local sources were up. That was primarily increase in taxes and interest income were those two drivers and the local sources. state sources was up. Um we had a little bit of an increase in basic state education, a little bit of increase in special education, little bit of increase in ready to learn grant. So all those components increased our state sources and then you'll notice federal sources, the decline in federal
017sources. Um that's because in those first three years primarily that was when the pandemic funding was being received and extended to the tune of a little over a million dollars during those three years. Okay. Last year you had about $400,000 left to spend in pandemic and then in the current year you had about $100,000. Okay. That's gone. So those funds have been fully expended and they're no longer available to school districts. Okay. Expenditures. Total expenditures you can see um went from about 29.3 to 30.6. That's an increase of about 4%. So, your revenue was up 6%, expenditures were up 4%. And there's the components of your expenditures. Um, biggest increases were actually debt service. Some of that was your leases that you have. And then facilities acquisition and improvement was due to the fact that
018you received a pretty significant grant to the tune of about $900,000 for I think it was air handlers and energy type project. Um the total project is like 1.3 million and the $300,000 of your share was expended in the current year. the rest of the project is going to be expended next year, but you're also going to get the grand of 900,000. So, the two are going to kind of offset one another, but in the current year, hit your expenditures. Okay? So, you know, if you look at educational costs, instruction, support services, and non-instructional services, um they were up very marginally, probably closer to 3% or 4%. Okay. Um, one of the things that we saw this year in many school districts throughout the state, they had significant increases in charter school and tuition. Your
019charter school and tuition was pretty stagnant in 2425 versus 23 24. I think it was up about 3%. We had some schools that it was up substantially in 2425. hundreds of thousands of dollars. In total, yours was up about 100,000. Okay, so I really like the next page. Um, this shows the blue being your revenue, the red being your expenditures, and then the gap between the two is your surplus from operations. Basically, um I think the takeaway here is number one, the red versus the blue is relatively close given the size of the district's budget. Okay. Um now each of those years you've made transfers from general fund to the capital project fund. So they're like, you know, in my mind they're not operational, they're more capital. like you could go out and issue debt
020for the capital, but you're taking some of the funds you have on hand and transferring them to your capital projects. So, just to give you a little feel for like how are we doing if we didn't have those transfers? What would we be looking like? So, in 2021, you would have about a $2 million surplus. 22 would be about 1.3 million. 23 1 million, 24 about a million, and 25 about 1.5 million. Okay. Again, the takeaway is that's all within a window between a million and two million. Um, which is number one, very consistent operationally, and number two, it's positive. You know, it's probably about 3 to 5% of the district's total budget. Okay? And so what you've done is you've said, "Geez, we have built a beautiful campus of of facilities." And boy, if
021we can try to make improvements every year, the best we can with the funds we have on hand rather than going out and issuing a significant amount of debt, um, that's what we're going to kind of do and that's what you've done over the period of time. Um, I just saw for the first time, I've been doing this for like over 30 years. Um, a school district actually issued debt for 40 years. 40-year debt. So, um, >> yeah, 40year debt. So, um I think if you can do it a little bit every single year to prevent that, I mean the amount of interest that they're paying compared to what the original principle is is astounding. So, um the more you can do what you're doing is the better off you'll be for sure. Okay. Food
022service fund. Not going to spend a lot of time in the food service fund, but you're doing well. Um just like the the food service fund is actually operates more like a business. So it's long-term and shortterm. And so um just like the first page, we also adjusted your fixed assets downward a little bit about $60,000. So your total net position increased 30,000 but from operations it was actually improvement of about 90,000. Okay. Um you can see your revenue is up. Uh in the current year you were 100% I believe C. Uh last year I think you had was it one building that was C and one that you moved to C in December or November December of the year. And so that ultimately has an impact on your overall numbers. I think most folks
023when you hear about C that's like free lunches and breakfast for your students. I think the misnomer is like we're getting reimbursed 100% from the federal government. That's not the case. Um the federal government does an um they do a calculation and give you a percentage and your percentage I believe is like 73%. So for every meal that's provided to your students, you get 73% of that federal money and then 23% you get zero for. Okay? So if you know a school is 95% formula, you know, they're getting almost 100% of that reimbured. If the school is only 50%, you're only getting 50% reimbured. And that has a huge impact on how you do financially. Okay. And so ultimately there's your expenditures. You did have an increase in participation. Again, the all schools weren't C,
024so you know, families had to pay for their meals a little bit in the prior year. In the current year, everything was free. And therefore, you had an increase in participation. And so that's what it looks like. Again, revenue being in the blue, expenditures being in the red. And you can see your surplus has kind of converged a little bit. Okay. Um why is that? In 21 and 22 that was pandemic programs that were in place where all meals were being reimbursed 100% by the federal government. 23 you moved out back to the traditional program had a pretty significant surplus. and in 24 and 25 again moving to the CDP program not as beneficial financially ultimately because you're at 73%. Okay, but still positive you know I think that's the takeaway. You're still in a
025positive position. Okay, which is great. I mean, we I can tell you particularly this year, we've seen some school districts um have very difficult years because of the rise of cost of food, rise of cost of salaries and benefits. And yeah, they're getting reimbursed pretty nicely from the federal government, but the costs are outweighing the increases in the reimbursements, and they're having a difficult time. So, you're doing very well. And actually in the current year, you made some significant improvements to your equipment. You bought some really nice ovens. Um, and I think there was the service line. It totaled like $185,000 of improvements that was bought out of your cafeteria. Some schools have to in order to do that, they have to pay for that out of the general fund. you were able to do
026it out of cafeteria because of those positive results. That's awesome. Okay. >> Yep. Thank you. Uh so that's the numbers. Very last section is what we've referred to as our management letter. Just have really two comments. One is just general overall. The other one specifically speaks with regards to your student activities which are your clubs. Um the first one overall we're just kind of saying you know on a monthly basis you have a lot of withholding accounts which is like payroll pension AFLAC like all sorts of different withholdings. And our comment is just to have a process in place not only to review because I think Vicki does review it periodically to make sure that those accounts are more or less zeroing out. So we withhold the money from the employees. It gets paid out
027to various entities. Um but then also to document that that review is being performed on a basis. So, we talked about maybe doing that during your bank reconciliation process where that could be documented. Um, and then student activities are just a couple housekeeping things like point of sales and gross margin analysis things that we typically see at school districts. Okay, that's it. Um, I guess in closing I can tell you I mean we do a lot of school work and uh from a financial perspective what did we see in 2425? Well, we saw it run the gamut. I can tell you we had some school districts that had very difficult years in 2425 both in the general fund and cafeteria. um they're going to have to make adjustments because they're heading in the wrong direction.
028We had other districts that broke even and then we had some districts like you, they had solid years financially. Um and I always say when you have solid years, it's a tough environment as Ken and and Vicki can attest to, you know, celebrate those because um it's it's a great thing when you have a positive year. So, very well done. Nice report. Um, any questions anybody might have? >> I just want to thank you, Dave, and your team as well as highlight Ken, Vicki, and our team uh for for a great audit. Um, Mr. President, did you want to open the next meeting and then entertain any questions at that point? >> Yes, sir. Absolutely. >> So, we'll consider that our committee meeting is closed. Dave, if you could just stick around for a minute,
029we'll open our next meeting and but we'll revert back to questions for you. So, thank you. Welcome to the Wattsburg Area School District where we are student centered and future focused for world-class education. I will now call to order the Monday, January 12th, 20126 work session for the Watsburg Area School District board of directors. Would you all please stand for the pledge of allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. May I have a roll call, please? >> Mr. Blazer, >> present. >> Mr. Brumagen, >> present. >> Mrs. Heatherington, >> here. >> Mr. Morve, >> here. >> Dr. Pushchek, >> here. >> Mr. Snippert, >> here. >> Mrs. Will >> here. >>
030Dr. Williams >> here. >> Mr. Young, >> present. Thank you. >> Yes. So, we'll just return in now. Dave, if you don't mind, if anyone has any questions uh on the local audit, I want to make sure everyone has an opportunity to ask those at this time. Well, hearing none, I just want to thank you and your firm for your service. Uh absolutely. I mean, I go through this process professionally as well, and um I know it's always a trying time for the administrative staff. uh it's lots of extra for them but I think the validation that the uh activity that's occurring in our business administrator's office and with our administration I I just thrilled to hear it and also really appreciate the fact that you've recognized uh the strategy that's been employed here and
031and keeping up our facilities and doing that without looking at you know long-term debt situations that um I don't think any of us want to see and I'm just want to definitely uh recognize that the results uh of an unmodified opinion are due to the hard work of our staff and thank you so much for that. >> Any others? >> Okay, we will move on. Thank you again. >> Thank you. >> All right. Uh for school reports, I'll recognize Dr. Bwin. >> Uh we don't have a school report this evening. I don't anticipate one next Monday. The students and teachers are not in session. Um, but we may surprise you. >> We are willing to have a surprise. Thank you, Dr. Berlin. Uh, it's now time for guest and citizen comments. Do we have anyone
032signed up to speak this evening? >> Does not appear so. Thank you very much. Uh, chair will now recognize Dr. Kimberlin for the superintendent report. >> Thank you, Mr. President. I have a few things uh to share briefly. As part of the state budget that was passed uh in November, this year's state budget 2526, there were many, many school code changes, one of which uh came out of Act 44. And this is a new law that requires school districts to notify parents and employees when there's an incident um involving a weapon on school grounds. Uh so uh we plan the district plans to send out a communication to parents and employees this week about Act 44 uh so they know what to expect. Um it's a good thing. We want to be as transparent as
033possible and let parents know what's going on. Um and but we don't want to cause unnecessary alarm. So, I'd like to just get a message out to the parents so they know when you hear one of these, this is what's going on. And that'll it'll answer questions like what's considered a weapon under this law, uh, who has to be notified and when, and then how the communications are to be sent. Um, so it'll it'll just speak to those few things. Um, and every school across the state is doing this. Uh so I you know it's it should increase uh people's uh awareness of of what happens and more importantly what doesn't. I I think a lot of people are going to find there really isn't many weapon incidents uh in schools is relatively safe place.
034Now, we do hear about obviously the tragic situations uh but overall I think our school district uh along with many many others across the state do a good job of keeping students safe. There was a power outage um Friday late afternoon Friday. Uh some of the elementary students were still on buses heading home. Uh, and I guess it was about 1500 customers that were affected. Um, so there's just a couple follow-up items for the admin team that I wanted to make you aware of. Um, be some of the buses were uh behind getting students home because of downed trees. Parents uh tried to call the bus garage and the phones were down for a period of time. Those are and those are IP phones, the same as our district. uh and we we have redundancies
035uh for all of those systems. So it that was the one that that didn't work as planned. So I it is investigating uh why that happened so that we can rectify that. And then cafeteria coolers. Um we do back up uh some of our cooling capacity, but to back up all of the food cooling systems in the district would not be cost effective. Um buying food to replace spoiled food. I mean, you could do that from, you know, now until um as long as you can imagine uh and not even come close to what it might cost to ramp up, switch gear, generators, etc. Uh so that's just a little bit about um school happenings uh in the state and here. And then just a couple re umformational pieces for the board. Uh we are
036updating Office 365 uh the email account uh specifically Microsoft is phasing out email forwarding. Um, so I'll I'll send out uh some instructions in the weekly update and this would probably be the last week that those could be forwarded to your regular mail or an alternate address. Um, because that's what for security purposes, Microsoft Office is just rolling that right back out. Um, which is good. There's a lot of cyber threats and we want to stay ahead of the curve. Um, so you're going to want to after you see the instructions, just test your account, make sure you can get in. And if you can't, I'll I'll give you um Mr. Harmon's uh email so you can contact them. They'll get you squared away, like if you need a new password, can't remember it, that
037kind of thing. Uh, school director training. So, we welcomed uh reelected and new board members uh in December and Act 55 requires that new members undergo five hours of training and reelected members undergo three hours of training and you have a year to do it. So, there's a letter for those board members that this applies to in your folder. So, just take a look at that. There's there's a lot of options through PSBA that you can do online at your leisure. uh it's it's not um an unreasonable uh task. Uh and then [clears throat] the other item that's in everyone's packet is the annual statement of financial interests and that's something that elected officials and public administrators need to complete every year um for the ethics committee in Pennsylvania. And then finally, if you want
038to participate in graduation and you haven't told Mrs. Pac, the secretary at Senica, that you'd like to participate, please do so. Um, she sent out last week uh a survey and you can indicate if you want to just attend and watch or if you'd actually like to participate, we can order a robe. Uh, and of course it's optional too to attend um, in which instance you wouldn't have to do anything. That's my report this evening. >> She already sent that out. >> I don't think she did. >> I you didn't. Okay. >> Okay. Maybe that's what it is. >> I want to make sure I double check because >> I will get that out to >> I probably have a speaking engagement that evening and I want to make sure I have a robe. No,
039I will say um also with the email side um your Microsoft tenant has a nice short authentication token. So once I put it on my uh Outlook um I now have to use my fingerprint ID every time I use Outlook. So the school district has definitely taken the extra step in ensuring that tokens expire expediently. So we know you guys are doing a great job. Thank you for requiring my fingerprint every time now. >> [clears throat] >> All right. Thank you, Dr. Berlin. Uh, the chair will now recognize Mrs. Vicky Bending for the business administrators report. >> Thank you, Mr. President. For tonight, I have two months of treasures reports due to the timing of our reorganization session earlier in o in December. So, general fund treasures report as of November 2025, uh, 14,886,8978 and
040then December 31st, 2025, $15,281,7.76. Uh, the year-to- date budget versus actual report uh for um both months will be available. I'll do a combined report for a two-month period that'll be available next week. Capital projects treasures report no change in that account from November to December. So as of December 31st, 2025, $1865. The cafeteria fund at the end of November had $75,3625 in that fund. And at the end of December, as of December 31st, $823,5241. I'll have a combined twomonth cafeteria profit and loss. Maybe I'll do two separate um cafeteria profit and loss reports for next week. And then the student activities balances um at the end of November 59,183.64. And as of December 31st, 2025, there was $59,214.34 uh collectively in those student activity accounts. Uh moving on to the bill lists um for
041tonight. Checks written since December 1st um after the reorganization meeting through through um Friday five for the general fund $563,97453. There were no capital projects bills uh checks written and the cafeteria had um 50,000 $83967 um written between the last meeting and this evening. The rest of the bill lists will be ready for next week. And that's all I have. >> Thank you, Mrs. Bendig. Does anybody have any questions for Mrs. Bendig uh prior to the completion of the bills and report for next week? Hearing no. Thank you, Mrs. Bendig. We have no items under legal advisement for this evening. So, the chair will now recognize Dr. Andy Pushchjack for finance. Thank you, Mr. President several items under finance. The first one is 7A the budgetary transfers um from budget to actual as attached. 7B
042are the budgetary amendments similarly as attached. 7 C is the is the travel rate to reflect the increase in the IRS mileage rate. 7D is the act one resolution. And just to remind the board that is that the board will not uh raise taxes above the index that is assigned to our district. And then the final item uh is to approve the local audit report for which we had a presentation tonight. So uh five items under finance for next week for the board's consideration. Mr. President, >> thank you. Dr. Push. Does anyone have any questions on those five items? All right. Hearing none, they will move over for next week's agenda. Thank you, Dr. Pusher. >> Thank you, Mr. President. >> Chair will now recognize Dr. Jesse Williams for buildings and grounds. >> Thank you,
043Mr. President. Next week, we will have uh two different things to approve when it comes to facility requests as outlined. The first one is the Autism Society of the Northwestern Pennsylvania to utilize the auditorium on September 20th for the Magic Joe estimated at 590. and then the use of the auditorium um cafeteria room, classrooms, band and course rooms for the music department uh PMEA all-star wind assembly on April 14th through the 17th at no cost and those will be the two things that move over to the agenda next week. >> Does anyone have any questions on those facility use requests? >> Hearing none, those will move over for next week. Thank you, Dr. Williams. >> Chair will now recognize Mr. Jeremy Blazer for personnel. >> Thank you, Mr. President. There are eight items currently under
044personnel. Uh 9A is appointments as listed. Uh 9B is accepting resignation as listed. 9 C are the conference requests as listed. 9D are the person tuition reimbursements as requested. Uh 9E is the approve the job description for school counselor job description. 9F is the leave request as listed. 9G is the service substitute list additions as listed and 9H are the ESS substitute list additions as listed. Does anyone have any questions on these eight items under personnel? Hearing none, all eight will move over for next week. Thank you, Mr. Blazer. >> Thank you, Mr. President. >> Uh chair will now recognize Mr. Steven Morve for policy. >> Mr. President, currently there are no items on the agenda for next week under policy. >> Thank you, Mr. Morve. >> Thank you. The chair will now recognize Mr.
045Aaron Snippert for curriculum. >> Mr. President, I have no items for the agenda. >> Thank you, Mr. Snippert. Chair will rec now recognize Mr. Greg Bumagen for technology. >> Mr. President, currently there are also no items underneath technology for next week. >> Thank you, Mr. Bumagen. Chair will now recognize Miss Veronica Will for transportation. >> Thank you. I have two items I would like to move to the agenda for next week. 13A transportation request as outlined and 13 C Durham bus drivers as outlined. Does anyone have any questions on those two items? >> We tabled uh the contract for review. Um we cannot successfively table over a two-month period. So without movement to the uh meeting for next week, that tableabling will die on the vine and then it'll be reintroduced at the February work
046session as a new agenda item. It's clarification on the contract for anyone. All right, hearing no other questions, those two items will move over for next week. Thank you, Mrs. Well. Uh the chair will now recognize Miss Leah Heatherington for athletic and extracurricular. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Um, next week I will have two items under extracurricular and athletic. The first one is athletic appointments, excuse me. Um, and you can see those listed on the agenda. And then the second one is um volunteer list editions and those are also listed below. >> Excellent. Are there any questions for the two items under athletic and extracurricular? All right. Hearing none, uh, those two items will move over for next week. Thank you, Mrs. Heatherington. Uh there are no items that are miscellaneous uh for next week.
047Uh so the chair will now recognize Mr. Steven Morve. Will we have a three county technical school joint operating committee report for next week? >> Yes, Mr. President. That'll be uh the report of our December joint operating committee. Um the next one in January is actually after our board meeting. So that'll carry it's always a month behind. But I know we all uh received a little taste of what happened uh in the interim uh which was the uh budget report that Dr. Berlin sent out to us in our information packet. So there'll be some discussion on that. >> Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Mor. Uh chair will now recognize Dr. Andrew Pushchek for Northwest Tri County Intermediate Unit. >> Thank you, Mr. President. I too will have a brief uh report on the December meeting. Thank
048you. >> Thank you, Dr. Pushcheek. Uh we now turn to board correspondents and dialogue. Is there anything for the good of the order this evening? >> Mr. President, if you don't mind. So I >> Dr. Dr. Williams. Yes, >> you got it. Uh, like I said, the kindergarten kids call me Mrs. Williams anyway, so it's okay. Um, so one of the things I would like to talk a little bit about is, and I'll make it short because Steeler games on at 8, so go Steelers. Um, but, um, we had the opportunity to see the a bunch of different principles come up here obviously from all three ranks, right? And, you know, I kind of asked East one of them just a simple question and that was, you know, let's take a look at your data,
049right? They gave us a really good outline of it and I appreciated all that. Uh and then my question was is there anything that we could help budgetarily do right and so one of the things that I appreciated and high school principal came up took a look showed data looks like uh certainly improvements in areas and then he said hey we got a plan moving forward. Same thing with the middle school uh principal staff as well. Uh but when we get to the elementary school and we were able to see some of the uh younger kids uh data in particular in that Aadian world um you know one of the things that I even feel as a principal in Harbor Creek is um that and maybe Veronica you can even vouch for me a little
050bit is that um the kids coming in it's getting tougher and tougher especially when it comes to that early intervention of reading. Um, you know, I think that co has a lot to play with that. Uh, iPads and cell phones have a probably an equal amount of opportunity for that. Um, but I know budgetary is coming up and this is the season that we're starting to really cook. And um, one of the things that was mentioned uh is the potential of looking towards maybe uh, a little bit more reinforcement into that uh, that reading specialist at the at the K3 K4 level. Uh and again I can tell you uh you know Mrs. Barboni asked uh maybe if I could share my data and I will tell you that you know by kindergarten we're at
05198% but that that number it reflects a lot of time spent with that subgroup of population that is needing a lot of reinforcement for reading specialist. And if I'm getting that on the Harbor Creek level, I could imagine exactly what's happening here at at Santa, too. And I am begging my administration for some more reading specialists. So, I I'm not trying to step out of bounds and say, "Hey, we need to go out and get one." But what I would prefer or like to hear, and I don't need any answers today, and maybe you guys can follow up later, is if that's not in the realm, which I'm okay with, is could we have an understanding of a plan that might be moving forward with that bottom data in that K through uh three level.
052Um because at least for the the middle school and high school, they said, "Hey, here's our data, but we do have X, Y, and Z. we're going to be trying and and I'm fine. I'm 100% fine because then we can look at that data for the next year and say, "Okay, look, that plan worked out really well or maybe we do need some additional resources." Um, but I guess in in my eyes that that younger data stuck out for me because that as we know um because I was a high school assistant principal for many years and I purposely tried to move down to elementary school because I got frustrated with the fact that how am I to fix kids in 10th grade who are reading at a second grade level. That was very frustrating
053for me. So, I would love to see that strengthen up in that area so that when you do pass them off to middle school and to high school that the content is maybe what we're looking at, not necessarily if it's the reading special uh uh side of it. So, again, I just know that budgetarily it's coming up really quickly here. Um, and if we could have a plan or some kind of idea, I would I would I would love that even even it's not today. So, thank you. >> And noted for followup. Are there any others? Excellent observations, Dr. Williams. Hearing no other questions or comments for the good of the order. Is it a football game? Is that what is that happening tonight? I don't do >> go Steelers. It's fine. >> Go Steelers.
054>> Oh, okay. I believe we need to adjourn the meeting before we move to adjourn quickly. >> Thank you, Dr. Pushk. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Meeting is adjourned. Thank you very much all for being here and we will see you next week.