001good evening everyone i would like to call to order the september 27 2021 meeting for the westchester area school board let's begin with a salute to the flag led by two of our students from pierce middle school mishi shawl and alexander also chopped all right let's hear what's going on over pierce the home of the chargers hello everyone thank you for the opportunity to present about pierce middle school my name is mishrisha starting with our classes this year our food science class partnered with the chester county food bank to revive our outdoor gardens they showed us how to weed plant and help take care of the gardens we planted things like lettuce turnips and green onions in other news eighth graders are taking their first field trip to the renaissance fair for the first time
002in two years also pierce started a new period called pride period it's meant it meets every tuesday and thursday of the school year it's meant for students to have extra time to work and ask teachers for help lastly we're finally getting back to writing on paper after a long year of staring into screens and typing i'm happy to report that in most classes we're using paper and pencils again in other news pierce is returning from covid in multiple ways though we still have masks we have started using lockers again but since we're slowly easing back into it you still have the choice to carry around your backpack for the whole day thank you hi my name is alexander osvolchuk and speaking of lockers our lockering rooms are now open for use and also since we're
003going back into person we no longer have to use zoom which makes teaching a whole lot easier another thing that we're saying goodbye to is the block schedule since we are going back to eight period days and did i mention that we had an in-person open house in the 8th of september and since we're coming back from covid that means our clubs events and activities are also coming back false sports are here including football soccer field hockey cross country and volleyball a ditch additionally we're currently running student council elections of which the voting starts tomorrow to even run for pearson student council you need 25 student signatures and two of the teacher signatures and that's how you run and finally our clubs of which we have many we have the pierce herald and they have
004just started working on their first newspaper edition we also have best buddies and math counts just to name a few pierce is off to a great start and we look forward to having an awesome year thank you for listening thank you wow you were right mr t antonio they were ready great job alexander mission excellent report all right come on we're going to get a picture with dr sokolovsky myself and mr d'antonio [Applause] okay let's have another round of applause for our students from pierce great job guys [Applause] all right miss cherish for a roll call please director bevalaqua here director chester here director journal here director gallon here director herman here president mccune here director shaw here director spacman here vice president tiernon elena ruttero william porter madison d'ambro here thank you mr that
005will move us to public comments on agenda items we have one one person tonight scott alone thank you before we begin with uh any public commentary i'd just like to establish some of the ground rules persons wishing to make public comment this evening were required to sign in prior to the start of the meeting the registrants will be called in an orderly fashion and when a public commenter's name is called i'd ask that they please approach the podium and begin by stating their name and address if an individual is providing a public comment on behalf of an entity or a group i'd ask that you please state your group affiliation please note that public comments will be limited to two minutes per person per board policy the time will be projected on the screen at
006the end of the two-minute period the next public commenter if any will be called upon please note that public comments at this portion of the meeting are to be on agenda items only all commentaries should be directed to the board as a whole and not as individual board members comments may be interrupted or altogether terminated if public commentary is too lengthy personally directed off topic abusive and or obscene with that we will call our first speaker i was mistaken the person wants to speak at the end so we have none we can move on to the next topic okay thank you mr thank you mr jennings all right that will move us on to the approval of the minutes for the august 23rd 2021 monthly school board meeting and motion to approve by miss chester
007first second by mr beverloch any comments or questions seeing none roll call please miss cherisher director chester yes director bevel aqua yes director spacman yes director shaw yes director journal yes director gallon yes director herman yes president mccune yes thank you mr can we also add to the meeting minutes that we met in exec session on friday august 27th regarding safety and security friday september 3rd regarding personnel safety and security friday september 10th regarding personnel safety and security monday september 20th regarding personnel real estate and safety and security and then again on tonight monday uh september 27th regarding personnel thank you all right that will move us to the approval of the september 27 2021 school board meeting agenda i'll obtain a motion to approve first by dr herman taken by dr shaw any comments
008or questions scene none roll call please director herman yes director shaw yes director chester yes director gallon yes director spacman yes director dr now yes director bevalaqua yes president mccune yes thank you mr all right that will move us to a superintendent's report dr sokolowski thank you very much mr mccoon before i begin my report i do want to welcome our school board representatives uh from our students uh we have elena ruttero from east high school lena thank you for being here we have also will porter from henderson uh and finally we have maddie dambro from ruston high school and we will hear from them in just a few minutes but i'm looking forward to hearing about all that's going on and all that will be going on at our high schools the opening of
009school what a difference a year makes it's been a wonderful start to the school year in person five days a week well we didn't quite have five days a week until last week but i can tell you the excitement the activity and the joy of being as close to normal has provided everyone in our district with quite a lift and continued hope for normalcy i want to share a little bit about staffing shortages in order to address some staffing shortages for both district positions and contracted positions you will notice tonight under the agenda item of other business the administration is recommending improving compensation in many areas where we simply are not able to find enough candidates additionally i'd like to thank our parents and students for their patience with our transportation delays we continue to
010work with our transportation providers to alleviate these delays and i can tell you over the weeks that has improved and will continue to improve on september 9th we held our very successful first community conversations at bayern rustin high school we enjoyed a night of simple conversation focused on learning about one another's experiences in order to build better empathy understanding and trust our next community conversation will be on october 21st please look forward for invitations and registration information very soon on september 15th we were able to have a dedication ceremony for the pennwood library to be renamed the dr ellen jacomas learning center in honor of dr ellen jacomas who retired in 2020. dr jacomas was the principal of pennwood for 30 years and she served for a total of 43 years in the westchester area
011school district on october 18th prior to our property and finance meeting we will have a formal dedication for our newest school graystone elementary and that will be of course on site there at graystone finally the district will start the process revising our current comprehensive plan in october the comprehensive plan is a great opportunity for the school district to come together and evaluate our progress since our last plan was established in 2019 and target new strategies and goals one area that we would like to include in our next comprehensive plan is in the area of student involvement as we recognize that having as many students as possible involved in extracurricular and co-curricular opportunities build stronger connections within our schools and extends the pride of our schools well into the westchester area school district uh mr bacune
012this concludes my report thank you thank you dr saklasi it is good to be back all right now we get to our first student representative reports of the year up first from east high school is miss elena rudrow all right hi again my name is elena rederow and i am the school board representative for westchester east high school right through that door down there um i didn't have much to talk about tonight um dr brown gave me no help and just said go for it um so i'll be talking about just some upcoming events shortly um our main one and most schools here um homecoming will be coming up so as student council member we are really getting in gears for what we have coming up um as to what we're doing and planning um
013nhs i'm also the president of the national art honor society um and we are pairing up with stu student council for the pep rally we've painted very various things to use in the games and we've also been helping out with the senior gene activity which is coming up for the 6th 7th and 8th of october the activity fair was just last wednesday and there was several different clubs all there to help engage students for more involvement i was also there for my personal club the asl club which is for american sign language something i'm very passionate about the fresh food foundation will be having their first food drive with chester county hospital's ob gyn clinic run by my mom within the coming months for the holidays that's pretty much it but we also have our
014open house happening this wednesday for all parents to come back for normal school and see how everyone's hap doing at school that's it thank you miss redder i appreciate it all right up next is mr william porter from henderson high school [Applause] what's up hello everybody my name is william porter and i am the westchester henderson school board representative um i am very happy to be back in school as i know many of my fellow students are and with the return of school uh one thing that always returns in the fall at henderson is the continuation of the domination of the chessmont by the girls tennis team they are currently 12-0 and chess bond championships just happen uh kylie coaches and ella tanelf plays first and second respectively very impressive kylie for the second year
015in a row girls soccer is continuing their undefeated season at 801 and is currently first in the chest month and districts boys soccer is eight and two and it currently plays first in the chestnut uh football has had not as great of a season as those other teams better than it has been recently but we have our upcoming homecoming game which has been a great way to get students back involved um today was the first day in spirit week uh pajama day a lot of onesies a lot of very interesting decisions by some of my classmates but it was nice to see everyone involved this year we are trying something new with our pep rally it has been moved outside to not use masks but also we've added a carnival to it so pep rally
016will start at one and the carnival will run until the start of the game at about six it is for students and families to come have fun and it was this will include long run henderson traditions such as the power puff game the tug of war championship and multiple other games that multiple clubs can run to help raise money for their own respective clubs kindness club moving on from that has brought back their flower friday um every fl every friday they will be selling flowers in the main lobby uh in an attempt to raise money for victims of domestic violence here in westchester this last friday they raised 235 dollars multiple clubs such as students helping students the bsu gsa and best buddies have all had their first meetings this week and our activity fair
017i believe is next wednesday in an attempt to bring everybody into the henderson family our back to school night is this wednesday uh multiple uh parents i know are extremely looking forward to it uh well some of them have multiple students at henderson but have never been inside the building which i believe is very important to bring parents into the henderson family and i know all students are very excited to return to this new normalcy and just get back involved into the henderson family thank you so mr porter who's the homecoming game against um chester chester okay it's a guy's gonna pull on a w hopefully all right thank you all right and up last is madison madison dm rovio from ruston high school i am not as tall as will hi everyone i'm madison
018d'amber i'm a senior at ruston and i would just like to start off with we are all very very excited to be back in school and like both henderson and east we are starting out with homecoming which will take place the dance will be on october 16th the spirit week will be the week leading up to it our spirit days this year will be monday is usa tuesday is tiki tuesday wednesday is our way back and thursday's color wars and friday is our class shirts this year our theme is music genres and our classes have the themes of rock and roll country disco and classical for our freshmen our dance this year has been moved from inside the gym to outside similar to how we've done our junior and senior proms this year with our
019tents our kind of flexible location type situation our pep rally similar to henderson has also been moved outside that will be a parade type situation again with our homecoming court clubs fall sports that kind of thing and we will go down to i mean all the way down ruston's campus to the football stadium and we will have our typical homecoming games festivities all of that will happen on the field along with the new edition of our powder puff game in past years it has just been after school quick activity now this year we have added it to the pep rally it'll be 25 junior girls against 25 senior girls run by some of our teachers and our football team is involved in that as well this year we have also done homecoming court differently instead
020of students nominating a king and a queen we have nominated 10 individuals and given those individuals the option of electing an escort to bring opportunity to any couple who would like to be on the court um then our student council is also very excited to tell the school board that we will be continuing our hopefully tradition of decorating our feeder elementary schools for halloween is our first holiday so previously we've done that to we decorated the outside of penn woods dark weather and west town thornberry and we were very very excited to keep that up again i know it meant a lot to those schools and to the community around it so then moving on to our athletics our football team had a fabulous win saturday night over downingtown east the final score was 16-14
021and our team was led by a very strong group of seniors one of which is mr deshawn jacobs our star running back who rushed for a total of 190 yards in the game which then contributed to his 738 yards for his last four games so we are incredibly impressed with that our golden knights boys soccer has their pink night on october 5th that'll be at 7 pm all proceeds from that game will go to unite for her and then our rest and dance team is holding their 14th annual dance workshop saturday november 13th from 9 30 to 2 5 entry fee and our activity fair will be held wednesday this upcoming wednesday for a chance for students to get involved who have not previously been involved a lot of clubs will set up try and
022appeal to the underclassmen and previous classes among those russ and model un will be headed to uva down in um i believe that is november 5th to 7th as our first conference and then russ and unicef will be holding a trunk or treat on the tentative date is october 28th and then best buddies has brought back their dollar soft pretzel friday other than that i think that is all for reston thank you mr ambro i love that tradition of decorating the the height the great schools for the for the holidays thank you thank you we're really excited about it and we love doing it i know it meant a lot to the communities awesome well on behalf of the board i want to thank all three of you for signing up and sharing your fourth
023monday night of every month with us over the next eight or nine months so we look forward to getting the updates on what's going on in the schools both athletically and academically and as we always encourage feel free we're all family here so if you beat one of the other teams let us know [Laughter] or you can top them all right excellent all right we'll move on now to the approval of the personnel recommendations dr ulmer thank you and good evening mr mccune mrs tiernon and directors of the board our personnel report for the month of september is as follows with removals from payroll we have eight resignations this month two teachers one custodian one security greeter one secretary one paraprofessional one library assistant and our communications manager we also have two retirements mr thomas
024dannell health and physical education teacher at fugue middle school with 23 years of service and ms jane gilbert english teacher at east high school with 17 years of service congratulations to both of you and we will wish you both a long and happy retirement with additions to payroll we are recommending the hiring of six new teachers one school counselor and two long-term substitute teachers additionally we are recommending the hire of a community engagement specialist who will be miss sandra bradley sandra has worked with the district in reaching out to our community as an independent contractor offering interpreter and translating services as well as community communications she was also the site coordinator for family services of chester county we are thrilled to have her with us and sandra is here with us this evening and we'd
025like to offer her a warm welcome sandra where are you welcome we also are recommending an office receptionist at spelman three custodians three power professionals one secretary and um and facilities apprentice in status changes i communicated a teacher's a teacher status change from a 0.8 employee to a 1.0 employee also we are welcoming mr wayne burster from our manager manager of facilities and operations to director of facilities and operations wayne has served as our facilities and operations manager since 2018 prior to that wayne was the district facilities manager at central buck school district before that wayne was a communications a mechanic at central bucks and served as a president of psea representing 800 members he also is a pa certified school facility manager a certified registered electrician and is currently enrolled in the business human
026resources management program at immaculata university he has an associate's degree in business administration from immaculata and earned an socat certificate in electro electric from middle bucks institute of technology wayne has been an indispensable member of our management team and as manager of facilities and operations and we are thrilled to have him with us as our new director of facilities and operations replacing mr kevin campbell who will believe he will be leaving us soon during his well-earned retirement wayne we hope to welcome you to your new position and congratulations after the vote this evening wayne is here with us where's wayne it's hard to miss in personnel events i communicated six involuntary transfers in our professional staff and eight voluntary transfers in our pro and in one voluntary transfer in our support staff in personnel leaves
027we are recommending one sabbatical in the professional staff in additional information we are updating one update and staffing allocation eight start date updates four last day adjustments one supplemental pay adjustment one change of supplemental title five salary adjustments one stipend adjustment and one sabbatical extension in supplemental contracts we have 14 additions to contracts for the fall season and three removals from fall contracts as well as three adjustments to the fall season we are also seeking approval for 520 annual supplemental contracts for the 2021-22 school year i'm respectfully requesting board approval for all personal matters listed in this report above thank you dr ulmer i'll entertain a motion to approve first by dr herman seconded by mr durnell any comments or questions seeing non-roll call please director harman yes director janelle yes director gallon yes director
028chester yes director bevel aqua yes director shaw yes director spacman yes president mccune yes motion carries thank you miss cherisher congratulations those in the audience we're looking forward to both you uh taking on bigger roles inside our district all right that will move us to the approval of the consent agenda uh i have not been approached by anyone to remove any items but i will pause to see whether there's any concerns on anything seeing none i'll entertain a motion to approve first by mr beverloqua second by miss chester roll call please mr bevalaqua yes director chester yes director gallon yes director spacman yes director darnell yes director shaw yes director herman yes president mccoon yes promotion carries thank you mr all right that will move us to our committee reports and up first tonight is
029going to be dr shaw who's pinch hitting for mrs tiernon who's on vacation yes mrs tiernan is galvanting around the emerald owl right now so i told her i would fill in um the education committee uh met on monday september 13th and in addition to placing a number of items on the consent agenda we discussed the following we reviewed changes to threat assessment administrative guideline 236.1 we reviewed changes to social media policy 815.1 we discussed psba elections and voted for a candidate to represent us in the psba dr misit discussed additional elements of summer programming because during our august education committee meeting she provided such a rich presentation that she wasn't able to go through all of the things that the district did over the summer so we were very delighted to hear more about
030that at the meeting and finally dr mader um discussed upcoming events and programs related to equity and that is it thank you dr shull that will move us to pupil services in miss chester thank you mr mccoon the highlight of our pupil services meeting was the social emotional learning plan discussion the cc chester county intermediate unit and thorn stecker's group are working collaboratively to implement a plan across the district it's a two-year plan that's being funded through esser grant monies over the years we've added a lot of interventions including mental health specialists and at this time we're focusing on prevention prior to students needing intensive services and the services are available in all the schools in each of our schools there are two teams that will be trained in and developing goals for each building
031the comprehensive behavioral health connections team will be developing building plans focusing on all areas of social emotional learning they'll implement this as part of the multi-tiered system of supports and assessments and climate walks will be part of the overall plan and again the focus is on prevention so that ends my report thank you thank you miss chester all right that will move us to personnel and dr herman good evening um i just wanted to start out saying that um it's whenever i meet with dr ulmer human resources it is very informative and i appreciate the hard work that he does next item very pleased to announce this approval of the proposed agreement between the westchester area education association and the board of education of the westchester area school district approval is requested for the proposed
032agreement between the westchester area education association wcaea and the board of education of the westchester area school district for the time period of july 1st 2022 through june 30th 2027 iso move thank you dr herman can i get a second say goodbye mr gallon dr sokolowski would you like to summarize yes um this agreement will position the district well in terms of being competitive with other chester county school districts and that is incredibly important now as we realize that there there is a shortage of teachers so it'll it'll simply put us in a very competitive area in chester county i would point that our starting salary of when teachers come in at 46 000 that has been way too long and that in the first year of the contract will move to 51 000 and
033then the final year of the contract i believe it will place us in a very competitive position to be able to recruit to hire and retain high quality teachers so that figure will be at about 59.5 also would like to thank the association leadership i have been a part of three negotiations in my time in the westchester area school district and i can tell you that this was the most amicable negotiations that i've ever been a part of so thank you thank you mr mccune yeah thank you dr we'll go around the horn and see whether anyone has any other comments i'll start with you first dr herman to the teachers thank you for your hard work and your continued dedication we appreciate all that you do for our students and we also appreciate the
034camaraderie and the way everyone comes together when we need to come together as a community so thank you so much thank you dr herman mr janelle my hat is off to all the teachers in the district for making it through the past year and a half especially so many have left the field because it was a really difficult time you're still here so thank you for all what you do i don't think you get enough credit for all the successes and all the the accolades that the students tell us about keep doing what you're doing and we're glad to be working together thank you mr nell mr spakman yes thank you i think this is such an important move because we have such high quality teachers a tremendous district i think showing them how much
035we care and putting that foot forward i think really means a lot because we we show our appreciation many different ways and thank you but this really puts it where they can really have a wonderful life of their own and support themselves thank you mr spakman go down to mr gallon i just want to say congratulations to the the teachers editing the administration for a really well-run negotiation thank you thank you mr galland mr bellacqua yeah we just echoed dr sokolowski's comments that uh we appreciate the teachers union and the administration working very collaboratively together for agreement that i think benefits everybody both benefits the teachers and also the district and i think it was a win for all thank you mr biblica miss chester more the same i i think it's wonderful that the
036administration and teachers were able to work together to make such positive negotiations to come through in such a pleasant way and the other thing is is this i'd really like to just say a big thank you to the teachers i know last year was a very interesting year and i know that we don't know the half of it so thank you so much for your dedication uh the quality of teaching and just supporting the district in the way that you do thank you thank you miss chester dr shaw i want to echo what everybody is saying and just to give my heartfelt thanks to the teachers for the past year and a half um it's just really amazing to hear about everything that the teachers did and how they kept in the game even in
037the face of um you know really difficult situations within the classroom in really difficult situations outside of the classroom so um congratulations to the teachers and we are delighted to be in a position to be able to put in place such a strong contract thank you dr shaw my comments will echo a lot of my fellow colleagues here but we are extremely pleased to have come to this agreement through a very amicable early bird negotiations thank you to our administrative team led by dr sokolovsky and the leadership of the westchester area education association for the collective efforts this contract provides a competitive salary structure while also maintaining fiscal integrity for the school district and its taxpayers this agreement will favorably position the westchester area school district for the foreseeable future as we compete in attracting
038and retaining top talent in what is a shrinking pool of education professionals as dr sukholassi alluded to on behalf of the board i want to recognize and thank all of our education professionals for their ongoing efforts and dedication to the students of our district all of you make a tremendous difference and we all recognize that thank you so much mr roll call please director herman yes director gallon yes director bevalaqua yes director spacman yes director chester yes director shaw yes director journal yes president mccune yes motion carries thank you all right uh anything else dr herman no well that concludes my report thank you excellent all right we will move on to property and finance mr bevalaqua good evening the last property finance meeting was was run last monday september 20th mr scully reviewed the
039budget forecast model and the changes from the previous model the month prior the net increases of the 2021-22 revenue projections totaled 3 million 591 thousand the changes to the 2122 projections resulted in increase of 4.4 million which will increase the fund balance designated for future millage increases the next item we discussed in the property finance meeting was mr scully reviewed the 2022 budget calendar the calendar reflects the timeline for september 2021 through the budget adoption in may of 2022 uh board meeting at the december 20 2021 board meeting the board will need to vote to ensure the right to apply for act 1 exceptions or approve a resolution indicating they will not raise taxes above the x1 index for the 2022 budget the committee recommended approval of the budget calendar as stated and more to
040come on that in december as i stated um the last item that we discussed in property finance meeting was dr sokolowski reviewed the 2021-2022 school board goals the goals focused on six key areas and align with goals associated with the district's comprehensive plan the goals are as follows student achievement equity board engagement accountability innovation fiscal responsibility and the committee approved the goals as stated um the next property and finance meeting will be on october 18th and as dr sokolowski said they'll be following a dedication at the gravestone elementary school that ends my report for this evening thank you thank you mr bevalaqua that will bring us to other reports uh for the intermediate unit mrs tiernan had told me that there was nothing new to report this month so we will move towards the psba
041report and dr herman good evening i have one item the chairman of the education committee representative kurt sunny issued a co-sponsorship memo for legislation introducing to ensure charter school payments are accurate and this proposal reflects one of the key recommendations in psba charter school task force report that concludes my report thank you dr herman that will move us to the legislative liaison report dr shaw so the fall legislative season is just heating up and it looks to be a highly partisan legislative season as it unfolds there have been a number of bills introduced with regard to charters there's a whole set of bills that have been introduced to impose more accountability and structure on this sector and then there is a competing set of bills designed to do exactly the opposite so typically in the
042course of a year about a thousand bills are introduced before the end of the fiscal year um which is typically june 30th and so lots of bills are out there not many of them survive so we will continue to keep you posted as things evolve thank you dr shaw moving along to our equity report mr ordinal thank you the district completed part one of the community conversation series with great success the first community conversation took place on september 9th at 6 30 at bayern rustin high school the the following is the survey from the attendees who filled out uh filled out the survey 95 of the respondents enjoyed the community conversations event on september 9th 80 percent of the respondents gained better perspectives of others in their community an overwhelming 97.2 percent felt that others
043in my group were actively listening to each other overall the event was received with positive feedback some of the terms in terms of phrases that were used on the survey hopeful pleasantly surprised refreshed enlightened excited respectful encouraged and heard feedback received following part one will drive the conversation during part two and part three of the community conversation series part two will take place thursday october 21st at 6 30 pm at bard ruston high school we will be sending out registration information next month for those who wish to attend second as noted on the university of pennsylvania equity audit recommendations the district is actively working to diversify its staff with a busy and ever fluid hiring season here are some of the current numbers on diversity hires in the school year 20 2020 2021 uh seven
044diverse candidates were hired out of 206 professional hires in the most recent school year for the hiring in the same period 2021 11 candidates from diverse backgrounds were hired out of uh 122 professional hires so this this indicates an increase in diversity hires from 3 percent previously to nine percent of the new hires being from diverse backgrounds it is important to know that our data depends on individual employees being willing to self-identify as a certain race on the application we cannot and do not require candidates to reveal their race by law it is also required it is also not required for employees to reveal their gender identity physical disability or other difference our team's work of continually recruiting and retaining diverse candidates to reflect the diversity displayed by the students community will continue to be
045a top priority in line with the delaware valley consortium of education excellence equity audit our district has expanded the definition of equity beyond race to include gender gender identity ability race and sexual orientation due to our expanded definition of equity we are partnering with the tyrone howard group in place of the pacific education group peg we have not partnered with the peg going into our second school year and finally we're in the process of updating the equity page on the district's website that ends my report thank you mr cornell all right that will move us to the community liaison report mr speakman thank you mr mckean uh i have a couple neat things to say now that the district is opening up and some great things happening this fall the westchester rotary has donated over
0461800 hours of needed school supplies for some of the different families in the district the harlem wizards will be playing the westchester school staff that will be coming up this spring that's a game i definitely want to see pierce middle school they already talked about the wonderful nature um and garden center they're building it's great to have the schools get involved in the sustainability and growing and all that and it's so important especially nowadays uh with the climate and things like that because i think those skills will last a lifetime of course the school district also recognized the 20th anniversary of 9 11. that's a very important thing to do because it's hard to believe some of the different students in these schools weren't even born when some of that took place or most of
047them weren't and to understand the patriotic and the history and the emotions i think it's important to have the people understand that year after year of what made this country so strong october 23rd the westchester flu clinic will be having a flu day here at fugit and of course some of the different elementary schools are beginning to have their ice cream socials which is one of my favorite part of the fall so thank you thank you mr spacman okay that will move us to other business and we do have a number of items that we're going to need to approve tonight as dr sukkolasi teed up in his superintendent's report we've been facing uh coverage issues right there's finite education resources out there staffing resources out there and we're battling other districts as well as
048other industries for these viable resources so we needed to make some changes so that we could increase our coverage model and provide the services our students so so desperately need so with that i'm going to go around the horn at different times of different people in the whose committee this came out of and up first is the family service contract which is item number 10-3 ms chester thank you i would like to ask approval it's requested a family service of chester count county annual contract iso move thank you mr chester can i get a second second by dr shaw any comments or questions seeing none roll call please mr director chester yes director shaw yes director spacman yes director journal yes director bevel aqua yes director gallen yes director herman yes president mccune yes thank
049you miss cherisher all right i'm going to stay with uh director chester for item number x4 addendum to paraphernal uh contracts thank you again mr mccune approval is requested of addendums to the following contracts for paraprofessional services kelly services general health resources llc doing business as ghr education u.s medical staffing inc delta t group inc and pennhurst group llc doing business as aviana development services iso move okay thank you miss chester magic words can i get a second second by mr bevel aqua any comments or questions seeing none roll call please mr director chester yes director bevel aqua yes director journal yes director hermann yes director gallon yes director shaw yes director spacman yes president mccune yes thank you miss chairshore all right that will move us to property and finance and director bella aqua
050with number x5 which capital project list revision mr bevlaco yes approval is requested of the revised capital project list for technology and facility and operations iso move thank you mr revlocka i got a second from mr gallon any comments or questions scene on roll call please director bevel aqua yes director gallon yes director shaw yes director jornell yes director hermann yes director spacman yes director chester yes president mccune yes motion carries thank you miss cherisher all right mr vervalka back to you for item x6 which is the extension of the agreement of sale for 829 paylee pike yes approval is requested of the extension to the agreement of sale for 829 pearly pike formerly known as the spelman building iso move thank you mr vlaqua can i get a second second by ms chester any
051comments or questions seeing none roll call please director bev valacqua yes director chester yes director gallon yes director darnell yes director herman yes director spacman yes director shaw yes president mccune yes thank you miss cherisher okay we're going to move over to personnel and dr herman i have four items for you starting with x7 the contract addendum for kelly services thank you mr mccune approval is requested of contract addendum with kelly services inc for the 2021-22 school year iso move thank you dr herman can i get a second second by dr shaw any comments or questions seeing none roll call please mr director herman yes director shaw yes director spacman yes director gallon yes director journal yes director chester yes director bevel aqua yes president mccune yes thank you mr chair all right dr herman
052back to you with item number x8 tutoring rate thank you mr mccune approval is requested of the district tutoring rate of 75 dollars per hour for work performed utilizing esser and other covet relief funding iso move thank you dr herman can i get a second by mr dornell any comments or questions seeing none roll call please director herman yes director journal yes director bevel aqua yes director spacman yes director chester yes director gallant yes director shaw yes president mccune yes mission carries thank you mr chair ashore all right that moves us to item number x9 uh dr herman dr herman homebound instruction rate thank you mr mccune approval is requested of the homebound instruction rate of 75 per hour iso move thank you dr herman can i get a second second by mr spacman any
053comments or questions scene none roll call police director herman yes director spacman yes director shaw yes director chester yes director jornell yes director gallon yes director bevel aqua yes president mchugh yes mission carry thank you miss cherisher all right one final one x10 the custodial subway dr herman thank you mr mccune approval is requested of the custodial substitute rate of 18 per hour iso move thank you dr herman can i get a second second again by mr spacman any comments or questions seeing on roll call police director herman yes director spackman yes director journal yes director bevel aqua yes director shaw yes director gallon yes director chester yes president mccune yes thank you mr chairshore okay that wraps up other business so we'll move on to comments from residents on non-agenda items i will turn
054it over to mr jennings and miss cherisher thank you mr mccune uh the ground rules that i stated for public comment at the outset of this evening's meeting still stand for this portion of the public commentary just as a reminder we will call names that individual will approach the podium and first start by stating their name and their address as a reminder public comments will be limited to two minutes we will now call the first speaker patty collins screw and frank collins grill just have them both come down uh will you paddy collins grew west whiteland township will you just tell me when to begin or it's my first time sure you may start okay in january of 2020 my husband and i left the new parent orientation thrilled our son would be in a
055wonderful kindergarten program in july of 2020 i wrote an email to dr scanlan listing our many concerns about our son beginning school with all the cove mitigation protocols this was his response and i quote if i had an incoming kindergartner i would delay their start of school our concerns remain with the current board approved health and safety plan therefore i continue to follow dr scanlon's expert opinion and i'm homeschooling for first grade as well year two is my son's teacher not our initial plan but we felt we had no other choice therefore i propose a solution to give parents the choice to use their allotted portion of public school money to create something called an alternate alternate education plan my plan allows parents to receive their child's funding just as a charter or cyber school
056would properly implemented it allows parents to create as well as fun customized education solution including but not limited to home school co-ops private tutoring micro schools and child care it will also help working parents positively balance work and school life rather than sacrificing their careers and or child's physical social emotional or mental health and development whether you think the current health and safety plan is not enough or a gross overreach my plan sees no sides only solutions we can all agree education is not a one-size-fits-all concept excuse me not only does an aep allow parents the opportunity to provide a customized alternative during these unprecedented times it lowers the number of students in the building and therefore absolutely reduces transmission rates it all it takes is money money my child is not using because we
057are following the advice of one of your now retired experts board members please make an emergency motion to give parents the choice to use their child's money for an alternate education plan anyone interested see me after the meeting also please extend the time to talk to more than two minutes thank you [Applause] thank you we'll next call the next speaker frank collins crew hello uh frank collins group west whiteland um as my wife so eloquently put it you know she had a nice prepared statement i do not i don't fault anybody on the board for making decisions last year even this year to satisfy some sort of solution for most of the students either way no matter what you decided whether you decided what i thought was right or what you decided someone else thought
058was right 50 of the people were going to be mad at you so i sympathize with you having to make these decisions my wife and i as she i thought so eloquently put propose a solution i mean we're still obviously looking around the room in unprecedented times and as the parent of a six-year-old a special very bright six-year-old we did not feel the mitigation and the environment would be con conducive to foster a lifelong love of learning my child had not seen school he had previously used to go to the y did date preschool there and played with lots of kids he had never seen a formal school and to introduce school at age six in the environment it's currently in whether you feel that's the best you can do or not you have to
059respect the fact that some parents pause and say i'm just gonna have to wait and we've made the decision to wait you know we went to parent orientation uh prior to covid and we're you know super excited to have him go but under the current circumstances we need an alternative education plan so thank you heather champion 967 new street hi everyone um imagine a virus so intelligent that it knows how to defy the laws of every other airborne airborne respiratory virus that somehow does not infect the students while they're eating lunch or playing face to face on the playground however will do so in the classroom your decisions along with our governor and our health secretary have forced parents to choose between masking their children for hours every school day or not sending them to
060school at all this has led our community into a divided mindset allowing for shaming want for others decisions which is then absorbed by our children and then it's it's repeated the bigger picture is not being seen teachers and staff are vaccinated along with the majority of our community aren't you protected which leads me to my final point mandatory vaccinations amongst our children i never as much drank a cup of coffee when i was pregnant with my children it is my god-given right to be the voice of my children until they are of age to make these decisions i their mother will make them not you i will allow them to gain their own natural immunity to this ever-changing virus as for now you've created this obsessive hyper-focused view of covid germs and illness in general
061putting fear and the natural parts of life ahead of actual learning why aren't we focusing on the importance of hand hygiene proper nutrition no matter where you stand on the masks and the mandatory vaccinations of our youth you can no longer ignore the major toll this is taking on our children's short-term and long-term mental health even if you support the board's decision for the last 18 months please realize that you're taking away your own future parental choices by currently limiting mine you don't have to agree with my personal decisions nor do i yours but we should agree to support each other's freedom to choose because one day they will force you to do something you oppose i can no longer be silent in regards to the misuse of my tax dollars to facilitate the systematic
062child abuse laura detree [Applause] good evening my name is laura ditri my address is 976 francis circle i want to start by saying um thank you to our board and to our administrators for putting in place common sense practical covered mitigation prep measures for this school year i really appreciate you putting the health and safety of our community first and on that topic i would like to ask our district to consider making a small change to the emails that we receive when there's a reported infection in our schools currently as families we receive a vague message that says an infection has happened if our children are involved in contact tracing we get more information but for families who are just getting that email that says an infection has occurred we don't have a lot of
063information and i recognize that hipaa rules limit the amount of information that you can give out i'm not asking anyone to violate any laws but from a parent's point of view it would be practical for us to have slightly more information for say a grade level involved or a classroom so that we can make decisions about what steps that we need to take as a family to keep our communities safe thank you very much have a good night [Applause] scott alone [Music] uh scotland 708 east marshall street good evening everyone my name is scott talon i'm a teacher at henderson high school a resident of the westchester area school district and i served as a lead negotiator for the westchester area education association during the most recent round of collective bargaining i'm speaking to you
064tonight on behalf of the association as well as our president michelle curry cramer who wanted to speak tonight but was unable to be here her sentiments are echoed in my comments tonight i first want to thank the school board as well as the administration uh specifically jim scanlon bob sokolowski jeff olmer and john scully for a fair and amicable negotiation process a sentiment that was echoed by the board and dr sokolowski earlier both the association the district came to the negotiations table with an open mind a willingness to compromise and shared goals we all want a collective bargaining agreement that maintains the high quality of education and the district continues to put the needs of students first and recognizes the talents hard work and dedication of the 1000 teachers nurses counselors social workers school psychologists
065librarians speech language pathologists and athletic trainers in the westchester area education association after all this transpired over the past 18 months i think we realize the important place that the qual that quality schools and gifted educators have in the lives of our students we believe that this agreement provides fair and competitive wages and benefits that will allow the district to retain the excellent teachers it currently has excellent educators it currently has while also attracting new highly qualified educators the agreement also gives us the stability and peace of mind that allows educators to focus their efforts on what we do best educating our students thank you again to the board district administration for your work and commitment to a fair negotiations process thank you dan gillen 17 beach tree drive wait for me good evening i'm
066a relatively new resident here i've only lived here for a few years this is my first meeting and we love the area we've enjoyed meeting other parents here making friends and while i'm happy to be a part of this district i'm also worried i'm very worried about this district's equity mission the scope of it and the and the goals of it and my comment relates to the inconsistencies in my view that i see between the materials posted on the resources page and the representations made on the more recently posted faq and misconceptions page and i'll cover three of them in the time that i have first the faq states that the district is not making students feel guilty about their skin color or teaching them to blame or judge however the materials promoted on the
067resources page hyper focus on skin color with the specific purpose of assigning guilt and with the specific purpose of judging based or teaching to blame or judge on skin color number two the faq defines educational equity as quote the working to remove barriers so that all students succeed not a lot of controversy in there but these materials i don't see any meaningful connection between the materials posted on the resources page and that goal number three the fdq states that the school district is not endorsing a political party not endorsing marxism or all that's offshoots unfortunately i find this statement to be largely meaningless because the materials on the resources page are extremely political extremely controversial are really only supported by one major political party and they do in fact promote marxist ideas so in my
068view in order to establish credibility of the faq and misconceptions page the equity resources page needs to be heavily revised or revamped and this material shouldn't be used in classrooms thank you [Applause] megan rock cobb good evening my name is megan rykob 1337 park avenue 1930. earlier you extended thanks to our educators when discussing their well-deserved contract i too want to thank them through praise on things i've seen or heard happening at fugit and east my children's schools in the days before the 20th anniversary their teachers did a remarkable job teaching about september 11th and terrorist attacks leading up to that point my kids came home and shared details that i either never knew or had faded from my memory it's always going to be strange to have this life-changing event be their history lesson
069but it was so apparent how much care and effort their teachers made via schoology and email i've seen how social emotional learning and leadership is or will be a focus of part of care period and lunch or study hall student forums while touring the building during the parent orientation i noticed a variety of resources and hotlines including the trevor lifeline hung by east guidance office i think having this visible is so important as it's as is that it's okay to not be okay webinar coming up tomorrow i've registered to watch this with my kids if anything else the title and being geared for parents and teens feels relevant both to the times and that september is um suicide prevention month my message to anyone who's experienced suicidal ideation personally or through a friend or relative
070is to make a list of why you want to stay it could be a big thing like your family it could be a little thing like seeing a sunrise and sometimes it's something that could seem silly but has personal importance like a video i saw where someone said they want to be around for marvel phase four you decide what has meaning you're important and you deserve to be here any reason is a good reason to stay alive please don't miss the rest of your life thank you anita edgarian and i will say my address 1103 chesterdale farmland westchester pennsylvania all right hit it all right well july 26th i raised my concern over your leadership that had divided the community well that didn't go so well did it because some people here cannot handle the
071truth not certainly especially when it comes from an immigrant woman with an accent so what happened the two minutes uh is made excuse calm down physically to intimidate me and harass me well last i checked we live in america and not in afghanistan and nobody should be acting like taliban your belligerent dictorial actions have brought national and international attention to this district not because of what i did but because of what you did and what you didn't do all of our republican and democrats and wonderful diverse group of board members you didn't do anything but yet you did had the audacity to make an excuse make the next board meeting virtual and then you almost pass over my name so i cannot speak and then you even voted for the july 26 meeting notes to
072be without any mention of the incident but yet you spend thousands of dollars for our kids to learn how to stand up to bullies again i don't know what happens to those records and how is a parent supposed to advocate for their black kid white kid biracial kid lgbtq kids rich kid poor kid the emotionally needy kid the learning differences who's watching their back what kind of example did you set for those parents to come and advocate for those kids well that being said i'm running for school board and whether or not i'm a winner because this has brought so much attention that you cannot run away from it anymore [Applause] phil gara betty and close uh phil garabedian 919 thorn drive um so tonight um my comment might seem a little trivial given some
073of the other topics around but uh when my first grade daughter found out that i was coming here tonight she asked that i explained one of her biggest complaints about school and i must say that it's great that they're back in school five days a week so thank you for everything there but the biggest complaint i hear from her is she doesn't feel like she has enough time to eat lunch i think it's about 30 minutes but she's gotten really good with her arguments uh and one of her biggest arguments is that when she gets home from school because she didn't have enough time to eat lunch that she has to snack and therefore that's why she's not eating her dinner at night so i would really appreciate it she wanted me to talk to
074dr cruz but i told her that dr cruz would not be here tonight so if someone from the school board dr sokolovsky can look into whether or not adding an additional 15 minutes to the lunch schedule at west town thornberry would be appropriate or if someone maybe give me a reason why it's only 30 minutes that i can explain to her so thank you nancy wood 300 shropshire drive one year ago there was district-wide outrage over changes to lessons about 9 11 for elementary students we heard we must never forget and even the most difficult lessons must be taught now it's one year later and we're hearing the exact opposite argument regarding our country's history of racism and marginalization our community is swept up by a political movement that claims students might feel guilty learning
075about racism and that our district's equity mission is a devious plot to indoctrinate students the frenzy has reached a fevered pitch in york county there have been book bans there is a state house bill to ban ways educators can teach about racism here in westchester there have been credible threats of violence against our board what became of we must never forget is one history ours but not the other in the recent community conversations meeting a woman recalled being disallowed from participating in clubs at henderson because she was black and that when the black student union was formed they were not permitted to meet on school grounds this happened here in our district in my lifetime more recently our community was in an uproar over naming bayard rustin high school after an openly gay black man
076one third of the school board voted against it with one member citing what she described as mr ruston's homosexual promiscuity rustin opened in 2006. this happened here in our district in our students lifetimes i love this this community too much to accept that we would demand teaching difficult lessons about 9 11 while failing to claim these other painful histories as our own i am grateful we have a school board that prioritizes truthful history i hope members of our community search their consciences speak out and vote to support this board as you continue your important and difficult work we must never forget [Applause] [Music] fred burns uh 546 george elaine westchester obviously all right um i'm just here to i spoke on the webinar about a this is my third school board meeting my first child
077in school and i just want to speak for i guess it feels like a minority sometimes for the parents that that are strongly against having their children wearing masks in school for eight hours a day both sides like i said before have their reasons but i feel like our side is just you know not being listened to my my daughter comes home every day when is this going to end when is this going to stop and i hear the argument from parents they're resilient the children are resilient this and that and of course they are you're we're training them daily to wear the mask of course they're going to be okay with it eventually but i feel the side of the health the negative health effects of wearing it for eight hours a day is
078being neglected i i feel like it's not even being looked at as an alternative or not an alternative or that side of it at all so we do a ton of surveys for all the other stuff i was at the community outreach which which was a good event i didn't get the email on the survey though which i did think was a good event why not put a survey out to all the parents and see really what their feedback is because a lot of parents are scared to come up here and talk because they're looked at as negative where they're they're going or evil or not helping others because they disagree with the cdc or what those um which has been wrong at times back and forth so we just may disagree or not trust
079that particular i don't know studies there's other studies against it and you can go back and forth and we'll argue for days but i just feel like we're not being heard and not listened to it's kind of like hey go do your spiel up here and then we get over with the meeting and it's oh well we're done with that so with that said i just want to say there is a percentage that you know is upset by it you know and i i think it should be my decision not not yours and it should go back to optional thank you [Applause] that's it thank you cherisher with that we will bring the meeting closure dr shaw i believe you have a quote tonight this is the quote let us remember one book one pen
080one child and one teacher can change the world malala thank you dr shaw i'll entertain a motion to adjourn first by dr herman second by mr danelle all in favor say aye hi thank you very much