001e e e Mr Antonio here Mr Badger here Mr blefeld M Kachi here Mr goson here M K IUS here Dr Morris here Mr Walker here Mrs Ginsburg here Isabelle dasta here Harrison erns here great thank you and uh will you please join me now for the Pledge of Allegiance we're g to have some students come up and help me this evening thank you for your help ladies right I want to welcome everyone this evening to our February 24th meeting of the WIS hicken school board uh taking a look at our agenda we first list out our prior meetings the board met on January 27th for a work session February 3rd for a regular public meeting February 10th for our finance committee and February 18th for policy committee meeting and racial Equity oversite committee meeting
002and we list out our upcoming meetings on March 3rd we'll have our next regular public board meeting March 10th is our finance committee meeting March 17th racial Equity oversight committee meeting and that's actually our community conversation the Penland Woods Community Building and then March 31st will be our next work session and now we'll move into our presentation and uh I understand we have a middle school student presentation this even yes thank you it's a pleasure to have an impressive delegation from whs middle school and um I'm not going to share out the topic I'm going to let the principal of wh Middle School Miss Beth Boward do that but we welcome our friends from middle school well thank you for um inviting us to present this evening I'm really happy to be here with um
003some members of our math department specifically our math department chair Mrs Lee Mr deok Mrs Dungan and Mrs Felix um and they will be sharing along with their students some of the exciting things that are happening in our math classrooms of the middle school so at this time I'm going to turn over to Miss Lee good evening everyone my name is Mrs Lee or Helen Lee and I am the math department chair and eighth grade math teacher one of the highlights within our math department is our ongoing professional development around differentiated instruction in 2017 the math department see professional development and um cohorts to learn and grow in our understanding of differentiate instruction tonight I have two students with me who will share a little bit about differentiy instruction and small group activities within our
004classroom and first up we have facia good evening my name is faia and um I'm me to talk about the positives of working a small group and how it the teacher and help the [Music] teacher help the teacher understand and see where a student can be and can understand where students level small group for specific questions and understand comprehension and where where they stand and working a small group for me it helps me a lot because it's slower paced and helps me like improve a lot more with um my uh progress and understand help me understand the concept of each day good evening I'm Gabby I'll be talking about two of the small group activities the first and favorite activity is around the room activ this activity is a fun extra practice and it gives
005bre from sitting down because we move around we can also work with Partners to help with you and understand the concepts here's an example of our activity where you would start on one problem solve it and then look around the room for the matching answer if you cannot find the answer around the room then you know made an error and need to try the second activity is a three column practice where you choose the level of difficulty to practice we like this small group practice because this activity gives us a choice in our review here is an example of the worksheet we recently completed right here is easier problems problems middle level problems and challenging problems thank you in next Miss fix miss good evening my name is Karen dongan and I'm the math specialist
006at W middle school a group of my colleagues and I uh attended a professional development opportunity at Montgomery County Intermediate Unit focused on the book building thinking classrooms by Peter ladal during that training we focused on most of our time on a strategy of using vertical nonpermanent workspaces to allow students to work in small groups on different mathematical tasks which have multiple answers and multiple ways to solve problems hi my name is min Felix I'm the eighth grade teacher over at WIA Middle School um I was going to talk a little bit about vertical thinking space and have my three students explain how this is beneficial and what it looks like um we have a couple examples that the students will work on um at this time if Lizzy and on up hi I'm Lizzy
007husta and in math CL class using vertical thinking space allows students to collaborate move around stay engaged take ownership and deepen understanding it also encourages peer-to-peer learning exploration of different methods and enables mistakes to be removed in real time overall vertical thinking space improves students learning and allows risk taking in the proof activity each group was divided into mixed abilities and the questions were in difficulty order all groups were proving if two triangles are congruent using congruence theorems the problems are approachable since not only were there different ways to solve but there were multiple ways to answer the question it was less intimidating since everyone was focused on their own questions so if mistakes were made it could easily be erased and the group could try again this was way better than everyone staring at
008you in front of the board Mrs Felix also walked around and gave hints to groups if needed or groups nearby were able to get help from their peers pretend this is a question that's given you know what they would do in a classroom setting we could even have the board try as put your skills to you get start with and two and then yeah oh yeah because we already used five yeah I'm [Music] then yeah so those are two ways you could solve this problem and my whiteboard helped us because when we made mistakes we could just erase them and we were together now Mr de and his M uh good evening my name is deach I have been a middle school math teacher for 32 years and a math counts coach and adviser for
00928 of those 32 years um I remember when I was first asked to do it my fourth year teaching fifth year teaching and uh when you're a new teacher they always tell you if your principal asks you to take a position you just say Yes um so I took that position I had no idea what it was uh for the first first meeting five students showed up and they were there because they expected Donuts because that's what the previous coach had given them um nine years later I was in a position where I needed to switch school districts and I came to wiah hicken and I was excited that they did not have a math counil program at that time so at that first meeting um instead of having Donuts I uh I brought my
010wife's cookies and uh about the same number of students showed up and I am proud to say uh many years later we usually have to turn kids away we have upwards of 50 or 60 kids that show up at our informational meeting um every fall so I'm not going to take away from the the program itself and uh the kids will do a great job talking but I did want to just quickly recognize we had a competition a week or so ago and the team did quite well this year so I wanted to recognize eight students that represented our school at the regional competition and then I'll give it over to two of students in our program and we'll tell you more about what the mathc program is all about so Gavin Bishop uh is
011here and he'll be representing us at the state competition uh next month on his team um was Kyle hang uh Raymond Lea and Khloe no and also at the competition was Andrew Zang uh uni Kim uh Maya Chang who's here tonight as well to talk about the club part of the program and uh so hbat and they all did a wonderful job representing our school and as I said Gavin and maybe a couple more where a couple more students we're waiting to hear about wild cards um we'll be in Harrisburg uh next month I'm GNA give it up to the students to explain a little bit more about um hi my name is Maya and I'm currently in seventh grade so I started math Cil last year in sixth grade in the and I'm going
012to be talking about so in the fall club we work on different math stretches where we can interact in problems together we explore new patterns and find new Solutions and share them with each other math counts challenges us to think think creatively and become better problem solvers and we have a lot of opportunities to meet like new people and build important relationships um in the spring club we work we usually work on something called the level project where uh Wen Middle School is the only Club in Pennsylvania to have um ear earned the gold level status for past 17 consecutive years um the gold level project is basically a group project where you can choose to either do a community service project um an instructional video or an art project and my group um last
013year chose to create an art painting where we basically created a replica of sunflowers by Vincent vano and um for the art project we had to include different math elements so an example would be how um the number of petals on each sunflower are um five consecutive terms in the Fibonacci sequence and um how the center of the sunflower the diameter of those are the first five digits of p in ctim so the good level project is really um fun and enjoyable to create and math cans for me has really shaped my first couple of years in middle school and I hope more students get a chance to experience what I have in thank you the competition season in math counts starts right before Thanksgiving with an in school competition where club members take time
014tests these time tests consist of algebra geometry and other math concepts in a Time pressured environment after these contests a small group of students is chosen to meet two times a week after school to prepare for the chapter competition which is basically a bunch of schools from Montgomery County competing with students in their math accounts programs two weeks before the competition we have a group of eight students meet every day after school so work on a lot of contests like preparation at this year's competition there are over 160 students from about 20 schools in the morning we did the time test on paper and then after launch they called the top 10 individual scores into the auditorium for a countdown round where it's a buzzer One V one buzzer rounds where the top 10 scores
015are ordered by scor so 10th best score faed off against the ninth best score the winner faces off against the eighth best score all and so on all the way until there's one contestant remaining whoever buzzed in first with the correct answer and did that multiple times would win the round and the problems we would have to solve would be problems such as the one on the board where way you would solve a problem like that quickly would be Amy campaign a wall in 20 minutes and Joseph can paint the same size wall in 15 minutes they work together how many minutes will take them paint one wall this size express your answer to near minute Amy would be able to paint one wall in 20 minutes so that' be three walls in the span
016of an hour just compaint the W in 15 minutes that' be four walls in the span of an hour so if you combine those rates that's seven walls per hour when they were together and Express in minutes that' be 60 Minutes for seven walls so for one wall it would be 60 by 7 minutes which is 8 and 47 minutes rounded to the nearest one minute that's 9 minutes the competing in front of an auditorium full of people in these problems can be very intense but is also very fun I really like math counts and it is like and the competitive environment is kind of like a sports team and the fact that we practice together and we compete against other schools those are some of the high highlights of the great work that we're
017doing here at within the W middle school math department and I just want to thank my colleagues thanks all the students and their bravery for coming up here and speaking and thank you for the board tonight for having us thank you so much for that presentation that was great um does anyone have any questions or comments do you did I miss how do how are we what's a gold level step how do you achieve gold level step you can like uh you can choose a problem to solve and then I mean you can choose to create a project and then you could submit it in like um this like contest thing and you can get rewards for it and you just achieve it that's really cool um congratulations on the long streak of gold metal
018status that's amazing and thank you Mr deab thank you thank you so much for leading that club that's the me great job everyone thank you and can I see your painting a closer do would you mind bringing it up I was just last week and I was talking to my kids about tonacci sequins when we were talking about cactus plants and no one took any interest in it and I'm so excited to have somebody take interest in this is amazing how wonderful is this conversation you had at dinner or no we were in Arizona and we were looking at cactus plants and I started to bring this up and no one took any interest in this conversation no one thank you deian but I'm excited that someone is taking interest in the FCI sequence all
019right anyone else uh yeah just a sorry just a quick comment all the presentations we get at these board meetings are f fantastic uh but normally they stick on one topic you guys gave a great presentation of the overall field for Math and middle school so thank you was really comprehensive yeah and and I have to say I don't remember the last time we had a middle school presentation so I'm loving that we had a middle school presentation that's amazing and I love all the interest and I'm going to be a little biased I love that there's so much female representation on the MTH all right anyone else comments no all right well guys I know you're probably not that age where you want to get pictures with adults but I always like to get
020a picture with our students that come in so hopefully you will humor me and do a picture with some of us yes oh my goodness yay okay my f said no thank you good it's you guys are certainly welcome to stay or you can go and gra some cookies on the way out it's the rest of the me is just as exciting all right well they're not going to get to here the whah hickin high school monthly highlights sorry guys hey guys oh yeah that's going to be tough to follow for sure but there's been some great stuff at the high school we had the or also the middle school I guess because we had our Lunar New Year Festival over at the middle school awesome um Dr Juan I know you you stopped by
021checked it out that was great also awesome was our Eagles pepper alley that was so cool um you know I'm not from here so the whole Philly sports thing is new to me and I couldn't I couldn't believe like the spirit people have um we had our ninth grade career Expo which was then open to older students at the end of the day but I know that went well and then my favorite highlight so far is bonus block I mean I can't tell you guys how much I love bonus Block it's um it's a great time and I know like people utilize it if you'd asked me before I thought like no one's coming in um I don't but there's a lot of students that go and utilize it and go to teachers and like
022get a lot of goodness out of it or even like there's there's physical activities in the gyms and stuff and then's say here oh dude Reed Harris athlete of the month at w hickin so that's awesome um and segueing that is with with boys and girls swim some of our students went to districts and out in York over the weekend um and they all rocked the house like we had a couple first places I didn't see anyone that got lower than second or third um but my good friend Sophie nck went she rocked it got a bunch of PRS and I'll let is well take her from there yeah and continueing with that Reed Harris also made districts not a surprise he's been doing really well and again Contin with that Middle School streak BSU
023our black student union and HLA our Hispanic L Association they also went to middle school for this diversity day and they went on separate days but basically they covered multiple different middle schools if I'm not wrong and they basically just presented you know their Club so letting them know like hey once of high school like that support and that club is there for you and then we also had our mini thong which was super oh we're gonna have it coming up we're super excited for that uh and I know like all the people all the minithon officers are really excited for that because every single year it's always trying to be that you know money that we made last year and also bouncing on that Eagles pep rally we had a theme which was tackling
024hunger so we would bring in like canned foods and all that and like I am from Philly so I love seeing that you know Eagle Spirit carry on I'm not a Die Hard Eagle fan but anything Philly related you'll see me there thank you well that's great awesome car where are you from if you're not from Philly oh yeah no I I moved here two days before freshman year I grew up in Miami so whole cold thing is new to me don't like it however this week is great and awesome I don't if you guys saw that we have like 58 degree highs I I bik to work today and you know just getting out outside where I can but yeah no Pennsylvania is not familiar to me at all right well thank you for
025that report guys can I elaborate on some swimming details sure so I watched the meet on YouTube the whole meet because I love swimming and um Reed was second in the 200 and first in the 500 districts he blew away the field actually in the five and and I have to say like this meat is is so competitive the district one AAA meet is faster than a lot of State Meats like it's so fast it's crazy um and then he was in two relays at Place ninth and 10th he along with Team Barber Dean Bowers and Logan Bruno and on the girl side um senior Nora Weber was SEC uh seventh in the 200 and she also won the 500 also sort of taking commanding lead so again it's really impressive and I'm looking forward
026they have the state meet in three weeks and um I can report back how they do there because I'll watch it again no I don't go but I'll watch it I'll watch it online I thought it was it was notable we had a meeting on Friday sometime to be prepar for these and Reed was like yeah I'm like so excited for districts like my goal is to play top three in my events and I was like dude like he's so humble like this kid's obviously gonna get top three in his events and he got first place and second and he let off the freestyle relay and his split would have placed him third overall in the 50 is that right he's incredible very impressive that's guy he's also when I first met this kid he
027was like at my shoulder and now he now I'm like looking at his chest this kid is so tall now so he's only getting better hey I had a followup question um Harrison you were mentioning bonus block um can you remind me what bonus block is again yeah so on day five and six we have moved IE office hours that kind of 40 minute block to the start of the day so now like today for example we entered at I think 8 21 is the time you're supposed to go in um and it's optional so you can the buses run at the same time so if you don't have a ride you still have to take them but um you can come in any time during that window whether you use it to stay home
028and sleep or go in for extra help and it's really awesome great great yeah I've hear I everyone seems to think of it as a big hit for the schedule so we really really really really really want it in the fourth barg just so glad enjoy so yeah put it out there yeah the other day I saw a whole bunch of people um and Mr Dan and Mrs Carib they both work in a math department uh because I was more she told me to deliver something Mr Danon so I walk in his class is packed like I I don't know how he does it but props to him you know and even like the science teachers everyone even I saw Mr McKenna sometimes he helps he does English he would miss think oh it's just
029for science and math no it's Al for everyone it's really cool um and yeah today I came in because I had physics but honestly love it though because now I don't have to do IE for physics I just do in the morning get over with I like the class though so yeah great thanks any other comments or questions well thanks again guys oh yes not just a comment I'm I'm so proud of this how this se's evolving you know like the students are using their own judgment and their own kind of approach to this which I think is going to just set them up for Success when they move past um WI a hick and high school whatever they you know decide to do and you know um a lot of them are taking advantage
030of coming in later because I dropped off uh Evan because Mia had the car and uh let me tell you there was a lot of kids showed up at 821 but uh I I love that we are teaching you know use your your own judgment you know pick your schedule kind of do what what fits for you so I love that too that I love that element so wonderful anything else well great thank you again and we'll move into our third presentation this evening Black History Month recognition this evening we're so proud and excited to have Miss Lor join us to share some of the highlights of what we see in our schools thank you for being here miss Lor thank you for having me here good evening everyone thank you for the opportunity to
031present how W nation is not only recognizing but celebrating black history month so again it remains very true and important that although this is a moment to highlight the wonderful achievements and contributions of black Americans in our nation at these influential black black Americans who are inventors and scientists surgeons doctors mathematicians politicians writers and leaders be included in the curriculum all year long so I'm going to start with some highlights from Blue Bell Elementary there were many things that were done to celebrate in honor Black History Month tonight I'm going to celebrate a few things lift up a few things that they did do so starting at Bluebell with second graders they had the opportunity to complete research projects during their research students then turned their Research into PowerPoint presentations which they shared with their
032classmates third grade students completed a variety of activities celebrating Black History Month such as some classes were engaged in conducting research on historical black figures other classes read a book of the day fiction or non-fiction while some classes read and wrote book reviews by black authors or books with black characters in fourth grade students write literature by black authors and conducted research additionally our fourth and fifth grade students participated in the presentations facilitated by our high school black student union in music classes students had the opportunity to embark on a journey through the fascinating history of black musical Heritage students explore the vibrant sounds of Trombone Shorty reading his book and exploring his unique blend of jazz funk and Hip Hop students also performed some dances and bucket drum routines to his music students explore
033the Soulful world of Motown learning about iconic artists like Stevie Wonder and The Supremes and listening to their music students found themselves immersed in the history of jazz tracing its roots from New Orleans and experimenting with improvisational techniques using classroom techniques and instruments to mirror Lewis Armstrong and Duke Allington these activities that students participated in helped them to learn the profound impact of black American musicians and they develop their own musical skills and creativity while doing so at lower gwened elementary overall we had a lot of research based activities and so our kindergarten students created artwork inspired by Alma Woody Thomas a black American Artist and teacher who lived and worked in Washington DC best known for the colorful abstract paintings that she created it students listened to the story entitled am's art by Roa
034Ahmed inspired by Thomas's work which describes Alma wsy Thomas's use of color students then created their own collage abstracts the first gr team also joined their buddy classes to learn about famous black Americans who have made significant impacts in history through Reading and discussion the students not only discovered the accomplishments of these influential individuals but but also explored valuable lessons about respect inclusion and leaving a positive mark on the world students then share their thoughts on how they could make a difference in their own Community our school Community as well they were tasked with this question what can we do to include others how can we show respect and leave a positive impact on the world some students talked about standing up for classmates who might be left out by others promis to be kind
035and to help others when needed second grade students also had an opportunity to research they were able to delve into learning more about black inventors and artists and musicians actors and athletes and astronomers and more students then had the opportunity to create a PowerPoint or a canvas slide to show their final project and share what they created students also read about the person who they researched and read about them during their morning announcements to share with the entire School community second graders also had the opportunity to create biography projects students self selected an individual who was influential and they then took notes about the person's life and contributions and created a slide deck in their canva or PowerPoint to share with the rest of the community the biography ports that they created are placed on
036display in the hallway um and so if you were to go to Lura Elementary today they had a gallery walk and so all of the projects that the students invested in are actually displayed in the hallways and so students were invited to do a gallery walk and so they took a tour um it was very informative and enlightening for those students and if you have a chance to get to Lowa Glenn it you'll be able to see the wonderful work that is displayed throughout the hallways so Shady Grove Elementary students in all grades again completed research on the contri butions of black Americans students didn't share this key information about each person's life and the impact proudly showing their finished projects and these are also displayed in the hallway of Shady Grove Elementary informational penants
037were also created as a result of the research that students created these are showcasing students findings and each student selected a notable individual gathered the key facts about their contributions and designed a colorful pennant featuring images and quotes of important details about this individual in second grade students honor the past by sharing the contributions of contemporary and historical figures in black history students worked featured time periods of the individual highlighting what the person accomplished we also had students in music classes in grades K through two practicing a musical Arrangement by chai chaii which is a traditional African folk song students in and fifth grade class were also introduced to the artwork of basat an African-American artist renowned for his work in the 80s the students then emulated his neoexpressionism style creating Valentine's Day bags which
038are displayed in the hallway and were later used to collect Valentine's every student at Shady Grove Elementary had in hand and the creation of a school white mural you'll see the hands in the upper um left corner and also centered is that image of Dr rever Martin Luther King Jr students had the opportunity to read about and honor the legacy of Dr Martin Luther King Jr students read about his work and then participated in lessons that commitment was very important to serving their community and so at Shady Grove students and staff introduced students to how they could help and serve in the Shady Grove Community by beautifying a space and so the space is going to tail the hands that you see in the upper left corner along with the centering mural of Dr Reverend
039Martin Luther King Jr and so all 700 students at St Shady Grove Elementary spent the week making their Mark and lending their hands to make a Muro or mosaic honoring the legacy of Dr Martin Luther King and so that is a work in progress however it will be done shortly so if you have time to visit Shady Grove you'll be able to see that mural so at Stony Creek Elementary in our library classes students were able to read biographies by Rosa Parks and Mar Martin Luther King Jr and learned about important aspects of black history such as the Civil Rights Movement the Montgomery Bus boycuts and the Underground Railroad in second grade students research influential African-American individuals and they engaged in a writing assignment to share their findings students in fourth had the opportunity to
040participate in an author study on Jacqueline Woodson brown girl dreaming so at the middle school we have art at play and so our eighth grade art students examine works from artists such as beardin and field both of whom are incredibly talented collage artists students Drew inspiration from these artists and their work to create their own mix media collage drawings students in seventh grade math classes research famous black mathematicians in technology education classrooms students were provided with opportunities to produce documentary style videos based on special events holidays and monthly celebrations this time around of course they recognized um Black History Month aspects from our cultural calendar and so during the month of February these videos were played on wstv for all students and staff to viw this type of activity promotes the schools three Rs of
041respect responsibility and relationships by allowing students to view the world from another person's perspective additionally Black History Month is highlighted on various LED displays throughout the entire School building this is a photograph of w wiah hicken Middle School's library um there are various books written by and about famous black Americans that are highlighted in the library along with bookmarks recognizing famous black Americans the book display that we're seeing here represented of the middle school is one that we would see across every single building in the district so all of our elementary schools if we were to go into the library we would see a similar display at our high school we also see a similar display so we wanted to just highlight so far our high school um as noted earlier today our bfcu students
042have been very active in working collaboratively with the building principles at the elementary schools and visiting the Elementary classrooms to provide a wonderful and Rich education around Black History Month the high school's BSU uses the principle of lifting while we climb and this is by Mary Church Terrell 19th century black educator civil rights activist and founder of the national asso assciation of Colored Women in building community and purpose promoting education and support through connections the BSU visited these elementary schools sharing a message celebrating black achievement in collaboration again with the elementary principles the VSU sent as many as 10 students to each of the elementary schools to model reading and to engage in a short grade level appropriate learning activity that showcased black culture and achievement the BSU is also hosting a movie night and
043a cookout in the Square gym to culminate the month's activities in TV lab students have been preparing a segment each date focused on Black History Month and trivia questions to go along with it to complement the efforts of the students the high school participated also in a school-wise service MLK Day project creating 10,000 cards to send to local children in the English Department there are various activities that took Place many learning lessons that happened around texts that were in place such as the great gasby focusing on discussions of an anti-black racism there was literature Circle featuring books by black Americans such as James Balwin Jacqueline Woodson and Ralph Ellison along with Walter D Meyers there was also appreciation and time spent learning about African-American poets students also were introduced the lives and works of prominent
044black poets whose Collective work went on to inspire countless artists students continued to read many things such as Sula and other texts and in doing so they created web quests focusing on topics such as what black towns were in the 1900s 1919 to 1941 to be exact examining exploring black soldiers and black labor challenge along with the civil rights movement of 1965 and colorism and Morrison's biography in health class students had the opportunity to explore the cont contributions of prominent African-American female doctors who have made lasting impacts on the medical field students learned about dror Jane cookright and oncologist who pioneered Innovative chemotherapy treatments Dr Marie mayard daily the first African-American woman to earn a PhD in chemistry whose research laid the groundwork for understanding hypertension Dr P Patricia bath who developed a groundbreaking laser
045cataract surgery technique and Dr Kennedy the first African-American woman to become a neurosurgeon in the United States as part of the lesson students research additional black Physicians who have had a significant influence on modern medicine directly improving quality of life and life expectancy in our world language Department students had an opportunity to do a research project on them is afro Latinos and students created a biography of the person to present to their classmates there were other things that they focused on in French class such as making sure to study John Lewis and nelon Mandela um as they concluded and continued to work on their Black History Month presentation so thank you so much for this opportunity to share some of the wonderful work that we've done to not only recognize the celebrate Black History Month
046across the district there's a wealth of things happening at each building that you can visit and see our toar about thank you thank you so much for that amazing presentation it's so wonderful to see all the great things that our students and faculty are doing in our buildings and every every year it seems like it's more and more and more that we're doing so that is so wonderful and I wrote down to talk to Jim about setting up some times to go visit our buildings to go see these great things so I'm going to do that because this is amazing so it sounds like a great time to go visit it um anyone else have any comments or or questions no oh yeah person I am so looking forward to the BSU cookout tomorrow it's
047like the highlight of the year I went last year and it's so good and fun and like there's food and dancing and music and it's just a great time it's tomorrow after school I'll see all of you there and we're we're going to bust it down all right anyone else all right well thank you so much thank you all right so we'll move on now to our first Public public comment period and no one's registered in person and no one online no one online all right then we'll move on to our board president report and I have no informational or action items this evening um superintendent report thank thank you I just a short update on the search for the assistant superintendent um since the last update to staff and families there was sent out
048update number two that was sent out I think on February 13th um that was prior to the final round of interviews and I just thrilled to share that we have found a candidate the board has met with this candidate and um the candidate's identity will be made public on Thursday with the agenda for Monday's meeting so that um we we can all know at that time and and no neither Harrison or anybody else from the high school knows sorry um but the the um the good news is this candidate Rose and we'll talk about this a little bit more on Monday but rose from a very rigorous application process and search process that took a lot of time on the part of a lot of District leaders and District staff as well so we're not
049not going to name all the people who participated but I do want to say that we should recognize their their efforts because as you will see on this coming you'll know on Thursday you'll see on Monday um the process yielded tremendous result so looking forward very much looking forward to sharing that thing with everyone great thank you Jim and uh oh any comments or questions all right just superintendent report thank you I just have one informational item this evening um just to share about um our professional development in February and so the faculty members the professional staff engaged in various experiences and opportunities at the building level much of that uh centered data driven conversations looking at data U making decisions around data some of them were data team meetings some of them were using
050their data to identify resources and instructional practices that they were looking to apply to small group instruction for interventions um so the afternoon on that Thursday the 13th teachers spent a lot of time diving into Data um but we also had Prof uh excuse me professional development for our support staff on the afternoon of February 13th and I'd like to highlight that as well uh so our elementary and secondary instructional support staff spent time learning about the legalities of special education and making sure that everyone is up to date on the latest regulations and best practices they also engage in a learning session that focused on neuroscience and how Neuroscience supports children's emotional um health and resilience which we know is an important uh Focus for developing students well-being the secretarial and clerical staff completed
051three self-paced learning modules on uh online security and safety and that was followed by an inperson session on integrating AI in office environment so they seem to enjoy that uh learning opportunity our custodial staffs took part in training related to various regulations that are essential for their roles and I just want to take a moment to thank everyone who helped to make these sessions a success um especially um Miss kazal Lor who helps to coordinate the support staff training she Taps into all of the the Departments and directors and um solicits input from support staff to see what are the areas that they need um and then coordinates with all of our team to to make those happen those um sessions happen um addition I want to give a special shout out to Diane prous
052and Jason falcan who helped with the the technology um elements there was a lot of AI learning happening so thanks to everyone that helped to make that happen and that concludes my report great thank you so much any comments or questions maybe a little premature but um any thoughts around like how we think we're going to integrate AI into either teaching or learning or how to use or any of that fun stuff I know it might be a little soon to say not premature at all thank you for the question um so for the past couple of years we've been um engaging our leadership team and our teaching staff in learning about AI um and our technology department of course has been critical in helping to facilitate these conversations again shout out to Diane Krauss
053and Jason falan and and all of our team members who have been really working diligently to ensure that our staff are informed and aware and also thinking critically about what does it look like to use AI as an educator to help us as as Educators you know to be better at differentiated instruction you know working smarter not harder I mean that's what AI is about but the conversation has also included how do we help students understand ethical use of AI and those are critical conversations that are happening and need to happen and will continue to happen um in terms of engaging our students and knowing how to use these resources that are absolutely intended to be and can be very useful but also needs guardrails to make sure that we're using it ethically um so
054it's a great question thank you yeah and so this session helped to provide the learning for our support staff which is which is the next sort of step in our professional learning opportunities so we were grateful to have that opportunity to engage them in the thinking around AI thank you great thank you anyone else no all right then we'll move on to our board solicitor report uh board members will be called upon to vote on item 10.1 which is an approval of a special education settlement agreement between family B and student number B25 uh subject to the terms set forth in 10.1 great thank you and just to be clear um for JE for Dr dwan um the 163 that is going to be paid out over the course of three years that's not lump
055some right that is correct that's for the remainder of this school year and the 2526 school year and the 2627 school year correct thank you thank you any other questions or comments right then we'll move on to the board secretary report Tim uh the minutes for approval this month are the January 21st reoc meeting the January 27th work session and the February 3rd voting great thank you any comments or questions right seeing none a board treasure report for your approval this month will be the January 2025 Treasures report great thank you any comments or questions right seeing done thank you again a human resources report to me out good evening everyone uh for your reviews tonight are four items under Section 13 of the human resources report the first two action items include resignations retirements
056appointments changes of status leaves of absence and volunteers item 13.3 is an agreement with expirations for some interim administrative uh support while an assistant principal at Sony Creek is on a leave of absence and item 13.4 includes new extracurricular clubs at the high school and the school this concludes my report thank you great thanks thanks Danielle any questions or comments um I'm going to say more about this when the time comes but Maryann Slater is retiring this year she's been I believe this is her 34th year in the district and she is the most phenomenal teacher in human being that I think I've ever come across and I just I'm gonna cry when I talk about her later I hope she shows up to the retirement meeting I don't know don't if she doesn't though
057but um I just wanted to make the comment that she is going to be so sorely missed and I am just so grateful for all of her years of service and all the teachers too all their years of service but um then that my kids had got to have the teacher she is just phenomenal so I'm sad to see her go but I know it I know she wants to retire and that's okay so a comment and a question my first comment um is for Mr Happy um I did I say it wrong I always say it wrong in okay but Mr hey like I've only recently met him and he is just someone uh I'm so fond my children had the pleasure of kind of getting to know him and having classes with him
058he actually runs the Civics group at the high school um my son is an officer for that group and um he got uh this was in no but um he had Maline de coming and Evan said he he thought both both kids attended that but Evan told me that he was so impressed by that so many people showed up now Mr happy is also a smart man he always has food it's a good good way to lure them in but um what he has taught uh from a Civics perspective is profound like I don't think I ever had that experience in school so I'm so fortunate that my like my kids got a chance to to experience that ex choose to fill whoever takes on or takes over um so sorry to see him go
059but you know we understand of course and then um I love this 13.4 idea about having a student organization of mental health awareness I love it um would love to hear a little bit more about it you guys probably don't know uh any details but if we could get like a little blurb like how this came about what they're trying to do that would be amazing I think having students kind of be peers for other students who might need kind of that safe place to talk about this stuff is tremendous which is what I'm envisioning this is but I do have a little blurb if you if you'd like um okay it's in the job description provide a safe space for both students and teachers to discuss mental health issues and share resources and support
060the club will provide students teachers and the community with a greater sense of belonging this club aims to spread Awareness on mental health issues too and to reduce the stigma surrounding Mental Health that's great that's really really great it's at the high SCH right I read that right High School awesome thank you sorry no no just just to Echo the comments on Mr hey for also now I got to say my little bit about Mr happy too my uh my twin had Mr hey for an economics class which um economics is not called dismal science for nothing but he made that subject uh super interesting and they they love the class and um he is for both of them one of their I think top three teachers of uh their entire career was a hickin
061so uh so that's great um and Mrs Barlo by the way was uh my son Ian's a kindergarten teacher way back in the day so sad to see her go as well but uh but definitely Mr hey is is someone special it's too bad future high school students won't be able to benefit from his classes but uh yeah he's fantastic all right so this is like this is just awesome this when I came into this room I was like I'm gonna make my first board comment at the end of the day I'm just gonna talk about Mr Happy the whole time um I mean evidently you guys all know how special of a guy he is but I think like you know as a student now I don't think extraneous to his ability to teach
062someone I don't think I've ever known a better man there there's just been there's been so many pivotal events in my life during this senior year and like he's been the person I rely on and you know Mr I sent him this email one time about i' had gone through one thing after the next and I sent an email to my teachers where I said like listen like I know this isn't the student I am like this has been tough and EV you have to pick yourself up by your bootstraps right and the way he responded to me I I will never never forget it I have this email printed out and taped on my w it just touched me so deeply so I think far and wide the most profound impact that I've had
063in my life at Wiis heckin will be and will always be Mr hey so I can't put enough words to the impact him being gone will have on Harrison thank you for sharing that so nice of you to share that with us he's I mean like it's somebody make sure he gets to see this clip oh man I also I also did want to mention about Mr heppy um he's also just he's an author which is super cool he writes all these books um and he has a new one coming out soon called gift of Shadow so if any of you guys are big readers I'm sure you would be interested he read a little bit of an excerpt to our class and it seemed pretty cool so as soon as that hits the shelves
064I'll be definitely picking up a Cofe I want to com on Mr Shoemaker he's not my APUSH teacher but um he's also an amazing teacher when I was you know coming into the district I did not spend a single year prior to high school at W haaken uh recall that you know I'm from Philly so I came from a Catholic School System we weren't like too too close to our teachers I don't know if that was like a norm or Tu or whatever but um I didn't know anyone I went to the Freshman ice cream social thing and I saw this man and I didn't talk to anyone even though it was a social and he know Mr Shoemaker he came up to me and the only thing we talked about throughout that whole entire
065session was history because that's my favorite subject and he said I'd love for you to be in my class so I asked him you know what courses do you teach like I teach Juniors and you know I was a freshman like oh that's like a really long time I'm a junior now I do not have him unfortunately but I also really love Mrs Mo as a teacher so if I could have both of them as my teachers that'd be awesome because honestly I don't think you can go wrong with either of them but I have so many good experiences with Mr Sho maker one time I lost a jacket freshman year CU I lose everything you know and um he saw me visibly worried I was going up the stairs I probably had like a
066really huge weird face on my I had like a face expression and then he asked me like what's wrong and I'm like I lost my jacket next couple days um every time he see me in the hallway he's like oh I'm looking for a jacket I'm looking for a jacket it was actually at home and then you know I told him hey Mr Shoemaker it was at home and he's like oh I was so worried but the fact that I'm not his student I'm a freshman he was part of whistling still but he wored he went out of that way to you know worry about other students you that's that's part of the reason why I joined whistling because of his impact I'm sad to see him go like every time I walk into psych
067his room is adjacent to um Mr neidson so I love psych but I always have like this conversation with Mr schoemer before going in he asked me like you know how's your a push class going and I it's not to not appreciate Mrs Mo but like she yeah she really does um Mr Shoemaker awesome too I wish I could be in both their classs at the same time I would definitely take a push twice just to you know have a chance with him I'll miss him I'll miss him for sure just like to add that we've heard a lot of testimony about the impact that social studies teachers have on students it's been Civics yes economics and certainly history so this has been my favorite meeting of the year some pleas should former Civics teacher
068any other comments just a quick one someone please show this to all the teachers so they can I I would love for them to hear instead of me just or you know Harrison walking on like hey go on to YouTube so but yeah well then make sure they uh hit the link to this maybe we could have the students come to the retire reement meeting you know and maybe say I don't know to the if the teachers are going to come I don't know they'll be there all right well moving on the communications committee zephy a couple of informational items um on March 1st and 8 uh Amy and I we haven't determined which one we're each doing but um March 1st there's a read Across America at Bluebell and on March 8th um there's
069a read Across America in amer uh the library um it's it's geared to pre you know children um but you know it's open to the public and it's at 11 o'clock um also in that vein I don't know if you all remember but last year for read Across America we try to go into the different elementary schools and do guest readers we're doing that again this year um this year we have Amanda helping us with the coordination of that so if you're interested you can coordinate with her um and uh you could go into whatever school on whatever day that correlates with that um we um preliminary like we did uh Kristen and I talked about redoing the Flyers and the tax bills this year we heard very positive um feedback back from our tax
070collectors on that so obviously it's very very soon that doesn't go out till later but um they are starting those conversations and obviously would want us to land where we're going to land with with u the school taxes and then um we um are also launching I think next week be honest Dr danan or Dr chrisfield the budget video is going to be launching next week so we did kind of something similar as we did for um the what's the school board or what does the school board do so it's kind of in that similar vein so that will be launching next week and that two will live under the finance section of our website so that that information is there and then as we get further along in in the process uh we're going
071to do an update Steve and I kind of chat out a little bit maybe we wouldn't do another video just like try to use another medium another way to present that information so more to come but it's still early but just wanted to give you all a heads up that the Communications Group is kind of ensuring that we're informing the community about these great things it for me any question great I don't is anyone else right well thank you so much sethy and I'm yeah I had to get back to you on the date but I'm really looking forward to doing the reading great all right well moving on to curriculum and Technology danan I'm gonna let Dr danan take this onek you thank you this evening we have three items for review these items
072will be on the agenda next week um which time we'll seek board approval the first is approval of outplay services for student that is indicated in the chart for item 15.1 the second is approval to award a bid for the purchase of surplus computers and Equipment um and so the bid tabulation is listed in there under 15.2 as well as the the the awarding bid and the third is um approval of the 2025 through 2028 comprehensive plan this item was an informational item during the last board cycle and it has been up on public review for the mandatory 30 days or actually a little longer than that um and so this cycle will be seeking Bo and that concludes our report and Dr Jan do we have any public comment regarding that comprehensive plan um
073public comment we had it up for public review did we receive any comments regarding it we have not received any comments during the 30-day period now um aside from wonderful questions and comments from board members um aside from that um aside from that we have not no great any other comments or questions all right thank you for that report um we'll move on then to uh facilities and transportation Joe thank you uh no informational items this evening we have two um items up for vote for next week and I'm going to ask Tim to give us a quick summary on each sure the first one is for the Landscaping contract for 2527 this was put out bid the winners are each year are noted in the tab second one is to award the High School
074stadium bleacher replacement project to Grace Industries this is with a base bid of $2.9 million and two Alternatives that the district accept for of 3,797 the stadium bleachers are in need of repair uh the initial projected cost was $2.75 million but due to the increase in cost and prices and and despite the strong competition we did come in about $25,000 over our estimated budget for the base bid but the alternative pricing was strong and therefore that's why we accepted those pieces of the project work will not start until after the 2526 football season Tim um $3 million for for stadium um bleachers seems pretty high what how bad are the bleachers in terms of the condition how urgent is this repair so each year there's been inspections that are done and repairs were able made
075the last recommendation was that we need to address addess it now versus continue to that's why they're they're pretty bad they're dangerous yeah now they break like during football games they'll rock too much and snap and people fall they need a little bit ofix sure more than a little bit I could do it for like 300 bucks give me like an afternoon Tim how long uh do you expect the bleachers to then last how long have these bleachers lasted I can't answer that but I can get the answer for it that would be great I also struggle with this price tag even though it is necessary I guess my followup question would be if you're starting after the football season would you expect that it's done in time for graduation yes Tim is it necessary
076to replace both sides at the same time I'm assuming that the home side closest to the to the parking lot gets a lot more use than the other side is it necessary to do everything at once or what's your opinion I would say fiscally it's better to do it because you'd have to mobilize twice delaying on the other side I don't think prices are coming down anytime soon we have the towers for the steel and aluminum that are coming in God knows how long those will last I'm sure the pricing that we got does reflect that and assuming that is coming in so just just the immobilization of a crew coming in starting up permits getting everything done the equipment on site it's better just to get them both done at the same time thank
077any other comments or questions right see them thank you so much for the support thank you all right finance committee yep um informational item we did have the first budget Workshop February the 10th the situation for the 2526 budget was explained thank you Tim and members of the board went over that again as noted at the last meeting this is going to be a challenging budget year um and we do have our next budget workshop on March the 10th um there will be uh three items to vote on next week uh the two normal items uh for approval of financial reports and the list of payments and then 17.3 is approval of the proposed uh Montgomery County Intermediate Unit Services budget and I don't know Tim if you want to say anything the service budget
078costs for ex be $94,200 which is an increase $3,623 oh sorry um it's an increase of $3,623 which is a 4% increase which is the act one index any any questions or comments anything further to the report no okay all right then we'll move on to um policy Marshall you'll take it over the policy committee met on the8 February 18th and reviewed 11 policies and you'll see that none of them are on the agenda tonight because it was too quick of a turnaround you you everybody knows that policies have to have a first reading and then also a second reading so that first reading will start with the next cycle of meetings the end of March and then the second reading will be in the cycle after that thank you um any comments or questions
079okay uh riak Paul thanks Amy riak met on February 18th uh we had a Wonder presentation from the administration on gifted and AP courses um Dr danan is there anything you want to highlight for that uh the the committee meeting as always um is Rich with feedback and insights from the commun the community members and um teaching staff and parents and caregivers who and board members who serve on on that Comm um committee and so following the presentation of the data um the floor is open to listen to feedback to get insights to get questions which is always so rich um the other thing I just want to highlight is the March 17th Community listening session that's coming up um and so Mr Tor highlighted that at that meeting as well and that'll be at
080the pinland Woods Community Building on March 17th I believe the start time is 7 PM yeah yeah the report perfect thank thank you and we uh just encourage everyone to come out and attend if possible um the in-person sessions are always great because there's a lot more feedback and communication back and forth um so it's a wonderful wonderful time so hopefully we'll get good attendance and hope everyone can make it thank you great thanks Paul any comments or questions all right thank you again all right we'll move on to health wellness and safety ke yes so at this time there are no informational items or action thank you going into reports of board Representatives um Marshall's not here so we want do extracurricular uh mciu is this week so I'll have something for next week
081North monco anything we had a week we had a week we had a meeting last week um I sit on the capacity subcommittee and we had that meeting first before our regular meeting so I could cover that um as you know there's a substantial weight list at North mono not necessarily from whis uh for both ascending schools so there's a pretty comprehensive kind of overhaul being done about like the programs they're offering how many students are being um are seeking them out um we're also uh doing kind of an assessment of the footprint at nor M to make sure that it's being kind of utilized in the most efficient way possible um and then kind of um The Hope is with the subcommittee that they come up with a couple of or one or two
082um options as to how to resolve some of the kind of weight list issues that are being seen at nor of so more a lot more to come um from that perspective and uh I attended the budget subcommittee meeting and at this point the proposed budget that will through the sending schools is for a 3.79% increase in costs which is slightly under the actex and then our general meeting had just our general logistical and operational issues that we cover every month great thank you any comments or questions we p in line with % of the students we have in the school correct so in North rather Jim could keep keep us honest but it is a direct correlation as to how we feed into the school so um we have the lowest percentage of students
083feeding into the district uh into the north MCO but um we're also kind of now moving to ninth grade so I don't know how that may or may not impact things who knows but um I don't know if I I said anything incorrectly no no no all the um the annual operting budget is directly correlated to the percentage of students each district has the um the paying for Capital over the years is tied to relative wealth in addition to relative participation so the C which is a very much smaller number the annual is the biggest one and our percentage is is I mean I guess our biggest concern is that if this capacity u meaning or capacity issue means that we have to kind of go into Capital AIDS or do something along those lines
084we are probably the richest District sending students in so our percentage rate I'm probably seeing some of this wrong you're probably remembering this better no no if they do go into cap area and in our percentage compared to the other sending districts would be higher but they're they're not at that point yet no but that's the only watch great thank thank you any other questions or comments right thank you again um Dean anything for psba or ERC um I'll do it next week how about that right that works all right we're at our second public comment period no one in person and no one online all right we'll close public comment board comments um first I would just note um we get to you Harrison um this weekend is the Middle School U musical they're
085doing Mary Poppins Thursday Friday Saturday at 700 p.m. and also Saturday at 2:30 um and I know I saw zey's post the High School Musical is coming up and I know you have tickets and I've seen a lot of other parents post that there's tickets for sale and that's into the woods right so I'm excited to see both of these musicals um zephy has tickets here right now for anyone here um so both sound amazing and I'm excited to see both of those um Harrison you seemed very eager I do I do have a a little bit of a comment here so word on the streets Dr chrisfield might be retiring um and you know when I heard about this the first thing I thought was like man like what is this guy gonna do
086without me so I found a solution you might remember uh that we took a picture together so uh um I solved my end of the problem so I've got I'll never forget us but it does get better because there is one for you so I'd like to uh oh we can get that one on shirt I would just like to say that this is the student student board representative getting the superintendent fired not retired you have to go you have to re like right creative I doit the other chair in the Dr Absolut Harrison that that concludes my board comment I was so hot in that jacket the whole time you kept that secr really well wow all right do we have any other comments that one's hard to to beat sorry no one else
087no we're done okay all right well then we'll just go for a motion to adjourn at this point all right everyone in favor I I we're journ e e for