001e e okay we're live and now recording we start with rooll call please yes absolutely Mr Antonio here Mr Badger here Mr blefeld here miss Chachi here Mr goson here miss krie anakis here Dr Morris here Mr Walker here Mrs Ginsberg here mianna bananis here Isabelle dasta here we have nine present zero absent and two student Representatives great thank you uh will everybody please join me for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repblic for stand Nation God indivisible andice for all I want to welcome all of our guests and visitors this evening um if you take a look at our agenda you'll see our prior meetings we had a meeting on August 19th and then on September 23rd we had our curriculum and Technology committee
002meeting and then we list out our upcoming meetings on October 7th we'll start the evening with our Communications committee meeting followed by our regular public board meeting on October 14th will be our racial Equity oversight committee on October 21st Health wellness and safety as well as policy committee meeting October 28th will be our work session and November 4th is our regular public board meeting all right next up is for our presentations and we have our wiah hicken high school monthly highlights so first off to start off our schoolwide academic related events we have the upcoming PSAT and preac testing for 11th and 10th graders on October 16th uh the PSAT is for the 11th graders and the P acts for the 10th graders which both are digital this year uh no 11th sorry no n
0039th and 12th graders will be coming in at normal time they will have a late arrival we have our star tutoring program after school during stud H and during iie which is one to one student driven tutoring we have our math lab which is open during the school day which is meant for extra support reteaching pre-teaching and it can even be used for Second Chance learning opportunities we have our Extended Learning um time Tuesdays from 2:4 2:45 to 4:15 and Thursdays is online from 7 p.m. to 8:00 P.M uh online will be used for Microsoft teams and teachers will be tutoring those the the Tuesday sessions are in person in the library and they will be offered by NHS and stars tutors as well as teachers schoolwide non-academic related events our wilink club welcomed the
004class of 2028 our freshman orientation was a hit around 400 nth graders were welcomed by whistling teachers and students this was an opportunity for them to learn and connect with upper classmen they received a school tour and high school tips the wilink leaders also o delivered lawn signs the weekend before school our Affinity groups uh HLA will be forming a miai band on October 15th they're excited we have had two meetings so far and we will be having the party in the Square gym for Hispanic Heritage Month our activities fair for the ninth graders was also during this month September 13th they learned about and even signed up for clubs at the school all clubs had representatives there so they could learn about schools uh the whs and camarada Club they had had their annual
005911th Memorial concer led by Mr conam and school safety uh it is important to know that every student feels safe at this school so we have our safe to say program if a student if a student sees something that is right and wrong they should report it it is also good to know that this is an anonymous reporting site so there is pure confidentiality students can also always talk to a trusted faculty teacher or staff member for Mental Health Resources uh your school counselor is always a great resource and there's a school psychologist I'm going to talk a little bit about the sports all fall sports are currently underway of course water polo we just had the big beast of the East tournament on Friday we held um it here in West and we got
006a lot of um like congratulatory and and involvement with um NHS for volunteering hours for the snack stand big hit um we did lose a game on Friday but it's okay um uh tennis team season's almost done and um their senior like uh banquet went very well and this week is homecoming so we're doing Spirit Weare tomorrow is uh tomorrow Spirit Weare is like team team like sports day so like my entire team we have a home game at nor against North pen um we're all wearing our like little like Spirit Wares from the store so yeah very cool thank you so much for that report anybody have any questions or comments yeah Paul are we having the bonfire this year I'm pretty sure we're not having the bonfire this year I it's not on
007the schedule for this week and that's when we usually have it so oh yeah I don't think it like went very well last year it's okay I never been so any other comments or questions I'll just say welcome Isabelle to your first meeting good to see you thank you very much all right no other questions or comments all right well thank you again all right we'll move on now to our first public comment comment period and um um I'm going to read the instructions because we do have some new instructions on here the board appreciates hearing from the community a maximum of five speakers will be heard on the same topic please limit your comments to three minutes in the interest of fairness and in order to treat all speakers equally it's the board's practice
008to not engage in dialogue with speakers when appropriate follow-up responses will be posted on board docs um I don't think we have anyone in person right Amanda we have no one in person anyone online there's no one online okay so we have no public speakers okay then we will move on to the board president report and before I get into my actual report um we did have an announcement earlier today and sadly Jim has shared some news with the community that he will be retiring um as of June 30th uh so clap yeah congratulations Jim we'll have plenty of time I don't think you're clapping because he's retiring okay yeah um but I do have a couple comments actually it's it's a pretty long comment but um I do want to share some remarks I
009want to start by thanking Jim for his service to our district in a time of frequent leadership turnover in districts all over the region State and Nation Dr Chris Feld provided over 10 years of leadership stability second longest period of service among all current Montgomery County superintendence and I just want to take a few moments to do something I know that will make him completely uncomfortable but talk about some of the amazing accomplishments he has had during that tenure uh one thing I'm sure that we all have noticed he has maintained WIA hickens high ratings as a school district while also maintaining the second lowest tax rate in all of Montgomery County uh if you got your annual report as I did this weekend you hopefully will have taken note that we are still the
010second lowest in Montgomery County today as you'll probably have noticed many of our B forward goals um which we'll be discussing shortly also focus on student well-being and he's consistently sought the right balance between academic excellence and student well-being implementing many sustained long-term initiatives intended to focus on both of these critical codependent missions of our school district he ensure the district continue to maintain and preserve its assets and ensure the district's facilities is kept pace with enrollment growth successfully completing major multi-million dollar construction projects including the turf fields at our high school the nitorum conversion at the middle school and additions at both Stony Creek and Blue Bell and we can't forget covid and how to change the way in which we delivered education to our students but he successfully led the district through a
011global pandemic navigating many uncharted waters in both the medical and education fields in order to maximize the learning opportunities for all students he's emphasize the need for this District's leadership team and professional staff to mirror our student body in terms of demographics and he has set in motion an intentional drive to recruit and hire exceptional topshelf Educators to to help meet this go key goal even setting up a program enabling a student to attend gwi and mercy and then come back and teach here at wihen at all times in all matters related to professional development personal growth and District advancement Dr chrisville consistently applied the motto we can all get better at what we already do and has injected that philosophy into every aspect of the district's operation over the past 10 years and it's
012been such an honor to sit here beside him for these past three years board president now as a board we need to move forward and fortunately this board has given much thought to succession planning succession planning is seen as invaluable in both education and business over 75% of Fortune 500 companies promotes CEOs from within the organization and and internal candidates fill anywhere from 50 to 70% of senior leadership roles in educational institutions this reflects the organization's desire for familiarity with the institutional culture a proven track record and a reduced learning curve fortunately we had the ideal internal candidate here in front of us for the past four years Dr danan when Dr Spiel advised us of his intention to retire we took the opportunity to meet with Jeff to discuss our legal options and our
013policies we all took the time to meet with Dr dwan and we all felt that her goals and her values aligned with those of this board and of our district and we realized as a board that we had the unique opportunity to promote and extremely qualified and sought-after educator and leader and now Dr danan it's your turn to be embarrassed Dr danan is a leader in educational Excellence over the last four years she has helped lead a districtwide initiative to Foster datadriven decision making in an effort to improve student outcomes through effective multi-tiered system of support Frameworks she works with our director of teaching learning teaching and learning and other District other District leaders to implement a comprehensive professional development program for our faculty and staff keeping them current with best educational practices which includes
014our highquality induction and mentoring program for new faculty she plays a pivotal role in our District's hiring process ensuring every step of the process is aligned with our shared goal of hiring only the most excellent Educators her dedication to recruiting hiring and retaining the very best Educators and leaders is evident in her Relentless drive towards Excellence She's Been instrumental in promoting Equity within the district and collaborates closely with the director of equity and cultural responsiveness to Foster an inclusive educational environment Dr Jawan has played a significant role in The District's budget process working collabora collaboratively with the business administrator to ensure financial resources are allocated efficiently and effectively even before joining WIA hickin Dr dwan served as an elementary principal and diversity equity and inclusion leader in the Phoenixville Area School District she has worked
015as a supervisor of student supports supervisor of curriculum and instructional support specialist classroom teacher and Adjunct professor and when we met over this summer I was impressed to learn she was taking part in a recent graduate and and now as a recent graduate of the aasa spiring superintendence Academy for female leaders this prestigious program is designed to prepare the next generation of superintendents by providing them with the skills and knowledge necessary to lead effectively Dr dwan's involvement in this program underscores her commitment to professional growth and leadership development her dedication to educational excellence and her Innovative approaches has significantly contributed to the ongoing success and growth of the wiah School District after all of us meeting with her we all I think are in agreement that her vision is in line with this board and
016this district and I'm confident that she will share in the many accomplishments that Dr chrisfield has had over his tenure and will have many of her own well while we all are obviously sad to say bye to Dr chrisfield I know that we are also excited and eager to welcome Dr danan to her new role as superintendent uh while the board is taking no action this evening um we will be asking Jeff to prepare a contract for our review um at our leader October meeting and this timing also allows us ample time to conduct a search for our assistant superintendent to replace Dr dwan and we'll allow Dr Dean H to work with Dr chrisfield to transition to her new role um as far as timing um I would note that October 7th our next
017meeting the board will have to approve your resignation we we'll see if we do that you're and um October 28th we'll review the contract and then November 4th we'll we'll vote on that contract um so that's the timing and yeah any other questions or comments from the board no just a comment thanking uh Dr chrisfield and uh obviously welcoming Dr danan yeah I I second that um Dr chrisfield it's been a pleasure to work with you um and thank you for all you've done for the district um you really have been a steady leader and as I've gotten to know you I I think that you're an excellent person too and I just that's really important to me and that is one of the reasons why I support Dr Dewan for superintendent she is not
018only an exceptional leader but she's a role model in every sense of the world um so I'm just really proud that wasen can have someone like you like to just Echo all of those comments I think you know as a district we've become somewhat spoiled and complacent at the leadership that we've had and particularly within uh the administration with Dr chrisfield as Wells with Dr dwan so um it's important that we don't take these things for granted it's important that we look at our peer districts as great as some of them are they all hail in comparison to to what we have here at wien and that transcends down throughout our other administrative staff our teachers our faculty um and ultimately to our students and uh we see that every day um although we don't
019always recognize it but um I think what is evident from the appreciation most of us have seen in our our houses in our properties within the district and the fact that within days of going on the market the majority of them uh sell and that's because people are extremely eager to come into this District particularly with with children so that they can enjoy the the things that we've come accustomed to in our district so I just want to thank Dr chrisfield for his tremendous service and Leadership and uh and welcome Dr dwan and we're excited for the future and uh and wish Dr chrisfield very well Jim I just want to make the comment that um it's hard to believe it's almost been a full decade um with you at the helm as superintendent um
020which just reminded me that it's almost been a full decade that I've been on the school board because I started as a Schoolboard member shortly on the heels of you coming to the to wiah hickin and um this past decade I really appreciate your leadership and your Steady Hand That You' brought to the district um what folks may not realize is that we've gone through a huge amount of change in the past 10 years as a district um not even just speaking about the pandemic which was you know crazy for everyone but when I look back and when I started the district um to now we have grown as a district tremendously I think almost a thousand more students now than when I first joined um as a board member so tremendous growth in students
021we've um expanded uh Stony Creek Bluebell and made a Capital Improvements through a whole bunch of our buildings to accommodate the increased enrollment um during the 10 the past 10 years our district has not not only grown in size but also has become more diverse um with nearly I think in the neighborhood of 40% of our students non-white uh we've had um an increasingly larger share of special ed students um we have an increasing percentage of low-income students so our overall student population is um becoming more diverse and more varied um as well as much larger but through it all um with you at the helm our district has continued to provide a high quality and a top-notch education for all of our students um and I look forward to continuing that trajectory and that
022Trend with Dr Dewan taking the Reigns um at the end of the school year I also um as a side note um I know Dr dwan not only as you know assistant superintendent but we were actually colleagues at the Phoenix full Area School District I guess it was 12 plus years ago and knowing her as a peer and as a colleague um I always found her as a fantastic passionate gifted um educator um really warm and caring and really dedicated to students and I was so excited when she came to join the team here in wi hickin and again I'm super excited that she'll be uh taking the Reign from Jim uh in about a year it's it's not exactly goodbye for Jim yet because we still have many months with him which I think
023is fantastic uh but help ease the way for Dr dwan to take to take over and uh we have many more months to enjoy Jim's leadership uh before he goes off into the sunset but again Jim thanks for all your contributions and uh all uh all that you've done for the over the past decade just wanted to say congratulations to Dr chrisfield and uh thank you to the board I'm honored to be considered for this opportunity thank you I would just say thank you all for those very nice words and I'll have more to say between now and June 30th and I'll also have more to say about uh the decision about Dr dwan because um you could not have possibly made a better decision and however meanwhile there's work to be done so we're
024going to get to work starting right now any other comments before I move on nope okay and moving to 7.1 these are our board goals and let me scroll down all right so this evening we're doing our final review of these goals and did everybody have a chance to review these we'll go through them uh did goal number one Phil Key Staffing vacancies in District leadership positions and then craft and carry out a deliberately designed transition plan for newly placed leaders intended to support these key employees in fulfilling their leadership responsibilities as soon as they assume their new leadership position in WIS in the Wiis in wien year two of two that were the supposed to be there yeah um any comments on that particular goal no okay number two support the implementation of positive
025behavioral interventions and supports PBIS districtwide as part of an effective multi-tiered system of supports uh framework year two of of two year goal any comments on that one okay number three increas opportunities for board members to interact with community members and groups at various events and increase communication with community members and groups through multimedia Snippets of various school board members highlighting board news upcoming board events Etc um and let me see any comments on this one sure so yeah for for me it's not that I don't value interacting with the community I do but I also think that it's important to know that people do have access to us whether it be email or coming to a meeting or me seeing them at community events um I can't fix certain issues like small issues in
026a building and I feel like when we put ourselves out there so much it seems like they should come to us with anything and everything and that's not always the case but besides that I just think there's a bigger goal that we should be looking at and that would be making sure that our enrollment projections are meeting or our building accommodations can meet our enrollment projections meaning there's a band of students coming up that is it's quite large a couple large classes and I want to be certain that we have the capacity in the middle school and high school to be able to you know accommodate yep and meet the standards that we're used to for these students as well you know just because they're a larger class they shouldn't be um they shouldn't have
027less opportunity or have these insanely large class sizes or whatever whatever you know sometimes happens with large classes so that to me is just really important and while I understand the intent of number three with interaction and that's great I just think that you know using a board goal to make sure that the community knows that we have our pulse on this as a priority is is more important that's my opinion and I would tend to agree with the end that I think that that's a more important goal and I think like honestly looking at goal three as it's written in the actual goal section like this is something like we can do on our own anyway we don't need to set it for the administration to accomplish um like I don't think Jim needs
028to remind me maybe to come half an hour early to have coffee with some members of the community or to you know perhaps send something to Kristen to like maybe post on social media that's something that maybe we could just do on our own um as board members we don't necessarily set it as a goal for the administration to accomplish for us so maybe that yeah I mean taking the note at the bottom and replacing that as a goal for the administration to accomplish and we as you know board members can maybe just agree like hey let's have something next week and just have you know Kristen send something out on social media saying hey can the community come 30 minutes prior to our meeting to meet with us for coffee or something so can
029we replace do every is everybody in agreement with that so I'm I'm I'm fine to to replace number three I would like the communications committee to think specifically about certain Outreach uh um possibilities and and around actually around specific topics so we get Outreach emails Etc around things like cell phone policy um and a lot of the things that are happening in other states Etc uh obviously with recent thing and thank you for your comment on everyone feeling safe at school but school safety I mean if we could organize some specific listening sessions with the community I think that would be great and I'm sorry I'm looking at the communications Committee Member next to me yeah I don't mean for it to like replace something like that like I thought this was more like for
030us to have like coffee with us or for us to have like posts about us on social media or something no I feel like that's still something like within like committee right because like Paul like ROK has like its sessions throughout the year like couldn't we have like individual like the Committees have sessions like on different topics like have those organized is that thing like zy what are your thoughts on that yeah and so Steve and you are kind of like jumping ahead because next week is one of our communication um meetings and that is actually on the docket to be discussed so I do think that makes sense to keep some of this like sitting on the communications committee um agenda and not so much as a district goal I I'm aligned to what
031you know deian was suggesting is perhaps we kind of put that aside not because we're putting it aside but we're putting it under the communications agenda and putting something that's a little bit more kind of of a administrative respons responsibility or goal for for us to help achieve for the community so I'm align with that Steve we're certainly already thinking about some of these things there's a couple of things in play uh Dr Dewan had some ideas as well and next week is kind of our kickoff to kind of talk through some of these things that we've been kicking around so that we could see what we could do for this year but I totally agree I totally agree yeah good yeah makes sense for everybody yeah yeah yeah I think that makes sense and
032I I think the work that the communications committee is doing is great so thank you for keeping that up but I I would yeah I do appreciate if people uh agree um with just making sure we have our pulse on on our enrollment projections that's important Amy just one more comment regarding the switch and goal number three which I'm fully in support of um it actually uh builds off of some comments we heard earlier tonight Isabelle talked about um the incoming class at the high school being around 400 students um our graduating class this past year was 338 students so the growth that the district has seen over the past like eight 10 years started about eight nine years ago with our kindergarten cohorts jumping from about 340 students to 400 and a little bit
033of in that range for the next several years so that's where a lot of the growth in the district overall has been driven it's at the earlier earlier grades and in particular with much larger kindergarten cohorts fast forward eight nine years that cohort is starting to hit the high school right but there's big cohorts of 400 plus kids right behind them so I think it's timely that we take a you know a broader look and a longer term look at what those larger cohort sizes are going to mean um at the middle school and the high school in particular as those uh kind of big bubble grades start making their way up through our our system we've addressed a lot of the capacity issues at the elementary level but um I think taking a a
034closer look and a more strategic and long term look at their secondary grades uh makes a lot of sense yeah I agree and looking at the the classroom sizes we got those numbers like some of them like the classes we can already see like there's large numbers coming up as we look at like what they the 10day numbers yeah we we do have um the the annual opportunity to have our demographer update the projections and um they get that much more reli more reliable once the actual kindergarten numbers are in which they are um and then that's something that the facilities committee always looks at but now with if we replace it with this goal it will be looked at through the lens of how are those secondary buildings namely Middle School and High School
035uh set up for classroom space um given the bubble that's coming through and I think Joe alluded this but the and we're GNA this will be part of the enrollment uh update here in a second but this this year's kindergarten class is actually backed down again so we have we we have we'll factor that in uh to the equation as you know of course the kindergarten class Works its way through the the grades and that impacts the middle midterm and long-term um facility needs so in a sense that's good news for facilities um but we do see this e and flow and indeed there is a bubble coming through so that's very very doable goal okay great is everybody in agreement of switching out that goal anyone object to it all right so let's switch
036that one out um keeping in mind that we still want to do some Communications like having those sessions like we don't want to roll that out okay all right then going to number four in partnership with the WEA craft fair and reasonable successor WEA collective bargaining agreement to go in effect once the current agreement expires in June of 2025 um any questions or comments with regard to that okay number five cultivate a safe and inclusive School environment through the implementation of practices that promote belongingness conflict resolution Pro pro-social behaviors including the continued approved implementation of adl's no place for hate program any comments or questions with regard to that no no edits um I I do feel that you know the term belonging um could have some uh different um definitions in people's minds so
037I don't know if we need to have kind of a lexicon of what we mean by belonging because sometimes I feel like when um folks hear the word belonging they think of it in a very kind of uh small lens whereas I think of it as a very holistic kind of you know uh Viewpoint where everybody in our community feels like they belong in this community community regardless so um I I I don't know this might be something we need to think a little bit more and maybe we can pull it into the communications uh agenda but you know to me belonging is not just an SEI thing it's it's like our we all like sitting here in a community together working together that that's how I see it so um perhaps we need some
038some lexicon definitions so maybe something we could add on to that or um I don't know how others feel but I do feel like some words can kind of have different interpretations based on different people's Viewpoint and we should all then have a vocabulary for what we mean by some of this by some of these words just just a thought thank you um other thoughts on that yeah okay all right um all right so then we'll finalize these okay great all right so that finishes up our goal so just to be clear we will rewrite goal number three and then will we vote on it can we can you circulate that a little bit in advance so that you know we all feel good about that before we're voting on it and then we're not
039trying to Wordsmith it potentially that's a good idea thank you all right so on to our next 7.2 um ratification to appoint Eugene Golson zephie kakis and Dean Morris as 2024 psba delegates the Wicken School Board um so you guys this was for the conference in August correct no it's actually uh it's a virtual conference that'll take place November 2nd um and oh we had to name you in August right we had to name you yes exactly the deadline okay yes you named Us in August you're ratifying it I guess next week and it's just that we get to go we get three delegates for our district size and we get to participate in the discussion of L like how psba is going to shape their platform which I think is important so yeah all
040right all right great any comments or questions about that all right then my uh report is done thank you superintendent report great thank you uh we have one item that is actually has two parts tonight and it's the annual um enrollment update which uh as you recall um is dictated by the state to be the official 10th of school um Amic is there a way can you zoom that in or can I do that here just a little bit anyway yeah um so the uh the this first sheet Compares last year's 10th day to this year's yeah that's good there thank you and then as we scroll down we see that the totals a tiny bit more totals for the element um we actually are down compared to last year and that reflects that relatively
041small kindergarten class of 350 and then we also see the the bubble we've been talking about in the previous goals discussion of and grades well now grade five last year's grade four little is is appreciably higher than 350 so this is very typical for a district it it uh enrollments will e and flow um hopefully for the district they are on a ascending Trend uh you do not want to be part of a district that's shrinking and have to make decisions about closing schools and and consolidating so um you also don't want to be part of a district that doesn't pay attention to long-term planning um so I that's why that's a good idea in our previous discussion to have that um uh goal of mapping up our existing facilities capacities with these enrollment projections
042which will be updated U probably in the December time frame uh District wide is the bottom half of this where you see the middle schools um gone up a little bit uh no go down there we go right there um guys compared to last year the middle schools total enrollment went up a little bit and as did the high schools so overall net is an increase of a grand total of 30 students which actually is fewer than what we had projected at the time of the budget creation which is a good problem to have but uh budget wise again it's that's almost entirely driven by that relatively small kindergarten class um and then we keep track of this monthly and Report the data monthly to the state but this 10th day data is what the
043state actually uses for a lot of calculations a lot of of funding comparisons and things so before we go down to to the next part is there any questions on this year's snapshot of 10th day versus last year's 10th day pretty straightforward okay so then we go down to the second half of this which is actually a look at uh a fiveyear look back it's the same point in time the 10th day each year just five years running we actually have some data from the previous years as well and this gets to the point where uh which Joe was speaking of earlier which is um over the last five years you can see we've had a a growth total across the District of 346 students which is a seven little over 7% growth over five
044years I think it's still important to note there's a footnote there barely readable but the co years still are throwing a little bit of a wrench into these Trends so I wouldn't put a whole lot of uh import on on necessarily years that include the co years but you can see for example that Top Line Blue Bell uh increased as did Stony Creek and it's no coincidence that that those are the two schools we chose to add on to and we accomplished that a Stony and we're in the process of accomplishing that a blue belt so and that's the value of these enrollment projections because you make long-term decisions and how to spend very scarce Capital dollars based on what you project your needs to be and I think these numbers bear out our decisions
045in that regard any questions or or thoughts on this document okay we'll talk down thank you that concludes my report I I said do have one question I mean when we're looking at um enrollment numbers as part of that analysis can we also look at like class size I do see like there some classes you know we're looking at 19 and then some classes we have like 27 yeah so our our um our class siiz guidelines and we're speaking almost exclusively at the K 5 level now yeah um exist and they were at the top of that sheet where as everybody remembers the guideline of 22 and grades K and one and then a guideline of 26 in grades two and three and a guideline of 27 in grades four and five and um the
046more students you have the the more uh able you are to become efficient and get closer to those guidelines so by way of example in in blue Bell's kindergarten we only have as a 10th day 62 students one or two either way can move those numbers way more appreciably than a few students in say Shady Groves grade one one where there's 136 students so for example that's double JD Grove's first grade has more than double at kindergarten at blue belt it's way easier to get efficient in grade in Shady Grove grade one than it is in when you're using a smaller number having said that um There Are Places on here where the uh resulting class sizes as of the 10th day are either well within guidelines or close to them one way or the
047other there are a couple spots here where we actually could have gotten away with if we rolled um precisely by the guidelines of having one fewer class kindergarten first grade a couple places and then there's a couple um where we are at or just slightly above the guidelines that's because decisions about class size and the number of sections are made around August 1 give or take and that does not mean that we cut off the flow of enrollment registrations either adding or subtracting on August 1 things change and so uh we have to make Staffing decisions we have to make decisions about class size at some point and between that point which is again say August 1st and the 10th day which in this case this year was Ember is that September 10 um things
048change and that's why this this document can't be as precise and as perfectly efficient as it would be if we were just dealing with widgets and numbers and it was super simple to reshuffle kids in different classes and hire topshelf teacher right off the rack with 24 hours notice none of that really happens so that's why we have to give ourselves time which is the reason why there's some spots that are too low and some spots that are too high okay so can can I ask a followup I understand this might be the uh way that we must report our data to the state but it's actually really hard from me kind of school board member to kind of digest this information would it be possible like as we move forward that we kind of
049think about using line graphs where we could kind of see trend lines a little bit better because it's really really hard interpret this data like and then there's like data pieces that's not here for example we only have like some pieces like on the bottom on your page one on the bottom right your virtualy your full-time North mono um and I understand these are really small numbers but like I thought it was very peculiar that we went from 13 to three is that normal is that like a new blip or like but there's no historical to kind of like look back on that so what it be possible like moving forward that we kind of start looking at this with trend lines just so that we can also understand that and I know um for
050the secondary schools are building kind of how many people we can house in our buildings is very different than in elementary school but it still would help us if we had like in the legend like you know occupancy Max x occupany max y or whatever just again like if we're kind of like thinking ahead like how far away are we from a kind of a red a red flag you know are we like just a little bit or are we like really really far away it's really hard in this fashion to really digest that information no question um the answer is yes absolutely on that F on the the fiveyear tracker we'll add the lines to keep to uh demonstrate say charter school and north monco and things like that over time yeah and we
051can trend line those for sure perect this this the one document that compares one year the next would really work yeah but I can tell you also that the enrollment projections that our demographer gives us has is almost is actually only in trend lines which is very helpful to see yeah and on that document I'll superimpose that building's capacity so that when we have that and that's probably that's typically a facilities committee conversation it'll be more visually shall we say appealing thank you also do we have any information or data on like average class sizes in the middle school and high school and the high school might be different because there's those outliers with low enrollment classes maybe throwing out those what would be the average I'm just curious to know with the um enrollment
052increases what that means for class sizes we can get that yes thank you and maybe we just do it for core classes just because we know like language and some other things might might be the outliers but I agree with the end like math English social St like I'm sure we call things very different now but thanks all right any other questions or comments all right thank you for the report oh actually you know Jim I did have one other question I wrote down um the numbers um for the Stoney Creek and Shady Gro do those numbers for the classrooms include if there's an autistic support student um and I guess also the emotional support is that that Blue Bell or is that another SCH right now that's a Blue Bell and the answer is
053yes um the numbers on that chart include all of our students and so those are essentially Home Room numbers right and in some cases like you mentioned if there's a if there's a program such as autistic support which we call now Pace um it it is the case that maybe one or two or even more students in that classroom depart uh for a good portion of the day for instruction in a different place so whereas The Home Room numbers show one thing the actual numbers for during math say as an example might be a couple fewer it's not too too big but it is a a effect yes thank you all right questions all right assistant superintendent report thank you no informational items or action items this evening thank you uh board solicor report Jeff
054board action will be required uh to approve item 10.1 which is a settlement B between family H and student h24 and the wien school district uh in the not to exceed amount uh set forth in the document thank you Jeff any comments or questions all right thank you on board secretary report Tim uh board action will be required for the regular board meeting minutes of August 19th and the curriculum and Technology committee meeting ings from September 23rd thank you any comments or questions thank you uh board treasure report attached also for this month will be the August 2024 Treasures report great thank you any comments or questions right thanks again Human Resources good evening uh for your review tonight are seven items under Section 13 of the human resources report the first action item uh
055includes cludes appointments resignations retirements changes of status leaves of absences and extracurricular changes item two represents salary changes for educational attainment and item three list volunteer additions item four for the approval of the elementary after school program 13.5 is for the continued use of job coaches to support some students in the wva our Wicken Virtual Academy number six is the list of inductee mentors for this school year and lastly item seven is for the approval of the of an amendment to the STS which is our substitute teacher Services agreement um making a slight adjustment to the assistant sub rate that concludes my report great thank you any comments or questions sorry Danielle can you just refresh my memory what is TP mean under the classification a temporary professional employee ah thank you any other comments
056or questions right sing thank you again a Communications committee Bey there are no uh items for this week but um there is a reminder that we will have a Communications committee meeting next Monday right before our regular board meeting hopefully you all can come thank you zephy a curriculum and Technology Dan yes um we had a meeting last Monday evening and several uh topics were discussed I'll review them briefly we had Dr bya come in and talk about the Elementary schedule which if you recall several two years ago we added a second recess and they changed some instruction time um he discuss some of the um slight tweaks they have made to the schedule in order to just uh better serve the teachers and students um so that was good we got an update from
057the Middle School administration uh on their schedule as well and some of the challenges of their schedule change and how they have updated and made changes to improve um upon that we had an update from the high school with the low enrollment courses and that was um that's a list that comes to the board recommended by Dr Blair and the administration team at the high school to keep even though the enrollment may be slightly lower than than normal classes uh we have the comprehensive plan for the next three years that's required every three years by the Pennsylvania Department of Education and our comprehensive plan uh will focus on multi-tiered systems of support um and that will be presented uh I guess we're just in draft mode right now to be presented uh we also talked
058about subjects that are going to be in the curriculum review process for for next year that's going to be the math um applied Arts which is going to be the family consumer science and business education along with health P Fine Arts and library and I believe that is what we covered oh oh and the federal programs and the grant uh and the grant programs that we um have spent our money on sorry I missed that one but I think that's it right okay so now I will turn it over to Dr danan if you would be so kind as to run through the items to vote on yes thank you we have seven items that we are viewing this evening with the board we'll seek approval um at the October 7th board meeting the first
059is um approval for the final payment for the mciu uh for our shared services plan for the 2324 school year the second item is um approval of a payment to the Bucks County Intermediate Unit for our final uh reconciliation billing for the shared services program there for the 2324 school year the third is um approval of outplay services for two students who are whose information is included in the chart the fourth is um we be seeking for approval of our um license with educere um which is an online platform that we are able to use in our special education program for students who are in our emotional support program specifically at the secondary level um the board approved this uh action last year and the team found success with it um and so we're looking
060to have a budget that will cover approximately five seat licenses um and that will only be charged in the event that we actually use those seats the next item is uh requests for board approval of our annual subscription for leader Services which is what we use for IEP writer in our special education department um with the the licenses through IEP writer the next item is approval of the um Elementary reading and math after school program um details are listed here for the board it is aligned with the program from last year and the cost is aligned as well and the final item is um for approval to accept and expend the federal and state Grant funds that are outlined in the chart which were reviewed at the BCTC meeting uh so we'll be seeking approval
061of these items next next week thank you that concludes our report great thank you any comments or questions right seeing none we'll move on to the final committee report oh did I miss one facilities oh facilities oh my goodness sorry I scrolled down too far no problem sorry um we have no informational items this evening but we do have three action items for consideration and for vote next week uh the first one is an approval to discard or sell obsolete equipment according to board policy 714 16.2 is uh approving the sale of a portion of our Bluebell property to the whip pain Township ship this is so that the township can install a traffic light um that's for $53,000 and then the third item 16.3 is a change order for the high school and middle
062school masonry repointing project um for some additional work that needs to be done um I'm sure Tim has more details if anyone has any questions uh about 16.1 two or three I have a question on 16.1 Jo where did they get where does the absolete equipment get sold yeah so they post it post it on the website and we sell as much as we can some of it is donated like books can be donated to other schools but traditionally we just put it on the website and try and solell the different vendors okay thanks Tim I did have a question regarding 16.2 um the dollar amount of $53,000 how was that determined to be honest with pay Township decided that that would be the fair amount they could always eminate through Maine it is just
063a sliver of the um side of the road of Schoolhouse that we're on that we do not utilize so it's really unused grassy area for us okay do we know the timing of that uh traffic light in installment they said it might take about a year that's at school Lane in 73 yes got it thanks any other questions Tim I'm just surprised that we still have um CD players C set players and VHS players hav been previously sold we still have these yes wow okay they might be worth money like collectible items I don't know what you're putting them [Laughter] okay wow okay right there were no other questions right yep y That's thank you all right thank you now fine yet yeah and informational item cassettes are coming back uh true um so we'll
064be looking for approval of three items uh next week one is the financial reports for the end of August uh second is the list of payments for the same time period and then third is approval to wave the stadium fees for the go do better for Steve 5K in October great any comments or questions I see none thank you uh policy committee Marshall thank you Amy I have no informational or action items as okay racial Equity oversight fall we have no uh no items for this evening all right thank you uh Rosetta Health wellness and safety thanks Amy no action items and we have our next meeting October 21st all right thanks for up um now report of board Representatives um Marshall extracurricular uh I have nothing to report this even all right um mciu
065um we have our legislative meeting later this week but I will note um anybody if is any even driven up Morris and seen the new discovery center that the mciu built like heading like if you had Morris heading towards landale no nobody's seen this all right Tim's seen it okay dri by yes all right well now you'll all see it you won't miss it now when you're driving at Morris but it's finally opened at the end of August um our new discovery center and um the programming there is going to include Head Start prek counts early intervention um so take a look for it when you're driving at Morris now just just drive up anyway just to see it it's on your right hand side and you'll see the new building um that just opened
066for the mciu um but anyway I just wanted to share that that's that's my report and I'll have legislative news uh next time all right um North Bronco uh no report we keep missing that meeting because you keep scheduling it on same day try not to do that next time when's your next one by the way next one is in two weeks oh dar it's three weeks sorry play something uh PSP on uh I'll update next week um ERC nothing to report okay all right well that brings us to our second public comment period and again I'm gonna read these instructions because they are new uh the board appreciates hearing from the community a maximum of five speakers to be heard on the same topic please limit your comments to three minutes in the interest
067of fairness and in order to treat all speakers equally it's the board's practice to not engage in dialogue with speakers when appropriate follow respons will be posted on board docs um if you want to hand that in we you have one person in person um actually you're our only one in person so you can just come on up yeah just state your name and Municipality of Resident and I will warn you we now have a buzzer so I have to watch the clock I can just listen my name is sha mcnam I'm a parent um of a student in elementary school I was here about regarding the security incident on September 12th I just wanted to use this opportunity to address the with the board um just you know the how it played out for
068a parent um you know as that incident and investigation was unfolding and the severity and scope and and even the participants were unknown um you know I understand you know that social media and rumors and you know rampant and and politics especially like gun RS politics you know um impacts how people respond but until that noise and excitement sub subsides I wish more had been done to secure the entire campus um I I walked up I live a few blocks away and actually the helicopters were so Lou so loud I couldn't I had to cancel a client meeting um so I just walked up because I was like maybe this is more serious than I realized and there was no police presence outside of my son's outside of LGE or the middle school at least
069not visibly the middle school students were out at gym on the track and at this point you know we were hearing texts from inside that there was a gun but they didn't know who it was and there might be multiple people it wasn't clear um and I understand not giving out a lot of information but you didn't know if if somebody was going to be running um so anyway that the middle school students were at gym the elementary school students were at recess with again no police um so I was just going to sorry my notes are on my phone um you know a few simple steps that could be taken um to to make it more secure you know at least for that school day um you know not maybe not alert the children
070unnecessarily but ways we could put you know think of all three schools as one campus um because on the day of you know the staff will need to quickly react the um and uh it would just be helpful until everything was known and and everyone was home safely um so and you know a few simple requests would be you know like a modified lockdown like students aren't playing outside that day they have recess inside right gym class inside um you know all officers outside at the other two buildings which you know I think they often are anyway but you know making sure the doors were locked just some of the things we've learned from other incidents I think that's really it I just wanted to express that and and and sorry one last thing I
071was just going to say is you know in my son's class I think he said four to five kids were picked up early and including one friend whose grandom worked at the high school and so she worked in the high school and was inside as a secretary and she contacted her son and said get our son out of out lower gwynned so I felt like you know she had more information than I did as a parent you know but but that would be um again just if we could focus on the security thanks thanks shanon Amanda is there anyone registered online we have no one online no one online okay great and we have no one else registered in person so we'll close public comment um and now we'll open it up to board comments
072do any my fellow board members have any comments evening I did have um one thing I was going to share hold on let me find it here um let me see where I have it oh it's in my email so um when I was at the football game um two weeks ago um Jim and I spoke to some students that are with the minithon and they're hosting a really unique um fundraiser um kids night out and so spread the word to like Elementary aged families on October 19th from 5: to 900m parents can bring their children to um the school so let me see they're going to be having it I think here at the high school I don't see on the flyer where exactly at the high school is it going to be do
073you know Jim Dr D do you know or oh you guys do you know I believe it's at the high school I'm not in minithon personally but I believe I've seen it that it's being done at the high school that's where they told me was but I don't see it on their flyer but um I think if you contact them they could probably tell you more October 19th 59 you can drop your kids off for Arts crafts face painting and put them in costume um it looks like there'll be prizes sports activities um but parents can have a night out and you can leave your kids there for $30 it looks like and for ages K through five so it just sound of like a really unique fundraiser and parents can enjoy an evening out
074so um I told them I would spread the word um any other comment I had not heard about that but that's a really cool concept they said they heard about it from another school and can I just add to that the they're they're raising money for Childhood Cancer so that's where the the funds are being B yeah no such a great cause yeah yeah and they they got it from another school district they heard the ideas it just sounds like a really fun unique fundraiser I'd love it yeah I uh I kind of miss like you know preco um Helping Hands used to do this event every fall and every spring where we would all come in and do like service projects and like it hasn't come back since Co and I was like really
075thinking about how we need more kind of activities happening kind of inside these buildings to bring us closer together so this is kind of like along those lines I I like that idea so I'm glad to hear it and it's for a good cause like you said so cool good for them um we covered a lot of stuff and I actually am still processing a lot of it so I'm just going to stay silent for the rest of the evening which I know is like an anomaly for me but I thought I would throw that out there well do any other board members um have anything to share no all right well then do we have a motion to adjourn second right all those in favor hi hi sorry I need need to do it
076so